by P. J. Tracy
‘That’s the next one?’ he asked.
Magozzi nodded. ‘Only it won’t happen. Not today, at least. Governor closed all the schools.’
‘And the crime scenes aren’t giving you anything?’
‘Nothing we can use. We’re not going to catch him that way.’
The sheriff moved his big shoulders inside his jacket, as if he were trying to dislodge a weight, Magozzi thought. ‘We’ve got a funeral for our deputy Monday,’ he said solemnly, and Magozzi understood immediately that the deputy’s death was the weight he was carrying, and that it was probably way too heavy. ‘I’d really like to tell Danny’s folks this thing got put to bed.’
‘We’ll work it hard,’ Magozzi said.
Deputy Bonar Carlson was looking at the right side of the board, at all the crime scenes to come. ‘This is real bad.’
‘It’s a lot better than it was before you called,’ Magozzi said. ‘If the slug you took out of the Kleinfeldt woman matches the one we got from our victim yesterday, chances are pretty good that Brian Bradford is our man – or woman – and I think things could start to come together real fast.’ He told them about the call from Atlanta.
‘Five thousand names?’ Gino looked at him in disbelief.
‘Plus,’ Magozzi corrected.
‘Great,’ Gino said dispiritedly. ‘More lists. The troops are going to love that.’
‘The registration list was always a long shot. Not these. He’s on this one,’ Magozzi said. ‘He’s got to be.’
‘There’s a lot riding on those slugs matching up,’ Halloran said.
‘Just about everything,’ Magozzi agreed.
‘I almost forgot.’ Gino hefted two copy paper boxes from the desk. ‘Tommy finally cracked into the FBI file. All seven hundred pages.’
‘My goodness,’ Magozzi said. ‘Are there Cliffs Notes?’
‘Not exactly. But I took a peek. There’s a ten-page index of witnesses they interviewed. Looks like half of Atlanta, but at least it’s alphabetized.’
‘God bless the anal-retentive FBI,’ Magozzi said. ‘I don’t suppose there was a Brian Bradford on the list.’
‘Of course not.’
On their way out of the building Magozzi saw another brown shirt walking toward them down the hall. He figured it was one of the new Hennepin County deputies he hadn’t met yet, certain that he wouldn’t have forgotten any officer that filled out a uniform in quite that way.
‘Good grief,’ Deputy Carlson said, and he and Sheriff Halloran stopped dead and stared at the approaching woman. She had short dark hair and sharp brown eyes that were fixed on the sheriff, and not much else.
‘Morning, Sheriff, Bonar,’ she said when she was close enough for Magozzi to see the Kingsford County insignia on her heavy jacket. ‘Did the slugs match?’
Halloran blinked at her as if she were an apparition, opened his mouth to say something that was probably unprofessional, then changed his mind. ‘Detective Magozzi, Detective Rolseth, this is Deputy Sharon Mueller. She was the one who found the link to Saint Peter’s.’
She gave them a brief nod. ‘What about the slugs?’
Deputy Carlson sighed. ‘God, Sharon, were you raised by wolves? Say hello to the nice detectives. Shake their hands. Pretend you’re civilized.’
She gave Bonar an exasperated look, then quickly shook Magozzi’s hand, then Gino’s. ‘Okay. Now will somebody tell me about the slugs?’
‘They just went down to the lab,’ Magozzi said. ‘They’ll call when they’ve got something. We were just going to grab some breakfast.’
‘Good deal. I’m starving. What’s in the boxes?’
Gino shifted the copy paper boxes to his right hip. ‘Open FBI file on a case the Monkeewrench partners were involved in years ago. Light reading over breakfast.’
‘God, I hate reading FBI files,’ Sharon muttered and promptly started walking toward the exit, forcing the four men to hurry to keep up.
Gino was grinning, always content to walk behind a good-looking woman, Magozzi and Bonar trailed behind, and at the end of the line Halloran was shaking his head, wondering when the hell Sharon had read FBI files and what the hell she was doing there.
They were almost at the door when two men in suits hurried to intercept them. The taller one led the charge, long legs eating up the hall floor. Give him a big round shield, the man could be a Viking, Magozzi thought. He glanced at the younger, grim-faced man trotting to keep up, but careful to remain a deferential step behind. Silent, obedient attack dog. There, and not there.
‘Uh-oh,’ Gino said under his breath. ‘They sent the big gun today.’
‘Magozzi! Rolseth!’
Magozzi stopped reluctantly and waited, recognizing the taller man as Paul Shafer, special agent in charge of the Minneapolis FBI office. ‘Hey, Paul. I didn’t know you ever actually left the office. What’s up?’
Shafer was FBI first, Norwegian second, and human being third. ‘This.’ He waved a thin, official-looking folder. ‘You get the file, we get the name to go with those prints you ran.’
Magozzi tensed for a minute, then forced his shoulders to slump. ‘Aw, shit.’ He looked at the folder and sighed heavily. ‘Damnit, Paul, you sure you don’t want to give me that file in the spirit of agency cooperation or something?’
Shafer looked stern. ‘We get the name, you get the file. That’s the deal.’
‘Well, that’s the problem. We don’t exactly have a name.’
‘Excuse me?’
Magozzi looked embarrassed. ‘Yeah, I know how it sounds, but you’ve got to understand, we were running prints like crazy the night of the riverboat killing. There were hundreds of people there, you know? And the uniforms were tearing their hair trying to get prints before people left, and . . . Well, the guys were rushed and frazzled and some of them were green, and the thing is, when we went back to check the ones we ran, we found a couple of cards that didn’t have names on them. Like the one you’re interested in.’
‘What?’
Gino nodded grimly. ‘You think you’re pissed? We don’t even know which cop took the prints, which means we can’t nail his ass. Man, I hope this wasn’t a ten most wanted or something.’
Shafer’s hard blue eyes were shooting fire. He looked from Magozzi to Gino, little creaky wheels slipping on the gears inside his head as he tried to decide if he was being had. ‘This is bullshit, Magozzi.’ He wasn’t buying it retail, but Magozzi figured he liked the idea of MPD screwing up so much that maybe a part of him wanted to believe it.
‘I could make up a name,’ Magozzi offered. ‘Would you give me the file then?’
Shafer’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘If you don’t know who the prints belong to, the file wouldn’t interest you at all.’
Magozzi nodded. ‘Yeah. You’re right. I got caught up in the contest.’
Shafer glared at him for a moment, then shifted his suspicion to Halloran and his crew, who were all standing to one side with identical poker faces. ‘Something going on with Wisconsin I should know about?’
Magozzi and Gino exchanged a quick, nervous glance. If Shafer found out they were looking at an interstate connection on the Monkeewrench case, the FBI would take over in a heartbeat, and all the subterfuge about the prints would be for nothing. Damnit, Halloran didn’t know any better, they should have thought to warn him to keep his mouth shut about what he was doing there, but who expected an ambush?
Shit, shit, shit, Magozzi thought, holding his breath, waiting for Halloran to start yammering about the Kleinfeldts, the slug in the lab, the St Peter’s connection. He nearly jumped out of his skin when the sheriff took a quick step toward Shafer and held out his hand.
‘Sheriff Halloran, sir, and Deputies Carlson and Mueller, Kingsford County, Wisconsin.’ He grabbed Shafer’s hand and nearly shook it off, wearing the best shit-kicker grin Magozzi had ever seen outside of a movie theater. ‘Real pleasure to meet you, sir. We don’t see many Federal officers in our neck of the woods.
Just on TV. This is a real treat.’
‘Uh . . .’
‘The detectives here were going to give us a hand with a prickly little case we’ve got going back home, but I can see now we couldn’t have picked a worse time. Bonar, Sharon, shake hands with the man.’
Goddamnit, Magozzi thought, suppressing a smile. I’m going to kiss this guy later. He looked sideways at Gino, and had to look away quickly before they both burst out laughing.
Sharon shook Shafer’s hand with her eyes cast down demurely, then Bonar stepped up to the plate with a look of awe seldom seen outside Graceland.
‘Deputy Bonar Carlson, sir. A genuine pleasure, sir.’
Shafer tried for a smile, but it came off weak. FBI agents were not trained to deal with groupies. ‘Well, thank you, I’m sure the pleasure is all . . . Wait a minute.’ His head swiveled to Sharon. ‘Did you say Sharon Mueller? The Sharon Mueller? The Profiles of Abuse?’
Everyone did a little mental double take and looked at Sharon, who was cringing a little, wearing a pained smile. ‘That’s right.’
‘Well, by God.’ Paul Shafer beamed at her. ‘Then the pleasure really is all mine. They’re using your paper at Quantico, you know. Attended a seminar on it myself last summer. You turned some old ideas right on their heads.’
‘Yes, well . . .’
‘Magozzi.’ Shafer turned to him. ‘Take some advice. After you give these people the help they need on their case, let this woman take a look at the Monkeewrench files before she leaves. She’s one of the best we’ve got in profiling outside the Bureau, and God knows you could use all the input you can get.’
‘I’ll do that.’ Magozzi smiled pleasantly. ‘We’ve got no problems at all sharing files with other agencies.’
Shafer’s eyes tightened slightly at the barb, then he and the attack dog turned and went out the door.
‘Pricks,’ Gino muttered the minute the door closed behind them. ‘Did you see that little pissant folder they were going to pass off as the file?’
Magozzi was looking at Sharon, confused. ‘You’re FBI?’
‘No . . . Well, I consult sometimes.’ Her eyes darted sideways to Halloran, whose mouth was open.
‘So whose name is really on those prints that got those boys so excited?’ Bonar asked.
Magozzi and Gino looked at each other. ‘One of the Monkeewrench people,’ Magozzi finally said.
Bonar tipped his head, waited for a minute, then said, ‘Okay.’
41
They sat at a big circular booth in the back of the diner, drinking coffee while Magozzi and Gino tag-teamed, laying out the whole investigation right from the beginning, more for Sharon’s sake than Halloran’s or Bonar’s, who had already gotten an earful from Gloria.
It was peculiar, Magozzi thought, that he felt like he’d been living this case forever, but it took only five minutes to lay out just about everything they knew.
Everyone went silent when a fiftyish waitress in a red wig and a green uniform came over and laid enough cholesterol on the table to kill a platoon. Sausage, bacon, eggs, pancakes drooling butter – and that was just on Bonar’s plate. Magozzi looked down at his dry English muffin and black coffee and contemplated suicide.
‘ “Gee, Mr FBI Man, we don’t get many Federal officers up in our neck of the woods,” ’ Gino was singsonging around a mouthful of waffle. ‘Christ, Halloran, I thought I’d die.’
‘Well, we don’t, as a rule.’ Halloran shrugged amiably, then his face darkened and he looked at Sharon, sitting on his left. ‘Of course, that was before I knew I had one of them working for me.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Halloran.’ Sharon chased a ball of scrambled egg around her plate, finally stabbed it viciously. ‘I told you, I don’t work for them. They asked, I turned them down. Every now and then they want a consult, and the pay is good, and God knows what I get from the county isn’t, so I run a profile. No big deal.’
Gino sat back in the booth. ‘The FBI recruited you?’
‘They recruit everybody.’ She shrugged, then she looked straight at Halloran, chewed on her toast for a minute, and said, ‘Three times what I make at Kingsford, one month paid vacation the first year, six weeks the next, and a house.’
‘A house?’ Gino’s eyes widened. ‘Jeez, they must want you bad. Why didn’t you take it?’
She sighed and laid down her fork, then leaned across the table toward Gino and said confidentially, ‘Because I like my job, and I’m in love with my boss.’
Bonar nearly choked on his coffee. Magozzi grinned and looked at Halloran. He was looking straight ahead, his face beet-red.
‘Unrequited?’ Gino asked conversationally, ignoring the rest of them.
‘I don’t know. He hasn’t decided yet.’
‘Bummer.’
Halloran closed his eyes. ‘Jesus, Sharon . . .’
Magozzi took pity on him. The man was obviously out of his league with women, and Magozzi knew how that felt. ‘Okay, back to the bad guys. Did you pick up anything on the kid from the Kleinfeldts’ house? Photos, baby books, anything?’
Bonar snorted. ‘Not a scrap. They erased that kid like he’d died.’
‘But he’s smart,’ Halloran said, digging into a pile of strawberry pancakes. ‘IQ of 163, last time he was tested.’
‘Where’d you get that?’ Bonar asked.
‘I called back Saint Peter’s while I was waiting to hear from Leo yesterday; talked to one of the nuns who did double-duty as a counselor back then. I was really looking for something we could use for ID, like a birthmark, maybe, or some hobby or special interest he might have kept up that would give us something to look for . . .’
‘That was good,’ Gino said.
‘ . . . but she couldn’t think of anything. Just that he aced every test they ever gave him, he was a good kid, and she liked him.’ He set down his cup and sighed. ‘And that he was sad. That’s what she said.’
Gino pushed away his empty plate. ‘Aw, shit, don’t tell me that. That’s just the kind of thing some sleaze-ball defense attorney is going to climb all over. More of this poor-me victim crap, guy couldn’t help killing all those people, see, because he was born with all these boobs and balls and dicks –’
‘Gino,’ Sharon interrupted gently. ‘He’s not a killer because he’s a hermaphrodite, and there isn’t a mental health professional in the country that would support that as a defense.’
‘Oh, yeah? Reassure me.’
‘From the limited studies we’ve got, it’s pretty clear that hermaphrodites tend to be passive, not aggressive, when life goes wrong for them, and almost always turn any hostility inward, against themselves. They’re just people, Gino, that’s all. But like all people, they’re subject to the same genetic glitches and environmental conditions that just might create a sociopath. Even so, I couldn’t find a single recorded case of a hermaphrodite convicted of homicide, and frankly, I can’t think of another statistical group in the country that can make that claim. This person doesn’t kill because he’s a hermaphrodite; he’s a killer who just happens to be one.’
Gino grunted, obviously unconvinced. ‘Maybe so, but that still doesn’t mean some dirtbag lawyer isn’t going to try to capitalize on it.’
‘Don’t mind him,’ Magozzi said. ‘He’s been this way ever since O.J.’
Sharon started to move dishes aside. ‘You guys mind if I look at the file?’
‘Go for it,’ Magozzi said, handing over one of the heavy boxes.
She lifted the cover and started thumbing through pages very fast. ‘None of your witnesses could pin it down as male or female?’
Gino shook his head. ‘No witnesses at all with the jogger – he was the first one, hit after dark on a trail down by the river. Lots of trees, lots of cover, you would have had to be damn near on top of him to see anything. The second one was the girl on the statue in the cemetery . . .’
Sharon grimaced as she continued flipping through the pages, speed-reading. ‘I read a
bout it. Really spooky.’
‘You should have been there. Would have curled the hair on your balls . . .’ Gino hesitated. ‘Shit, is that sexual harassment?’
Sharon looked up and batted her eyes at him.
‘Anyway, cemetery closes up tight at sundown, and this was in pretty deep. Not a lot of mourners around in the middle of the night. We tracked the victim back to the bus depot, but no joy there. Nobody could even ID her, let alone place her with anybody.’
Magozzi said, ‘There was a maybe with the guy on the riverboat. He was at a local restaurant less than an hour before he was killed. Waitress there put him with someone out on the street after he left, thought it might have been a woman, but hedged when we tried to pin her down. Clothes could have gone either way.’
Gino leaned back in the booth and sighed. ‘So far the only people who saw the shooter for sure were at the mall yesterday – cops, no less – and even they couldn’t nail it down. Whoever it was was all bundled up in one of those big puffy coats with a hood. No way to tell for sure.’
‘Wow.’ Sharon shook her head and sucked air through her teeth. ‘You’ve got four murders and not a single witness. You know how rare that is?’ She tapped the piece of paper she’d been reading. ‘And from the looks of this, the same thing happened in Georgia.’
‘And Wisconsin,’ Halloran said grimly. ‘If this is Brian Bradford, he’s done eleven that we know about, clean as a whistle, and we don’t even know if we’re looking for a man or a woman or both.’
Sharon said, ‘I’d guess woman.’
Magozzi raised his brows. ‘Why?’
‘Just a hunch. He’d want to be whatever his body told him to be, of course, and just because both sets of sex organs were fully developed doesn’t mean the hormone production isn’t prejudiced toward one or the other. More estrogen, he’ll want to be a woman; more testosterone, the other way. But all things being equal, from a psychological standpoint, my guess is he’d want to be the opposite of what his parents chose, and they dropped him at the school dressed as a boy.’
