Play To Kill

by P. J. Tracy

  'She is not a friend. We had a beer and a burger and a gallon of milk while we talked shop about serial killers and Internet stuff. Did she bother to mention what "something else entirely" means?'

  'She's even got a name for it. Chaotic terrorism. You know how little boys get a kick out of popping out of closets and scaring the crap out of you?'

  'That was really sexist, Grace.'

  'How many little girls pop out of closets to scare people?'

  'Not enough, but I get your point.'

  'So Chelsea thinks this is the post-puberty version. Disenfranchised dweebs hiding in their basements, power- tripping on scaring a whole city to death. The coverage of the murder posts probably gave them the idea.'

  Magozzi pushed wrinkles into his forehead. 'So she doesn't think it's real.'

  'Obviously it doesn't have to be real to stop a city. The threat is enough, but it's still terrorism, plain and simple.'

  Magozzi started rummaging in his desk drawer, looking for aspirin. 'So our choices are a terrorist attack or a teenager attack?'

  'And if it's the latter, you better get those monsters in cuffs by the morning news or every media-addicted creep in the country is going to try to outdo what happens here. Go to work, Magozzi. We can't find them, so it's all on you.'

  When Magozzi hung up, Gino was peering over his computer screen at him, powdered sugar parentheses enclosing his mouth. 'I choose teenager attack.'

  'Huh?'

  'You said "terrorist attack or teenager attack." I pick B. What else did she say?'

  After Magozzi gave him a rundown, Gino folded his hands over his paunch and leaned back in his chair. 'If it's a terrorist attack, we're all screwed. If it's a teenager attack we can waterboard a couple thirteen-year-olds and no one will ever try it again.' His eyes drifted over to the television and his mouth turned down. 'I don't know, Leo. Mason jars with liquid, lead sheeting to beat the X-ray…? Seems like pretty sophisticated shit for a screw-up kid.'

  Magozzi nodded. 'That's what I was thinking'

  One of the newer hires out of Vice - a tall, loose-limbed guy who looked like he just got out from behind a plow - walked into Homicide and found McLaren. 'Hey, Johnny. I'm guessing nobody bet on Mason jars.'

  'Nope.'

  'So give me my fiver back.'

  'Sure thing, Scarecrow. But I'm afraid there's going to be a processing fee.'

  'I don't think so, you red weasel. Processing fee means I book you on gambling charges.' His eyes drifted up to the TV. 'This is some scary shit.'

  McLaren squinted at him. 'You see, that's the part I don't get. You get a bomb scare at a school, you automatically think it's a kid making trouble. I don't get the panic button on this one.'

  'Are you kidding? All that crap at the schools and the mall in the past few months? Amateur hour. This one was really put together.'

  'So out of the thousands of dopes in this city, we finally hit one with an IQ in triple digits. Had to happen.'

  "You whistling in the dark, McLaren?'

  You bet your ass I am.'

  Well, keep your head out of the sand, because even if this scare is a bust, it doesn't mean the next one will be. Al-Jazeera already picked this up. They're streaming news from Minneapolis, if you can believe that. It's like a play- book on how to terrorize people.'

  'Jeez, Scarecrow, get a grip. And don't trip over your petticoats on the way out.'

  'Fuck you, McLaren. You Homicide sissies make damn sure you hit the scene after the perp is long gone. Call me when you get a sack, and I'll take you on a meth bust.'

  'So did you walk all the way over here to bust my balls or what?'

  'Nah. I'm the town crier. You got anything to eat over here?'

  'Last donut just hit Rolseth's gullet. You might be able to get him to cough it up if you use some of those cool macho meth-bust moves.'

  'Man, you're testy today. Listen. They're pulling together surveillance footage from all the box sites that had security cameras, which means all of them, which means about four million hours of tape, and the brass is begging for help from anybody with a uniform and one good eye.'

  You actually saw the Chief?'

  'Oh, hell, no. He's been locked up with the mayor and the governor since this thing started. They only let him out long enough to parse out the hourly updates on TV.'

  'Yeah, I caught a couple of those. Poor guy is starting to look a little undone. I think I actually saw a hair out of place during the last one.'

  You ask me, he's allowed. The man's got a lot on his plate today. Anyway, we're going to set up in one of the old conference rooms on three, so anybody without an active case, come on up and watch some movies with us.'

  'Tinker and I can help you out.'

  'Good deal. Bring popcorn.'

  * * *

  Chapter Thirty-three

  The task force room in City Hall had been transformed into a makeshift media center full of laptops, TVs, and volunteers from every department and every precinct, squinting at screens and taking notes.

  The confusing olfactory potpourri that had always been a trademark of the space still lingered, even though it had been officially retired for years. As Magozzi stepped into the room, his nose picked up the familiar old scents of sweat, bad cologne, cleaning chemicals, and cigarette smoke, along with the newer contributions of the current occupants. He caught a whiff of breath mints, a fleeting hint of patchouli, and the cloying, pervasive stench of microwave popcorn that had been steamed to death in fake butter.

  And then there was Grace MacBride, whose sensory ghost trumped all in this place, at least for Magozzi. He'd met her here for the second time in his life, almost two years ago, after he'd basically accused her of murder and a laundry list of other horrible misdeeds. Probably not the kind of courtship ritual little girls dreamed of.

  'Leo?' Gino gave him a nudge.

  'What?'

  'I've been regaling you with brilliant insights for the past thirty seconds at least, and you're acting like you just popped a handful of Oxys.'

  'Sorry. What were your brilliant insights?'

  Gino snuffled, and rearranged some southern part of his wardrobe. 'For one, where the hell is our chalkboard? You and I solved many a murder brainstorming on that thing, and I loved it like a child.'

  'Probably got stashed in storage someplace.'

  'They can't just take an important piece of our life and mothball it without checking with us first.'

  'Sure they can. Some killjoy with asthma complained about the chalk dust, so they replaced all the blackboards with whiteboards.'

  'Whiteboards suck'

  They wended their way through the tables and desks and found McLaren and Tinker in the far corner of the beehive, both hunched over a laptop, noses practically pressed to the screen. 'How's it going?'

  McLaren shook his head without looking away from the black-and-white security footage. 'This is damn near impossible. Everybody at the mall is carrying a shopping bag, damn near everybody at the library convention is wheeling around a suitcase full of books… and none of us have seen any boxes get dropped yet. The locations must have been scouted, because they're all out of camera range.'

  Gino grunted, still pouting over the chalkboard. 'That's a little spooky.'

  Yeah, no kidding… Tinker, wait. Back up a few frames and play it in slo-mo for me.'

  Tinker clicked the mouse a few times and McLaren jabbed a finger at two kids who were milling around at the Mall of America. 'Check out those guys. Look familiar?'

  Tinker stared for a moment, then shook his head. 'Just a couple of skate punks. The mall is full of them.'

  'Yeah, but I think I've seen these dudes before, in some of the footage we checked out earlier. Maybe from the Metrodome. Go back.' He pushed away from the desk while Tinker worked the mouse some more. 'So, you solve your case already, or what?'

  Magozzi shook his head. 'We're stuck in neutral, getting nowhere fast.'

  'I know what you mean - I went throu
gh those two files you gave me and came up with nada. I have a list of names for you, but I gotta tell you up front that nothing clicked. The most interesting thing I pulled was the blood alcohol on your river bride - that guy should have been wearing a biohazard warning label. I'm surprised he had a liver left, especially with all the meds he was on.'

  'Meds?' Gino asked.

  Yeah. He had AIDS.'

  'He did?'

  Yeah. Don't you guys read autopsy reports?'

  'Not recreationally, like you, McLaren,' Gino grumbled. 'Besides, we already knew how he died.'

  Tinker tapped the screen. 'Rolling tape, Johnny.'

  The four of them turned their attention to the computer screen and watched a motley assemblage of humanity unwittingly pass beneath the all-seeing eyes of the Metro- dome security cameras. Ten minutes later, Gino slid his eyes to look over at Magozzi. 'The Tiara Club film was way more entertaining'

  Magozzi nodded.

  Gino started fidgeting. 'Man, this is more boring than what we were doing back in the office. What do you say we break for lunch, then…'

  'Stop!' McLaren said, then pointed to the screen. 'See? Same two kids. Exact same skater punk clothes, same faces.'

  Magozzi and Gino were now breathing down McLaren's neck. 'I think Johnny's right,' Magozzi said. 'What kind of time frame are we looking at?'

  Tinker scrawled down the time stamp, then went back to the mall footage and compared them. 'About two hours apart. You might have something, Johnny.'

  Gino shrugged and pushed up the sleeves of his wrinkled white button-down. 'Or not. Could just be bored kids making the rounds. And I gotta tell you, these two don't look bright enough to tie their own shoes, let alone pull something like this off.'

  Yeah, but the same two guys at two different sites? I don't know, that's kind of a coincidence.'

  Gino blew out a breath. 'If they show up at another site, then I'll jump on board.'

  'Pull up some chairs and we'll check out some more tape.'

  Gino rolled his eyes. 'Great.'

  It took another half hour before McLaren found what he was looking for - the same two kids, loitering around the Crystal Court in the IDS building, about half an hour after they'd been filmed at the Metrodome. 'Goddamn. These could be our perps. Two kids.'

  Just like Chelsea suspected, Magozzi thought.

  Gino leaned back and rubbed his eyes. 'We've still got a problem. We didn't see them drop any boxes. So this doesn't prove anything.'

  "Yeah, but it might be enough to bring them in for questioning. If we can figure out who the hell they are.'

  'Good luck with that. How are you going to match identities with a couple faces in a city with a few hundred thousand people? We can't question them if we don't know who they are or where they live.'

  'I have an idea,' Magozzi said quietly.

  The other three detectives looked at him hopefully.

  'Do you remember that facial-recognition software Monkeewrench developed?'

  McLaren scrunched his face up for a moment, then his eyes widened. Yeah. That was the program that basically tied up the old Nazi case, right?'

  'Exactly. You input the photo of the person you want to identify and the program cross-references with images on the Web and looks for a match.'

  Gino smiled. 'And there's one thing you can count on - kids have their pictures plastered all over the Web.'

  * * *

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Gino spent most of the ride to Harley's on the phone with Angela. He hung up just as Magozzi turned onto Summit Avenue.

  'Everything okay at the B and B?'

  'Better than okay. There's a pool and a restaurant that has cheese curds on the menu. And here I am, fighting crime with an empty stomach and a bad donut hangover.'

  'What's the mood on the street?'

  'She said people are pretty spooked. Nobody's actually letting themselves believe the threat is credible, but so what? They're still white-knuckling it in Somerset, Wisconsin, just in case. One hell of a big power trip for our doer, or doers.'

  'Reminds you how vulnerable we all are. The price of a free society.'

  Gino nodded emphatically. 'Exactly. What a big problem that is. But, fortunately, I have a great solution - martial law for a few months with you and me in charge. Shut down the Web, beer and fresh donuts for the troops. And all our generals will drive confiscated Caddies just like this one.' He let out a miserable sigh. 'This is depressing. Do you really think kids are behind this?'

  'I don't know. What's scarier? Criminally warped kids on the rampage or real terrorists?'

  'I don't think you can split hairs when it comes to terrorism, which is what this is, plain and simple, no matter who's behind it. But at least if it's kids, there's probably nothing in any of the jars except water or something else lame, right? I mean, I'm no Chelsea Thomas, profiling goddess of the modern world, but I know how those little antisocial bastards' minds work. They go for the big bang, but they usually don't have mass slaughter on their minds.'

  'The Columbine kids had bombs, and they obviously had mass slaughter on their minds. Hell, they probably used blueprints from some terrorist website.'

  Gino scowled. 'Thanks for that. And by the way, the Web is really starting to piss me off. It's like a meet-and-greet for sociopaths all of a sudden.'

  'Access and anonymity. If you're a scumbag, it's the perfect storm. But in the end, it's the same old criminals, just a different venue.'

  'Yeah, I suppose. Too bad we're always playing catch-up and doing damage control.'

  'That's what this job is about. It's what this job has always been about. You win some, you lose some, and you do as much good as you can along the way.'

  Gino grunted. 'Christ, Leo. You're sounding like one of those scary, late-night TV inspirational speakers. And here I am, wondering what our new shrink friend would say about the kind of personality that picks a career where your chance of failure is about as good as your chance of success.'

  'She would say we're noble, gallant, right-fighters. Maybe even modern-day superheroes. She has to think that way, because she picked the same field we did.'

  'Masochism?'

  'Yep.' He pulled into Harley's driveway and parked behind the airport-rental Fed-mobile that obviously belonged to John Smith, then smiled a little when he saw Roadrunner, waiting anxiously on the front steps for them.

  'Damnit,' Gino said under his breath. 'I can't get used to seeing the skinny guy in jeans. It's just wrong.'

  Roadrunner waved as they approached, then held out his hand. 'Hey, guys. You have a disk for me?'

  Magozzi handed him a CD in a plastic sleeve and gave him an affectionate pat on the shoulder. 'Three clips of the same two kids at three of the box sites. How long do you think it's going to take?'

  Roadrunner's brow wrinkled. 'I don't know… the program is pretty bloated, out of sheer necessity. We've tweaked it a little since the last time we used it, but it could still take a while. Come on in, make yourselves at home, I want to get started on this right away.'

  Roadrunner ignored the elevator and took the stairs three at a time up to the office, while Gino headed straight for the kitchen, Magozzi on his heels. They startled John Smith, who was standing by the refrigerator, drinking a glass of orange juice. The poor man looked almost embarrassed for having been caught in the midst of a perfectly normal, human act. 'Good afternoon, Detectives.'

  Gino's eyes scanned the empty countertops in disappointment. 'Afternoon, Agent Smith.'

  'Good work with the surveillance footage. Let's hope it will help bring this situation to a quick resolution. I was informed that five of the boxes have been cleared.'

  Magozzi nodded. 'That's right. No explosives, plain glycerin in the jars.'

  'So eight more to go.'

  Gino snorted. 'Eight more that we know about. There could be another hundred out there that we just haven't found yet. Or maybe the frigging bastards are still out there planting the things, we don't
know. Nobody's taking a powder on this thing. Not your guys, not ours.'

  'How is your murder investigation progressing?'

  'It's not,' Magozzi said.

  Smith looked troubled. 'Last we spoke, you mentioned a Minnesota connection with the seven male murder victims, which seemed like a promising detail.'

  'We're still working that angle,' Gino said. 'Nothing so far.'

  'But it's quite a coincidence, you must admit.'

  'You're telling me. Minnesota is suddenly up to its eyeballs in Web-related homicide, and now this crap with the boxes.' He shoved his hands in his pockets and regarded his shoes for a moment - an innocent pair of physical ticks that meant nothing to anybody except Magozzi, who knew his partner's pre-attack body language better than his own.

  'And as long as we're on the topic of coincidences,' Gino continued, as Magozzi knew he would; 'here's another one. A week ago, you rode into town for a cyber-crime sting before you even knew about the Minnesota connection. Or did you know?'

  John blinked a few times, genuinely blindsided, in Magozzi's opinion. 'We absolutely did not know. We never even considered the fact that the Web murders could be related until Monkeewrench found the pre-posts. And, frankly, just because they were all pre-posted doesn't mean they're related. As I'm sure Dr. Thomas mentioned to you, there is a great potential for deviant communities to form and escalate on the Web. The fact that seven of the victims have ties to this state is really the most compelling evidence for a connection we have so far.'

  Gino frowned. 'So maybe we've got a deviant community escalating right here.'

  'It's a possibility.'

  'So why did you pick Minneapolis for a base of operations if you didn't know anything before you got here?' Magozzi picked up Gino's pass.

  Smith almost smiled. "You two are an impressive interrogation team.'

  Gino puffed out his chest a little. 'Thank you.'

  Smith nodded graciously. 'We're here because Monkeewrench is here. Regardless of the competency of our Cyber Crimes Division, we felt it critical to utilize all resources available for this investigation. And I think we can all agree that there is nobody better at what they do than Monkeewrench. We did offer to set them up with an office in D.C. for this assignment, but they preferred to work from their home office. We agreed to accommodate them.'