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.’