Shoot to Thrill by P.J. Tracy Page A

This was going to suck, big time.
    Ten minutes later he was in a private office that looked like every other FBI office he’d been in. Desk, chair, bookcase, Venetian blinds. Robot land.
    And, oh Lord, was she ever a Fed, through and through. Came in from a side room in a shapeless blue suit and one of those pasted smiles that flashed on and off so fast you could never be sure you’d seen it at all. She had real blond hair pulled back in a bun, apologizing for its brightness, the fair skin and blue eyes that went with it.
    ‘Detective Magozzi.’ She held out her hand for a cursory shake, then sat behind her desk and opened a thin file folder centered on the blotter. ‘Thank you very much for agreeing to see me.’
    ‘Agent Smith asked nicely.’
    ‘I’m sure he did.’
    ‘But he wasn’t real specific about the reason.’
    She nodded. ‘I’ve been working these murders since the Cleveland film, never expecting to have one land on my home turf. Talking directly to the detective in charge of the case might help with my profiling.’

    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Everything’s in there.’
    ‘There might be something else, something you didn’t think was significant that could come out in conversation.’
    Magozzi tried not to roll his eyes. Man, she sounded like every shrink he’d ever talked to.
    ‘Sit down, Detective, please. Would you like coffee? Tea?’
    ‘It’s five o’clock. You have a beer?’
    ‘Sorry.’
    ‘Not as sorry as I am.’
    She was already busily writing on her little pad.
    ‘You’re taking a lot of notes for a meeting that’s lasted less than a minute. You mind telling me what’s so interesting?’
    She put down her pen – fountain, not ballpoint – and looked up at him. ‘I was just prefacing our talk with the observation that you do not trust the Bureau in general, or my specialty of profiling in particular. Correct?’
    Magozzi exhaled noisily and fought off the Minnesota impulse to be polite at all costs. ‘I put profiling on about the same level as consulting psychics.’
    ‘It’s a little more scientific than that.’
    ‘Oh yeah? Well, the way I see it, you people go through the records cops made, see that a real high percentage of serial killers are male, white, between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-seven, blah, blah, blah, then predict that any serial killer is male, white, and between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-seven, and then when those same cops nab the guy, you say, “See, what did we tell you?” There was a fake
    Dr. Chelsea Thomas put her elbow on the desk and her chin in her hand, and Magozzi tried to analyze the body language. God knew she was analyzing his, and the least he could do was return the favor. Man, he hated shrinks. He folded his arms across his chest and tipped back his head, looking down his nose at her. See that? Defensive arm posture; disdainful head position. Take cover.
    Obviously he wasn’t having a whole lot of luck intimidating her, because she smiled at him. A really great smile. ‘It
is
five o’clock. Past five, in fact, and there’s a terrific Irish pub a few blocks over with some great stuff on tap. If you’re up for it, it might be an environment a little more conducive to establishing a productive working relationship. What do you say?’
    Magozzi frowned at her, sensing a trap. ‘Are you asking me out on a date?’
    She laughed quietly. It was a nice laugh, but humiliating, all the same. ‘Absolutely not. But this isn’t analysis, Detective, and it certainly isn’t mandatory. I was hoping that we might be able to help each other on this case, but clearly you’re uncomfortable here.’ She hesitated for a moment. ‘And obviously you’ve had a very bad day.’
    That was one of the great come-ons with the mental health crowd. From priests to psychiatrists, the standard opening was something that was supposed to sound sympathetic, but was really a trick to get you to spill your guts. Magozzi ought to know. He’d used the