Next Victim by Michael Prescott

message in all the brochures, not to mention every TV show of the last thirty years. So where did I go wrong, Officer?"
    "I’m not a police officer," Michaelson said. "I’m a special agent of the FBI."
    "Like Mulder and Scully, right?"
    "I don’t watch cop shows. I take it you do."
    "That’s a mark of criminal tendencies, isn’t it? Exhibiting an unhealthy interest in fictional presentations of law enforcement? Part of the profile, maybe?"
    "How do you know about profiles?"
    "TV. Everything I know, I learned from TV. It’s our great national educator."
    Tess frowned. His coyness was maddening. He behaved like a guest at a cocktail party, not a suspect under interrogation.
    Mobius might be this smooth, this unflappable. But would he be reckless enough to show it?
    She looked at his hands—large hands, the prominent knuckles tufted with pale hairs.
    A killer’s hands?
    One of those hands was manacled to a leg of the table. The other was free to gesticulate. Hayde was doing a lot of gesturing, but his hand movements were lazy, almost insolent. He wore flashy cuff links, black pearls set in silver borders. The cuff link on his free hand flashed, catching the light. It seemed to be winking at her.
    "Anyway," Hayde said, "whenever I watch a cop show, I root for the good guys. I’m a big fan of the boys in blue—and that includes blue suits, you’ll be happy to hear." This with a nod at Gaines, who wore a suit of that color. "Now, are you going to tell me what this is all about, or am I going to have to invoke my right to an attorney and get all legalistic and tight-assed?"
    He was smiling as he said it. Tess knew he was smart. Of course she would expect an engineer to be of above-average intelligence. His vocabulary only confirmed that presumption—words like legalistic, hedonism, subliminal . Two-dollar words, as her father would say.
    Mobius was intelligent also. They had known that from the beginning. He would have to be intelligent, even charming, to be successful in the bar pickup scene. Anyway, serial killers classified as the organized type—methodical, obsessive, cunning—were often of above-average IQ.
    "Let’s talk about what went on with Agent Tyler at the apartment," Michaelson said.
    "Hey, hold it. That’s the end of the story. You have to start at the club."
    "Where you picked her up."
    "If you ask me, she’s the one who picked me up."
    "Does that happen to you often? Women pick you up?"
    "No, I’m a virgin, Officer. Sorry, I mean, Special Agent. I’ve never been with a girl before. Is it true they don’t have a wee-wee like boys do?"
    "I’m just asking—"
    "If I think I’m a stud? Not really. But in this town, on a Friday night, action isn’t hard to come by. Lots of times it’ll come looking for you. How about you, Officer Friendly? I’ll bet that genuine FBI badge gets you a piece of tail now and then, doesn’t it?"
    "We’re not talking about me, Bill."
    "Gosh, I’m Bill now. That’s real nice, how we’re such good pals all of a sudden. What was your name again?"
    "Richard."
    "Dick. Okay, Dick. What else did you want to know about picking up babes, Dick?"
    Tess glanced at another monitor, covering Michaelson and Gaines, and saw irritation flicker across Michaelson’s face. She knew he hated being called Dick. She also knew he would have no luck getting William Hayde to open up to him.
    DiFranco reached the same conclusion. "This creep isn’t gonna fall for the good-buddy act, no matter how they play it."
    "You’re right," Tess said. "He’s too smart."
    "Smart like our guy, you think?"
    She glanced at DiFranco and noticed that the others were watching her as well. "I want it to be him," she said carefully. "But…he’s sarcastic. Childish, in a way."
    "So?"
    "Mobius is a lot of things, but childish isn’t one of them."
    "I don’t know. There are those postcards."
    "He has a sense of humor. But not like this." She heard the inadequacy of her own explanation and tried to elaborate.