I let my gaze drift toward the coffee maker and thought about pouring myself a cup, but fortunately sanity prevailed. Instead, I looked back at Thorwald. "That doesn't necessarily mean the killing ground is in Scranton."

  "That's true, technically," Thorwald said.

  "Yeah, but…" Karl said, and let his voice trail off.

  "But," she said, "the only vic that we have an ID for is from here. This Hudzinski guy. We've got screen caps of all the victims' faces, enlarged and enhanced. We've sent them to all the field offices. None of the agents there recognized anybody, and we can hardly expect them to go door to door in their local areas, asking 'Do you recognize any of these people?' Not exactly an optimum use of Bureau resources."

  She actually said that – "optimum use of Bureau resources" – and with a straight face, too.

  Karl leaned forward in his chair. "You're talking about eight vics minimum – two per video, right?

  "So what?" Greer asked.

  "So they can't all be local," Karl said. "This is Scranton, not New York. Eight guys go missing over the course of–" He looked at Thorwald. "–what, a year?"

  "We figure it's been going on about ten months," she said.

  "Eight guys in ten months," Karl said. "Uh-uh. Not in Scranton. That many missing person reports is gonna get somebody's attention downstairs, eventually. And we'd have heard about it by now, too."

  "Unless the guys were homeless," Greer said. "It's getting so that serial killers like homeless people almost as much as they target hookers."

  I thought about that for a moment, then said, "No, can't be – not all eight of 'em, anyway. Scranton's not that big a town. The homeless population isn't large. I'm talking about people living in packing crates and under bridges, shit like that."

  "Anyway," Karl said, "nobody around here, no matter how bad off they are, is gonna start living under a bridge."

  "How come?" Greer asked him.

  "Trolls," Karl said.

  "Let's get back to the matter at hand," Thorwald said. "The victims represent one of the points of contact between the killers and the… public, for lack of a better term. Once we identify a victim, we can work backwards, like with any other kidnapping case. Search the vic's home for any intel about where he was supposed to be the day he disappeared, try to find out who he'd been seen with before he went missing – the usual routine."

  "Scranton's not the only legal jurisdiction around here," I said. "There's lots of small towns and townships – not to mention Wilkes-Barre, which is only twenty minutes away. Some guy gets grabbed in one of those places, and the missing persons report won't pass through Scranton PD."

  "You FBI guys keep track of all that info, don't you?" Karl said.

  "Yeah, all police and sheriff's departments nationwide send their crime stats to Washington," Thorwald said. "The Bureau publishes the compilation every year in the Uniform Crime Report."

  "That's what I thought," I said. "So, maybe ET should phone home."

  She shook her head. "There's a time lag between when the raw data reaches the Bureau and when it's collated."

  "How big a time lag?"

  "Put it this way," she said. "The Uniform Crime Report for two years ago was just published last month."

  "Shit," I said.

  "Yeah, but wait a second," Karl said. He looked at me. "Don't the Staties get copied on all missing persons reports from local departments?"

  "That's a damn good question." I turned to the Feebies. "Think you can get an answer for us, like maybe tomorrow?"

  "Hey," Greer said, "we're not here to do your–"

  Thorwald stopped him by putting her hand on his knee. I wondered if it gave him a thrill. It would've given me one. "Sergeant Markowski probably means that the people in Harrisburg will respond more readily to a request from the Bureau than one emanating from the Scranton PD." She raised an eyebrow at me. "Yes?"

  "Couldn't have put it better myself," I said. I glanced at my watch. "Sorry to cut this short, but our shift's over, and we need to get out of here at least a half-hour before six."

  As Karl and I stood up, Greer said, "Didn't take you for a clock watcher, Markowski. I heard you were a real noseto-the-grindstone kind of guy."

  I didn't say anything, since arguing with assholes is a waste of time, but I saw that Thorwald was looking at me thoughtfully. "What happens at six?" she asked.

  "Sunrise."

As we walked toward the parking lot, Karl asked me, "Do you suppose there's a special course at the FBI Academy called 'How to Be a Federal Douche Bag'?"

  "Wouldn't surprise me," I said. "And if there is, I'm betting that Greer aced it. Probably the only 'A' he ever earned." I reached into a pocket for my keys. "His partner's not too bad, though. For a Feebie."

  Karl looked at me. "You think she's hot?"

  "I didn't say that. I just meant that she doesn't seem to be a revolving asshole like her buddy."

  "Revolving?"

  "From whatever angle the object is viewed," I said.

  "She likes you, though," Karl said.

  "Yeah, right," I said. "And where did that revelation come from, O wise man?"

  "Her heartbeat. It speeded up a little every time she talked to you."

  I didn't bother to ask him how he knew that. He'd just say, "It's a vamp thing – you wouldn't understand."

  "I probably just remind her of her ex-husband," I said. "And not in a good way, either."

  He shrugged. "Believe what you want."

  "Think you could use some vampire Influence on Greer, maybe get him to stop being such a prick?"