He spotted two yellow finches playing tag in a grove of pine trees. Then they were already upon the first viewing platform, where the trees gave way and half of Virginia once again opened up before them.
Mac pulled over. He was no neophyte to the great outdoors, but sometimes a man just had to sit and stare. He and Kimberly absorbed the panorama of emerald forest mixing with gray stone outcrops and brightly colored wildflowers. The Blue Ridge Mountains really knew how to put on a show.
“Do you think he’s really an environmentalist?” Kimberly murmured quietly.
Mac didn’t need to ask to know whom she meant. “I’m not sure. He certainly picks some great places.”
“The planet is dying,” she said softly. “Look over to the right. You can see patches of dead hemlocks, probably killed by the wooly adelgid, which is infesting so many of our forests. And while this range is protected as a national park, how long will the valley before us remain untouched? Someday, those fields will become subdivisions, while all of those distant trees will be turned into yet more strip malls to feed hungry consumers. Once upon a time, most of the U.S. looked like this. Now you have to drive hundreds of miles just to find this kind of beauty.”
“Progress happens.”
“That’s nothing but an excuse.”
“No,” Mac said abruptly. “And yes. Everything changes. Things die. We probably should fear for our kids. But I still don’t know what that has to do with why one man kills a bunch of innocent women. Maybe this guy wants to think he’s different. Hell, maybe he does have some sort of conscience and it bothers him to kill for killing’s sake. But the letters, the environmental talk . . . Personally, I think it’s nothing but a bunch of bullshit designed to give the Eco-Killer permission to do what he really wants to do—kidnap and kill women.”
“In psychology,” Kimberly said, “we learn that there are many different reasons for why people behave certain ways. This applies to killers as well. Some killers are driven by ego, by their own overdeveloped id, which puts their needs first and refuses to accept limits on their behavior. It’s the serial killer who kills because he likes to feel powerful. It’s the stockbroker who murders his mistress after she threatens to tell his wife, because he honestly believes his own desire for security is more important than another person’s life. It’s the kid who pulls the trigger, just because he wants to.
“There’s another kind of killer, though. The morality killer. That’s the fanatic who walks into a synagogue and opens fire because he believes it is his duty. Or the person who shoots abortion doctors because she believes they are committing a sin. These people don’t kill to satisfy their inner child, but because they believe such an act is right. Perhaps the Eco-Killer falls into the morality category.”
Mac arched a brow. “So these are our choices? Immature whackos on the one hand and righteous whackos on the other?”
“Technically speaking.”
“All right. You want psychobabble? I can play this game. I believe it was Freud who said everything we do communicates something about ourselves.”
“You know Freud?”
“Hey, don’t let the good looks fool you, honey. I have a brain in my head. So all right, according to Freud, the tie you pick, the ring you wear, the shirt you buy, all say something about you. Nothing is random, everything you do has intent. Fine, now let’s look at what this guy does. He kidnaps women traveling in pairs. Always young females leaving a bar. Now why does he do that? Seems to me that the terrorist type of killer goes after people of a certain faith—but then will equally target man, woman, or child. The moral killer goes after the abortion doctor for his occupation, not for his sex. And yet then we got our guy again. Eight victims in Georgia, ten if you think he struck here, and always a young, college-aged girl leaving a bar. Now what does that communicate about him?”
“He doesn’t like women,” Kimberly answered softly. “Particularly women who drink.”
“He hates them,” Mac said flatly. “Loose women, fast women, I don’t know how he categorizes them in his mind, but he hates women. I don’t know why. Maybe he doesn’t know why. Maybe he honestly believes this is about the environment. But if our guy was really about saving the world, then we should see some variety in his targets. We don’t. He only goes after women. Period. And in my mind, that makes him just another garden-variety very dangerous whacko.”
“You don’t believe in profiling?”
“Kimberly, we’ve had a profile for four years. Ask that poor girl in the morgue if it’s done a thing to help us yet.”
“Bitter.”
“Realistic,” he countered. “This case isn’t going to be solved in the back room by some guy in a suit. It’s going to be solved out here, roaming these mountains, sweating buckets, and dodging rattlesnakes. Because that’s what Eco-Killer wants. He hates women, but every time he sticks one in a dangerous location, he’s also targeting us. Law enforcement officers, search-and-rescue workers—we’re the ones who have to walk these hills and sweat this terrain. Don’t think he doesn’t know it.”
“Have any search-and-rescue workers been hurt?”
“Hell, yes. In the Tallulah Gorge we had several falls and broken limbs. The cotton field caused two volunteers to succumb to heatstroke. Then we had a wonderful search along the Savannah River, where one guy tangled with a gator, and two people were bitten by cottonmouth snakes.”
“Fatalities?” she asked sharply.
Mac looked back out at the vast, plunging terrain. He murmured, “Well, honey, not yet.”
CHAPTER 22
Shenandoah National Park, Virginia
1:44 P.M.
Temperature: 97 degrees
KATHY LEVINE WAS A PETITE, NO-NONSENSE WOMAN with short-cropped red hair and a dash of freckles across her nose. She greeted Mac and Kimberly briskly as they entered the glass-and-beam expanse of Big Meadows Lodge and beckoned them immediately toward a back office.
“Ray said you had a picture of a leaf. Not a real leaf, mind you, but a picture.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Mac dutifully provided the scanned image. Kathy plopped it down on the desk in front of her and snapped on a bright overhead light. It barely made a dent in a room already lit by an entire wall of sunshine.
“It could be a gray birch,” the botanist said at last. “It would be better if you had the real leaf.”
“Are you a dendrologist?” Kimberly asked curiously.
“No, but I know what’s in my park.” The woman snapped off the light and regarded them both frankly. “Are you two familiar with refugia?”
“Refugee what?” Mac said.
“That’s what I thought. Refugia is a term for plants that exist as glacial relics in a climate where they no longer belong. Essentially, millions of years ago, this whole area was ice. But then the ice melted and certain plants got left behind. In most cases, those plants moved high up in the mountains, seeking the cool conditions they need to survive. Balsam fir and red cedar are both examples of refugia found in this park. And so is gray birch.”
“Ray said it was only found in one area.” Mac spoke up intently.
“Yes. Right outside the door. Let me get a map.” The botanist climbed out of her chair and rifled the bookshelf along the wall. Then, she proceeded to unfold the largest map Kimberly had ever seen. It was labeled Geologic Map of Shenandoah County, and it was filled with enough streaks of bright purple, deep fuchsia, and neon orange to hurt a person’s eyes.
“This is the geologic map which includes this section of the park. We are here.” Levine plopped the massive spread of paper on the jumbled surface of the desk, and promptly tapped a lime-green spot near the bottom of the page. “Now, gray birch grows thickest in the swampy plateau across from the Big Meadows camp, but can also be found here and there in this whole one-mile area. So basically, if you’re looking for the only gray birch in Virginia, you’re standing in the middle of it.”
“Wonderful,” Mac murmured. “Now if only we were s
ure we were looking for gray birch. How populated is this area this time of year?”
“You mean campers? We have thirty or so people signed in at the moment. Generally it would be more, but the heat has chased a lot away. Also we get a fair number of day hikers and the like. Of course, in this weather, we’re probably getting mostly drive-throughs—people coming to the park, but never leaving the air-conditioned comfort of their cars.”
“Do guests have to sign in?”
“No.”
“Do you have park rangers or any kind of monitors working the area?”
“We have enough personnel if trouble should come up, but we don’t go looking for it, if that’s what you mean.”
“So a person could come and go, and you’d never know he’d been here?”
“I would imagine most people come and go, and we never know they were here.”
“Damn.”
“You want to tell me what this is about?” Levine nodded toward Kimberly. “I can already tell she’s armed. You might as well fill in the rest.”
Mac seemed to consider it. He looked at Kimberly, but she didn’t know what to tell him. He might be out of his jurisdiction, but at least he was still a special agent. As of six A.M. this morning she had become no one at all.
“We’re working a case,” Mac told Levine tersely. “We have reason to believe this leaf may tie into the disappearance of a local girl. Find where the leaf came from, and we’ll find her.”
“You’re saying this girl may be somewhere in my park? Lost? In this kind of heat?”
“It’s a possibility.”
Levine crossed her arms over her chest while regarding both of them intently. “You know,” she said at last, “right about now, I think I’d like to see some ID.”
Mac reached into his back pocket and pulled out his credentials. Kimberly just stood there. She had nothing to show, nothing to say. For the first time, the enormity of what she had done struck her. For all of her life, she’d wanted to be one thing. And now?
She turned away from both of them. Through the windows, the bright sunlight burned her eyes. She closed them tightly, trying to focus on the feel of heat on her face. A girl was out there. A girl needed her.
And her mother was still dead and her sister was still dead. And Mac was right after all. Nothing she did would change anything, so what was she really trying to prove? That she could self-destruct as completely as Mandy?
Or that just once, she wanted to get something right. Just once, she wanted to find the girl, save the day. Because anything had to be better than this six-year ache.
“This says Georgia Bureau of Investigation,” Levine was saying to Mac.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“If my memory serves, we’re still in Virginia.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Ray didn’t ask you nearly enough questions now, did he?”
“Ray was very helpful in our investigation. We appreciate his efforts and are happy you were able to talk to us.”
Levine wasn’t fooled. She drew a bead on Kimberly. “I’m guessing you have no ID at all.”
Kimberly turned back around. She kept her voice even. “No, I don’t.”
“Look, it’s gotta be a good hundred degrees in the shade right now, and while I’m not a big fan of doing field work in this kind of heat, that’s my lot in life. So you both had better start talking fast, because I’m not amused to be yanked from my federally required duties to talk to two wanna-be cops who seem to be way out of their jurisdiction.”
“I am pursuing a case,” Mac said crisply. “The killer started in Georgia, where he attacked eight girls. You wanna see photos, I can give you all your stomach can take. I have reason to believe he’s now operating in Virginia. The FBI is involved, but by the time they figure out who did what to whom, this girl will probably have fed ten bears for a week. I, on the other hand, have been working this case for years. I know this man. And I have legitimate reason to believe that he has kidnapped a young woman and abandoned her all alone in the middle of your park. Yes, it’s hot outside. Yes, she is lost. And no, I don’t plan on standing idly by and waiting for a bunch of Feds to complete all the required paperwork. I plan on finding this girl, Ms. Levine, and Ms. Quincy has agreed to assist. So that’s why we’re here and that’s what we’re doing. And if that offends you, well, too bad. Because this girl probably is in your park, and boy oh boy, does she need some help.”
Kathy Levine appeared troubled. “Do you have references?” she asked at last.
“I can give you the name of my supervisor in Georgia.”
“He knows about this case?”
“He sent me here to pursue it.”
“If I cooperate with you, what does that mean?”
“I have no jurisdiction, ma’am. Officially speaking, I can’t ask you to do anything.”
“But you think the girl might be here. For how long?”
“He would’ve abandoned her yesterday.”
“It was nearly a hundred degrees yesterday,” Levine said curtly.
“I know.”
“Does she have gear?”
“He kidnaps women from bars. The best she has is her purse and her party clothes.”
Levine blinked twice. “Sweet Jesus. And he’s done this before?”
“Eight girls. So far, only one has survived. Today, I’d like to make that two.”
“We have a search-and-rescue team for the park,” Levine said briskly. “If . . . if you had strong reason to believe there was, say, a lost hiker in the Big Meadows area, and if you reported that lost hiker, I would have authority to call the team.”
Mac stilled. The offer was both unexpected and desperately needed. A search-and-rescue team. Multiple people. Trained experts. In other words, the first genuine chance at success they’d had all day.
“Are you sure?” Mac asked sharply. “It could be a wild-goose chase. I could be wrong.”
“Are you wrong often?”
“Not about this.”
“Well, then . . .”
“I’d like to report a lost hiker,” Mac said immediately.
And Kathy Levine said, “Let me make a call.”
CHAPTER 23
Quantico, Virginia
2:23 P.M.
Temperature: 99 degrees
KAPLAN HAD SCHEDULED A TWO-THIRTY MEETING with Dr. Ennunzio to follow up on Mac’s conversations with the forensic linguist. Rainie didn’t think Kaplan believed Dr. Ennunzio was a link to Georgia’s Eco-Killer, as much as he wanted to grill a new person about the various doings of Special Agent McCormack.
Still, she and Quincy followed gamely along. Kaplan had his questions, they would have theirs. Besides, the BSU offices would probably be only eighty degrees, and that sure as hell beat the places they’d been thus far.
The offices of the Behavioral Science Unit were located in the basement of the indoor firing ranges building. Rainie had only been there once before, but she always thought it was a little funny. Not just because people were literally firing weapons two floors above you, which should give anyone pause, but because the elevators going down to the highly esteemed BSU offices were tucked in an isolated corner next to the laundry room. Walk by bins of dirty linens and used flak vests. Go to work for the day.
In the basement, the elevator door opened to a wood-paneled lobby area, with corridors going off every which way. Here, visitors could sit on the leather sofa while admiring various posters advertising BSU projects. “Domestic Violence by Police Officers,” declared one, promoting an upcoming seminar. “Suicide and Law Enforcement,” said another. “Futuristics and Law Enforcement: The Millennium Conference,” advertised a third.
When Rainie had first met Quincy seven years ago, he’d been conducting research for the BSU. His project of choice—developing a schema for the effective profiling of juvenile mass murderers. Never let it be said that the BSU researchers were a bunch of lightweights.
And just in case someone thought the
group was without a sense of humor, a new addition had been included in the lineup of agent photographs adorning the wall. Last photo in the middle row—a lovingly framed headshot of an extraterrestrial. Complete with a cone-shaped head and big black eyes. Really, it was the best-looking photo of the bunch.
Kaplan took off down the middle corridor and Rainie and Quincy followed in his wake.
“Miss it?” Rainie whispered in Quincy’s ear.
“Not in the least.”
“It’s never as dreary as I expect.”
“Wait until you’ve spent an entire week working without any natural light.”
“Whiner.”
“Be nice, or I’ll lock you in the bomb shelter.”
“Promises, promises,” Rainie murmured. Quincy squeezed her hand, the first contact he’d made with her all day.
From what Rainie could determine, the space down here was basically a large square, bisected by three rows of hallways sprouting narrow offices. Kaplan came to the last door of the middle row, knocked twice and a man promptly opened it as if he were expecting them. “Special Agent Kaplan?” he asked.
Rainie bit her lower lip just in time. Wow, she thought. A Quincy clone.
Dr. Ennunzio wore a trim-fitting navy blue suit with proper Republican-red tie. In his mid-forties, he had the lean build of an avid runner and the intense gaze of an academic who always took work home at night. His short-cropped hair was dark, but beginning to gray at the temples. His manner was direct, his expression slightly impatient, and Rainie already had a feeling he considered this meeting a waste of his very valuable time.
Kaplan made the introductions. Ennunzio shook Rainie’s hand briefly, but paused with genuine sincerity in front of Quincy. Apparently, he was familiar with the former agent’s work.
Rainie simply kept gazing from the linguist to Quincy, back to the linguist. Maybe it was an FBI hiring requirement, she thought. You must wear these suits and have eyes this intense to ride this ride. That could be.
Ennunzio gestured to his cramped office, much too small to hold four grown adults, then ushered them back down the hallway to an unused conference room.