The Killing Hour

  She remembered reading a book in high school, Lord of the Flies. According to one of the notations in the handy yellow Cliffs Notes, Lord of the Flies was really about a wet dream. Tina hadn’t gotten that part. Mostly she remembered the stranded kids turning into little savages, first taking on wild boars, then taking on one another. The book possessed a fearful edgy quality that was also definitely sexy. So maybe it was about wet dreams after all. She couldn’t tell if the guys in her class had read it with any more enthusiasm than they’d read the other literary classics.

  But that wasn’t really the point. The point was that Tina Krahn, knocked-up college student and madman’s current plaything, was finally getting a real-life lesson in literature. Who said high school didn’t teach you anything?

  She started mucking up first thing this morning, the sun already climbing in the sky and threatening to fry her like a bug caught in the glare of a magnifying glass. The mud stank to high heaven, but it sure did feel good against her flesh. It went on cool and thick, coating her festering skin with a thick layer of protection not even the damn mosquitoes could penetrate. It filled her nostrils with a putrid, musky smell. And it made her head practically swim with relief.

  The mud liked her. The mud would save her. The mud was her friend. Now she stared at the bubbling, popping mess and she wondered why she didn’t eat a handful as well. Her water was gone. Crackers, too. Her stomach had a too-tight, pained feeling, like she was on the verge of the world’s worst menstrual cramps. The baby was probably leaving her. She had been a bad mother, and now the baby wanted the mud, too.

  Was she crying? It was so hard to tell, with the heavy weight of drying filth on her cheeks.

  The mud was wet. It would feel so good sliding down her parched, ravenous throat. It would fill her stomach with a heavy, rotten mass. She could stop digesting her stomach lining, and dine on dirt instead.

  It would be so easy. Pick up another oozing handful. Slide it past her lips.

  Delirious, the voice in the back of her brain whispered. The heat and dehydration had finally taken their toll. She had chills even in the burning heat. The world swam uneasily every time she moved. Sometimes she found herself laughing, though she didn’t know why. Sometimes she sat and sobbed, though at least that made some kind of sense.

  The sores on her arms and legs had started moving this morning. She had squeezed one scabbed-over mass between her fingers, then watched in horror as four white maggots popped out. Her flesh was rotting. The bugs had already moved in to dine. It wouldn’t be much longer for her now.

  She dreamt of water, of ice-cold streams rippling over her skin. She dreamt of nice restaurants with white linen tablecloths, where four tuxedoed waiters brought her an endless supply of frosty water glasses, filled to the brim. She would dine on seared steak and twice-baked potatoes covered in melted cheese. She would eat marinated artichoke hearts straight from the container, until olive oil dribbled down her chin.

  She dreamt of a pale yellow nursery and a fuzzy head nestled at her breast.

  She dreamt of her mother, attending her funeral and standing alone next to her grave.

  If she closed her eyes, she could return to the world of her dreams. Let the maggots have her flesh. Let her body sink into the mud. Maybe when the end came, she wouldn’t even know anymore. She would just slide away, taking her baby with her.

  Tina’s eyes popped open. She forced her head up. Struggled to her feet. The world spun again, and she leaned against the boulder.

  No eating mud! No caving in. She was Tina Krahn and she was made of sterner stuff.

  Her breath came out in feeble gasps, her chest heaving with effort to inhale the overheated, muggy air. She staggered toward one vine-covered wall, watching a snake dart out of her way, hissing at her as it passed. Then she was braced against the wall, the vines cool against her muddy cheek.

  Her fingers patted the structure as if it were a good dog. Funny, the surface over here didn’t feel like rough cement. In fact . . .

  Tina pushed herself back. Her eyelids were terribly swollen; it was so hard to see. . . . She forced them wide with all of her might, while simultaneously pushing back the vines. Wood. This part of the rectangular pit was held up by wood. Railroad ties or something like that. Old, peeling railroad ties that were already rotting with age.

  Frantically, she dug her fingers into one visible hole. She tugged hard, and felt the meat of the lumber start to give way. She needed more strength. Something harder, a tool.

  A rock.

  Then she was down on her hands and knees, once again digging in the mud while her eyes took on a feverish light. She would find a rock. She would gouge out the boards. And then she would climb out of this pit, just like Spider Man. She would get to the top, she would find coolness, find water, find tender green things to eat.

  She, Tina Krahn, knocked-up college student and madman’s current plaything, would finally be free.

  Lloyd Armitage, USGS palynologist and Ray Lee Chee’s new best friend, met them shortly after noon. Five minutes later, Mac, Kimberly, and Nora Ray were piling into a conference room Armitage had set up as his traveling lab. It was a strange entourage, Mac thought, but then this was a strange case. Kimberly looked bone-tired but alert, wearing that slightly edgy look he’d come to know so well. Nora Ray was much harder to read. Her face was blank, shut down. She’d made a big decision, he thought, now she was trying not to think about it.

  “Ray Lee Chee says you’re working some kind of homicide case,” Armitage stated.

  “We have evidence from a scene,” Mac answered. “We need to trace it back to the original source. I’m afraid I can’t tell you much more than that, other than whatever you have to tell us, we needed to have heard it yesterday.”

  Armitage, an older man with bushy hair and a thick brown beard, arched a curling eyebrow. “So that’s how it is. Well, for the record, pollen analysis isn’t as specific as botany. Most of my job is taking soil samples from various field sites. Then I use a little bit of hydrochloric acid and a little bit of hydrofluoric acid to break apart the minerals in the sediment. Next, I run everything through sieves, mix that with zinc chloride, then place it in a medical centrifuge until voilà, I have a nice little sample of pollen, fresh from the great outdoors—or from several thousand years ago, as the case might be. At that point, I can identify the general plant family that deposited the pollen, but not a specific species. For example, I can tell you the pollen is from locust, but not that it’s from a bristly locust. Will that help?”

  “I’m not sure what a locust is,” Mac said. “So I guess whatever you discover, it’ll be more than what we knew before.”

  Armitage seemed to accept that. He held out his hand and Mac gave him the sample.

  “That’s not pollen,” the palynologist said immediately.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Too big. Pollen is roughly five to two hundred microns or considerably smaller than the width of human air. This is closer to the size of sediment.”

  The palynologist didn’t give up, however. He opened the glass vial, shook out a small section of the dusty residue onto a slide, then slid it under a microscope. “Huh,” he said. Then “huh” again.

  “It’s organic,” Armitage told them after another minute. “All one substance rather than a mix of various residues. Seems to be some kind of dust, but coarser.” His bushy head popped up. “Where did you find this?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”

  “Are there other samples you found with it?”

  “Water and uncooked rice.”

  “Rice? Why in heaven’s name did you find rice?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question. Got any theories?”

  Armitage frowned, wagged his eyebrows some more, then pursed his lips. “Tell me about the water. Have you brought it to a hydrologist?”

  “Brian Knowles examined it this morning. It has an extremely low pH, three-point-eight, and high . . . salinity,
I guess. It registers fifteen thousand microsiemens per centimeter, meaning there might be lots of minerals or ions present. Knowles believes it comes from a mine or was polluted by organic waste.”

  Armitage was nodding vigorously. “Yes, yes, he’s thinking the coal counties, isn’t he?”

  “I think so.”

  “Brian’s good. Close, just missed one thing.” Lloyd slid out the slide and then did the totally unexpected by dabbing his index finger into the sample and touching it to his tongue. “It’s unusually fine, that’s the problem. In its coarser form, you would have recognized it yourself.”

  “You know what it is?” Mac asked sharply.

  “Absolutely. It’s sawdust. Not pollen at all, but finely ground wood.”

  “I don’t get it,” Kimberly said.

  “Sawmill, my dear. In addition to coal mines, the southwestern part of the state also has a lot of timber industry. This sample is sawdust. And, if these samples are supposed to go together . . .”

  “We hope so,” Mac said.

  “Then your water’s pH is due to organic waste. See, if mill wastes are not disposed of properly, the organic matter leaches into a stream, where it leads to bacterial buildup, eventually suffocating all other life-forms. Has Brian tested the sample for bacteria yet?”

  “The amount’s too small.”

  “But the high salinity,” Armitage was muttering. “Must be minerals of some kind. Pity he can’t test it more.”

  “Wait a minute,” Kimberly said intently. “You’re saying this is from a mill, not a mine?”

  “Well, I don’t generally associate sawdust with coal mines. So yes, I’m going to say a lumber mill.”

  “But that could give you acidic water?”

  “Contamination is contamination, my dear. And with a pH reading of three-point-eight, your water came from an extremely contaminated source.”

  “But Knowles indicated this water is at a crisis,” Mac said. “Aren’t mills regulated for how they dispose of waste?”

  “In theory, yes. But then, there’s a lot of lumber mills in this state and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the smaller, backwoods operations fall through the cracks.”

  Nora Ray had finally perked up. She was looking at the palynologist with interest. “What if it were a closed mill?” she asked quietly. “Some place shut down, abandoned.” Her gaze flickered to Mac. “That would be his kind of place, you know. Remote and dangerous, like something from a B-grade horror movie.”

  “Oh, I’m sure there are plenty of abandoned mills in the state,” Armitage said. “Particularly in the coal counties. That’s not a very populated area. And, frankly, not a bad location for a horror movie.”

  “How so?” Mac asked.

  “It’s an impoverished area. Very rural. People first moved out there to get their own land and be free from government. Then the coal mines opened and attracted hordes of cheap labor, looking to make a living. Unfortunately, farming, timber, or mining hasn’t made anyone rich yet. Now you just have a broad expanse of bruised and battered land, housing a bruised and battered population. People still eke out a living, but it’s a hard life and the communities look it.”

  “So we’re back to seven counties,” Mac murmured.

  “That would be my guess.”

  “Nothing more you can tell us?”

  “Not from a minute sample of sawdust.”

  “Shit.” Seven counties. That just wasn’t specific enough. Maybe if they’d started yesterday or the day before. Maybe if they had hundreds of searchers or what the hell, the entire National Guard. But three people, two of them not even in law enforcement . . .

  “Mr. Armitage,” Kimberly spoke up suddenly. “Do you have a computer we can use? One with Internet access.”

  “Sure, I have my laptop.”

  Kimberly was already up out of her chair. Her gaze went to Mac and he was startled by the light he now saw blazing in her eyes. “Remember how Ray Lee Chee said there was an ology for everything?” she asked excitedly. “Well, I’m about to put him to the test. Give me the names of the seven coal-producing counties and I think I can find our rice!”

  CHAPTER 37

  Quantico, Virginia

  1:12 P.M.

  Temperature: 98 degrees

  DR. ENNUNZIO WAS NOT IN HIS OFFICE. A secretary promised to hunt him down, while Quincy and Rainie took a seat in the conference room. Quincy rifled through his files. Rainie stared at the wall. Periodically, sounds came from the hallway as various agents and admin assistants rushed by doing a day’s work.

  “It’s not that simple,” Quincy said abruptly.

  Rainie finally looked at him. As always, she didn’t need a segue to follow his line of thought. “I know.”

  “We’re not exactly spring chickens. You’re nearly forty, I’m pushing fifty-five. Even if we wanted to have kids, it doesn’t mean it would happen.”

  “I’ve been thinking of adopting. There are a lot of children out there who need a family. In this country, in other countries. Maybe I could give a child a good home.”

  “It’s a lot of work. Midnight feedings if you adopt an infant. Bonding issues if you adopt an older child. Children need the sun, the moon, and the stars at night. No more jetting around the world at the drop of a hat. No more dining at fine restaurants. You’d definitely have to cut back on work.”

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Don’t get me wrong, Quincy. I like the work that we do. But lately . . . it’s not enough for me. We go from dead body to dead body, crime scene to crime scene. Catch a psychopath today, hunt a new one tomorrow. It’s been six years, Quince. . . .” She looked down at the table. “If I do this, I’ll quit the practice. I’ve waited too long to have a child not to do it right.”

  “But you’re my partner,” he protested without thinking.

  “Consultants can be hired. Parents can’t.”

  He turned away, then tiredly shook his head. He didn’t know what to say. Perhaps it was only natural that someday she would want children. Rainie was younger than him, hadn’t already weathered the domestic storm that had been his pathetic attempt at domestic bliss. Maternal instincts were natural, particularly for a woman her age who was bound to be hearing the steady beat of her own biological clock.

  And for a moment, an image came to him. Rainie with a small bundle wrapped in her arms, cooing in that high-pitched voice everyone used with babies. Him, watching little feet and hands kick in the air. Catching that first giggle, seeing the first smile.

  But the other images inevitably followed. Coming home late from work and realizing your child was already in bed—again. The urgent phone calls that pulled you away from piano recitals and school plays. The way a five-year-old could break your heart by saying, “It’s okay, Daddy. I know you’ll be there next time.”

  The way children grew too fast. The way they could die too young. The way parenthood started with so much promise, but one day tasted like ashes in your mouth.

  And then he felt a hot, unexpected surge of anger toward Rainie. When he’d first met her, she’d said she never wanted marriage or kids. Her own childhood had been a dark, twisted tale, and she knew better than most to believe she could magically break the cycle. God knows, he’d asked her to marry him twice over the past six years, and each time she’d turned him down. “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” she’d told him. And each time, though it had hurt a little, stung more than he’d expected, he’d taken her at her word.

  But now she was changing the rules. Not enough to marry him, heaven forbid, but enough to want kids.

  “I’ve already served my time,” he said harshly.

  “I know, Quincy.” Her own voice was quiet, harder on him than if she had yelled. “I know you raised two girls and dealt with midnight feedings and adolescent angst and so much more. I know you’re at the phase of your life where you’re supposed to be looking forward to retirement, not your kid’s first day of kindergarten. I thought I would be there, too.
I honestly thought this would never be an issue. But then . . . Lately . . .” She gave a little shrug. “What can I say? Sometimes, even the best of us change our minds.”

  “I love you,” he tried one last time.

  “I love you, too,” Rainie replied, and he thought she’d never looked so sad.

  When Dr. Ennunzio finally strode into the room, the silence was definitely awkward and strained. He didn’t seem to notice, however. He came to an abrupt halt, a stack of manila files bulging under his arm. “Up,” he told them curtly. “Out. We’re taking a walk.”

  Quincy was already climbing out of his chair. Confused, Rainie was slower to follow suit.

  “You got a call,” Quincy said to Ennunzio.

  The agent shook his head warningly and looked up at the ceiling. Quincy got the message. Years ago, a BSU agent had spied on his fellow members of the FBI. Elaborate surveillance systems and audio devices were found snaking through the vast crawl space above the dropped ceiling. Better yet, when the FBI began to suspect espionage activity, they had responded by inserting their own surveillance devices and wiretaps to catch the man. In short, for a span of time—who knows how long—all the BSU agents were being watched by both the good guys and the bad. Nobody forgot those days easily.

  Quincy and Rainie followed Ennunzio to the stairwell, where he swiped his security badge over the scanner, then led them up to the great outdoors.

  “What the hell is going on?” the linguist asked the minute they were across the street from the building. Now their conversation was muffled by the steady sounds of gunfire.

  “I’m not sure.” Quincy held up his dead cell phone. “I’ve been a little out of touch.”

  Ennunzio shook his head. He looked decidedly frayed around the edges and not happy with how things had turned out. “I thought you guys were doing good. I thought by talking to you, I was assisting a major investigation. Not killing my own career.”

  “We are doing good. And I have every intention of catching this man.”