The Killing Hour (17 page)

“Die, die, die,” she gasped. And they did. She felt plump, overfed bodies explode between her fingers, staining her palms with her own blood as she took out dozens. Then hundreds more insects swooped in to take their place, biting painfully at her tender skin.

She was crying now. She gasped for breath. Then in the middle of her frenzy, the inevitable happened. Her stomach rolled, she got down on her hands and knees, and then she vomited over the edge of the rock into the foul-smelling muck below.

Water. Green bile. Precious little food. Her stomach contracted anyway, her head dropping between her shoulders as she dry-heaved. The mosquitoes used the opportunity to swarm her shoulders, her elbows, her calves. She was being eaten alive, and there wasn’t a thing she could do to save herself.

Minutes passed. The knot eased in her stomach. The cramping nausea released its hold on her bowels. Shakily, she straightened, brushing back her long, sweaty hair, and feeling new welts already raise up on her ears.

The mosquitoes danced in front of her eyes, seeking skin. She batted them away, but her movements were already halfhearted, the actions of a woman who realized she was no match for the enemy. She could kill hundreds of insects. A thousand would simply take their place. Oh God . . .

Her throat burned. Her skin felt as if it were on fire. She raised her trembling hands to her face and saw that they were also covered in red, angry bites. Then her gaze went all the way up to white-hot sky, where the sun was already starting to blaze overhead. The dog crate was gone. Instead, from all appearances she had been cast into some kind of swampy pit, fodder for insects, snakes, and God knows what.

“Good news,” Tina whispered to herself. “He’s not a sexually deranged pervert after all.”

And then she started to laugh. And then she started to cry. And then she whispered in a voice probably heard only by the mosquitoes and snakes, “I’m so sorry, Ma. Oh God, somebody, get me out of here quick.”

CHAPTER 20

Quantico, Virginia
10:08
A
.
M
.
Temperature: 91 degrees

AT EIGHT A.M., SPECIAL AGENT KAPLAN
escorted Rainie and Quincy to the roped-off crime scene where the victim had been found yesterday morning. At eight-ten, Kaplan took off to attend to his own tasks for the day, leaving Rainie and Quincy alone. That was fine by Quincy. He liked to walk a scene unescorted, without the murmur of voices, incessant clicking of cameras, or the needling scratch of pencil on paper to divert his attention. Death inevitably took on a life of its own, and Quincy preferred the calm after the storm. When all the other investigators had left and he could be alone with his musings.

Rainie stood a good thirty feet away from him, walking soundlessly around the fringes of the forest. She was used to his ways by now, and worked as quietly as he did. They had been at this for two hours already, falling seamlessly into the usual grid pattern, slowly and methodically dissecting each inch of the roped-off area, and then, because even the best cops missed things, moving outside of the cordoned-off space, searching for what the others might have missed, for that one clue which would magically bring it all together. If such a thing really existed.

Underneath the relative shade of the thick oak trees, the heat hammered down on them relentlessly. They shared one bottle of water, then another, and were now almost done with the lukewarm third. Quincy’s white dress shirt, sharply pressed just this morning, was now plastered against his chest while thin trickles of sweat beaded down his face. His fingers left damp stains on his small notepad while his pencil slid wetly between his fingers.

It was a brutal morning, serving as a brutal start to what would be no doubt an extremely brutal day. Was this what the killer wanted? Overheated law enforcement officers struggling to function in damp, unbearable weather that glued their uniforms to their bodies and robbed them of breath? Some killers picked extremely harsh or disgusting places to dump bodies because they relished the thought of homicide detectives picking through Dumpsters or wading through swamps. First they humiliated the victims. Then they reveled in the thought of what they could do to the police.

Quincy stopped and turned once more, frowning in spite of himself. He wanted to know this space. He wanted to
feel
this space. He wanted a glimpse into why, of all places on this nearly four-hundred-acre base, had the killer dumped the body
here
.

The area was sheltered, the thick canopy of trees making the path invisible at night. The path itself was wide enough for a car, but four tires would have definitely left at least a faint impression and there was none. No, their unidentified subject—UNSUB—had selected a spot half a mile from the road. And then he’d walked that half mile in pitch-black night while staggering beneath the awkward weight of a hundred-and-ten-pound body. Surely there were dozens of spots more accessible and less physically demanding.

So again: Why had their UNSUB chosen here?

Quincy was beginning to have some ideas. He’d bet Rainie would also have a few opinions on the subject.

“How are you making out?” Kaplan called out.

He was coming down the dirt path, looking fresher than they did, so wherever he’d been, it had had air-conditioning. Quincy found himself resentful already.

“Brought you bug spray,” Kaplan said merrily.

“You’re the king of men,” Quincy assured him. “Now look behind you.”

Kaplan obediently stopped and looked behind him. “I don’t see anything.”

“Exactly.”

“Huh?”

“Look down,” Rainie said impatiently, from twenty feet back. “Check out your footsteps.”

Rainie had pulled her heavy chestnut hair back in a ponytail first thing this morning. It had come loose about an hour ago and was now plastered in sweaty tendrils against her neck. She looked wild, her hair curly with the humidity and her gray eyes nearly black with the heat. Having grown up on the Oregon coast with its relatively mild climate, Rainie absolutely loathed high heat and humidity. Quincy figured he had about another hour before she’d be driven to violence.

“There aren’t any footsteps,” Kaplan said.

“Exactly.” Quincy sighed and finally pulled his attention away from the scene. “According to reports on the Weather Channel, this area received two inches of rain five days ago. And if you venture off the path into the woods, there are patches where the ground is still marshy and soft to the touch. The thick trees protect the dirt from baking in the sun, plus I don’t think much can dry out given this humidity.”

“But the path is solid.”

“Yes. Apparently, nothing hard-packs soil quite like the daily grind of a few hundred pounding Marine and FBI trainees. The path is hard as a rock. It would take more than a two-hundred-pound person, plus a hundred-pound body, to dent it now.”

Kaplan frowned at them both, still obviously confused. “I already said there weren’t any footprints. We looked.”

Quincy wanted to sigh again. He so preferred working with Rainie, who was now regarding the NCIS special agent with a fresh level of annoyance.

“If you simply walked off the road into the woods around here, what would happen?”

“The ground is still soft; you’d leave a footprint.”

“So to a casual visitor, the woods are marshy?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“And what’s thirty feet to my left?” Quincy asked crisply.

“The PT course.”

“The paved PT course.”

“Sure, the paved PT course.”

Quincy looked at him. “If you were carrying a body into the woods, wouldn’t you take the paved path? The one that offered you better footing? The one that would be guaranteed not to leave footprints, given the soft soil you see all around?”

“The wooded path has less traffic,” Kaplan said slowly. “He’s better hidden.”

“According to the ME’s report, the UNSUB probably dumped the body in the small hours of the morning. Given the late hour, the man’s already well hidden. Why take the dirt path? Why risk footprints?”

“He’s not very bright?” But Kaplan was no longer convinced.

Rainie shook her head impatiently, crossing over to them. “The UNSUB knew. He’s been on this path. He knew the ground was hard and would protect him, while the wide scope makes it less likely he’d bump the body against a tree limb or accidentally leave a scrap of fabric on a twig. Face it, Kaplan. The UNSUB isn’t some random guy. He knows this place. Hell, he’s probably run this course sometime in the last five days.”

Kaplan was clearly discouraged as they trudged back to the Academy.

“I spoke with the four Marines on duty Tuesday night,” he reported. “They had nothing out of the ordinary. No unusual vehicles, no suspicious drivers. Only thing they could think of was that it was a particularly busy night. A bunch of the National Academy students had hightailed it for air-conditioned bars, so they had cars coming and going right up until two
A
.
M
. Everyone showed proper ID, however. Nothing stood out in their minds.”

“Do they keep a log of who comes and goes?” Rainie asked, walking beside Quincy.

“No. All drivers have to show proper security passes, however. The Marine sentries may also ask for a license and the driver’s final destination.”

“What does a security pass look like?”

Kaplan gestured to Rainie’s shirt, where a white plastic card dangled from her collar. “It looks like that, except in a variety of colors. Some are blue, some are white, some yellow. Each color indicates a certain level of clearance. A yellow card indicates an unescorted guest pass, someone who’s allowed full access. We also have cards reading Escorted Guests, which means they wouldn’t be allowed back onto the base without being in the company of the proper person. That sort of thing.”

Rainie glanced down. “They don’t look that complicated to me. Couldn’t someone just swipe one?”

“You have to sign a badge in and out. And believe me, the FBI police keep tabs on that sort of thing. None of us would feel particularly good if just any Tom, Dick, or Harry could swipe a card.”

“Just asking,” Rainie said mildly.

Kaplan scowled at her anyway. Their earlier conversation had obviously wounded his ego. “You can’t steal a badge. You can’t just walk onto this base. For God’s sake, we take this kind of thing very seriously. Look, you’re probably right. It probably is an insider. Which really depresses me, though I don’t know why. If all the good guys were really good people, I wouldn’t have a job, would I?”

“That’s not an encouraging thought,” Rainie said.

“Ma’am, it’s the worst thought in the world.” He glanced at Quincy. “You know, I’ve been thinking . . . Given the lack of sexual assault, and that the ‘weapon,’ so to speak, was a drug, shouldn’t we be looking at women, too?”

“No,” Quincy said.

“But women are the ones who predominantly kill with poison. And the lack of sexual assault bothers me. A guy doesn’t just OD a woman and dump her body in the woods. Men are sexual predators. And did you see how this girl was dressed?”

Quincy drew up short. “The victim,” he said curtly, “was wearing a short skirt, not uncommon for this time of year. To imply that a certain manner of dress invites sexual assault—”

“That’s not what I was saying!” Kaplan interrupted immediately.

“It’s not about sex for any predator,” Quincy continued as if Kaplan hadn’t spoken. “It’s about power. We’ve had many serial killers who were not sexual-sadist predators. Berkowitz, for one, was strictly a triggerman, so to speak. He picked his victims, walked up to the car, opened fire on the couple, and walked away. Kaczynski was content to kill and maim long-distance. Even more recently, we had the Beltway Snipers, who held most of the East Coast in absolute terror by picking off victims from the trunk of their car. Murder isn’t about sex. It’s about power. And in this context, then, drugs make perfect sense, as drugs are weapons of control.”

“Besides,” Rainie spoke up, “there’s no way a woman carried a dead body half a mile into the woods. We don’t have that kind of upper-body strength.”

They finally emerged from the relative comfort of the woods. Immediately, the sun struck them like a ball-peen hammer while waves of heat shimmered above the paved road.

“Holy Lord,” Kaplan said. “And it’s not even noon.”

“It’s going to be a hot one,” Quincy murmured.

And Rainie said, “Fuck the Academy, I’m putting on shorts.”

“One last thing,” Kaplan said, holding up a hand. “Something you should both know.”

Rainie halted with an impatient sigh. Quincy waited with a far more prescient sense of something significant about to break.

“We have the tox report back on the victim. Two drugs were found in her system. A small dose of ketamine, and a significantly larger dose—no doubt lethal dose—of the benzodiazepine, Ativan. In other words . . .”

“Special Agent McCormack listed them both last night,” Quincy murmured.

“Yeah,” Kaplan said slowly. “McCormack knew the drugs. Now how about that?”

CHAPTER 21

Quantico, Virginia
11:48
A
.
M
.
Temperature: 95 degrees

MAC DROVE UNTIL THEY
’
D LEFT THE CONCRETE COLUMNS
of Richmond behind them. He headed west on Interstate 64, where a towering line of dark green mountains stood out in vivid contrast to the bright blue sky and drew them steadily forward.

They stopped at Texaco for gas. Then they stopped at a Wal-Mart to cover the essentials: bug spray, first-aid kit, hiking socks, energy bars, chocolate bars, extra water bottles, and a whole case of water. Mac already had a compass, Swiss army knife, and waterproof matches in his backpack. They grabbed an extra set for Kimberly to carry, just in case.

When they returned to his rented Toyota, Mac discovered a message on his cell phone from Ray Lee Chee. The botanist, Kathy Levine, would meet them at Big Meadows Lodge in the Shenandoah National Park at one-thirty. Without a word, they started driving again.

Cities came and went. Major housing developments bloomed alongside the road, then slowly withered away. They headed deeper west, where the land opened up like an emerald sea and took Mac’s breath away.

“God’s country,” his father would say. There wasn’t much of this kind of land left.

As Kimberly navigated, they turned off the interstate for the rolling lanes of U.S. 15, leading to U.S. 33. They swept by vast fields, each dotted by a single redbrick ranch house with a fresh-painted white porch. They passed dairy farms, horse stables, vineyards, and agricultural spreads.

Outside the car, everything took on a green hue, a rolling patchwork of square fields seamed by groves of dark green trees. They passed horses and cows. They came upon tiny towns defined by run-down delis, old gas stations, and pristine Baptist churches. Then, in the blink of an eye, the towns disappeared and they headed deeper into the growing shade cast by a towering mountain range. Slowly but surely, they started to climb.

Kimberly had been quiet since their meeting with the geologist. Her visor was down, casting a shadow across the top half of her face and making it difficult to read her expression.

Mac was worried about her. She’d shown up bright and early this morning with the gaunt cheeks and feverish eyes of a woman who’d had little sleep. She wore linen trousers, topped with a white dress shirt and matching linen jacket. The outfit looked sharp and professional, but he suspected she’d chosen the long pants to hide her knife, and the jacket to cover the discreet bulge of the Glock strapped to her waist. In other words, she was a woman going to war.

He suspected she went to war a lot. He suspected that since the deaths of her mother and sister, life for her had essentially been one long battle. The thought pained him in a way he hadn’t expected.

“It’s beautiful,” he said at last.

She finally shifted in her seat, giving him a brief glance before stretching out her legs. “Yes.”

“You like the mountains? Or are you a city gal?”

She shook her head. “City gal. Technically speaking, I grew up in Alexandria, close to these mountains. But Alexandria functions more as a suburb of D.C. than Richmond. And let’s just say my mother’s interests ran more to the Smithsonian Institution than the Shenandoah Mountains. Then I went off to school in New York. You?”

“I love mountains. Hell, I love rivers, fields, orchards, streams, woods, you name it. I was lucky growing up. My grandparents—my mother’s parents—own a hundred-acre peach orchard. As their kids married, they gifted each one with three acres of land to build a home; that way all the siblings could live close by. Basically, my sister and I grew up in booneyville, surrounded by a dozen cousins, and a ton of open space. Each day my mom would kick us out of the house, tell us not to die, and come home in time for dinner. So we did.”

“You must have liked your cousins.”

“Nah, we annoyed the snot out of each other. But that was half the fun. We made up games, we got into trouble. We basically ran around like heathens. And then at night,” he slanted her a look, “we played board games.”

“Your whole family? Every night?” Her voice was skeptical.

“Yep. We’d rotate around each aunt and uncle’s house and off we’d go. My mom started it. She hates TV, thinks it rots the brain. The Boob Tube, she calls it. When I turned twelve, she threw ours out. I’m not sure my father’s ever recovered from the loss, but after that we had to do something to pass the time.”

“So you played games?”

“All the good ones. Monopoly, Scrabble, Yahtzee, Boggle, Life, and my personal favorite, Risk.”

Kimberly raised a brow. “And who won?”

“I did, of course.”

“I believe that,” she said seriously. “You attempt this whole laid-back Southern routine, but deep down inside, you’re a natural-born competitor. I can see it every time you talk about this case. You don’t like to lose.”

“The person who said there are no winners or losers obviously lost.”

“I’m not disagreeing.”

His lips curved. “I didn’t think you would.”

“My family didn’t play board games,” she volunteered finally. “We read books.”

“Serious stuff or fun stuff?”

“Serious, of course. At least when my mother was watching. After lights out, however, Mandy used to sneak in copies of Sweet Valley High. We’d read them under the covers using a flashlight. Oh, we giggled ourselves sick.”

“Sweet Valley High? And here I figured you for a Nancy Drew kind of gal.”

“I liked Nancy, but Mandy was better at smuggling contraband, and she preferred Sweet Valley High. And booze for that matter, but that’s another story.”

“You rebel.”

“We all have our moments. So.” She turned toward him. “Big charming Southern man. You ever been in love?”

“Uh oh.”

She stared at him intently, and he finally relented with a sigh. “Yeah. Once. One of my sister’s friends. She set us up, we hit it off, and things went pretty well for a while.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s no kind of answer.”

“Honey, coming from a man, that’s the only kind of answer.”

She resumed staring and he caved again. “I was probably an idiot. Rachel was a nice girl. Funny, athletic, sweet. She taught second grade and was really good with kids. I certainly could’ve done worse.”

“So you ended it, broke your sister’s best friend’s heart?”

He shrugged. “More like I let it trickle out. Rachel was the kind of girl a guy should marry, then settle down and raise two point two kids. I wasn’t there yet. You know how this job is. You get a call, you have to go. And God knows when you’re comin’ home. I had visions of her waiting more and more and smiling less and less. It didn’t seem the thing to do.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Honestly, I hadn’t thought of her in years.”

“Why? She sounds perfect.”

Mac shot her an impatient glance. “Nobody’s perfect, Kimberly, and if you must know, we did have a problem. A significant problem, in my mind. We never fought.”

“You never fought?”

“Never. And a man and woman should fight. Frankly, they should have a good head-to-head battle about every six months, then make love until they break the box springs. At least that’s my opinion. Your turn. What was his name?”

“I don’t have a name.”

“Honey, everyone’s got a name. The boy you sat behind in math class. The college quarterback who got away. Your sister’s boyfriend who you secretly wished was your own. Come on. Confession’s good for the soul.”

“And I still don’t have a name. Honest. I’ve never been in love. I don’t think I’m the type.”

He frowned at her. “Everyone falls in love.”

“That’s not true,” she countered immediately. “Love’s not for everyone. There are people who live their whole lives alone and are very happy that way. To fall in love . . . It involves giving. It involves weakening. I’m not very good at that.”

Mac gave her a slow, lingering look. “Ah, honey, you obviously haven’t met the right man yet.”

Kimberly’s cheeks grew red. She turned away from him and resumed staring out the window. The road was steep now; they’d officially hit the Blue Ridge Mountains and were now making the grinding climb through Swift Run Gap. They zigzagged around sharp corners, getting teasing glimpses of million-dollar views. Then they were up the side, cresting at twenty-four hundred feet and watching the world open up like a deep green blanket. Before them, green valleys plunged, gray granite soared, and blue sky stretched for as far as the eye could see.

“Wow,” Kimberly said simply and Mac couldn’t think of a better response.

He took the entrance into the Shenandoah National Park. He paid the fee and in turn they got a map of all the various lookout points. They headed north, toward Big Meadows, on Skyline Drive.

The going was slower here, the speed limit a steady 35 mph, which was just as well because suddenly there were a million things to see and not nearly enough time to look. Wild grass bordered the winding road, thickly dotted with yellow and white flowers, while deeper in the woods a vast array of ferns spread out like a thick green carpet. Towering oak trees and majestic beeches wove their branches overhead, breaking the sun into a dozen pieces of gold. A yellow butterfly darted in front of them. Kimberly gasped, and Mac turned just in time to see a mother and fawn cross the road behind them.

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.”