by Andrew Mayne
I flip back and forth between the patterns. I have to sit down.
It’s the same pattern as a great white shark’s.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE PITCH EXPERIMENT
Analogies and maps can be dangerous things when you take them too literally. A map is just a representation of something. Even a photographic map can’t tell you if the terrain is now covered by snow, or if a morning rain has made a path too muddy to traverse.
Juniper’s killer’s circuit is like the hunting pattern of a great white shark, but only because the two of them have acquired similar behaviors.
Great whites don’t try to hide their kills, mainly because tuna don’t form police forces and seek revenge. But they’re careful to avoid overpredation in certain areas, lest the fish remember this is a bad spot. Killing too much sends a signal to the system to change its patterns—kind of like leaving bodies around would tell the cops that something is up.
Besides being careful not to overkill and create a disruption, sharks use camouflage, like our killer. The great white has countershading that helps it blend into the sea floor when looked at from above and appear invisible when looked at from below.
The killer—I don’t know what else to call him—almost certainly also has his own camouflage. He probably doesn’t attract too much attention to himself. By hiding the bodies or making the ones he can’t hide look like animal attacks, he cloaks his presence from prey who, just like a pod of seals, may not realize they have a killer in their midst until it’s too late.
Sharks also have a specialized organ called the ampulla of Lorenzini that enables them to sense the electrical activity of hiding prey and see through the blood in the water during a feeding frenzy.
Likewise, the killer probably has his own set of skills for spotting victims. He’s not just looking for a physical type—he’s seeking out a particular kind of vulnerability.
The Montana and Wyoming missing-persons reports only tell me about locals and people who were known to come through the area and vanished. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people visit during the summer to vacation and work at seasonal jobs.
Some of my students make money during semester breaks serving tables and staffing summer resorts like the ones here.
How many young people drift through this area on their own, without their parents knowing or caring where they are?
Based on this, the killer could have many, many more victims.
But right now it’s just conjecture.
The only way to see if a model has value is to use it to make a prediction you can test.
All I can guess with MAAT at this point is the approximate number of people who will go missing and the probability that within six years we’ll get another bear attack resembling Juniper’s and Rhea’s.
Six years is a long time. Some scientists wait their entire lives for the eruption of a volcano, the return of a comet, or some other infrequent event.
The most insane I’ve heard of is the pitch-drop experiment started at the University of Queensland in 1927. It’s a funnel of pitch designed to measure the material’s viscosity. Since the experiment started, only nine drops have fallen from the funnel, making the viscosity of pitch 230 billion times that of water. The two times a drop fell while a webcam was aimed at the experiment, technical problems prevented researchers from observing the rare event.
The longest-running experiment ever is a metal ball hanging on a thread between two metal bells. Each time it touches a bell, a battery gives it a charge and knocks it into the other bell, where it discharges the current.
I saw this myself while visiting Oxford for a conference. The ball vibrates almost imperceptibly between the bells, but you can see it with the naked eye.
It’s been doing that since 1840. Even the battery, a dry cell, is the same one installed almost two hundred years ago.
Science can require patience. But I can’t wait six years for Juniper’s killer to fake another bear attack.
I can’t even wait six days. The semester is starting, and I’m already going to be late for faculty meetings.
I could go to Parvel, the town near where Rhea was found, but the trail is probably cold. I don’t even know what a warm trail would look like.
And all I can imagine finding out is that her death looked a lot like Juniper’s.
What I need is some way to confirm at least part of my suspicions.
The suspicions—or rather, my assumptions—are that Juniper’s killer has done this multiple times and his attacks resemble an animal’s. I make a note to figure out what that means, precisely. All I know is that Detective Glenn initially thought a man might have been the suspect.
Knives?
I also believe that in most cases the body is never found.
So . . . all I need is an unreported animal attack and a body that was never found.
Yeah, easy . . .
I turn back to the missing-person dots projected on the wall. A couple of them are in the thick purple band of the killer’s circuit.
That doesn’t mean he’s responsible for any of them, but if you knew of two different seal-mating areas and there was a spot in between where seals were known to go missing, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to suspect there’s a shark that travels through there.
The most recent one was seventeen months ago in the town of Hudson Creek. A woman named Chelsea Buchorn was reported missing. A friend of hers, Amber Harrison, reported to the police that she thought her friend was abducted.
Harrison said they were walking through the woods and she lost track of Chelsea.
It’s a rather odd account. I can only find two news stories about what happened. The first one describes Amber as being agitated and telling conflicting stories. Police had no evidence of foul play and released her.
If I was going to try to read between the lines, it sounds like they went off into the woods to get really high. Amber wouldn’t be the most credible of witnesses if she was on something.
However, she and Chelsea would also make ideal victims.
Hudson Creek is a four-hour drive. I throw all my stuff into my Explorer and leave the room key with the clerk.
God knows why she imagines I needed a room for just four hours.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
HUDSON CREEK
Hudson Creek is a decaying strip of buildings on either side of the highway, clinging to the road like barnacles on a rotting pier. If this were an ecosystem, I’d say it was on the verge of collapse.
FOR SALE signs litter stretches of property with dilapidated buildings that look like they haven’t had two-legged occupants in years.
Occasionally I spot signs of life. Aluminum-sided trailers covered in faded paint with clothes dangling nearby on lines. Someone lives there, if this is what you can call living.
I’ve seen plenty of poverty in my travels. Not all of it radiates despair. I’ve been to slums where the electricity falters at night, but the live music keeps going. I’ve visited shantytowns where a new pair of shoes is as rare as a Tesla, yet people wear homespun clothes as vibrant as any I’ve seen.
Hudson Creek has none of that. There’s no new construction. No signs that the town is fighting for life.
The only things not falling apart are the shiny new cars I occasionally spot in weed-infested driveways.
These people have mixed-up priorities.
Or do they?
Would you invest in landscaping if you knew your property values were going to keep declining? Maybe it’s better to spend your money on an escape pod with leather seats and a Bluetooth system.
How people get the money for the fancy four-by-fours and Corvettes is beyond me.
I guess there’s always some kind of commerce. Once upon a time, Hudson Creek may have been a mining town or played some crucial role for the railroad.
Now? It’s a place between here and there.
Yet according to the purple trail MAAT had displayed, there’s a high prob
ability the killer has been through here. Several times. He’s driven down this same highway and stared out his window at the run-down houses I’m looking at.
Did he see it as a decaying carcass to be preyed upon?
The town where Juniper was staying was a smaller-scale Hudson Creek. Her motel had a burned-out neon sign and bare plywood on one side. Bryson’s Auto Repair was a junkyard that only functioned as a business because one person knew how to change tires and oil.
A tractor-trailer truck barrels around my car, frustrated at my gawking. I step on the accelerator and head toward what the GPS says is the city center of Hudson Creek.
Along the way I pass the only new construction I’ve seen for miles. It’s a huge service station catering to truckers. Next to it is a diner with a parking lot full of cars.
City hall may be a mile down the road, but this is clearly the center of what’s alive in this town.
When I seek answers as a biologist, it’s not too hard to know where to start. I can either call the local Fish and Wildlife office or the Farm Bureau.
In another country, I start with the biology department at the biggest university and then work my way through a network of connections until I can find someone who knows something about an arboreal rat or a species of flowering plants.
If I were a cop, I’d probably just roll into the nearest police station and ask to speak to the investigator in charge.
Having just been kicked out of the last police station I visited, I’m not too eager to do that.
However, there’s another resource I’ve used when I’m in a strange country and the locals are distrustful of strangers.
It’s never failed me. I don’t need my GPS to find it; I just have to watch for it. Even in as sad of a place as Hudson Creek, I’m sure I can find it.
Sure enough, I see a cross next to a small church. There’s an old Ford Focus in the parking lot.
In every country and every town I’ve been in, no matter how far away from civilization, I’ve always been able to find a priest, a nun, or an imam willing to help me out.
I decide to start my questions here and pull into the parking lot.
The church consists of three buildings attached by a covered walkway. When I knock on what looks like the office, there’s no answer. The other doors are locked.
I hear the sound of a lawn mower from the other side of the building. When I round the corner, I spot a man in a T-shirt on a John Deere, mowing the field that runs from the back of the church to a forest line.
I wave to him, and he cuts the engine. Thinning gray hair; he looks to be about sixty. We walk toward each other.
“What can I do for you?” he asks when we’re close enough not to have to shout.
“I was looking for the”—I do a quick glance back at the sign on the road to figure out what denomination of church this is; it’s Baptist—“minister.”
“You found him.” He wipes a grimy hand on his jeans and offers it to shake. “Call me Frank.”
“I’m Theo Cray. I’m a professor visiting from Texas.”
“Professor? Theology?”
“No. Bioinformatics.” I make feeble small talk because I don’t know how to get to the point.
“Is that like robotics?”
“No, sir. I’m a biologist who stares at a computer screen and sometimes goes out into the real world.”
“So what brings you here?”
“It’s a little complicated.”
He takes a look at his watch. “The good news is I’m due a break and a glass of tea right now. I can handle a little complicated and spare a glass. Follow me.” He steps past me and leads me toward the office. He asks over his shoulder, “What are the basics?”
“I want to ask about a girl that used to live here.”
“Who is that?”
“Chelsea Buchorn?”
He stops walking and faces me. The smile is gone from his face. “What exactly about Chelsea do you want to know?”
This stops me in my tracks. In biological terms, I’d describe his posture as suddenly defensive, if not hostile.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE LAWN MOWER MAN
I don’t know what to do. All I have is the truth. “I lost someone under similar circumstances.”
“You lost someone?” Some of the edge has left his voice.
“Yes. A student. I was looking for a connection.”
“A connection with Chelsea? Did they know each other?”
It’s a question I never even thought of. It seems unlikely, but it’s worth looking into. “I don’t know.”
“So why are you asking me?”
“I don’t know anyone here. I saw your church and thought you might know the people around here.”
His body relaxes. “Ah. I understand. Let’s go get the iced tea and I’ll tell you what I know. It’s not a lot. Chelsea wasn’t a member of our church.”
He leads me into his office. I take a seat opposite his desk while he pours two glasses of tea from a pitcher kept in a small refrigerator.
The room is small, lined with bookcases. A window overlooks the highway. Pictures of what look to be his children at different ages line the walls, along with various awards. His desk is cluttered with notepads and a laptop.
Frank moves a book out of the way and places a glass in front of me, then takes his seat behind the desk.
He takes a long sip, then cools his brow with the glass. “We used to have someone who did this. The lawn, that is. We used to have people do a lot of things around here.”
“I’d think someone would volunteer.”
He lets out a small laugh. “Not so much, these days.” He shrugs it off. “Who did you lose?”
“Her name was Juniper Parsons.”
“The girl that got killed by the bear?”
“Yes, her.” I’m about to blurt out my suspicions but decide to phrase things carefully. “That’s what they think. But I’ve heard there’s still some suspicious circumstances.”
“Suspicious? How?”
“They interviewed two people as potential suspects before they settled on the bear.” I don’t point out that one of those suspects is in the room. “I’ve heard they don’t all agree about the DNA evidence.” That’s true, if I’m included in that all.
“Interesting. So how is this connected to Chelsea?”
“I’m not sure. But she disappeared under similar circumstances.”
Frank shakes his head. “Chelsea didn’t disappear. She left town. Her friend—what’s her name, Amber—isn’t exactly what I’d call reliable. The pair of them had run away several times on their own before. They get caught up with the wrong boys. Or rather, they’re drawn to them. Either way, nobody here takes it seriously. Chelsea just moved on. It happens.”
“It’s serious enough for her to be on a missing-persons list.”
“They put her on there because of Amber’s mixed-up stories. Even Chelsea’s mother doesn’t believe it.”
“So you don’t think anything happened to her?”
“No. Not here, at least. She was a lot of trouble herself. Loved to make up stories. She probably loves the fact that some people think she’s a victim.”
“But you don’t?”
“I don’t know for sure. But she’d cleaned her stuff out of her apartment before she allegedly went missing. That sounds rather odd.”
“I hadn’t heard that.” Of course, if Chelsea was killed, the killer could’ve broken into her place and taken her things. I wouldn’t put that past someone forward thinking enough to bring grizzly hair to a crime scene.
Frank seems elusive about something, but he appears to genuinely believe that Chelsea skipped town.
For a man of God, he doesn’t seem to hold her or Amber in very high regard. Maybe in his eyes, they’re just another couple of lost causes in a town that makes a minister mow his own church lawn.
“Do you know of anyone around her age that’s left?”
“A f
ew. But it’s normal. There’s not much out here for young people. My kids live in Colorado and Vermont, but I wouldn’t call them missing. Even if they don’t call all that often.”
“How does your wife feel about that? Empty-nest syndrome?”
Frank’s face tightens. “She’s helping my oldest daughter in Colorado with her kids.”
I’ve been around enough broken families to catch the code words for a separated couple. Even in this day and age, that’s got to be embarrassing for a Baptist minister. A big part of what they do is relationship counseling. His own split might discredit him some in the eyes of his congregation. Even if not everyone is meant to stay together.
“You married? Or was Juniper close?” he asks me.
The question comes out of left field. “Me and Juniper? No. She was my student. Never married, either.”
“Sorry. I hear stories about professors. Don’t mind me.”
So do I. “Well, I haven’t seen her in years. Technically, she has her doctorate now and probably teaches—or taught—undergrads. So, it wouldn’t have been inappropriate, I guess. Not now . . .”
It’s a strange thought. In my mind I keep seeing the twenty-year-old girl awkwardly sitting next to me in the pizza parlor. She certainly looked a little older in her photos, but I wouldn’t call it aging. She was twenty-five. A little on the young side for me, but nothing that would have batted an eye on campus if she had a graduate degree and wasn’t one of my students anymore.
I shake the thought out of my head. I’m here because I feel paternal toward her, not because of some unspoken romantic feeling I had for her.
“Do you know how I could get in touch with Amber?”
“Amber? Why?”
“I just want to hear her side of the story.”
Frank releases a small groan. “She’s a piece of work. Trouble. She’s been arrested several times. Not exactly what I’d call reliable. Dishonest, to be more like it.”
He’s pretty judgmental for a man whose job is to help people find forgiveness. “Just the same, it’d give me some piece of mind.”
