Killing Season

by Faye Kellerman

  It was as likely a scenario as the one that the cops had come up with: dragging her down the mountain and her losing the shoe but nothing else.

  As he walked down the hill, Ben was still trying to organize his brain because there was a problem with his thinking. Julia lived close to the trail. Julia was also a runner. Before she went on her jog, she most likely would have gone to the bathroom. And if the urge hit her, she’d probably have enough control to wait until she got home and could use a clean bathroom. Why would she go into a filthy outhouse unless it was an absolute emergency?

  And if she was having bladder or bowel problems, would she have really jogged that day?

  As much as he hated the idea, he went back to the outhouse, held his nose, and opened the door. He tried to put himself in Julia’s mind. Would she really have made a pit stop here?

  Ugh, as Ro would say.

  The wooden walls were rotting and the roof let in daylight. There was a toilet seat that covered the shit hole in the ground. He could understand a guy taking a piss in the cavity, but who in their right mind would sit on such a disgusting toilet seat? Maybe a guy in desperation but never, ever a girl. His eyes looked into the brown, mushy gap.

  And then he saw his answer.

  He felt faint.

  Still holding his nose, he left and quickly climbed down the hillside. He fast-walked along the jogging path, spying Nora and Ro on a bench, chatting away. It was good that Ro had come with him. Besides the fact that he loved her, it was also good because she was so adroit socially. He took in a deep breath of fresh air and let it out slowly. Did it again and again and again. He threw his shoulders back and put on his best bland expression. He went over to the bench.

  “Hey.” They both looked up. “I’m all done.”

  “Find anything?” Nora asked.

  Ben looked down. “I know this is going to sound odd . . .” He took in a breath and let it out. “On the day that Julia was abducted . . . did she by any chance . . . like, have her period?”

  Nora turned a ghastly shade of white. She dropped her head to her knees. Immediately Ben and Ro started fussing over her. She batted them away with her forearm. “Stop. I’m all right.”

  The next few moments passed in awful silence. Finally, Nora lifted her head. Ben had pulled out a water bottle from his backpack. He undid the top. “Here, Nora, take a drink.”

  “Thank you.” Nora took a sip, and then another sip. She exhaled forcefully but her intake of breath was still shallow. “I’m all right, thank you.”

  More time passed. She drank again. Then she looked at Ben. “Yes, she did have her period and it was unusually heavy.” Tears spilled out of her eyes. “I didn’t want her to go jogging, but she insisted.” More tears. “How’d you know? It wasn’t a lucky guess.”

  Ben rubbed his eyes. God, he felt tired . . . more than tired. He felt as if someone had taken a cudgel and whacked him over the head. “This is just a thought, Nora.”

  “Go on!” Her voice was stiff and harsh. He didn’t take offense.

  Ben said, “I don’t think the killer was thinking about pulling a random girl off the jogging trail. He’s a thinker . . . a planner. I think he was staking out the outhouse. The spot is hidden. Just as important, the killer can hide the victim behind the building for privacy.”

  “You think he raped her behind an outhouse?”

  “No, but I think that’s where he abducted her from.”

  When he stopped talking, Nora said, “You’re trying to protect me. But the more I know . . . you can be as blunt as you need to be, okay?”

  His eyes got moist. “Nora, I think he drugged her chemically . . . a rag to the nose until she passed out. I think he dragged her unconscious body up the hill to the street above. I walked the area. The road is filled with parked cars. It’s easy to hide behind them. I think he knew exactly where to park his car. When he got up there, he stowed her in the trunk but not before taking her shoe. And once she was locked up and knocked out, he went back to the trail and threw the shoe down the hill to throw the cops off. Then he went back up to his car and drove away.”

  Nora waited. “What does that have to do with her period?”

  Ben steeled himself. “Why would Julia have used an outhouse when she lived so close? It had to be an emergency, something she needed to do right away, and something that didn’t involve sitting on the toilet seat.” He felt himself go hot. “Ellen was older than I was, but I remember stuff about her.” He exhaled. “Sometimes girls leak and it’s embarrassing for them. When I looked down the toilet hole, I saw a few tampons.” He wiped his eyes. “She was probably leaking and she didn’t want to be embarrassed.”

  Chapter 5

  Once back at the motel, Ben started stuffing his meager belongings into his duffel. He was panting, his skin red and flushed. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

  “Our plane tickets aren’t until tomorrow,” Ro told him. “Besides, I haven’t seen Stanford.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass about Stanford, Ro. I need to get out of here. I can’t breathe, I can’t function, I can’t think, I can’t talk!” He turned on her. “It’s bad enough that I do what I do with my own sister. But to see someone else in misery like that and know I played a part in it . . . Uh-uh, never again!” He zipped up his duffel. “You do what you want. I’m leaving.”

  Ro stood there in a seedy motel of his choosing, staring at him with her arms crossed over her chest. “Go then.” The sound of her voice made him stop. “I’ll be fine. I’ll take care of the car and the motel bill and whatever else you leave behind in your wake. Unless you need the car to get to the airport. If so, I’ll rent something or take an Uber or a taxi.”

  He continued to look at her with vacant eyes. Eventually, he threw his duffel on one of the beds and plopped onto his back on the mattress. “I’m acting like an idiot.”

  Ro sat down next to him and took his hand. “I’m sorry you had to go through all that misery, Ben. I saw all the suffering in your eyes. For what it’s worth, I liked your theory.”

  “Doesn’t bring me any closer to who he is.”

  “Who they are?”

  “It’s only one killer. I’m sure of it.” He sat up. “Why do you put up with me? I’m not rich, I’m not a BMOC, I don’t play football, I’m not even all that cute.”

  “You’re very cute. And maybe I put up with you because I love you.”

  “Whatever for?” He spoke more to himself than to her. “I love you too. I love you and thank you very much for doing this for me.” He looked at his watch. It was past four. “Let’s grab an early dinner and call it a night.” He turned to her. “I’d be happy to see Stanford. It would be my pleasure to do something nice for you. We’ll stick to the plan.”

  “What does ‘call it a night’ mean to you?” Ro asked him.

  “What does it mean to you?”

  “It means doing something more than eating a greasy meal and reading bad pornography.” She smiled. “Maybe it means acting out our own pornography.”

  His smile was genuine. “I just thought . . . after last night and what happened today . . . that maybe the timing was off . . . what am I saying here?”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “Not at all. I’m trying to be nice.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard that nice guys finish last?”

  “You’re not too . . . sore?”

  “I’m like shredded beef, but probably most girls are after their first time. Don’t worry. It won’t last forever.”

  He stared at her. “You are amazing!”

  “I am. My only regret is I should have started with JD and worked my way up.” At that, Vicks doubled over in laughter. Then she said, “Actually, I should have started with my old boyfriend in Scarsdale and worked up from him.”

  He was still laughing. “He was small?”

  “Average.”

  “Uh . . . just how many have you seen?”

  She threw her arms around his neck
and kissed his mouth. “Enough to know that I hit the jackpot.”

  The following day was just as beautiful and made even better because they didn’t talk about death. Vicks was driving, and Ro was navigating via the GPS on her phone.

  “It’ll take about an hour either way. One way is to go through San Francisco via the 280. The other way is to go down the 580 through Sunnyvale and Silicon Valley.”

  “Any advantage or disadvantage in the routes?”

  “It’s basically one big circle because we’re leaving from Oakland International tonight. I say we try both routes. We have enough time.” It was half past ten in the morning and they had just checked out of the motel, both working on about five hours of sleep that had been segmented by lots of physical activity. When Ro had showered this morning, she could barely stand. “Let’s go through Silicon Valley. I, for one, would like to see Google or Facebook or Adobe or one of the many other Fortune 500 companies in the area.”

  “They’re just buildings, Ro, unless you want a tour or something like that. I never knew you were interested in high tech.”

  “I’m not. I’m just hoping that some nerdy millionaire will see my booty and have to have me at all costs.”

  “I’m sure you could find many nerdy millionaires to fight over you. Yeah, even billionaires.”

  “Probably. I do have an exceptionally fine booty.”

  Vicks smiled, steeped in a recent memory. “Well, you got the nerd part down with me. Sorry about not fulfilling the millionaire part. But I’ll be happy to go with you on a tour.”

  “No, I’ll pass. Whenever guys talk about technology, my eyes glaze over.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “You know, Vicks, you’re really not all that nerdy. I mean, you are all math and science, but for one thing, you are really cute. And I’m not the only one who thinks that.”

  “I know. Lisa Holloway.”

  “The slut!” Ro began to sulk. “You could probably nail her with a smile and a beckoning finger.”

  “I have no interest in banging Lisa Holloway.”

  “How could he do that to me!” She was mustering up newfound outrage at JD. “And doing Shannon Stork at the same time? God, what an asshole!”

  “Yeah, all true, but JD isn’t really a bad dude. He’s weak when it comes to sex.”

  “Why are you being so forgiving of him?”

  Vicks grinned. “Because I have you and he doesn’t.”

  She slapped his shoulder, looking at his profile—straight nose, nice chin, lots of gorgeous curls. “There’s something about you, Vicks. A long time ago, I suspect you had another life that wasn’t nerdy at all.”

  “Well, I did once have friends.”

  “Wanna tell me about it?” she asked. “We certainly have time.”

  “Nope. I’d rather tell you how beautiful you are.”

  “I already know that.” She gave a dismissive wave. “Boring.”

  “How about we talk about our favorite subject?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You. Tell me all about your life.”

  “Okay, you asked for it.” For Ro, it was always easier to talk about herself than anything else. She talked and talked. And then she talked some more. She talked until they detoured through the main drag of the town of Mountain View, one of the many homes of high tech in Silicon Valley. The street was lined by a slew of restaurants and cafés, and at eleven thirty, the sidewalks were dense with people, almost all of whom seemed to be under thirty. There were lots of seriously skinny guys wearing shorts and T-shirts and hoodies. There were also lots of girls wearing the same uniform. None of them—male or female—looked as if they’d ever done competitive sports or ever thought about fashion. It wasn’t that they had bad bodies or faces. With a little effort, some of them could have been cute. But by the way most of them carried themselves, it was clear that they didn’t seem to care a whit about how they looked.

  “These are definitely not my peeps,” Ro said. “Hard to believe that we’re the same species. But then again diamonds and carbon graphite have the same molecular composition.”

  “Good analogy,” Ben said. “You’re being a snob, by the way.”

  “No, I’m being superficial. These are your peeps, darlin’. God, with the way you look, you could probably get laid with a different girl every day.”

  “Thank you, I think, for the compliment. Just think about how well you’d do here.”

  “I’d be beating them off with a stick.”

  “You’d need a mace with a steel chain.”

  Ro grinned. “Well, I’m sure Facebook or Google or Adobe or LinkedIn would hire you in a heartbeat, especially with your experience at Circuitchip.”

  “I could get a job here, but this isn’t really my thing. I’m more physics than high tech.”

  “What about Stanford? Didn’t someone discover the Jason Biggs particle or something like that at Stanford?”

  Vicks started laughing. “The Higgs boson particle.”

  “Whatever . . . I don’t even know what all the fuss is about.”

  “Really simply put, it’s the particle responsible for all the matter in the universe. It was discovered at CERN in conjunction with the Fermi Institute in Chicago. But Stanford, like all the other labs, has been working on it for a long time.”

  “CERN?”

  “It’s a laboratory in Geneva. It has this huge particle accelerator—a Large Hadron Collider. All accelerators essentially do the same thing. They smash atoms against each other at high speed and see what subatomic particles are released. Some are linear and some are circular. CERN has the largest linear accelerator. It’s about seventeen miles long and was built underground. They’ve known for a while that there had to be a Higgs boson in the universe, but they couldn’t find them within the proper accuracy. I think they wanted something like point-zero-zero-zero-five significance so obviously it took a while to find something with that little room for error. Actually, they didn’t really prove it was there—the Higgs boson. What they did is prove that it was impossible that it didn’t exist.” He didn’t talk for a moment. “Your eyes are glazing over.”

  “’S’right. Your voice is lulling me to sleep.”

  Vicks laughed. “In my own nerdy way, I’m not really high tech. I mean, I like my computer but I’m not obsessed with video games or apps or social networking. I’m much less Facebook and way more Lawrence Liv—” He stopped talking, going silent and pale.

  “What is it?”

  “Shit!” he whispered. “Shit, I’m an idiot!”

  “Ben, you’re white. What is it?”

  Abruptly, he hung a steep right turn, almost mowing down an Asian girl and a chubby guy. Ro screamed, but he didn’t slow down until he found an empty parking spot. He yanked the wheel and pulled over to the curb, cutting off another driver who gave them a decidedly angry series of honks. Ro was trying to catch her breath as Ben muttered obscenities, most of them directed to himself. She gasped, “What is wrong with you?”

  He ignored the question, and reached over and pulled out his duffel from the back. Immediately, he took out his laptop. “What’s wrong? I’m a moron, that’s what’s wrong!” He pressed a key on his computer in rapid succession. “C’mon and connect, you stupid machine! There has to be some Wi-Fi somewhere in the stupid area!” Again, he pushed the key several times in a row.

  “You’re going to freeze your computer.”

  He slammed his laptop shut. “Give me your phone.”

  “How about a please?” When he didn’t answer, Ro gave it to him. Her heart was still beating like a machine gun. “You know you almost killed those two pedestrians, Ben.”

  He still didn’t respond because he didn’t hear anything. Too busy trying to extract something from the Internet. “How could I have missed it? I’m such a cretin.” He showed her a map on the phone. “Just listen, okay.” Silence. “Look at this. If you start out in Berkeley and take the 24 through Walnut Creek, you c
an reach Mount Diablo State Park. Then all you have to do is . . . hold on . . . go back on the 24 South until you hit the 680 South. Then you hit the 580 and you’re there.”

  “Where?”

  “Livermore, California.” He hit his forehead. “He was headed for Lawrence Livermore, Ro. The guy started out at Berkeley, abducted Julia, raped and killed her, buried her in Mount Diablo, and then went on his way to Lawrence Livermore, which was probably his ultimate destination.”

  No one spoke.

  Ben said, “Dorothy, Lawrence Livermore is not only a sister lab to Berkeley and all the UC campuses, as Lilly so aptly pointed out to me yesterday, it’s right next to a satellite lab of Sandia National Laboratories, where Katie Doogan was abducted, and most important, it’s a sister to Los Alamos, which is about ten miles from River Remez.” His eyes grew wide. “Don’t you see it? The murderer is traveling between the national government laboratories!”

  She was stunned into silence.

  “I’m such an idiot!” Ben reiterated.

  “What about Jamey Moore in Tennessee?”

  “Oak Ridge National Lab,” he said without hesitation. He started playing with the phone again. “Look here, Ro. The killer lands in Knoxville, which is the natural place to land if you’re going to Oak Ridge. But instead of going west to Oak Ridge, he abducts and kills Jamey Moore, goes south through Louisville, then east to the tip of the Smokies in Cosby, Tennessee. He buries her there, and then he turns back and heads for Oak Ridge. Or he kills her on the way back to Knoxville from Oak Ridge.” He plopped back in the driver’s seat and hit his head. “It’s so obvious.”

  “Okay . . .” Ro was trying to process what he had just told her. “How many other labs are there in the country?”