by Lisa Gardner
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, ling
ering 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.”
“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?”
“Re
fugee 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 sure 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.”
