Time of Departure (12 page)

Once you knew Lipinski for what he was, it all made a sick kind of sense.

“No,” I replied. “I don't need to see it. Discussion over.”

I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. I could feel Marc watching me.

I finally spoke, with my eyes still closed. “Eight girls. Four in 1977; four in 1978. But the frequency of disappearances was increasing. Three months apart, then two months apart, then varying from a few weeks to a month. Profilers say that's what they often see in these cases. The perp keeps getting away with it. He becomes more and more emboldened, and his cooling-off period gets shorter and shorter. Eventually, like Bundy, he becomes completely reckless and gets caught.” I opened my eyes. “But not in this case. After Mandy Jordan, the guy just stops. Why?”

“Something happened. Something he never expected.”

“Maybe he moved away and started somewhere else.”

“The FBI were monitoring for that. Nowadays, they probably have computer programs that do it.”

“He could have died.”

“Maybe.”

“Or he could have gone to prison for something unrelated, so no one made a connection.”

“Possible.”

“It sounds like you don't think it was any of those.”

“I don't. I think he's still out there.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Call it a hunch.”

“So all this is here”—I waved my arm, taking in the cluttered room—“and
I'm
here, because of a hunch?”

“Do you want to back out?”

I guessed he knew what my answer would be, but I didn't want to give him the satisfaction. I unfolded the map he had sent to me with the missing person files. I had already concluded that the red lines traced within each black circle represented the likely walking route of each girl on the day she disappeared:
S
for “start,” and
F
for his best guess as to “finish.” The binders had contained plans of the same areas, each taken from the relevant municipal survey map, showing the routes in detail.

I tapped a finger on the map. “What were you doing here?”

“Not sure. Looking for a pattern.”

I chewed on my lip, thinking. “Have you heard of geographic profiling?”

He shook his head.

“It's sort of new. Not really new, but probably after your time. I've never had a case that used it, but I've read about them. The police in Canada used it to track down a serial rapist. Then the FBI's Investigative Support Unit latched on to it. It's based on mapping criminal activity patterns. If you invert the data, it can sometimes point to the area where the offender lives.”

“Or lived.”

“These days, there are software programs that can do the analysis, but we'd need someone who's trained to use them,” I said. “Or we'd need help from the FBI.”

“Which means we'd have to go through Lipinski,” Marc said, looking ill.

“Fuck that,” I said.

“Nice language.”

“I've got an idea.”

Marc smiled. “So, I take it you're not backing out.”

*   *   *

I must have fallen asleep. Somewhere beyond the horizons of my dream, I heard a phone. It sounded like my own phone's ringtone. I surfaced slowly. The ringing got louder. I woke up to find my face buried in my arms. I was still at the worktable. I sat up quickly, and paid for my haste with a sharp twinge in my neck. I discovered that a blanket had been draped around my shoulders.

Marc appeared in the doorway as I was fumbling for my phone. I answered groggily. “This is Claire.”

“Claire, this is Terry.”

“Hi, Terry. What's up?”

“Sorry, did I wake you?”

“No. Just dozing … on the couch.”

“Okay. Listen, this is a bit unorthodox, but…”

“What is it?”

“I've discovered something about that old case that will interest you. Can we meet? I mean, off-reservation. There's something going on you should know about.”

“Sure. When?”

“Tonight?”

I looked at my watch. “Okay.”

“Another thing … you know Marc Hastings?”

I hesitated. “Yes.” My eyes shifted to Marc, who was leaning on his desk, listening.

“He told me I could call you if I wanted to get a message to him.”

“Oh, did he? When was that?”

“A while back. Can you contact him?”

“Maybe.”

“Tell him he might want to come.”

We arranged a time and place to meet and I hung up. “Why did you tell Terry Snead to call me if he wanted to reach you? Now he knows about our little alliance! If he talks to Sam…” I didn't need to finish.

“He won't.”

“And you know that how?”

“I just know. Trust me.”

I sighed.

 

16

The 1982 Bar on West University Avenue was an “all ages welcome” establishment that featured old video games like Sega and Nintendo for retro-obsessed game nerds, stand-up comedy, costumed karaoke, and other bumptious entertainments guaranteed to discourage off-duty CID detectives from dropping in for a beer after their shift. In other words, it was an inspired venue choice for our meeting with Terry Snead.

When we arrived, Terry was already there, slouched in a back booth with a draft beer in front of him, playing
Super Mario Bros.
on a built-in console. We slid in across from him. As he looked from Marc's face to mine and back again, I thought I detected a glint of jealousy, as if Marc and I were somehow now a couple and Terry resented losing his chance with me.

The look vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Terry dropped the game remote back in its slot. “Claire … Marc … glad you came.”

I thought I'd better clear something up right at the start. “Whatever this is, have you already told CID? I don't want any problems.”

“Yes. Everything I'm going to tell you, they already know.”

“Okay.”

“But I want to warn you. Lipinski's been talking to your boss. He complained about your visit to his office the other day. He thinks you're encroaching on his turf.”

“Sam hasn't mentioned any complaint.”

“Sam respects you too much to let Lipinski stir up trouble in his office. But just be careful.”

“I will.”

“And, Marc, he came to the lab this morning and grilled me about your visits.”

“Visits?” I turned to Marc. “As in, the plural?”

Marc looked sheepish.

“He's got some issue about you,” Terry continued.

“I know he does. Thanks.”

A waitress appeared. Marc gestured at Terry's beer and said, “I'll have one of those, please. And the lady will have a margarita, Casa Noble if you have it, on the rocks, no salt.”

The waitress was gone before I could open my mouth. I frowned at Marc. “I don't remember telling you what I wanted to drink.”

“Sorry. What would you have ordered?”

“Uh … that, probably, but…” Marc grinned, which pissed me off. “Please stop doing that!”

He played innocent. “Doing what?”

I sighed and turned back to Terry, who had been following our exchange with an expression of faint bewilderment. “Sorry,” I said. “Just tell us what you've got.”

He dipped a hand into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small ziplock bag. He opened it and removed a greenish-brown object. It appeared to be some kind of seedpod from a plant.

“I got this from a guy I know at the EPA.” He looked at Marc. “Hold out your hand.”

Marc complied. Terry split the pod open and four small red seeds dropped into Marc's palm. Each seed bore a black spot.

“The seed in the locket!” I exclaimed.

“Correct. These are crab's eye peas, also known as rosary peas. Latin name:
Abrus precatorius
. Their pulp contains a deadly toxin called abrin.”

I picked one of the seeds off Marc's palm and rolled it between my fingers. It was ovoid, with a hard shell. It was deep red in color, except for the black spot, which covered one end of the ovoid shape. It looked exactly like a crab's eye.

“How deadly is the poison?” Marc asked.

Terry's expression turned somber. “You've heard of ricin?”

“Yeah,” Marc replied, startled. “We've been hearing a lot about it since 9/11. It's made from castor beans, isn't it?”

“That's right. But this toxin is a hundred times more lethal than ricin. As you can see, the pea has a hard shell. You could swallow a dozen of those and they'd just pass through you. But if you cracked the shell before you swallowed—and I mean just the shell of one seed—you'd be dead in forty-eight hours. Pretty scary, considering how small they are.”

The waitress arrived with our drinks. She glanced curiously at the seeds lying in Marc's upraised palm. We stopped talking while she set down our drinks.

“What about an antidote?” I asked after the girl left.

Terry shook his head.

Marc looked incredulous. “No antidote?”

“No antidote. The toxin blocks protein synthesis. It destroys your organs. You die from the inside out. And I'm told it isn't pretty!”

I sipped from my drink. “So, one of those girls had a locket and inside that locket was a poisonous pea. Where does that take us?”

“I'm not sure where it will take you, but it might take you further than Lipinski. When I told him what I'm about to tell you, he just gave me a blank look. That's one of the reasons I called you. I had a feeling you two would be more motivated.” Terry took a swallow of beer. “Listen to this: We ran bone marrow assays on both skeletons, and what we discovered was that Amanda Jordan had ingested a lot of this toxin before she died. And when I say ‘a lot,' I mean a
lethal
dose. But even weirder … it had to have been administered over time. To get levels that high in your bone marrow, you'd have to be given a series of tiny doses—nonlethal doses, but probably increasing over time.”

“In other words, she was kept alive for a set period,” Marc said. His expression darkened. “In other words…”

He trailed off, so I finished the thought. “In other words, he was probably a sexual sadist.”

“Was…?” Marc rejoined. Or,
is
?”

We were all silent for a second.

“What you've described would require some kind of expertise.” I said. “Maybe we should be looking for someone who was a pharmacist, or a med lab tech—someone with specialized training.”

“Not necessarily,” Terry replied. “There was no Internet back then, but any reasonably intelligent person could learn enough from a textbook.”

“Are there textbooks on poisons?”

“Yes, and that's a possibility, but books like that tend to be found in toxicology labs. They're not usually found in public libraries. A textbook on homeopathy would be more likely because it would explain systems of serial dilution that anyone could learn.”

“Do you believe in that stuff?”

“No, but I've read a few papers on their dilution process. It's absolutely central to their treatment approach, and it's not difficult to follow.”

“You haven't mentioned the results for Jane Doe.”

“No toxin. Not a trace. But, then … she was shot.”

“That's why I thought she was the journalist.”

“The apparent age fits,” Terry responded. “But her dental chart doesn't.”

“Lipinski thinks she was someone who was never reported missing.”

“He could be right.”

Marc had been quiet through this exchange. Now he addressed Terry. “I've never heard of this crab's eye plant. Where does it grow?”

“Originally, India. It showed up on some of the Caribbean islands in the nineteenth century, and later it was brought here as an ornamental vine. But it ran wild … spread all over South Florida, choking out some of the indigenous species. Now it's banned. The state's had an eradication program in force for around thirty years.”

My ears pricked up. “Thirty years? When exactly was it banned?”

“Nineteen eighty.”

My mind started racing, making connections. “So … where was it growing in the '70s?”

 

17

One week to the day after our meeting with Terry, Marc and I were following the head of the UF's Geography Department along a locked corridor behind the department's lecture theaters. Professor Charles McNabb had taught a couple of my undergrad courses at Boston U, and we had maintained a casual friendship after both returning to Florida.

“As I told you, Claire, geographic profiling is not exactly my field,” Professor McNabb said as he used a security card to unlock a heavy steel door. There was a metallic thunk as the lock cleared. “If you're hoping for a miracle, you'll have to get one of those FBI guys that do that stuff all the time.”

He opened the door, revealing an impressive bank of computer processors.

“We will,” I said as he led us through to a small office area, “but the FBI can't send anyone for another week. Anything you've come up with might help.”

I think I surprised Marc with my smooth lie, because he gave me a quizzical look and rolled his eyes. I suppressed the urge to elbow him and responded with a bland smile.

The sole occupant of the room we now entered was an attractive—okay, beautiful—young woman. She was sitting in front of a wide-screen computer monitor. She seemed to be expecting us, because she rotated her chair and sat waiting as we approached.

Charlie introduced us. “This is my assistant, Jennifer Hilchey. Jenny … Claire Talbot, from the State Attorney's Office, and Mr. Hastings.”

“Hi,” Jenny said, taking our offered hands without getting up. She immediately swung her chair back to the computer, ready to get right to work.