Time of Departure (13 page)

“Jenny's a grad student in the department,” Charlie went on. “Actually, she's our top grad student,” he added, “and an absolute gem.” Jenny's face colored slightly, and for a second I wondered …

None of your business, Claire!

I'd been there before myself—as Marc had easily discovered in his researches—although the dynamic here made me suspect the shoe was on the other foot and Charlie was the one who was headed for heartbreak down the road.

“Go ahead, Jen. Run it for them.”

Jenny slid a CD into the console. “This will take a few seconds.” She began working the keyboard.

Charlie took up the slack. “At a gut level, it's seems clear that there was a serial offender at work here. We had only the eight abduction locations to work with—not really locations, I guess, just likely local areas. The hitchhiking girl and the girl who vanished during her morning run were even more problematic, so those abduction areas were really just educated guesses. Plus, of course, we had the single burial site at Bronson, which at least can be pinpointed on a map. But, as I told you on the phone, without knowing the actual kill sites or burial sites for the other six girls, we're really out on a limb here.”

We watched Jenny drill through dialogue boxes on the screen. Windows were opening and closing like magic. Or, more accurately, what I hoped was magic.

Charlie continued. “Combined with that limited data, we added what the EPA gave us, which was the rough northern limits for the spread of the crab's eye plant in the 1970s. We added data from the invasive species research facility here at UF, and even though the mapping is quite impressive, our scientists are the first to admit that they can't account for outliers.”

The screen froze. Jenny sat back. “My mistake…”

“What's wrong?” Charlie leaned closer, alarmed.

She looked up at us. “First rule: Never let a computer know you're in a hurry. It'll just be a sec.”

We hovered over her, watching the screen, as a multicolored map of northern Florida painted itself in graduated steps down the screen.

“There we go!” Charlie gave Jenny's shoulder a squeeze. “This is called an isopleth map. What Jenny did to get this result was to adapt certain software we have that … well, you go ahead and tell them, Jen.”

Jenny took up the narrative. “A few years ago, the department developed a software program to analyze predator hunting patterns in the national parks. You probably want to ask, ‘Are there even any predators left in the national parks?' The answer is yes. There are viable populations in the Rocky Mountains—Yellowstone and Glacier, as well as in the Canadian parks and in Alaska. We also have a mountain of data from Southern Africa. Without getting into the technical stuff, I took our program and plugged it into a software program developed by the Canadian police. They've been using it mainly to help them track down serial killers, although it's also been used to track down other types of serial offenders, such as arsonists. I used their program because it was the only one I could download at no cost to the university.”

“Budget issues,” Charlie interjected, looking chastened. “We all have our guidelines. Sorry.”

“No need to apologize,” I replied. This is really impressive.”

Jenny continued. “The police program uses an algorithm they developed for using crime site geography to predict an offender's area of residence. It takes into account basic information such as where each victim was last seen, where the victim was attacked, where she was murdered, if known, and where the body was disposed of. It takes into account all kinds of variables with labels like ‘comfort zone' and ‘distance decay function,' et cetera, that we don't need to get into. The point is that their program incorporates several features that are equivalent to the ones deployed in our own program. In fact, the hunting-style categories have similar names: ‘territorial killer,' ‘nomadic killer,' ‘game preserve killer,' and so forth.” Jenny rolled her chair to one side so we could get a clear view of the monitor. “This is what I came up with.”

The map on the screen was arranged in colored three-dimensional contours, lighter colors in the outer rings, darker farther in. The central zone was shaped like a teardrop and was colored bloodred.

“What you're looking at is called a probability surface,” Charlie said. “The red zone has a probability of eighty percent.”

“Meaning…?” Marc asked.

“Meaning, there's an eighty percent probability that the predator's home is—that is,
was—
within that zone. This is a typical ‘teardrop pattern.' It shows a directional bias toward a secondary anchor point, in this case, the Gainesville area. To use a simple analogy, if this were Africa, then Gainesville would be the equivalent of a watering hole or some other game-rich area, and this area here—” He reached past Jenny and tapped the screen. “—is where you would most likely find the predator's lair.”

I leaned on the desk and studied the map. “Almost the entire red zone is in Levy County.” I was astonished.

“That's right. Rural, low density. Mostly white cracker farmsteads. Only two towns of any size … Chiefland, in the north, and Cedar Key down on the Gulf Coast.” He paused. “But you know, I've read some of the literature on these kinds of cases. If a body isn't found within one month of a person's disappearance, and if the disposal site is more than a mile from the place where the victim was last seen, the odds of solving the crime are less than five percent. These girls disappeared thirty years ago. Even if Jenny's work is absolutely dead-on, and even if your killer actually lived somewhere in that red zone, how the hell are you going to find him now?”

I turned to Jenny. “Can you make me a color copy of that?”

“Sure can.”

I straightened and turned to Charlie. “We'll find him.”

I felt Marc squeeze my hand.

*   *   *

I was conscientious about clearing my desk and locking my files away at the end of every day. I was doing just that when Sam Grayson appeared in my doorway.

“A few of us are heading for Harry's. Why don't you come? I promise I'll protect you from the chauvinists.”

“Thanks, but I can't. I've sort of got a date.”

He grinned. “A date? Like, with a man?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, about time!”

“I've had dates!”

“Oh, yeah? When?”

“A few months back. I went out with—” I had to search my memory to recall the guy's name. “—Todd Bewley.”

“The FBI guy from Jacksonville?”

“Yeah.”

“You went out with him twice!”

“Okaaay! It was a drive-by.”

He squinted at me. “A drive-by?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. And who was at the wheel?”

I didn't really want to get into that. It had taken me no time to realize that Bewley was one of those men who preyed on women who were drawn to the very traits that ran completely against their own best interests. In other words, desperate women. Be damned if that was me.

I deflected. “What are you doing, Sam? Keeping track?”

“No, but Diana is. She's worried about you. This guy tonight … anyone we know?”

“No.” I answered quickly before my conscience could butt in.

“Okay. Will you be in the office over the weekend?”

“Probably not. I think I've got everything under control.”

If only …

“Good. See you Monday. Have a good time, and stay out of trouble.”

“Me? Trouble?”

“On the other hand, maybe you should get into a bit of trouble. You live a pretty boring life for a girl your age.”

Sam, if you only knew …

He went off whistling while I sat there feeling guilty.

*   *   *

Since becoming aware of Lipinski's unhealthy obsession with Marc, I had taken to parking my car a few blocks past his building. Marc had given me a key to his apartment and another that opened the building's rear door, off the alleyway, and I had made a habit of using that entrance. As I crossed the street, one block up, I saw a white SUV parked, facing me, in the loading zone in front of Marc's building.

What first caught my attention was the driver's-side door swinging shut.

The car looked familiar.

I stopped to watch as it pulled a U-turn and drove away.

An hour later, Marc and I were sitting at opposite ends of the long couch in his living room. The oddest thing was that after so short a time, we could just be silent together.

I was thinking about the FBI profile written after the Patricia Chapman disappearance. The report had rendered the unknown subject—the “unsub” in FBI parlance—in such general terms that I wondered why it had never been updated.

I said to Marc: “You know, the FBI telling you the unsub was obsessed with brunettes is hardly a brilliant insight. Telling you he would seem ordinary to others in appearance and personality, and that his acts were probably precipitated by some psychologically traumatic event that awakened long-suppressed desires, wasn't going to take you anywhere. Didn't anyone ask them to take another look at the case after there were more abductions?”

“We did,” he replied. “They said they couldn't give us a better profile without better evidence … or unless we came up with a body or two.”

“Eight girls had disappeared! I'd have thought they'd be all over this case!”

“There's something you need to understand. I don't know about today, but in those days, most of the FBI guys were still brainwashed by their own myth. Hoover was dead and gone, but the attitude was still there. They thought they could just roll into town in their black sedans and show the yokels how real professionals solve crime. Their standard procedure was to suck all the information out of your files, divert your detectives into support roles, take control of all press contacts, and make themselves look like the heroes. Even if some local investigator actually broke the case, by the time the news conferences were finished, his name would be a footnote.” His mouth twisted into a sardonic smile. “But this time, their news-hogging routine backfired.”

It dawned on me. “The Ostergaard case!”

“Correct. When the
Herald
reporter disappeared and the so-called ‘FBI-led investigation'”—he pronounced the words with remembered bitterness—“came up completely empty, they took it on the chin. The next thing we knew, calls were coming in from D.C. saying their top people were needed on a major investigation up in Chicago. To us, it seemed like they were hoping the public would forget about their failure on that case back in Hicksville, Florida, if they could just grab the glory on a meatier one in a big city. They left a few agents behind to help us out and handle liaison. Actually, once the big guns were gone, the task force ran a lot more smoothly.”

Marc unfolded a large-scale map of Levy County on the coffee table. I had shown him earlier how to pull up satellite pictures on my laptop, and he was methodically investigating the red zone on the probability map Jennifer Hilchey had printed for us. I wasn't sure what he expected to find, and I don't think he was sure, either.

I had a binder open on my lap, but I wasn't really focusing on it. As I watched Marc work, my thoughts shifted to the white SUV. My eyes swept his bookshelves.

“No pictures,” I said.

Marc looked up from the laptop. “Mmm?”

I nodded at his shelves. “No family pictures.”

He gave me a blank look.

“No wedding pictures. No kids' school pictures. No vacation cruise pictures.” I leveled my gaze. “No proof of a life.”

He didn't reply. He turned his attention back to the map.

“Were you ever married?” I persisted.

“Yes.”

“Children?”

Another uncomfortable pause. “A daughter.”

“What's her name?”

“Rebecca.”

I waited for more. He picked up his beer, untouched since he'd opened it a half hour earlier, and took a big swallow. He set the bottle down and just stared at me. He didn't volunteer any more information.

I was perplexed. “Sorry. I didn't mean to—”

“Yes, you did.” He looked at me. “It's okay. It's just not something I'm ready to talk about.”

“I understand,” I said. But I didn't. Why was he back here in Gainesville after all these years, dogging my footsteps, acting mysterious? Why wasn't he with his wife? Or his daughter? Was he estranged from them? If so, why? Or, had they died? If so, how?

Marc's voice intruded upon my roving imagination. “That grave site…”

“What?”

“You said the grave site was on land that had belonged to the same family for over a hundred years.”

“The last survivor lives in Silver Springs, down near Ocala.”

“The lady with the observant eye.”

I recalled the welcome mental image of a sweet old lady unwittingly skewering Lipinski. “Her name is Anna Fenwick.”

“Shouldn't we talk to her?”

“She told Lipinski and Geiger she hadn't been near the property in ten years.”

“Mandy Jordan was buried on that property thirty years ago! Did those two buffoons actually spend any time with this lady? Ask her about the people she knew back then?”

“Somehow, I doubt it.” I thought for a moment. “You know … she might just open up—”

“—to an older gentleman and a pleasant young woman. Stand up.”

“What?”

“Stand up … please.”

I stood. Marc cast an appraising eye over me. “Put your hair in a ponytail. And wear a summer dress.”

“You didn't need me to stand up for that!”

He grinned. “No. But I like looking at you.”

I felt my body get warm.

Damn this man!