Killing Hour - Lisa Gardner [79]
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?”
“Refugee what?” Mac said.
“That’s what I thought. Refugia