Lisa Gardner - The killing hour

“Are they mean to you?” he asked soberly, thumb beneath her chin.

“Someone actually short-sheeted my bed. Oh my God, the horrors. I should write home to Daddy.”

“Uh oh, what did you do in retaliation?” Mac asked immediately.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Oh dear.”

She resumed walking. After a moment, he fell in step beside her. “I’m going to make it, Mac,” she said seriously. “Five weeks to go, and I’m going to make it. And if some people don’t like me, that’s okay. Because others do, and I’m good at this job. With more experience, I’m going to be even better at the job. Why, someday I might even follow a direct order. Think of what the Bureau will do then.”

“You’ll be like a whole new secret weapon,” Mac said with awe.

“Exactly.” She nodded her head with pride. Then, not being stupid, she regarded him intently. “So why are you here, Mac? And don’t tell me you missed my smile. I know you’re a little too busy for social calls these days.”

“It’s always something, isn’t it?”

“At the moment.”

He sighed, looked as if he wished he could say something clever, then must’ve decided to get on with it. “They found Ennunzio’s body.”

“Good.” It had taken weeks to completely annihilate the swamp fire. In the good-news department, crews had contained the blaze fairly quickly, limiting damage. In the bad-news department, the smoldering peat continued to flare up for nearly a month, requiring constant vigilance on the part of the U.S. Forestry Service.

During that time, volunteers worked the site, tending the woods and seeking some sign of Ennunzio’s body. As week had grown into week, they had all started getting a little nervous, especially Kimberly.

“He made it farther than any of us would’ve guessed,” Mac was saying now. “True to his natural ambivalence, he must have decided at the last minute that he wanted to live. He actually hiked a good mile with his bitten leg. Who even knows what got him in the end? The venom pumped into his heart, or the smoke, or the flames?”

“They do a postmortem?”

“Completed it yesterday. Kimberly, he didn’t have a tumor.”

She halted, blinked her eyes a few times, then had to run a hand through her hair. “Well, that figures, doesn’t it,” she murmured. “Guy’s such a fuck-up, he’s gotta blame his actions on everything but himself. His mother, his brother, and a medical condition he doesn’t even have. Doesn’t that take the cake?”

“For the record, he did have a tumor once,” Mac said. “Doctors confirmed his operation two years ago to remove the mass. According to them, a tumor could affect someone’s propensity for violence. I understand there was even a mass murderer in Texas who claimed his actions were caused by a tumor.”

“Charles Whitman,” Kimberly murmured. “Stabbed his mother to death, then murdered his wife, then climbed a clock tower at the University of Texas and opened fire on the population below. In the end, he killed eighteen people and wounded thirty others before being shot and killed himself. He left a note, didn’t he? Said he wanted an autopsy performed because he was sure there was something physically wrong with him.”

“Exactly. The autopsy revealed a small tumor in his hypothalamus, which some experts say could have contributed to his rampage, while others claim it could not. Who knows? Maybe Ennunzio liked that story. Maybe it made an impression upon him, especially when he found out he had a tumor himself. But there was no tumor this time, so once again, he was just giving himself an excuse.”

“You had him nailed in the beginning,” Kimberly said. “Why does the Eco-Killer target and murder young women? Because he wants to. Sometimes, it really is as simple as that.”

“The guy did feel some level of guilt,” Mac said with a shrug. “Hence leaving us clues to find the second girl. Hence contacting the police as an anonymous tipster and getting us all into the game. Hence his personal involvement as an FBI agent, keeping us on track. When he analyzed the letters, he described the author as someone who felt compelled to kill, but who also wanted to be stopped. Maybe that was his way of trying to explain himself to us.”

Kimberly, however, vehemently shook her head. “Did he really want to help, Mac, or did he just want more people to hurt? This is the guy who started out hating his father, but actually killed his mother and brother. He targeted young women, but also set up hazardous conditions for the search-and-rescue volunteers. I don’t think he placed those anonymous phone calls because he wanted you to catch him. He was seeking to involve more people in his game. He obviously didn’t mind collateral damage. And if he could have, he would’ve killed us in the swamp that day.”

“You’re probably right.”

“I’m glad he’s dead.”

“Honey, I’m not so sad about it myself.”

“Any sign of the girls’ cars?” she asked.

“Funny you should mention it; we think we’ve found one.”

“Where at?”

“In the Tallulah Gorge, camouflaged with netting, green paint, and a whole lotta leaves. We’re revisiting the other sites now, to see if we’ll find the victims’ vehicles nearby. We also discovered Ennunzio’s home base-he has a cabin in the woods not far from here. Very rustic, like an old hunting shack. In it, we found a cot, gallons of water, boxes of crackers, a tranquilizer gun, and tons of drugs. He really could’ve kept doing this for a very long time.”

“Then I’m doubly glad he’s dead. And Tina?”

“At home in Minnesota with her mom,” Mac reported immediately. “I understand from Nora Ray that Tina had just discovered she was pregnant before the kidnapping. Unfortunately, she lost the baby and is taking it rather hard. But I hear her mother’s been a pillar of strength and Tina’s gonna spend the rest of the summer recuperating at home, then see what she wants to do. She lost her three best friends; I’m not sure exactly how you recover from something like that. She and Nora Ray seem to have grown close, however. Maybe they can help each other out. Nora Ray’s talking of visiting her in a few weeks. Minnesota has cooler summers. Nora Ray likes that. Okay, your turn. How’re your father and Rainie?”

“They’re in Oregon. They’re planning on doing absolutely nothing but stroll on beaches and play a little golf until my graduation in five weeks. I give my father two days, and he’ll be working the first local homicide case he can find. The Oregon cops will never know what hit them.”

“Have dead body, will travel?” Mac teased her.

“Something like that.”

“And you?” His finger traced a slow, gentle line down her cheek. Then both his hands settled on her waist. “What are you going to do in five weeks?”

“I’m a new agent,” Kimberly said quietly. Her hands had come up, resting on the hard curve of his arms. “We don’t have much say in things. You get assigned where you get assigned.”

“Can you list preferences?”

“We can. I said Atlanta might be nice. No reason, of course.”

“No reason?” Mac’s hands stroked up her sides, his thumbs feathering across her breasts.

“Okay, I have a little bit of a reason.”

“When will you know?”

“Yesterday.”

“You mean…”

She smiled, feeling a little bit ridiculous now, and ducked her head. “Yeah, I got lucky. Atlanta ’s a big field office and they needed a fair amount of agents. I guess I’m going to have to learn to talk with a drawl, and drink a lot of Coke.”

“I want you to meet my family,” Mac said immediately. He was holding her tighter now. She hadn’t been 100 percent sure of what he would think. They had both been so busy lately, and you never knew…