“What if we’re both wrong? Maybe the Beast is just a figment of our imaginations.”
Rizzoli looked at Frost. “Why don’t you turn on that overhead projector?”
Frost rolled the projector into position and flipped on the power switch. In this age of computers and PowerPoint slide shows, an overhead projector felt like Stone Age technology. But she and Frost had opted for the quickest, most straightforward way to make their case. Frost now opened a folder and took out multiple transparencies on which they’d recorded data points in various colors of marker ink.
Frost slid a sheet onto the overhead projector. A map of the U.S. appeared on the screen. Now he overlaid the map with the first transparency. Six black dots were added to the image.
“What do the dots signify?” O’Donnell asked.
“Those are NCIC case reports from the first six months of 1984,” said Frost. “We chose that year because it’s the first full year the FBI’s computerized database went active. So the data should be pretty complete. Each one of those dots represents a report of a missing pregnant woman.” He aimed a laser pointer at the screen. “There’s a certain amount of geographical scatter there, one case up there in Oregon, one in Atlanta. But notice this little cluster down here in the southwest.” Frost circled the relevant corner of the map. “One woman missing in Arizona, one in New Mexico. Two in Southern California.”
“What am I supposed to make of that?”
“Well, let’s take a look at the next six-month period. July through December, 1984. Maybe it’ll become clearer.”
Frost laid the next transparency over the map. A new set of dots was added, these marked in red.
“Again,” he said, “You’ll see some scatter around the country. But notice we have another cluster.” He sketched a circle around a group of three red dots. “San Jose, Sacramento, and Eugene, Oregon.”
O’Donnell said, softly: “This is getting interesting.”
“Wait until you see the next six months,” said Rizzoli.
With the third transparency, yet another set of dots was added, these in green. By now the pattern was unmistakable. A pattern that O’Donnell stared at with disbelieving eyes.
“My god,” she said. “The cluster keeps moving.”
Rizzoli nodded. Grimly she faced the screen. “From Oregon, it heads northeast. During the next six months, two pregnant women vanish from Washington state, then a third one disappears one state over, in Montana.” She turned and looked at O’Donnell. “It doesn’t stop there.”
O’Donnell rocked forward in her chair, her face alert as a cat about to pounce. “Where does the cluster move next?”
Rizzoli looked at the map. “Through that summer and fall, it moves straight east to Illinois and Michigan, New York and Massachusetts. Then it makes an abrupt drop to the south.”
“Which month?”
Rizzoli glanced at Frost, who shuffled through the printouts. “The next case shows up in Virginia, on December fourteenth,” he said.
O’Donnell said, “It’s moving with the weather.”
Rizzoli looked at her. “What?”
“The weather. See how it moved across the upper Midwest during the summer months? By fall, it’s in New England. And then, in December, it suddenly goes south. Just as the weather turns cold.”
Rizzoli frowned at the map. Jesus, she thought. The woman’s right. Why didn’t we see that?
“What happens next?” asked O’Donnell.
“It makes a complete circle,” said Frost. “Moves across the south, Florida to Texas. Eventually heads back to Arizona.”
O’Donnell rose from her chair and crossed to the screen. She stood there for a moment, studying the map. “What was the time cycle again? How long did it take to complete that circuit?”
“That time, it took three and a half years to circle the country,” said Rizzoli.
“A leisurely pace.”
“Yeah. But notice how it never stays in one state for long, never harvests too many victims in a single area. It just keeps moving, so the authorities never see the pattern, never realize it’s been going on for years and years.”
“What?” O’Donnell turned. “The cycle repeats?”
Rizzoli nodded. “It starts all over again, retracing the same route. The way old nomadic tribes used to follow the buffalo herds.”
“Authorities never noticed the pattern?”
“Because these hunters never stop moving. Different states, different jurisdictions. A few months in one region and then they’re gone. Onto the next hunting ground. Places they return to again and again.”
“Familiar territory.”
“Where we go depends upon where we know. And where we know depends upon where we go,” Rizzoli said, quoting one of the principles of geographic criminal profiling.
“Have any bodies turned up?”
“None of these have. These are the cases that remain open.”
“So they must have burial caches. Places to conceal victims, dispose of bodies.”
“We’re assuming they’d be out-of-the-way places,” said Frost. “Rural areas, or bodies of water. Since none of these women have been found.”
“But they found Nikki and Theresa Wells,” said O’Donnell. “Those bodies weren’t buried, but burned.”
“The sisters were found November twenty-fifth. We went back and checked the weather records. There was an unexpected snowstorm that week-eighteen inches fell in a single day. It took Massachusetts by surprise, closing down a number of roads. Maybe they couldn’t get to their usual burial spot.”
“And that’s why they burned the bodies?”
“As you pointed out, the vanishings seem to move with the weather,” said Rizzoli. “As it turns cold, they head south. But that November, New England was caught by surprise. No one expected such an early snowfall.” She turned to O’Donnell. “There’s your Beast. Those are his footprints on that map. I think Amalthea was with him every step of the way.”
“What are you asking me to do, a psychological profile? Explain why they killed?”
“We know why they did it. They weren’t killing for pleasure, or for thrills. These are not your usual serial killers.”
“Then what was their motive?”
“Absolutely mundane, Dr. O’Donnell. In fact, their motive is probably boring to a monster hunter like you.”
“I don’t find murder boring in the least. Why do you think they killed?”
“Did you know there are no employment records for either Amalthea or Elijah? We can’t find any evidence that either of them held down a job or paid into Social Security, or filed an income tax report. They owned no credit cards, had no bank accounts. For decades, they were invisible people, living on the outermost fringes of society. So how did they eat? How did they pay for food and gas and lodging?”
“Cash, I assume.”
“But where does the cash come from?” Rizzoli turned to the map. “That’s how they made their living.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Some people catch fish, some people pick apples. Amalthea and her partner were harvesters, too.” She looked at O’Donnell. “Forty years ago, Amalthea sold two newborn daughters to adoptive parents. She was paid forty thousand dollars for those babies. I don’t think they were hers to give.”
O’Donnell frowned. “Are you talking about Dr. Isles and her sister?”
“Yes.” Rizzoli felt a twinge of satisfaction when she saw O’Donnell’s stunned expression. This woman had no idea what she was dealing with, thought Rizzoli. The psychiatrist who so regularly consorts with monsters has been taken by surprise.
“I examined Amalthea,” said O’Donnell. “I concurred with the other psychiatrists-”