In truth, he was a focused man. A passionate man. Those were good words to describe him. Focused and passionate. And loving.
Less than thirty-six hours.
That’s how much time Rebekah and Caleb had left.
Even now as he went to check on them, Rebekah held her hand up to the window, and Aaron placed his hand across the glass from hers, as if they were touching. She didn’t look angry. More at peace than anything. He nodded to her.
“Our love will unite us forever,” she mouthed to him. And he mouthed the words back to her as if she were his daughter and they were whispering bedtime prayers together.
She and Caleb had been even easier to persuade than Jessie Rembrandt had been back in 1985.
It had taken him years of searching and waiting and dreaming. Now at last the time had come.
Last year, finally, he’d found the person he’d been searching for all this time, and the plan had been set in motion.
True, it would have been ideal to have everything happen next month, on the 18th, rather than now, in October. That would have been perfect. But only terrorists and madmen assign more significance to dates than to deeds. And Aaron was neither of those. He was simply a focused, dedicated man in love with his family, fulfilling his ultimate destiny.
In a way it was a shame that Rebekah and Caleb would miss the events on Monday. But really, there was no other way about it. What had to be done had to be done.
He took his hand away from the glass and walked outside. The autumn wind felt cool but also fresh and inviting, promising a change in the seasons.
It made him think of all the wonderful things to come.
12
This is why I hate briefings. Usually I’m supposed to summarize all my years of research in environmental criminology and my experience as a detective and FBI agent in twenty minutes. And of course, I’m usually the only person in the room who believes my investigative approach will actually work.
That’s the kicker.
Ralph was standing in the corner tapping away at something when I entered the tiny, cramped conference room. “What are you doing?” I asked him. He tried to shove the thing in his pocket, but I saw what it was. “A PlayStation Portable?”
He looked slightly embarrassed and shy, which is not easy for someone who can bench-press a truck. “Don’t tell anyone. I’m trying to get good enough to beat my son.”
“Tony is ten, right?”
Ralph nodded. “I can still beat him at football, hoops, wrestling-”
I stared at Ralph’s size. “You wrestle Tony?”
“Yeah, of course,” he said. “Why?”
Well, I thought, you weigh almost three hundred pounds.
Ralph gave a proud papa smile. “He’s a stout boy.”
“Oh.” I wondered just how much Tony had grown in the last few months.
“Anyway, he’s really good at these things, so I’m practicing. Trying to get good enough to beat him at Sorcerer’s Realm IV. Don’t tell anyone.”
“I promise.”
He leaned toward me. “I mean it.” I could tell he did.
“Gotcha.”
It took me a few minutes to connect my computer to the room’s overhead projection system, and when I finally looked up, I noticed nearly every seat had been taken. In addition to Agents Hawkins, Jiang, Tucker, and Wellington, I saw Sheriff Wallace and half a dozen other agents and police officers I hadn’t met yet.
All at once Margaret stood up, straightened the front of her skirt, and cleared her throat. “I know we all have plenty to do, so let’s get started.” I glanced at the clock on the wall. Yup, 1:59 exactly.
The chatter and small talk quieted down. Dante Wallace and Ralph took their seats. Brent Tucker sat beside Margaret, and I slid into the chair next to Lien-hua even though I knew I’d be standing up again in just a moment.
Margaret was speaking overly politely. “Dr. Patrick Bowers has been kind enough to join us and offer his… unique perspective on this case. I thought it might be prudent if he would outline some of the principles behind his… unorthodox investigative approach.” Then she stretched her lips into a tight, patronizing smile and motioned toward me. “Dr. Bowers?”
Wow. What an introduction.
I stood and nodded. “Yes, thank you, Margaret.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Lien-hua doodling in her notebook, smiling.
“First of all,” I said, “from what I’ve seen so far, your work on this case has been thorough, professional, and incisive. So, good work.” Stoic nods all around. They knew as well as I did that without a conviction or even a primary suspect, all the praise and backslapping in the world was meaningless.
I tapped my computer’s credit-card-sized remote control, and a three-dimensional map appeared on the projection screen.
“My specialty, as Agent Wellington alluded to, is a bit unique. I’ve worked both in local law enforcement as a detective in Milwaukee, and for the last nine years for the FBI. Mostly I’m interested in where and when the crime occurred and the significance that the crime’s timing and location have in the life of the offender, or in our case, the killer.”
“Environmental Criminology,” Agent Tucker announced. “Which merges the fields of environmental psychology with geospatial investigation.”
“Right…” I said. “So rather than focus simply on the forensic evidence or the specific pathology of the offender, I’m looking at the relationship the offender has to his victim and his environment. It may seem self-evident, but every crime occurs at a specific time in a specific place.”
Sometimes when I’m explaining this stuff I get strange looks, and already the same thing was happening. A few snickers and sideways glances-mostly from the local police officers. I glanced at Margaret. She was staring at me with granite eyes. Agent Tucker nodded and scribbled some notes on a legal pad.
“I know. It seems simplistic, but why that time? Why that place? Why that victim? Locations have use patterns. If we study the sites associated with each crime and the time of day the crimes occurred, it gives us a glimpse into the world of the offender. People typically carry out their routine activities in the most convenient locations. We all do. It’s no different for killers. Just like everyone else, serial offenders tend to move in certain repetitive patterns and directions from their place of residence.”
I glanced across the room to see how I was doing.
Some of the team members had heard this type of thing before. Most large law enforcement agencies these days have at least one strategic crime analyst, and nearly all of them use some form of crime mapping or apply the principles of environmental psychology to their investigations-even if they don’t call the techniques by those names.
Most of the people in the room looked bored.
Well, that didn’t take long, and you still have fifteen minutes to go.
“Every murder has at least four scenes,” I said. “The place of the initial encounter between the offender and the victim, the site of the attack or abduction, the location of the murder, and the final placement of the body.”
I flipped to an active screen that showed a satellite view of North Carolina, and then I used the cursor to zoom in on the western part of the state. As I moved the cursor, the images tipped horizontally, and the cursor glided like a tiny plane over the three-dimensional mountainous landscape.
I heard someone behind me. “It’s like Google Earth-on steroids.” Chuckles rolled around the room.
“Yeah,” I said, “and lots of them. This is one of the most powerfully integrated geographic information systems in the world. We call it F.A.L.C.O.N.”
“What’s that stand for?” someone asked.
I smiled and glanced at his name tag. “I don’t know, Officer Stilton. We haven’t come up with that part yet, just the acronym. That’s the way government works.” I got a couple grunts of acknowledgment for that. Not many, but it softened the mood in the room a little. “It’s a cooperative venture between the NSA and the FBI-with a little help from our friends at NASA and a certain animation company. I’m not supposed to tell you the name yet, though, not until the software is released.”