“To catch the bad guys,” she announced. Her overly simplistic answer was drenched in sarcasm.
“Yes, good. But also to make a living, to pay the bills, to do something you’re good at… right?”
“Your point is?”
C’mon, man. It’s your first full day in town. Don’t go making enemies already.
“My point is, everything we do is a tangle of motives, dreams, regrets, shame, hope, desire-all overlapping and competing with each other, vying for our attention, our lives. As soon as we try to force a crime into a neat little package called ‘revenge’ or ‘lust’ or ‘anger’ or ‘greed,’ we miss the subtle realities of life and tend to overlook the social context of the crime.”
Lien-hua shook her head. She wasn’t convinced. “But without showing a clear motive, you can almost never get a conviction.”
I just wanted to finish this thing up and head out to visit some of the crime sites. I felt anger awakening inside me. Keep still. Keep still.
“Yes, that’s true,” I said slowly. “Showing motive is helpful for getting a conviction, but to show one motive is to ignore the others. Life is never that simple.”
“But don’t you want to get a conviction?” she said.
“My job isn’t to convict them, it’s to help you find them. It might make jurors feel better and readers feel more satisfied to name a motive, but I’m not trying a case or writing a novel. Most of the time people don’t even understand the things they do, let alone what other people do. And sometimes things just happen without any apparent reason at all. Life doesn’t always make sense.” Yeah. People you love get cancer and die. Families fall apart. You lose your direction, your focus, your clarity. Life spins out of control. No rhyme. No reason. No sense at all…
The room was quiet. Everyone was staring at me. For a moment I wondered if I’d spoken my thoughts aloud, but then I realized I must have caught myself just in time. “When it comes to crime,” I said at last, “there may be such a thing as a primary motive, but there’s not such a thing as a singular motive.”
Wallace again. “So if you don’t look for motives, what do you look for?”
“Patterns. Habits. Choices. Understanding the intersection of this place and this time and this victim with the life of the offender.”
“Excuse me, Dr. Bowers.” Ah, yes. I should have known Margaret would join the fun sooner or later. “For centuries investigative work has focused on motive, means, and opportunity. You’re telling us we’ve done it wrong all these years?”
I wonder how long she’s been waiting to ask that question.
“Of course not, Agent Wellington. An offender can’t commit a crime without the opportunity to do it or the means to carry it out. But what led up to the opportunity? Why did he have those means available at that specific time? That’s what I’m looking for. I’m not trying to get into the mind of the killer, I’m trying to get into his shoes.”
“Dr. Bowers,” Margaret said, breathing through her nose. She took a slow and deliberate look at her watch. “I have a press conference in less than twenty minutes. Do you have anything more… concrete to add to this investigation?”
I wished I had something to throw at her. A rottweiler came to mind.
“Actually, I do. I was just getting to that. Let me show you how all this is going to help us catch this killer.”
13
“Here”-I pressed a button and illuminated two regions of the map-“are the optimal search areas, the most likely anchor points for our offender. This area just west of Asheville, and this region of city blocks downtown. It cuts out 84.6 percent of the search area. Also, I looked up how many suspects there are so far-2,432 names on the master list. Only 12 percent of them work or live in these regions. I checked. At least this gives us a place to start.”
Some of the officers looked stunned that I seemed to know what I was talking about. Ralph looked a little confused. “But why are there two areas?”
Before I could say anything, Tucker answered for me. “In some cases, the mathematics of a geo profile render a bipolar solution; in other words, there are two places equally likely for the offender to reside in or to use as his anchor point.”
OK. This guy was really getting on my nerves.
“That’s right,” I said.
Tucker looked pleased.
“Well,” said Ralph, “we can check DMV registrations to see if anyone living in those areas has a green Subaru station wagon like the one those two hikers saw driving away from the trailhead on the mountain where Mindy was found.”
“I’m on it,” said one of the officers I didn’t know.
“Yeah,” added Sheriff Wallace. “And we can go through our tip list and suspect list and reprioritize them. We’ve gotten thousands of tips since this investigation started. It’s been a little overwhelming.”
“Yes,” I said. “Also see if anyone living in those areas has a history of battery or violent assault.”
“OK,” said Margaret. “Everyone knows their job. Now let’s do it right.” She gave me a stiff nod. “Thank you Dr. Bowers.”
Everyone seemed to be nodding or gathering up their things. Just as I was telling myself the briefing hadn’t ended so badly after all, I noticed Lien-hua.
She was glaring at me. Then she rose abruptly and walked away. Note to self: next time, don’t say “sidetracked by motives” to a profiler.
Especially not to her.
Tucker glanced at his watch. “I have some interviews this afternoon. I’m going to talk a little more to the hikers who found Mindy’s body and then see if the ME is done with the autopsy.”
“All right,” said Ralph. “When do you think you’ll be back?”
Tucker shook his head. “Probably tomorrow. Big date with the wife tonight. I should be back early in the morning, though.”
As he walked away I noticed Margaret lurking in the doorway, arms crossed. “So, Dr. Bowers. Before I go to the press conference, I have one question for you.”
“Yes?”
“Where is he going to strike next?”
I shook my head. “Some crime-mapping theorists have tried predictive analysis, but they’ve only had limited success so far. Sorry, Special Agent in Charge Wellington. I can help narrow down an investigation, but I can’t predict the future.”
“Too bad.” Her voice was ice. “That might actually have done us some good.”
Ah, Margaret.
So nice to be working with you again.
I can’t believe it’s only been four years.
14
I packed up my computer as everyone headed back to work.
I really wasn’t sure what to think. Yeah, I’d plugged in some numbers, given us a starting point, but it was all preliminary. I’d just used the info they gave me. Without visiting the sites I had no idea if we were even on the right track.
Lunch. That’s what I needed. Food and some fresh air. Clear my head. Besides, there was a certain tree I wanted to check out. See if it was real or if it only existed in the mind of a crazy woman.
I grabbed my computer and headed for the door.
One of Christie’s favorite paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City had been a piece called “Hospital Slope,” a painting of a huge spreading beech tree done by Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, wife of novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, and sometime schizophrenic. According to the tour guide at the art museum, Zelda had painted the picture back in the 1940s while spending time at the Highland Mental Hospital, a sanitarium in Asheville, North Carolina, where she was being treated for schizophrenia. In those days Asheville was famous for the healing power of its fresh mountain air as a remedy for all kinds of diseases, but especially tuberculosis, which they called consumption. The tour guide said the tree was still there today.
Highland Park was less than two miles from the federal building. I grabbed some Mexican food and hit the street, welcoming the chance to stretch my legs.