The Pawn

by Steven James

  In the case of Jamie, I couldn’t help but wonder if the killer had put the pawn in her hand on purpose because the first chess piece had almost been overlooked. That was a chilling thought, because it might mean that this guy, whoever he was, saw the whole thing as a game. And he was making sure that the police knew every move he made.

  Or even more chilling, he might have obtained inside information about the investigation.

  Alexis had been found at Grayson Highlands State Park just over the border in Virginia. And Reinita Lawson, in the Nantahala National Forest in the far west corner of North Carolina.

  All morning I worked furiously at sorting and sifting the geographic information, comparing it with population distribution data from western North Carolina, downloading cell phone records, inputting data into my computer, gathering all the information that would help me see the overall movement patterns of the offender and the victims.

  I skipped lunch, and before I knew it Margaret was standing beside me, tapping her fingers on my desk. “I’m so anxious to hear your take on this case,” she said. She wasn’t a very good liar. “Are you ready to brief the team?”

  “Yeah, I’ve been looking forward to it.”

  I’m not a very good liar either.

  I gathered my notes and stepped past her toward the briefing room. All the way there I could heard the staccato click of her heels tracking right behind me.

  11

  Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid did not think of himself as a violent man.

  And, truthfully, if you asked the people who knew him best, they wouldn’t have described him as violent in any way. Thoughtful, perhaps, quiet, maybe, reflective, caring, maybe even loving.

  Yes, they might have even used the word loving to describe Aaron, but not violent.

  Because really, it was love that had given him the courage to seal his two friends inside the room fifteen hours ago. His love for his family. His Father. His destiny.

  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 da
y 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.”

  I heard Ralph’s voice. “Animation company?”

  “We needed someone who actually knew what they were doing to help us with the graphics. They were happy to get a juicy government contract, and we were happy to get the best computer graphics minds in the world. Anyway, using this software, we can pinpoint any place on the earth’s surface down to half a centimeter or so. The team is still working on ways to see through cloud cover—don’t have that quite nailed down yet, but it’s coming. This is just the beta version. We’re hoping to have the prototype available to law enforcement agencies worldwide within the next two years.”

  One of the officers I didn’t know spoke up. “Is that a live satellite feed?”

  “Not quite,” I said. “Four-minute delay.”

  I tapped the remote control, and a three-dimensional map appeared on the projection screen behind me. As I clicked on the screen, new layers overlaid on top of the previous ones, each layer with another array of circles, diamonds, or triangles. “This first map shows where we found each of the bodies,” I explained. “The next one, here”—I clicked the screen again and the diamonds appeared—“ has the residencies of the victims. If we know the abduction sites, I’ve made those appear as ovals.” Once again I clicked, and another layer appeared. “And when the murder site has been identified, you’ll see those in yellow diamonds.”

  By now the screen looked a little overwhelming.

  “Now, look when I overlay the roads, emphasizing the routes that provide the quickest and most convenient getaway and then compare that to the distribution of homes in the residential areas we’re looking at . . .” A series of glowing lines threaded together, connecting the clutter of symbols and figures, making sense of them, bringing order. “Then, if we impose what we know about the victims’ life patterns and travel routes at the time they were abducted—”

  “How do we know those?” Margaret asked.

  “Cell phone companies can track the location of each call placed and received through global positioning technology,” I said. “Most new cars also have GPS systems, including Mindy’s Corolla. I downloaded the routes Mindy traveled in her car as well as the time, duration, and location of her phone calls over the last couple of days before her murder. I found something interesting.”

  “What’s that?” Agent Tucker asked.

  “Based on what we know about the travel patterns of the other victims, you can see that they intersect in four distinct areas: out near the Stratford Hotel, the park next to Mission Memorial Hospital, the downtown district, and over near the university. It’s very possible our killer is trolling those locations looking for his prey.”

  I clicked the screen again, and this time the screen had several pulsing, red, wedge-shaped regions. “We can see that the most likely locations of the initial encounter or abductions are here, here, and here.” I used a laser pointer to draw attention to the pulsating areas of the map. “By taking into consideration everything we know about the crime—the observable offender patterns, urban zoning, population distribution, topographic features, traffic flow, weather conditions at the time of the crime—we can extrapolate the anchor point—”

  Oh, great word, Pat. That’ll really impress them.

  “The what?” It was Sheriff Wallace.

  “Extrapolate. It means to—”

  “No, the ‘anchor point’ part.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Anchor point, right. That’s the offender’s home base. Might be his house or maybe a girlfriend’s or a relative’s place. Maybe where he works. As long as his base is stable, we can use the principles of geographic profiling to pinpoint its most likely location.”

  I took a drink of water.

  Ten minutes and you’re out of here.

  “Offenders tend not to commit crimes too close to their home base, or too far away from it. Once we’ve defined his hunting area and drawn a line connecting the two farthest crime scenes, we create the radius of a circle.” I did this on the screen with the laser pointer. “Within this circle here”—I clicked on the screen, and a blue-tinged circle appeared near the center of the larger circle—“there’s about a 50 percent chance our offender has his anchor point.”

  “Just like pins on a bulletin board.” The officer who said it made sure he spoke loud enough for everyone to hear.

  I’d heard all this before, but still I felt my temperature rising. “Yes, the principle is the same. But we’re not just looking at crime distribution here; instead we’re taking into account sequence, distribution, origination, and timing. The order of the crimes is significant. The first crime in a series often occurs closest to the killer’s anchor point. Then he moves out as his hunting grounds get overrun with investigators. However, the body dump sites tend to move closer toward his anchor point as he gets more confident with each crime that he’s able to commit without getting caught. So timing and location are significant. Also, places carry meanings for people. We all view the world, our surroundings, through the lens of our personal experiences and perceptions. If I can figure out what the locations of this series of crimes mean to the offender, it’ll help me figure out what type of person we’re looking for. Instead of asking ‘Why did he do it?’ I ask ‘Why did he do it here?’ For example . . .”

  I pulled up a photo of Jamie McNaab. “Jamie was found beside a parking lot. Now look back behind her, just to the right, there”—I pointed with the laser pointer—“See? There’s a sign that reads ‘No Loitering.’ It’s subtle but symbolic.” I flipped to a picture of the crime scene of Reinita Lawson. “Reinita was found on a trail leading to Tombstone Caverns—also symbolic. He’s taunting us.”

  “How come no one noticed that before?” Sheriff Wallace asked. Before I could answer Agent Tucker said, “No one was looking.”

  I wished he’d stop doing that.

  “So, what about the motive?” aske
d Lien-hua, who had stopped doodling and was looking at me with keen interest and perhaps a hint of antagonism.

  “I leave motives to the profilers.” I smiled.

  She didn’t.

  “And that means . . . ?” She let her voice trail off and then added, “What, exactly?”

  I figured someone would ask these questions, but why did it have to be her?

  “Well, instead of probing into his mind to try and guess what the guy is thinking, I’m trying to study his life to find where he’s living. I think too many investigations get sidetracked by trying to uncover the motive—”

  “Excuse me, Dr. Bowers.” She set down her pen. “Did you just say sidetracked by looking for motive?”

  I slid the remote control into my pocket. “Yes, Agent Jiang, I did. Jurors love motives. So do people who read mystery novels and thrillers. Without a motive we feel cheated. The plot needs to make sense. We’re addicted to explanations. But in the real world, some things don’t have an easy explanation. Motives are never clear, never distinct, never exact.”

  “What are you talking about?” It was Sheriff Wallace this time. “Without motive, why would we do anything?”

  OK. I wasn’t exactly sure where my briefing had started to get away from me, but this wasn’t in my outline.

  “I’m not saying people aren’t motivated to do things,” I said, “just that ‘motive’ isn’t the silver bullet it’s so often made out to be in criminal investigations.” I looked around. I got the feeling that with every word I said I was only digging myself in deeper. But I plowed forward anyway, trying not to sound like I was picking a fight. “Why do you get up and go to work each day, Agent Jiang? To make a living? Maybe obligation? Ambition? Passion? To prove yourself?”

  “To pick up men?” Tucker interjected. A few people laughed. He said it good-naturedly, and I got the feeling he was trying to help me save face, but Lien-hua just glared at him. I wished he’d just shut up.