Chill Factor (8 page)

"Does this Tierney fit the profile of a serial sex offender?"

Although it hadn't been established that sexual offenses had
been
committed against the missing women, it was assumed that was the reason
for their abductions. "Yes, sir. He's white. More or less a loner.
Married once, briefly. Currently divorced."

"Ex-wife?"

"Remarried."

"What do you know about the marriage and divorce?"

"Perkins is working on that angle for me. He's digging."

"Go on."

"He's forty-one. He has a U.S. passport and a Virginia
driver's
license. Six feet three inches tall. Weight, one eighty-five. At least
that's what he weighed when he renewed his license two years ago. Hair,
brown. Eyes, blue. No facial hair, tattoos, or visible scars.

"The manager of the lodge says he's polite and undemanding,
and he
tips the housekeeper even though she doesn't clean for him. He has one
major credit card. Uses it for nearly everything and pays the total
balance each month. No outstanding debts. No hassles with the IRS. He
drives a late-model Jeep Cherokee. Registration and insurance are
current."

"Sounds like a solid citizen, a prince among men."

Despite his remark, Begley knew that one's appearance and
demeanor
could camouflage a criminal, psychotic, or sociopathic mind. During his
long career, he'd run across some very twisted folks.

There was the woman who was widowed six times before anyone
thought
to investigate the bizarre coincidence. Her excuse for killing her
husbands, each in a distinctive and inventive way, was that she just
adored arranging funerals. She was as plump as a partridge and as
pretty as a peach. No one would have thought her capable of killing a
housefly.

Then there was the guy who played Santa Claus at the
neighborhood
mall every Christmas. Jolly and kind, beloved by all who knew him, he
would sit children on his knee and listen to what they wanted for
Christmas, pass out candy canes, remind them not to be naughty, and
then select one to violate sexually before dismembering the body and
placing the various parts in Christmas stockings, which he hung from
his mantel. Ho, ho, ho.

Nothing surprised Begley anymore, especially not a woman
snatcher
who was polite, tipped generously, and paid his bills on time.

"What about friends?" Begley asked. "Anyone ever join him in
that
cabin he rents?"

"No one
,
'He keeps to hisself,'
to quote Mr. Gus
Elmer, the owner of the lodge."

Begley stared at a picture of Laureen Elliott, the third woman
to
disappear. She had a bad perm and a sweet smile. Her car had been found
at a barbecue restaurant between the clinic where she worked as a nurse
and her home. She didn't pick up her phone-in order of ribs.

"Where does Ben Tierney call home?"

"He gets his mail at a condo he owns in Virginia, just outside
D.C.," Hoot replied. "But he's rarely there. Travels extensively."

Begley came around. "Do we know why?"

Hoot shuffled the stack of printed materials he'd brought in
with
him and came up with a popular
magazine
for
outdoor sports and activities. "Page thirty-seven."

Begley reached for the magazine and thumbed to the page,
finding
there a story about rafting the Colorado River.

"He's a freelance writer," Hoot explained. "Goes on
thrill-seeking
adventures and vacations, writes about them, sells the articles to
magazines that cater to particular interests. Mountain climbing,
hiking, hang gliding, scuba diving, dogsledding. You name it, he's done
it."

Accompanying the article was a color photograph of two men
Standing
on the rocky shoal of a river, white water in the background. One of
the men was bearded, stocky, and a lot shorter than six feet three. He
was identified beneath the photo as the guide for the trip.

The other smiling rafter fit Tierney's description. Wide,
white
smile in a lean, tanned face. Windblown hair. Calves as hard as
baseballs. Sculpted arms. Washboard abs. Michelangelo's
David
in a pair of cargo shorts.

Begley scowled down at Hoot. "Are you fucking kidding me? He's
the
kind of man women throw their
panties at."

"Ted Bundy was a reputed ladies' man,
sir."

Begley snorted, conceding the point. "What about women?"

"Relationships?"

"Or whatever."

"His neighbors in Virginia barely know him because he's seldom
there, but unanimously they said they'd never seen a woman at his
place."

"A good-looking bachelor like him?" Begley asked.

Hoot shrugged. "He could be gay, I guess, but there's no
indication
he is."

"He could have a ladylove stashed away somewhere else," Begley
ventured.

"If he does, we've found no evidence of one. No long-term
relationship. Or short term for that matter. But, as I said, he travels
a lot. Maybe he, you know, catches, uh, romance when and where he can."

Begley ruminated on that. Serial rapists or women killers
rarely
cultivated or maintained healthy, lasting relationships. Indeed, they
typically had an intense dislike for women. Depending on the psyche of
the offender, the hostility could be latent and well concealed, or
openly expressed. Either way, it was usually manifested in violent acts
against the opposite sex.

"Okay, you've aroused my interest," Begley said, "but I hope
you
have better than this."

Hoot shuffled through more paper. Finding the sheet he was
looking
for, he said, "This is a quote from Millicent Gunn's diary. 'Saw B.T.
again today. Second time in past three days. He's so freaking cool.
Always very nice to me.' The
very
is underlined,
sir.

" 'I think he likes me. Takes time to talk to me even though
I'm
fat.' That entry was dated three days before her disappearance. Her
parents claim none of her friends are named B.T. They don't know anyone
who goes by that name or has those initials."

"Fat?"

"Actually, Miss Gunn is anorexic and bulimic."

Begley nodded, having read on her stat sheet about her
hospital-ization last year. "Where did she see this B.T. twice in three
days?"

"That's what put me onto Ben Tierney. I went digging to see
who B.T.
might be. The first logical place to look was the high school. I came
up empty. All the B.T.s were girls.

"Second logical place would be where Millicent works. She
clerks
part-time in her uncle's store. In addition to hardware and gardening
equipment, he sells…" Hoot paused and pushed up his
eyeglasses.
"Sporting goods, clothing, and equipment."

Begley turned back to the corkboard, studying the photographs
of the
five apparent victims as he thoughtfully tugged on his lower lip. He
focused on the first. "Was he in Cleary at the time Torrie Lambert
disappeared off that hiking trail?"

"I don't know," Hoot admitted. "So far I have no record of his
being
there on the actual day she disappeared. But he definitely was in town
soon thereafter. The lodge's registry bears that out."

"Maybe after Torrie Lambert he thought the pickins in the area
were
good, so he came back, and has kept coming back ever since."

"My thinking exactly, sir."

"He travels. Have you researched similar missing persons cases
near
any of his destinations?"

"Perkins is working on that, too."

"ViCAP, NCIC?" Begley asked, referring to the information
networks
widely used by law enforcement agencies.

"Nothing." After a short pause, Hoot continued. "But we don't
yet
know all the places he's been. We're having to review his credit card
statements to see where his travels have taken him over the last
several years, then cross-checking our unsolved cases in those specific
areas. It's tedious and time-consuming."

"Was he in the vicinity of Cleary when Millicent Gunn
disappeared?"

"He checked into the lodge a week before her parents reported
her
missing."

"What do the boys in the RA out there think about him?"

"I haven't shared this information with them, sir."

Begley came around. "Then let me rephrase. What do they think
about
you working this case?"

There was a resident agency nearer to Cleary than Charlotte.
Hoot
had been transferred from it to the field office in Charlotte thirteen
months ago, but his investigation into Torrie Lambert's disappearance
and assumed kidnapping had begun in the RA that covered that
jurisdiction. "It's been my case from the start, sir. The agents in
that office recognize it as such and frankly are glad to let me have
it. I'd like to see it through, sir."

Twenty seconds of silence ticked by as Begley continued to
stare at
the photographs on the corkboard. Suddenly he made an abrupt
about-face. "Hoot, I think it's worth our time to make a trip up there
to talk to Mr. Tierney."

Hoot was stunned. "You and me? Sir."

"I haven't done fieldwork in a long time." Begley glanced
around the
walls of his office as though they'd suddenly become constricting.
"It'll be good for me."

Having made the decision, he began immediately to plan their
course
of action. "I don't want it to get around Cleary that we're looking at
Ben Tierney. How did you explain your interest to that…
What's his
name, the owner of the lodge?"

"Gus Elmer. I told him that Tierney is a contender for a
humanitarian award at his alma mater and that all aspects of his life
are being reviewed."

"And he bought that?"

"He's got three teeth, sir."

Begley nodded absently, his mind already racing ahead. "For as
long
as possible, let's keep the local PD in the dark, too. I don't want to
put them on alert and give them a chance to fuck it up if this guy's
Blue. What's the asshole's name?"

"Tierney."

"Not that asshole," he said impatiently, "the police chief."

"Burton. Dutch Burton."

"Right. Isn't there a story there?"

"He was formerly with Atlanta PD," Hoot explained.
"Outstanding
homicide detective. Commendations. Flawless record. Then he went round
the bend, started drinking heavily."

"How come?"

"Family problems, I believe."

"Whatever, he got his ass fired. I remember now." Begley had
been
gathering up personal items, including his cell phone, the framed
photograph of his wife of thirty years and their three children, and
his Bible. He yanked his overcoat from the coat tree and pulled it on.

"Bring all that with you." He indicated the case files stacked
in
Hoot's lap. "I'll read them on the way while you drive."

Hoot stood up and cast a wary glance out the window, where
darkness
was closing in over the city. "You mean you want… We're
going tonight?"

"We're going right fucking now."

"But, sir, the forecast."

He got the undiluted, full-out nutcracker treatment.

He didn't cringe, but he cleared his throat before continuing.
"They're predicting record freezing temperatures, ice and snow and
blizzard conditions, especially in that part of the state. We'd be
driving straight into it."

Begley pointed to the corkboard. "Do you want to venture a
guess as
to what happened to those ladies, Hoot? What sort of sicko torture do
you think this jerk-off puts them through before he kills them?

"I know, I know, we don't know with absolute certainty that
they're
dead, because no bodies have turned up yet. I'd like to think we'll
find them alive and intact, but I've had thirty-plus years of dealing
with this kind of shit.

"Let's face it, Hoot, the odds are good that we're going to
locate
bones, and that'll be all that's left of those ladies who had features,
dreams, and people who loved them. Now, can. you look at the faces in
those pictures and still whine about a little bad weather? Hmm?"

"No, sir."

Begley turned and strode out the door, saying as he went, "I
didn't
think so."

Tierney had pulled the watch cap from his head in one swift
motion.
Lilly had been standing by with a towel. That had been fifteen minutes
ago, and his scalp wound was still bleeding. The towel was almost
saturated. "Scalp wounds always bleed a lot," he said when she
expressed concern. "All those capillaries up there."

"Here's a fresh towel." As she passed it
to him, she
reached for the bloody one.

He withheld it. "You don't have to touch that. I'll take it
into the
bathroom. I assume it's through there?" He indicated the door leading
into the bedroom.

"To your right."

"I'm going to wash the blood out of my hair. Maybe the cold
water
will help stanch the bleeding." As
unsteady
as a
drunk, he walked toward the bedroom, where he braced himself against
the doorjamb and turned back. "Keep filling up every available
container with water. Pipes will freeze soon. We'll need drinking
water."

He disappeared into the room, and the light in there came on.
He'd
left a smear of blood on the doorjamb, she noticed.

When he'd said, "Praise be. I'm back to being Tierney," he'd
smiled
in the relaxed, easy fashion that she remembered from last summer. It
had dispelled her rash of awkwardness, which seemed rather silly and
juvenile now.

She didn't know much about him, but he wasn't a total
stranger.
She'd spent an entire day with him. They'd talked. They'd laughed.
Since then she'd read his articles and had learned that he was a
well-respected writer who was published often.

So why had she acted like such a dolt?

Well, for one thing, this was a bizarre situation.
Misadventures
such as this happened to other people. One heard about remarkable
survival experiences in the media. They did not happen to Lilly Martin.

Yet here she was, scrounging through a kitchen that no longer
belonged to her, searching for containers to fill with life-sustaining
water for her and a man she barely knew, with whom she could be
marooned in very close quarters for several days.