Say Goodbye

TWENTY-SIX

HAROLD LOVED THE BOOT.

“Holy crap! Do you know what this is?” he exclaimed. “Wow, a Limmer boot. Where did you get this? Do you know what this means?”

Kimberly didn’t know what a Limmer boot was, or what having one meant. That’s why she’d asked Harold to journey down from the high ground of Counterterrorism to VC’s tiny, third-floor sanctuary. The CT agents hated to travel. After all, they had an entire floor complete with half a dozen TVs blaring Fox News. In contrast, Violent Crimes had…cardboard boxes, some maps, a couple rolls of yellow crime scene tape strewn around for general aesthetics.

Fortunately, Harold had been intrigued by her request for help. He was a geek. It was one of the things Kimberly liked best about him.

Kimberly had commandeered an unused desk by a bank of windows. There, she had laid out the dark brown hiking boot on top of a sheet of butcher paper. To the side, she had spread her kit of stainless steel instruments: metal file, tweezers, scraper, a host of different-size metal picks. Sure, she could’ve gone with the Popsicle sticks favored by so many evidence technicians, but that wouldn’t have looked nearly as cool.

She’d completed an initial examination of the boot, noting size, color, brand name, tread pattern, and surface markings. She’d recorded that the boot was a men’s size 10, with a badly scuffed inner heel and big toe. It appeared to be made from an all-leather upper, with a rubber sole. Shoelace was brown, threaded with dark green. She snapped a dozen photographs to record its initial state.

Then she’d started the process of chipping off caked mud, plant materials, and other debris from the bottom of the boot. Select samples were captured in glass vials to be sent to the FBI lab. The rest of the detritus would remain captured in the butcher paper, as it was folded up, slid inside a larger brown paper evidence bag, and stored in the evidence vault for future consideration. Finally, she would cast the boot’s tread pattern in tinted dental stone for possible match later with any impressions recovered from a crime scene.

The life of an evidence collector was all about painstaking methodology and practiced patience. You sorted, studied, and saved, all in the name of someday. Except Kimberly didn’t feel like waiting these days. She wanted answers now. Harold, former naturalist and U.S. Forestry Service employee, seemed her best bet.

“A Limmer boot is special?” she ventured, straightening up with a metal pick still clutched in her right hand.

“Sure. Limmers are a high-end hiker’s boot, made by a family-owned shop in New Hampshire. You’re not talking something you pick up at your nearest Wal-Mart. This is an enthusiast’s boot. A serious hiker for sure.”

This got Kimberly’s attention. “High-end? What does that mean? Limited quantities? Highly traceable?”

“Well,” Harold drawled now, taking the pick from her and starting to poke at the boot himself. “Back in my day, Limmers were custom fit. But if memory serves, they contracted with an outside company to manufacture a small line of ready-to-wear hiking boots. So I guess the real question is, what kind of boot do we have here? Handmade custom fit or mass-produced ready-to-wear?”

He snapped on a pair of latex gloves, hefting up the boot and rolling it between his hands. “Feel the weight of this sucker. That’s a good two pounds, easy. Full-length nylon shank, double-layer midsole, Vibram outsole. Nice.”

“If these boots are so special, why haven’t I ever heard of them? I’m a hiker.”

Harold gave her a look. “When’s the last time you did the AT?”

“AT?” she muttered, thinking hard. “Appalachian Trail? Ummm, it’s on my list.”

“Yeah, you’re a day hiker. These are boots for the pros.”

Kimberly murmured something low and disparaging under her breath, but couldn’t refute his point.

“So I could contact Limmer and they might be able to tell me who purchased this boot?”

“It’s possible. Especially if it was a custom job. May I?”

Harold still had the metal pick, waving it at the rubber insole. Kimberly shrugged and let him have at it. She’d been studying the boot for an hour now. All she had to show for it was a headache.

She wandered off for a glass of water. When she returned, Harold had pulled over a chair and was getting into it.

“Lotta minerals,” he reported, sifting through the crumbling bits of dried mud. “Quartz, feldspar, even some amethyst. Do you have a flashlight?”

Kimberly retrieved her field kit from beneath her desk, pulling out a flashlight.

“Magnifying glass,” Harold chirped.

She produced a magnifying glass.

“Glass of water.”

She rolled her eyes, but obediently fetched water.

Harold didn’t drink the water, but used an eyedropper to squeeze several drops into a glass vial, then added a clump of mud, then more water. He turned the mud into silt, swirling it around within the vial, before starting the painstaking process of pouring out the silt into a second glass tube.

“Look at this, all these tiny reflective particles?” He held up the first glass vial, now devoid of brackish water. “You’re talking a soil very high in metals and minerals. Got a microscope?”

Kimberly arched a brow. “Harold, we’re evidence collectors, not evidence analyzers. No one has a microscope.”

“I do,” Harold said.

“What?”

“Well, you never know,” he stated defensively. “Sometimes, life simply calls for a microscope.”

Kimberly couldn’t think of a single thing to say to that. She sent him upstairs for his microscope. When he returned, they rinsed the mineral sample a second time and prepared a slide. After all, sometimes life does call for a microscope.

“Gold,” Harold murmured at last. “Mostly feldspar and quartz. But also a trace amount of gold.”

“Really?”

“Sure. After all, the first gold rush in America happened right here in Georgia. 1829.” Harold straightened up from the microscope, returning to the boot and scraping off more debris. “In the Chattahoochee National Forest. Where’d you think the expression ‘There’s gold in them thar hills’ came from?”

“Hadn’t given the matter any thought.”

“You should visit Dahlonega sometime. Check out the museum, tour the old mines. There’s even a hotel that has its own gold mine in the basement.”

“I thought Dahlonega was wine country.”

“Gold for the new generation,” Harold assured her. “Now this is interesting. Take a look at this.”

Kimberly obediently leaned closer. Harold had picked out several green scraps of plant matter from the mud-caked boot. Now he mounted the first object on a slide and slid it under his microscope.

“What is it?” Kimberly prodded.

“Looks like crushed leaf of a mountain laurel.” Harold made some adjustments, then slid out the first slide and replaced it with a second. “And this here looks like white pine. Also got some dried oak leaves, bits of beech. Yeah, I’d say your subject’s been in the Chattahoochee National Forest, without a doubt. Someplace with a lot of broadleaf hardwoods and evergreen conifers. Look, there’s even some hemlock. Hmmm…”

“Would that be a good place to hide bodies?”

“The Chattahoochee National Forest?” Harold asked, still hunched over the microscope.

“Yeah. We think this subject may have kidnapped and killed ten women. It’d be a lot easier, however, if we could locate a body. Maybe the Chattahoochee would be the place to start.” Not to mention that by virtue of being a national forest, the Chattahoochee fell under FBI jurisdiction.

“If you’re gonna hike through the Chattahoochee National Forest,” Harold commented absently, “I’d order a pair of Limmers first.” He finished at the microscope, returned to the boot.

“Why?”

“The forest contains over seven hundred and fifty thousand acres.”

“What?”

“Told you we had good hiking in this state.”

“Ah damn.”

“Wait. I got another present for you. Tweezers.”

Kimberly rifled her instrument kit, found the tweezers. “More gold?” she asked hopefully. “How about the driver’s license from one of the victims?”

“Better.”

“Better?”

“Yeah. Check it out. I got a spider casting.”

Kimberly managed to reach Sal by phone shortly after three p.m. She’d eaten four puddings and a buttermilk biscuit for lunch and was feeling the sugar rush.

“So I talked to a guy at Limmer Boot,” she reported in one quick burst. “If we can get him the boot, he’d be happy to examine it for us. Sounds to him like it’s one of their standard mountaineering boots. They’re sold by a variety of dealers now, with men’s size ten being the most common size, so that’s the bad news. But if it was a custom fit-he won’t know until he sees it-he might be able to track down the name.”

Sal didn’t sound nearly as impressed as he should be: “Dinchara bought a boot in New Hampshire?”

“Maybe. Or by mail order. Point is, this is a pretty serious hiking boot, generally purchased by pretty serious hikers. Harold’s convinced Dinchara’s been stomping around the Chattahoochee National Forest, which finally limits our search area from the entire state of Georgia to a mere seven hundred and fifty thousand acres.”

Sal grunted.

“Okay,” Kimberly tried again. “What did you do today?”

“Had my ass handed to me by my supe.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Klein rejected my request to form a task force. He doesn’t believe we’ve adequately provided evidence of foul play.”

“But the driver’s licenses of missing women left on your car. The recording of Veronica Jones’s murder-”

“Unsubstantiated.”

“Dinchara’s conversation with Ginny. Hell, Dinchara’s treatment of Ginny-”

“She’s welcome to press charges.”

“Ah crap,” Kimberly said, feeling deflated now, too. “What exactly does he want from us?”

“A body. A corroborating witness. More substantiation that the women really are missing, and not just relocated.”

“But that’s why we need the task force. So we can do the legwork to get the substantiation. Or, here’s a thought, find a body.”

“I know.”

“And in the meantime, Ginny Jones is hanging out there, alone and unprotected, after ruffling Dinchara’s feathers.”

“I know.”

She scowled, chewed her lower lip. “Some days, this job really sucks.”

“I know.”

They sat in silence for a moment, then Sal said, out of nowhere, “My dad used to do that-slap my mother around. It wasn’t too bad, until my brother disappeared. Then my father started to drink heavily. He’d beat the shit out of my mother, and she’d just take it. Like everything lousy in life really was her fault.”

Kimberly didn’t know what to say.

“I hated it then, and I hate it now. Goddamn, I just want to arrest the son of a bitch.”

“Sal-”

“Never mind. I’m just having a bad day. Nothing I won’t get over. So.” He cleared his throat. “I located Ginny’s real address, using the info from her vehicle registration. Jackie agreed to monitor Ginny tonight. I’ll take tomorrow night, see what happens.”

Sal paused expectantly, waiting for her to offer to take night three. Kimberly tapped one finger on her desk, thinking guiltily of Mac, wanting her to return home to discuss major life changes. Then there was the matter of her father and Rainie, who’d flown in all the way from Oregon.

“You know,” Sal prodded more forcefully, “Dinchara’s pretty riled up. A guy like that, once he decides he’s got a liability, isn’t exactly going to send Ginny on a trip to Disney World. We’re the ones who wired her up. To walk away now…”

“I have to look at my calendar,” Kimberly said.

“Well, well, well, if you gotta wash your hair-”

“Don’t be an ass.”

“I’m just saying-”

“I know, I know. Dinchara’s mad, Ginny’s vulnerable. Things are happening fast. Why do you think I spent the whole afternoon hunched over a filthy hiking boot? We’re going to pull it together. After all, we’ve already struck gold. Oh, and found a spider casting.”

“A spider what?”

“Exactly.”

Next phone call was from Mac.

“Dinner?” she tried. “I promised Rainie chicken-fried steak with gravy. Rainie’s buying the groceries. Dad’s picking up the Lipitor.”

“Can’t. Gotta work late.”

“But you love chicken-fried steak.”

“Then save me a plate,” he said, already sounding irritated. Kimberly took that as a hint and shut up. Mac stopped talking, too; the silence stretching long.

“Rough case?” she finally ventured.

“You know how it is.”

“Guess I do.”

“Don’t wait up.”

“Guess I won’t.”

“We can’t keep doing this, you know,” he said abruptly. “You’re working late, I’m working late. We pass each other in the night, with barely a peck on the cheek. What kind of way is this to live?”

“Our way,” she said softly.

“Something’s gotta give.”

“I’m ready to talk when you are.”

“Oh sure, now that you’re no longer busy.”

The open hostility in his voice shocked her. She clammed up again, feeling she’d waded into a minefield, not sure how to proceed.

“Ah fuck it,” Mac said. “I’m tired, that’s all.” Then he hung up on her.

When her cell phone rang again, she picked it up without thinking. She thought it might be Sal, reporting more news. She hoped it might be Mac, offering an apology.

Instead, she got silence.

And then she knew.

She sat back in her chair, already digging around in her jacket, trying to find her mini-recorder.

“Why don’t you care?” the voice asked, high-pitched, tinny. This time around, she thought she could catch a faint distortion, a hint of electronics.

“I’m listening,” she said, fumbling the recorder, finally getting it on top of her desk, switching it on.

“I thought you would care,” the voice echoed petulantly, ping-ponging through the earpiece, “…do something.”

“Let’s meet,” she said evenly. “Talk in person. I want to help.”

“It’s not my fault. ‘Step into my parlor,’ said the spider to the fly. And they do, they do.”

“Tell me your name. I need an address, a phone number. I’ll list you as a confidential informant. No one will know but us.”

But the caller wasn’t listening to her. His voice had grown to a higher-pitched whine, sounding angry. “Why didn’t you try harder? You forgot about us. You abandoned us to his web. Now it’s your turn. He’s gonna get you. But I don’t care. I refuse to care. It’s not my fault.”

“Veronica Jones,” she said crisply. “The other women…I know what he did, but I need proof. What does he do with them? Where does he hide their bodies? If you help me find them, I can make this stop.”

But the voice didn’t respond. She heard silence, followed by a crackle of interference. Then, when she had almost given up: “I’m gonna graduate.”

She hesitated, then took a gamble: “You mean like Tommy Mark Evans?”

“That was not my fault!” the voice cried. “You don’t know what it’s like. Once his mind’s made up there’s nothing you can do.”

“Then meet with me. Explain it to me. Help me help you.”

“No. Too late. You had your chance. Now it’s my turn, and I’m gonna graduate.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“All I have to do is kill you.”

“Pardon?”

The caller was agitated now. “Someone loved me once. A long time ago. I wish I could remember her face. But she’s gone now. This is all I have left. I want to survive. I want to graduate. I will kill you.”

“Let me help you!”

“Say goodbye,” the voice whispered, then the caller was gone.

Night was falling by the time Kimberly checked out for the day, taking the elevator down to the lobby, walking out to the parking garage. Temperature hovered around the high forties, cool enough to make her hunch her shoulders inside her camel-colored coat, scarf wrapped tight around her neck.

The sprawling office park was quiet as she followed the sidewalk along the embankment, shallow stream to her right, parking garage to her left. She had one hand in her pocket, curled around her car fob, largest key tucked between two fingers like a shank.

The wind whispered over the slight hill, stirring the hair at the nape of her neck, tickling the upturned collar of her coat.

She turned to study the emptiness behind her, picked up her step.

The shadows grew longer, chasing her into the parking garage toward the crouched form of her station wagon. She didn’t relax until she had checked the full interior, including the backseats and cargo space. Even then, sliding behind the wheel, closing the door, hitting all the locks, she could feel her hands tremble as Baby McCormack gave a fluttering little kick to her side.

“It’s okay, baby,” she whispered. “You’re safe, everything’s all right.”

But she wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince anymore, her baby or herself.