Chill Factor

Begley took them in descending order. “Before her was Carolyn Maddox. Single mother, working long hours to support her diabetic child. Laureen Elliott.” He opened her file and scanned the contents. “Ahh. Five feet three inches tall, two hundred forty pounds. She was overweight. I’ll bet if we investigate her, we’ll learn that her weight had been a lifetime problem, that she’d been on every fad diet ever invented.

“She was a nurse. Working in the medical profession, she was constantly reminded of the health risks associated with obesity. Maybe pressure had been placed on her to lose weight or lose her job.”

“I see where you’re going with this, sir.”

“Betsy Calhoun’s husband died of pancreatic cancer six months prior to her disappearance. They’d been married twenty-seven years. She was a homemaker. What does all that indicate to you, Hoot?”

“Uh . . .”

“Depression.”

“Of course.”

“Betsy Calhoun was married immediately after high school. She never worked outside the home. Her husband handled all their personal business. She probably never even signed a check until after he died. Suddenly she’s having to fend for herself, and besides that, she’s lost the love of her life, her reason for living.”

Begley was so wound up that Hoot didn’t have the heart to point out this was all conjecture. Conjecture based on sound logic, but still conjecture that wasn’t substantiated and would never hold up in a courtroom.

“This is key, Hoot,” Begley continued. “He hasn’t taken a woman who’s secure in her career, who’s in a solid romantic relationship, physically fit, or emotionally stable. Before they disappeared, all these women were dodging the slings and arrows, so to speak.

“One’s depressed, one’s obese, one’s working her fingers to the bone trying to make ends meet and keep her kid semihealthy, and one binges on junk food and makes herself puke. Then,” he said with a dramatic flair, “enter our perp. Gentle and understanding, compassionate and kind, and looking like fucking Prince Charming to boot.”

Warming to the theory, Hoot said, “He befriends them, wins their confidence and trust.”

“Gives them his broad shoulders to cry on and holds them in his strong, tanned arms.”

“His m.o. is to help needy women.”

“Not just help, Hoot, rescue. Deliver. Looking the way he does, being the rugged adventurer he is, he could get all the sex he wants, whenever he feels the urge. That may be a component, a fringe benefit, but what gets his pole up is being their savior.”

Then a thought occurred to Hoot that toppled the whole hypothesis. “We forgot Torrie Lambert. The first. She was a beautiful girl. Straight A student. Popular with her classmates. No major hang-ups or problems.

“Besides,” Hoot continued, “Blue didn’t seek her out. He stumbled across her when she left the group of hikers. He didn’t know she was going to be wandering alone in the woods that day. She was taken because she was available, not because she was needy.”

Frowning, Begley opened her file and began flipping through the contents. “What about the men in that group of hikers?”

“Present and accounted for the whole time she was missing. They were questioned at length. No one left the group except Torrie.”

“Why did she?”

“In interviews, Mrs. Lambert, Torrie’s mother, admitted that they’d had a row that morning. Nothing serious. Typical teenage angst and attitude. I would guess she resented being on vacation with her parents.”

“That’s precisely where Mrs. Begley and I are with our fifteen-year-old. We’re an embarrassment. She’s mortified if we acknowledge her in public.” He brooded on that a moment before continuing. “So Blue happens upon Torrie, who’s in a pissy, fifteen-year-old mood. He chats with her, sympathizes, takes her side against her mother, says he remembers what a pain in the ass parents can be . . .”

“And she’s his.”

“In a New York minute,” Begley said with finality. “Eventually she’ll start to feel uneasy with him and try to return to her parents. He asks her, why would you want to go back to them when I’m the friend you need? Creeped out by now, she tries to

get away. He loses his temper. She dies under his hands.

“Maybe it wasn’t his intention to kill her,” Begley continued. “Maybe things got out of hand and he didn’t realize until too late that she was no longer breathing. But all the same, whether he raped her or not, he got off on it.”

He closed his eyes as though following the actions and thought processes of the perpetrator. “Later, when he isn’t captured, and no one’s even looking at him as a suspect, he realizes how easy it was. Now he’s got a taste for it. Dominance is the ultimate ego trip. The quintessential rush is taking someone’s fate into your own hands, controlling her destiny.

“While he’s off ice climbing or some damn fool thing, he realizes it’s just not as thrilling as it used to be. The adrenaline isn’t pumping as it once did. He starts thinking about the high he derived from killing that girl, and suddenly he’s got a hard-on to do it again.

“He decides to return to Cleary and see what kind of aid he might render to some other needy female, see if he can recapture that particular exhilaration. He comes back here because the risk of capture is slim to none. He thinks the cops are hillbillies, not nearly as smart as he is. There are lots of places to hide, acres of wilderness in which to stash corpses. He likes it here. It’s the perfect place for his latest thrill-seeking pastime.”

By the time Begley concluded the imaginary scenario, he sounded angry. His eyes sprang open. “Why aren’t we moving?” Wiping the foggy windshield with his coat sleeve, he asked, “What the fuck’s taking so long?”