Say Goodbye

“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 go

“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 Gi

“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, Gi

“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 Gi

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 Gi

“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, Gi

“A spider what?”

“Exactly.”

Next phone call was from Mac.

“Di

“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.