"That's the most ingenious part," Mark insisted. "She's hiding right out in the open. We've all even heard stories about her victims, but no one's connected the dots."
Smith glanced down at his monitor. When he saw the first article listed, he arched an eyebrow. The source was the Super Nova, a Florida-based supermarket tabloid.
"I do not understand."
Mark stopped next to Smith so that he could see the angled monitor. The young man was wired from lack of sleep.
"See that?" he said, pointing to the first article. "Open that one." He continued talking as Smith clicked open and began scanning the first article. "The story is probably familiar to you. There have been stories like it making the rounds the past few years. See, people get picked up in bars, or wherever. Doesn't matter where. The point is, they get taken back to a hotel thinking they're in for some fun. At some point someone slips something in their drink to knock them out. When they wake up, it's the next day and they're sitting in a bathtub filled with ice. And there's a note saying that they'd better call an ambulance because their organs have been harvested during the night."
Smith took his eyes off the article. He was beginning to think that his assistant was in need of a vacation. "That seems highly dubious," he said cautiously.
"It is," Mark insisted. "It's just an urban legend. People trading in black-market organs. Nobody in their right mind believes it's true. That's what's so perfect about it. Did you read the first story?"
Smith had scanned it as Mark spoke. The article from the Super Nova was written by a reporter named Allison Braverman. She gave an account of an incident essentially the same as the one Mark had just told Smith. According to the tabloid, a body packed in ice had been found in a motel bathroom in Denver. However, this story had a more plausible ending than the one Mark had related. The victim had died.
Smith glanced up over the tops of his glasses. "Mark," he began, "you cannot expect a supermarket tabloid to-"
Mark shook his head. "Next one down," he interrupted. "It's an actual report from the Denver police."
Smith clicked on the highlighted line. As he read along, his expression grew more surprised. The report told the same basic story as the tabloid. A body had indeed been discovered. The murder was unsolved. When Smith was finished, he looked up at his assistant in amazement.
"It actually happened," he said.
"Not just once," Howard said. "Dozens of times. See?" He pointed at the list of articles from the Super Nova. "All these are similar cases. Same story. Guy dead in a bathtub filled with ice, organs missing. I verified each one of them with the local police. Every single one happened. The FBI is even tracking it. Except they think they've got a run-of-the-mill serial killer on their hands."
Smith couldn't believe what he was hearing. If this was true, it was operating so far below the radar that even CURE's computers had overlooked it.
"Why did this not make the legitimate papers?"
"It did," Mark said. "As far as that first story is concerned, the Denver Post ran it the next day. But the wire services didn't pick it up. I think they weed out this sort of thing. They're too savvy to run stories about dogs with burglar's fingers stuck in their throats or old people setting the RV on cruise control and then going in the back to make tea. Those are urban legends, too, just like this. Nobody suspected this one was real because they'd already heard it a hundred times. Editors killed it thinking it was a con job or tabloid junk."
Smith absorbed in his assistant's words. He had to admit it was clever, in a perverted way. However, on its own it was hardly conclusive.
"Mark, this alone does not implicate Judith White."
A tired grin surfaced on Mark's pale face. "There's more. May I?" He indicated Smith's computer keyboard.
The CURE director leaned back in his chair, allowing his assistant access to the keyboard. Mark typed quickly, closing out the first file. He pulled up another. A fresh list of articles appeared, these ones from the Super Nova, as well. He pointed to the top one.
"Get a load of that," he said triumphantly. Adjusting his glasses on his patrician nose, Smith peered at the screen. The title of the new article, also by the Braverman woman, read Mysterious Cattle Mutilations Continue! Are Aliens to Blame? There was a long list of similar livestock stories. The headlines were each dated chronologically. Not one was more than three years old.
"I assume you've confirmed these, as well?" Smith asked.
Howard nodded. "For some reason-I have no idea why-the space-alien conspiracists think Kang and Kodos are flying all the way from Ork to chop up our cows. The articles about cattle mutilations are like crop-circle stories. They tend to get spiked by the legitimate press, too, since most editors put them in the same category of tabloid trash."
"And you believe Judith White is responsible for these, as well?" Smith said, nodding to the list of articles.
Mark attacked the keyboard once more. The folders of articles disappeared, replaced by a map of the United States.
On the map was a series of small circles shaded in dark red. Each of the small circles was surrounded by a larger pink circle. A date appeared within each of the concentric circles.
"These small circles are the cases where men were found dead in hotel bathtubs," Mark said excitedly, pointing to the smaller dots. "Farther out is where the cattle mutilations took place. Notice the dates."
Smith had already seen the pattern. In every set, the dates within the smaller and larger circles each took place within a month or two of each other. The dead men and cattle were killed at roughly the same time.
The circles moved slowly around the country. There were sets in virtually every state. They'd crop up for a few days, sometimes longer, before moving on to a new location. With a sinking feeling, the CURE director realized that he could have traced the path with his finger. It threaded through the nation in a single, unbroken line. Clearly it was the trail of a single individual on the move.
"My God," Smith said. "She's been here all along."
The excitement of discovery was fading for Mark Howard. The long night was finally beginning to catch up with him. Leaning back against the window frame, he rubbed his tired eyes.
"My guess is that she goes for cattle like fast food. It's not the fancy stuff she craves, but since she can't risk attacking people on the street she settles for good, full meals. They hold her for a month or two. But every now and then the craving gets to be too much for her. When that happens, she stages one of her bathtub specialties. After that she knows she has to move on. One death like that in a single city is dismissed as an urban legend, but two risks public outcries and curfews and added police patrols."
As he surveyed the map, Harold Smith could only shake his head in amazement. It was so obvious, so well researched. He had been impressed by his assistant in the past, but the young man had outdone himself this time.
"Excellent work, Mark," Smith said.
The thrill of discovery had passed, along with Mark's weary grin. There was a grim expression on his wide face as he looked at the map.
"There are two early killings I think are hers," he said, pointing. "Here and here. A couple weeks after she was presumed dead in Boston, a hiker at Yellowstone and two campers were killed in Arizona. Then she got smart. The first bathtub story was some poor pizza delivery guy in North Dakota. After that you can follow her route. But, even though it's been happening pretty much all around the country for the past three years, notice where there haven't been any of these cases."
Smith had noticed. The Northeast was clear of circles.
"She has avoided New England," the CURE director said.
"According to the local paper in Lubec, there have been a bunch of cattle eaten by wild animals up there in the past few days," Mark explained. "I didn't bother to mark those. Assuming she's got some of those monsters running around loose up there, that was bound to happen. But for three solid years, she avoided the Northeast like the plague."
"Hmm," Smith mused. "I would say she was concerned about discovery, at least at the start. Since Massachusetts lived through this twice before, it would make sense for her to avoid that region of the country lest someone make even a tenuous connection as you have. Yet she has made it the focus now." He pursed his lips in thought. "If it was not animal fear that kept her away all this time, I would surmise that she kept clear of the region until she was ready to begin this latest scheme of hers." A fresh thought sprang to mind.
Smith quickly scanned the map. He found several spots where the concentric red-and-pink circles didn't overlap. These in-between areas where Judith White had not left a trail were colored blue. Most were so small as to be insignificant. There were only two large areas shaded in blue. Besides New England, the largest blue spot was an area of California from south of San Francisco all the way to San Diego. The entire lower half of the state was untouched.
"There," Smith announced. "Why has she never gone to Southern California?"
Mark had noticed the blue area as he was making the map.
"I could only come up with two possibilities," the young man said. "It could just be that they lucked out and she left it off her route, or-"
Smith finished his assistant's thought. "Or that is where her lab is located," the older man said excitedly.
"I've compiled a list of facilities in California she might be using," Mark said. "It's still pretty long, but it's a start."
"Very good," Smith said. "We will begin straight away."
As he spoke, one of the two phones on his desk jangled to life. It was the blue contact phone.
As he leaned forward to grab the receiver, Smith's cracked leather chair retained an outline of his body. "Smith," the CURE director said crisply.