Crowe looked at Tripp and said drily, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
“Is any of this really relevant?” asked Tripp.
Frost flushed. “Yeah. And if you’d just listen, maybe you’d learn something.”
Jane glanced at her partner in surprise. Rarely did Frost show irritation, and she hadn’t expected him to do so over the subject of sphagnum moss.
Zucker said, “Please continue, Detective Frost. I’d like to know exactly what makes a bog ombrogenous.”
Frost took a breath and straightened in his chair. “It refers to the source of water. Ombrogenous means it doesn’t get any water from streams or underground currents. Which means it gets no added oxygen or nutrients. It’s entirely rain-fed and stagnant, and that makes it superacidic. All the characteristics that make it a true bog.”
“So it isn’t just any wet place.”
“No. It has to be fed only by rainwater. Otherwise they’d call it a fen or a marsh.”
“How is this important?”
“Only real bogs have the conditions you need to preserve bodies. We’re talking about a specific kind of wetland.”
“And would that limit where this body was preserved?”
Frost nodded. “The Northeast has thousands of acres of wetland, but only a small fraction of them are true bogs. They’re found in the Adirondacks, in Vermont, and in northern and coastal Maine.”
Detective Tripp shook his head. “I went hunting once, way up in northern Maine. There’s nothing there except trees and deer. If our boy has a little hidey-hole up there, good luck finding it.”
Frost said, “The biologist, Dr. Welsh, said she might be able to narrow down the location if she had more information. So we sent her some bits of plant material that Dr. Isles picked out of the victim’s hair.”
“This all helps,” said Zucker. “It gives us another data point for our killer’s geographic profile. You know the saying among criminal profilers: You go where you know, and you know where you go. People tend to stick to areas where they’re comfortable, places they’re familiar with. Maybe our unsub went to summer camp in the Adirondacks. Or he’s a hunter like you, Detective Tripp, and he knows the back roads, the hidden camps of Maine. What he did to the bog victim required advance planning. How did he get familiar with the area? Does he own a cabin there? And is it accessible at just the right time of year, while the water’s cold but not frozen, so she could be deposited quickly into the bog?”
“There’s something else we know about him,” said Jane.
“What would that be?”
“He knew exactly how to preserve her. He knew the right conditions, the right water temperature. That’s specialized knowledge, not the kind of information that most people would have.”
“Unless you’re an archaeologist,” said Zucker.
Jane nodded. “We get back to the same theme again, don’t we?”
Zucker leaned back, eyes narrowing in thought. “A killer who’s familiar with ancient funerary practices. Whose victim in New Mexico was a young woman working on a dig site. Now he seems to be fixated on yet another young woman working in a museum. How does he find these women? How does he meet them?” He looked at Jane. “Have you a list of Ms. Pulcillo’s friends and associates?”
“It’s a pretty short list. Just the museum staff and the people in her apartment building.”
“No gentlemen friends? You said she’s quite an attractive young woman.”
“She says she hasn’t had a date since she moved to Boston five months ago.” Jane paused. “Actually, she’s kind of a strange bird.”
“What do you mean?”
Jane hesitated and glanced at Frost, who was steadfastly avoiding her gaze. “There’s something…off about her. I can’t explain it.”
“Did you have the same reaction, Detective Frost?”
“No,” Frost said, his mouth tightening. “I think Josephine’s scared, that’s all.”
Zucker glanced back and forth between the two partners, and his eyebrows lifted. “A difference of opinion.”
“Rizzoli’s reading too much into it,” said Frost.
“I just get weird signals from her, that’s all,” said Jane. “As if she’s more afraid of us than the perp.”
“Afraid of you, maybe,” said Frost.
Detective Crowe laughed. “Who isn’t?”
Zucker was silent for a moment, and Jane did not like the way he was studying her and Frost, as though probing the depths of the breach between them.
Jane said, “The woman’s a loner, that’s all I’m saying. She goes to work, she goes home. Her whole life seems to be inside that museum.”
“What about her colleagues?”
“The curator’s a guy named Nicholas Robinson. Forty years old, single, no criminal record.”
“Single?”
“Yeah, it raised a red flag for me, too, but I can’t find anything that gives me a tingle. Besides, he’s the one who found Madam X in the basement. The rest of the staff are all volunteers, and their average age is around a hundred years old. I can’t imagine one of those fossils dragging a body out of a bog.”
“So you’re left with no viable suspects.”
“And three victims who probably weren’t even killed in the state of Massachusetts, much less in our jurisdiction,” said Crowe.
“Well, they’re all in our jurisdiction now,” Frost pointed out.
“We’ve managed to search all the crates in the museum basement and we haven’t found any other victims. But you never know, there might be hidden spaces behind other walls.” He glanced down at his ringing cell phone and suddenly stood. “Excuse me, I gotta take this call.”
As Frost stepped out of the room, Zucker’s gaze turned back to Jane. “I’m curious about something you said earlier, regarding Ms. Pulcillo.”
“What about her?”
“You described her as a strange bird. Yet Detective Frost saw nothing of the kind.”
“Yeah. Well, we have a difference of opinion.”
“How deep a difference?”
Was she supposed to tell him what she really thought? That Frost’s judgment had gone haywire because his wife was out of town and he was lonely and Josephine Pulcillo had big brown eyes?
“Is there something about the woman that may bias you against her?”
“What?” Jane gave a laugh of disbelief. “You think I’m the one who-”
“Why does she make you uneasy?”
“She doesn’t. There’s just a caginess about her. Like she’s trying to stay one step ahead.”
“Of you? Or the killer? From what I heard, the young woman had every right to be afraid. A body was left in her car. It almost sounds like a gift from the killer-an offering, if you will. To his next companion.”
His next companion.That phrase raised gooseflesh on Jane’s arms.
“I take it she’s in a secure location?” said Zucker. When no one immediately answered him, he looked around the table. “I’m sure we all agree she could be in jeopardy. Where is she?”
“That’s an issue we’re trying to clear up right now,” admitted Jane.
“You don’t know where she is?”
“She told us she was going to stay with an aunt named Connie Pulcillo in Burlington, Vermont, but we can’t find any listing with that name. We’ve left messages on Josephine’s voice mail and she hasn’t responded.”
Zucker shook his head. “This is not good news. Have you checked her Boston residence?”
“She’s not there. A neighbor in her building saw her leave Friday morning with two suitcases.”
“Even if she’s left Boston, she may not be safe,” said Zucker.
“This unsub is clearly comfortable operating across state lines. He doesn’t seem to have geographic boundaries. He could have followed her.”