The Naturalist (The Naturalist #1)(89)

Ongoing . . . It certainly is.

I try not to think of what the news has done to Jillian or Gus, let alone my parents. I’ve had to stop myself several times from picking up the phone and telling them I’m okay.

I can’t just yet.

I have to find him.

I know he won’t make a move on Jillian or Gus so soon after my death. It would attract attention and let the authorities know there’s another killer out there. He’s smart and patient. He’ll wait it out—then go after them and close that book.

Constantly checking the news was getting distracting, so I created a little script that searches the web for my name and sends me a text update any time it appears in the Montana newspapers.

I also have a police scanner that lets me know what the cops are up to around here—the ones that aren’t using an encrypted channel. If they’ve seen through my ruse and are closing in on me, I think it might give me some heads-up.

The van is parked out back, near the fire escape. I can get to it from the front door, or through the back window that I already have open, with a coil of rope tied to the toilet. Probably overcautious, but the cops aren’t the only ones I’m afraid of finding me.

Clark is a skilled hunter. While I don’t doubt his threats toward Jillian and Gus, I’m sure he’ll come for me if he thinks I’m on the loose.

That’s why finding him first, while I’m dead, is so critical.

Unfortunately, my hunt has been a bust.

Joshua Lee Clark vanished in the 1980s, not long after the Cougar Creek Monster sightings stopped. The next time I know he reared his head was when the oldest victim I found outside of Red Hook was killed six years ago.

I suspect he was active before then in the state, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he went somewhere else for a decade or two.

Using some anthropology software designed to reconstruct facial features from bone structure, I created an adult version of his face and then used that as a comparison to scan through online mug shots. Then I sorted through thousands of possibilities and discounted ones that had traceable family connections.

This narrowed the field to just under two hundred people. To sort through these, I looked at their arrest records and the crimes they committed, and went on instinct.

This yielded a dozen maybes, although none of them felt right. I knew that wasn’t exactly a scientific thing to go on, but I suspected that Clark might be too clever and focused to get busted for the simple things, like robbing a convenience store or selling meth out of his car. However, given his violent tendencies, I considered it highly possible that he might have been arrested at some point when his temper got out of control, so I kept checking.

When this line of attack began to seem less likely to find him, I started trying to think out of the box. For the last two hours I’ve been hypnotized by his purple band of activity that MAAT singled out for me.

Watching all the big rigs pull up, I have an inspiration and try to find a trucking route that lines up with the killings. Nothing matches.

There’s also the problem that MAAT insists overwhelmingly that Clark’s hunting ground is based on victim availability. This suggests that he adjusts his route to the victims, which would be hard if he had to drive a proscribed route. I’d see clusters around specific dates, but I don’t.

My sense of dread is growing with every dead end. I’m running into the walls of the public data sets I have access to. I’ve paid for dozens of background checks, but that’s just not enough. If I had FBI-level resources and an unrestricted warrant, maybe I would have better luck.

Or maybe not. I might still be looking at this the wrong way.

I’ve had a few exciting leads that have given me hope, but they quickly faded.

When I was in the gas station bathroom, I realized for the first time that there were vending machines selling condoms and breath mints. I’d seen these all over the state.

I ran back to my room to see if I could find a connection, thinking that maybe the person who refills them is Clark, but came up empty-handed. MAAT gave that as much probability as Clark just being a random person driving long distances from his home to kill.

It’s obvious. I’m sure of it. I just don’t know what that connection is. I’m going to make some assumptions and see if MAAT comes up with something that jumps out at me.

Clark is familiar with his victims in some way. He sees them, he knows their routines. He has opportunity to watch them and wait until they’re vulnerable.

I type these factors into MAAT, converting them to code. Familiarity with the victim would imply that he has a chance to see most of them more than once. Knowing their routine means he has some idea of their circuit—their own work and social patterns. Vulnerability is coded for by looking for when he could be alone with them in a professional situation—like being a taxi driver or a mailman.

It takes MAAT a fraction of a second to come back with a high-probability suggestion that chills me. Under those criteria, the likeliest occupation for Clark is highway patrolman.





CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR


REALITY CHECK

It’s a wonderful theory and would explain so much. Yet it only works in the limited reality that I programmed into MAAT. Clark would have to be close to sixty now. There aren’t any Montana State troopers out on the road that old.

He might be senior law enforcement, but that seems doubtful. I’m not sure if he would want to risk the background checks that go with that. I’m not ruling it out entirely, but putting that under the maybe category.