“We’re just like you, Lieutenant. Chronically underfunded with our hands out to politicians who have the attention span of gnats on crack. The hot topic of the moment gets the appropriation and everything else gets shoved to the bottom shelf. Eco-terrorists have committed hundreds of violent acts, with plenty of fatalities. We’re talking nasties who believe humanity’s a plague and have no problem spiking trees to mutilate loggers. Fanatics who burn down other people’s houses because they don’t approve of the square footage. Nothing’s happened on a grand scale yet, and they’ve got the secret sympathy of some mainstream environmental groups who condemn violence but continue to wink and nod. But my judgment is, it’s only a matter of time before the country regrets not dealing with the problem.”

“Desmond Backer was a serious eco-terrorist?”

Lindstrom toed her bag again. “It’s a delicate situation. Not for me personally, We’re talking events that precede my tenure with the Bureau.”

She unclasped the bag, pulled out lip balm, twisted her mouth into a disapproving little bud and lubricated. Basic delay tactic. I’d learned a whole bunch of them, working as a psychologist.

Milo said, “Lost my script, what’s my next line?”

“The overview I’m about to give you, Lieutenant, is based on summaries of files transferred to me by predecessors who’ve been transferred.”

“They get transferred to Ahmed. But you’re dealing with homegrown naughties no one cares about.”

Gayle Lindstrom’s half smile would have intrigued da Vinci.

Milo said, “You don’t play well with others, so you’re on timeout.”

She laughed. “Let’s just say I’ve been assigned to look into years of eco-crimes and write reports unlikely to be read. My instructions are to concentrate on the Pacific Northwest, because that’s where fuzzies and trees tend to inspire the most passion. That led me to your homicide victims. Desmond Backer and Doreen Fredd met in Seattle. He grew up there, and she’d been sent to a group home for problem girls. She utilized legitimate passes from the home as well as illicit exits to associate with Backer and his friends.”

“Climbing out the window,” said Milo.

“Or just sneaking out the back door, the place wasn’t exactly super-max lockdown. Like many teenagers, Fredd and Backer and their friends appear to have filled some of their free time with various vegetative hallucinogens, alternative music, video games. They also spent time engaged in apparently wholesome activities such as hiking, camping, environmental cleanups, volunteer wildlife rescue. Unfortunately, some of that may have been a cover for arson and other acts of vandalism.”

“Were they ever arrested?”

“Insufficient evidence,” said Lindstrom. “But their proximity to several trashed homesites is revealing.”

“What exactly do you have on them?”

“What the local police had on them was word-of-mouth. Then, a dead boy.”

“They killed someone?”