Not a bad idea. We were deliberating which direction to take things when Doehring radioed with an update.
Tips had been coming in ever since we put out word to the media that Basque had fled from the water treatment facility, and all afternoon Doehring and the team had been following up on them. Just minutes ago they’d found an apartment rented under the name Anthropos Phagein by someone who fit Basque’s description. Gavin had been looking into the etymology of words related to “cannibal,” as I’d suggested at the NCAVC meeting, and had found that “anthropos” meant “human” and “phagein” meant “to eat.” Together they were the root words for “anthropophagy.”
Another word for cannibalism.
“Where is it?” I asked.
“Southwest DC.” He told me the address; he didn’t have to tell me it wasn’t anywhere near any of the hot zones I’d come up with. “We have officers there now, but the place is empty — not even any furniture.”
Ralph said, “Why’s Basque using names that are traceable?”
“Because,” I answered, “he wants me to chase him. It’s all about the hunt.”
All.
About.
The hunt.
Think, Pat. Pull this together.
The algorithms I was using might identify where someone currently lived or where he used to reside, but there was no guarantee that Basque would still be using that apartment right now. Taking into account this newly discovered apartment and the one he’d taken Lien-hua to, it seemed that he was moving around the city to elude capture.
Or maybe to give you more sites to chase him.
So, go and visit the empty apartment or hit the third hot zone?
I quickly evaluated things.
“You say the place is empty?” I asked Doehring.
“Yeah. We’ll get the forensics guys out here, but other than that, I’m not sure what to tell you.”
As much as I wanted to get a visual on the third hot zone, any way you cut it, finding this apartment was a break in the case and I wasn’t going to let that pass us by.
“We’re on our way over,” I told him. “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
Richard became reasonably proficient at freeing himself from the plastic flex cuffs.
Good.
Because it was time to go.
After putting in brown contact lenses and using a fake mustache and some latex face makeup to alter his features, he fitted a suppressor onto the modified, threaded barrel of his Sigma. With the subsonic ammo he was using, he would be able to fire the gun in the residential area without any worry of being heard.
Leaving his pickup in the garage, he chose his anonymous-looking Mazda sedan and left for Saundra Weathers’s home in Chesapeake Beach.
He had the rope from the magic store with him. He also had his butterfly knife in his pocket.
Although he was going to play things by ear, he was planning to show up and explain that Saundra’s literary agent had hired him as a surprise to perform for the children.
As he drove, he ran through what he would do if he found that Saundra’s house was under surveillance. He might need to abandon the idea of doing the rope tricks until he got Noni and her mother back to his place.
But he was flexible. He was willing to adapt. Whatever it took to see this through to the end.
45
The apartment reminded me of the one Basque had taken Lien-hua to last Friday — dingy, cramped, and cheap. However, this place was devoid of furniture and didn’t look like it had ever been used.
By the time Ralph and I had gotten here, the crime scene guys had already confirmed Basque’s prints on two of the doorknobs, but were still dusting for other prints to see if they could identify any victims he might have brought here or coconspirators he might have worked with in his crimes.
In the movies, killers always leave behind an orgy of evidence when they abandon their secret lairs — photos, newspaper clippings, bundles of receipts that have their credit card information on them, and so on. I’ve only seen that happen in real life three times in my entire career. And it wasn’t happening today.
No photos.
No clippings.
No receipts.
No computer with a recent browsing history prominently displayed for us to use.
Nothing like the movies.
I pulled out my laptop and plugged this location in to the geoprofile.
What are you missing? What clue are you overlooking here?
As I perused the case information, that sporting goods store I’d thought of while teaching my class came to mind once again. It was a point of connection, but we had no surveillance footage from it, no video.
Video…
I remembered what I’d spoken with Ralph about earlier — getting CCTV security footage of businesses near the parking garage where Basque stole the car from that he drove to the water treatment facility.
Maybe we could do that with the places of business near Erikson’s Sporting Goods too. The store was in a minimall across the street from a gas station that had been the site of two robberies over the last year. I wondered if one of their cameras might be directed east, where the sporting goods store’s parking lot was.
I phoned Angela and told her what I was thinking.
“I’ll get Lacey on it,” she said. “Do you have a specific day you want me to check first?”
“Let’s start with the days preceding the disappearance of the woman who worked there.”
“This could take a while, Pat — if they’ve even kept footage that far back.”
“Yeah,” I acknowledged. “I know.”
About twenty minutes later, one of the rookie officers brought over a stack of fast-food burritos and we met outside the apartment to attack our dinner. We must have all been hungry, because no one really spoke until we were nearly finished.
“Well?” Ralph checked the time on his cell. “There isn’t much more we can do here, Pat. What are you thinking? Stay and keep running the numbers, or do it on the road? I’ll even offer to drive; you can analyze.”
“Good. We’re close to the route Basque took to the water treatment plant. Let’s retrace it like you suggested earlier, then go to the last hot zone.”
Clouds were starting to move in and rain was predicted, but I figured we would have plenty of daylight to finish up before it got dark.
“Right.” He crumpled up his burrito wrapper and landed it in a trash can four meters away. “Let’s move.”
Richard arrived at Saundra Weathers’s home in Chesapeake Beach, the house with the red and pink balloons on the mailbox to make it immediately apparent to the parents of the children who were invited to the party which house it was being held at.
Two men in a nondescript black sedan were parked across the street.
Richard had been around law enforcement officers enough to know an undercover, unmarked car when he saw one. But just to be sure, he cruised past and glanced toward it. The man in the driver’s seat was sipping from a truck stop coffee cup; the passenger was speaking into a radio.
That was enough for Richard.
So, Patrick must have made the connection to Saundra after all.
Well-done, old friend.
It looked like Richard needed to take care of the two men here before crashing Noni’s party.
And he had just the way to do that.
But he needed to get pulled over by another officer first.
46