“Anyone who’s been around blue herons enough can tell you that they often leave a white trail behind when they’re taking off. It’s distinctive. This vehicle was parked near a river, lake, or marsh where a heron would be taking off.”
“The Patuxent River?”
“Maybe…”
Blue herons. A sticker of a fish leaping out of the water. Wrighton Road. Marsh biota on Brandi’s shoes. A hitch and brake light wires, perfect for pulling a fishing boat.
Nothing solid, just clues. But arrows that were all pointing in one direction: a wetlands.
As I was studying the map more carefully, Angela called back. “The sticker, it’s from a private boat landing near the Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary.”
“You said a private boat landing?”
“Just for people in that residential area.”
“That’s it. Give me the neighborhood and get me a list of names. Now.”
Richard turned onto Blue Shirt Road toward his home on the eastern fringes of the sanctuary and let his thoughts scamper ahead of him to all that the evening held in store.
Angela found the list, but no names popped out to us and there was nothing yet on what Basque might have purchased in the sporting goods store.
But we had the neighborhood and everything pointed to it as a potential anchor point for Basque.
Basque would want isolation, a place to take his victims, dispose of bodies.
One street wove back into the very edge of the wetlands.
Blue Shirt Road.
I hung up and punched my finger against my laptop screen and said to Ralph, “We start there, at the end of the road, and then move through the area house by house.”
Richard pulled into his driveway.
He removed the fake mustache, contacts, and peeled off the latex from his cheeks.
As he exited the squad, he shielded his face from the driving rain, and was welcomed by his two pit bulls. They were kill dogs and he called them off so they wouldn’t attack either of the two prizes now in the backseat as he moved them into the house.
When he opened the squad’s door and brought Saundra out, she offered herself to him, told him she’d do anything he wanted if only he would let Noni go.
With a straight face he told her convincingly that if she cooperated he wouldn’t harm her daughter in any way. After that, it was not difficult to get her into the house.
Once he had her in the living room, the rope around her wrists and ankles made sure she wasn’t going to go anywhere. He tied her in such a way that she would never be able to fight back as Agent Jiang had done on Friday.
Then he went back to the car to get the girl.
He would do her first.
Let her mother watch as he did.
8 minutes
I parked beneath the dark tunnel of branches arching over the road. The embankment led down to the marsh on the right side, a thick tangle of trees rose on the left.
A torrent of rain was slashing down all around us, most likely obscuring, to anyone in the house, the sound of our approach up the road.
A Maryland State Police car was parked in front of the garage. Ralph put in a call to Headquarters to find out the name of the officer who lived here.
A jon boat on a rusted trailer sat beside the woodshed.
Richard left the girl tied up beside her mother in the living room, and went to the kitchen to heat up the frying pan.
There were no law enforcement officers living at this address.
Quickly, we ran the plates: they belonged to a Maryland State Police officer who hadn’t been in touch with dispatch in over ninety minutes. I tried to reach the two agents guarding Saundra’s house but they didn’t pick up. Neither did Saundra when Ralph phoned her.
“He’s here,” I said. “He’s got her here.”
Headlights off, Ralph angled the car to block the road while I called for backup. Then he turned off the engine.
I wondered how many women Basque might have brought here, how many corpses might lie at the bottom of the dark water of that marsh.
Anger and revulsion rose inside me.
And the anger was just what I needed.
“Don’t tell me to wait around until backup gets here,” I said.
Ralph was already unholstering his weapon. “Last thing on my mind.”
Guns out, we stepped into the rain.
The night was filled with the damp, pungent smell of the stagnant water of the wetlands.
Ralph gestured for me to go around to the back of the house, that he would take the front. Both of us had our flashlights off, using the dim porch light oozing through the rain to guide our way.
We were halfway to the house when, somewhere above the sound of the rain pelting the ground, I heard attack dogs — at least two of them, barking viciously, rushing toward us through the night.
50
Pit bulls.
The porch light illuminated part of the lawn and we were still pretty much hidden in the darkness, but I could make out one of the dogs cornering the house and coming my way. I heard another somewhere in the dark near Ralph.
Pit bulls can be trained not to bite, not to kill, but they’re not naturally docile animals. Once they latch onto you, they do not let go.
And they go for the throat.
I doubted Basque would have pit bulls that were friendly, and the way these dogs were snarling they didn’t sound tame at all.
The dog sprinted toward me.
Instinctively, I raised my weapon.
I shouted, tried to call it off, but that did nothing to slow it down. I fired and the bullet grazed its flank as it leapt into the air. Shielding my neck with my left forearm, I was about to fire again when the dog jerked to the side in midflight as the dampened echo of a gunshot reverberated through the rain.
In the bleary light, I could see the dog lying dead at my feet, its head a mess of splintered bone and dark blood rinsing off into the mud.
I pivoted toward Ralph.
He stood stoically, gun raised, still aiming at the place where his bullet had met the dog in midair.
Twenty meters away. Quite a shot.
Then I saw it.
“Ralph, behind you!”
He whipped around as the pit bull sprang at him and latched onto his right forearm. He raised his arm to lift the dog off the ground where he could control it and grabbed its collar with his free hand. The porch light flicked off before I could squeeze off a shot.
“I got it!” he hollered. “Go!”
I trusted him and, flashlight on, dashed toward the house.
My heart was churning in my chest, the adrenaline taking me to another plane, an elemental high, as I threw open the front door and swept through the entryway and into the living room. In my flashlight’s beam the room came into view. Couch. Recliners. Lamps. Magazines on the end table.
A woman and a girl lay bound on the floor. From the photos in the case files, I identified them immediately as Saundra and Noni Weathers.
Secure the scene.
I quickly checked the adjoining rooms, saw no one, and rushed back to Saundra and Noni, removed their gags, and slit the ropes with the automatic knife I carry. “Are you hurt?” I asked Saundra.
“No, we’re okay.”
“How many people?”
“Just one, I think. Basque. I don’t know if there’s anyone else here.”
He’s worked with partners in the past.
“Where did he go?”
Even as she spoke, I heard the engine of a car firing up.
“That’s him.” She pointed toward the window where the taillights of the squad outside were visible.