He explained, and Bob, standing behind him, listening in, said, “Holy cow—a ray of hope. That could work.”
Chase said, “I’ll get on it. And we’ve got something here. There might have been a shootout or something, because we’ve got a smudge of blood on the front door that couldn’t have come from the victims. We’re going to get DNA on a third person. Everybody here thinks he’s probably the killer. And if he was here to get the rifle...”
“Excellent,” Lucas said. “You push the DNA. We’ll talk to the women.”
—
WHILE THEY WAITEDfor Chase to come through, Lucas called John Oxford and told him what they wanted, and Lucas addedthe part about Oxford still knowing names, without mentioning that Lang had suggested it. He also tried a little flattery, about the strength of Oxford’s organizing. The flattery didn’t work. Oxford was notably cranky, but finally said, “I’ll make some calls, but I can’t tell you that anything will happen. I am fuckin’ well out of it now, thanks to you, fuckhead.”
“Yeah, well, if you save a little kid’s life, I’ll send you a fuckin’ sticky gold star for your fuckin’ diary,” Lucas said.
“That went well,” Rae said, when Lucas rang off.
“Not gonna get us anywhere,” Lucas said. “We need that list from Jane.”
—
CHASE CAME BACKin half an hour, downloading a list of names and addresses to Lucas’s iPad. “Not as many as I’d hoped—most of the members are singles.”
She’d gotten seven names. Two of them were in Frederick, where Toby Boone’s shop was located, and not far apart. Three more were in the general Frederick neighborhood, so they decided to start there.
Frederick was a forty-minute drive, traffic beginning to build in the late afternoon. The two targets, Mark Sutton and Jack Byrd, lived three blocks apart in an older neighborhood of painted brick and red-brick apartment and retail buildings, some of them shuttered, some looking over cracked sidewalks to vacant lots.
They took Sutton first. As they pulled up outside Sutton’s apartment, Lucas said, “You guys know what to do...”
“Isolate, isolate, isolate...” Rae muttered.
—
TWO FBI AGENTS HAD SPOKENto Sutton the day before: he’d been reluctant, but not aggressive. He lived on the second floor of the building, up narrow wooden stairs that knocked and groaned as they climbed, the building smelling of damp rotted plaster and flaking wallpaper.
They found Sutton’s apartment door, with a bell. Bob rang, and Lucas stood well back. They heard footfalls inside, and a moment later the door popped open, and a short stocky man in jeans, a Levi’s snap-button shirt, and white socks opened the door and looked out and asked, “Police?”
“U.S. Marshals,” Rae said, holding up her ID. “Mr. Sutton, we need to talk to you. Can we come in?” And, she added, “This is not what you think. We’ll only need to talk. We’re not here to arrest anyone.”
The man glanced back over his shoulder, and then said, “Ahm, uh, my wife’s not dressed.” He turned his head and called, “Amy? Are you okay if some marshals come in?”
A woman shouted something back—“One second”—and ten seconds later called, “I’m okay. They can come in.”
Both Bob and Rae had their hands on their pistols as they edged through the door. The apartment had a living room with a broken-down velvet-covered couch that looked across a shaky wooden coffee table at a new wide-screen television; there were two ashtrays on the coffee table full of cigarette butts. A half dozen plastic toys were lying against one wall—the FBI agents had said there were two children at home, both toddlers.
Bob and Rae pointed Sutton at the couch, and the three ofthem went that way, Bob saying, “Listen, we’re sorry to barge in on you like this, I know you spoke to FBI agents yesterday, and we thank you for that...”
Lucas trailed, and as Sutton sat down, he glanced at Lucas, then did a second take, frowned and asked, “Are you the boss here?”
Lucas smiled and shook his head. “No, I’m with the Marshal’s Service Inspector General. I tag along on selected interviews and evaluate, mmm, the behavior of our marshals.”
“Really? That’s weird.”
“Gotta agree with you on that, brother,” Bob said. He snorted once, turned to Lucas and said, “No offense.”
“Do the interview,” Lucas said. “We gotta keep moving.”
—
A SMALL KITCHENETTEsat off the living room and a woman appeared in a doorway from the back of the apartment, stepping into the kitchenette. She looked at her husband and Bob and Rae, talking on the couch, and then at Lucas.
She was thin, with bones in her face, and a prominent nose; blondish hair swept back, not in a ponytail, but cut short, held in place with hair butter, and showing the tracks of a heavy comb. She was wearing jeans with a white blouse. Lucas thought she looked Appalachian, though if he were asked to define that, he couldn’t: she just looked like Depression-era photographs.
