Because that shot didn’t utilize a human silencer, or any silencer for that matter, it was much louder than the first. No doubt loud enough for at least one or two neighbors to hear. Whether or not they called the police was a different matter. In a storm like this, most would probably attribute such a sound to the weather. Shotgun blasts in this part of town were not common, and while most people would like to believe they could identify the sound of gunfire, very few actually could, and even fewer were willing to act on that sound when they did hear it. Easier to tell themselves they didn’t hear it, easier to pretend they heard something else.
Three steps to the guardhouse. Preacher was inside in an instant, the shotgun reloaded and ready. As he expected, it was empty.
The guardhouse had four windows, one facing in each direction. Beneath the window, facing the house, was a small desk. The desk housed three small television monitors tied to the closed-circuit video system. The first monitor displayed a nice close-up of his Pontiac GTO, and he couldn’t help but admire the car. It was a beautiful piece of Detroit’s finest workmanship. The rain brought out the best of the car’s lines, glimmering under the floodlight pointed at the hood. The second monitor showed a wide view—the tail end of the GTO was visible as was a substantial length of the driveway, nearly to the main road. The third monitor cycled through all the other cameras positioned around the large property.
Immediately following the Gargery funeral, Preacher trailed the small motorcade of white vehicles back to this place. No easy task. There had been three of them, and each took a different route in an effort to thwart a tail, one of them taking more than an hour to get back even though the house wasn’t more than a couple miles from the cemetery. Preacher knew which car contained the Oliver woman, and that was the one he focused on, carefully tailing at a respectable distance with several cars between whenever possible. Not his first rodeo. Oliver’s car had also taken a longer route back to the house, one that took nearly thirty minutes rather than the five or so a direct route would take. That didn’t matter. What did matter was Preacher knew where the house was after that, knew wheretheywere.
He knew where to find the girl.
That afternoon, he obtained copies of the building plans from the county courthouse. He obtained plat maps of the terrain. He pulled all the tax records for the property. It was an old estate, built back in 1893. Records from Building and Zoning gave him details on all the improvements and additions made over the years—upgrades to the electrical and plumbing, reinforcements to the rooms and walls. Building permits listed vendors on-site whenever an inspector came by. Using the vendor names, Preacher located the company that installed the security system and the custom dead bolts securing all outer doors. Obtaining their records only took a few days.
Within a week, he knew every inch of the place. He could rattle off the type of nail the contractor used in each room down to the copper manufacturer of the original pipes and the PVC that replaced them about a decade ago.
He began surveillance shortly after that.
Most installations—and that was exactly what he considered this place to be, not a house but an installation—most installations that employed full-time security typically ran a tight ship. That meant schedules, rotations, defined routes and patterns. Some stuck to a daily rotation schedule, others went with a rotation of five, ten, or sometimes even twenty different schedules, the more complicated, the more difficult they were to monitor, to map. This place rotated between seven different schedules, and it took Preacher nearly two weeks to figure it all out. He had, though, he always did. By the end of that two weeks, he identified all thirty-seven guards who worked here, knew their assignments, schedule, and rotation. He didn’t go so far as to pull payroll information and determine their real names. Instead, he named each of them himself. The one he killed at his car was Dopey. The second man had been Sneezy.
At any given time, two men were assigned to the guardhouse. Five more patrolled the grounds. Seven in total on the outside.
Beside the three security system monitors was a telephone. He stood there and stared at the phone for about a minute on the off chance the shots had been heard and someone placed a call to the guardhouse.
The phone did not ring.
Beside the phone was a large yellow button. Preacher pressed it.
The wrought iron gate in front of his GTO began the slow swing inward, opening up over the driveway.
Preacher returned to the car, climbed in, and frowned as water splashed on the leather seats. He’d give her a good detailing tomorrow. He’d buff the mess of this place right out and bring back the shine.
The phone in the gatehouse began to ring as the GTO inched through the gate.
19
There was a nasty cold in Detective Joy Fogel’s future, she was certain of that.
She crouched down behind the mausoleums, practically hugging the stone walls in an attempt to escape the rain, but it did little good. Her clothing was soaked straight through, and she was fairly certain her skin was bloated and wrinkled, as if she had soaked in a tub for the past hour rather than hunkered down in a cemetery tailing a kid.
Thatch paused at his parents’ graves. Both she and Detective Faustino Brier had visited them a few times in the past. He had a folder on the graves. Ironically, they possessed more information on the graves themselves than they did on the boy’s parents. They knew who manufactured each stone, when they were placed, obtained copies of the work orders. They had no idea who paid for them—the names on the work orders proved to be bogus. The folder on the parents was thin. Fogel brushed her flat, dripping hair from her eyes for the umpteenth time and made a mental note to try and correct that. They pulled their names and DOBs from the grave markers but had been unable to locate birth records, DMV, or property. They were fairly certain the names Edward and Kaitlyn Thatch were aliases. If not aliases, they lived completely off the grid. Not too easy to do today, but easy enough in the fifties, sixties, and even the seventies.
The boy stopped at his parents’ graves for a few minutes, then continued up the hill to the bench. Fogel followed him at a safe distance and took up position at the mausoleums when he sat.
She spotted the approaching vehicle before he did, watched it wind up the narrow access road and park, facing him.
She watched Thatch go to the vehicle and climb inside—a white Chevy Suburban with dark, tinted windows.
Fogel assumed the SUV belonged to Crocket (or now, Duncan Bellino) and this was some kind of structured meet away from suspected monitored locations. If they left, she had no way to give chase.
Thatch didn’t leave with the SUV, though. Instead, he burst from the vehicle and ran back through the cemetery. Fogel was momentarily divided—stay with the SUV or continue with the boy.
She decided to do both.
She ran from the mausoleums toward the white Suburban, remaining low and hoping the rain would offer her cover from whoever sat inside. She got close enough to note the plate number, then went back after the kid, cursing herself for not wearing waterproof shoes today.
Thatch, with Fogel behind him, was halfway down the hill when the SUV left the cemetery, wiper blades slashing at the rain.
20
With the gate open, Preacher dropped the GTO into first and followed the cobblestone driveway through the established oaks and elms toward the house. Steering with his left hand, he took the opportunity to reload the shotgun with his right. The driveway was surprisingly long and far too quiet.
