Then he hung up and pulled everyone off the search of Leona Bengston’s property—they were getting nowhere anyway—and the team piled into their Bureau cars for the thirty-minute drive to the address Carter had given him for the home in Mason. On the way, Miller called the SAC at the FBI’s Albany Field Office, filling in Special Agent in Charge, Hamilton Granger, on the information he had, which was very little.
“I’m told by this Mason Police officer that they suspect Canfield was somehow involved in the kidnappings,” he told Granger as he navigated the lonely backcountry roads at high speed with three, identical Chevrolet Caprices in tow. A long silence greeted his statement as the Special Agent in Charge digested the news.
He finally replied, tersely. “Where is that coming from?”
“The Mason Police claim to have two eyewitnesses telling exactly the same story.”
“Oh, man. Keep me informed. I want to know the minute you have any information. If it’s bad, you can plan on seeing me on-scene, A-S-A-P.”
“Roger that, boss.” Miller terminated the call and shook his head. What in the world had Canfield been up to?
The four-car caravan nearly missed the unmarked entrance to Turner Road, just as Bill Ferguson had almost driven past it less than an hour before. Miller screeched to a halt, cutting his wheel sharply to the right, and then accelerated again onto the glorified cart path. The storm had finally departed the area, but branches hung low, burdened with accumulated moisture, and the road’s sandy shoulder resembled a mud pit from the effects of the heavy rains.
It took the team nearly ten minutes of fighting their way through the mile of jungle-like terrain to arrive at the remote address they had been given. As the lead driver, Miller said a silent thanks for the wonders of GPS navigation, knowing there was no way he would ever have found the place, otherwise.
He rounded a turn, slipping and sliding in a more or less successful attempt to keep at least two of his car’s wheels on the paved portion of the road, and then nearly collided with a bulky red ambulance. The vehicle shot out of a weed-strewn gravel driveway, lights flashing and siren blaring, and turned toward civilization, nearly sideswiping all four Bureau cars, one after the other, before continuing on the narrow road. It looked like a gigantic, rushing beetle.
This is obviously the house, Miller thought, and the GPS confirmed what he already knew. It was the only residence he had seen since turning off Route 37. Another ambulance sat, blocking the driveway, its skillful driver somehow having managed a three-point turn without getting stuck in the mud. The vehicle sat empty, hazard lights flashing, engine idling, waiting for another victim to exit the house. Miller eyed the positioning of the big ambulance and wondered how the driver had accomplished the turnaround. Smoke and mirrors, he decided.
With no room in the driveway, and not wanting to block the ambulance’s departure, the team parked their vehicles on the side of the road just past the end of the driveway. They exited en masse and made their way toward the beat-up old house in the middle of nowhere.
Now, slipping under the yellow “Crime Scene” tape and descending Martin Krall’s rickety basement stairs, Miller gasped as he got his first view of the scene. His initial thought was that Carter’s description had been right on target. It was a bloodbath. A pair of paramedics worked feverishly over the body of Angela Canfield, who lay crumpled and unmoving on the basement’s cold cement floor, just feet away from the body of a man—presumably the I-90 Killer—with half of his head blown off. It was plain to see the man was dead, an assumption that was confirmed by the fact that the medical personnel steadfastly ignored him as they worked on Canfield.
Blood covered an area roughly six feet in diameter around the two prone bodies. It was an incredible amount of blood; the gruesome scene looked as though someone had attached a garden hose to a bucket of human blood and then sprayed it indiscriminately around the basement. The two bodies, one gravely injured and the other already dead, lay next to an old, rickety bed with an iron headboard, upon which lay a thin, filthy mattress.
Miller reached the bottom of the stairs and was approached by a tall, balding man who had been standing out of sight in a corner. The man wore a Mason PD uniform and held his hat in both hands, twirling it over and over before finally clutching it in his left hand and offering his right to Miller.
“You must be Special Agent Miller,” he said. “I’m Greg Branson, chief of the Mason PD. I’m also chief investigator. We’re a small department, ill-equipped to deal with this sort of situation, which is why we don’t have many bodies working the scene yet. I’m pretty sure, though, that you will have your people all over this house in a matter of minutes, anyway, especially once you hear what our two witnesses are saying about your agent.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, chief, and I’d like to thank you for the expeditious notification. I’m sure it doesn’t sit well with your officers that you will be ceding control of the investigation to the Bureau.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Chief Branson answered. “Like I said, we’re not equipped to deal with this sort of thing, anyway. If a Bureau agent hadn’t been involved, we would be calling in the State Police for assistance.”
“Still, I do appreciate it,” he said. “Is Special Agent Canfield going to make it?”
“Good question,” Branson answered and shrugged. “The two EMT boys have been doing all they can for her, working like dogs for the last twenty minutes. They’ve been too busy to answer any but the briefest questions. It looks like they’re getting ready to transport her now, though.”