Muller whistled. “He’s got an arsenal in there.”
They would later count sixty-three guns in the two safes. There were Smith and Wesson pistols in .40, .357 Magnum, and .44 Magnum calibers on one shelf in the first safe. There was a 1962 Winchester Model 70 bolt-action hunting rifle in .30-06 caliber on another shelf. The other fifty-five weapons in the safes were gleaming side-by-side double-barreled shotguns.
Bree ignored them and started to pull open the stacked drawers below the pistol shelf. Muller, however, got out his own flashlight and shone it on one of the shotguns. Then he pulled out a pair of reading glasses, got down on his knees, and looked closer at the barrel.
“Mother of God,” Muller said, fishing in his pocket for latex gloves.
“What’s the matter?”
“Let me make sure,” he said, and he removed the gun as if it were fine crystal. He peered at the writing on the barrel and shook his head in wonder. “This was made by Purdey and Sons.”
“Never heard of them,” Bree said.
“They’re the best,” Muller said. “I had an oil-rich uncle back in Oklahoma who had one. I’ll bet this one gun is worth somewhere between twenty-five and fifty thousand dollars.”
Bree stopped pulling out drawers. “Is that right?”
“Purdeys are handmade in London,” Muller said. “They never lose value. If all the guns in here are this fine, we could be looking at two million dollars, maybe more.”
“Two million?” Bree said, shocked. “How the hell did Howard get …”
And then she knew. Of course. Howard had been guilty. The drugs. The money. But why shotguns?
She went back to opening drawers. The next two were empty. But the third contained a large manila envelope. Bree drew it out, seeing Howard’s writing across the front: To be opened in the likely event of my death.
There was a second envelope in the drawer, white, legal-size.
There was a pen scrawl there too.
It read: To COD Thomas McGrath, DC Metro.
CHAPTER
57
BASED ON INFORMATION gleaned from Kerry Rutledge’s accident report, Sampson and I found the tree her Mustang had collided with, an ancient oak off Route 10 that had a nasty gouge in it.
“Fifty miles an hour?” Sampson said doubtfully. “Looks faster.”
“She said she hit the gas just before he shot,” I reminded him. “So she could have been going sixty or sixty-five if she’d reacted to the bullet grazing her head by stiffening and keeping the accelerator pinned to the floor.”
As we returned to the unmarked car, Sampson said, “I keep going back to his amplified voice.”
Rutledge had said that when the shooter told her never to text and drive, his voice had been very loud, as if he were talking through a loudspeaker on the motorcycle.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I said, getting into the passenger side. “Highway patrolmen use those kinds of built-in bullhorns, but I’m pretty sure you can get them for just about any touring motorcycle these days.”
“Well, whoever he is and whatever modifications he’s made to his motorcycle, he’s killing people for traffic violations,” Sampson said as he started the car. “Three were speeding. And that girl last week, I’ll bet she was texting too.”
“Possible,” I agreed. “All of a sudden, though, I’m starving.”
“All of a sudden, me too.”
We drove west toward Willow Grove, and I caught sight of something shiny in the sky far away.
“There’s those blimps again,” I said. “What the hell are those things for?”
“One of the great mysteries of life,” Sampson said, pulling into the Brick House Tavern and Tap for lunch. I brought a road map into the tavern with me, and after ordering a chicken salad sandwich with kettle-fried potato chips, I used a pen to note where the five shootings had occurred and when.
The first was west of Fredericksburg, Virginia, months ago. The second was in southern Pennsylvania a few weeks later. Rock Creek Park was two weeks ago. Southwest of Millersville, Maryland, four days later. Willow Grove, three days ago.
“His time between attacks is shrinking fast,” I said, drawing a circle. “He could kill anytime now, and he likes it here, in this general area. He feels comfortable hunting from DC east.”
The waitress brought our food. Sampson took the map and bit into a tuna melt while looking it over.
After a few minutes, he laughed, shook his head, and said, “It was staring us right in the face, and we were too close to see it.”
I swallowed a gulp of Coke and said, “See what?”
He turned the map for me, picked up my pen, and traced short lines from each of the crash scenes to Denton, Maryland. The Rutledge scene was closest, no more than twenty miles away. The tavern we were eating in was closer still.
A half an hour later, as we drove down a dirt road south of Willow Grove, Sampson said, “I don’t think popping in again to say hi is the smart way to go.”