Masked Prey (Lucas Davenport #30)(102)
“But he was known to at least some of these alt-right guys,” Lucas said.
“Yes.”
* * *
—
THEY TALKED ABOUT the case in general for twenty minutes or so, everything that everybody already knew, speculated on the possibility that more shooters would come out of the woods, or that an actual 1919-type extortion would occur, inspired by Audrey Coil’s website.
Chase was working her phone as they talked, trying to get the warrant moving, and then Lucas, bored, and another bored agent got out of the truck and walked around Dunn’s yard and peered through his windows. The blinds were firmly down on most of them, but where they could see in, the house was almost preternaturally neat. “Too neat,” the other agent said. “The guy’s an obsessive-compulsive at some level.”
* * *
—
WHEN THEY WALKED back to the truck, they found that Chase had gone across the street to interview Mrs. Bixby, and had apparently been invited inside. She reappeared in ten minutes and told Lucas, “Dunn lives by himself. Had a wife, they divorced a few years ago, her whereabouts are unknown, current name is unknown. No known personal friends, no visitors. Mrs. Bixby says he’s smart and not bad-looking, but there’s something that’s always been off-putting about him. I’m going to go talk to the lady in that house . . .”
She pointed to the first house Lucas had gone to—they’d seen the woman at the door, watching them—but before Chase could go that way, her phone dinged and since she carried it in her hand like a permanent appendix, she glanced at it and said, “We got the warrant.”
They headed for the house, and as they did, two more FBI trucks arrived, one with a crime scene crew. One of the agents who had arrived with Chase had a battery-powered lock rake, and they went through the front door without having to break anything.
As soon as they did, an alarm went off. Chase said, “Damnit, turn that thing off.”
The agent with the lock rake said, “I can turn it off, but I don’t think . . .” He found the alarm box in the kitchen, pulled out his cell phone, made a call and identified himself. “You know who I am and this is an urgent national security . . . then get me to that call center. Right now, fast as you can. Well, try . . .”
He put his hand over the microphone and said, “They’re switching me to the call center that services this alarm. But I can tell you right now, we’re too late. Somebody’s called Dunn and told him that we’re here.”
“Get the number for that phone,” Lucas said. “We can track the phone.”
The agent nodded and a moment later, went back to the call. He identified himself again, gave Dunn’s name and address, listened for a moment, then said, “Do not alert him. He’s a fugitive. If you need a more official order, we can email or fax you a form . . . We’ll do that.”
He hung up and said to Chase, “Dunn’s phone is dead. No response at all. He’s probably pulled the battery, or thrown it in a river. He probably knows it can be tracked.”
“That means he doesn’t know this alarm has gone off.”
The agent nodded. “He doesn’t. The alarm center couldn’t reach him.”
Chase turned to the other agents inside the house. “Move the crime scene van inside the garage. We’ll want to get the rest of the vehicles out of sight, in case he comes back.”
The agents started moving and Chase asked Lucas, “What do you think?”
“I don’t think he’s coming back. He took the garbage out two days ahead of time.”
“Where’s he going?”
Lucas shrugged: “Maybe he’s got a bolt-hole somewhere. Somebody mentioned that he might have a cabin in West Virginia . . .”
* * *
—
CHASE GOT INVOLVED with the crime scene team in taking the house apart. They got biologics from the drain in the shower, which were bagged for the more elaborate DNA tests. Lucas was interested in the procedures, and at one point, Chase came back and said, “He has a whole right-wing library in his office. Lot of theoretical stuff. Political commentaries. He seems more interested in Mussolini than in the Nazis.”
Lucas didn’t know what to make of that, and said so. After an hour of hanging out, he got a call from Henderson’s assistant who said, “You’re out of National at 3:14, arrive at Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta at 4:37. Couldn’t get you to Macon in one flight and it was faster to send you into Atlanta and then put you in a car. You’ve got a car, an SUV, reserved in your name at Hertz. Drive time from Hartsfield-Jackson to Tifton is two and a half hours.”
Lucas looked at his watch: almost one o’clock. It’d be tight. “I’ll take it.”
Lucas told Chase he was leaving. “There’s nothing for me here, that you can’t tell me by telephone.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Poke around. Maybe go home.”
“Give me one more day.”
Lucas shrugged. “To do what?”
She had no answer to that.
* * *
—
AS SOON AS HE WAS IN HIS CAR, Lucas called Russell Forte, his supervisor with the Marshals Service, who worked out of the service headquarters in Arlington. “It’s Sunday,” Forte said.