Masked Prey

by John Sandford

  * * *

  —

  All but one of the children, it seemed, went to private schools. The exception was a tenth-grader at a high school the size of a small city. Nothing he could find gave him a home address for her. Dunn crossed her off his list of possibles—how would you ever find her?

  After an hour of research, one kid seemed to stand out. The son of Senator Ross McGovern of Arkansas, Thomas McGovern was a fifth-grader at the Stillwater School, a day school in Tysons Corner.

  The school wasn’t large—fewer than four hundred children—and was built on a former par-three golf course that had gone broke during the ’09 crash. Though it had extensive grounds, it was surrounded by a thoroughly urban landscape, including a hospital with a parking structure that according to Google Earth was one hundred and sixty yards from the back wall of the school. The parking structure overlooked the playing fields—a baseball or softball diamond, two basketball courts, two tennis courts, a soccer field, a track.

  The boy, Dunn thought, should be out on those fields a couple of times a day, at least until it got cold.

  But a hundred and sixty yards was a fairly long shot. And he wasn’t sure how much of the playing field you could see from the parking ramp—there was a line of trees along the school fence, and while he thought the parking structure was high enough to look over them, he wasn’t sure. He needed to do some scouting and he needed to do some shooting.

  By ten o’clock, the clothes he’d brought to the laundromat had been in the dryer for two hours. He retrieved and folded them, packed up his laptop, and headed home.

  The next day, a Friday, he spent on the job, working until six o’clock, pushing the crew hard. After work, he drove to Tysons Corner, to look at the hospital parking structure. He hadn’t realized it from looking at the satellite photos, but the hospital was on a low rise looking down on the school’s playing field, which effectively boosted the height of the parking structure.

  As he drove by, he saw one car entering, and one car leaving. Both stopped at parking gates, which would be a problem if he had to get out in a hurry. If he shot from the parking structure, the investigating cops would know the exact time when he pulled the trigger, from witness testimony. They would know soon enough that the shot came from the hospital, and would therefore know within a minute or so of when the car would be leaving the structure. And if there were cameras . . . and there probably were . . .

  He couldn’t use his own car and even a rental would be dicey—renting a car involved showing a driver’s license and he suspected the rental agencies took secret videos of the renters, shot across the rental desk.

  Dunn was a fan of military thriller fiction and movies, black ops stuff, and while the operators always seemed to know where to get a gun or a fake ID, or how to start a stolen car by rubbing a couple of wires together, Dunn didn’t know any of that.

  It seemed simple enough in a movie: you’d go to a sleazy neighborhood where some vaguely Middle Eastern–looking guy would sell you everything you needed to go underground. He didn’t know any Middle Eastern–looking guys. He didn’t know enough about car electronics to steal one. Another problem—he didn’t know when the kid would appear on the playing fields. Could he sit in a car for an hour or two without attracting attention?

  The parking structure was looking like a bad idea. He drove around the neighborhood, and four blocks behind the hospital found a possibility. An old cemetery, not more than a hundred yards long and fifty across, sat at the crest of a hill behind a neglected picket fence. The grass inside had been mown, but not recently, and was ankle-high in most places, even higher in scattered clumps of sumac. There were a few large granite tombstones, but most of the stones were small flat arches of what looked like once-white limestone, tilted this way and that, many so weathered that the inscriptions were barely legible. A dozen mature trees were spotted across the cemetery, and there were clumps of saplings, self-seeded volunteers.

  On the hospital side of the cemetery, the hillside fell away sharply toward the back of the hospital. A weed-choked track ran along the bottom of the slope, and on the other side of it were an electrical substation and a mechanical yard, probably related to the hospital, with what looked like backup generators and a couple of large tanks, possibly for diesel. The hospital parking ramp rose on the other side of that, probably two hundred and fifty or three hundred yards away.

  Dunn parked on the street a block away from the cemetery, walked along the rough track between the cemetery and the electric substation, until he thought he was about at the middle of the graveyard, then climbed the embankment. The picket fence on the back side of the cemetery was more than neglected—it had crumbled and fallen in several places.

  Once on top of the ridge, Dunn looked down at the school’s playing fields, which were clearly visible, but a long way out. How far? Four hundred and fifty yards? More? Even with his surveyor’s eye, he wasn’t sure.

  He looked around, found a handy tombstone, and sprawled beside it. He was six feet back from the bluff, and a rifle, he thought, would set up perfectly for a shot at the school. A senile cottonwood tree stood twenty yards down to his left; he moved over to it. The trunk was big enough that he’d be invisible from the street that ran along the front of the cemetery, and the slope below was sharp enough, and the hospital far enough away, that he couldn’t be seen from below, either.

  But it was an extremely long shot; with a moving target, almost impossible for a man of his limited skills. The target would have to be motionless.

  He spent a few minutes walking around the cemetery, zeroed in on a crumbling wooden shed, which probably once held yard tools. The shed was sitting on patio-style concrete blocks, each three inches thick, two blocks to each stack. He knelt and looked at them, and on one side of the shed found a loose block. He used his pocketknife to pry at it, careful not to make any obvious scratches. When it was loose, he pulled it out, and peered under the shed, then stuck his arm under. There was enough space, he thought, to hide a rifle.

  He put the block back in place.

  * * *

  —

  HE LEFT THE CEMETERY in the dark and walked back to his car. At home, he loaded Google Earth, which had a fairly accurate measuring tool, called up a satellite image of the school, and measured the distance from the cemetery cottonwood to the back of the school. Four hundred and ninety-six yards.

  He thought about that and a question popped into his head. Was it necessary to actually kill the kid? Or only hit him? And maybe, not even hit him, if the bullet hit close enough to frighten him. It now occurred to Dunn that the important thing was that the right people knew that the kid had been shot at.

  Better if he was actually hit, because then there’d be no doubt, but a close miss might be good enough. He thought about it that night, in bed, and decided that he needed to find out exactly how bad a shot he was.

  And the next day was Saturday, the job site closed down.

  * * *

  —

  HIS WEST VIRGINIA CABIN was deep in the woods and more than rustic: it was primitive, and for that reason, had never been broken into, although somebody had peppered the outhouse with a .22.

  The cabin itself was a prefabricated metal shed with four windows and one door, which was locked with a heavy padlock, and all of it set on a concrete slab. Inside was an old wooden table with two metal folding chairs, a waist-high shelf that served as a kitchen counter, and a wide wooden rack that would keep an air mattress off the floor. There were fluorescent lights hung overhead with a plug-in cord that dropped to the floor at one side of the shed.

  All of that could be seen through the windows, which was why nobody had ever tried to break in: there was nothing to steal and breaking in would be a pain in the ass.

  When he went to the cabin, Dunn brought from home a Honda generator, a compact microwave, five gallons of gas, twenty gallons of water, a
n air mattress that was double-bed wide and five inches thick, and quite comfortable when inflated, and a sleeping bag. The generator would sit outside, with a single cord running through a hole in the side of the cabin to a multi-socket extension, where he’d plug in the lights and the microwave. He did have cell phone service.

  Primitive, but snug.

  * * *

  —

  ON THIS SATURDAY, he took along his total station, the tripod that supported it, and the reflector that bounced the distance-measuring laser beam back to the instrument.

  Dunn had bought the land a couple of years after it had been clear-cut, and was therefore cheap—it no longer had harvestable timber and wouldn’t for a couple of decades, and was useless for agriculture, too rough and, in places, too swampy. A few hundred yards from the cabin, a narrow creek wound across the property and he thought if he shot a line along the creek he might find a place where he could set up a five-hundred-yard shot.

  He spent an hour finding the spot, lasing various possibilities with the total station, until he found a place on a hillside not quite as high as the cemetery in Tysons Corner, shooting to a creek bank over a patch of cattails. He stapled a target to a tree trunk and carried his .308 back to the spot on the hillside. A rotting log made a convenient rifle rest. The rifle mounted a 5-25 variable-power scope; he went with 25 power and began shooting.

  He fired six times, taking his time, then carried the rifle down to the target, and found that he’d missed the entire eighteen-by-twelve-inch target all six times. He couldn’t even find a place in the creek bank where the shots might have hit.

  He had to think about that for a while. He wasn’t that bad a shot. Maybe the scope had gotten bumped. He marched back toward the spot where he’d started shooting, but only a rough-paced hundred yards back. He found a place to shoot, braced the gun against a tree trunk, and fired three shots. Back at the target, he found a half-moon hole at the bottom far-right edge of the paper. He was shooting low and right.

  He gave the scope four clicks of left windage and eight clicks of elevation, went back to his hundred-yard spot and fired three more shots. At the target, he found all three shots on the paper, but all over the face of it.

  “It’s not the gun,” he said aloud. It was his shooting.

  He marked the three shots with a Sharpie pen and went back to the five-hundred-yard stand. He’d have to hold very high at that range, but he didn’t know exactly how high. He started by holding one paper-height—eighteen inches over the center of the target—fired a shot, held about twelve inches over, fired another, held on the top of the paper, six inches above the bull, and fired a third. He tried to do it all correctly, as was taught in the rifle magazines: good hold, steady trigger pull, breath held with the squeeze . . .

  At the target, he found no new bullet holes at all. This would get tedious. He walked the five hundred yards back, fired a single shot, holding what he estimated was two feet over the target. No hole. Held about three feet over. No hole. He stapled another target face with the bull four feet over the primary target, to use as an aiming mark. No bullet hole. Maybe he’d overcorrected to the left, he thought. He gave the scope two clicks to the right. Nothing.

  “It’s not the gun,” he said again. He thought he might be unconsciously flinching, yanking the trigger in anticipation of the recoil. At five hundred yards, with good gun support, plenty of time to shoot and no stress, he couldn’t hit a target as big as a grown man’s chest.

  He needed analysis, and it occurred to him that he had a handy little computer in his pocket. He took out his phone and went out on the internet. After browsing for a while, he found a simple .308 ballistics chart and was astonished to find that he should be holding a full six feet over the primary target.

  He restapled the aiming marker at six feet, and fired three more rounds at five hundred yards. This time, he found two holes on the extreme right side of the target, one five inches above the other; the third, he thought, was probably farther right.

  He corrected the scope to shoot farther to the left, fired three more shots, and finally placed all three on the target, but not neatly grouped. His shoulder was getting sore from the repeated recoil, and he walked to the cabin to gather his gear and return home. On the walk back, another thought struck. While it wasn’t entirely the rifle, some of it might be. And, he reminded himself, he didn’t necessarily have to kill the kid, just hit him or come close.

  At the cabin, he sat in his truck and went back to his iPhone. If he were to shoot a fairly high-powered .223 round, from a good rifle made for target shooting, he might be able to tighten his groups, and the much-reduced recoil might help prevent any tendency to flinch.

  He was disappointed to find that he might reduce bullet drop only by six inches to a foot. That was better, though, and he might find the rifle more congenial to shoot. He deleted the app and shut down the phone.

  He did know where he could get an anonymous high-quality .223, if he had the balls to go get it.

  And if the cops hadn’t been there first.

  * * *

  —

  DUNN GOT TO THE PLAINS at seven o’clock, with the sun right on the horizon. He first cruised the Stokeses’ house without slowing down. There were no signs of a police presence—no crime scene tape, no cop cars, nothing. He continued over to Warrenton, in the growing darkness, stopped at a Safeway, bought groceries for the next few days and a box of throwaway latex gloves.

  At his house, he stowed the groceries, thought hard about it, and at nine o’clock, in full darkness, he cruised the Stokes place again. Again: no sign of life. He continued on for five miles, pulled off the road for a moment, got the lug wrench out of the back of his truck and put it on the floor behind the passenger seat.

  The next trip back, he turned into the drive, continued past Randy’s parked car and around to the back of the house, out of sight, but still on gravel; his heart thumping like a drum.

  He put on the gloves and got out and listened—nothing but crickets. He went to the back door, listened again, tried the doorknob: locked. He pressed against the door’s glass window with the wedge-end of the lug wrench. When it broke, almost silently, he reached through and unlocked the door, taking care not to cut himself.

  Inside, he was hit by the stench. He hadn’t thought about it, but the nights had grown cool, almost cold, and the heat would be on in the house, and the bodies had been there for four days, and were decomposing. He had a penlight, and he turned it on, careful not to shine it at a window.

  He was in the kitchen. He couldn’t see Rachel’s body but Randy was lying halfway through the arched doorway between the kitchen and the front room. There was a closed door to his left, and he opened it and looked through.

  Rachel’s bedroom. A single bed, with a quilted coverlet, more quilts on the wall. Randy, he thought, would keep his guns in his bedroom, as there wasn’t a lot of space in the small house.

  He swallowed, tried not to breathe through his nose, backed out of the bedroom and followed the pencil-beam of light out of the kitchen and into the front room, high-stepping over Randy’s body, trying not to look at Rachel’s, a dark oval lump on the floor.

  On the other side of her body, there was another door. He stepped over her, pulled open the door, and found a narrow staircase. A second door was off to his right, and he pushed it open. A bathroom.

  Must be up the stairs. He climbed them, slowly, trying not to touch anything. At the top, he found a tiny bedroom with another narrow single bed, unmade. Clothes were strewn on the floor with copies of porn magazines; Randy had displayed a lack of knowledge about the internet, and this proved it: where did you even get porn magazines anymore? A wastebasket, overflowing with empty beer cans, sat next to the bed, and a radio sat on the floor beside it.

  No guns, no gun cases, no gun safe. Was there a basement?

  He turned away, then his eye caug
ht a shadow under the corner of the bed. He knelt, and found two gun cases lying flat, and a range bag. He pulled out the range bag and found it half full of ammunition.

  As he was pulling out the first of the guns, he heard a high-pitched creak and then another.

  Someone on the stairs. He clicked off the flashlight and held his breath: he thought about calling out, but choked it back. The room wasn’t quite dark, with a bit of moonlight filtering through the single window. Creak.

  A dark, human-sized shape moved into the doorway, and Dunn, who’d been on his hands and knees, rolled into a crouch, lifted the penlight, and shined it at the shape.

  Rachel Stokes was there, missing much of her head, her eyes gone, her mouth a gaping hole. She didn’t speak, she reached toward him and hissed. Dunn fell backwards, tried to scoot away from her as she rushed toward him.

  “No! No! No!”

  And he saw the light from his flash was penetrating her, and when she stepped in front of the window, and looked back at him, the moonlight came through her eye sockets and mouth, and then . . .

  She faded away, hissing.

  Dunn never cursed, or swore. Now, “Jesus. Jesus Christ. Jesus God . . .”

  He got to his knees and to his feet, stepped into the doorway, shined his light down the stairs, to the open door at the bottom. She’d be waiting there, he thought. He looked back at the window, thought about climbing out . . .

  And finally caught himself. Not a ghost. A freak-out. That was it: he’d freaked out. He had to leave, the death stench of the bodies now suffocating, the stink buried in his nostrils. He managed to gather up the two guns and the ammo bag, and slowly, his hair again prickling all over his body, got down the stairs.

  He looked at the body this time; she was looking up at him, as she had when he shot her that last time. He stepped over her, then ran toward the door to the kitchen, vaulted Randy’s body, dropped the ammo bag and a box of shells broke loose and scattered on the floor. He picked up a couple of them and then heard a hiss behind him, and his hair stood up. He grabbed the bag and the guns and ran out the back door to his truck. He threw the guns into the backseat, looked at the house—the door was standing open—and he hurried back to it, pulled it mostly shut, got in the truck, roared out of the driveway and away.