The storm in intermission clots and blackens the sky no less than during its performance. The early dusk it has brought to Conroe becomes darker with each step that Gottfrey takes.
The following is what he knows by dint of extensive use of NSA data troves and connections. Sue Ann McMaster, born Sue Ann Luckman, the clerk at the bus station in Killeen, was once married to Roger John Spencer, her first husband, for eight months prior to his death in a traffic accident. Roger’s mother is Mary Ann Spencer, now the manager of the bus station in Beaumont, who presented Egon with the staged video of Ancel and Clare stand-ins arriving from Houston. Tucker Treadmont, the young Uber driver with man breasts and a snarky attitude—who led Egon, Rupert, and Vince out of Beaumont to an abandoned house in the boonies—is the son of Arnette and Cory Treadmont. Arnette’s maiden name is Lemon. She is the daughter of Lisa and Carl Lemon. Carl is Lisa’s second husband. Her first was one Bobby Lee Bricker. Lisa and Bobby Lee, now in their seventies, had a child all those years ago and named him Lonnie John. Lonnie John Bricker isn’t only the half brother of Arnette Lemon Treadmont, but is also the driver who, during a Skype interview with Gottfrey, claimed that Ancel and Clare Hawk were passengers when, on Monday, he drove the 10:25 bus from Killeen to Houston. This leaves Jim Lee Cassidy, the tall, folksy, white-haired Realtor and lying sack of shit in Killeen, who claimed that Ancel and Clare had been getting out of the Mercury Mountaineer in front of his office when his valise fell open, spilling a lot of important papers; supposedly they helped him pick up the documents before the wind blew them away, and then they hurried off in the direction of the bus station. Jim Lee Cassidy is surely the wily bastard who worked out this chain of deception. Sue Ann McMaster and her husband live in a house in Killeen that they acquired through Cassidy, as do Lonnie John Bricker and his partner. Arnette and Cory Treadmont had lived in Beaumont, where their son Tucker still resides, but they later moved to Killeen, where they bought a house through the ever-busy Jim Lee Cassidy. The links between Cassidy and the Hawks were more difficult to uncover. Jim Lee has an older sister, Corrina June, seventy, who is married to one Preston Eugene Fletcher. Preston Fletcher has a twin sister, Posey, who is married to one Johnny Don Ackerman. Posey and Johnny Don have two daughters and a son, all grown. The son is Dr. David Ackerman, forty-two, a military historian and a civilian employee at the Corps Combat Development Command at Quantico, to which Nick Hawk had for a while been assigned. There Nick met Jane.
Those are facts known to Gottfrey, and the following are suppositions he makes from those discoveries. Nick and Jane Hawk were friends with Dr. David Ackerman at Quantico. Subsequent to Nick’s death and Jane’s ascension to the most-wanted-fugitive list, David Ackerman discreetly contacted the Hawks to say that he wanted to help any way he could, and Jane vouched for him to her in-laws. At some point it was decided that Ancel and Clare might one day need a bolt-hole and a plan to obscure the journey they would make to get to it. David Ackerman’s parents, Posey and Johnny Don, now retired, made a lot of money in the construction industry in Conroe. They lived in a large house on three acres, but owned as well a vacation home in Florida, where they spent part of the year. Whether they were home in Conroe or not, they were pleased to allow Ancel and Clare to hide there if and when the need arose. So Ancel and Claire didn’t drive the Longrins’ Mercury Mountaineer to Killeen. Say they drove it as far as Austin. Say they were met in Austin by Dr. David Ackerman’s sisters, Kay and Lucy. Say Kay drove them four hours to the house in Conroe, while Lucy drove the Mountaineer to Killeen and parked it in front of the real estate company owned by her uncle Jim Lee Cassidy, who then waited for the authorities to tie the Mercury Mountaineer to the Hawks and locate the vehicle by its GPS signal, so that he could send them to Sue Ann McMaster and the bus station.
Texas isn’t real and neither are Texans, but Egon Gottfrey hates the state and its people nonetheless.
There’s no point hating the Unknown Playwright who created Texas and Texans; because when all is said and done, this has been conceived as a dramatic vehicle in which Gottfrey will triumph and achieve greatness as an iconic loner. But though he doesn’t hate the U.P., Gottfrey does sometimes wonder about his/her/its mental state.
Now the street darkles under the paused storm.
He arrives at the Ackerman property.
Posey and Johnny Don are in Florida.
Although the daughters, Kay and Lucy, will do all errands for Ancel and Clare, so that the fugitives can remain in the house and not risk being recognized, the siblings will now be at their own homes with their families.
Gottfrey follows the long driveway to the house.
The landscape lights, evidently on a timer, are not yet lit.
Immense pine trees overhang the driveway.
All is secluded, dark, and quiet except for the rainwater that drips from the branches of the pines.
The house has a security system provided by Vigilant Eagle, Inc. It no longer works.
From his hotel suite in Beaumont, using a laptop, via the NSA, Gottfrey had entered the Vigilant Eagle computer system by a back door. From there he’d accessed the computer that the alarm company had installed in the Ackerman house to monitor and ensure the proper response condition was at all times maintained by door, window, motion-detection, and glass-break sensors. He did a bit of fiddling.
The readouts that are part of the alarm keypads throughout the residence continue to show a properly functioning system. But when he forces entry, no alarm will sound and no alert will be received at Vigilant Eagle’s central station.
He circles the imposing house, studying it.
A few lights brighten windows upstairs. The only lights downstairs are toward the front of the residence.
Some windows are covered with draperies or at least sheers, but others allow him views of the interior. He doesn’t see anyone.
The kitchen at the back of the house is dark.
Rather than a porch, there is a large covered patio.
By the back door, he puts down the Medexpress carrier and the tote bag. From the tote, he withdraws a LockAid lock-release gun that will automatically pick any deadbolt.
This device isn’t entirely silent. He will need to pull the trigger a few times to cast all the pins to the shear line. In a quiet house, the clicking noise might draw attention.
He can hear no music, no television.
When he hesitates, the storm abruptly resumes, rain hammering on the patio roof.
Gottfrey smiles.
There is no lightning or thunder at the moment, but the rataplan of rain will mask what noise the lock-release gun makes.
He uses a penlight, on and quickly off, to locate the keyway in the deadbolt. He inserts the thin pick of the gun. He needs to pull the trigger five times to disengage the lock.
He puts away the LockAid. From the tote bag he removes a Taser pistol and a spray bottle of chloroform.
Leaving the tote and the cooler of ampules on the patio, he enters the kitchen and eases the door shut behind him.
His long-building frustration is about to be relieved. To get information about Jane and her boy, he needs only to inject one of her in-laws, which will be Ancel. If Clare is still the looker that Lonnie John Bricker says she is, he will use her and then beat her to death with his collapsible baton.
His eyes are sufficiently dark adapted that he has no fear of setting a foot wrong and making noise. Besides, he is the lead of this drama, every line of every scene crafted to serve him.
On the farther side of the kitchen, a door to a hallway stands half open. Soft light beyond.
He circles the kitchen island. The susurration of the rain in the night. The hum of the refrigerator. Two glowing digital readouts mark the time on the stacked ovens.
He is two steps short of the half-open hallway door when the cold muzzle of a gun is pressed to the back of his head.