The Killing House

27

Malcolm Fletcher checked out of his hotel on the evening of his fourth day in Baltimore. He paid using Robert Pepin’s American Express gold business card and politely declined the valet’s offer to fetch his car from the hotel garage.

Fletcher had parked on the top level, where there were fewer vehicles. He was alone, and he didn’t have to worry about security cameras. He opened the trunk and then rooted through his various cases, selecting the items he would need that night with great care.

After he finished, he climbed behind the wheel and started the car.

By the time Karim’s plane touched down at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, M had traced the emails and website orders of Barry Johnson, Jon Riley and Jessie Foster all the way back to a residential home in Dickeyville, a small historic village located on the western edge of Baltimore City.

Fletcher had checked M’s work himself. There was no question in his mind about the validity of her information. It was rock-solid. Not wanting to waste any time, he left the plane, headed to his car and made the twelve-hour drive to Dickeyville. Karim had called once, to inform him of M’s additional research. The three Virginia men were fictitious; they were not residents of the state. The names of the deceased written on the order forms were also false. The death certificates had been forged.

The house in Dickeyville was a single-family, weather-beaten white Colonial. It had been built on the top of a sloping hill on half an acre of land. Trees, shrubs and a waist-high wall made of stone separated the Colonial from the neighbouring homes.

The lights were off, the attached garage empty. Fletcher searched the house using a monocular equipped with thermal imaging. The technology, developed by the British SAS, could pick up heat signatures through walls and floors.

The home was empty. Fletcher decided to wait until he had more information about the house. There was no urgency, no need to rush. He found a hotel located less than seven miles away, checked in and slept. In the morning he collected the supplies he needed for surveillance work.

Fletcher watched the Colonial for three long days. With the exception of the postman, no one approached the house. No one collected the mail. On the evening of his first night and under cover of darkness, he approached the mailbox and examined its contents. No bills or personal correspondence of any kind, just a meagre offering of promotional leaflets, catalogues and other assorted junk mail, all of it addressed to ‘current occupant’.

The news hadn’t surprised him. Karim, using M’s computer skills, had completed a preliminary investigation on the property. The historic Colonial, built in 1870, had last been sold to ABC Property Management, a limited liability corporation owned by Mark Sullivan, of Madison, Wisconsin. The LLC was listed on the utility and property tax bills, all of which were paid through an online banking account set up by a man named Rodger Callahan.

Subsequent data mining on Rodger Callahan and Mark Sullivan revealed an endless web of phone numbers and addresses all across the country that either did not exist, or that belonged to abandoned or foreclosed property. Karim pulled the LLC papers for ABC Property Management that had been filed with the Baltimore Chamber of Commerce. Its business address belonged to a gas station in Madison.

Karim had also pulled, scanned and emailed the Colonial’s architectural plans to Fletcher, who memorized the layout during the boring slog of watching the house.

Amongst Karim’s information was the technical specification of an important item: the home’s alarm system. According to the installation notes, the control panel had been placed inside the basement. There were two security alarm keypads: one mounted near the front door, the other in the master bedroom. Each keypad had a panic button that, when pressed, immediately dispatched police and fire units. Both keypads also came equipped with a speakerphone that allowed the homeowner to communicate directly with emergency personnel.

Tonight Fletcher would bypass the alarm system, enter the house and conduct a thorough search. Then he’d wait inside for someone to return — hopefully the shooter, the woman in the fur coat.