The Killing House

28

Dickeyville consisted of two main roads: Wetheredsville and Pickwick. The historic homes, such as the one at No. 5131 Wetheredsville, the house of Union soldier and Gettysburg flag-waver Billy Ware, had been preserved with remarkable care. Construction for new homes, as well as existing homes requiring modernization, had to meet strict guidelines set by the Dickeyville Community Association in order to maintain the village’s historic charm.

Fletcher took Pickwick and snaked his way across the quiet and deserted street. He reached the Colonial, surprised to find the downstairs windows lit. Someone had returned. The driveway was empty, which suggested that the homeowner had parked in the garage.

Fletcher drove past the house. When he reached the end of the street, he turned and made his way to Gwynns Falls. The area, with its numerous urban hiking and biking trails, offered a discreet and direct route to the back of the house.

Fifteen minutes later he drove across a parking lot of compacted dirt. Given the time of night and the cold weather, there were no other cars — or neighbouring homes. He could dress privately. He popped the trunk and stepped out of the car.

Fletcher wore a black, long-sleeved shirt over his bulletproof vest; all of his clothing was black. He took out his tactical belt, buckled it and strapped the nylon gun holster with its spare ammo clip to his thigh. He slipped on a pair of latex gloves, then exchanged his leather ones for a tactical brand made of Kevlar. The fingertips contained no extra material to get in the way of a trigger guard. He shut the trunk and locked the car.

Fletcher buttoned his coat as he made his way across the frozen ground. He didn’t need to use his flashlight. The peppering of bright stars provided enough ambient light for him to make out his surroundings. It disappeared once he stepped on to the main trail, but he could see well enough, and he knew where he was going, having already walked this same route twice. Several minutes later, he moved off the main trail and headed up a slope matted with dead leaves and pine needles, the silence occasionally punctuated by the cracks of dried twigs and the crunch of downed branches beneath his boots.

He studied the house using the monocular. Two glowing heat signatures, but only one was moving — the person walking through the ground-floor rooms. The second figure was upstairs and horizontal, lying in one of the first-floor bedrooms facing the garden.

Fletcher watched the figures for the good part of an hour. The person downstairs wandered freely. The person on the first floor didn’t move at all.

According to the schematics Karim had sent him, the alarm system was a standard wireless model that used passive infrared and six glass-break detectors. Fletcher suspected the detectors had been installed on the ground-floor windows. Most homeowners never bothered to install the detectors on the first-floor windows, as they were generally inaccessible.

The back porch had a shingled roof, and there were no lights on the first floor.

Fletcher tucked the monocular back inside his trousers pocket as he moved out from behind the tree, making his way to the garden’s picket fence.