Chapter 30
CHAPTER
That would be a rookie move, he decided, shaking his head as he passed the exit. He’d been near perfect the other night and wanted to be as meticulous in every aspect of his follow-through.
As Soneji drove, he listened to a jazz station out of the University of Maryland. With Herbie Hancock providing background music, he relived last night, saw every moment of his flawless stalk, every step an exquisite eternity of anticipation.
He’d had the angle coming at the green Chevy Malibu, was positive he would not be noticed as he eased his latex-gloved hand into the pocket of his dark hoodie and slipped the Bulldog from a plastic bag.
The young women had been talking. He’d heard their murmurs and laughter.
He saw the silhouettes of their heads inclined toward each other as he moved into point-blank range. For an interesting moment as he raised the pistol, Soneji thought they might kiss.
If that was their intention, they never got there. He fired through the right rear window, hitting the driver high in the right cheek, just below her eye.
The passenger screamed in horror; her hands gripped her head as she twisted away from her dead friend, looking in terror for the shooter. She never got to see him.
Soneji stepped sideways and shot. The bullet went through her right hand and into her temple.
They were both clearly stone dead. But remembering his blunder with Abby, he put one more round into each woman. Then he leaned into the car and tore off a flap of scalp from the gaping wound on the side of the passenger’s head.
After that, he’d run back to the Saab and taken the same route he was driving now, north on I-95 past Baltimore and Aberdeen, heading toward the Delaware line. He reveled in his flawless execution until a sobering thought came to him.
He had mastered David Berkowitz. It was time to move on.
But he had things to take care of before he could decide whom to study next. A few tasks he’d left undone the night of the first shooting.
He’d been emotionally and physically exhausted then and had decided to take care of those jobs later. It didn’t matter. There’d been no real rush.
Soneji left the interstate just shy of the Delaware border and headed north on Maryland 272. He passed through Bay View and soon after crossed the Pennsylvania line. The state highway cut through a checkerboard of farms and small woodlots in full fall foliage, all of it so familiar to him.
He turned off south of Oxford, Pennsylvania, and wove his way on county roads toward the Chrome Barrens, a large nature preserve with forests and prairie-like grasslands that were managed as American Indians had managed them centuries ago—with fire.
Indeed, as Soneji got close to the Chrome Barrens, he could smell and see smoke. He crested a rise. There were fire trucks and police cars parked up on the road ahead, ready to act should the flames jump beyond their intended areas.
He debated leaving and returning another time but decided to push on. He took a left on a dirt road well short of the police and fire vehicles, headed north, then pulled over and parked.
Smoke wafted through the trees. Fingers of it crept out onto the farm fields across the road from the preserve.
Soneji had not planned for a controlled burn. Still, it might be a good thing. He was sure he could slide in and out unseen, but the smoke couldn’t hurt—it would give him one more layer of concealment.
He went to the Saab’s trunk, took out knee-high rubber boots and latex gloves, put them on, then pulled out a hiking pack and shouldered it.
The pack was an easy load, and he set off into the woods, moving diagonal to the burns.
On the far side of a knoll deep in the woods, he dropped into a natural ditch of sorts that ran east.
Glad that the gully concealed him almost to his shoulders and that the damp leaves deadened all sound beneath his feet, Soneji moved quickly to the edge of a clearing.
Much of the opening was knotted with thorny brambles, but weeks before, he had used garden shears to trim a path into the yard of a ramshackle uninhabited farmhouse.
Beyond the house was a long, low shed, one side open to a rutted driveway leading toward thick pines.
As Soneji crept along the cleared path, he paused often to listen but heard only the chattering of squirrels and crows cawing off in the pines somewhere. Soon he was there at the edge of the yard again.
He crouched and studied the area, trying to see if something was different from his last visit, something that would tell him he was being watched.