Chapter 67
CHAPTER
Detective kelsey girard had to leave for a court appearance in Richmond that afternoon, but she left us with a promise to keep in close touch, and we all shared the certainty that the kidnapper had screwed up.
Before returning to DC, Sampson and I decided to track Bunny Maddox’s known whereabouts backward from the time her brother saw her car lights.
At the Winn-Dixie, where she’d bought fried chicken and potato salad for dinner, we were able to review security footage from the night of her disappearance. We picked the stripper up on both interior and parking-lot security cams.
We also spotted a white van enter the far end of the supermarket lot and park in the shadows several minutes before Bunny’s arrival and leave eight minutes before she did. We couldn’t know if this was the same white van, but it seemed likely.
“More than enough time for him to set up his ambush,” Sampson said, “if he knew where Bunny was going. And he sure does seem to anticipate her routine.”
“But still no good look at the driver or the license plate,” I said.
“Yeah, but we can have stills from this blown up. The more we can say about the exterior of that van, the more likely we are to match it.”
“True that,” I said, and thanked the guard who’d given us access to the footage.
We were also able to review the feeds from the security cameras outside the Virginia state liquor store and Tillie’s, the bar where Bunny danced.
An exterior liquor-store camera facing the parking lot and the highway picked up a white van passing slowly as the stripper exited her vehicle and then rolling out of frame without giving a clear view of the driver or the plates.
At the strip club, a camera facing diagonally across the parking lot to the road picked up Bunny Maddox leaving work the day of her disappearance and heading north toward the liquor store roughly two miles away; a white van pulled out of an overflow lot across the street and followed her.
We got lucky. The camera caught the van just as the headlights of a pickup truck coming from the south lit it up from behind for several seconds.
“Definitely Pennsylvania plates,” Sampson said. “And that third letter is a Z or an S.”
I nodded, feeling like we were breaking through. “Definitely TNZ or TNS. And then maybe a three or an eight after it?”
“We’re going to get this guy now,” John said, grinning as we left the club with the security footage.
“I feel like it’s only a matter of time.”
“So do I. But let’s try to speed things up.”
Before we drove back to DC, Sampson called Tommy French, an old army buddy of his who was now an investigator for the Pennsylvania police.
“Can you have someone run a Pennsylvania license plate search for us?” Sampson asked after greeting his friend.
“Sure, what do you got, John?” French said.
“Pennsylvania TNZ or TNS and either a three or an eight after it. That’s all we can see.”
“Vehicle make and color?”
“White Ford Econoline van. Older. Rough shape.”
“And urgency?”
“We think the driver may have killed four people, attempted to murder another two, and potentially kidnapped or killed a seventh.”
“I’ll see what our records team can find and get back to you,” French said, and hung up.