four members of the Camel Club closed their eyes.
When they reopened them, the four men continued to stare transfixed as the gun and bottle were placed near the body. A plastic baggie was taken out of the knapsack carried by the other man, and this was laid next to the murder weapon. Finally, a piece of folded paper was placed in the pocket of the dead man’s windbreaker.
Finished, the two men looked around the area even as the Camel Club members shrank farther back in the bushes. A minute later the killers trudged off. As soon as the sounds of their footfalls disappeared, the Camel Club let out a collective sigh of relief. Holding his finger to his lips, Stone quietly led the way out of their hiding place and into the clearing.
Reuben squatted down next to the body. He shook his head and said in a very low voice, “At least he was killed instantly. As if that somehow makes up for being murdered.” He looked at the nearly empty bottle. “Dewar’s. Looks like they got the poor bastard drunk so he couldn’t fight back.”
“Is there any ID on the body?” Stone asked.
“This is a crime scene,” Caleb said shakily. “We shouldn’t touch anything.”
“He’s right,” Reuben agreed. He glanced over at Milton, who was making frantic motions with his hands as he sped silently through his OCD ritual. Reuben sighed. “We should get the hell out of here, Oliver, is what we should do.”
Stone knelt down beside him and spoke quietly but urgently. “This was an execution made to look like suicide, Reuben. Those were professional killers, and I’d like to know who the target was and what he knew that led to his death.” As he was speaking, he wrapped a handkerchief pulled from his pocket around his hand, searched the dead man’s pockets and slid out a wallet. He nimbly flipped it open, and they all gazed at the driver’s license in the see-through plastic. Reuben pulled out his lighter and flicked it on so Stone could read the information on the license.
“Patrick Johnson,” Stone read. “He lived in Bethesda.” Stone put the wallet back, searched the other pocket and pulled out the piece of paper the killer had placed there. By the flickering flame of the lighter he read the contents of the letter in a soft voice.
“‘I’m sorry. It’s all too much. I can’t live with this anymore. This is the only way. I’m sorry. So sorry.’ And it’s signed Patrick Johnson.”
Caleb slowly took his bowler hat off in respect for the dead and mouthed a prayer.
Stone continued, “The writing is very legible. I suppose the police will assume it was written before he supposedly drank himself into a suicidal stupor.”
Reuben said, “He said he was sorry right before they killed him.”
Stone shook his head. “I think he was speaking about something else he was sorry for. The note’s words are just a subterfuge, a typical suicide’s last plea.”
Stone put the note back. As he was doing so, his hand nudged against something else in the dead man’s pocket. He pulled out a small red lapel pin and squinted at it in the darkness.
“What’s that?” Reuben asked, holding his lighter closer.
Caleb said in a hushed whisper, “What if they come back?”
Stone put the pin back and felt Johnson’s clothes. “They’re soaked through.”
Reuben pointed to the plastic baggie. “What do you make of that?”
Stone thought for a moment. “I think I understand its purpose and the soaked clothes as well. But Caleb’s right, we should leave.”
They set off and then realized that Milton wasn’t with them. They turned back and found him crouched over the dead man counting, with his hand reaching over the body.
“Uh, Milton, we really need to leave,” Caleb said urgently.
However, Milton was apparently so traumatized that he couldn’t stop counting.
“Oh, for chrissakes,” Reuben moaned. “Why don’t we all just bloody well count together until they come back and give us some bullets to suck on?”
Stone put a steadying hand on Reuben’s arm and stepped forward next to Milton. He looked down at Patrick Johnson’s face. He was young, though death had already begun to hollow him. Stone knelt and placed his hand gently on Milton’s shoulder and said quietly, “We can do nothing for him now, Milton. And the comfort you take in your counting, the safety and security that you’re striving for, can be defeated if those two men come back.” He added bluntly, “They have guns, Milton, we don’t.”
Milton halted his ritual, stifled a sob and said in a quivering voice, “I don’t like violence, Oliver.” Milton clutched his knapsack closer to his chest and then pointed at the corpse. “I don’t like that.”
“I know, Milton. None of us do.”
Stone and Milton rose together. With a sigh of relief Reuben followed them to the path leading to their boat.
Warren Peters, who’d fired the shot that killed Patrick Johnson, was walking along the trail back to their dinghy when he stopped short.
“Shit!” he whispered.
“What?” Tyler Reinke asked as he nervously looked around. “Police boat?”
“No, almost a big mistake.” Peters scooped up some dirt and pebbles in his hand. “When we dunked him, it cleaned his shoe soles off. If he walked here through the woods, his soles wouldn’t be clean. The FBI won’t miss that.”
The two men hurried back along the path and over to the body. Peters squatted down next to the murdered man’s shoes and pressed dirt and pebbles into the soles.
“Good catch,” Reinke said.
“I don’t want to even think about what would’ve happened if I’d blown that.” He finished his task and started to rise, but his gaze caught on something.
“I’m all right,” Stone answered. “Just stay down!”
The two gunmen, realizing the futility of their attack, raced away.
“They’re going to get their boat,” Stone warned.
“Well, then we have a bit of a problem, because their boat has a motor,” Reuben retorted. “I’m going as fast as I can, but there’s not much gas left in my tank.”
Stone pulled on Caleb’s sleeve. “Caleb, you take one oar and I’ll take the other.” Reuben moved out of the way, and the two men rowed with all their strength.