Page 107 of Holmes, Margaret and Poe

John said, “Backup?”

“Let’s drive by,” I said. “See what we see and then decide.”

The campsite was heavily wooded and spotless but for the leaves falling on the pavement. We rolled slowly down the slick access lane.

There was some kind of rig — motor home or travel trailer — parked in almost every site, including the one on the far right, closest to the bay itself, a new fifth-wheel insulated trailer beside a midnight-blue three-quarter-ton Dodge that faced the lane.

“Same truck that went past us the other night,” I said, then saw that the pickup’s rear cap window was up and the tail-gate down. I caught movement. “He’s in the back of the truck. I’m going.”

As Sampson started to take the curve in the lane back to the entrance of the campground, I eased open the door of his Jeep Grand Cherokee. He tapped the brakes. I stepped out and walked with the Jeep long enough to close the door softly.

Sampson rolled on around the loop and out of sight. The wet leaves and the rain dripping from the trees covered the sound of my footfalls as I drew my weapon and went around the back of the trailer, sticking to the taller dead grass to keep silent.

Gun up, I stepped out sideways from behind the back of the trailer and saw Filson facing away from me on his hands and knees in the back of his truck, rearranging plastic bins and crates. He was wearing a different coat than he’d been wearingin Ali’s pictures, a shorter one that revealed a pistol in a holster on his right hip.

For a second, I questioned my decision not to wait for backup. But two steps later, I was right behind him and to his left, just off the edge of the tailgate.

Holding the gun double-fisted, I aimed at the back of his now shaven head, the point where it met his spine. An instantaneous death shot.

Calmly, softly, I said, “Police, Mr. Filson. If you go for that gun, I will blow your head off. I cannot miss from this distance.”

The older man tensed at the first words out of my mouth, and I thought from the way his right shoulder twitched that he wanted desperately to go for his gun. But then his back just kind of sagged.

“That’s it, then,” he said in a heavy brogue. “What would you have me do?”

“Lie down in the truck, facedown, fingers laced behind your head.”

Filson complied just as Sampson ran up, his service weapon drawn.

“He’s armed,” I said. “Right hip. We’ll pull him out by his feet.”

With each of us aiming a gun at him with one hand, we dragged him back far enough to strip the pistol from its holster.

“Any other weapons?” I asked.

“Not on me,” Filson said, still facedown with his hands behind his shaved head.

“Roll over and get out,” Sampson said.

He rolled over awkwardly, then scooched out, looking much older than his sixty years. When he slid off the tailgate, John holstered his weapon, spun Filson around, and put zip cuffs on him.

“You’re under arrest for the Dead Hours killings,” Sampson said.

Before he could read the man his rights, Filson smiled oddly and said, “Well, then, you’ve come to the right place, haven’t you?”

CHAPTER 89

IT BEGAN TO RAINhard. We put Filson in the back of Sampson’s car and alerted the FBI to bring criminalists to the campground.

After two local Fairfax County Sheriff’s deputies arrived to seal off the scene, the rain let up a bit. John and I entered the trailer, put on gloves, and began to search.

It didn’t take much time to find the long coat he’d been wearing in Ali’s first pictures and then the windbreaker from thePostpictures. He had a drawer full of cheap sunglasses and a stack of white sheets on one of the bunks. Beneath the sink we discovered gunsmithing equipment, including a miniature lathe and drill press.

There were boxes of handload bullets of several calibers in the cabinets above the fridge. Wrapped in a white pillow-case under some blankets in the storage space beneath the master bed, there was a handcrafted weapon that looked like aminiature double-barreled side-by-side shotgun, except with a custom pistol grip.

I cracked the breech and found two .25-caliber bullets in the chambers. When I lifted the gun and aimed at my reflection in a mirror, there was no question that at short range, Filson’s double gun would blow out both my eyes.

“We got him,” Sampson said. “It’s over.”

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