Mary’s County, following Bernie Walters’s pickup all the way. They stopped for coffee, then stopped again for ammunition and bait, and made one last stop at a drive-through liquor store, where Karras watched the clerk pass a case of beer through the window of Walters’s truck. Pulling out of the lot, Karras saw a puff of smoke come from the driver’s side of the F-150 as Walters lit a cigarette. They drove down Route 5 and then 242, through the towns of Clements and Dynard and onto back roads skirting the western shore of Clements Bay, an offshoot of the lower Potomac. A hard dirt road led them through woods to a clearing opening to two hundred feet of brackish creek. Walters parked the truck next to his pop-up trailer, and Karras pulled in beside him. Walters had a beer in his hand as Karras met him by the truck. “Care for one?” said Walters, holding up the can. “No, thanks, I’m good.” Karras zipped up his coat.
