Weiss’s prints and DNA were also present in Costa’s house. Costa’s eighty-one-year-old father was found unconscious from being beaten with a blunt object, and he died in the hospital a few hours later. Weiss had sexually assaulted and killed Costa’s wife, Megan. Costa’s car left town, heading south past the cameras on the Parkman House restaurant and the gas station at the Stillwell interstate entrance. No police agency had reported a sighting of Albert Weiss since then.

Leah wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw in the mass of information about Weiss a vulnerability. When he first entered the prison system, he filled out a form listing the people he wanted to be allowed to visit him. On the list were his mother and five women who weren’t relatives. The FBI had this information, interviewed each of these women a few times, and came to no conclusion. At first, the FBI had a thousand escaped prisoners to capture and investigate, charge and prosecute, so they were stretched thin, and even when the number was down to twelve, they had hundreds of other leads to follow.

In the investigation of Weiss’s mother, the FBI learned she had never lived anywhere except Naples, Florida. The records showed Albert had lived a few other places for brief periods, but had always returned to Florida. His crimes had been committed in Florida. All five of the females on his list of visitors to the prison had provided addresses in Florida. Where was Albert Weiss likely to be after two years? She had a guess.

Al Weiss decided it was late enough at night to go out to get some air that hadn’t been through an air conditioner. He had been born in Naples, and had always succeeded in staying on the Gulf side of Florida when he wasn’t imprisoned. July had a daytime temperature of ninety-three and a nighttime temperature of seventy-four, which he had always thought of as right, and every other climate as wrong. July was also the rainiest month, with an average rainfall of over nine inches, but he didn’t mind that either. It gave him an excuse for carrying his special umbrella. The steel tip was ground down to a point and covered by the end of the hollow steel shaft from an old umbrella that he’d fitted over it like a sheath. A six-inch spike was better than a gun to a fugitive because it was silent and nearly invisible.