Burke abandons his hunt for Garrett Blackstone

Burke Devore’s pursuit of Garrett Roger Blackstone ends not with a confrontation but with a discovery made over the telephone: Blackstone has found work, but not the position Burke thought he had taken. The journey to Blackstone’s secluded home brings Burke close enough to enter it with a Luger pistol, yet the failed search and the news about the job turn a planned murder into an abrupt retreat.

Background and Target

Burke drives to Scantic River Road in search of Garrett Roger Blackstone. The road runs through the hills of north-central Connecticut near Erebus, and Burke approaches it by briefly crossing into Massachusetts before driving south. The surroundings are comparatively unshowy: houses sit among wooded spaces, with used-looking basketball hoops, above-ground pools, and modest gardens. At number 217, the road bends around a blind curve. A stone wall holds the property above the road, and a narrow driveway leads toward a house only partly visible from below.

On his first pass, Burke sees Blackstone’s wife at the mailbox. For an instant, he mistakes her for Blackstone and reaches for the Luger pistol beneath his raincoat; realizing she is a woman, he drives on without approaching the house. Her presence complicates the plan. Burke wonders whether Blackstone is home, ill, or waiting for his wife to bring in the mail, and recognizes that any of these possibilities could make him harder to reach.

Searching for a Way In

Burke stops at a scenic overlook about two miles farther north and studies his road atlas. It shows no route along the hill behind the property. The house stands on a slope, with undeveloped hillside above it and woods and a stream below. From the road, there appears to be no straightforward approach that would let him reach Blackstone unseen.

He drives past again, then takes a narrow side road marked as a dead end. After stopping his Voyager beside a white rail fence, he judges that the woods ahead should lead toward Blackstone’s property. Beyond the fence he finds a path, though he cannot tell whether it was made by deer or people. He decides to follow it in his raincoat, with the Luger pistol in its pocket, intending to turn back if the route forks, disappears, or becomes difficult to retrace. The path soon leaves the Voyager out of sight, and Burke worries that he may lose his way.

After waiting among boulders, Burke hears a distant crack and uses the sound of Blackstone’s wife striking trees with her walking stick to track where she is. He then hurries back to the path. About fifteen minutes later, a smaller trail leads to a house visible through the woods. A two-strand electric fence separates it from the lawn, which is edged with rhododendrons; beyond a covered pool stands a large house with a stone first floor, white clapboard above, and several dormers. Burke recognizes it as the home he glimpsed from Scantic River Road, but sees no one outside. With the open lawn exposing him to the windows, he waits rather than cross the property while Blackstone’s whereabouts remain uncertain.

The Empty House

At eleven-fifteen, Blackstone’s wife returns to the woods. She wears the same hat and cardigan as before, with different-colored clothing beneath, and carries the stick she uses to strike the trees as she walks. Burke estimates he has at least half an hour before she comes back. He crosses the electric fence and approaches the house, telling himself that if anyone sees him, he can appear to be a respectable man who has lost his way and is looking for directions.

No one comes to the door or appears at a window. Burke crosses the patio and opens a sliding glass door, entering the dining room. The air conditioning is running. He moves through the downstairs and upstairs, searching the empty house, and finally opens the door from the kitchen to the attached garage. There is no car there. Blackstone is away, and Burke has no information about where he works or how to find him.

As Burke crosses the kitchen, he sees Blackstone’s wife returning sooner than expected. He hides behind a sofa while she walks through the dining room and sitting room into the bathroom. Once she has shut the door, he takes his hand away from the pistol, slips out through the patio door, crosses the lawn, and leaves through the electric-fence gate. He makes it off the property without being discovered; on the walk back, he eats both apples he has with him. The house search has brought him inside Blackstone’s home but yielded neither his target nor a chance to carry out the killing.

The Call and the Reversal

Burke later stops at an outside pay phone at a gas station about three miles before the turnoff to Scantic River Road. He chooses it because its exchange matches the one at Blackstone’s house, making the call seem local. A concern that arose the previous night gives him a reason to call: perhaps Blackstone and his wife have separated, or perhaps Blackstone has taken a job that keeps him away during the day. Burke has watched the property for two days without finding him and wants to learn why.

Pretending to be an old friend of her husband, Burke speaks with Blackstone’s wife. She hesitates to take a message, explaining that he has only just started his new job and might not want outside calls. When Burke asks about the position, her restraint gives way to enthusiasm: she says it is the job Blackstone wanted. Burke initially believes Blackstone has obtained the position Burke himself wanted and reacts with a fierce impulse to kill him. But the job is at Willis and Kendall, making tin-can labels, not the paper-mill work Burke had assumed. Burke’s alarm gives way to relief.

He asks her to pass on his congratulations and says he is delighted for Blackstone. Then he hangs up before giving his identity. The news changes the purpose of the pursuit: Blackstone has work he wants, so Burke no longer regards killing him as necessary. As he drives away in Burke’s Voyager, he is genuinely glad for a man who has found a place in the workforce, even though the relief does not erase the burdens waiting at home. The thought of the two remaining targets returns as he nears home.

Significance

The episode makes the intended murder contingent on Burke’s private accounting of employment rivalry. He approaches Blackstone’s home armed, searches for a way through the surrounding woods, and enters the house; yet a telephone inquiry, made partly to explain Blackstone’s absence, is enough to stop the hunt. The decisive distinction is not whether Blackstone has secured any job, but whether he has taken the job Burke believed was his. Once that assumption proves wrong, the immediate motive collapses.

The contrast between the quiet suburban landscape and Burke’s armed intrusion gives the pursuit its particular tension. A covered pool, electric deer fence, stone patio, and air-conditioned dining room mark a domestic life he scrutinizes as evidence of financial strain, while his own movement through that home turns him from a supposed visitor into a trespasser. His escape while Blackstone’s wife is in the bathroom is a narrow physical reversal; the later call supplies the more consequential one. Burke leaves without killing Blackstone, but the unresolved count of two remaining targets shows that this reprieve ends one pursuit, not his wider campaign.