THE MAN STOOD in the shadow of the trees facing the small tan house. He was tall and had the close-cropped military haircut of the Marine he’d been until deserting his post a few weeks earlier. A black mask covered his face, he wore a one-piece camouflage suit, and carried a .300-caliber blackout rifle and a .22-caliber handgun.
The surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains of Hardy, Virginia, flower with dogwoods in the spring; in the summer, the hills bloom so lushly they look covered in neon velvet. It was Nov. 9, 2019, though, and the trees were bare.
Rodney Brown, who owned the house, spent the previous evening eating pizza with Vanessa Hanson, the woman to whom, in all ways except officially, he was married. The next morning, Vanessa was…