Long Shadows

Chapter 14

I won’t ask you if you want to talk about it, because I know what the answer will be.”

Decker and White were sitting in the dining area of the DoubleTree. Their meal was done. Decker had a beer, while White fingered a glass of merlot.

Decker ignored this and finished his beer. He was standing up to leave when she said, “I had three kids, Decker. Now I only have two.”

He sat back down. “What happened?”

“Rival gangs going at it out on our street. They spewed rounds all over the place. One came through the wall of our house. My son, Donte, had sat up in bed when he heard all the noise. Bullet caught him right here.” She placed a trembling finger to her left temple.

“I’m sorry. When did it happen?”

“Five years ago.” She paused and looked down. “He was my middle child. I had my kids right in a row. My biological clock was ticking. I knew I wanted three. I thought I could handle it, FBI career and all. Until my ex walked out the door when I was still carrying Jacky. Luckily my mom came to the rescue. I... I wasn’t home when it happened. I was away on an...” A sob broke through, but she quickly quelled it. She wiped her mouth with her napkin and looked up, but didn’t meet Decker’s gaze. “Away on an assignment,” she finished.

Decker tapped his fingers nervously on the table. He didn’t want to break the silence because he was unsure about what to say. But finally he decided to say something, because he sensed that it had taken a lot of courage for White to make such a gut-wrenching admission. And she deserved something in kind from him.

“Sandy is my old partner’s daughter. She has some mental disabilities, so she couldn’t really understand about her mom. That’s why her dad called me. Sandy and I... we sort of have a trust thing going on.”

“What you told her was really good, Decker. It was pretty much spot-on for the situation.”

“I don’t normally talk about what happened to my family. It’s just not something I... do.”

“I don’t, either. But I just thought we needed an icebreaker.”

“Fair enough.”

“They say time heals, but I’m not sure about that. Not at all.”

“Time doesn’t necessarily heal, but it allows perspective, and the fading of the loss. But not for me.” He placed a finger against his head. “I can’t forget. Not even a little bit. Nothing fades, nothing gets better. It’s a new movie release every day, but it’s the same movie.”

“But you can remember the good times too, right? Better than the rest of us can with ours. I’m starting to fade on some of that stuff with Donte. I don’t want it to, but I’ve got two kids and a career that suck up all I’ve got.”

Decker rubbed at his mouth. “It doesn’t make up for it. It’s not apples to apples.”

“I can see that. And I can also see that you are done with the personal stuff, so let’s get to the professional. Impressions today?”

Decker automatically reengaged. “Barry Davidson is not being truthful about something, I just don’t know what. Tyler is confused and hurt. I want to talk to Gamma Protection Services and see why they were guarding the judge. And I want to know what the note represents. ‘Res ipsa loquitor.’”

“I’ve heard it before, but I Googled it to be sure. Legal jargon. Means something like ‘The thing proves itself.’”

“Right, I checked that too. Must be important, at least to the killer, which makes it important to us.”

“You think it stems from her caseload, something in the past? The blindfold, too? Maybe some defendant thought she screwed them. Justice wasn’t blind, that sort of thing?”

Decker said, “Tyler thought her getting protection had something to with her position as a judge. But she might have not been straight with him about that. It might have something to do with her ex-husband. Barry Davidson has money, a thriving international business. He likes to party, have the young ladies over, or so Tyler told me. He might have screwed with somebody or embezzled some funds from a shady client, and this was the result. They get back at him by killing her.”

“Or, like you suggested before, he could have hired someone to do it. Either way, we need to check his financial records.”

“Andrews is already on that. But let’s discuss the possibility that someone else killed her because they had a beef against Barry.”

“But why kill the judge and not him?” asked White.

“You kill him, maybe you don’t get your money back.”

“If so, and he knows who it is? And maybe that’s what he’s not telling us?”

Decker said, “He’ll either eventually tell us, go after them on his own, keep his mouth shut because he’s afraid — which would get my vote — or disappear because he’s scared shitless.”

“I like how you summarize things. So neat and orderly.”

He eyed her cagily. “Jamison told you about the electric blue, right?”

White did not answer. She just kept watching him steadily.

“When I walked into the judge’s house and had my little ‘moment’? I saw the look on your face. Death equals electric blue. You knew that. I could read it in your face.”

“She did tell me, yes,” White conceded.

“And this was not just idle chatter from a long time ago. You called her after you got assigned to partner with me.”

“And to her credit she didn’t want to tell me anything. She’s totally loyal to you, if you have any doubt about that. But I used my girl-agent-to-girl-agent card.”

“Anything else I need to know from the girl-agent exchange system?”

“I’ll let you know if it becomes relevant.” She paused. “Does that tick you off?”

“No, it’s actually the only thing you’ve said so far that made me smile.”

She gaped. “You smiled? When? Because I didn’t see it.”

“I do it internally.”

She smiled resignedly. “Of course you do.”

They went to their rooms.

White immediately phoned home and talked to her mother and then her kids.

She had a lot to catch up on even though she hadn’t been gone that long. It was good to hear their voices, especially now, with so much change going on in her life.

While she was doing that, Decker sat on his bed and stared out the window, where the sun had long since faded, but he could hear the roar of the Gulf through the glass.

He closed his eyes and once more envisioned the gun in Mary Lancaster’s hand. He watched as she lifted it to her mouth, inserted it between her lips, letting the muzzle rest on the tongue, because it was very awkward to hold a gun that way. Then her finger would slip to the trigger. She probably closed her eyes, let her mind wander to wherever it needed to.

And then...

He opened his eyes, rose, and walked over to the window. The ocean view was inspiring: vast, sprawling, infinite, smooth, yet somehow chaotic, clunky, unpredictable to him. After he’d lost his wife and child, Decker had only wanted to be left alone. Part of him still felt that way. Yet part of him was terrified of having no one left, either. Sometimes it was just him... and his mind.

My ever-changing mind. Just like the rest of my life. Always fluid, never stable. And according to the good folks at the Cognitive Institute, the ride is going to get a lot bumpier.

Later, his phone buzzed. He didn’t recognize the number and it wasn’t in his contacts because no name came up.

“Decker,” he said.

“Agent Decker, this is Helen Jacobs. I’m the medical examiner?”

“I remember you, Ms. Jacobs. So, Draymont’s gun?”

“Had not been fired. But there’s something else.”

“What?”

“He was killed by two gunshot wounds to the heart, I confirmed that.”

“But?” prompted Decker.

“But I also found what looks to be a wad of cash crammed down his throat.”