Long Shadows

Chapter 3

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And other assorted bullshit, thought Decker.

That was the way it always ended. That and a deep, unforgiving hole closed up with dirt. A suited Decker, usually comfortable only in jeans or wrinkled khakis and a loose sweatshirt, stared down at the eternal berth-to-be in the ground. It would soon be filled with Mary Lancaster’s boxed remains.

It was a chilly, drizzly day in Ohio. For this area it was very normal weather in spring, the vestiges of winter clinging like a dewy spider’s web to a frosted windowpane. The crowd here was large; Earl and Mary Lancaster were well-known and well-liked, and Sandy had made many friends at her school. Decker eyed numerous former colleagues from the local police force, who all stared dourly at the ground.

Alex Jamison had been on assignment and unable to come, but had sent a card and her condolences. Ross Bogart had done the same, along with flowers. They hadn’t known Lancaster that well, but Decker still wished they could have been here with him. He usually eschewed company, but not today.

The casket had been closed. The gunshot had been fired upward through the mouth, leaving Mary Lancaster beyond the magic of the mortician’s cosmetics, and thus unviewable.

Decker looked over at Earl Lancaster, ashen faced and lost and old looking, as he clutched the hand of his teenage daughter, Sandy, who was learning disabled. The girl’s eyes darted here and there, processing the world in her unique way. She might not understand death the way others did, Decker knew, and that might be a good thing, at least right now. But, at some point soon, she would realize her mother was gone. And she would wonder when her mother would be back. And Decker did not relish being in Earl’s position to have to explain what had really taken place when that gun had fired. There would be no good way to do so, he thought. But it still had to be done, because Sandy deserved an explanation.

Sandy suddenly caught sight of Decker, broke free from her startled father’s grip, and ran over to him. She stared up at the giant man, her face sparkling in a sea of gloom.

“You’re Amos Decker,” she declared brightly.

This was a game that they played; well, she did. And Decker always answered as he was about to now, though it was not easy to form the words this time.

“I know I am. And you’re Sandy Lancaster.”

She grinned and cracked, “I know I am.”

As soon as she finished speaking, Decker’s features crumpled.

I forgot who she was. For a time there was no Sandy Lancaster in existence for me.

Mary Lancaster, at least in her mind, could not have committed a graver sin than not remembering that her daughter existed. He was certain that was what had placed the finger on the trigger and given her the strength to pull it.

He felt a nudge on his hand and opened his eyes to see Sandy’s small, slender fingers curling around his long, thick ones.

“Amos Decker?” she said again, watching him carefully, perhaps too carefully. For some reason he knew what she was going to ask, and it panicked him beyond all reason. “Where’s my mommy? There are so many people. Do you see her somewhere? I need to talk to her.”

Decker had never lied to Sandy, not once. He couldn’t lie to her now, so he said nothing.

“Sandy!” Earl came running over and took his daughter’s hand. “Sorry, Amos.”

Decker waved this apology off, turning to the side to wipe his eyes. Then he leaned close to the other man and spoke into his ear so Sandy wouldn’t hear.

“I’m so sorry, Earl.”

Earl gripped Decker’s arm. “Thank you. Um, we’re having a little gathering at the house right after the service. I hope you can come. Mary... would have wanted that.”

Decker nodded, though he had no intention of going. Earl seemed to read this in his features and said, “Well, it was good to see you.”

Decker glanced at Sandy to see her gaze riveted on him. He saw betrayal in her features, but that might have been due to his own sense of guilt placing it there.

Earl said softly, “The police told me... that she called you. Thank you... for trying.”

“I wish I had been more—”

“I know.”

He watched them walk off to the car provided by the funeral home. The rest of those in attendance began straggling away, some flicking nods and glances and sad smiles his way. No one approached him, though. They all knew the man too well.

And then Decker was alone because he preferred it that way.

As the cemetery workers started to lower the coffin into the hole precisely dug for it, Decker turned and walked mechanically along through the graves until he reached a certain spot beside a certain tree. He did not need a perfect memory to find this place. He simply needed a bereaved heart. This was a difficult pilgrimage for him. There was probably no other kind.

Cassandra Decker. Molly Decker. Mother and daughter. His wife, their child. The love of his life, his flesh and blood, taken from him by a murderer’s hand. The flowers he had laid here on his last visit had long since disintegrated, much like the bodies lying below. He brushed these fragments away and knelt down next to the twin graves.

Once, when he had been here visiting his dead family, a dying man named Meryl Hawkins had wandered out of the woods and demanded justice from Decker, in connection with the first case Decker had worked as a homicide detective. Decker had accepted the challenge, and in doing so had proved his younger self wrong and his older self correct. And Hawkins had been given justice, however belatedly, and posthumously.

Decker had also tracked down his own family’s killer.

He had served justice in both cases, but it was, without doubt, a hollow outcome, marred by the fact that the justice was delivered too late for the victims. No amount of justice could return the dead to the living; the satisfaction gained from learning the truth was dwarfed by the loss.

He said the words he needed to say to his wife and child, and then rose from the cold ground and glanced to the left. There was an empty plot there.

Mine. He had come close to filling it on several occasions, once by his own hand, while staring at his murdered child as she sat, in death, in her own house.

Will my perfect memory fail one day and I’ll forget I had a daughter?

He had still been on the line when the police had arrived at Lancaster’s house. He had talked first to the officer, and then the detective, a man he knew from the old days. There had been sadness exchanged on the loss of a life well known to them, a grudging acceptance of the choice made, and of the motive behind it.

He walked back to his rental car. His flight to DC was scheduled for the next morning. He had no idea what would await him when he got there.

And Amos Decker wasn’t sure he cared anymore.