Redemption

Chapter 22

Gentrification sometimes sucked because it made homes unaffordable to those living there before their neighborhood was suddenly hot, and all the money wanted to move into new luxury residences after knocking the old stuff down.

Decker was thinking this as he looked around at the area where Hawkins had been picked up that night on suspicion of a quadruple homicide.

Back then it had been the equivalent of a war zone in Burlington. Drug deals had gone down here, and gangs had fought each other over turf and customers. Cars from the suburbs would line up on the streets, like parishioners to the offering basket, only the money they put in would bring not solace and help for others, but drugs and continued misery in return. Empty homes and businesses were used as needle and coke pipe hangouts or gang headquarters. As a cop and later detective, Decker had spent a lot of time in this part of town. In some years there had been a murder a week. Everybody had guns, and no one had a problem using them.

Now the place was full of upscale apartments and thriving small businesses. Hell, there was even a Starbucks. A park sat where once there had been an empty boarded-up warehouse. Decker had to admit it was a lot better than it had been.

They could film a Hallmark movie here and not change a thing.

He and Lancaster had come here after questioning Hawkins at the police station. In Decker’s mind’s eye, the area was returned to its miserable state thirteen years prior. The park was gone, the new residences vanished, the streets returned to trash-strewn and crumbling. Addicts staggered down the streets, dealers were lurking down dark alleys hustling their product. Users came in with cash and left with their drugs of choice.

There were hookers too, because they naturally went with the drugs, Decker had found. Almost all of the hookers were addicts too and scored tricks to pay for their daily doses. And the luxurious loft apartment building he was standing in front of once more became an abandoned shirt factory with mattresses strewn inside where the business of sex was negotiated and then consummated.

Through all of this Meryl Hawkins walked with the rain beating down on him, though because of the bad weather, they could find no one out and about to corroborate his story. Yet if he was telling the truth and he had been trudging through this downpour, why? And why wouldn’t he tell Decker and Lancaster during their interrogation? Anything he told them could have helped his cause. Silence only hurt him. He could have named a person whom he had met with and they could have followed up on that, and he might have been a free man.

Decker dialed up something in his memory. Something far more recent.

“She was hooked up to a drip line that night. I remember seeing it.”

“Yeah, well, half the time there were no pain meds in that IV bag, including that night. They couldn’t afford them. Fucking insurance companies. Sorry, it’s still kind of a sore subject with me.”

“So your mother had insurance?”

“Until my dad got laid off. Then they couldn’t afford to stay on the insurance. And cancer was a preexisting condition. So they couldn’t get another policy anyway.”

“What did he do?”

“He worked every odd job he could and used the money to get what he could from local doctors.”

Had Meryl Hawkins really been out that night scrounging up illegal pain meds for his suffering wife? His lawyer had raised that possibility at the trial. If he had, he could still have committed the murders. There was plenty of time for him to do that and get to that part of town.

Yet if he had gotten the pain meds, none had been found on him. And how could he not have scored some in what was Burlington’s premier open-air drug market? But then again, he would have to be careful with what he bought. Half the crap being sold here could kill you, even if you were healthy.

Morphine would have been the presumptive choice, Decker figured. It certainly would be what the hospice folks used with their patients. But Hawkins had to be damn sure of the provenance. He certainly wasn’t going to give his wife some half-assed, kitchen-sink-concocted drug, and there had been plenty of those back then.

There were, Decker recalled, some sellers here who had pure stuff. They hadn’t made it in kitchen labs; they’d stolen it from pharmacies and hospital supply rooms. They asked premium dollar for it, because of its purity. You got more pop for your dollar and you clearly knew what you were injecting. That meant chances were good that you’d live to be an addict another day.

That, Decker decided, would be the stuff Hawkins would be looking for. If he had learned one thing about the man during the investigation and trial, it was that Meryl Hawkins was completely devoted to his wife. Yet no drugs of any kind had been found on him.

Decker closed his eyes. Five hundred dollars had been found on Hawkins. Was it cash he’d gotten for the stolen goods?

But how could the guy have transported all the stuff he supposedly took when there was no accounting for a car being seen there? It was possible he could have driven a stolen car there and no one had noticed it. Then he could have simply driven away, come here, and tried to barter stolen goods for drugs. He had the cash, so maybe he had been trudging through the rain after fencing the stuff and was looking for the right kind of drugs for his wife when the police had picked him up.

Although given that the man had never even had a parking ticket before that, it seemed implausible that after killing four people Hawkins could calmly go about his task of selling the stolen goods and shop for drugs in the middle of a monsoon. And he had to know the police would be looking for the killer.

Decker opened his eyes.

When they had questioned Hawkins late that night, he had seemed genuinely stunned that he was being accused of murder. Back then Decker and Lancaster had just assumed he was lying like any killer would.

Decker closed his eyes once more and he was back in that interrogation room sitting across from a man accused of four homicides, including two kids.

Decker had slid pictures across of the dead people.

“You recognize these, Mr. Hawkins?”

He hadn’t looked at the photos.

“Look at them, Mr. Hawkins.”

“I’m not and you can’t make me.”

But Decker had noticed the man glanced sideways at the photo of Abigail Richards and grimaced, almost looking like he might be sick to his stomach. Back then Decker had taken that as an indication of a guilty conscience.

But now?

“Give us a name, Mr. Hawkins,” Lancaster had said. “Of anyone you might have seen or met with tonight. Or who might have seen you. We can follow that up, and if it checks out, you’re a free man.”

Hawkins had never given a name. And as Decker focused his memory on that exact moment, he recalled seeing something on the man’s face that he hadn’t necessarily seen before.

Resignation.

“Hey, Decker!”

Decker looked over at the car that had pulled up beside him. The driver had rolled down the window and called out to him.

Decker mouthed a curse under his breath.

It was Blake Natty looking cocksure, as usual.

“I thought I made myself clear, Decker.”

“You’re going to have to explain that, Natty.”

Then he looked past Natty and was surprised to see Sally Brimmer in the passenger seat looking very uncomfortable.

Natty said, “I told you that you cannot investigate these cases.”

“No, you told me I couldn’t interfere with your investigation.” Decker made a show of looking around. “Not seeing any interference. I’m just out for a stroll. How about you, Ms. Brimmer? You see any interference with a police investigation going on here?”

Brimmer looked like she wanted to melt into the car’s floor-boards. She smiled weakly and said, “I’m not getting in the middle of this, guys.”

“Smart gal,” said Natty with a slick grin before turning back to Decker. “Maybe you should be that smart. I don’t want to have to lock you up.”

“I’m sure. I mean why would you want a federal lawsuit landing on the department like a nuclear bomb? Even all the brown-nosing you’ve done with the superintendent all these years wouldn’t be enough to save your butt.”

“You better watch yourself, smart-ass.”

“I do, Natty, every day of my life.”

“And you give me any more lip, your fat ass is going into a cell. Guaranteed.”

“Then you get a First Amendment lawsuit on top of the other one. I don’t think the department has enough lawyers to cover all that crap, and it would probably hit the national news pipeline.” Decker peered past him to look at Brimmer. “You do PR for the police. You care to wade into the middle of that one, Ms. Brimmer?”

She held up her hands in mock surrender and looked away.

Decker looked down at Natty’s ring hand and then over at Brimmer. “Wait a minute, Natty, aren’t you still married?”

Natty barked, “What’s it to you?” He glanced quickly at Brimmer. “What the hell are you insinuating? I’m... I’m just giving her a ride to... her apartment.”

Decker glanced at Brimmer again, who was staring out her window now. Then he made a show of checking his watch. It was nearly eight p.m.

“Well, tell Fran I said hello, when you get back from Brimmer’s apartment.”

“Stay out of my damn way, Decker, or you will go down.”

Natty hit the gas and the car sped off.

Decker stared after it and thought he saw Brimmer looking back at him through the rear glass. Though in the darkness, he couldn’t be sure.

Natty and Brimmer. Who saw that coming?