Redemption

Chapter 26

Decker had just settled into his bed.

His arrest and the bail hearing had shaken him more than he cared to show. With someone like Childress breathing down his neck, solving this case was going to be even harder. And it was difficult enough as it was.

He rolled over and punched his pillow, shaping it to be more comfortable.

Decker’s memory — his albatross and gold mine all in one. It allowed him incredible tools to successfully do what he did, but also imprisoned him within an indestructible cell of recollections any other human being could simply allow time to extinguish.

He was actually glad Lancaster had had to recuse herself and Jamison had gone back to the FBI. Better to suffer this alone. After this case, he might just chuck the FBI and move off somewhere by himself. Well, he might not have a choice about that, actually. He knew Bogart was growing weary of his constantly going off on his own cases. The FBI was many things, and a bureaucracy with rules and ways of doing things was one of the main ones. Decker couldn’t keep bucking that bureaucracy and those rules without suffering the consequences.

So it might just be me going it alone after this.

This admittedly self-pitying analysis came to an abrupt halt when the knock came at his door.

Groaning, he looked at his watch.

It was nearly eleven o’clock.

He turned over and closed his eyes.

Knock, knock.

He ignored it.

Then pounding followed.

He jumped out of bed, slid on his pants, padded across the small room to the door, and flung it open, ready to read the riot act to whoever was there. And if it was Natty, to perhaps do more than that.

It was not Natty.

Instead, there stood Melvin Mars — all nearly six-foot-three, two hundred and forty chiseled pounds of him.

Decker was so taken aback that he blinked and then closed his eyes for a full second. When he reopened them, Mars was still there.

Mars chuckled at this. “No, I’m not a dream, Decker, or a nightmare.”

The pair, rivals from their college football days, had run into each other again when Mars, a Heisman Trophy finalist and lock to be a first-round NFL pick as a running back from Texas, had been sitting on death row for murder when another man had come forward claiming to have committed the crimes. This revelation had come on the very eve of Mars’s execution.

Decker had helped to prove Mars’s innocence, and Mars was given a full pardon and a huge monetary reward from both the federal government and the state of Texas as compensation for the erroneous guilty verdict as well as the racist and brutal treatment Mars had received at the hands of his prison guards. He owned the apartment building in D.C. where Decker and Jamison lived, leasing apartments out to those hardworking folks who otherwise could not afford rental prices in the capital with its high cost of living. He had been dating a woman whom they all had encountered during a previous investigation. Harper Brown worked for military intelligence. Unlike Mars, she came from money, but the two of them hit it off immediately. The last Decker had heard they were vacationing somewhere in the Mediterranean.

“What the hell are you doing here?” said Decker.

“Just happened to find myself in the area.”

Decker looked at him skeptically. “Alex called you and told you to come here and watch over me, didn’t she? Because she couldn’t.”

“If I lied and said no, would it matter?”

“Come on in.” He closed the door behind Mars, who took a look around.

“Man, the FBI must have a pretty hefty per diem to let you stay in a luxury place like this. Couple levels above the Ritz.”

“This actually used to be my home.”

“I get that, Decker. My prison cell in Texas was a lot smaller and it didn’t have a window.”

“Do you have a place to stay? This only has the one bed.”

“I’m actually staying here too. Just checked in. Exit date to be determined.”

“You can afford to stay at the fanciest place in town.”

“I’ve never needed fancy.”

“I wish Alex hadn’t done this.”

“She cares about you. That’s what friends do.”

“Did she fill you in on what’s been going on here?”

Mars sat down in the only chair in the room and nodded, as Decker perched on the edge of the bed. “She did. Sounds pretty messed up. What’s happened since you two parted company?”

Decker started to explain. When he got to the part about being arrested, Mars put up his hand. “Whoa, whoa, wait a minute, your butt was in jail? I would’ve paid to see that.”

“Depending on how things turn out, you might get to see it for free. On visitors’ day.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I made some enemies in this town.”

Mars’s grin widened. “Not you, Decker. You’re such a teddy bear. Never rub anyone the wrong way.”

“You don’t have to be here, Melvin.”

“I don’t go anywhere I don’t want to. I spent twenty years going nowhere, and I had no choice in the matter. Lots of catching up to do on that score. I’m here because I want to be, make no mistake.”

“Where’s Harper?”

“Back at work.”

“How was the Mediterranean?”

“Magical. Never seen that much water in my whole life. West Texas is pretty damn dry.”

“You two getting serious?”

“We’re having fun, Amos. That’s the gear we want to be in right now. No more, no less.” He sat back and looked around. “So how do we do this? Looks like you got two mysteries. One from a long time ago. And one from right now.”

“But they’re connected. They have to be.”

“So Meryl Hawkins gets out of prison, comes here, and tells you he’s innocent. He wants you and your old partner to prove him right and clear his name. But that same night he gets killed.”

“And the widow of one of his alleged victims has disappeared.”

“So you think this Susan Richards shot him and now she’s on the run?”

“I don’t know, but it looks that way. They still haven’t found her car or her. Which is pretty weird in this day and age.”

“Well, it’s a pretty big country too. Somebody can disappear if they want to. Look at my old man.”

“Your father was a little more experienced with stuff like that than I suspect Susan Richards is. And he disappeared before there were smartphones with camera and video capabilities, and social media was nonexistent.”

Mars shrugged. “Proof’s in the pudding. Lady hasn’t surfaced. And you still haven’t answered my question. How do we attack this sucker?”

“Other things being equal, I think we need to solve the crime in the past to have any shot at figuring out who killed Meryl Hawkins.”

“Well, you solved my cold case, and that one went back even further. So my money’s on you.”

“I’m not sure I’d take that bet.”

“Going back in time. You know how you did it with me. So now?”

“I’ve spoken to the people involved back then. The widows. The daughter. The only remaining neighbors.”

“How about the first responders? The ME?”

“The cops are no longer working. They’ve moved out of the area. The ME passed away three years ago.”

“But you still got the records, though.” Mars tapped his forehead. “Up here.”

“Not all of them, because... because I didn’t read everything. In particular the forensic file, at least not thoroughly.”

Mars raised his eyebrows at this.

Decker did not miss this reaction. “I’d been a homicide detective all of five days when the call came in. That’s not an excuse. But the print and DNA were slam dunks, or at least I thought they were. I wasn’t as diligent about the rest of the stuff. And it might have cost Hawkins his freedom and then his life.”

“Only thing that makes you, Decker, is human. And let me tell you I had my doubts about that.” He tacked on a grin with this.

“I’m not supposed to make mistakes, at least not like that.”

“And here you are trying to make up for it. Doing the best you can. That’s all you can do.”

When Decker didn’t respond to this, Mars said, “What’s wrong, Amos? This isn’t the guy I know. Something is eating at you. And it’s not just that you might have screwed up. So lay it out there, dude. Can’t help if I can’t follow.”

“Some people are meant to be alone, work alone, just... alone.”

“And you think you’re one of them?”

“I know I am, Melvin.”

“I was alone for twenty years, Amos. Just me and steel bars and concrete walls. And maybe a lethal needle waiting on my ass.”

“Now I’m not following.”

“Then let me lay it out clean for you. I was convinced I was a loner too. That that was just how life was going to be. But I made a mistake.”

“How so?”

“I let circumstances beyond my control define me. That’s not good. That’s worse than lying to yourself. It’s like you’re lying to your soul.”

“And you think that’s where I am?”

“Alex told me why you two were here in the first place. Visiting your family at the cemetery.”

Decker looked away.

“You feel tied to this place, and I get that. But see, you’re not. You moved from here. Joined the FBI. And if you hadn’t done that, I’d be rotting in a prison in Texas, or more likely dead. But this is not about me, it’s about you.”

“Maybe it was a mistake to move,” said Decker.

“Maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t. But the point is, you made that choice. You got the world’s greatest memory, Amos. There’s nothing you can’t remember. Now I know that’s a blessing and a curse. And with your family and what happened to them it’s the worst of all possible things. But all the good stuff? All the happy times? You remember those too like they just happened. Hell, I can barely remember how my mom looked. I can’t really remember her touch or her smile. I can’t remember any of my birthdays when I was little. I just have to imagine how it was. But you can remember that stuff. So, you could move to Siberia and be out in a blizzard and you just got to close your eyes and you’re right back here having dinner with your wife. Holding her hand. Getting Molly ready for school. Reading a book to her. It’s all there, dude. It’s all there.”

Decker finally looked at him. “And that’s what’s so hard, Melvin.” His voice slightly shook. “I will always very clearly know, like it was yesterday, how damn much I lost.”

Mars rose, sat down next to his friend, and put his big arm around Decker’s wide shoulders. “And that’s what they call life, my friend. The good, the bad, and the ugly. But don’t let the last two diminish the first one, ’cause the first one’s the important one. You keep that one alive, man, you can face down anything. That is the gospel truth.”

The men sat there in silence, but still communicating exactly what they were feeling, as the best of friends often do.