Redemption

Chapter 58

The house.

The rain.

Decker sat in his car and watched his old home from across the street.

The gloom of the night was actually brighter than what he was feeling.

He had told himself that he could live in either the past or the present, but he couldn’t do both.

Which do I choose? It should be an easy decision. So why isn’t it? His case was at a dead end, in more than one way. Gardiner was the key and it didn’t look as though she was going to cooperate. Unless Rachel Katz regained consciousness with a willingness to help them, Decker wasn’t sure they would ever get to the truth.

So he had come here. Back to where many things had begun for him.

He saw the lights on in the front room. Someone would pass back and forth every so often. The little girl he’d seen. Then her parents.

The Henderson family. Really just starting out in life, like Decker and his family had once done. Building dreams and burnishing memories that would last a lifetime for all of them.

His last Christmas with his family had been a memorable one. Decker had gotten a couple days off, and thankfully no one had decided to murder someone else that close to the holiday.

They had gone to see Molly perform in her school play. It had been a Christmas version of Peter Pan. Molly had played Wendy.

She had worked on her lines for two weeks, reciting them to whichever parent was around to listen to her, barging in on Decker when he’d been shaving, or even dressing.

She had carried it off without a hitch, helping others to perform their roles too because she’d apparently memorized everyone else’s lines as well.

Great memory.

She didn’t get that from her dad. Before his injury Decker had been pretty normal with his recall. And he couldn’t imagine he could pass on the elements of a traumatic brain injury to his kid.

He sat next to Cassie in the audience that night watching their little girl act her heart out, surprising him with little things, tiny nuances that she seemed to instinctively add to her performance. She might have grown up to be a great actress.

Now no one would ever know.

Yes, it had been a great Christmas. They’d gone out to dinner after the play and celebrated Molly’s performance. They’d toasted her with vanilla sundaes.

Decker had relished every moment but had of course believed there would be many, many more just like them. Enough to fill a lifetime of memories, even for someone like him. She would grow up, marry, have kids, and he would become the doting grandfather, or as close to that as someone like him could be.

He glanced over at the window again as he saw the little girl sit on the sofa next to her mom. A book was opened. A story was commenced.

Decker started up the car and drove off.

He could barely see the road for the tears.

He should never have come back here. It was literally tearing him apart, when he could least afford it.

It’s always about the next case, though, right? Even when Cassie and Molly were alive. He had never dwelled much on all the time he had missed with them because there was always some bad person he had to track down. All the nights getting home long after they both had gone to bed. And then getting up and leaving before they awoke.

I just thought I’d have more time. Just... more time.

But then again, another sunrise was guaranteed to no one. Certainly not to his family.

And by association, not to him.

Thankfully, the farther away he drove, the faster these thoughts left him. For now.

He drove downtown and stopped in front of the building where he’d almost died. Across the street was where Rachel Katz had nearly perished, lending a macabre symmetry.

He checked in with the officer guarding her apartment and started to look around. He glanced across at the broken window, the blood on the couch and carpet. That told a story he already knew.

Katz had mysterious backers, offshore shell companies funneling the money for her myriad projects in little old Burlington, Ohio. What was the attraction?

It did make one wonder.

And then there was the American Grill. There were thousands of places just like it all over the country. Thick piled-high burgers, mammoth mounds of fries, chicken wings, pitchers of beer, large-screen TVs for sports. There would always be a clientele for that, but no one was getting rich off it, like Katz had told Mars.

He had done another search of her apartment and came away not knowing any more than he had on entering the place.

They would just have to wait until she woke up.

This was a frustrating case because he could not seem to make traction on any lead. He could not make Mitzi Gardiner talk. And he had nothing to charge her with. There was absolutely not enough evidence. He knew that she had worked to frame her father, but he couldn’t prove it. She had been amply rewarded, with a new life. And yet as he’d left her home, he’d also left behind a woman who was clearly racked by guilt.

But that meant nothing in building a case. He would have to find a road to the legal truth somewhere else. It would not apparently go through Mitzi Gardiner.

He sat down on a chair in the kitchen and studied his possibilities. There weren’t many, so they didn’t take him long. He quickly settled on one.

Sally Brimmer.

She’d been killed for a reason. He had to find out what that reason was.

And he could start in one of two places.

He picked one, called Lancaster to meet him there, and set off.