The Last Mile

Chapter 15

Decker looked at his watch.

They had driven to the house where Ellen Tanner had hooked up with Melvin Mars that night. It was small, old, and set off by itself. There wasn’t another home within twenty miles of it. And back then it was probably even more isolated.

“Why’s a young woman living all the way out here by herself?” Decker had asked.

Neither Bogart nor Milligan had an answer.

Then they had driven back to the site of the old motel, which was now a strip mall. They had next driven to the Marses’ home. All three locations were off the same main road, a fairly straight shot.

Decker said, “It’s one hour in between Ellen Tanner’s old house and the motel. And about forty minutes from the motel to the Marses’ house.”

Milligan, at the wheel of the car, nodded. “He left Tanner’s at ten p.m. He said he reached the motel about an hour later, or eleven o’clock, which works. But the motel clerk testified that he checked Mars in at one-fifteen a.m. So he could have driven another forty minutes to his house, killed his parents, and driven back to the motel and made it easily by one or a bit after. That’s what the prosecution successfully argued.”

“Not easily,” countered Decker. “He had to get to the house, shotgun his parents, get the gas, and set them on fire. That would take some time.”

“But it could be done, there’s no denying that.”

“And the police report said a car matching Mars’s was seen leaving the vicinity of their house about the time the coroner thinks the murders occurred,” added Bogart.

“That’s right,” said Milligan. “And the witness was a long-haul trucker who was based here and knew the Marses.”

Bogart nodded. “And he died five years ago, so we can’t talk to him.”

Decker said, “But we have Charles Montgomery. We can talk to him.”

“I got an email back from the folks in Alabama. It’s all set. We can speak to him the day after tomorrow.”

Decker’s phone buzzed. It was Jamison.

She said, “We’ve talked to Mars. Davenport is writing up her report now.”

“What does she think?”

“I’m not sure. She plays things close to the vest.”

“What do you think?”

“He seems very sincere, Amos. But he could also be very manipulative. I just don’t know which one yet.”

“Did he tell you anything new?”

“Not really. He reiterated his innocence. We went over his actions on the night his parents were killed. He can’t explain the timing. He said he went to sleep at the motel and woke up when the police knocked on his door.”

“Well, he’s had two decades to perfect that story. But one thing does bother me.”

“What?”

“If he planned this all out, why can’t he come up with a plausible explanation for the time gap? He had to know it was going to be a problem.”

Bogart, who had been listening in, said, “Criminals usually slip up. And they usually slip up on the timeline, Amos. They can’t be in two places at the same time. You know that as well as anyone.”

“They do slip up, but not by that much,” countered Decker. “Fifteen minutes, maybe half an hour can be fudged, but not hours. It was a huge hole. If he was meticulous in other respects, why not with that critical piece? I’m just saying it’s something to keep in mind.”

Jamison asked, “When will you be back?”

“In about an hour.”

He clicked off and stared out at the highway as the vastness of Texas stretched ahead of them. All the way to the horizon the topography looked exactly the same. He closed his eyes and let his mind whir back to something that was gnawing at him.

Bogart glanced over and saw this, something he had seen often back in Burlington.

“What?” he asked.

Decker kept his eyes closed but said, “Shotgun then fire.”

“Come again?”

“They were killed with the shotgun and then set on fire.”

“That’s what the police report said, yes. Why?”

In his mind Decker brought up the photos of the charred bodies. The good thing about hyperthymesia was that he saw things exactly as they were; no detail was missing. Nothing inserted, nothing taken away. Clear as a mirror.

“Pugilistic.”

“What?”

“The bodies were in the pugilistic pose.”

Milligan glanced at him. “Right. Fire makes muscles, tendons, ligaments stiffen and contract, whether the victim was dead or alive before the fire was started. Fists clench, arms bend, you look like a fighter in the ring in a defensive stance.”

“Hence the name,” said Decker, whose eyes were still closed. “The shotgun blast killed them, clearly.”

Milligan shrugged. “Shotgun blasts to the head from a close distance are always fatal. Nature of the beast.”

Decker opened his eyes. “So why burn the bodies? If they were already dead? And I don’t believe it was symbolic.”

Bogart said, “The police reports raised that question but never answered it. If it was done to make identifying the bodies more difficult, it didn’t work. They were identified by their dental records. And even if that hadn’t worked, you can still get DNA off a burned body.”

“But maybe the killer didn’t know that.”

“You mean maybe Melvin Mars didn’t know that?” said Milligan.

Decker ignored this. “They were positively identified as Roy and Lucinda Mars?”

“Yes. There was no question about it. The bodies were badly burned, and despite the shotgun wounds to the head, enough of their teeth were left intact to ID them through their dental records. They were the missing couple.”

“Still doesn’t answer my question. Why burn the bodies after they were dead?”

They drove for a few more miles in silence.

Finally Bogart said, “Maybe the killer panicked. They do. He tried to get rid of the evidence, thinking that maybe the fire would cremate the bodies.”

“All it did was create a lot of smoke that someone noticed and called the fire department. If he had just left the bodies, they might not have been discovered for a long time.”

Milligan interjected, “Well, if their son didn’t kill them he would have found the bodies when he got home that morning. Or more likely the house would have been burned down.”

“There was no reliable time-of-death calculation?”

“With burned bodies outdoors you can have an entomologist look for insect evidence, flies laying eggs, that sort of thing. Even indoors you have that occur. But that sort of evidence wasn’t available. Flies naturally won’t lay eggs on a burning body. The most precise analysis for TOD on severely charred victims is an examination of the bones. Chemical and microscopic analysis. But then you’re talking microradiography and electron microscopy.”

Decker nodded. “But I doubt in a rural Texas county twenty years ago they were able to do any of that.”

“I doubt they have the equipment to do it today,” pointed out Bogart. “So the TOD was determined largely by the call to the fire department at ten minutes past midnight. The firemen showed up eleven minutes later. Five minutes after that they discovered the bodies.”

“So twenty-six past twelve?”

“Correct.”

“Let’s say the bodies were set on fire around midnight.”

Milligan said, “Mars would have had time to do it then. Straight from Tanner’s place to the house. Do the deed, get back in his car and head out to the motel.”

Bogart said, “Now, we can assume if the bodies had been burning for long that the house would have been more damaged by the spreading flames. He kills them, sets the fire, and is gone by midnight or shortly thereafter. That way the fire has only been burning for maybe less than a half hour or a bit more when the fire department shows up.”

Decker shook his head. “But it’s forty minutes to the motel from here. The motel clerk said he checked in at one-fifteen. That leaves a gap of about thirty-five minutes.”

Bogart said, “Maybe he drove around. Maybe he sat out in the parking lot trying to calm down. I mean, he would’ve just killed his parents, Amos.”

“He had the forty-minute drive over to do that. He waits in the parking lot he’s screwing up his supposed rock-solid alibi, which was really no alibi based on the timing that Tanner and the motel clerk testified to. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“But it’s the best scenario we have.”

“But it’s got a big problem.”

“How do you mean?” asked Milligan.

“Over twenty years ago a credit card would probably have been manually run through the system, especially at a motel in rural Texas. There would be no electronic time stamp. So it was the motel clerk’s word against Melvin’s.”

Milligan shook his head. “No, I checked that. The motel owner called the card in at sixteen minutes past one, to verify the account. That came out at trial.”

“Still doesn’t prove anything.”

“I don’t see why not,” said an exasperated Milligan. “And don’t forget, his mother’s blood was found in his car. How is that possible unless he killed them?”

“I need to talk to Mars again.”

“What about?” asked Bogart.

“Among other things, credit versus cash.”