Long Shadows, page 7
“Sandy wants to talk to you.”
“To me!”
Decker looked up as Andrews started the car. White was looking at Decker curiously.
He lowered his voice. “Why does she want to talk to me?”
“Because she says you never lie to her.”
“The thing is, Earl, I’m down in Florida on a case. I can’t get away right now.”
“That’s okay. She just wants to talk to you. Can you do it now? She’s very insistent.”
Decker looked up at White, who was still staring at him. “She wants to talk to me now? What am I supposed to say?”
“That—” Earl’s voice dropped. “That her mom had to go away but will always be looking down on her, watching her, something like that.” Decker heard a noise. “All right, Sandy, all right, here he is.”
Decker heard some shuffling as the phone was passed over.
Then Sandy’s voice came on. “Are you Amos Decker?”
Decker thought about clicking off. But then he imagined Sandy’s small, hopeful face and he just couldn’t. “Yeah, Sandy, this is Amos Decker.”
“I want my mommy, Amos Decker, but nobody will tell me where she is. Will you tell me where she went? Please?”
As per her nature, Sandy was speaking loudly, and by the expression on White’s face she could hear it all. She noted Decker staring at her helplessly, and quickly looked away.
Decker said, “She…your…mommy had to go away, Sandy.”
“No! That’s what they said, but Mommy would never, ever go away without saying goodbye to me. She loves me. You’re lying to me and you never lie.” She began to cry.
Decker thought about the words Earl had suggested he use but he knew that Sandy would see right through that and things would only get worse. She might have mental disabilities, but in some ways she was far sharper than he was. And this was one of those ways because it dealt right with the heart.
“Sandy, will you listen to me?”
“Not if you say Mommy went away, I won’t,” she said in a choked voice.
“Do you…” Decker could barely believe he was about to say this, but he could think of nothing else. He didn’t want to fail Sandy, as he had her mother. “Do you remember my daughter, Molly? You two played together.”
Sandy’s tone instantly brightened. “Sure, I remember Molly. She was very nice to me.”
“And then you remember that Molly went away one day, right?”
“R-right.”
“I didn’t want her to go away, but she had to because, well, it wasn’t her choice. She didn’t want to leave me, but something made her.”
“Mommy said something happened to her. That someone hurt her.”
“That’s right. Someone hurt my daughter and she had to go away, Sandy.”
Andrews caught White’s eye. He looked distraught and shaken. She shook her head and put a finger to her lips.
“And so did Molly’s mommy,” said Sandy. “I remember.”
“Yes, Molly’s mommy, too, they both went away at the same time. Someone made them go, they didn’t want to.”
“Did they say goodbye?”
“Sandy, close your eyes.”
“What, why?”
“Just close your eyes, please, it’s important.”
“Okay.”
“Are they closed?” asked Decker.
“Yes.”
“Now, think of your mom. What is she doing?”
“She’s smiling at me. She always smiles at me.”
“That’s right. Every time she talked to me about you, she was smiling. Because your mom loved you more than anything, just like I loved my daughter.”
On this, White made a fist and pushed it against her mouth. Her eyes were closed, but some tears trickled out.
“Do you see Molly when you close your eyes?” Sandy asked.
“Yes, I do, all the time. I see her mommy, too. And I think that’s why they, and your mom, never said goodbye. Because when you say goodbye like that, it means they won’t see us again. But they will. You see her right now. And I’m closing my eyes and there are Molly and her mom. I see them right now and they’re smiling at me. So, no goodbyes. They’re always there, Sandy. We just have to close our eyes and say hello and then they come to us. They’re right there, with us. All the time.”
“Hi, Mommy,” said Sandy. “It’s me, Sandy.”
“And even if she doesn’t seem to say anything back, Sandy, in your mind you know everything she would say. Molly always called me Pops. So right now I hear Molly calling me that.”
“Mommy calls me Sandy-dandy.”
“I know. And she’s probably calling you that right now.”
“I can hear her. I really, really can. It’s me, Mommy, Sandy-dandy.”
“Yeah, I can hear her, too.”
“I’m going to go show her some new dresses that Daddy got me.”
“I’m sure she’ll love to see them.”
“You really are Amos Decker, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I really am Amos Decker.”
For better or worse.
A few moments later Earl came on. “My God, Amos, I don’t know what you said, but she’s totally changed. She ran upstairs laughing her head off and saying ‘Sandy-dandy’ over and over.” He paused. “Amos, you still there?”
“I’m here.”
“Thank you so much.”
“Yeah, look, I gotta go.”
Decker clicked off and stared down at the phone.
Andrews gave White a questioning look.
She said, “Take us back to our rental. I think it’s time we checked in at the hotel and had some food. And, maybe, a drink.”
As the car pulled away White glanced surreptitiously at Decker.
The man just kept looking at his phone.
Chapter 14
I WON’T ASK YOU IF you want to talk about it, because I know what the answer will be.”
Decker and White were sitting in the dining area of the DoubleTree. Their meal was done. Decker had a beer, while White fingered a glass of merlot.
Decker ignored this and finished his beer. He was standing up to leave when she said, “I had three kids, Decker. Now I only have two.”
He sat back down. “What happened?”
“Rival gangs going at it out on our street. They spewed rounds all over the place. One came through the wall of our house. My son, Donte, had sat up in bed when he heard all the noise. Bullet caught him right here.” She placed a trembling finger to her left temple.
“I’m sorry. When did it happen?”
“Five years ago.” She paused and looked down. “He was my middle child. I had my kids right in a row. My biological clock was ticking. I knew I wanted three. I thought I could handle it, FBI career and all. Until my ex walked out the door when I was still carrying Jacky. Luckily my mom came to the rescue. I…I wasn’t home when it happened. I was away on an…” A sob broke through, but she quickly quelled it. She wiped her mouth with her napkin and looked up, but didn’t meet Decker’s gaze. “Away on an assignment,” she finished.
Decker tapped his fingers nervously on the table. He didn’t want to break the silence because he was unsure about what to say. But finally he decided to say something, because he sensed that it had taken a lot of courage for White to make such a gut-wrenching admission. And she deserved something in kind from him.
“Sandy is my old partner’s daughter. She has some mental disabilities, so she couldn’t really understand about her mom. That’s why her dad called me. Sandy and I…we sort of have a trust thing going on.”
“What you told her was really good, Decker. It was pretty much spot-on for the situation.”
“I don’t normally talk about what happened to my family. It’s just not something I…do.”
“I don’t, either. But I just thought we needed an icebreaker.”
“Fair enough.”
“They say time heals, but I’m not sure about that. Not at all.”
“Time doesn’t necessarily heal, but it allows perspective, and the fading of the loss. But not for me.” He placed a finger against his head. “I can’t forget. Not even a little bit. Nothing fades, nothing gets better. It’s a new movie release every day, but it’s the same movie.”
“But you can remember the good times too, right? Better than the rest of us can with ours. I’m starting to fade on some of that stuff with Donte. I don’t want it to, but I’ve got two kids and a career that suck up all I’ve got.”
Decker rubbed at his mouth. “It doesn’t make up for it. It’s not apples to apples.”
“I can see that. And I can also see that you are done with the personal stuff, so let’s get to the professional. Impressions today?”
Decker automatically reengaged. “Barry Davidson is not being truthful about something, I just don’t know what. Tyler is confused and hurt. I want to talk to Gamma Protection Services and see why they were guarding the judge. And I want to know what the note represents. ‘Res ipsa loquitor.’”
“I’ve heard it before, but I Googled it to be sure. Legal jargon. Means something like ‘The thing proves itself.’”
“Right, I checked that too. Must be important, at least to the killer, which makes it important to us.”
“You think it stems from her caseload, something in the past? The blindfold, too? Maybe some defendant thought she screwed them. Justice wasn’t blind, that sort of thing?”
Decker said, “Tyler thought her getting protection had something to with her position as a judge. But she might have not been straight with him about that. It might have something to do with her ex-husband. Barry Davidson has money, a thriving international business. He likes to party, have the young ladies over, or so Tyler told me. He might have screwed with somebody or embezzled some funds from a shady client, and this was the result. They get back at him by killing her.”
“Or, like you suggested before, he could have hired someone to do it. Either way, we need to check his financial records.”
“Andrews is already on that. But let’s discuss the possibility that someone else killed her because they had a beef against Barry.”
“But why kill the judge and not him?” asked White.
“You kill him, maybe you don’t get your money back.”
“If so, and he knows who it is? And maybe that’s what he’s not telling us?”
Decker said, “He’ll either eventually tell us, go after them on his own, keep his mouth shut because he’s afraid—which would get my vote—or disappear because he’s scared shitless.”
“I like how you summarize things. So neat and orderly.”
He eyed her cagily. “Jamison told you about the electric blue, right?”
White did not answer. She just kept watching him steadily.
“When I walked into the judge’s house and had my little ‘moment’? I saw the look on your face. Death equals electric blue. You knew that. I could read it in your face.”
“She did tell me, yes,” White conceded.
“And this was not just idle chatter from a long time ago. You called her after you got assigned to partner with me.”
“And to her credit she didn’t want to tell me anything. She’s totally loyal to you, if you have any doubt about that. But I used my girl-agent-to-girl-agent card.”
“Anything else I need to know from the girl-agent exchange system?”
“I’ll let you know if it becomes relevant.” She paused. “Does that tick you off?”
“No, it’s actually the only thing you’ve said so far that made me smile.”
She gaped. “You smiled? When? Because I didn’t see it.”
“I do it internally.”
She smiled resignedly. “Of course you do.”
They went to their rooms.
* * *
White immediately phoned home and talked to her mother and then her kids.
She had a lot to catch up on even though she hadn’t been gone that long. It was good to hear their voices, especially now, with so much change going on in her life.
While she was doing that, Decker sat on his bed and stared out the window, where the sun had long since faded, but he could hear the roar of the Gulf through the glass.
He closed his eyes and once more envisioned the gun in Mary Lancaster’s hand. He watched as she lifted it to her mouth, inserted it between her lips, letting the muzzle rest on the tongue, because it was very awkward to hold a gun that way. Then her finger would slip to the trigger. She probably closed her eyes, let her mind wander to wherever it needed to.
And then…
He opened his eyes, rose, and walked over to the window. The ocean view was inspiring: vast, sprawling, infinite, smooth, yet somehow chaotic, clunky, unpredictable to him. After he’d lost his wife and child, Decker had only wanted to be left alone. Part of him still felt that way. Yet part of him was terrified of having no one left, either. Sometimes it was just him…and his mind.
My ever-changing mind. Just like the rest of my life. Always fluid, never stable. And according to the good folks at the Cognitive Institute, the ride is going to get a lot bumpier.
Later, his phone buzzed. He didn’t recognize the number and it wasn’t in his contacts because no name came up.
“Decker,” he said.
“Agent Decker, this is Helen Jacobs. I’m the medical examiner?”
“I remember you, Ms. Jacobs. So, Draymont’s gun?”
“Had not been fired. But there’s something else.”
“What?”
“He was killed by two gunshot wounds to the heart, I confirmed that.”
“But?” prompted Decker.
“But I also found what looks to be a wad of cash crammed down his throat.”
Chapter 15
DECKER ROUSED WHITE FROM HER room and they drove over to the medical examiner’s office, a one-story, low-slung concrete building that was so ugly it seemed unjust to bring someone’s remains here to be legally cut up.
Helen Jacobs met them at the front door. She had on a long white lab coat, and her hair was done up in a bun and covered with a blue surgical cap.
White said, “Did you contact Agent Andrews as well?”
“Yes. But he didn’t answer, so I left a message.”
“Let’s go,” said Decker impatiently.
Jacobs led them down a long corridor with scuffed white walls, cheap laminate flooring, and feeble fluorescent light. She unlocked one door with her security card and ushered them in.
This room was outfitted with stainless steel tables, sinks, and lots of drains, Stryker saws, scalpels and other medical instruments, a tool that looked like a crowbar, organ scales, iPads resting on rolling tables, and mikes dangling from the ceiling so the medical examiners could record in real time their thoughts and findings.
Against one wall were the rollout beds behind closed cabinet doors: the wall of death, as Decker always saw it.
The electric blue had hit him as soon as Jacobs had unlocked the door. He noticed White noticing him, but the look he gave the woman caused her to glance sharply away.
On one dissecting table was Alan Draymont. He’d already been cut up, though the incision that had sliced a Y-shape across the front of his torso had not yet been sewn back up. Exposed were the man’s innards. Decker saw that his organs had already been removed and then repacked inside the body cavity in viscera bags.
His scalp had been cut away and draped over his face; the skull had been cut open, and the brain removed.
Jacobs used a gloved hand to pull the skin back, reconstituting the man’s face.
She used forceps to open the mouth wide and then directed a light inside the opening.
“You can see it now. I didn’t want to remove it until you got here.”
The two agents, White on tiptoes, bent over for a look.
“You sure it was done postmortem?” he said.
“Pretty sure, yes.”
He glanced at her. “Pretty sure?”
“The gunshots to the chest clearly killed him. The loss of blood shows that his heart was beating normally when that happened. There were no signs on the body of restraint, defensive wounds, or a struggle, though.”
Decker’s mind leapt ahead of her words. “Meaning a man getting a wad of cash shoved down his throat is going to at least struggle against it.”
“It would be like he was choking to death,” added White. “He’d fight, or they’d have to restrain him first.”
Jacobs said, “And he’d have gag reflex and there would be evidence of that in his larynx and on his tongue and other indicia. None of that is present, only the abrasions one would find by ramming an object like this down someone’s throat after they were dead.”
Decker eyed White and said, “Some sort of message? Punishment or revenge?”
“That would make Draymont the target and not the judge,” said White.
“Who’s to say he wasn’t?”
“And they had to kill the judge because…?”
“She came downstairs, saw what was happening, and was attacked. She fled upstairs, where they finished her off.” He stopped. “But then why the note and blindfold left with the judge?”
“Maybe that was just meant to throw us off,” suggested White.
Decker said to Jacobs, “Get the wad out of his mouth.”
She used another set of forceps to accomplish this and the money slowly emerged from the dead man’s mouth, the last thing that would ever pass through that portal.
She laid it on a clean cloth on a side table.
Decker put on a pair of latex gloves he pulled from a box and gingerly started to unfold the money.
“That doesn’t look like George Washington or Abraham Lincoln or Andrew Jackson,” noted White as she peered around him.
The currency had the images of a white-bearded man looking out and a dark-bearded man staring to the left.
“Národná Banka Slovenska,” Decker read off. “Pätdesiat. It’s worth fifty of something.”
White pulled out her phone and typed in a search. She waited and then the result came in.
“It’s Slovakian. The Korun was the currency until the end of 2008. Now they use the euro. The two guys are Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius.”
