Memory Man

He examined the shirt and found two pinholes in the fabric near the center of the back panel. “Here and here. And the guy could have rolled the cuffs over and buttoned them to account for the difference in arm length. And a strip of padding in the cap makes a large cap fit a medium head.”

“So a much smaller man?”

“About five-eleven. And thin.”

“Lancaster told me what you found at the school. Platform boots for height and some sort of contraption to make the shooter look big in the upper body.”

“Like football shoulder pads and padding for the thighs. Made a five-eleven and lean man look much bigger.”

“We found nothing on the email trail. IP went nowhere,” Bogart said.

“Not surprised.”

Decker looked down at the name on the uniform’s chest.

Decker.

The man in blue. The man he used to be.

Then he saw something else. It was faint, but he also knew it was fresh.

“Look at the badge,” he said.

Bogart did so. “Is that an…?”

“It’s an X. Someone has marked an X on the badge.”

“What might that represent? To signify Lafferty’s murder?”

“I don’t know.”

He handed the uniform back to Bogart. The FBI agent took it and then gazed at the activity going on inside the storage unit.

“How come you kept all this stuff?”

Decker looked up and said slowly, far more to himself than Bogart, “It’s all I had left.”

Bogart glanced at him, sympathy flitting across his features.

Decker must have noticed this, because he said, “No reason to feel that way. You make choices. And you live with them.”

“You didn’t choose to have your family murdered, Decker.”

“I think the man who did it believed the choice was all mine.”

“That’s truly sick.”

“Yes, he is.”

Chapter 37

When Decker got back to the Residence Inn after the search at the storage unit turned up nothing, he found that others had visited him and left very telltale signs behind.

A hatchet was stuck in the wood of the door. Slurs had been spray-painted across the window and brick front. Headless baby dolls lay on the concrete. Copies of the news story that Alex Jamison had written were strewn across the catwalk or else taped to the wall, with venomous words scribbled across them. The photo of Decker had been doctored in several of them to make him look like the devil.

Under it was written, “Child Killer.”

Decker pulled the hatchet free, kicked the other items aside, opened his door, and went in, locking the door behind him.

He dropped the hatchet on the bureau, went over to the bed, and lay down. He closed his eyes and tried to think of what he was missing. Because it was there. He knew it was. For the hundredth time he started to go through all the known facts of the case in chronological order.

The knock on his door interrupted these thoughts. He struggled up, crossed the room, and said, “Who is it?”

“Somebody who owes you an apology.”

He recognized the voice and opened the door.

Alex Jamison was standing there holding one of the headless dolls.

“I’m really sorry,” she said, and she actually looked it.

“What do you have to be sorry for?”

“Shit, Decker, you’re making me feel worse than I already do.”

She was dressed all in black, tights, long sweater that covered her butt, low boots with chunky heels, and a short jean jacket. A large bag was slung over one shoulder.

“You have time for a cup of coffee?” she asked.

“Why?”

“I’m not here to interview you.”

“Why, then?”

“Brimmer told me you’ve done all the heavy lifting on this case. Found all the leads, even though she wouldn’t tell me what they were.”

“She’s learning, then.”

“Coffee? I have some things I want to talk to you about. I’ll buy. Please, it’s important.”

He closed the door behind him and they walked down the steps, across the street, and over a few blocks to a coffee shop that occupied a small niche between two larger stores, one of which was boarded up and the other one not far from that fate.

“Whole town is going down the tubes,” observed Jamison as they passed the shuttered store. “Before long I’ll have nothing to write about except bankruptcies and foreclosures.”

They got their coffees and sat at a small table near the back. Decker watched as she spooned sugar into her cup.

“What do you want to talk about?” he asked bluntly.

“I am sorry about the story, Decker. In retrospect you didn’t deserve that. I don’t think you had anything to do with what happened to your family. Like you said, I think some psychopath is looking to first screw you and then destroy you. And he used me to do that and I jumped at the bait just so I could write a story. But that got me wondering why. I mean, who could have that sort of vendetta against you and you not know it?”

Decker sipped his coffee while eyeing her directly but said nothing.

She added, “And I’m sure you’ve been racking your brain trying to think of the same thing.”

“I have.”

“It has to be personal,” she said.

“Murder almost always is.”

“No, I mean more than that. Brimmer told me there were a couple of communications the killer made. Again, she wouldn’t tell me what they said, but they were apparently directed at you.”