Memory Man (18 page)

G
EORGE WATSON ANSWERED
their knock. He looked disheveled and there was a yellow and purplish bruise on his right cheek.

“Are you okay?” asked Lancaster.

Watson leaned against the doorjamb seemingly more for support than anything else. “I’m f-fine. My…my w-wife i-is leavin’ me, but I’m f-fine. Hell, why w-wouldn’t I b-be?”

Decker drew a foot closer and sniffed while Lancaster held Watson’s gaze.

Decker looked at her and nodded his head slightly. They had done this same routine when they had been partners. A nod for drunk, a shake of the head for sober or near enough to it. Actually, he hadn’t needed to do the smell test. The man’s slurred speech, inability to stand without aid of a wall, and blurry eyes were signs enough.

“Is your wife here?” asked Decker.

George pointed inside the house. “P-packin’. Th-the b-bitch!”

“These are very tough times for you both,” commented Decker.

“Lo-lost my little girl and…and n-now my wife. But you kn-know w-what?”

“No sir, what?” asked Decker.

“Screw ’em.” He waggled his deformed arm. “S-screw ’em.”

“You might want to lie down, sir,” said Lancaster. “And lay off the drink.”

George looked affronted. “I…haven’t b-been drinkin’.” He let out a loud belch and looked like he might be sick.

“Good to know. But you need to sleep it off anyway.”

Decker took the man’s good arm and guided him into the front room and over to the couch. “Just have a lie-down right there while we have a word with your wife.”

As George sank down onto the couch he said, “She’s n-not m-my w-wife. Not an-any-anymore. B-b-bitch!”

He closed his eyes and grew silent except for his breathing.

Decker led Lancaster down the hall and to a door behind which they heard noise.

Decker rapped on the wood. “Mrs. Watson?”

They heard something fall and hit the floor. “Who’s there?” Beth Watson barked.

“Police,” said Lancaster.

Beth Watson screamed, “That little son of a bitch called the police? Just because I hit him? Well, he hit me first, the one-armed prick.”

“It’s not about that. It’s about your daughter.”

The door was wrenched open and Beth Watson stood there in heels and a white slip and nothing else. Her pale flesh seemed even paler with that backdrop. The skin around her arms was sagging. One of her cheeks was red and swollen. Decker did not have to take a step closer to sniff out her sobriety status. But apparently, she could be drunk, stand erectly, and talk coherently at the same time. At least she hoped she was coherent.

“What about her?” Beth demanded.

“I asked your husband when we were here last time about his grandfather.”

Her brows knitted in confusion. “Simon? Why?”

“He worked at McDonald Army Base before he retired?”

“That’s right. So what? He’s been dead for years.”

“But he lived here with you and your husband. And Debbie.”

“Yeah, again, so what?” Unlike her husband, Beth didn’t find it necessary to lean against the doorjamb to steady herself. She obviously handled the booze better than her husband. Perhaps she had more practice, Decker thought.

“Did he ever talk to you about his work there?” he asked.

“He was at the age where he
only
talked about the past. World War II. The Korean War. Working for the government. Blah-blah-blah. All day and all night. Sickening after a while. Who the hell wants to live in the past?”

She pushed past Decker and shouted down the hall. “Who the hell wants to live in the past, George? Not me! I’m all about the future now!
My
future! The past can kiss my ass.
You
can kiss my ass, you ball-less cripple!”

Decker used his massive arm to gently guide her back into the room.

“Did he ever mention to you any work done at Mansfield?” he asked.

The woman’s eyes seemed to wobble in their sockets. “At Mansfield? He didn’t work at Mansfield. He was at the Army base.”

“Right. But the base and the school are right next to each other.”

She snagged a pack of cigarettes off the nightstand and lit up. She exhaled smoke and glared at Decker. “I don’t see what that has to do with a damn thing.”

“The school was built right at the start of the Cold War, shortly after World War II ended. People all over the country were putting bomb shelters in their backyards. Well, folks were doing that in buildings too, including schools. Bombproof shelters under them.”

A hint of remembrance came into the woman’s eyes.

“Wait a minute. A long time ago Simon did say something about…about a whatchamajigger at Mansfield. He didn’t build it originally. He just added to it. I’d forgotten all about it.”

“What whatchamajigger are we exactly talking about here?” asked Lancaster pointedly.

Beth pointed at Decker. “Like what he said. A place, a safe place under the school in case the Russians attacked us.”

“Soviets,” corrected Decker. “But close enough. Did he tell you anything about it? Like where it was located?”

“No, nothing like that. It was never used, apparently. And then I guess it got sealed up or something because they didn’t want anyone sneaking down there. You know, high schoolers are full of hormones. You could only imagine what would go on down there.” She paused and said in a low voice, “Orgies.” Then she giggled and hiccuped. “If I’d known about it when I went to school there, I’d been the first one doing it.”

Then she screamed down the hall, “Orgies, you prick. That’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow! Orgies with other men! Lots of ’em!”

Decker once more guided her back into the bedroom.

“So a shelter
is
down there. Fortunate for us that you remembered that,” noted Lancaster with a sideways glance at Decker.

Beth gave a lopsided smile. “Actually, my memory sucks. But I remember Simon was talking to me about it while I was making dinner one night. Funny, I never listened to the old fart, and, like I said, my memory is so bad. I never remember birthdays, shit like that. But I was making German chocolate cake when he was telling me about it. Only time I ever tried it. And I guess that’s what triggered it.”

“What triggered what?” asked a confused Lancaster.

“German chocolate cake. See, Germans and the Russians. They were in Germany, right? I mean the Russians.”

“That’s right,” said Decker. “They were. At least half of it.”

She smiled. “Weird how the brain works.”

“Tell me about it,” said Decker. “Did Simon have any friends in town who might still be around and who might know about this underground place?”

“Not that he ever mentioned. I mean, he was over ninety when he died. Now he’d be close to a hundred. They’re all dead, right?” She added quietly, “Like my Debbie.”

There was an awkward silence until Decker said, “If you remember anything else, please give Detective Lancaster here a call. It’s important. We want to find who did this. Who did this to…Debbie.”

“You still think she was…was in cahoots with whoever did this?”

“No, I really don’t.”

The woman’s lips trembled. “Debbie was a good kid.”

“I’m sure she was, which makes it even more important that we find out who did this.”

Lancaster glanced at the partially packed suitcase. “Look, it’s none of my business, but do you think you should be making that sort of drastic change right after losing your daughter? It might be better for you and your husband to get through this together and then you can make some decisions. Knee-jerk tends to come back to bite you in the butt.”

Beth looked at her cross-eyed. “I wanted to leave two years ago, but I stayed for Debbie’s sake. Well, Debbie’s not here anymore. So I’m not wasting another second of my life in this fucking place. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish packing so I can get the hell out of here.”

She slammed the bedroom door in their faces.

“So much for ‘for better or worse,’” said Lancaster.

“For some people, the longer the marriage, the worse it gets,” said Decker. “But at least we know my theory might work out. Simon
did
know about something at the school. An underground shelter.”

“So now what do we do?” asked Lancaster.

“Let’s go outside. You can smoke a cigarette and I can make some phone calls.”

“You know I can quit anytime I want.”

He stared at her. “No you can’t, Mary. You’re
addicted
to nicotine.”

“I was making a joke. Damn, do you have to take everything so literally?”

But Decker was already on his cell.

It took three phone calls and being passed from one person to the next before Decker found someone who sort of knew what he was talking about. He patiently explained who he was and what he wanted.

“Mansfield,” said the woman on the other end of the line. “Where the mass shooting took place?”

“That’s right,” said Decker. “We’re trying to figure out how the killer got in and out. Since it was so close to McDonald Army Base, we thought there might be something there. Turns out we learned there is an underground passage or facility of some kind. We’d like confirmation of that and also particulars on how to get in there so we don’t have to tear the whole school down looking for it.”

“I’m going to need something in writing on the appropriate letterhead to get this request verified and initiated.”

“Okay, but once
verified and initiated
, how long will it take? We’re looking for a murderer. Someone who killed a bunch of kids. The longer it goes, the farther away he gets.”

“I wish I could tell you it would be fast. But this is the United States Army. The only place we move fast is on the battlefield. The stuff behind the lines, not so much.”

Decker got the information on where to send the request and clicked off.

He looked over at Lancaster, who had been leaning against the hood of her car all this time and had whittled down not one but three cigarettes while Decker had been playing Whac-A-Mole with the Army.

Lancaster dropped her last smoke and ground it into the asphalt with the heel of her shoe. “And?”

“And we might all be dead of old age before they get back to us.”

“So what now?”

“So it looks like we’ll have to find it ourselves.”

D
ECKER AND LANCASTER
paced the cafeteria, working from opposite ends of the space.

“So it makes sense an entrance would be in here,” said Lancaster. “Big room, get lots of students assembled in here and then down into the shelter in the event of an emergency.”

Decker nodded but said nothing.

She continued, “If it’s here it must be hidden behind something. Maybe the appliances?”

Decker shook his head. “It couldn’t be something that involved. With an emergency you have to have fast access.”

“But it was probably boarded up,” Lancaster pointed out. “Built over.”

“But the shooter still couldn’t be tearing into walls, floors, or ceilings, because that would also make noise and leave evidence behind of how he went from here to the back hall.”

“Well, he did leave evidence he was in here. The spoiled food, remember?”

“He did that on purpose. He could have easily turned the temp back down once he came out of it. Hell, he didn’t have to stay in the freezer all night anyway. He wanted us to know he was here. But he didn’t want us to find how he got from the front to the back. At least not right away. That’s the reason he left the trace in the ceiling and the tile dust on the floor. Classic misdirection. He’s screwing with us. And he’s costing us time. All good for him and bad for us.”

Lancaster kept glancing around. “So we’re looking for an entrance in here that’s been sealed up. We just don’t know how or where.”

“The term ‘sealed’ can mean a lot of different things. But the point is, our guy befriended Debbie for one reason and one reason only—to learn about this passage.”

“Come on, Decker. How would he even know about it to ask her?”

“
I
found out about it based on observations and hunches and a little research. He could have done the same. This is a relatively small town. He could have found out Simon Watson worked at the base any number of ways. He could have learned he once lived with the Watsons. He could have approached Debbie to see if she knew anything about it. And of course she did.”

“That takes a lot of planning and forethought.”

“And that apparently is a strong suit for our guy.”

Decker walked back and forth in front of a section of the wall.

Lancaster noted this and said, “I bet those rules haven’t changed in sixty years. I suppose you adhered to all of them when you went here?” she added with a smile tacked on.

The “rules” she was referring to were posted on a large section of the wall that Decker was studying. They included no loud talking, no throwing food, no eating off someone else’s plate, no milk cartons left on tables, all trash in the garbage, no running, and on and on.

“Amos, I said—”

He held up his hand for her to stay quiet, while he paced the wall and then looked at the floor.

“What do you see down there, Mary?”

She bent low and looked where he was pointing.

“Some marks. Probably from a student’s shoes.”

“I don’t think so. There’s no uniform requirement at Mansfield. Most boys wear sneakers. And from what I’ve seen, most girls wear sneakers, flats, or chunky heels. That footwear wouldn’t leave those sorts of marks. It’s actually scraped into the linoleum. And they’re not short, like a heel might make. They’re long. And they’re on a slight curve. Looks to be a few of them.”

“Well, what do you think they are?”

He stood closer to the section of wall where the rules were printed on a massive piece of wood painted to match the wall color. The wood ran down to the floor and nearly to the ceiling.

“No hinges evident,” he said. “But—”

He dug his fingers under the right section of the wall and tugged at various spots. He did this on the other side. Finally, after ten minutes of probing, tugging, and pushing, there was a little click and the entire section behind the sign opened outward. He pulled on it, opening it farther. Revealed behind it was a pair of old wooden doors painted the color of the wall.

“Look at the floor,” said Decker.

Lancaster noted another set of fresh scuff marks where the wood had dragged in one place across the floor when he’d opened the section.

“Damn, Amos. The mark on the floor was from the door swinging open.”

“Hinges were placed about a foot in and mounted on a support structure so they wouldn’t be visible to anyone. But the hinges have sagged a bit over time, hence the scuffed floor.” He ran his finger along one set of hinges and his finger came away darkened.

“Recently oiled,” he said.

There was a small knob in the center of the back of the section.

“What do you think that was for?”

Decker thought for a few moments. “You’d use it to pull shut the wall section once you’re on that side of it.”

“Right. But why even have a door at all? If they wanted to seal it up, why not just seal it up?”

“I don’t know, Mary. It must have cost a lot of money to build. Maybe they wanted to have reasonably easy access to it if they ever decided to use it again.”

“I guess.”

“I don’t see any fingerprints, but let’s not take chances. They call them latent prints for a reason.”

He grabbed a knife from a box of them on one of the kitchen counters to ease open the door by pushing back on the ordinary lock that secured the two doors. The door opened silently, showing that its hinges had been recently oiled too.

There was a long set of steps down into inky darkness.

Decker grabbed an emergency flashlight from a holder on the wall next to the serving counter and came back over to the doorway. “You ready?”

“Shouldn’t we alert the others?” said Lancaster nervously.

“We will, after we see where this goes.”

“But the FBI?”

“Screw the FBI, Mary. This is
our
case, not theirs.” He stared at her. “You with me?”

She finally nodded and followed him down the steps.

They reached the bottom, and here Decker stopped and shone his light around.

“Look there.”

They saw that set against one wall were two large sections of painted plywood. Bent nails were sticking out of them.

Decker said, “That’s how they really sealed up the passage. I saw nail holes in the perimeter around the double doors. That plywood had been nailed in front of the doors. If anyone figured out the sign opened, all they’d see is a solid wall.”

“You think the shooter did that?”

Decker shone his light on the floor. “Had to be. The sawdust on the floor looks relatively fresh. If he pulled out the nails the dust would come out and fall to the floor. Same when he hauled the sections down the steps. And he might’ve used a saw to cut through the wood too.”

“Which means he had to have done this before. No way is he tearing out wood walls during the school day. Too much noise.”

“He could have done it the night before. He comes out of the freezer and gets to work. No one here to hear anything. He opens the wall with the sign on it, cuts through the wall, opens the doors, and puts everything down in the passageway.”

“If he did all that, Amos, maybe that’s why he hid in the freezer.”

“Could be,” said Decker.

Decker pointed to the floor once more. In the dust were clear sets of shoeprints heading in the direction they were going.

Two
clear sets of footprints heading down the passage.

“Walk to the right, Mary, so we preserve them. And take shots of them with your phone camera as we go.”

“Okay, but why two sets? Are they two different people?”

Decker bent down and shone the light on them. “No. The prints look to be identical. And it’s not two people walking side by side. The spacing of the prints is too close. But two sets make sense.”

“Why?”

“Come on.”

They continued on, with her taking pictures as they went. They passed through a massive, foot-thick metal door that only opened easily because it was set on hydraulic hinges.

“Some sort of blast door,” said Decker.

Now the space opened up into a large room about forty feet across and twice as long. The floors were concrete, the walls and ceiling the same. On the walls were signs that told what to do in the event of an emergency. Several were imprinted with a skull-and-crossbones symbol, the universal sign for danger. Along the walls were old metal lockers on which were bolted signs. One read,
GAS MASKS
. Another said,
FIRST AID
. A third said,
WATER AND FOOD
. The dust and cobwebs were pervasive and the air stale and musty.

“They must have had an independent air supply,” said Decker. “If a nuke hit, you couldn’t have access to the outside air.”

“But it can’t be airtight down here. I can breathe okay.”

“Which means it might have been vented so workers down here replenishing supplies and the like could breathe, but they close them off when the alarm sounds.”

Following the sets of footprints, they traversed the bomb shelter space and passed through another blast door where there was another passageway matching the one on the other side. The darkness was lifted every few seconds by the flash on Lancaster’s phone as she took pictures of the sets of shoeprints that had continued on down this passage.

Decker was counting off the steps in his head. Then they ran into another set of steps. These headed up. Decker had been shining his light on the floor at various intervals. The shoeprints they had seen earlier had paralleled them the entire way. They headed up. At the top of the steps was a blank wall.

“Dead end?” said Lancaster.

“Can’t be.” Decker dug his fingernails around the edges of the wall, working his way up and down both sides. Then he gained a handhold, tugged. The wall started to give, and then it came loose.

“It’s balsa wood,” he said, hefting it easily and setting it aside. On the other side of the open wall was a small space that was stacked with junk. On the other side of that was a door.

“The government wouldn’t have sealed it with balsa wood,” observed Lancaster.

“I’m sure they didn’t. But unlike the cafeteria where the wall wasn’t visible, this wall would have been in case someone opened that door. The shooter must’ve replaced whatever wall was here with the balsa. It would look solid but would be easily movable.”

“You’re talking a lot of work, Amos. He couldn’t have done all of that in one night.”

“But if he could access the school at night, he might’ve been here a lot doing what he needed to do.”

“But how would he do that? He couldn’t count on school plays every night? And bringing in saws and other equipment?”

“I’m not sure how he did it.” Decker hit the floor with his light. “Check out the patch right in front of the wall. Not much dust. That pile of junk used to be right in front of the wall, but it’s been moved so it doesn’t block the way.”

Decker checked the doorknob for prints, and then used the knife he’d brought with him to try to force the latch open.

“It’s locked. Give me a sec.” He passed the flashlight to her and pulled from his pocket his lock-picking instruments.

“Standard PI equipment?” she said wryly.

“You never picked a lock as a cop?”

A minute later the door swung open about a foot or so and then hit something.

“What is it?” whispered Lancaster.

Decker noted that she had her gun out. And that her left hand was still trembling.

“Something blocking the door.” He poked his head through the opening and recognized where they were.

“This is the storage room off the shop class. I looked in here before. The door’s hitting a stack of old window AC units. That’s why I didn’t see the door before. The units completely hid it from where I was standing on the other side.”

“And I bet when we searched this area, no one noticed the door on the other side for the very same reason.”

“Sounds right.”

Lancaster eyed the gap. “I can get through there.”

She turned sideways and passed easily through the narrow space.

She looked around. “If you can push on the door from your end, I’ll steady the AC units so they don’t fall over.”

He pushed on the door with his bulk and the door slid open farther, pushing the units with it, while Lancaster held on to them, keeping them upright.

“Okay, Amos, that’s plenty of room for you to get through.”

Decker passed through the widened gap, looked at the partially open door and then at the stack of AC units, and then stared down at the floor.

And then he frowned.

“What now?” asked Lancaster.

“There’s not a lot of dust in here, so I don’t see any more shoeprints.”

“But we saw the sets coming up the stairs. He had to come in here.”

“Agreed. So let’s assume he came through here and out into the shop class.”

They left the storage area and walked into the large room with all the tools and work tables.

“But how did the guy know there’d be no one in shop class?” said Decker.

“Oh, didn’t you know?” said Lancaster, sounding pleased she knew something Decker didn’t.

“Know what?”

“The shop teacher quit at the end of last year. They couldn’t find a replacement, so there’s been no shop class this year.”

“That’s why the door to the classroom was locked. And that’s also how the shooter knew. Debbie must’ve told him that there was no shop class.”

“But you were right, Amos. This is how he got from the cafeteria to the opposite end of the school unseen.”

He nodded. “He actually did it twice that day. He came out of the freezer, walked down the passage, came out into the halls, shot the people on his way to the front. Then he reentered the passage in the cafeteria, closed the wall after him, and walked back down the passage.”

“Which was why there were two sets of identical shoeprints,” added Lancaster.

“Right. Now, the shop class is also a big space, so maybe they figured to load kids from both ends of the school and down into the shelter in the event of an emergency.”

“How far underground do you figure that passage was?” she asked.

“Based on the number of risers, about twelve feet.”