Memory Man (25 page)

I
T WAS LATE
and they were sitting cross-legged on the concrete floor of the storage unit going through boxes. Jamison had returned a few minutes before with dinner in the form of Chinese takeout. She had laid out napkins, paper plates, and plastic utensils and filled Decker’s plate with food before doing her own.

He looked at her in some surprise.

She explained, “I’m not domesticated, but I am the oldest of seven kids. I’m used to playing parent at mealtime.”

He nodded and bit off a chunk of a spring roll while Jamison spooned some egg drop soup into her mouth. She had brought them each a beer as well. Decker took a swig of his and then set the bottle down.

Jamison looked around the unit. “You really kept everything, didn’t you?”

“Things that were important to me.”

“I don’t see anything here from your playing days.”

He shrugged and stabbed his fork at a piece of shrimp. “Not important to me.”

She nodded slowly. “But with what happened to your family doesn’t it hurt to keep all this stuff? Your daughter’s clothes? Your wife’s cookbooks? Letters? Pictures?”

“The only thing that hurts is not having them here.” He looked at her. “How long were you married?”

“Too long.”

He looked at her expectantly.

“Two years and three months,” she finally said. “I guess not that long, actually.”

“What happened?”

“Things just went sideways. He wasn’t the guy I thought he was. And I guess I wasn’t the woman he thought I was.”

“Kids?”

“Thank God, no. That would have made it a lot harder.”

“Yeah, it would. Kids make everything better. And harder.”

She leaned back against a cardboard box, drew her knees up, and sipped her beer. She tapped her head. “So the hit altered your mind somehow?”

Decker nodded and took a swig of beer.

“I saw some of the reports from that institute place in the box back there. Was it weird?”

He set the beer down and rubbed at his beard. “Do you mean did I feel like a guinea pig? Yes.”

“How did the others come by it?”

“None of us were told that officially. I guess patient privacy. But there’s always scuttlebutt. Most were probably born with it. A few, like me, suffered a brain trauma. I think some of the folks at the institute knew about me because the hit was on TV.”

“Did you all have similar…?”

“Gifts? There was a core part of it. Near-total recall of certain things. Aside from that, it differed quite a bit. One of them could play any musical instrument with pretty much no instruction. Another could divide any prime number in his head no matter how large. There was this other woman who had qualified as a grand master of memory when she was seven.”

“Grand master of memory? What did she have to do?”

“Three tasks. The first was to memorize one thousand random numbers in an hour. Next, she had to memorize the order of ten decks of cards in an hour. And lastly, memorize the order of one deck of cards in under two minutes.”

“Wow, who knew it would be so easy,” said Jamison sarcastically.

“There are around one hundred and fifty people in the world who have successfully performed the three tasks.”

“Didn’t think it would be that many.”

“It’s not, in the grand scheme of seven billion people.”

“Could you do it?”

“I’ve never tried. Never saw the point.”

They both fell silent.

Jamison watched Decker closely.

“Even though this guy’s motivation is you, it’s not about you, you realize that, don’t you?”

“Now thirteen people have been murdered because somebody has a problem with me. This is
definitely
about me.”

“You didn’t pull the trigger. Someone else did. And whatever he thinks you did, it doesn’t justify what he’s done.”

“Tell it to the victims’ families.”

“You
are
the family of victims.”

Decker pushed his plate away and struggled up. His knees and back were killing him and he had to take a leak.

He went outside and around the corner, unzipped his pants, and relieved himself.

He was surprised when Jamison spoke. She had apparently followed him.

“You don’t need to guilt-trip yourself. That’s what he wants. You know that. It’s all part of it. He gets inside your head, he wins, on two fronts. One, his brain beats your brain, so he gets personal satisfaction. And if you’re not thinking straight you have no shot at tracking him down. Win-win for him. He’s counting on that.”

Decker zipped his pants back up and turned to her. “I know that.”

“So don’t let him do it.”

“Easier said than done.”

“Maybe for someone with an average mind. You don’t have one of those.”

He advanced on her, backing her up against the wall of the storage unit. “You think having a freak mind means I don’t have emotions? That I don’t feel anything? Is that what you think? Because you’re wrong.”

“It’s not what I think. I think the
other
guy doesn’t feel anything. He’s abnormal in that way. You’re not.”

“Then what the hell are you saying?”

“You can feel anything you want, Decker. You’re pissed beyond belief right now. I get that. You think the slaughter begins and ends at your doorstep. Maybe you want to hit somebody or something. Drive your fist through that wall. Okay, but don’t let him mess with the part of your brain that you will need to one day put handcuffs on this son of a bitch and then watch him take his last breath in the death chamber. You want to score this game? That’s how you score it. Winner lives, loser gets the needle.”

Decker took a step back. She didn’t move.

He looked away, then down at the asphalt. Then he walked back to the storage unit to keep digging.

Two hours later they had gone through every box and had pretty much nothing.

Decker sat back against a shelving unit. “I’ve gone back to the first day I put on the uniform to see who I might have dissed that could have pulled this off. Nobody. I didn’t piss off anyone at the 7-Eleven. I busted bad guys, sure, but I didn’t do anything to give anyone this sort of
personal
vendetta.”

He rubbed his face and closed his eyes.

Jamison rubbed a kink out of her neck and looked across at him, suddenly looking puzzled.

“Why did you only go back to when you put on the cop uniform?”

He opened his eyes. “I also went through anybody at Mansfield that might have something against me. There’s nothing there, Jamison. Nothing.”

“So you covered your growing up in Burlington. And you covered your life after coming back to Burlington. What about in between?”

“What, you think the guy who laid me out on that hit is behind this? After his knees and shoulders gave out, he was cut from his team, went broke, turned to selling drugs, and he’s currently in the custody of the Louisiana prison system. And I was never a good enough football player to make anyone jealous of me in college or the pros.”

Jamison yawned. “So if Sebastian Leopold is involved, why would he have told the cops you dissed him at the 7-Eleven if you didn’t?”

“You mean why would a murderer lie?”

“I mean, how could you not know him if you did something so bad he’s doing all this in retaliation? And his crazy act could just be that, an act. But this guy strikes me as literal. Your family, Mansfield High. The communications to you, can you tell me what they were about?”

“One was written on the wall at my old house.”

“What did it say?”

He repeated the message to her.

“And the others?”

He told her about the code embedded in the musical score on Debbie Watson’s wall. And then the words carved into Lafferty.

“Jesus,” she exclaimed. “So he refers to you as ‘bro’ in each message?”

Decker nodded.

“And he also says you two are a lot alike. That you’re all the other has.”

“Yes.”

“And with the last message he’s asserting that you actually have control of this thing. That you can determine when to end it.”

Decker looked at her. “Meaning him or me.”

“And he obviously wants to be the one left standing.”

“I would expect so.”

“Okay. But it seems to me that he feels like he’s in competition with you. Brothers. Part of something that we’re just not seeing.”

Decker opened his eyes. “Like a team?”

“You were never in the military?”

He shook his head.

“Then maybe like a team.”

“I already told you, I was never good enough to tick someone off in football. I never took somebody’s position and along with it a paycheck. Besides, I can’t see someone murdering all these people because he was third string to my second string on a college football team. And in the pros I was just a spare piece of meat. I was never missed.”

“But you’re convinced Leopold is involved in this?”

“Yes.”

“Based on your gut?”

“Based on the fact that he’s disappeared. I’ve checked every homeless shelter in town. He’s never been to any of them. He played me. He walked out of that bar knowing that he was going to disappear. And the waitress was working with him. The waitress is the other person. The one with the beef against me.
She’s
the one I really want.”

“But you mentioned that this waitress might be a man.”

“Yes. Our shooter, in fact. Leopold was in lockup both times. It had to be the other one.”

“And he used the stuff you found at the school to make himself appear bigger.”

“Pretty clever since the cops live and die by physical description. Once they get that height and size in their heads they never look at anyone outside that box. It’s just beaten into us.”

“So Leopold and/or the shooter might know how cops think?”

“Yes.”

Jamison mulled this over. “Then the only direct fact he’s really told anyone is that you dissed him at your local 7-Eleven. But you’re sure he’s lying about that. So we have to go back to that and start from there—Decker?”

Decker had lurched to his feet and was looking down at her.

“What is it?” she asked.

“You said it was our only direct fact.”

“Right, I know. But—”

“But it’s not.”

“Not what?”

“A fact.”

He hurried from the storage space without another word. She jumped to her feet, grabbed her bag, and followed.

D
ECKER AND JAMISON
sat across from Lancaster at police headquarters. Decker had briefly explained how he came to be working with Jamison and also why he was here.

“We’ve torn apart my storage unit but there was nothing there,” he added. “And then it occurred to me that I had made an assumption that was based on something that had not been confirmed. I accepted as a fact something that had not been proven to be a fact. That’s why we’re here.”

“And so you want to hear my interview notes with Leopold after he was taken into custody?” asked Lancaster.

“Yes. As precise as you can make them, Mary. Every word counts. Literally.”

Lancaster looked a little apprehensive but then collected her pages and set them in front of her. “Well, to start off, he didn’t say much. In fact, he wasn’t making much sense. As soon as he finished I thought his best bet would be to plead diminished capacity.”

“I don’t think his capacity is diminished at all. Quite the opposite,” replied Decker. “Just read me what he said. And if you can remember anything else, that would be helpful too.”

“Well, I guess we’ve got nothing to lose.” She looked sternly at Jamison. “But just so we’re crystal clear, one word of this ends up in a newspaper or other media outlet, I will lock you up personally and forget you’re there. You’re on my shit list already for that crap you wrote about Amos.”

Jamison held her hands up in mock surrender, but her tone was deadly serious. “It never will, Detective Lancaster. Not from me. And I
am
a shit for what I wrote. I shouldn’t have done it, but I did. And now I’m trying to make it right. It’s all I can do.”

Lancaster ran a critical gaze over her. “And Jackson was really your college professor?”

“He was a lot more than that. He was my mentor. Easily verifiable if you don’t believe me.”

“I believe you,” Lancaster said curtly. “Then I guess we’re all on the same page and the same team.” She looked down at her notes and started reading. When she got to the part about Decker dissing Leopold at the 7-Eleven, Decker stopped her.

“Those were his exact words? I dissed him at the
7-Eleven
?”

“Yes. I told you that before.”

“What did you ask him next?”

“Well, I asked him which 7-Eleven. I was trying to see if his story made any sense. We don’t get many folks walking into the precinct and copping to a triple homicide a year and a half after the fact.”

“And he said the local 7-Eleven near me?”

Lancaster looked down at her notes again and frowned. “No, he actually said that you’d know which one.” She glanced up. “I guess I just assumed that you would know at which 7-Eleven you had dissed the guy. At least dissed him in his mind.”

“So he never said the local 7-Eleven? The one near my house at Fourteenth and DeSalle?”

Lancaster paled, and when she spoke her voice was strained. “No, Amos, he didn’t. That was a leap of logic for us both, I guess. But I should not have made that assumption. That was a rookie mistake.”

“I made it too, Mary.”

Lancaster still looked crestfallen.

“Can I see your notes?” he asked.

She handed them across and he started reading through them.

Lancaster glanced at Jamison, leaned forward, and said in a low voice, “So how do you enjoy working with Decker? I did it for about ten years. No two days were ever the same.”

Jamison spoke in the same low tone. “It’s…um, unusual. He just jumped up and walked out of the storage unit. I had to race after him.”

Lancaster let out a rare smile. “Story of my life.”

The women drew apart when Decker dropped the notes on the table.

He looked sharply at Jamison. “The email address you got the story elements and photo from: Mallard2000 was the handle?”

“You know it was. I sent it to you.”

Lancaster said, “The FBI couldn’t trace it back, so I don’t see how it’s helpful.”

“It’s actually very helpful. And I should have seen it before.”

“Seen what before?” asked Jamison.

“That the answer I was looking for wasn’t in tracing it back to the sender. It was right there all along in the name.”

“In the name?” said Lancaster. “What name?”

Decker stood and looked at Jamison. “You have a car?”

She nodded and rose too. “A subcompact with a hundred thousand miles on it and held together with duct tape. But it gets great gas mileage.” She looked him up and down. “It might be kind of tight for you. Where are we going?”

“Chicago.”

“Chicago,” exclaimed Lancaster. “What the hell’s in Chicago?”

“Actually, it’s a suburb of Chicago. And what’s there is everything, Mary.”

“But how do you know where to look in Chicago?”

Decker said impatiently, “He gave me the address, seven-eleven.”

Lancaster shook her head and said incredulously, “Okay, but, Amos, do you know how many 7-Elevens there are in the Chicago metro area?”

“I’m not looking for a convenience store, Mary. I’m looking for the
street number
seven-eleven.”

Lancaster stared up at him blankly. “Shit, are you telling me it was never a
7-Eleven
? It was a street number! But he said—”

“He said the numbers seven and eleven. Which can just as easily be seven-one-one. You just wrote it down the way anyone would have who lives in this country. You just assumed he meant the store chain, when he actually didn’t.”

“But he never corrected me.”

“Did you expect him to draw you a map? This is a game to them. Played by their rules.”

“Okay, you have the number, but that’s pretty useless unless you have a street to go with it.”

“I do have a street. That was in the email address.”

“Mallard two-thousand? But how do you even know it’s in Chicago? How does that city tie in to what happened in Burlington?”

“It doesn’t. It ties in to
me
.”

“But Amos, what does—”

Lancaster stopped in midsentence, because Decker had already rushed from the room.

“Son of a bitch!” yelled Lancaster.

Jamison shot her an apologetic look. “Story of your life?”

“Just keep me informed, Jamison. And watch him. He’s beyond brilliant, but even brilliant people do stupid things.”

“I will.”

And then Jamison hurried after Decker.

Lancaster slumped back in her chair and looked down at her notes. Then she balled them up and threw them across the room.

“Screw 7-Eleven!”