Memory Man (28 page)

A
SNOWFLAKE DRIFTED
down as Decker stood across the street from the bar, Lancaster at his side. The flake hit the sidewalk and then melted almost immediately.

Lancaster pulled out a handkerchief and blew her nose.

“If you don’t want to go in, can we wait in the car at least?” she asked. “It’s freezing and I feel the flu coming on.”

Decker had taken in the city block grid by grid, and then his gaze started over and went through it again. He began to walk and Lancaster hurried after him. They covered both sides of the street for a block in either direction.

“No cameras,” he noted.

“Burlington has surveillance cameras, just not everywhere. I hear that London and New York have them on every street. But we don’t have their tax base, do we?”

“There are private surveillance cameras,” said Decker. “Banks, pawn shops, liquor stores. But none that I can see. Can you check on that? See if there are any on this block?”

“I’ll put in a call.” She did so while Decker continued to look around. A few more flakes were falling, and overhead the clouds had thickened with moisture. If the temperature continued to fall they might get some real accumulation.

Lancaster put her phone away. “They’ll get back to me. Now what?”

Decker headed across the street to the bar and she followed.

It was full, with most tables occupied by couples, although there seemed to be a bachelor party going on in the back of the room. Lancaster eyed with disdain the stripper, who was in the process of shedding her skintight Catwoman costume.

“Amazes me what gets young men excited.”

“It’s the same thing that’s always gotten them excited,” said Decker absently. “Pretty women in the process of taking off their clothes.” He worked his way to the bar and eyed the barman, the same guy he had talked to before. The man came over.

“What’s your poison?” he asked.

“I’ll take a Miller on draft.” Decker looked at Lancaster.

“I’m officially on duty,” she said in a low voice.

“And a Virgin Mary for my friend,” said Decker.

When the man went off to fill this order, Decker turned around on his stool, leaned against the bar, and took in the room. Lancaster did the same.

“So Leopold led you to this bar where his partner was allegedly masquerading as a waitress. You guys talked, and then, with the alleged aid of his alleged partner, he vanished.”

“
Allegedly
, yes,” said Decker irritably.

“How did he know you were going to follow him here?”

“How could I not? All charges dropped? He knew that I knew the police procedure. Processed out of his cell at central lockup and sent packing. He knew I’d be waiting outside. And if for some reason I wasn’t, so what? No skin off his teeth. They’d find another way to lure me in.”

“So you followed him here. What was his endgame?”

“Maybe he just wanted to see me again, up close. Size me up.”

“But if we’re reading this right, the person that really wanted to see you was the waitress. Maybe the one who was at the institute with you. The one you insulted somehow.”

“I’m sure that was part of it too.”

“It’s a wonder he didn’t kill you right then. Or at least try to.”

“I haven’t suffered enough, Mary.”

“Haven’t suffered enough! All these people dead, including your family? The story that Jamison wrote trashing you? Him taunting you the whole time?”

“Still not enough, Mary. Not for them.”

“What do they want, Amos? I mean, what else could they possibly want from you?”

“More, Mary. I just don’t know what that is yet.”

But Decker did know what their real endgame was.

They want me
.

The barman brought their drinks and said, “Hey, man, you cost me some business the other day. Cops all over the place. Scared away half my customers.”

“You get paid the same, right?” said Lancaster bluntly.

“Tips, honey,” said the barman. “I live on my tips.” He put an electronic cigarette to his lips and took a puff. “You think the owners of this place pay an actual living wage? If you do, get your head examined.”

Decker said, “I’m sure your waitresses rely on their tips too.”

“They do.”

“But maybe not the one who skipped out on you. Maybe she has another source of income.”

“Maybe
it
does.”

“You sure it was a guy?” asked Lancaster, watching him closely.

The barman eyed her. “What’s your interest?”

She flashed her badge. He took another electronic puff and said, “I used to work as a grip off-Broadway. Lot of
its
around that world. I can tell guys from girls, although I have to admit this one was really good.”

“So if it was a guy, why did you let
him
work?” asked Lancaster.

“I don’t give a shit if a guy wants to dress up like a chick so long as he can serve the drinks without spilling. All I need is bodies. I don’t count penises.”

Decker said, “According to you, the waitress left before the guy I was talking to did.”

“Well, I couldn’t find her after you left. Had to serve drinks at the tables myself until I got a replacement in. So, yeah, it apparently skipped out.”

“And you called the temp agency?” asked Decker.

“I did. And you were right about that. No record of her. Score one for you.”

Decker’s gaze drifted down to the man’s waist. A key fob poked from the top of his front jeans pocket.

“What kind of car do you drive?”

The barman looked down in surprise and then back up at Decker. “Why? You need a ride somewhere?”

“No. Just curious.”

“Nissan Leaf.”

“That’s an all-electric.”

“I know it is. Great gas mileage since it doesn’t run on gas. I just plug it in.”

“Very quiet, I expect,” said Decker.

“Too quiet sometimes. I’ve left it running more times than I can remember. Just walked off with the key in my pocket and the damn thing still on.”

“Is that right? Where do you keep it parked?”

“Alley outside.”

“Did you notice on the day I was in here that when you went out to the car it was in a slightly different location?”

The man thought for a moment and then said, “No, not that I remember. Why?”

“Because I looked in that alley when I was here that day and there was no car there.”

“The hell you say,” snapped the barman, his eyes wide in surprise. “But it was there when I left work.”

“You always keep the car key on you?”

“Not always. Sometimes I hang it on a hook over there.” He pointed to a wall behind the bar. “Have to move it sometimes when we’re expecting a delivery. Beer truck can barely squeeze in that space. And it’s a dead end so they have to back out. Sometimes I let one of the waitresses move it if I’m tied up.”

“Well, I think the waitress in question drove it without your permission.”

Decker dropped some dollars on the bar. “Tip included.” He and Lancaster walked out.

T
HE SNOW HAD
begun to fall more heavily as Decker stared at the gray Nissan Leaf.

“Looks like he’s charging it now,” said Lancaster. She was staring at a power cable running from a port on the car to an electrical box next to the side door of the bar.

Decker didn’t look at the cable; he was staring at the walls of the alley.

“Over there,” he said.

Positioned up high and trained so that it would take in most of the alley was a video surveillance camera. Decker walked over to where the camera was mounted and then down at the door of the business.

“Pharmacy,” he said. “This must be their delivery entrance.”

“Lot of thefts from pharmacies around here,” said Lancaster, who had come to stand next to him. “Not surprised they have a camera. Logical place to hit it from the rear. That’s why the door’s barred and locked.”

“We need to get the footage from this camera, and we need it now.”

They hurried around to the front. A clerk was behind the cash register and there was an off-duty police officer near the entrance.

Lancaster flashed her badge at him. “I know you,” she said. “Donovan, Fourth Precinct? Right?”

“Yes ma’am. What do you need, Detective Lancaster?”

She explained, and they walked together over to the cash register, where Donovan conveyed this to the cashier. He said, “I can pull it.”

A few minutes later Lancaster and Decker were walking out of the drugstore with the DVD. They drove straight back to Mansfield, where Lancaster popped the disc into her computer and brought up the images.

There was a time stamp so Decker gave her the date to forward to. She worked the computer’s controls until Decker said, “Stop it right there.”

She did so and the frame on the screen froze.

He said, “Now roll it forward in slow-mo.”

Lancaster hit the requisite buttons to accomplish this, and they watched as the waitress exited the bar, opened the door of the Leaf, and climbed in after disconnecting the charging cable. A few moments later she drove off.

Ten minutes later she drove back up again, got out, reconnected the cable, and reentered the bar.

“But the guy said she didn’t come back,” noted Lancaster.

“Just wait a minute,” said Decker.

The woman came back out a few seconds later, turned, and walked off down the alley.

Decker looked at Lancaster. “She went back in to hang the keys on the hook. Bar guy probably never even saw her.”

“Right.”

“So she picked up Leopold and then dropped him off somewhere. Pretty smart to do it with someone else’s car. No plate for us to run.”

“But we can check the car for her prints. She wasn’t wearing gloves.”

While Lancaster put in a call, Decker was staring at the screen.

When she clicked off he said, “Okay, run it again but this time enlarge the image as much as you can.”

Lancaster did so, several times, at Decker’s request. From where the camera was angled they were watching from the rear of the car. They could see her slide into the driver’s seat and later swing her long legs out to exit. Her short skirt rode up her thighs when she did so. But there was no direct shot on the face.

“She’s got great legs,” said Lancaster. “Gotta give her that.”

“
He
does,” corrected Decker.
At least I think it’s a guy
.

“The barman was right, though.”

“About what?”

Lancaster said, “He told us he’d seen lots of guys as girls when he worked off-Broadway. But he said this one was really good. And she—or he—is. I mean, those really look like a female’s legs.”

Decker slowly nodded and then looked back at the image. He ran it through two more times before shutting it down. But there was still never a clear image of the person’s face.

“So?” said Lancaster. “Any mental breakthroughs?”

Decker shook his head. Only there
was
something. It seemed to be staring him right in the face, but he just couldn’t make it out.

Lancaster yawned and stretched and then looked around at the activity going on in the library. “I wonder when Bogart will show back up?”

“He didn’t tell me his travel plans,” said Decker. “He came up to where Sizemore lived on a jet. I assumed he’d be returning the same way. He would have beaten me back in any case.”

“Well, he hasn’t checked in here.”

“Probably not the only case he’s working.”

“Maybe not, but I hope Mansfield takes priority, even with the FBI.”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Decker absently.

Lancaster checked her watch. “It’s nearly eleven and I’ve been at this since five this morning. I have to get home. You need a ride? I doubt you should walk. It’s starting to really come down out there.”

She was staring out the window of the library, where, under the lights, the snow was falling rapidly.

“Okay. I guess I’m done here for now.”

They walked to the exit.

She said encouragingly, “We have quite a few leads, Amos, we just have to run them down.”

“They aren’t leads, Mary. They’re mostly fluff that will go nowhere. They’ve planned well.”

“Well, you know what they say about the best-laid plans.”

“I know the saying. Unfortunately, it’s often wrong.”

They climbed into her car and set off.

She glanced at him. “You seemed like you saw something on the security video.”

“I did. I just don’t know what.”

“How did it feel to go back to that place? The institute?”

“I didn’t. It had moved. I just spoke with one of the people who used to work there.”

“Still a trip down memory lane.”

“My whole life is one long memory lane.”

“Is it that bad?”

“You ever want to get up from a movie?”

“Sure, lots of times.”

“And if you couldn’t turn it off? If you couldn’t get up and leave it because it happens to be running inside your head?”

She gripped the steering wheel and stared ahead. “I guess I can see that.”

The police radio mounted on the dash crackled. The address of a criminal incident was read out by the dispatcher.

Lancaster nearly ran the car off the road before righting it.

She stared horror-struck at Decker.

“That’s my house,” she screamed.

M
ARY LANCASTER’S HOUSE
was a modest split-level rancher about thirty years old. Even though Earl Lancaster was in the construction business, the house needed painting and the roof required repairs, and there was rot in some of the wood. The asphalt driveway was cracked in numerous spots. The inside was in a bit better shape, but the rooms were small and dark and the air was musty.

The dark sky around the home was lit by the rack lights of the police vehicles.

Lancaster screeched her car to the curb, leapt out, flashed her badge at the two officers coming out the front door, and would have bolted past them if they hadn’t stopped her.

One of them knew her.

“Detective Lancaster—”

She tried to push past him. He grabbed her.

“Wait!” he called out. “I’m trying to tell you—”

The cop struggled with her mightily, because though she was not big, the woman was completely out of control, enraged, screaming, spitting, and clawing. She was going in there.

Then she was snatched from them and held completely off the ground.

The cops looked up at Decker, who had her in a bear hug, her arms pinned to her sides.

She shrieked, “Let me go, Amos! I will kill you! I swear to God I will kill you, you son of a bitch. I…will…kill…”

She kept ranting and struggling, but he held her tight until she finally fell limp in his arms, her head down, her legs dangling. Exhausted. Her breaths came in ragged gasps.

The cop looked up at her. “I was trying to tell you that your family is okay.”

“What!” she screamed. “Then why the hell are all these people here?”

Decker slowly set her on the ground.

The cop said, “Because there was an incident.”

“I tried calling in to dispatch, but I couldn’t get through,” said Lancaster. “Where the hell is my family?”

“They’ve been taken into protective custody.”

“What? Why?”

“Captain Miller’s orders.”

At that moment Miller walked out of the house.

“Captain, what the hell is going on?” asked Lancaster.

“Earl and Sandy are fine.”

“What’s the incident?” asked Decker.

“Some things left in the house.”

“What things?” asked Decker, his gaze dead on Miller.

“Amos, you might want to sit this one out.”

“That won’t be happening unless you have some more officers on the scene.” Decker glanced menacingly at the pair of uniforms who had tried to stop Lancaster.

“All right, then,” said Miller, and he led the way inside.

They entered the kitchen. Decker eyed the beer bottles on the table and the overturned chair.

“I thought you said nothing happened!” cried out Lancaster.

“It’s not what it seems to be,” said Miller. “It’s…it’s all….” He couldn’t finish.

Decker’s gut took a jolt as the man struggled to find the words.

Miller led them into the adjoining room.

On the floor was a body. Well, it wasn’t an actual body. It was a life-size inflatable male mannequin. Someone had colored its head brownish gray. But Decker’s attention was riveted on the streak of red drawn across its neck.

“Was…was that supposed to be Earl?” said Lancaster.

“I think so,” said Miller hesitantly, with a quick glance at Decker. “Sick bastard.”

Decker also noted that an X had been drawn over each of the mannequin’s eyes.

Everyone had seen mannequins before. They were ubiquitous and thus innocuous. But this mannequin—it was the most sinister thing Decker had ever seen. It was like the threes marching in the dark at him. Pale, bloody, staring, silent, lifeless; the symbolism reeked of depravity.

Decker looked toward the stairs. And then he looked all around. He had been here several times in the past. But his mind, while obviously registering this fact, had now connected it to another fact.

This house was nearly an exact copy of Decker’s. Not unusual in working-class cookie-cutter communities, where one builder used the same set of plans in constructing hundreds of houses that were essentially the same structures, but for a different color paint or some minor architectural differences.

“So there’s another one of, what, Sandy?” said Lancaster. She put a hand out and snagged the back of a chair to steady herself.

“There’s another mannequin up there, yes,” said Miller, again nervously eyeing Decker.

In Decker’s mind he thought back to when he had bolted up stairs very much like these at his house the night he had lost everything.

“So there’s just one more of…of these things in my house,” barked Lancaster.

Decker looked back at the mannequin with the “slit” throat and then his gaze settled on Miller. And something in those eyes, coupled with what he had just deduced, made Decker say, “No, there’re two more there.”

“Yes,” said Miller miserably. “Two more.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” said Lancaster. “There’s just Earl and Sandy. Wait, is one supposed to be me?”

Decker was already heading for the stairs.

The first door they came to was partially open. Decker pushed it all the way open and they stepped inside.

A leg was sticking up on the other side of the bed, just as he knew it would be. He stepped to that side of the bed and looked down. As he knew it would be, this mannequin was a female dressed in a see-through nightgown. There was a blackened dot drawn in the center of its forehead to represent a bullet being fired into its head. Her eyes, too, had been marked with Xs.

Miller said to Decker, “I guess you know where the third victim is?”

Lancaster gaped as the truth struck her. “Oh my God, that’s supposed to be…”

“Cassie,” Decker finished for her.

Miller put an arm on Decker’s shoulder. “Amos, why don’t you go on back downstairs?”

Decker shook his head. “No.”

“Amos, please.”

“No!”

He bolted down the hall and opened the door to the bathroom. The others rushed after him.

On the toilet was the third mannequin, smaller, a child. They had even drawn in curly hair on the head, like Molly’s. The robe belt held her upright. Ligature marks had been drawn in around her throat; Xs had been drawn over the eyes.

The killers had indeed replicated exactly what had happened at Decker’s home, but fortunately substituting mannequins for real people.

But there was one difference, a significant one.

Above the toilet were words inked onto the wall:

This could so easily have been real. But ask yourself this. How much pain will you cause, bro? End it now. Do the right thing. Like you should have back then. Find the courage. Don’t be a coward, bro. Not now. Or next time the blood will be real. Last chance.

Decker stared at the words for the longest time.

Then he turned and left the room, took the steps two at a time, and walked outside. Lancaster and Miller followed him. She caught up with him at the end of the driveway.

“Where are you going?” she demanded.

“I’m sorry for all this, Mary.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. My family is fine.”

“They won’t be next time. They’ll be dead.”

“No they won’t. Look, this is not about you. It’s about
them
.”

“No, it’s about me and them.”

He set off down the street as snowflakes swirled around him.