Long Shadows (Amos Decker, #7)(107)

“Blame it on me. Impossible to work with. Goes against everything the Bureau stands for, at least that part will be true. That way you don’t go down with me.”

“My gossipy friend suggested something similar. But, see, you’re not the only one the Bureau doesn’t like, Decker. Why do you think my ass got dragged from Baltimore on a moment’s notice to come down here with you?”

Decker cocked his head. “So is the Bureau planning to clean house with me and you?”

“My gossipy friend either didn’t know or wouldn’t reveal it to me for obvious reasons. If the latter, I need to make new friends. And in any case, he was really gleeful over the prospects of your getting cut down to size. And he probably won’t shed any tears if I get canned.”

“You don’t deserve this crap. You’re a good agent, Freddie.”

“And that apparently is not enough. I’m a woman and I’m Black on top of it. And while everyone who doesn’t know shit about how the world really works seems to think that’s like the golden apple combo package, those of us in the trenches know different. You get smiles and applause and the media sucks it all up, but then when the applause dies down and the public attention gets turned away, everyone misses the knife that stabs you in the back minute by minute, day by day. Which is exactly what is going on right now.”

“So why have you stuck around this long?”

“Because I’ve put a lot of time and effort into building a career, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let a pack of assholes take all that away from me just because they think they can. I hope you feel the same way.”

“I do.” Decker leaned back in the booth. “So where does that leave us?”

“I figure our only way out is solving this case. Together.”

“Hell, I intended to do that for free. Sticking it to the suits is just an added bonus.”

White laughed. “You are really starting to grow on me, Decker.”

“Look out then, Freddie, because there’s a lot of me to grow on.”





Chapter 80



DECKER HAD TAKEN OFF HIS shoes and socks and was walking on the beach after dinner.

I might get used to this sand thing, and how ironic would that be?

There were a lot of moving pieces with this case, and even his superior memory was having a difficult time keeping track and syncing things up properly. He decided to take them in different silos.

Julia Cummins’s murder. If his theory was right, whoever had killed Cummins had not killed Draymont, or Lancer, or Lancer’s biological mother, Patty Kelly.

Ten stab wounds, the justice-is-not-blind symbol left behind, the legal phrase, all smacked of a highly personal killing. She’d had a sexual relationship with Alan Draymont, which she’d tried to hide under the subterfuge of her needing protection. But there had been no actual threats, at least that they knew of, and she hadn’t hired Gamma to protect her.

At first, it would have seemed logical that there was only one killer. Whoever had stabbed Cummins would have also murdered Draymont. The motive would have been jealousy perhaps, because the two had had sex that night.

But the two crimes were as different as possible. Knife versus gun. Frenzied and personal versus methodical and perhaps transactional. And then there was the money stuffed down first Draymont’s throat, and then Lancer’s. No money had been forced into the judge’s mouth, which bolstered the theory that Draymont had died first, then the judge had heard the shots and come down to check. She had found Draymont’s body, but his killer had already fled. However, the person who would end up murdering the judge was just arriving on the scene. That person had chased the judge back upstairs to her bedroom, where the slaughter had taken place, with the blindfold and note left behind.

Decker stopped and looked out to the water. The winks of ship lights far out in the Gulf were the only interruption to the darkness.

That’s what this case feels like. Almost total darkness with a few feeble points of light. But will that be enough?

It didn’t surprise him that the Bureau was trying to get rid of him. After Ross Bogart had retired, Decker had sensed a subtle shift of opinion about him, and not in his favor. When Jamison had departed to New York, he had no one really in his corner, and he had no interest in fighting office political battles.

I can be annoying. I don’t like playing by other people’s rules. Solving cases should be the only goal, and the bullshit part of the job doesn’t interest me at all.

He imagined that he and Frederica White were in complete agreement on all that. But the last thing he wanted was to see the woman go down with him.

She has a family. The Bureau is her career, and she’s worked her butt off for it.

So absorbed was Decker in these thoughts that he did not notice the two men emerge out of the darkness until they were right upon him.

They were both dressed in jogging outfits and tennis shoes.

They stared at Decker and he stared back at them.

“Can I help you guys?” he said.

One man drew a knife; the other pulled a pistol.

Decker had left his weapon back in his room.

Well, this sucks.

He was about to try to tackle the guy with the gun when he saw a blur of movement to his right. A foot struck the gun and it went spiraling off into the water. Another foot hit the man in the gut, and he went down to his knees with a grunt of pain. Another side-winding kick to his jaw and he went down to the sand.