Long Shadows (Amos Decker, #7)(114)

White shook her head. “God, dirty all around. And Lancer and Draymont?”

“They were already in the blackmail business. I think they stumbled onto all this, or maybe something else just as incriminating, and believed it could be a big payoff for them.”

“So you think the fix-it guy in Tanner’s hotel room is down here now?” asked White. “And they tried to blackmail him?”

“I do. Only this guy decides to bite back. Hard. He kills Draymont. And then snatches Lancer from the hospital, and kills her after getting whatever information they could out of her.”

“But why the Slovakian money?”

“Whoever is behind this might have seen it as Kanak Roe’s having taken the money years ago to build his empire, then deciding to rat them out. They would not have been happy about that. And that’s why they killed him.”

“Okay. But trying to implicate Kasimira?”

Decker said, “If she goes down for murder, what happens to Gamma Protection Services?”

“It would probably go down the tubes. And you still think the murder of Julia Cummins is unconnected to all this?” she asked.

“I do.”

“Damn, Decker, this is getting to be the messiest case I’ve ever been involved in.”

Decker didn’t respond to this. He was thinking something else entirely.

Maybe in some ways, it’s finally beginning to clear.

His phone buzzed. Decker listened, mumbled a few words in response, and then clicked off.

“That was the U.S. attorney. They let Barry Davidson go.”

“What? Why?”

“A neighbor on the floor just below him was out on his balcony that night. He came forward to make a sworn statement that he heard Barry in his office—I guess the doors were open—from around eleven thirty until around three.”

“Why was the guy up that late and why didn’t he come forward before?”

“He went out of the country the morning the bodies were discovered and just got back and found out about the murders and Davidson’s arrest. And he was up late because he’d been in Asia for a month and was still on that time zone. But he swears that Barry was in his office that whole time.”

“So Tyler and Barry were telling the truth.”

“Yeah. They still have his gun as evidence, but he could not have pulled the trigger. And the U.S. attorney is of the same mind I am. If Barry knew that his gun was the murder weapon he would have gotten rid of it.”

“So now the pendulum swings back to Langley?”

“Yes, it does.”





Chapter 86



DECKER TOOK OUT THE PHOTO of his wife and daughter as he lay in bed in his room.

Recently, he had felt compelled to take it from his wallet each night before turning in. He looked at the twin faces, studied the eyes, the mouths, the slopes of their necks. He, of course, remembered exactly when it had been taken. He had actually been the photographer. It was just a picnic at a local park. A rare day off for Decker that had coincided with Cassie’s scheduled time away from the hospital where she worked as a nurse. Molly had been home because it was a teacher workday, and she was the one who suggested the picnic. At first, Decker had not been too thrilled with the idea. There were some chores for him to do around the house, and social outings, even just with his family, were awkward for him. But Molly had persisted, and they had all joined in to make the food for the picnic. And it had been a truly glorious day. The sun bright and warming, the flowers in bloom, the breeze invigorating, the company the best in the world. Every bite of the simple luncheon the most wonderful food that Decker had ever had.

Because it was the last time.

A week later he had no family left.

He slowly put the picture away in his wallet and closed his eyes.

I would much prefer to be at that park with them, instead of being here trying to solve another crime.

White had turned out to be fine as a partner, but even with that…Change, way too much damn change.

And then there was the letter from the Cognitive Institute. Things happening. Things changing.

Me changing. Irreversibly so.

Alone.

He slept and then awoke when the night was about its darkest.

He rose and went to the window and looked out at the paradise of Ocean View, Florida.

Some paradise. Stacked with bodies and blackmailers.

He went back to sleep and woke at nearly eight o’clock.

As he showered, he thought about the case, not at a broad, macro level, but at the building-block stage because that, he had come to believe, was where the real answers were to be found. That and the little inconsistencies that later turned out to be important.

First up was the revelation about Barry Davidson. Tyler had said his father had not left the premises. And now this neighbor had come forward to corroborate that. The result: Davidson was a free man. Then who had killed Cummins?

The key to the murders of Draymont and Lancer was finding out who they had been blackmailing. And to blackmail someone, you had to find out a dark secret. On Capitol Hill they had done that by, presumably, listening at keyholes, shadowing people, taking photos or recordings of indiscretions.

He thought back to something that Kasimira Roe had said. She had been blackmailed by Draymont and Lancer after they had discovered that she was seeing a married person. But she had also said that the pair had blackmailed other clients, and, in one case, Draymont had stolen some jewelry.