Redemption (Amos Decker #5)(38)

“Miller has to answer to the superintendent. And the super has a different opinion.”

“Right. Would that still be Peter Childress?”

“It would be. Didn’t you call him an ignorant asshole one time?”

“It wasn’t just the one time. And he earned it fair and square.”

“Well, just do not involve yourself in the investigation. So, with that, I don’t see anything keeping you in Burlington. You can just head on out.”

“There’s the crimes that Meryl Hawkins was convicted of.”

“Right. That’s also off-limits. It’s a Burlington PD investigation, and in case you forgot, you’re no longer part of the team.”

“No law against me looking into a case if I want to.”

“There is a law if you interfere with an active police investigation.”

“So you are looking into whether Hawkins was innocent?”

“None of your concern. I can have one of my guys run you to the bus station. There’s a bus to Pittsburgh that leaves in two hours. And you can catch a flight from there back to your precious D.C.”

“Thanks, but I’m staying.”

Natty drew closer, nearly chest to stomach, and looked up at the nine-inches-taller Decker. “You don’t get a single pass on this, no get-out-of-jail-free card. I catch you in my way, the next room you inhabit is a jail cell. I want to make myself really clear on that.”

“You’ve never had a problem making yourself clear, Blake. Even when you had it a hundred and eighty degrees wrong. Which was most of the time.”

“Watch that ego, Decker. Even a guy as big as you won’t be able to hold it in.”

Decker closed the door in the man’s face, went back to his chair, sat down, and turned his thoughts back to the case.

Natty, he was sure, would look for any opportunity to put bite to his threat and plant Decker’s butt in jail. Yet Decker had spent much of his life swimming against the current. Natty was an irritant, nothing more. But Decker would have to watch himself.

A text dropped into his phone.

It was from Lancaster.

I’m really pissed at you, but I’m sorry about Natty being assigned to the case. Wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Which you’re not. At least not yet. M

Decker dropped the phone into his pocket, sighed, and sat back in his chair.

His visit to the old hometown was turning into quite a nightmare.





Chapter 22



GENTRIFICATION SOMETIMES SUCKED because it made homes unaffordable to those living there before their neighborhood was suddenly hot, and all the money wanted to move into new luxury residences after knocking the old stuff down.

Decker was thinking this as he looked around at the area where Hawkins had been picked up that night on suspicion of a quadruple homicide.

Back then it had been the equivalent of a war zone in Burlington. Drug deals had gone down here, and gangs had fought each other over turf and customers. Cars from the suburbs would line up on the streets, like parishioners to the offering basket, only the money they put in would bring not solace and help for others, but drugs and continued misery in return. Empty homes and businesses were used as needle and coke pipe hangouts or gang headquarters. As a cop and later detective, Decker had spent a lot of time in this part of town. In some years there had been a murder a week. Everybody had guns, and no one had a problem using them.

Now the place was full of upscale apartments and thriving small businesses. Hell, there was even a Starbucks. A park sat where once there had been an empty boarded-up warehouse. Decker had to admit it was a lot better than it had been.

They could film a Hallmark movie here and not change a thing.

He and Lancaster had come here after questioning Hawkins at the police station. In Decker’s mind’s eye, the area was returned to its miserable state thirteen years prior. The park was gone, the new residences vanished, the streets returned to trash-strewn and crumbling. Addicts staggered down the streets, dealers were lurking down dark alleys hustling their product. Users came in with cash and left with their drugs of choice.

There were hookers too, because they naturally went with the drugs, Decker had found. Almost all of the hookers were addicts too and scored tricks to pay for their daily doses. And the luxurious loft apartment building he was standing in front of once more became an abandoned shirt factory with mattresses strewn inside where the business of sex was negotiated and then consummated.

Through all of this Meryl Hawkins walked with the rain beating down on him, though because of the bad weather, they could find no one out and about to corroborate his story. Yet if he was telling the truth and he had been trudging through this downpour, why? And why wouldn’t he tell Decker and Lancaster during their interrogation? Anything he told them could have helped his cause. Silence only hurt him. He could have named a person whom he had met with and they could have followed up on that, and he might have been a free man.

Decker dialed up something in his memory. Something far more recent.

“She was hooked up to a drip line that night. I remember seeing it.”

“Yeah, well, half the time there were no pain meds in that IV bag, including that night. They couldn’t afford them. Fucking insurance companies. Sorry, it’s still kind of a sore subject with me.”

“So your mother had insurance?”