Redemption (Amos Decker #5)(53)

A moment later the door clanged open and there was Blake Natty, his face white, his features screwed up in agony. He lurched over to Brimmer’s sheet-draped body and looked down at it. He put a hand to his mouth, and Decker heard the man start to quietly sob.

No one said anything until Natty had composed himself and rubbed his eyes dry on his coat sleeve. He looked over at Decker and Mars. Next, he ran his gaze over their wounds. “Heard he almost got you both too.”

“Almost,” said Decker. “The guy was a lot smaller than we were.”

“Small but lethal,” said Mars. “I’ve seen guys with shivs, hardened cons, who couldn’t wield a blade anything like that dude.”

“Guys with shivs? Hardened cons?” said Natty. “Were you a prison guard or something?”

“Or something,” said Mars quietly.

Decker rubbed his stomach. “And he had fists like bricks. And some crazy arm tats.”

Natty said, “What were you and Sally even doing there?”

Decker knew this question was coming and had prepared several answers. One came tumbling out. It happened to be the truth.

“I arranged to meet Sally at McArthur Park. We were coming out to the street when the guy opened fire.”

“Why did you want to meet with her?”

“Because I wanted to get her help on the case. I won’t be able to help you solve it by merely observing, Blake. You know that, and I know that.”

Decker had been prepared for Natty to explode at this comment, but to his surprise the detective merely nodded. He rubbed his nose and said, “I guess I can see that. Do you…do you think Sally was the target?”

“No. I was. Someone already tried to kill me once. We were standing so close together that the shooter hit Sally and not me.” He paused and looked at the disconsolate Natty. “I’m sorry, Blake. I really am. Sally was just trying to do the right thing.”

Mars said, “Why is someone so desperate to kill you?”

“Someone doesn’t want Decker to figure out the truth,” replied Natty. “I mean, you worked on that case all those years ago. Hawkins came to you and Mary to clear his name. And now they’re going to try to stop you. Mary got recused, but you’re still on the trail.”

“So are you,” pointed out Decker. “I think we all have to watch our backs.”

“So you think someone hired the guy to do this?” said Natty.

“I do. Which means that Hawkins was innocent. And that means the forensic evidence tying him to the scene was somehow forged.”

Natty glanced at him incredulously. “Prints and DNA at a crime scene. Forged?”

“It can be done,” responded Decker.

“It would be hard as hell,” retorted Natty.

“But not impossible.”

“Who would want to frame Meryl Hawkins?” asked Natty.

“Wrong way to look at it.”

“What’s the right way, then?”

“Someone wanted to get away with murder. Hawkins was the patsy they chose to hold the bag. It could have been anybody, but for some reason they chose him. That’s how we have to look at it.”

“But, Decker, that turns this whole case upside down,” said Natty.

“No, the case has always been right side up. We’ve just been looking at it from the wrong angle.”

“You mean we have to start from square one?” said Natty.

Decker pulled the flash drive out of his pocket and held it up. “Commencing with this.” He looked over at Brimmer’s body. “Because the dead deserve answers,” he said. “Sometimes more than the living.”





Chapter 33



MARS WAS SOUND ASLEEP on the bed in Decker’s room. It was past two in the morning and yet Decker was wide awake sitting in a chair and studying his laptop. He was scrolling through all the information that had been on the thumb drive Brimmer had given him.

He had taken off his belt holster with his new pistol to replace the old one damaged in the fight in the alley and laid it on the nightstand. He was still upset that he had let the shooter get away.

He and Mars had been at this for hours, until Mars had grown exhausted and collapsed on Decker’s bed instead of going to his own room. The rain was pouring outside, and Decker could hear the drops ramming his window like thrown handfuls of gravel. It was one of those Ohio Valley storms that sprang up out of nowhere and pounded the entire state for a while.

But right now, he had tuned out the storm and homed in on the critical facts of his case from over thirteen years ago.

The 911 call had come in at 9:35 about a disturbance at the Richardses’ house. That should have been a red flag for him, as should many things, in retrospect.

Who made the call? And what was the disturbance?

Not even the neighbors had noticed anything unusual that night. And there were no tracks of any other car coming to the house that night, just David Katz’s. With the rain and mud, there would have been fresh tire tracks. So no other car had been there.

And here was the kicker. Decker was looking at the times of death provided by the medical examiner who had done the posts on the four bodies. The ME had said that all four victims had been killed close to eight-thirty. The records showed that he had based his conclusion on several indicators, one being the temperature of the bodies when they were discovered. Although Decker knew that was very tricky and could be affected by numerous factors. But a one-and-a-half-degree Fahrenheit drop in body temperature per hour after death was the standard rule.