Redemption (Amos Decker #5)(96)

“You don’t owe me an explanation on any of this, Natty.”

“And then you came back to town and this whole shit with Hawkins started up again. When I saw you back, I just freaked. To be honest, I thought I was rid of you forever. And then there you were.”

“I came back to visit my family’s graves. I didn’t ask for Hawkins to walk up to me and say he was innocent. But for that, I’d be long gone from here, for at least another year.”

Natty cleared his throat and sat back. “I’ve been a cop longer than I haven’t been a cop. It’s become my whole life. I’m good at it, I think. But I’m not you.”

“No one ever said you were,” replied Decker. “And you wouldn’t want to be me.”

“Well, now Sally’s dead and my wife is gone. Luckily, the kids are pretty much grown. So, all I got is…this,” he added, looking around the room.

“When this case is done, Natty, I’ll be gone. You can have it all to yourself.”

Natty grunted and gave a hollow chuckle. “I’m finding out that my problems run a lot deeper than my jealousy of you, Decker.”

“Then face them and try to work through them. You’ve seen a lot of shit in your life. So have I. Life is never perfect. You make the most of what you have. You can sink into self-pity or you can rise above it. Why don’t you choose to rise above it, starting right now? And really think about my question about Sally. Was anything bothering her?”

Natty looked at him suspiciously. “Why do you keep asking that? Did you find something that…?”

“Sally had reddish hair.”

“I know that,” said Natty, looking confused.

“She ever wear a wig?”

“A wig? What, are you being funny?”

“No. A blonde wig, cut short.”

“No, why? Why would she wear a wig? Do women even wear wigs anymore?”

“I don’t know. Maybe some do.”

“Well, not Sally. At least not that I ever saw. She had really nice hair. Why are you asking me that? Did you find a wig?”

“In her closet.”

“What were you doing in her closet?”

“Lancaster actually found it. We were searching her place looking for a motive for murder.”

“But you were the target, not her!”

Decker shook his head. “The guy who shot Katz was the same guy who shot Brimmer. We recently found out he was a trained sniper. He had a laser scope that could have nailed me from a thousand yards away. No way the guy misses a shot from a twentieth that distance. Look at me, Natty. I’m the size of a barn. You could’ve made that shot with your damn pistol.”

Natty slumped back in his chair. “But why in the hell would anyone want to kill Sally? She was…she was a good person. She had no enemies.”

“That you know of.”

Natty glanced sharply up at him. “And what does the wig have to do with this?”

“The wig pretty much exactly matches Susan Richards’s hairdo.”

It took a few moments for this to connect with Natty. “Wait a minute. Are you saying that—”

“That Brimmer put on a wig to impersonate Richards? Yeah, I am. I think Richards’s body was in that suitcase. It was all a show for Richards’s neighbor. To make us think she’d done a runner. And then committed suicide.”

“You’re saying that Sally killed Richards? No fucking way. I’ve run into a lot of murderers, Decker. So have you. Sally couldn’t have hurt a fly.”

“I don’t think she killed Richards. She might not have even known what was in the suitcase. It might have been locked. But I think she was forced to impersonate Richards and leave in her car with the suitcase. At some point others took the suitcase and then left the body where we found it.”

“Why would Sally be part of something like that?”

“Maybe somebody was blackmailing her.”

“About what?”

“One guess, Natty.”

Realization spread over his features. “Our…fling?”

“Someone tells her they’ll spill the truth to your wife unless Sally puts on the wig. Otherwise, she’d be ruined professionally. They didn’t have to tell her that Richards was dead, or in the suitcase. She just had to drive it away in the car.” Decker paused. “So, that’s why I want to know if Brimmer was acting funny.”

“But Sally was killed before they found Richards.”

“But Sally could have already known she was dead.”

Natty took a few moments to process all this. Then the detective in him seemed to win out and he sat forward.

“I thought it was just her being nervous about our relationship. But we were having a drink at her place one night, this was shortly after Richards disappeared.”

Decker sat forward. “And?”

“And she wanted to know what I thought about Richards’s disappearance. I told her maybe she’d killed Hawkins and had gone on the run.”

“What was her reaction to that?”

“She didn’t seem to buy it, if you want the truth. I actually picked up on that and asked her if she had any theories.”

“Did she?”

“She…she said that sometimes people looked at things from the wrong way round. Almost like looking in a mirror. She even gave an example. In a mirror you lift up your right hand, but in the reflection, your mind tricks you into thinking—”