The Last Mile (Amos Decker, #2)(25)

They went back downstairs.

Here Decker saw what he had seen before. A faded picture of a young Melvin Mars in his high school football uniform. It was hanging on the wall. On a small shelf were more old photos of Mars at various ages.

“Surprised they’re still here,” said Bogart.

“Like you said, no one wants to come into a house where people were killed. And not too many people live out this way. And strangers passing by wouldn’t even be able to see the house from the road, particularly now with everything overgrown.”

Decker looked around some more.

“But it’s interesting what we’re not seeing.”

“What’s that?” asked Milligan.

“Pictures of Roy and Lucinda Mars.” He turned to Milligan. “It’s like they never even existed.”





CHAPTER

15



DECKER LOOKED AT his watch.

They had driven to the house where Ellen Tanner had hooked up with Melvin Mars that night. It was small, old, and set off by itself. There wasn’t another home within twenty miles of it. And back then it was probably even more isolated.

“Why’s a young woman living all the way out here by herself?” Decker had asked.

Neither Bogart nor Milligan had an answer.

Then they had driven back to the site of the old motel, which was now a strip mall. They had next driven to the Marses’ home. All three locations were off the same main road, a fairly straight shot.

Decker said, “It’s one hour in between Ellen Tanner’s old house and the motel. And about forty minutes from the motel to the Marses’ house.”

Milligan, at the wheel of the car, nodded. “He left Tanner’s at ten p.m. He said he reached the motel about an hour later, or eleven o’clock, which works. But the motel clerk testified that he checked Mars in at one-fifteen a.m. So he could have driven another forty minutes to his house, killed his parents, and driven back to the motel and made it easily by one or a bit after. That’s what the prosecution successfully argued.”

“Not easily,” countered Decker. “He had to get to the house, shotgun his parents, get the gas, and set them on fire. That would take some time.”

“But it could be done, there’s no denying that.”

“And the police report said a car matching Mars’s was seen leaving the vicinity of their house about the time the coroner thinks the murders occurred,” added Bogart.

“That’s right,” said Milligan. “And the witness was a long-haul trucker who was based here and knew the Marses.”

Bogart nodded. “And he died five years ago, so we can’t talk to him.”

Decker said, “But we have Charles Montgomery. We can talk to him.”

“I got an email back from the folks in Alabama. It’s all set. We can speak to him the day after tomorrow.”

Decker’s phone buzzed. It was Jamison.

She said, “We’ve talked to Mars. Davenport is writing up her report now.”

“What does she think?”

“I’m not sure. She plays things close to the vest.”

“What do you think?”

“He seems very sincere, Amos. But he could also be very manipulative. I just don’t know which one yet.”

“Did he tell you anything new?”

“Not really. He reiterated his innocence. We went over his actions on the night his parents were killed. He can’t explain the timing. He said he went to sleep at the motel and woke up when the police knocked on his door.”

“Well, he’s had two decades to perfect that story. But one thing does bother me.”

“What?”

“If he planned this all out, why can’t he come up with a plausible explanation for the time gap? He had to know it was going to be a problem.”

Bogart, who had been listening in, said, “Criminals usually slip up. And they usually slip up on the timeline, Amos. They can’t be in two places at the same time. You know that as well as anyone.”

“They do slip up, but not by that much,” countered Decker. “Fifteen minutes, maybe half an hour can be fudged, but not hours. It was a huge hole. If he was meticulous in other respects, why not with that critical piece? I’m just saying it’s something to keep in mind.”

Jamison asked, “When will you be back?”

“In about an hour.”

He clicked off and stared out at the highway as the vastness of Texas stretched ahead of them. All the way to the horizon the topography looked exactly the same. He closed his eyes and let his mind whir back to something that was gnawing at him.

Bogart glanced over and saw this, something he had seen often back in Burlington.

“What?” he asked.

Decker kept his eyes closed but said, “Shotgun then fire.”

“Come again?”

“They were killed with the shotgun and then set on fire.”

“That’s what the police report said, yes. Why?”

In his mind Decker brought up the photos of the charred bodies. The good thing about hyperthymesia was that he saw things exactly as they were; no detail was missing. Nothing inserted, nothing taken away. Clear as a mirror.

“Pugilistic.”

“What?”