The Last Mile (Amos Decker, #2)(86)

“And you’re sure it was Colombia? But how can you be?”

“Because of the translation. Apparently it’s particular only to the Cali area.”

“But you haven’t told me what the translation was.”

“Chocha in the Valluno dialect means ‘possum.’”

Mars stared blankly at him. “And why would a possum make any more sense than the other translations?”

Decker drew a long breath and then just said it.

“Principally, Melvin, because possums can play dead. Which seems to be exactly what your father did.”





CHAPTER

48



SO YOU THINK a cartel is behind all this?” asked Bogart.

Decker sat across from him, Milligan, and Jamison in Bogart’s room at the motel. Decker had filled the others in on his deductions and his conversation with Mars.

“I don’t know for sure, but one certainly could be. If Lucinda escaped and also stole from them, they could have come after her. She might have married Roy then and they fled to Texas together.”

Milligan shook his head. “So twenty years later they get seen on ESPN and the cartel comes after them again? According to you she was a house servant. Why would they care? And back then the cartel wars were going hot and heavy. Drug bosses were getting killed left and right or else put in prison. And now forty years after the fact they’re still coming after the Marses?”

“Unless she had something else on them,” said Jamison. “Something really damaging or valuable that would still be important all these years later, and the leaders today want it back. That could be what was in the safe deposit box.”

“Still a stretch,” said Milligan.

“It is a stretch,” conceded Decker. “But it can’t be discounted. Not yet. We have to follow it up.”

“How?” asked Milligan. “You’re talking forty years ago, Decker. The people involved are either dead or geriatric. And, since we’re talking cartels, most likely dead. There are all new players now. And Colombia has really cracked down on drug trafficking in the last two decades. Most of the business has moved to other places, like Mexico.”

“All true,” said Decker. “But one way to follow it up is to find Roy Mars.”

Bogart said, “We have people looking for him, but it’s a long shot. He hasn’t been seen in a long time.”

“You’re wrong there,” said Decker. “He was seen very recently.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Milligan. “Where?”

“In Alabama.”

“No one saw him in Alabama,” countered Milligan.

“Patricia Bray did. She saw the guy in the Avalon.”

“Wait a minute,” interjected Bogart. “Are you saying that the man who blew up Regina Montgomery was Roy Mars?”

“Of course it was. Right age. Right physical description.”

Jamison said, “Have you told Melvin that you suspect that was his dad?”

“No.”

“Are you going to?”

“I don’t know,” said Decker. “What do you think?”

Jamison looked at the others and said, “I think he has more than enough on his plate right now. Until we know for sure, I say we tell him nothing.”

“Agreed,” said Bogart, and Milligan nodded.

“But, Decker, why would Roy Mars have killed Regina?” asked Jamison.

“She screwed up. She spent the money he paid her. We went back there a second time. That told Mars something was up. He was staying nearby for this very reason. To see how interested we were in her. Charles Montgomery was dead. The kid would have been told nothing. Regina was the loose end. Maybe Roy intended on killing her regardless. He had no trouble dispatching Reardon and burning up his body. The guy is a killer.”

Milligan said, “Do you think he might have worked for the cartel? Maybe as an enforcer for them? He could have met Lucinda that way.”

“It’s possible, although the cartels didn’t cast a wide net back then and kept their muscle pretty much homegrown, so bringing in a white guy from America was probably not in their protocols. But he could have been in South America and met Lucinda there. Maybe he helped her escape from the cartel.”

“But this is all still speculation,” countered Bogart. “We have no proof that any of this is true.”

Jamison said, “So Roy Mars paid off Montgomery to lie to get Melvin out of prison. But if Roy committed the murders for which Melvin was convicted, he framed Melvin. Why would he work so hard to get him out of prison now?”

Bogart said, “I was wondering the very same thing. That seems very inconsistent.”

Decker turned and gazed off.

“Decker?” said Jamison. “Can you explain that?”

He glanced back at her. “Maybe it all comes down to a promise made.”

“A promise made? To whom?” said Jamison.

“To Lucinda Mars.”

Bogart shook his head. “You’ve totally lost me.”

Decker turned to Jamison. “You remember that I asked Melvin when he was hypnotized if his father had ever told him that he loved him?”

“Yes. I was pretty shocked that you asked that.”