And maybe my frank omission.
“I can understand that, Melvin. When was it taken?”
“When I graduated from high school. They were real proud. I’d already committed to UT. I was going away. My mom cried a lot.”
“And your dad?”
Mars hesitated. “Not so much.”
“Sometimes it’s that way with fathers.”
“Yeah.”
“Your mom was beautiful. Truly stunning.”
“Yeah, she was.”
A long moment passed as the two men stared at each other.
“Got something else on your mind?” Decker asked.
“It’s like I don’t exist, Decker.”
“Why do you say that?”
Mars glanced at him. “I don’t know anything about the two people in the photo. Where they came from. Who they really were. Why they were killed. Nothing. And since I came from them, meaning nothing, what can that make me?” He put up his hands. “Nothing.”
A minute of silence passed as the rain started to pick up outside. The drumming of the drops seemed to march in parallel with the heartbeats of each of the men.
Decker took out the picture of his wife and daughter and handed it across to Mars. Mars looked at it.
“Your family?”
Decker nodded.
“Your little girl is super cute.”
“Was super cute.”
Mars looked uncomfortable. “I know you must miss them.”
Decker leaned forward. “The point, Melvin, is that I knew everything about them. Everything. There was no mystery at all.”
“Okay,” said Mars slowly, evidently unsure of where this was going.
“And they’re gone. And I’m…nothing too. Same as you.”
Mars looked like he wanted to hit something. “So is that it? There’s nothing else? Then what the hell are we doing this for?”
“We’re doing it because there can be something else. It’s up to us.”
“But you just said—”
“I said I am nothing. Today. Tomorrow I may be something. That’s the only guarantee any of us have. It’s a big, free country. There are opportunities for all to do something.”
“It’s different for me.”
“Why?”
“Damn, why do you think? I’m black. You’re white. Biggest difference there is.”
“You think?”
“And you don’t? You got a bigger one?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of Longhorns and Buckeyes. Race doesn’t matter there, just winning.”
Mars gave him a smirk. “Nice one. But it don’t change reality. I’m a black ex-con, pardon or not. Remember them assholes from the truck diner?”
“Forget them. They’re a shrinking segment of society. But finding out who really did this can change things, Melvin.”
Mars shook his head, but Decker continued. “Half the people still think you killed your parents.”
“I don’t give a shit what they think.”
“Hear me out.”
Mars was about to say something else, but he stopped and nodded curtly.
Decker continued, “There are few things more powerful than the truth. Once you get truth on your side, good things tend to happen, black, white, or anything in between.”
“But you thought they were in this Witness Protection thing. They weren’t. So we’re right back where we started.”
“In a game when the play broke down and the first hole was plugged, what did you do, fall on the turf and give up?”
“Hell, what do you think?”
“So what did you do?”
“I found me another hole to run through.”
“Well, that’s what we’re going to do, Melvin. We’re going to find another hole to run through.”
“How?”
“Did your dad keep a safe at the house?”
“A safe? No.”
“Would he have used one at work? That only he would have access to?”
“They had a safe there, but my dad told me the owner was a real prick. Hovered over him all day, afraid he was stealing. Even after working there for years. So there’s no way that my dad would have been the only one to have access to that safe.”
“Then that really leaves only one alternative.”
CHAPTER
36
DECKER AND MARS faced the stone building as fresh storm clouds built overhead. Darkness had arrived early thanks to this new weather system.
“Texas First National Bank?” said Decker. “You’re sure this is it?”
“I had an account here when I was in high school, and later in college. My parents brought me here. It’s where they kept their money, what little they had.”
“They might have had more than you think.”
“If they’d had money why didn’t they spend some of it?”
“I wasn’t necessarily talking about cash,” replied Decker as he began to mount the broad steps leading to the bank’s front doors.
Inside, he made his request to a teller and they were quickly shuttled off to the assistant branch manager.
The man was short, in his early forties, bespectacled, with a paunch that protruded from between the flaps of his suit jacket. As he put out his hand he glanced at Mars and his jaw dropped.
“Melvin Mars?”
Mars nodded. “Do we know each other?”
“I’m Jerry Bivens. We went to high school together.”
Mars eyed him more closely.
Bivens said apologetically, “I didn’t play football. Not really built for it.”
Mars shook the man’s hand and forced a smile at Decker’s slight elbow nudge. “Yeah, Jerry, I remember you. How you doing?”
“All right. Married, four kids. Working my way up the corporate ladder. In five or six years I’ll probably be the branch manager.”
“Good for you, man.”
The two men stared awkwardly at each other.
“I heard you, um, got out of prison,” said Bivens nervously.
“Yeah, another dude confessed.”
“What an injustice,” said Bivens. He looked over Mars’s impressive physique. “You look like you could still suit up.”
“Yeah, if only,” said Mars.
Decker cleared his throat and Bivens focused on him. Decker flashed his FBI credentials, which did not include a badge, but nevertheless seemed to impress Bivens, who immediately stood straighter and buttoned his jacket.
“Yes, Agent, um, Decker, what can I do for you?”
“We need some information.”
Bivens glanced around to find both tellers and three customers in line staring at them.
“You want to step into my office?” said Bivens hastily.
Bivens’s “office” was a cubicle partially enclosed by glass. He indicated chairs for them to use and then seated himself behind his desk.
“What sort of information?” he asked.
“I understand that Roy and Lucinda Mars had an account here.”
Bivens said nothing but clasped his hands together and placed them on his desktop.
“Is that a yes?” asked Decker.
“I’d have to look that up.”
Decker glanced at the computer sitting on the desk. “Okay.”
“I meant, I would with the proper authorization. We respect a customer’s privacy.”
“I appreciate that, but the Marses are both dead.”
Bivens changed color, glanced quickly at Mars, and then lifted his hands off the desk and placed them on the arms of his chair. “Well, yes, of course I know that. But then their legal representative—”
“They don’t have one,” interjected Decker.
“Or their next of kin.”
Decker tapped Mars on the shoulder. “Sitting right here.”
Bivens again stared at Mars. “Right.”
Mars said, “You have my permission to look it up and tell him, Jerry.”
Bivens began tappin
g keys on his computer. He read through a couple screens. “They had an account, but it was closed twenty-some years ago.”
“Can you give us the exact date?” asked Decker.
Bivens told him.
Mars said, “That was two days before they died.”
Decker nodded. “Can you tell us how much was in the account before it was closed?”
Bivens tapped some more keys and pulled up the transaction history. “About fifty-five hundred dollars.”
Decker and Mars both looked disappointed.
Bivens said, “I’m sorry if you were looking for any funds, Melvin.” He paused. “I know you were in prison a long time.”
Decker said, “No other accounts?”
Bivens glanced at the screen. “No, just the checking account.”
Mars looked crushed, but Decker appeared to just be getting started. “How about a safe deposit box?” he said.
Mars jerked and glanced at him.
Bivens hit some more keys. “Right, they had a box. How did you know?”
Decker said, “Just a lucky guess on my part. What can you tell us about it?”
“Well, it was closed out at the same time as the account. We have all records on computer now. Your father closed it and signed all the necessary documents.”
“And there’s no way to tell what was in the box?”
Bivens shook his head. “No inventories are kept of safe deposit boxes unless a client specifically requests that it be done. Otherwise it’s strictly private.”
“But he closed it and took everything?” said Decker.
“Yes.”
“How large was the box?”
Bivens hit some more keys. “Our largest. A double. It could hold a lot.”
“Is there anyone here who worked at the bank back then that we could talk to?” asked Decker.
“Oh, no. I’ve been here the longest. Fourteen years. The branch manager was transferred in from El Paso three years ago. The others have all been here less than five years.” Bivens glanced over Decker’s shoulder and then said to him, “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
Decker looked behind him to see two people lined up waiting to talk to Bivens.
“No, but we appreciate your help.”
They walked outside, smack into the dreary weather.
Mars barked, “I can’t believe this shit. My mom was dying from cancer and no one told me. And now I find out my dad kept a safe deposit box loaded with who knows what. It’s like I’m living somebody’s else’s life.”
“And he closed it two days before he died,” noted Decker.
“You think my dad knew something was coming?”
“Of course he did. And the question is, what did he do with the items from the box?”
CHAPTER
37
THEY MET UP with Jamison and Davenport in a private area adjacent to the motel lobby later that day. Decker filled them in on the meeting with Jerry Bivens at the bank.
Jamison said, “So even if the Marses weren’t in Witness Protection, it seems like they had some secrets.”
Davenport added, “The history that no one can uncover, not even the FBI.” She glanced at Mars. “Roy and Lucinda Mars are probably not even their real names.”
Decker said, “AC and RB. We found those initials written on the wall of their closet. Those might be their real initials.”
“Shit,” said Mars, shaking his head and looking away from them. He seemed like a man stumbling through a dream he’d had no hand in creating.
Decker said, “So they weren’t in Witness Protection, but they may have been on the run from someone.”
“Or some group,” amended Jamison. “Like the mob.”
“The mob!” barked Mars. “Okay, just stop right there. My parents were not in the damn mob, okay?”
Decker said sharply, “The fact is, Melvin, right now none of us knows what they were involved in, including you. But whatever it was, it was bad enough that they created new identities and moved to a little town in Texas to escape it.”
“And the safe deposit box contents might have something incriminating to whoever these people are,” said Jamison.
“But there’s no way for us to find out what was in the box,” added Davenport. “I mean, it was twenty years ago. And whoever killed your parents, Melvin, may have taken it.”
“Or not,” said Decker.
They all turned to him.
“Care to elaborate on that point?” asked Davenport.
“The one question that can’t be answered by any of this is, why would someone pay off the Montgomerys to get Melvin out of prison?” He glanced at them one by one.
“I give up,” said Mars finally. “Why?”
“They might if they didn’t find what was in the safe deposit box. And it’s still out there somewhere. And they may think you know where it is.”
“That’s quite a theory,” said Davenport.
“But if so, why wait all this time?” asked Jamison.
“It may be that once Melvin was scheduled to be executed they panicked, figuring this might be their last chance to retrieve it.”
Mars looked puzzled. “But Decker, no one’s tried to contact me.