“That’s not what you told the judge this morning. You said the opposite of that. Did your lawyer tell you to say that?”
“He said I shouldn’t talk about any of this with anybody.”
Decker stared curiously at the man.
A glimmer of lucidity, of self-preservation amid a sea of insanity? Is it the meds talking?
“Well, then I guess you shouldn’t, unless you want to. But I don’t see a problem for you. Cops have zip. You were in jail at the time. The judge dismissed the case without prejudice, but they can’t re-charge you unless they have some evidence tying you to the crime. Now, they may go out and get some. Find an accomplice who did the killings for you for some reason. They may even make something up.”
“Can they do that?” asked Leopold in childlike wonder.
“Sure. They do it all the time. If they think you’re a bad guy they’ll do anything to nail you, get you off the streets. They’re sworn to protect and defend. You can see that, right?”
Leopold bent down and took another sip of his drink without lifting up the glass, like a dog lapping from its bowl.
“So are you, Sebastian?”
“Am I what?”
“A bad guy they need to get off the streets?”
“I don’t know.”
Decker felt his irritation start to rise. What had happened to his head might have rerouted his brain functions and caused other features to mentally intersect, but it had also robbed him of his ability to deal with bullshit, deceit, and generally squirrelly behavior. He liked straight lines, A to B, 1 to 2. He did not like back-and-forth that got one nowhere except riled up. This had been both a blessing and a curse as a cop.
“You said you killed those people. You told me you did. Told the cops you did. And this morning you said you didn’t. But sitting here at this bar you said you probably did even though you were in jail two towns over and couldn’t have even been at that house. So you can understand my confusion, can’t you? And the cops’? Where does the truth lie? That’s what we need to determine.”
Leopold turned to him and seemed to really see Decker for the first time.
“Why do you care?”
If Decker had dissed this guy at the 7-Eleven seventeen months ago, Decker hadn’t changed so much that Leopold wouldn’t recognize him. He was just fatter and uglier now. So either the guy was innocent or the asshole was lying. And Decker had no clear indication of which answer was correct.
“I took an interest in the case. Never thought they’d arrest somebody after all this time.”
“It was a cold case.”
The phrase caught Decker’s attention. “You know about cold cases?”
“I like the TV show. I watch it at the shelter sometimes.”
“Homeless shelter?”
Leopold nodded. “I’m homeless, so I got to go somewhere. Sometimes I sleep outside. Most times I sleep outside,” he added in a tired voice.
“Why’s that?”
“’Cause it’s safer. There are guys in the shelter who aren’t…nice.”
“Is that what got you interested in the murders here? Because it was a cold case?”
“I think so, yeah.”
“Why that case in particular, though? It’s not the only cold case. Somebody talk to you about it?”
Leopold was nodding. He looked down at his drink, took another sip without using his hands.
“What’d you order?” asked Decker, glancing at the glass, concealing his disgust with how the other man was drinking his liquor.
Leopold smiled. “Kamikaze. I like them.”
“You said you didn’t really drink.”
“I don’t because I never have any money. But I found a five-dollar bill I didn’t know I had. When I do drink I order Kamikazes because I like them.”
“The drink I take it, and not the Japanese suicide pilots?”
Leopold shrugged noncommittally. “I wanted to be a pilot when I was a kid.”
“But not one who crashes the plane on purpose?”
“No, not one like that.”
“So you talked to somebody? They told you about this case? Maybe got you excited. So you decided to use it to get a warm bed and three squares? Is that what somebody told you that you could get with a confession? Food and a bed?”
“Who would tell me that?”
Decker finished his beer and slammed the mug down on the bar with a sharp rap that made Leopold jump, which was what Decker wanted. He wanted this weaselly son of a bitch to wake the hell up.
“I don’t know, Leopold. That’s why I’m asking you. Does this person have a name?”
“I gotta go.”
He started to rise, but Decker put a hand on his shoulder and held him in his seat. “Speaking of three squares, how about some food? You look hungry. And the cops didn’t feed you, did they?”
“How’d you know that?”
“You walked on a murder rap. They’re pissed. They were giving you nothing. So let’s order some food and kick this around.”
“I really do need to go.”
“Go where? You got somebody to meet? Maybe I’ll tag along.”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“I got nowhere to be and you look like an interesting guy. I like interesting people. There aren’t enough of them in this town.”
“This town is full of dicks.”
“Dicks? Full of ’em, you’re right. Anybody in particular dickish to you?”
Leopold rose and this time Decker let him go. The bartender was staring at him. The last thing he needed was for the man to call the cops on him.
“See you around, then,” said Decker.
You can count on it.
Leopold walked out of the bar. Decker waited about fifteen seconds and then followed him out. He would trail Leopold right to wherever he called home.
The only problem was that when Decker got outside Sebastian Leopold was gone.
Chapter
25
DECKER WALKED UP and down the street in both directions for a hundred yards. There was one alleyway next to the bar, but it was a dead end and no doors opened off it other than the bar’s side entrance and a door to an adjacent pharmacy that was both barred and bolted shut. There were no other side streets that Leopold could have reached in fifteen seconds if he’d been flat-out sprinting. Decker ducked back into the bar to see if maybe Leopold had circled back in there through the side door in the alley, but he hadn’t.
There were a few shops that were open, but Leopold was in none of them and no one in any of those places remembered seeing him pass by. There were no people on the street who might have witnessed anything.
There could be only one answer: Someone had picked up Leopold in a car and they had driven off. And that pickup, however absurd as it sounded, might have been prearranged. This of course deepened Decker’s suspicion of the man. And made him doubly upset that he had managed to lose him.
Yet there was nothing more to be done here, so he set off for Mansfield High.
The mourners had gone and had been replaced by two groups of protestors stationed just outside the yellow police tape. One group was pro-gun, the other on the flip side of the debate. They chanted and screamed and occasionally briefly skirmished with each other.
More guns! No guns! Second Amendment! Guns kill! No, people kill! Where does the slaughter end! Go to hell!
Decker bypassed all this and used his new credentials to get past the security perimeter. He met up with Lancaster at the command center in the library.
When he told her what had happened at the arraignment she appeared dumbfounded.
“He just walked?”
Decker nodded.
“Mac is gonna be pissed about that. And I would have expected better from Sheila Lynch. Looks like she got blindsided by the PD.”
“He was just doing his job. Truth and justice don’t necessarily enter the equation. The fact was, Abernathy probably made the right decision. With the confe
ssion recanted there was no evidence to hold him. And Abernathy was already ticked at the prosecution. He was probably looking for a way to drop the hammer. And he did. We’ve both seen that before.”
Decker had participated in so many trials over the years that he felt he was a lawyer in every way except as a holder of the official sheepskin and bar card.
“I’m glad you can look at it in such a coldly efficient way, Amos,” she said, a distinct frostiness in her own tone.
“How else do you want me to look at it?” he said just as bluntly. “Otherwise I’ve got my head in my ass, and where does that get us?”
She looked away and chewed her gum. “Forget it,” she said. “I’m just having a shitty day.”
Decker didn’t tell her about his tailing and then losing Leopold at the bar. He didn’t think it would add anything to the scenario, and he felt like an idiot for having let it happen. And even with an altered brain, who wanted to look like an idiot?
“The FBI seems excited,” he observed. The suits were running around with an even greater degree of energy than they normally exhibited.
“Mass murderer, connected cases, the stuff you found with Debbie Watson. It’s definitely upped the stakes.” She paused and fiddled with some pages in front of her. “And they want to talk to you, Amos. The FBI, I mean.”
He looked mildly surprised. “Why is that?”
“Foremost, because you’re the one discovering all the fresh clues. But it’s also clear that the killer has a personal thing with you. The message at your old home was directed at you. The coded note at Debbie’s house was about you too. So the FBI wants to basically question you to see if they can get any leads from whoever might have a vendetta against you.”
“And when do they want to do this?”
“Now would be a good time, actually.”
Decker looked up to see a six-foot-tall, broad-shouldered man in his forties standing next to him. His suit was impeccable down to the yellow pocket square that neatly matched the tie. He was clean-shaven and fit. He seemed to be the leader of the pack, if the way the other agents were anxiously staring at him was any indication.
Decker had never seen him before. He must have just arrived on the scene, perhaps from Washington. A heavy gun brought in for a heavy case that was gaining widespread attention across the country. It just seemed like the federal way. Leave the chickenshit cases to the local chickens while they grabbed the glory on the ones destined for the national pipeline.
The man put out a hand and smiled, revealing a slight gap between his very white front teeth. “Special Agent Ross Bogart. I’m a little late to the party. I was finishing up some things in D.C. Mr. Decker, let’s find a quiet place to go over some things, if you don’t mind.”
“Would it matter if I did mind?”
“We all have the same goal. I know you were a cop and then a detective. You know the drill, nothing too small. Nothing too obscure to follow up. Shall we?” He pointed to a door at the back of the library that Decker had previously discovered was used as a reading classroom for ESL students.
He rose and followed the man back. Another agent joined them, a woman Decker had seen before. She was blonde, in her thirties, with muscled calves and a jaw that jutted out like a slab of stone. She had a recorder in one hand and a notebook and pen in the other. A federal shield rode on her hip.
“Special Agent Lafferty will be joining us,” said Bogart.
“How about Detective Lancaster joining us, then?” suggested Decker. “She’s been right in the middle of this too.”
“Maybe later,” Bogart said with a smile, as he held open the door and flicked on the light.
They all sat around a small table, Decker on one side, the two special agents on the other. Lafferty turned on her recorder and held her notebook open, looking ready to write down everything that was said in the room.
“Do they still teach shorthand with all the digital stuff they have these days?” asked Decker, looking at her. “It seems that a recording would be one hundred percent accurate, whereas your shorthand might contain interpretations and selective nuances, of which you might not be even consciously aware, instead of what was actually said. Just a thought.”
She did not seem to know how to respond to this, so she glanced at her boss.
Bogart said, “Let’s start at the beginning, if you will, to help me come up to speed.”
“Why don’t you just let me summarize so we don’t waste time?” said Decker. He didn’t wait for an assent from Bogart but plunged ahead. “My family was killed sixteen months ago. The case is unsolved.” He then told the FBI agents about Sebastian Leopold’s confessing to the crime, being jailed, recanting, and then being released because there was no evidence to hold him. “As you know, ballistics has tied that case and this one together.”
“And you’re sure he couldn’t have been the school shooter?” asked Bogart.
“Impossible. He was in jail at the time. Hours before the guy started his rampage.”
“You figured out where he might have been hiding,” said Bogart. “In the cafeteria. The food locker.”
“I tied some witness statements together and made an educated guess.”
“Then you found the notebook in Debbie Watson’s locker with the picture of the shooter.”
“Another educated guess.”
Bogart went on, seeming not to have heard him. “Then you went to Watson’s house and made the discovery of the coded message held in the musical score. And then there was the earlier message, or taunt really, that someone left on the wall of your old house, where your family was murdered. You spotted that too.” Bogart paused for a moment and then said, “Aren’t you going to say, ‘Another educated guess’?”
“I guess I don’t have to now, seeing as you said it for me.”
“You seem to be taking this all rather lightly. Can I ask why?”
“I’m not taking any of this lightly. That’s why I’m working the case even though I’m not on the police force.”
Bogart glanced at a file in front of him. “Cases, really, isn’t it? Separated by sixteen months.”
“Actually sixteen months, two days, twelve hours, and six minutes.”
“And how do you know that so precisely? You didn’t even look at your watch.”
“There’s a clock on the wall behind you.”
Bogart didn’t turn and look but Lafferty did and she wrote something down.
Decker hadn’t needed to look at the wall clock. He had his internal timer that kept that count faithfully. Better than a Rolex and a lot cheaper.
“Still,” said Bogart. “To the minute?”
“To the second in case you’re interested,” replied Decker evenly. “And if you’re wondering where I was when the school shooting was happening, I was at the Second Precinct.”
Bogart’s brow furrowed and he looked bemusedly at Decker. “Why would you offer up an alibi in the first place? Do you think you’re under suspicion somehow?”
“If you really think about it, everybody’s under suspicion somehow.”
Decker watched as Lafferty wrote this down word for word.
“Are you being deliberately antagonistic, Mr. Decker?” asked Bogart politely.