SUNRISE.
The clouds had gone and with them the rain. So it was a true sunrise, where the colors changed at first subtly and then suddenly transformed the heavens in a way that no other occurrence could. Short of a nuclear bomb and its towering mushroom cloud.
Yet both were transformative in their own right. One side of the world was lit, the other enveloped in blackness. The bomb’s kiss was for real. The sun’s movement was a metaphor for either darkness descending or light arising.
Decker stood there on the pavement and watched this all take place. Despite the coming light his mood remained trapped in the deepest darkness. He had not gone back to sleep after leaving Bogart and Lancaster. There would have been no point.
The 7-Eleven faced him across the width of the asphalt. It was open. It was always open. Through the glass he could see the same woman counting packs of smokes. But a different punk was mopping the floors. Perhaps “Billy” had moved on to another bucket in another town. Or maybe he was recovering from a night out with the ladies.
He didn’t know why he had come here after leaving Lancaster and Bogart. But this place kept drawing him back like metal to a magnet.
He stepped through the door, and when the little bell tinkled it felt like a drill bit boring right through his skull.
“Are you all right?”
Decker refocused and found the woman’s gaze on him. She looked a bit frightened, and when he caught his reflection in the mirrored door of a chiller cabinet containing soda he could understand why. He looked wild and demented and his clothes were dirty and his hair disheveled.
“You…you were in here the other day,” she said. “Looking for someone.”
Decker nodded and looked around. “Where’s Billy? The floor mopper?”
“Today he comes to work in the afternoon. Did you find the man you were looking for?”
Decker shook his head. “But I’ll keep looking.”
“You look like you could use some coffee. It’s fresh. I just made it. In the back there. Only one dollar for a large. It’s a good deal. Maybe some food?”
The doorbell tinkled again and two men in dungarees, work boots, and flannel shirts stomped in. One went to the counter for some cigarettes. The other went to the soda fountain and proceeded to fill a giant cup with Coke.
While the woman attended her new customer, Decker drifted to the back of the store, got his coffee, hooked a packaged pastry from a shelf, and went up to the counter. He waited behind the guy ordering smokes, who also wanted lottery tickets with particular numbers. As Decker waited his gaze flicked absently to the newspaper stand next to the counter. The paper lay flat on it, the upper fold of the front page fully exposed. He nearly dropped his coffee and pastry. He set them down, snatched up the paper, and commenced reading.
He unconsciously started to walk out of the store as he did so.
The woman called after him, “Hey, you need to pay for this.” She indicated the coffee and pastry. “And the paper.”
Decker stuck a hand into his pocket, pulled out a five and dropped it on the counter, and walked out, leaving the coffee and pastry behind. The woman and the two men stared after him.
He stumbled across the street and perched on the edge of a trash can under a flickering streetlight.
The story was long, detailed, and had a picture.
My picture. My story. No, not my story. Someone’s version of a story that holds far less truth than blatant speculation. And lies.
He glanced at the byline, though he needn’t have bothered. He already knew who it was.
Alexandra Jamison.
He caught a bus to the Residence Inn, hustled to his room, sat on the bed, and read the story three more times. It didn’t change, of course. But it beat into his head with a little more force each time, like a knife repeatedly stabbing flesh.
He fell back on the bed and finally slept for a bit. When he woke it was nearly nine in the morning.
He went to the bathroom, splashed water on his face, went down to the buffet, stuffed his plate with food, poured out three cups of black coffee, carried it all to his table, and then sat there staring down at it.
The sun was well up now and light flooded through the front plate glass windows. The illumination seemed to broadcast him in stark relief, like he was an actor performing onstage under the withering heat blast of a spotlight.
He waited, staring at the food. Then his gaze drifted to the newspaper he had set beside his plate.
His phone buzzed. He looked at it, hit the answer button.
Lancaster said, “Shit, Amos, what the hell did you do?”
“Nothing. Apparently that’s the problem.”
“Anybody reading this story will come away thinking you hired Sebastian Leopold to kill your family.”
“That’s what I thought, even though I know better.”
“Why is she after you?”
“Because I wouldn’t talk to her.”
“So you left her no option but to make shit up?”
“I did meet with Leopold.”
“You mean in his cell.”
“Afterward.”
“What?”
“I followed him after he was released. It’s the picture that’s in the article. We were at a bar.”
“Why in the hell did you follow him?”
“Because I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to understand why he had told the cops and me that he had murdered my family when he couldn’t possibly have.”
“And did he tell you?’
“No. He disappeared.”
“You mean you lost him?”
“I mean he got in a car and disappeared.”
“You saw this?”
“No, but it’s the only possibility.”
He heard her let out a long sigh. He had often heard Lancaster let out long sighs, usually after Decker had done something totally off the wall, even if it had eventually led to the truth in a case they were investigating.
“Amos, I really don’t get you sometimes.”
He had heard this so many times he knew that she did not expect an answer and thus he didn’t bother giving one.
“So Leopold is gone?”
“For now,” he said.
“People are going to eat you alive over this article. And the witch even included the fact of where you’re currently living.”
“I have an ace in the hole.”
“What’s that?” she said curiously.
“I don’t give a shit.”
“Amos, I don’t think you understand—”
“I have to go.” He hung up on her and put his phone on the table next to the uneaten mound of food. As he stared down at the pile of eggs, sausages, bacon, and roasted potatoes, he saw not food, but the photo of him and Leopold in the bar. He knew it must seem odd to folks that he would be sitting and drinking a beer with the man who had confessed and then recanted to killing his family. But if he was going to solve those murders, he had to go down any path that presented itself. And Leopold was one such path.
He sighed, pushed his plate away, and looked up. June was standing off to the side holding a pan of muffins. She wasn’t looking at Decker. She was looking toward the doorway.
Decker followed her gaze. And saw her.
Alex Jamison stood at the door to the breakfast area. She had on black slacks and a frayed black overcoat out of which peeked a turquoise turtleneck. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she had on heels that kicked her height up several inches.
She walked over to his table and looked down at the paper next to his plate.
“I guess you’ve read it,” she said quietly.
Decker said nothing. He picked up his fork, pulled his plate toward him, and started to eat.
She stood awkwardly next to his table. When he didn’t say anything she said, “I gave you an opportunity to talk to me.”
Decker kept eating.
She sat down across from him. “It’s not like I wanted to do this.??
?
He put his fork down, used a paper napkin to wipe his mouth, and looked at her. “I find that people almost always do exactly what they want to do.”
She tapped the paper. “You still have a chance to make it right.”
“People who make things right do so because they’ve done something wrong. I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“You were meeting with a man who allegedly killed your family.”
“Allegedly. And now all charges are dropped, which you knew before you wrote this story. And which I knew before I met him in the bar.”
“Why did you meet with him?”
“I had questions for him.”
“What sorts?” She took out her recorder, pad, and pen, but Decker held up his hand.
“Don’t bother.”
She sat back. “Don’t you want your story to get out?”
Decker shoved the plate of food away, leaned across the table, and said, “I don’t have a story to tell.” He sat back, pulled the plate toward him again, and resumed eating.
“Okay, fair enough. But do you think Leopold had a hand in the murders? Even if he didn’t commit them personally? And then there’s the fact that the same gun was used at the high school.”
Decker eyed her grimly. “Brimmer could get fired for that one. It’s not public knowledge. And you know it’s not, or else you would have already written about it. I could call her out on that. You want to see your contact lose her career? Or is that just considered fair game for the story?”
“You’re a very unusual man.”
“I have no context with which to frame a reply to that observation.”
“Sort of proves my point, doesn’t it?”
Now Decker sat back and looked at her. “Tell me about yourself,” he said abruptly.
“What, why?” she said warily.
“I can find out easily enough. Everyone’s life is online. So, to borrow your phrase, I’m giving you the opportunity to tell your story.”
“Is this where I’m supposed to say, ‘Touché’?”
“You have something to hide?”
“Do you?”
“No. But you know all about me.” He tapped the paper next to his plate. “Proof is right there. So tell me about yourself.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Hometown, family, education, career, life goals.”
“Wow, you don’t ask for much.”
Decker waited. He had no problem with silence, with waiting. His patience, like his mind, had no bounds.
She folded her arms across her chest and said, “I’m from Indiana, Bloomington. I went to Purdue, graduated with a degree in mass comm. Started out at some small papers in the Midwest basically fetching coffee, writing the crap stories no one else wanted to write, and pulling the shifts no one wanted to pull. I tried some online journalism and blogging but hated it.”
“Why?”
“I like to talk to people, face-to-face, not through a machine. That’s not real journalism. It’s data management fed to you by schmucks you don’t even know. It’s reporting for lazy people who live in their PJs. Not what I wanted. I want a Pulitzer. In fact, I want a shelf of them.”
“Then you came here. Why? Burlington is not a rip-roaring metropolis.”
“It’s bigger than any other town I was in before. It’s got crime, interesting politics. Cost of living is low, which is important, because when you add up my hours worked I don’t even make minimum wage. And they let me work my own beat and follow up my own stories.”
“Family?”
“Large. All back in Bloomington.”
“And the other reason you came here?”
“There is no other reason.”
He pointed to a finger on her left hand. “There were two rings there. The marks are slight but distinct. Engagement and wedding rings. No longer there.”
“So I’m divorced. Big whoop. So are half the people in this country.”
“Fresh start away from your ex?”
She rubbed at the spot on her hand. “Something like that. Okay, are we done with me?”
“Do you want to be done?”
“You understand that you’re not actually playing me, right? I’m just feeling generous, sort of going along for the ride, seeing where we end up.”
“You follow up your own stories, you say?”
“I do.”
“Do you intend to try to trace a connection between the killings of my family and the shootings at Mansfield?”
“Of course.”
“What do your friends call you?”
“You’re assuming I have friends?”
“What does Brimmer call you?”
“Alex.”
“Okay, Alexandra, let me be as clear about this as I possibly can be.”
She did an eye roll and looked at him disdainfully. “Do I sense a patronizing lecture coming?”
“Would you like a scoop?”
Her expression changed. She picked up her recorder. “Is this on the record?”
“So long as your source is anonymous.”
“You have my word.”
“Do you normally give it that quickly?”
“You have my word,” she said tightly.
“An FBI agent was killed last night and her body was left hanging just above our heads on the catwalk up there. She was a skilled, armed federal agent who really can take care of herself. Now she’s a murder victim who was dispatched as easily as someone crushing a bug underfoot.” He slid the plate out of the way again, reached over, and clicked off her recorder.
She made no move to stop him.
“I’ve seen a lot in my twenty years on the force, but I have never seen—” He stopped, grappling for the right words. “I have never seen menace like this. But it’s not just that. It’s—” Again he stopped, tapping his fingers on the table and closing his eyes. When he opened them he said, “Menace coupled with brains and cunning. It’s a very dangerous combination, Alexandra. And I asked about your family only because I wanted to know if you would have anyone to mourn you when you’re murdered too. Because please make no mistake, he will kill you as easily as exhaling smoke from a cigarette.”
“Look, if you’re trying to—”
Decker didn’t let her finish. “He could be watching us right now for all I know, and sizing up where and how exactly he plans to take your life. It seems that he likes to screw with me that way. Kill people I’m close to or associated with. You wrote a big story on me. That ties you and me together in just the way this guy seems to love. And I have no doubt he plans to keep killing until he gets down to his last planned victim.”