The Last Mile

by David Baldacci

  “He was the reason I was in jail,” countered Mars. “He murdered my parents. So excuse me for not feeling grateful.”

  She shook her head and mumbled something like, “You people.”

  Decker placed a restraining hand on Mars’s shoulder, since it looked like the man was about to jump to his feet. “When do you get the insurance money?” he asked.

  “Why do you care?”

  “I told you I just had a few questions, Mrs. Davenport. The sooner you answer them the sooner we’re out of here. The reverse is also true.”

  She picked up her tea, took a sip, ate a cracker, and then said, “I have to file the claim. It might take a few days, or maybe a week. It’s not like they won’t have proof he’s dead.”

  “Right.” Decker looked at Jamison and nodded.

  Jamison pointed to Montgomery’s wrist. “That’s a beautiful watch. Cartier, isn’t it?”

  Montgomery immediately covered it with her other hand. “No, it’s not.”

  “It says Cartier on the watch face,” pointed out Jamison.

  She looked down at her hand. “I got it for like ten bucks.”

  “Where?”

  “I forgot.”

  “It’s against the law to traffic in knockoffs,” said Decker.

  “So find the person who sold it to me and arrest him.”

  Decker rose, went into the kitchen, pulled the curtain aside, lifted up the boxes stacked there, and brought them back into the room and set them on the floor.

  Montgomery jumped to her feet. “What the hell are you doing? You can’t do that. Those are mine.”

  “Chanel. Neiman Marcus. Saks. Bergdorf Goodman. Jimmy Choo. They all make very nice stuff. And very expensive.”

  Jamison pointed to a bag hanging on the coat tree by the front door. “And that’s an Hermès bag. I wish I could afford one.”

  Montgomery turned pale. “They’re all fakes. I can’t afford none of that.”

  Decker said, “I wasn’t aware that fraudsters shipped their goods in boxes with the names of the brands on the side. They usually just sell them on the street.”

  Montgomery said nothing to this. She took another sip of tea and ate another cracker.

  “Can I look inside the boxes?” asked Decker.

  “No!”

  “Why not?”

  “You got a search warrant?”

  “Actually, I don’t need one.”

  She looked wide-eyed at him. “Why not?”

  “I used to be a police officer but I turned in my badge.”

  “But you’re with the FBI!”

  “As a civilian, not an agent. Never badged or sworn in.”

  Despite Montgomery’s protests, Decker opened the boxes and snapped photos of the contents with his phone camera. Then he leaned down so his face was only a few inches away from Montgomery’s. “We can easily trace all of these purchases. And since you already told us you haven’t received the insurance money yet, that can’t be the source of the funds. So why don’t you tell us the truth, Mrs. Montgomery? How did you come by the money?”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”

  “Do you really want to play it that way?”

  “Get out of my house.”

  Mars said, “Somebody paid you off to have your husband lie and say he killed my parents. Who was it?”

  She looked at him and said fiercely, “Who the hell do you think you are, talking to me like that? You are nothing but—”

  “But what?” interrupted Mars. “A colored boy who should keep his mouth shut ’round good white folks like you?”

  “Get out of my house!” she screamed.

  “I lost twenty years of my life!” Mars screamed right back.

  Montgomery looked at Decker. “Get out of my house before I call the cops.”

  Decker said, “You can call the cops. And then we’ll tell them what we know. And we’ll find out about the money you’ve come by and why. And then you’re going to be in a world of trouble. In fact, you’re going to go to prison.”

  She looked stunned by this. “I ain’t done nothing wrong.”

  “Try obstruction of justice. Conspiracy. Aiding and abetting a murderer.”

  “I did not!”

  “By helping those who really did kill the Marses, you did. And the cumulative penalties for all those crimes means you won’t have to worry about following your son to college. Your housing will be provided by the government.” He paused momentarily. “For the rest of your life.”

  Regina Montgomery looked like she might faint again. She took several deep breaths and said, “Get outta my house.”

  Decker said, “Have it your way. We’ll be back tomorrow. With the police.” He pulled out his phone. “Say cheese.” He took a photo of the Cartier watch.

  “Get out!” she screamed. She started to throw the cup of tea at Decker, but Jamison caught her by the arm and the cup fell out of her hand and hit the floor, shattering. As they walked out, Decker took a photo of the Hermès bag.

  Outside Jamison looked at Decker.

  “She’s guilty as hell.”

  “Yes, she is. By the way, that was really good work in there, Alex,” said Decker.

  She smiled. “I have my moments, especially when it has to do with high fashion.”

  Mars added, “You were right, Decker, somebody did pay her off.”

  “Now we just have to find out who.”

  CHAPTER

  24

  DECKER WAS DREAMING in color. It was a combination of rooms, numbers, and days of the week, all outlined in different brilliant hues. This was a relatively new phenomenon for him. But as one of the doctors at the Cognitive Institute had told him, the brain was ever-evolving and Decker would find new experiences awaiting him from time to time.

  But the noise kept interrupting. He had nearly gotten clear of the room and was moving on to something new, dark, and mysterious and a puzzle to figure out. But the noise came again, tickling around his ears, like a gnat buzzing him. It was disrupting all that he was trying to do.

  Finally, like a swimmer clearing the depths and reaching the surface, Decker retreated from the colors and began breathing air again. He opened his eyes and saw another color.

  A bright white light was emanating from his phone, which rested on the nightstand. And the phone was buzzing.

  He heaved up, snagged the phone, saw that it was three in the morning and also that the call was from Bogart.

  “Hello?”

  “Decker, can you meet me in the lobby in about ten minutes?”

  “What’s up?”

  “It’s Regina Montgomery.”

  “What about her?”

  “She’s dead.”

  * * *

  Decker was in the lobby in five minutes and watched as first Davenport and then Jamison came down. A moment later Bogart strode into the lobby.

  “I’ve got the car outside.”

  “Where’s Melvin?” asked Decker.

  “I thought it best not to involve him in this.”

  “You said she’s dead. How?” asked Decker.

  “Let’s get in the car.”

  “What about her son, Tommy? Is he okay?”

  “Yes. He wasn’t home. He was staying with friends. And his football coach has taken him in for now.”

  He led them outside and they all climbed into the SUV. Bogart drove, with Decker next to him. The women were in the backseat.

  As soon as they pulled out of the hotel and onto the road Decker said, “How did she die?”

  “They’re not sure.”

  “How can they not be sure?”

  “Because the entire duplex blew up. They’re still searching the rubble.”

  “Oh my God,” said Davenport.

  “But they found Regina?” said Decker.

  “Yes. It was a positive ID. I mean, she was somewhat disfigured, from what they said, but it’s not like the Marses’ bodies. They made a positive ID on the spot.”r />
  “Okay, an explosion. Gas?”

  “The property used a buried propane tank, so, yes, it could be that.”

  “Or it could be something else?”

  Bogart shot him a glance. “How so?”

  Decker glanced back at Jamison and then turned to look at Bogart. “We visited Regina earlier tonight.”

  “What?” exclaimed Bogart. “You and who else?”

  “Jamison, Melvin, and me. It was my idea.”

  “Why?”

  “I had a theory.”

  “And you didn’t want to inform me?”

  “You said you’d had enough for the day, and I didn’t want to wait.”

  Bogart looked both angry and disappointed.

  Jamison quickly said, “We were going to report everything we found out to you in the morning, Agent Bogart.”

  “Well, thanks for that,” he said sarcastically.

  “But,” said Decker, “we found out a lot.”

  “Tell me.”

  Decker recounted everything that had happened at Regina Montgomery’s house.

  Bogart took it all in and said, “Decker, if you had told me this last night I would have put security around her house. In fact, I would have brought her in for questioning on the spot and she’d be alive today to tell us the truth.”

  Decker sat back and gazed out the side window. “Yeah, I can see that now.”

  “Just because your brain works better than all of ours doesn’t mean you’re infallible.”

  Decker sighed. “Okay, I’m sorry. I screwed up.”

  “You did more than that. Your actions may well have led to Regina Montgomery being murdered.”

  Decker said nothing.

  Bogart added, “When I put this team together I thought it obvious that I envisioned us acting as a team. I don’t need you going maverick on me, Decker. I’m ultimately accountable for all of it. Including what happened to Montgomery.”

  “I…I don’t know what to say,” said Decker uncomfortably.

  Bogart gazed sternly at him. “We’ll leave it for later. But this is not over. Understood?”

  Decker nodded while Jamison and Davenport looked on anxiously.

  Bogart said stiffly, “Now tell me what you think happened.”

  Decker composed himself and said, “Someone was either watching us last night or Regina called someone right after we left and told them what happened. And that person came and killed her. So you’re right, our going there was the catalyst for her murder.” He paused. “But I think she was a dead woman regardless.”

  Bogart steered the vehicle onto a highway entrance ramp and punched the gas. “How so?” he asked.

  “She was a loose end. They had to let her live long enough so that her husband was executed and couldn’t recant his confession. They had already given her some of the promised payout, which is how she bought all that stuff. But why let her live after her husband is dead? She probably knew too much. I doubt she knows exactly who is behind this, but she’s made contact with someone. And if she told us about that we could conceivably follow it back to the source. So, no more Regina.”

  Bogart nodded. “That makes sense.”

  “But now that they’ve eliminated her, we’ve lost that chance,” said Decker. He slammed the palm of his hand against the dash, making all of them jump. “I shouldn’t have left her like that. I should have known what would happen.” He looked at Bogart. “I blew it.”

  “Well, actually, you were the only one who suspected her in the first place,” the FBI agent replied. “But let’s get out to her place and see what we can find.”

  Decker nodded absently but his expression was not hopeful.

  I’m an idiot. The woman is dead because I’m an idiot.

  * * *

  What the initial explosion had not destroyed, the resulting fire had pretty much taken care of. It was fortunate that no one had been living in the other part of the duplex. There was substantial damage to a number of other nearby units, but luckily there were no fatalities other than Regina Montgomery.

  Decker surveyed the area. The fire was out. Montgomery’s home had been catastrophically damaged. It was truly a miracle that there was anything left of her to identify. Apparently the blast had blown her clear of the house before the fire consumed the duplex. The firemen had reported to the police that they had found her body in the front yard.

  Bogart had parked the SUV well back of the area and they had walked the rest of the way. A light, misty rain had begun to fall, which, added to the smoke from the still smoldering fire, made it seem like they were taking a stroll through fog.

  They gathered at the rear of an ambulance and one of the local police lifted the sheet off the corpse in back.

  It clearly was Regina Montgomery. Her face was burned but otherwise intact. It might have been the concussive force of the blast that had killed her. One of her legs was missing, as well as the lower part of her right arm.

  “She still has her Cartier watch on,” observed Jamison.

  Decker’s gaze ran over the body, and then he looked over at the ruins of the duplex. Up and down the short street, folks were standing outside of their homes, wondering what the hell was going on. Some were dressed in tattered robes, others simply in their underwear.

  Since the duplexes here each had their own propane tank, the authorities had seen no need to evacuate the area, as they probably would have had it been a natural gas explosion running off a main pipe.

  Bogart took a few minutes to explain to the local police their theory on what might have happened.

  One of them said, “Well, we’ll get the arson boys in here. They’ll be able to tell if someone deliberately started this thing. Always leaves signs behind.”

  He left to report in, leaving the four of them there to look dismally around.

  “Even if they can trace the point of origin of the blast, it might not provide any clues to who did it,” said Davenport.

  Bogart and Jamison nodded at this obvious point; however, Decker was staring over at where the duplex had once stood, his attention evidently elsewhere.