The Last Mile

by David Baldacci

  book. It might even be a bestseller,” she added enticingly.

  Decker finished his beer. “I have no interest in that whatsoever.”

  She looked at him resignedly. “Which I knew would be the case about five minutes after I met you.”

  “So where does that leave you?”

  “I already told you that I’m here until the end. I’ll give you my all to solve this case.”

  “Why?”

  She started to say something but then hesitated, tearing off a bit of the bottle’s label. “I could give you a standard professional answer that would be mostly gobbledygook. Or I could go with the truth.”

  “I’ll take the latter.”

  She sat forward and stared directly at him for the first time. “It was the execution. The way that man died. Maybe he deserved it. I’m not going to get into a debate on the pros and cons of capital punishment. But Melvin Mars is innocent and was very nearly executed. How many other innocent men have been put to death?”

  “As I said before, one is too many,” replied Decker. “So why did you show up here tonight?”

  “Like I said, we got off on the wrong foot. Don’t get me wrong, it was all my fault. I just wanted to square things before we moved forward to tackle this case to the end.”

  “Okay, consider us square.”

  She smiled weakly. “Just like that?”

  “Just like that. But tomorrow is a new day.”

  Davenport nodded as she got his meaning. “I guess we all have to prove ourselves. Every day.”

  “That’s the way I’ve always seen it.” He held up his bottle. “Thanks for the light beer.”

  She rose. “Thanks for listening.” She turned to leave but then looked back at him. “Ross told me about your family. I’m so very sorry, Amos. So very sorry.”

  He stared back at her but said nothing.

  “How hard is it not to ever forget?” she said, her expression matching the sad tone of her words.

  “Harder than you might think.”

  She left.

  Decker put the bottle down and went over to the window where outside the rain was now bucketing down.

  He let the frames of his perfect memory whir back to their encounter with Regina Montgomery.

  Cartier watch.

  Three boxes from Neiman Marcus.

  Two boxes from Chanel.

  Two from Saks.

  One from Bergdorf Goodman.

  One from Jimmy Choo.

  Then there was the Hermès purse.

  He pulled out his computer, went online to each of those retailers, found the items he had seen, and priced them out.

  He totaled them in his head.

  Fifty-four thousand dollars and change.

  The Hermès bag had cost over nineteen thousand alone. The watch was another fourteen thousand. The Jimmy Choos another grand.

  Decker shook his head.

  To carry stuff, tell time, and encase your feet, only thirty-four thousand bucks.

  But that told him that whoever was behind this had deep pockets. Regina Montgomery had evidently expected a lot more money to be coming through.

  The big payoff for a life of misery with Charles Montgomery.

  Only she never really got to enjoy it, did she? Once Charles was dead, Regina was expendable. It was cruel. It was heartless.

  Decker would have expected nothing less from people who had let an innocent man rot in prison for twenty years.

  He got undressed and climbed into bed.

  They had worked this case for a while now and he was desperately fearful that the minimal progress they had made would be all there ever was.

  CHAPTER

  28

  THE GYM WAS small, with only one treadmill, a rack of dusty dumbbells, an ancient stationary bike, and a solitary medicine ball.

  Decker walked on the treadmill, slightly increasing the pace every few minutes. As he walked he watched the TV bolted to the wall.

  The news was on, and the top story was the execution of Charles Montgomery, followed by the death of his wife when her home had exploded.

  “What are the odds?” asked one of the newscasters. “Both dying on the same day like that.”

  They didn’t die on the same day, Decker thought. Regina had actually died after midnight, meaning she had perished on the following day.

  But still, he couldn’t dispute the man’s overarching point. What were the odds?

  Well, Decker knew they were actually really good if someone had murdered Regina as soon as her husband was safely dead.

  The door to the gym opened and in walked Melvin Mars dressed in workout clothes. He nodded at Decker and started doing some stretching.

  Then he began his workout, and Decker forgot all about what he was doing and simply watched. He couldn’t believe the intensity, even the insanity of the routine. Once, he nearly fell off the treadmill because he was so enthralled by what the nearly forty-two-year-old Mars was capable of doing.

  Finally, Decker just turned off the treadmill and watched.

  When Mars was finally done, he picked up a fresh towel off a table and wiped down.

  “How often do you do that?” asked Decker.

  “Every day. For the last twenty years.”

  “Impressive. I felt like I was having a heart attack just watching you.”

  Mars shrugged. “Kept me going. Kept me sane. You know?”

  Decker nodded. “I can understand that.”

  Mars sat on a stool and looked up at Decker, his expression wary. “What do you think is going on, really?”

  “Someone hated you. And then someone felt sorry for you.”

  Mars looked surprised. “What?”

  “They framed you, put you in prison, and nearly let you be executed. Then they paid off the Montgomerys and a false confession got you out of prison.”

  “You think it’s the same folks?”

  “It’s been twenty years, but it’s certainly possible.”

  “Why the change of heart? They kill my parents, see me go to prison, and then get me out? Doesn’t make a lick of sense.”

  “I agree. They pinned the crime on you because you were the most likely suspect.”

  “So why kill my parents?”

  “Because of something they knew, saw, heard, did.”

  “They were just ordinary folks in a little town in West Texas, Decker.”

  “They were that when you knew them. But they might have had a whole other life before you came along, Melvin. And maybe they came to West Texas to get away from it.”

  Mars nodded. “I guess that makes more sense than anything else. You think they were involved in something bad?”

  “The probabilities lie there. People involved in something good do not often get murdered.”

  “It’s hard to see my parents in that light.”

  “The scar on your father’s face?”

  “Yeah, I know. Been thinking about that. He got so mad. Never seen my old man like that before.”

  “Maybe he was like that a lot when he was younger.”

  “You think somebody cut him? Bad dudes that later found ’em and killed ’em?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “What, then?”

  “It could have come from a bad plastic surgery.”

  Mars nearly fell off his stool. “Whoa, what?”

  “If your dad was on the run from people, he might very well have wanted to change his appearance. Plastic surgery is a way to do that. But he might have not had the money or maybe the opportunity to go to a legitimate surgeon. So he opts for someone in the back-alley trade. Hence the scar.”

  “But what about my mom? She didn’t have any scars.”

  “He might have met her after he was on the run. She might not have been involved in the bad world he was in.”

  “Yeah, okay. I can’t see my mom being a criminal. She was really a sweet lady. Never raised her voice to me. Always calm.”

  “The question is, how
do we trace them?”

  Mars rubbed some more sweat off his face. “Do we have to?”

  Decker looked at him with a puzzled expression. “Have to what?”

  “Push this any further. I mean, my parents are dead. I’m outta prison.”

  “So you don’t want to find out the truth?”

  “I don’t want to find out if…”

  “If your dad was actually a bad guy?”

  “Would you want to find that out about your old man?” said Mars defensively.

  “They put you away for twenty years, Melvin. They killed your parents. You don’t want them to be held accountable for that? You don’t want to see your parents’ killers brought to justice?”

  “I know, I know,” said Mars miserably. “Look, I don’t want nobody getting away with any of that. It’s just that—”

  “What?” said Decker sternly. “That you have something else going on in your life that takes priority over this?”

  “Why do you care so much?” barked Mars. “It’s not your damn family.”

  “But it was my damn family,” rejoined Decker. “Somebody killed them. I could have walked away from it and gone on with my life. But I can tell you this, Melvin. You can try to walk away, but the life you’ll have if you do? It’s not worth living.”

  Decker grabbed his towel, stepped off the treadmill, and started to leave the gym. He stopped at the door and turned back to Mars.

  “For what it’s worth, you should have won the Heisman that year. The guy who got it lasted only a few years in the pros and never really did much. You would’ve been Offensive Rookie of the Year too. Hands down. Just because you never got the chance doesn’t mean you weren’t a superstar. Because you were.”

  He closed the door behind him.

  Mars remained sitting on the stool staring at the floor.

  CHAPTER

  29

  DECKER SAID INTO his phone, “Agent Bogart?”

  “Decker. How’s it going down there? I assume you’re still in Alabama.”

  “Yes. It’s going, slowly. We might have got a lead on the guy who killed Regina Montgomery. He might have been seen. The cops down here are following up.”

  “I’m glad for you.”

  “I appreciate you paying for some more nights at the hotel. And the rental car too.”

  “You’re welcome. It was not my intent to leave you high and dry.”

  “Are you back at Quantico?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do they have you doing?”

  “Right now, not much.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I can’t really get into that.”

  “Does it have to do with most of your team opting to continue the investigation?”

  “Would it matter to you if it did?”

  “I don’t want this to hurt your career.”

  “I think that ship has sailed.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Way it goes sometimes. Maybe my big idea to have this team of folks from different walks of life was stupid anyway.”

  “I don’t think it was stupid,” said Decker bluntly.

  “Face it, Decker, you don’t need anyone working with you. You can figure pretty much anything out by yourself.”

  “I needed help in Burlington. To find my family’s killers.”

  “You would have gotten there without us.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Is everything else going okay?”

  “What, you mean my marriage? I got served with divorce papers this morning, as a matter of fact. Funny, after all this, I thought we might make it work.”

  “So it was a surprise?”

  “Yes, it was a surprise. And my soon-to-be ex apparently has a new boyfriend who’s a struggling artist, so she’s coming after me for substantial alimony.”

  “You need a good lawyer.”

  “I have a good lawyer. Problem is, so does she. Look, what can I do for you? I know you better than to think you called to chitchat.”

  “I know this might sound crazy, but can you run something down for me?”

  He heard Bogart sigh, but he also heard the clicking of a pen. “Like what?”

  “Like whether Roy and Lucinda Mars were in the Witness Protection Program?”

  “What?” Bogart exclaimed.

  “They have no past that anyone can find. I think they might have been relocated.”

  “But why Witness Protection?”

  “It would be a great motive for someone other than their son to kill them.”

  “And Charles Montgomery?”

  “His wife was bribed to make him confess. The stuff I saw in her little duplex totaled over fifty grand. A down payment only. But they killed her so they wouldn’t have to pay anything else. And also we were putting pressure on her. She might’ve cracked and let something slip. She had to die.”

  Bogart was silent for a few moments. “You know that the U.S. Marshals have never lost a protectee before.”

  “And maybe they didn’t want anyone to know they’d lost the Marses.”

  “That’s a big accusation.”