The Last Mile

by David Baldacci

  “Your dad was engaged in a gunfight with whoever did try to kill us.”

  Milligan looked around. “You think there might be some bodies around here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Mars looked at him. “So my dad saved our butts?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Well, I’m glad he was here today, otherwise we wouldn’t be.”

  Mars looked off in the direction of where his dad had fled. “If he would just come and talk to me, maybe we could work together.”

  “He can’t do that, Melvin.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s murdered people. If he did come forward we’d have no other option than to arrest him.”

  Mars slowly nodded. “I guess so.”

  “Don’t try to make your father out to be something he’s not.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t think I have to say it,” replied Decker. “And keep in mind that I’m here to find the truth. And while I know that you’re innocent, I also know that your dad isn’t. Nothing can change that. Nothing you can do can change that. It is what it is. You have a life to lead. Don’t think it’s going to be with your dad. Because that’s not going to happen.”

  Decker headed toward the road, while Mars stood where he was, looking down at the dirt.

  Milligan joined Decker. “I think you were a little harsh back there, Decker. Why come down on him like a ton of bricks?”

  “You think it’s better to give him false hope?”

  “You can use some tact.”

  “I don’t have any. And Melvin’s already lost twenty years of his life. I don’t want him to waste another second over a lost cause.”

  CHAPTER

  55

  BAIL.

  Money put up to secure the freedom of a human from incarceration.

  At least temporarily.

  The practice had been around nearly as long as there were bars with people put behind them.

  It was just a way to make money off another’s misfortune. There were many businesses built on that concept, and they were all thriving, because misfortune was always in abundance.

  Decker sat at the table in his motel room.

  The fire at the Marses’ old house had been put out, but the place was heavily damaged. The doors in the garage had been jammed shut. And the door leading from the garage into the house had been blocked off by wedging a long metal pipe between the door and the opposite wall. The police had found an accelerant in the kitchen, which meant that the fire had been set deliberately.

  They had looked for the car seen racing away from the scene, but there had been no sightings. Decker was convinced that Roy Mars was in that car. He had no idea who had set the fire, or how they had escaped.

  Several bullet holes had been found in the exterior walls of the house near the garage. That could have been evidence of a gun battle between Roy Mars and whoever else had been there.

  More FBI agents had traveled down to Texas to help with the investigation, now that an FBI agent had nearly been killed.

  What Decker was looking at now were incomplete records. In Charles Montgomery’s first arrest in the 1960s, part of the bail record had long since been lost, including who had posted the bail.

  But in the records of the second arrest, Decker found the name of the person posting bail.

  “Nathan Ryan,” he muttered.

  Ryan had posted bail for Montgomery in Cain, Mississippi, on the morning of February 22, 1968. Who was Ryan, and why would he have put up a bond of five hundred dollars—significant money back then—for Montgomery?

  Did they know each other? Were they friends? He obviously couldn’t ask Montgomery that.

  He closed his eyes and his mind cast around for a fresh angle from which to pursue the matter.

  He opened his eyes and also the notebook that lay in front of him.

  January 11, 1968, Tuscaloosa, Alabama. DUI and pot possession.

  February 21, 1968, Cain, Mississippi. Drunk driving and illegal gun possession.

  Both states in the South, and both within a short time period.

  Both involved driving a car under the influence.

  Was that a theme or pattern, or just the shenanigans of a young, disillusioned former soldier from Vietnam acting out his immense frustrations?

  He had mustered out in March 1967. So why the approximately ten-month period where he had not been arrested for anything at all? Wasn’t it more likely that he would do his petty crime spree right after he’d gotten back?

  What had happened to him in the intervening ten months? And after his arrest in Mississippi it seemed that Montgomery had cleaned up his act, at least until he had started committing far more serious crimes later, culminating in his execution.

  He closed his eyes again and let his mind wander.

  I wonder how many police officers it took to corral Montgomery on those two occasions?

  Was it one cop car, two, four, six?

  Only to find the driver drunk?

  Back then drunk drivers were treated far more leniently. With a wink and a nudge and a night to sleep it off, with lots of coffee thrown in. That happened even when others were hurt or killed. And Montgomery apparently had hurt no one.

  Tuscaloosa and Cain.

  Both in 1968.

  There might be one obvious common denominator.

  He opened his laptop again, went online, and did another search.

  January 1968, Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

  On January 10, an NAACP office had been bombed. Four people were killed. Three civil rights activists and a lawyer from New York. All black.

  No one had been arrested for the crime.

  And Charles Montgomery had been there, arrested for DUI and possession of marijuana, and he’d posted bail the next day.

  He did another search.

  February 1968, Cain, Mississippi.

  There were many things that had happened there that month. But one event was predominant and carried the most headlines and, now, the most digital ink.

  On February 21, fifteen members of an African-American church, including the pastor and four young girls performing in the youth choir, had perished in a bombing.

  And the next morning Charles Montgomery had had bail posted for his gun possession and drunk and disorderly charges.

  Decker couldn’t fathom the odds of the man being in the two cities at the same time these bombings were being perpetrated. If it were merely a coincidence, it was the mother of all serendipity.

  He typed the name Nathan Ryan and added “Cain, Mississippi.” Then he put in the word “bombing” and hit the return key.

  He read through the first few results.

  When he hit the fifth result, Decker found something that made him focus totally on the screen. It was an obituary of Nathan Bedford Ryan of Cain, Mississippi, who “left this life” on March 2, 1999.

  He had been involved in local politics for thirty-seven years, rising to assistant mayor. He had actually died at his desk from a heart attack. That meant he had been on the job when he had bailed out Charles Montgomery, if it was indeed the same Nathan Ryan, and Decker felt sure it was.

  He looked at the bail report again. The name listed was Nathan B. Ryan.

  The name on the obituary was Nathan Bedford Ryan, probably after the Confederate general, Nathan Bedford Forrest.

  As Decker continued reading through the obituary he stopped on one sentence:

  “The deceased had been one of the first on the scene of the church bombing that had killed fifteen people.”

  So that’s why Decker’s addition of the word “bombing” had brought this up.

  Thank you, Google.

  The articles he had read on the church bombing did not list any survivors. So Decker wasn’t sure what, if anything, Ryan had done when he’d arrived on the scene. Perhaps he had just been able to help retrieve bodies.

  There was a grainy picture of Ryan. He was obviously white. Thus De
cker wondered why Ryan had been so close to a black church that he had been one of the first on the scene. He imagined that in 1968, Cain would have been heavily segregated.

  So Ryan had posted bail for Montgomery.

  Ryan worked in the mayor’s office.

  Ryan was one of the first on the scene of the bombing.

  And five hundred bucks for an assistant mayor in Cain in 1968 was not small change. And thus Decker wondered if the source of the funds had actually come from someone else.

  These events had happened nearly fifty years ago. If Decker traveled to these places, would anyone still be around to talk to him about it?

  He rose and went in search of Bogart.

  After giving the FBI agent a thumbnail sketch of what he’d found, Bogart said, “What do you propose doing?”

  “I propose going to wherever we need to go to solve this,” replied Decker.

  CHAPTER

  56

  DECKER, BOGART, JAMISON, and Mars took a turboprop to Dallas and then a nonstop flight to Memphis. From there they were going to drive on to Cain in Mississippi. They had left Milligan back in Texas to oversee the search for Davenport and work with the other federal agents on the attack at the Marses’ old house. Oliver had some casework to finish up and was to join them later.

  The drive to Cain took nearly three hours. They had to drive through Tupelo to get there.

  “Birthplace of Elvis,” said Jamison when they passed the sign for Tupelo.

  Bogart looked out the window and said dully, “At least it’s not raining.”

  When they reached Cain, they drove directly to a police station. Bogart had called ahead, and a middle-aged woman from administration who introduced herself as Wanda Pierce was waiting for them. Pierce was dressed in slacks and a dark green blouse and also wore a nervous expression. She led them to a small conference room with a scarred table and banged-up chairs. The walls were cinderblock painted yellow.

  They all sat.

  “We don’t get, um, many visits from the FBI,” began Pierce awkwardly.

  Bogart said, “We appreciate your taking the time to meet with us.”

  Decker said, “Can you tell us more about Nathan Ryan?”

  She nodded and opened a file she had carried in. “I’ve lived in Cain all my life, and know some of the Ryans. But when Agent Bogart contacted the department I looked Ryan up to get some more details. He worked in the local government here for a long time. He died at his desk from a heart attack. This was nearly twenty years ago.”

  “He was the assistant mayor?” said Bogart.

  “That’s right.” She looked at Mars. “Wait a minute, aren’t you—?”

  “He is,” said Decker impatiently. “Who was the mayor at the time?”

  “I thought you were interested in the assistant mayor,” replied Pierce.

  “I was. Now I’m interested in the mayor.”

  “Why?”

  “Because in my experience assistant mayors never do anything without their bosses telling them they can. In this case bail out a drunk named Charles Montgomery.”

  “Oh, well, the mayor at the time went on to become a congressman.”

  “His name?”

  “Thurman Huey.”

  Bogart said immediately, “I know that name.”

  Pierce nodded. “Mr. Huey is the son of Travis Huey, who was a governor of the state and then went on to the United States Senate in the 1950s and had a very distinguished career.”

  Bogart said, “And Thurman Huey isn’t just a ‘congressman.’ He’s the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Arguably the most powerful committee in Congress.”

  “Because it controls the federal government’s purse strings,” added Jamison.

  “Yes,” said Pierce. “And it’s rumored that he might be the next Speaker of the House. That would put him number two in line to the presidency,” she added proudly.

  “And Thurman grew up here in Cain?”

  “Born and raised. The Hueys are political royalty in Mississippi. And they’ve taken good care of us.”

  Decker said, “Meaning you get your full share of pork from Washington.”

  “Meaning we get our fair share,” Pierce replied stiffly.

  “And how old is he now?” asked Decker.

  “I believe he’s in his early seventies.”

  “So in 1968 he would have still been in his twenties?”

  “I suppose so, yes.”

  “And he was already the mayor?”

  “Well, his father was a real powerhouse. When his son decided to run, I think it was a foregone conclusion that Thurman would win election. No one was going to buck the old man. His political machine was too strong. Thurman could have won election solely on the Huey name.”

  “About the church bombing?” began Decker, switching gears. “Agent Bogart told you we were interested in that too.”

  “Yes, the Second Freeman’s Baptist Church,” said Pierce. “But I don’t understand the connection between this Charles Montgomery person having bail posted by Mr. Ryan and the bombing.”

  “Join the club,” said Decker. “What can you tell us about the bombing?”

  “I wasn’t even born when it happened, but it was one of the most horrible events ever to take place here. Fifteen people, including small children, died. The girls were in the youth choir. I think of them singing their hearts out and then that bomb going off. So terrible.”

  “And they never caught who did it?”

  “No, they never did.”

  “Did they ever have any suspects?” asked Bogart.

  “I took a look at the files after Agent Bogart made his inquiry. This Montgomery person was never mentioned, if that’s what you want to know.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “Well, the KKK was around back then. Threats had been made. Other places in the South had been bombed, including that church in Birmingham in 1963. It was right at the height of the civil rights