Memory Man

by David Baldacci

  Her brows knitted in confusion. “Simon? Why?”

  “He worked at McDonald Army Base before he retired?”

  “That’s right. So what? He’s been dead for years.”

  “But he lived here with you and your husband. And Debbie.”

  “Yeah, again, so what?” Unlike her husband, Beth didn’t find it necessary to lean against the doorjamb to steady herself. She obviously handled the booze better than her husband. Perhaps she had more practice, Decker thought.

  “Did he ever talk to you about his work there?” he asked.

  “He was at the age where he only talked about the past. World War II. The Korean War. Working for the government. Blah-blah-blah. All day and all night. Sickening after a while. Who the hell wants to live in the past?”

  She pushed past Decker and shouted down the hall. “Who the hell wants to live in the past, George? Not me! I’m all about the future now! My future! The past can kiss my ass. You can kiss my ass, you ball-less cripple!”

  Decker used his massive arm to gently guide her back into the room.

  “Did he ever mention to you any work done at Mansfield?” he asked.

  The woman’s eyes seemed to wobble in their sockets. “At Mansfield? He didn’t work at Mansfield. He was at the Army base.”

  “Right. But the base and the school are right next to each other.”

  She snagged a pack of cigarettes off the nightstand and lit up. She exhaled smoke and glared at Decker. “I don’t see what that has to do with a damn thing.”

  “The school was built right at the start of the Cold War, shortly after World War II ended. People all over the country were putting bomb shelters in their backyards. Well, folks were doing that in buildings too, including schools. Bombproof shelters under them.”

  A hint of remembrance came into the woman’s eyes.

  “Wait a minute. A long time ago Simon did say something about…about a whatchamajigger at Mansfield. He didn’t build it originally. He just added to it. I’d forgotten all about it.”

  “What whatchamajigger are we exactly talking about here?” asked Lancaster pointedly.

  Beth pointed at Decker. “Like what he said. A place, a safe place under the school in case the Russians attacked us.”

  “Soviets,” corrected Decker. “But close enough. Did he tell you anything about it? Like where it was located?”

  “No, nothing like that. It was never used, apparently. And then I guess it got sealed up or something because they didn’t want anyone sneaking down there. You know, high schoolers are full of hormones. You could only imagine what would go on down there.” She paused and said in a low voice, “Orgies.” Then she giggled and hiccuped. “If I’d known about it when I went to school there, I’d been the first one doing it.”

  Then she screamed down the hall, “Orgies, you prick. That’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow! Orgies with other men! Lots of ’em!”

  Decker once more guided her back into the bedroom.

  “So a shelter is down there. Fortunate for us that you remembered that,” noted Lancaster with a sideways glance at Decker.

  Beth gave a lopsided smile. “Actually, my memory sucks. But I remember Simon was talking to me about it while I was making dinner one night. Funny, I never listened to the old fart, and, like I said, my memory is so bad. I never remember birthdays, shit like that. But I was making German chocolate cake when he was telling me about it. Only time I ever tried it. And I guess that’s what triggered it.”

  “What triggered what?” asked a confused Lancaster.

  “German chocolate cake. See, Germans and the Russians. They were in Germany, right? I mean the Russians.”

  “That’s right,” said Decker. “They were. At least half of it.”

  She smiled. “Weird how the brain works.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Decker. “Did Simon have any friends in town who might still be around and who might know about this underground place?”

  “Not that he ever mentioned. I mean, he was over ninety when he died. Now he’d be close to a hundred. They’re all dead, right?” She added quietly, “Like my Debbie.”

  There was an awkward silence until Decker said, “If you remember anything else, please give Detective Lancaster here a call. It’s important. We want to find who did this. Who did this to…Debbie.”

  “You still think she was…was in cahoots with whoever did this?”

  “No, I really don’t.”

  The woman’s lips trembled. “Debbie was a good kid.”

  “I’m sure she was, which makes it even more important that we find out who did this.”

  Lancaster glanced at the partially packed suitcase. “Look, it’s none of my business, but do you think you should be making that sort of drastic change right after losing your daughter? It might be better for you and your husband to get through this together and then you can make some decisions. Knee-jerk tends to come back to bite you in the butt.”

  Beth looked at her cross-eyed. “I wanted to leave two years ago, but I stayed for Debbie’s sake. Well, Debbie’s not here anymore. So I’m not wasting another second of my life in this fucking place. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish packing so I can get the hell out of here.”

  She slammed the bedroom door in their faces.

  “So much for ‘for better or worse,’” said Lancaster.

  “For some people, the longer the marriage, the worse it gets,” said Decker. “But at least we know my theory might work out. Simon did know about something at the school. An underground shelter.”

  “So now what do we do?” asked Lancaster.

  “Let’s go outside. You can smoke a cigarette and I can make some phone calls.”

  “You know I can quit anytime I want.”

  He stared at her. “No you can’t, Mary. You’re addicted to nicotine.”

  “I was making a joke. Damn, do you have to take everything so literally?”

  But Decker was already on his cell.

  It took three phone calls and being passed from one person to the next before Decker found someone who sort of knew what he was talking about. He patiently explained who he was and what he wanted.

  “Mansfield,” said the woman on the other end of the line. “Where the mass shooting took place?”

  “That’s right,” said Decker. “We’re trying to figure out how the killer got in and out. Since it was so close to McDonald Army Base, we thought there might be something there. Turns out we learned there is an underground passage or facility of some kind. We’d like confirmation of that and also particulars on how to get in there so we don’t have to tear the whole school down looking for it.”

  “I’m going to need something in writing on the appropriate letterhead to get this request verified and initiated.”

  “Okay, but once verified and initiated, how long will it take? We’re looking for a murderer. Someone who killed a bunch of kids. The longer it goes, the farther away he gets.”

  “I wish I could tell you it would be fast. But this is the United States Army. The only place we move fast is on the battlefield. The stuff behind the lines, not so much.”

  Decker got the information on where to send the request and clicked off.

  He looked over at Lancaster, who had been leaning against the hood of her car all this time and had whittled down not one but three cigarettes while Decker had been playing Whac-A-Mole with the Army.

  Lancaster dropped her last smoke and ground it into the asphalt with the heel of her shoe. “And?”

  “And we might all be dead of old age before they get back to us.”

  “So what now?”

  “So it looks like we’ll have to find it ourselves.”

  Chapter

  28

  DECKER AND LANCASTER paced the cafeteria, working from opposite ends of the space.

  “So it makes sense an entrance would be in here,” said Lancaster. “Big room, get lots of students assembled in here and then down into the shelt

er in the event of an emergency.”

  Decker nodded but said nothing.

  She continued, “If it’s here it must be hidden behind something. Maybe the appliances?”

  Decker shook his head. “It couldn’t be something that involved. With an emergency you have to have fast access.”

  “But it was probably boarded up,” Lancaster pointed out. “Built over.”

  “But the shooter still couldn’t be tearing into walls, floors, or ceilings, because that would also make noise and leave evidence behind of how he went from here to the back hall.”

  “Well, he did leave evidence he was in here. The spoiled food, remember?”

  “He did that on purpose. He could have easily turned the temp back down once he came out of it. Hell, he didn’t have to stay in the freezer all night anyway. He wanted us to know he was here. But he didn’t want us to find how he got from the front to the back. At least not right away. That’s the reason he left the trace in the ceiling and the tile dust on the floor. Classic misdirection. He’s screwing with us. And he’s costing us time. All good for him and bad for us.”

  Lancaster kept glancing around. “So we’re looking for an entrance in here that’s been sealed up. We just don’t know how or where.”

  “The term ‘sealed’ can mean a lot of different things. But the point is, our guy befriended Debbie for one reason and one reason only—to learn about this passage.”

  “Come on, Decker. How would he even know about it to ask her?”

  “I found out about it based on observations and hunches and a little research. He could have done the same. This is a relatively small town. He could have found out Simon Watson worked at the base any number of ways. He could have learned he once lived with the Watsons. He could have approached Debbie to see if she knew anything about it. And of course she did.”

  “That takes a lot of planning and forethought.”

  “And that apparently is a strong suit for our guy.”

  Decker walked back and forth in front of a section of the wall.

  Lancaster noted this and said, “I bet those rules haven’t changed in sixty years. I suppose you adhered to all of them when you went here?” she added with a smile tacked on.

  The “rules” she was referring to were posted on a large section of the wall that Decker was studying. They included no loud talking, no throwing food, no eating off someone else’s plate, no milk cartons left on tables, all trash in the garbage, no running, and on and on.

  “Amos, I said—”

  He held up his hand for her to stay quiet, while he paced the wall and then looked at the floor.

  “What do you see down there, Mary?”

  She bent low and looked where he was pointing.

  “Some marks. Probably from a student’s shoes.”

  “I don’t think so. There’s no uniform requirement at Mansfield. Most boys wear sneakers. And from what I’ve seen, most girls wear sneakers, flats, or chunky heels. That footwear wouldn’t leave those sorts of marks. It’s actually scraped into the linoleum. And they’re not short, like a heel might make. They’re long. And they’re on a slight curve. Looks to be a few of them.”

  “Well, what do you think they are?”

  He stood closer to the section of wall where the rules were printed on a massive piece of wood painted to match the wall color. The wood ran down to the floor and nearly to the ceiling.

  “No hinges evident,” he said. “But—”

  He dug his fingers under the right section of the wall and tugged at various spots. He did this on the other side. Finally, after ten minutes of probing, tugging, and pushing, there was a little click and the entire section behind the sign opened outward. He pulled on it, opening it farther. Revealed behind it was a pair of old wooden doors painted the color of the wall.

  “Look at the floor,” said Decker.

  Lancaster noted another set of fresh scuff marks where the wood had dragged in one place across the floor when he’d opened the section.

  “Damn, Amos. The mark on the floor was from the door swinging open.”

  “Hinges were placed about a foot in and mounted on a support structure so they wouldn’t be visible to anyone. But the hinges have sagged a bit over time, hence the scuffed floor.” He ran his finger along one set of hinges and his finger came away darkened.

  “Recently oiled,” he said.

  There was a small knob in the center of the back of the section.

  “What do you think that was for?”

  Decker thought for a few moments. “You’d use it to pull shut the wall section once you’re on that side of it.”

  “Right. But why even have a door at all? If they wanted to seal it up, why not just seal it up?”

  “I don’t know, Mary. It must have cost a lot of money to build. Maybe they wanted to have reasonably easy access to it if they ever decided to use it again.”

  “I guess.”

  “I don’t see any fingerprints, but let’s not take chances. They call them latent prints for a reason.”

  He grabbed a knife from a box of them on one of the kitchen counters to ease open the door by pushing back on the ordinary lock that secured the two doors. The door opened silently, showing that its hinges had been recently oiled too.

  There was a long set of steps down into inky darkness.

  Decker grabbed an emergency flashlight from a holder on the wall next to the serving counter and came back over to the doorway. “You ready?”

  “Shouldn’t we alert the others?” said Lancaster nervously.

  “We will, after we see where this goes.”

  “But the FBI?”

  “Screw the FBI, Mary. This is our case, not theirs.” He stared at her. “You with me?”

  She finally nodded and followed him down the steps.

  They reached the bottom, and here Decker stopped and shone his light around.

  “Look there.”

  They saw that set against one wall were two large sections of painted plywood. Bent nails were sticking out of them.

  Decker said, “That’s how they really sealed up the passage. I saw nail holes in the perimeter around the double doors. That plywood had been nailed in front of the doors. If anyone figured out the sign opened, all they’d see is a solid wall.”

  “You think the shooter did that?”

  Decker shone his light on the floor. “Had to be. The sawdust on the floor looks relatively fresh. If he pulled out the nails the dust would come out and fall to the floor. Same when he hauled the sections down the steps. And he might’ve used a saw to cut through the wood too.”

  “Which means he had to have done this before. No way is he tearing out wood walls during the school day. Too much noise.”

  “He could have done it the night before. He comes out of the freezer and gets to work. No one here to hear anything. He opens the wall with the sign on it, cuts through the wall, opens the doors, and puts everything down in the passageway.”

  “If he did all that, Amos, maybe that’s why he hid in the freezer.”

  “Could be,” said Decker.

  Decker pointed to the floor once more. In the dust were clear sets of shoeprints heading in the direction they were going.

  Two clear sets of footprints heading down the passage.

  “Walk to the right, Mary, so we preserve them. And take shots of them with your phone camera as we go.”

  “Okay, but why two sets? Are they two different people?”

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