THE HOUSE LOOKED lost among a wasteland of overgrown bushes and fat-canopied trees. One might need a machete to hack through the tangles.
Decker just used his hands and his bulk to navigate it. Bogart and Milligan were right behind him.
They reached the fallen-in front porch and stared up at the façade. They could still see the char marks on the outside of one of the upper-story windows, which was boarded up with plywood.
“Where the bodies were found,” noted Decker, and Bogart nodded in agreement.
“We’ll need to step carefully,” said Milligan. “I don’t know how structurally sound this place is.”
Decker gingerly stepped up onto the front porch, avoiding the obvious areas of weakness. He reached the front door and pushed against it. The door didn’t budge.
Decker put his big shoulder to it and finally the wood cracked and the door swung inward. There was no electricity on, of course, which was why the men had brought powerful flashlights.
They moved inside to find the interior remarkably free of debris, although the smell of mold and rot was everywhere.
Bogart put a hand over his nose. “Damn, I’m not sure we should be breathing this.”
Decker looked up. “The roof and windows held. That’s why it’s not more trashed inside.”
He swung his light around the room, taking in the space bit by bit as he moved forward.
The house was small and it didn’t take them long to finish with the ground floor and the attached garage. There was no basement level; that left the upstairs.
As soon as Decker hit the first step his brain popped with the color blue. It was so sudden that he misjudged the riser and stumbled a bit. Milligan caught him by the arm.
“You okay?”
Decker nodded, though he wasn’t feeling okay.
He had only experienced blue like that when he had seen his family’s bodies in his old house. And every time he had visited it since.
Electric blue: It seemed to overwhelm every sense that he had. It was unnerving, uncomfortable.
And I just need to get over it.
He blinked rapidly, only to find the blue reemerge each time his eyes opened.
Synesthesia is not all it’s cracked up to be.
He picked his way carefully up the rickety stairs and hit the landing.
There were only two bedrooms up here—Mars’s and his parents’. They had shared a bathroom.
Decker stepped into the first bedroom. He assumed it was Mars’s. The bed was still there, and so were crumbling posters of R&B singers Luther Vandross and Keith Sweat. On another wall was the confirmation that this was not the parents’ room—tattered posters of supermodels Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer.
“Red-blooded American male,” commented Milligan. “Jeez, it’s like we opened a time capsule or something.”
“Where was the shotgun rack?” asked Decker.
Milligan pointed to the far wall. “Over there. Single rack with a small drawer underneath to hold the ammo boxes.”
They next went into the parents’ bedroom.
Decker stood against one wall and thought back to the diagrams in the old police reports. Bodies were right under the front window, side by side. Roy was closest to the window, Lucinda on the side nearest the bed. The glass had blackened and shattered from the heat. The plywood had been nailed to the exterior of the house, closing this gap.
Unlike their son’s room, this space had been emptied.
“What happened to the furniture?” asked Decker.
“I imagine it was all taken as evidence,” said Bogart. “And the firefighters might have had to carry some of the combustibles out while they were dealing with the blaze.”
Decker nodded. “Maybe we can find out for sure. And those square marks on the wall. Pictures hung there. I wonder what happened to them?”
Milligan said, “I can make some calls.”
Decker opened the closet door and shone his light around the interior. He was about to close the door when he stopped and leaned farther into the closet.
“Check this out.”
Bogart and Milligan joined him and stared at where Decker was pointing his light.
“‘AC + RB’?” said Bogart, reading off the faded letters someone had written on the side wall of the closet. “What does that mean?”
Decker took a picture of the writing with his phone. “I don’t know. They could have been there before the Marses even bought the place.”
“Maybe.”
“Or maybe the Marses wrote them. Which means it could be important.” Decker gazed around. “Who made the 911 call about the fire?”
Milligan said, “I don’t think they ever determined that.”
“People really didn’t use cell phones back then. And I doubt reception was great back then in this area. So it probably wasn’t a car driving past.”
“Well, it could have been. And then the people went to their house and called.”
Bogart said, “But if they’d done that they’d know where the call came from. They could trace it.”
Milligan was already nodding. “That’s true. I’ll have to check.”
They went back downstairs.
Here Decker saw what he had seen before. A faded picture of a young Melvin Mars in his high school football uniform. It was hanging on the wall. On a small shelf were more old photos of Mars at various ages.
“Surprised they’re still here,” said Bogart.
“Like you said, no one wants to come into a house where people were killed. And not too many people live out this way. And strangers passing by wouldn’t even be able to see the house from the road, particularly now with everything overgrown.”
Decker looked around some more.
“But it’s interesting what we’re not seeing.”
“What’s that?” asked Milligan.
“Pictures of Roy and Lucinda Mars.” He turned to Milligan. “It’s like they never even existed.”