I CAN’T BELIEVE this stuff is still here.”
They were in Mars’s bedroom. He eyed the posters hanging on the wall.
“And my bed too.” He put a hand on the headboard. “It’s like it’s twenty years ago,” he said absently.
“Only it’s not, Melvin,” said Decker. “It’s today.”
Decker had placed his broad back against one wall to steady himself. The color blue had hit him as soon as his foot touched the first riser coming up, just like when he was here with Bogart.
Jamison had observed this, but not known the cause. Davenport had glanced curiously at Decker too, and given him a supportive smile.
Now that they were in the bedroom, Decker was able to come to terms with the color, at least enough to function again.
“Anything strike you?” he asked.
Mars walked around the small footprint of the room. “What happened to all my other things?”
“Did you come back here after your parents were murdered?”
“No. They wouldn’t let me. It was a crime scene. I stayed with some friends. And then they arrested me. This is the first time I’ve been back since they died.”
Davenport walked over to him. “It may help to sit on the bed, close your eyes, and just let your mind wander back to the last time you were in this house, or in this room. Then you may remember something that will help us.”
“You really think that’ll work?”
“Or I can hypnotize you.”
Mars scoffed. “You can’t hypnotize me.”
“Really?” she said, smiling. “Would you like to bet?”
His skeptical look faded. “How would you do it?”
“Sit on the bed.”
He looked at Decker and then Jamison, as though wondering when they were going to put a stop to this nonsense. Neither said anything.
Mars looked back at Davenport.
“Sit on the bed,” she said. “This won’t hurt. I promise.”
He sat. She stood in front of him and took a pen out of her pocket. She held it up in front of him at an angle that made him lift his gaze a bit.
“Can you keep your eyes on this pen?”
“This is silly.”
Decker said, “Melvin, just do it, okay? It’s worth a shot.”
Mars sighed and focused on the pen. “Okay, now what?”
“Just follow the pen.”
Davenport started to move the pen slowly up and down and then from side to side. She spoke in a low, conversational voice the entire time.
Mars did as she asked and his gaze went wherever the pen did. The movements were slow, rhythmic, and her voice began to modulate, matching the movements of the pen.
Then Mars shook his head. “This is stupid.”
Davenport kept the pen raised and said, “I know many athletes get into a zone before they play a game. Did you?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Pretend you’re getting ready to play a football game. Get your head right. Relax. But focus.” She glanced sideways at Decker. “You’re about to play Ohio State and run over Decker again.” She then pointed to the pen. “This is the zone, Melvin. You can get there. The big game. For all the marbles. Just concentrate. This pen is the goal line. Go get it.”
Mars settled back and stared at the pen, his gaze still slightly elevated due to the angle at which Davenport was holding it.
In a whisper to Decker she said, “Give him some football direction, low even tones.”
Decker looked wildly uncertain about this.
Davenport said in a soothing voice, “You can do it, Amos. Just like when you were talking to Tommy Montgomery.”
Decker nodded and began speaking in a halting low voice as he gave Mars the scenario on the field: The ball was snapped. Mars took the handoff. The A-gap was clogged, the B-gap a possibility. Mars had to read the linebacker’s eyes, strong safety coming up on the left, right guard just had to maintain his block for another second, a glimpse of daylight.
Davenport motioned for Decker to stop talking.
As Decker had been speaking, Davenport had slowed the movements of the pen and Mars had matched this with his gaze. Finally, she held the pen steady in the air and Mars stared at it, his eyes glassy and fixed, his features relaxed.
“Melvin, can you hear me?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered, his voice unlike his usual one.
Davenport slowly lowered the pen, but Mars’s gaze remained fixed on the same spot.
She said, “You’re in college at the University of Texas. Do you remember that?”
He nodded.
“You’re home now with your parents, though. Okay?”
“Yes.”
“This is after ESPN showed your parents on TV. They found out, right?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Somebody at the pawnshop told my dad. He was pissed.”
“They’re acting strange now, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell us how?”
“Nervous. And angry. My dad was really upset.”
“Because it showed him on TV?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say why that had upset him?”
“No.”
“What about your mother? Did she talk about it?”
“She said to just leave Dad alone and he’d be okay. She…she didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Did you see your father doing anything unusual during that time?”
“He worked late a lot. And he didn’t eat. And he drank a lot.”
“Did he and your mother argue?”
“I could hear them yelling, but I couldn’t really hear what they said.”
“Could you hear anything?”
Mars’s brow furrowed. “Some Spanish word. Funny one. My mom said it.”
“What was it?”
The brow furrowed more deeply. “Ch-chocha.”
“Chocha, you’re sure?”
Mars nodded. “Chocha. I looked it up. It actually has a couple of meanings in Spanish. It could refer to a prostitute, or”—here he squirmed a bit—“or the private parts of the female anatomy. I didn’t know what they were talking about. It made no sense.”
“Can you remember anything else about that time?”
Mars was silent for a few moments and Davenport waited patiently.
“I came home one night and he was sitting in his chair. Mom wasn’t there.”
“Okay, go on.”
“I asked him how he was doing. And he looked at me in a way…”
“Yes.”
Tears had appeared in Mars’s eyes. “In a way that scared me. Like…like he hated me.”
“Okay. Did you talk to him?”
Mars shook his head. “I was scared. I was going to go up to my room, but then he said something.”
“What did he say?”
“He said…he said he was sorry.”
Davenport glanced at Decker and Jamison. By her expression, she had evidently not been expecting this answer. But Decker didn’t look surprised.
She turned back to Mars. “Did he say what he was sorry about?”
Mars shook his head. “Then he just got up and walked out.”
“Do you have any idea what he was referring to?”
Mars shook his head again. “I asked my mother about it the next day.”
“And what did she say?”
“She just started to cry, and then she ran out of the room.”
“Did you tell the police about this?”
“No. I didn’t think to. I mean, I didn’t know what was wrong. I never thought that was connected to whoever killed them.”
Davenport looked at Decker. “Anything else?” she whispered.
Decker stepped forward but kept out of Mars’s line of sight. In Davenport’s ear he said something. She started, looked at him strangely, and then turned to Mars.
“Melvin, did your father…did your father ever tell you that he loved you?”
Jamison shot Decker a surprised look.
Mars kept staring straight ahead. “No. He never did.”
“Okay. When I count to three you’re going to wake up. You’re not going to remember anything that we discussed. Okay?”
Mars nodded.
She counted to three and his eyes slowly refocused. He looked up at them.
“I told you that you couldn’t hypnotize me,” he said.
“Chocha,” said Decker.
Mars shot him a glance. “What?”
“You were hypnotized. Do you remember your mom saying the word chocha while she and your dad were arguing?”
Mars looked surprised and then slowly nodded. “Yeah, now that you mention it, I do. Do you think that’s important?”
“It could be.”
Decker looked over at a corner of the room. “Those scratches on the floor? What was there?”
“A bookshelf.”
“What sort of books were on it?”
“Different kinds. From when I was little to when I got older. I didn’t read as much as a teenager.” He suddenly smiled.
“What?” said Decker quickly.
“It’s nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s just that my dad would read a book to me when I was little. It was funny, you know, this big, tough guy reading a book to a little boy.”
“What sort of books?” asked Decker.
“It was just the one book.” Mars smiled again. “He would even act it out, you know, all goofy like. Never did that any other time.”
“What book was it?” asked Decker in a very serious tone.
Mars laughed. “The Three Little Pigs. He told me he was the Big Bad Wolf, gonna eat those little pigs up. Sometimes he got into it so much it kinda scared me.”
Decker stared at him for a long moment while Jamison and Davenport glanced at him.
“Decker, what is it?” asked Jamison.
Mars added, “It was just a picture book, Decker. A fairy tale.”
“Yeah,” said Decker, evidently lost in thought.
His phone buzzed. He looked down at the screen. “It’s Bogart.” He answered, listened, and asked a couple of questions. “Thanks, Agent Bogart, I really appreciate this.” He clicked off and looked at the others.
“Well?” said Jamison. “Don’t keep us in suspense.”
“Bogart got an answer from the U.S. Marshals.”
“So my parents were in Witness Protection,” said Mars numbly.
“No,” said Decker. “They weren’t.”