AFTER ONLY THREE hours of sleep, Decker went downstairs to find Zoe finishing her breakfast in the kitchen before going to school.
He poured himself a cup of coffee and accepted a toasted bagel from Amber, who was rushing around the kitchen packing Zoe’s lunch and also handling the laundry in a small room adjacent to it. Frank, he was told, had already left for work.
Decker wearily sat down across from Zoe and drank his coffee and munched on his bagel while she spooned cereal into her mouth.
When he looked over at her, he found the little girl staring at him.
“You went out last night,” she said. “I saw you from my window.”
“I couldn’t sleep, like I told you. But why were you still up? I thought you went back to bed?”
Zoe shrugged and tapped her spoon against her bowl.
“Zoe, hurry up,” said her mother from the laundry room. “We have to leave in five minutes and you still need to brush your teeth and comb your hair. And do you have your book bag, young lady? And your flute?”
Zoe rolled her eyes and took another mouthful of cereal, her gaze still on Decker. “Have you found the bad people yet?” she asked.
“Not yet, no. Still working on it.”
“Your hair looks funny.”
“It usually does.”
“No, I mean it’s all stuck up in the middle.”
“I, uh, accidentally got some glue there.”
Zoe perked up at this. “I put glue in my hair one time. But it wasn’t an accident. Mom was really mad. She had to use scissors to cut it out. Want me to cut it out for you?” She lowered her voice. “Mom doesn’t really like me to use scissors when she’s not around, but we don’t have to tell her.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll just let it grow out.”
Zoe returned to her cereal, clearly disappointed.
Amber burst into the kitchen. “Okay, are you ready?” she asked her daughter.
“I still have to brush my teeth and hair. And I couldn’t find my flute.”
“I know today’s your birthday, but get going, young lady.”
Zoe held up her half-empty bowl. “But, Mom,” she began.
“Oh, no, you’re not pulling that again. You can finish it in the car. Now, go! And don’t come downstairs without your flute. I saw it on your dresser last night.”
Zoe slowly rose, and weakly waved goodbye to Decker.
“Happy Birthday, Zoe,” said Decker.
After she left the room, Amber took a few deep breaths. “Kids.”
“Yeah,” said Decker.
“I’ve never had a son but they can’t be harder than girls.”
“I never had a son,” said Decker. “Just a daughter.”
Amber stiffened and slowly sat down across from Decker.
She said nervously, “Alex told me about…”
“Yeah,” said Decker.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah,” said Decker.
When he said nothing else, Amber rose and said awkwardly, “I…um, I have to get Zoe to school.”
“Yeah,” said Decker, staring down at the table.
* * *
A few minutes later, Jamison joined him and poured herself a cup of coffee.
“I saw Agent Kemper last night, or early this morning, depending on how you look at it,” he said.
She sat down openmouthed across from him.
“Where?”
“At the house where we found the dead guys.”
“What were you doing over there?”
“Couldn’t sleep. Took a walk past the Murder House. Met Fred Ross, the neighbor who Green and Lassiter haven’t spoken with yet. He’s a hard-ass prick with a sawed-off shotgun under his blanket. Thought he was going to shoot me.”
“Jesus, Decker, can’t you just go to sleep like the rest of us?”
“He said he wasn’t home at the time. But he said something else.”
“What?”
“He said he’d come to realize that nothing is really illegal in Baronville.”
She frowned. “What did he mean by that?”
“I don’t know. After I left him I was walking back here when Kemper came out of the Murder House.”
“Did she cop an attitude?”
“No, she seemed to have mellowed out, actually. She told me something about the two dead men. They were DEA agents. Will Beatty and Doug Smith. Beatty was the one in the basement. Undercover, like I thought. Only she said they had gone rogue.”
“Gone rogue? What does that mean?”
“They allegedly killed a bad guy they were working with. Man named Randy Haas. And it looks like Beatty and Smith were killed earlier and put on ice to screw with the TOD calculation. Kemper brought in her own medical examiner because she didn’t trust the local one.”
“Well, neither did you. I guess this proves you right.”
“Beatty died from a massive drug overdose of a super powerful opiate, obviously forced into him. Smith was strangled, but not by the rope.”
“So they were brought to that house already dead?”
“Appears so.”
“Why go to all that trouble?”
“No idea.”
“That was a big risk bringing two dead guys to that house. Someone might have seen something.”
“I know. That part is inexplicable.”
“So Beatty and Smith had gone bad, then?”
“That’s what Kemper thinks.”
“And you? What do you think?”
“I don’t know enough to think anything, really. I’m still collecting information.”
“So what do we do?”
“We keep digging. Next up is Bradley Costa, the banker. We’re going to his place of business first. And then his house. After that, we check out Michael Swanson. And then I want to go and talk to John Baron the Fourth.”
“Baron? Why?”
“Like I said before, I think he was lying about knowing some of the victims. Anyone who lies about something like that, I want to get to know him better.”
“From what you said, he seems like an interesting person.”
“He is an interesting person. But that doesn’t mean he’s not involved in this.” He added thoughtfully, “I wonder why he stays in a town that hates his guts?”
“Maybe he’s a sucker for punishment.”
“Or maybe there’s another reason.”
Decker reached over and snagged the page of numbers off the counter and held it up.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Decker explained about Zoe testing his memory.
“I think Zoe is really intrigued by you.”
“Not the point. I looked at the page again, after my concussion, and I couldn’t remember the last two numbers. Then I looked at it again and I could remember the last two numbers, but not some of the figures in the middle.”
“You think it’s connected to your head injury?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible. Maybe probable.”
He looked so glum that Jamison said, “Decker, your having a phenomenal memory is awesome. But it’s not the only thing that makes you great at what you do. You’ve been a cop for over twenty years. You see stuff. You figure stuff out, like no one else I’ve ever seen. And you don’t give up.”
“Maybe.”
“There’s no maybe about it.”
“Thanks, Alex. I appreciate that.”
“Wow, maybe that concussion had some positive results.”
“What do you mean by that?”
She sighed. “Never mind.” Jamison looked up at him, fingering her coffee cup. “Is Kemper really okay with us working this?”
“I think so. But even if she weren’t I’d still be doing it.”
“You never worry about the politics or optics of a situation, do you?”
“When it comes to murder, I never saw a reason to,” replied Decker.