David Baldacci - Memory Man

“So you were done with the woman. Nothing else with her?”

Leopold just stared up at him. “I told you what I done. I shot her. Dead!”

“Okay.”

“Then I went down the hall to the kid.”

“Wait a minute, the shot didn’t wake the girl up?”

Leopold looked puzzled again. “I, no, don’t think so. She was sleeping.”

“Then what?”

“I took her outta the bed.”

“Why?”

“I just did. Wasn’t thinking too clearly then. Took her to the bathroom.”

“Again, why? Not thinking too clearly?”

“That’s right. Maybe I had to take a leak and didn’t want her getting away.”

“Did you take a leak?”

“Don’t remember.”

“And she didn’t scream when she saw you?”

“No. She was scared, I guess. And... and I told her to be quiet.”

“Then?”

“Then I strangled her. Put my hands around her neck and just squeezed tight as—”

Decker put up a hand for him to stop. He looked away for a moment, the most brilliant blue blinding him. The color was so bright he thought he might be sick. It was like he was suffocating in sapphire.

“Hey, man, you okay?” asked Leopold with genuine concern on his face.

Decker’s forehead was drenched in perspiration. He slowly wiped it off. “Okay, you killed her, then what?”

Leopold looked unsure again.

Decker said, “Did you do anything with the body? Do something with her clothing?”

Leopold snapped his fingers. “That’s right,” he said, his face beaming like he’d just got the answer right in algebra class. “I sat her up on the toilet and I tied her, uh, whatchamacallit.”

“Her robe belt?” prompted Decker.

“Right, her robe belt around her and the toilet.”

“Why?”

Leopold just stared at him. “’Cause... ’cause that’s what I thought to do at the time.”

“How’d you get away?”

“I went out the way I came in.”

“Did you have a car?”

“No, I told you I walked!”

“Anybody see you?”

“Not that I know of.”

“What’d you do with the gun?”

“Trash.”

“Where?”

“Don’t remember.”

“The knife?”

Leopold shrugged. “The same.”

“You tell anybody what you did?” asked Decker.

“Not till now.”

“So why now?”

Leopold shrugged again. “They gonna fry my ass?”

“Lethal injection. Frying comes later.”

“Huh?”

“In hell.”

“Oh, yeah.” Leopold chuckled like he thought Decker was making a joke. “That’s a good one.”

“So why come forward now?” asked Decker.

Leopold said, “Seemed as good a time as any. Ain’t had nothing else going on.”

Decker eyed a lump on the side of Leopold’s neck. “What’s that lump? You sick?”

Leopold reached up and gingerly touched it. “Ain’t nothing.”

“You have it checked out?”

Leopold snorted. “Yeah. I went to the Mayo Clinic on my jet. Paid in cash.”

Sarcasm. Interesting.

“If you were in the Navy you might have health coverage.”

Leopold shook his head. “DD. Dishonorable discharge.”

“So you were in the Navy?”

“Yeah,” conceded Leopold.

The sounds from above were getting louder. Decker checked his watch. Two minutes left and Brimmer seemed like the type who would show up right on time to escort him out.

“Any PTSD?”

“Any what?”

“Head problems? Depression? From combat?”

“I was never in combat.”

“So you’re just a sick son of a bitch who wipes out a family because somebody dissed you?” Decker kept his voice level and calm.

Leopold attempted a grin. “I guess so. I’m bad news, man. Always have been. If my momma were alive she could tell you. I’m just a shit. Screwed up every damn thing I ever touched in my whole life. No lie.”

“And when we check your military records it’ll show you were in the Navy as Sebastian Leopold?”

Leopold nodded, but absently, as though he weren’t really agreeing with the statement.

Decker leaned closer. “Let me ask it clearer. Is Sebastian Leopold your real name?”

“One I been using.”

“Since birth or more recently?”

“Not since birth, no.”

“So why use that name, then, if it’s not yours?”

“What’s in a name, man? Just letters stuck together.”

Decker pulled out his phone and, pointing it at Leopold, said, “Say cheese.”

He took Leopold’s picture and then put his phone away.

Then he held out a pen and a piece of paper. “Can you write down your name for me?”

“Why?”

“It’s just for my records.”

Leopold took the pen and slowly wrote out his name.

Decker took back the paper and the pen, stood, and said, “I’ll be in touch.”

He went to the door and called for the jailer. When the man came and unlocked the door Decker said, “Memory serves, there’s a bathroom right down there, right?” He pointed the opposite way he had come in.

The jailer nodded. “Yep, men’s room is the first door.”

Decker stuffed his pad and pen back into the briefcase and moved swiftly down the hall toward the john. His change in plan had been prompted by the footsteps he’d heard clattering down the steps. More than one pair, which meant that Brimmer had reinforcements. Which meant they knew something was up.

Decker walked past the door to the toilet and hung a left and then a right and hit another corridor. He was as familiar with the layout here as anyone.

The hall ended in a door. He opened it and stepped out onto the loading dock. There was no one there. And only one truck backed up to the dock, its overhead door open, revealing the trailer to be empty.

Decker skittered down a short stack of steps and his new, tight shoes hit asphalt. He turned left down an alley and emerged on the main street ten seconds later. He hung another right and then a left at the next intersection. There was a hotel there and a cabstand.

He told the lead cabbie, “Head north as far as five bucks will take me.”

The cab dropped him off a while later. He hoofed it to a bus stop, and two rides later he was back at the Residence Inn. As he stepped off the bus he noted there were two police cars parked out front and an official departmental car he knew had to belong to someone other than a street cop.

Well, shit.

The only good thing, figured Decker, was that he hadn’t gotten the chance to retrieve his gun from the trash can along with his other clothes. Walking in armed to the situation that was probably awaiting him would not be smart. He could run for it, he supposed, but that was probably what they were expecting. And he didn’t like running. He just wasn’t built for it anymore.

So he loosened his tie, undid his top shirt button, let out a sigh of relief as his thick neck was freed from this glorified noose, and walked into the lobby of the Residence Inn. There he was immediately surrounded by four police officers.

Decker studied them calmly. “With what’s going down at Mansfield I didn’t think you’d be able to spare the manpower.”

“Cut the shit, Decker,” said a familiar voice.

Decker slid his gaze to the side. “Hello, Mac.”

“That’s Captain Miller to you.”

“I’m no longer on the force.”

“Show some respect or you might be in a jail cell before I’m done with you.”

MacKenzie Miller was in his late fifties, puffy as a bullfrog and with similar coloring. He was as wide as he was tall, Decker in miniature. He was dressed in a suit, and when his coat moved open as Miller strode across the lobby, Decker could see the ubiquitous braces that held up the man’s pants, though his substantial waistline, like Decker’s, did that job fine all by itself.