David Baldacci - Memory Man

“You’re a very unusual man.”

“I have no context with which to frame a reply to that observation.”

“Sort of proves my point, doesn’t it?”

Now Decker sat back and looked at her. “Tell me about yourself,” he said abruptly.

“What, why?” she said warily.

“I can find out easily enough. Everyone’s life is online. So, to borrow your phrase, I’m giving you the opportunity to tell your story.”

“Is this where I’m supposed to say, ‘Touché’?”

“You have something to hide?”

“Do you?”

“No. But you know all about me.” He tapped the paper next to his plate. “Proof is right there. So tell me about yourself.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Hometown, family, education, career, life goals.”

“Wow, you don’t ask for much.”

Decker waited. He had no problem with silence, with waiting. His patience, like his mind, had no bounds.

She folded her arms across her chest and said, “I’m from Indiana, Bloomington. I went to Purdue, graduated with a degree in mass comm. Started out at some small papers in the Midwest basically fetching coffee, writing the crap stories no one else wanted to write, and pulling the shifts no one wanted to pull. I tried some online journalism and blogging but hated it.”

“Why?”

“I like to talk to people, face-to-face, not through a machine. That’s not real journalism. It’s data management fed to you by schmucks you don’t even know. It’s reporting for lazy people who live in their PJs. Not what I wanted. I want a Pulitzer. In fact, I want a shelf of them.”

“Then you came here. Why? Burlington is not a rip-roaring metropolis.”

“It’s bigger than any other town I was in before. It’s got crime, interesting politics. Cost of living is low, which is important, because when you add up my hours worked I don’t even make minimum wage. And they let me work my own beat and follow up my own stories.”

“Family?”

“Large. All back in Bloomington.”

“And the other reason you came here?”

“There is no other reason.”

He pointed to a finger on her left hand. “There were two rings there. The marks are slight but distinct. Engagement and wedding rings. No longer there.”

“So I’m divorced. Big whoop. So are half the people in this country.”

“Fresh start away from your ex?”

She rubbed at the spot on her hand. “Something like that. Okay, are we done with me?”

“Do you want to be done?”

“You understand that you’re not actually playing me, right? I’m just feeling generous, sort of going along for the ride, seeing where we end up.”

“You follow up your own stories, you say?”

“I do.”

“Do you intend to try to trace a connection between the killings of my family and the shootings at Mansfield?”

“Of course.”

“What do your friends call you?”

“You’re assuming I have friends?”

“What does Brimmer call you?”

“Alex.”

“Okay, Alexandra , let me be as clear about this as I possibly can be.”

She did an eye roll and looked at him disdainfully. “Do I sense a patronizing lecture coming?”

“Would you like a scoop?”

Her expression changed. She picked up her recorder. “Is this on the record?”

“So long as your source is anonymous.”

“You have my word.”

“Do you normally give it that quickly?”

“You have my word,” she said tightly.

“An FBI agent was killed last night and her body was left hanging just above our heads on the catwalk up there. She was a skilled, armed federal agent who really can take care of herself. Now she’s a murder victim who was dispatched as easily as someone crushing a bug underfoot.” He slid the plate out of the way again, reached over, and clicked off her recorder.

She made no move to stop him.

“I’ve seen a lot in my twenty years on the force, but I have never seen—” He stopped, grappling for the right words. “I have never seen menace like this. But it’s not just that. It’s—” Again he stopped, tapping his fingers on the table and closing his eyes. When he opened them he said, “ Menace coupled with brains and cunning. It’s a very dangerous combination, Alexandra. And I asked about your family only because I wanted to know if you would have anyone to mourn you when you’re murdered too. Because please make no mistake, he will kill you as easily as exhaling smoke from a cigarette.”

“Look, if you’re trying to—”

Decker didn’t let her finish. “He could be watching us right now for all I know, and sizing up where and how exactly he plans to take your life. It seems that he likes to screw with me that way. Kill people I’m close to or associated with. You wrote a big story on me. That ties you and me together in just the way this guy seems to love. And I have no doubt he plans to keep killing until he gets down to his last planned victim.”

Jamison no longer looked disdainful. She looked frightened, though trying hard not to show it.

“And who would that be?” She tried to say this flippantly but her voice cracked halfway through.

“That would be me.”

Alexandra scooped up her recorder, pad, and pen and put them back into her bag and rose. She wouldn’t look at Decker.

“Okay, if it makes you feel better, you have officially scared the shit out of me,” she said.

“Did you see Leopold leave the bar?”

“What?”

He tapped the newspaper. “The bar where this picture was taken?”

Now she looked at him, her features wary. “I’m not going to answer that.”

“You just did. Okay, I have one more question for you.”

“What?”

He held up the newspaper. “Where did you get this photo of me and Leopold at the bar? There’s no attribution for the photographer. I know the profession is a stickler for that, so I’m wondering why there’s no name there.”

“I took it.”

“No you didn’t.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m pretty observant. And I happen to know you weren’t in the bar. Whoever did take the picture was watching Leopold and me. Which means he followed us both there though I was following Leopold too.” He paused. “I wouldn’t be asking if it weren’t important. How did you get the photo?”

“I got it from an anonymous source,” she finally admitted.

“And did this anonymous source also supply you with elements of the story you wrote?”

“I really can’t get into that.”

“If you don’t know the name of the source, you don’t have to worry about protecting his identity.” Decker let the paper fall to the table. “Did it come by email, text? Surely not snail mail. You wouldn’t have had time to write the story.”

“Email.”

“Can you send me the email trail?”

“Why is this so important to you?”

“Because the person who sent you the email is also the person who killed all those people.”

“You can’t possibly know that.”

“I know it absolutely. And I would assume that the email said that you should write this story because things smelled bad on this. That here I was meeting with the man accused of killing my family. There must be more to it, right?”

As he had spoken, Jamison’s eyes had continued to widen. “Did you send the email to me?” she hissed.

“You mean so I could see a story plastered in the newspaper basically accusing me of conspiring to murder my own family?”

She bit her lip. “I’m sorry, that was stupid.” She swallowed with difficulty. “Do you really think it was him?”

“He was there. He was within ten feet of me and I never saw him. And I’m just not sure how that’s possible.”