David Baldacci - Memory Man

The barman eyed her. “What’s your interest?”

She flashed her badge. He took another electronic puff and said, “I used to work as a grip off-Broadway. Lot of its around that world. I can tell guys from girls, although I have to admit this one was really good.”

“So if it was a guy, why did you let him work?” asked Lancaster.

“I don’t give a shit if a guy wants to dress up like a chick so long as he can serve the drinks without spilling. All I need is bodies. I don’t count penises.”

Decker said, “According to you, the waitress left before the guy I was talking to did.”

“Well, I couldn’t find her after you left. Had to serve drinks at the tables myself until I got a replacement in. So, yeah, it apparently skipped out.”

“And you called the temp agency?” asked Decker.

“I did. And you were right about that. No record of her. Score one for you.”

Decker’s gaze drifted down to the man’s waist. A key fob poked from the top of his front jeans pocket.

“What kind of car do you drive?”

The barman looked down in surprise and then back up at Decker. “Why? You need a ride somewhere?”

“No. Just curious.”

“Nissan Leaf.”

“That’s an all-electric.”

“I know it is. Great gas mileage since it doesn’t run on gas. I just plug it in.”

“Very quiet, I expect,” said Decker.

“Too quiet sometimes. I’ve left it running more times than I can remember. Just walked off with the key in my pocket and the damn thing still on.”

“Is that right? Where do you keep it parked?”

“Alley outside.”

“Did you notice on the day I was in here that when you went out to the car it was in a slightly different location?”

The man thought for a moment and then said, “No, not that I remember. Why?”

“Because I looked in that alley when I was here that day and there was no car there.”

“The hell you say,” snapped the barman, his eyes wide in surprise. “But it was there when I left work.”

“You always keep the car key on you?”

“Not always. Sometimes I hang it on a hook over there.” He pointed to a wall behind the bar. “Have to move it sometimes when we’re expecting a delivery. Beer truck can barely squeeze in that space. And it’s a dead end so they have to back out. Sometimes I let one of the waitresses move it if I’m tied up.”

“Well, I think the waitress in question drove it without your permission.”

Decker dropped some dollars on the bar. “Tip included.” He and Lancaster walked out.

The snow had begun to fall more heavily as Decker stared at the gray Nissan Leaf.

“Looks like he’s charging it now,” said Lancaster. She was staring at a power cable running from a port on the car to an electrical box next to the side door of the bar.

Decker didn’t look at the cable; he was staring at the walls of the alley.

“Over there,” he said.

Positioned up high and trained so that it would take in most of the alley was a video surveillance camera. Decker walked over to where the camera was mounted and then down at the door of the business.

“Pharmacy,” he said. “This must be their delivery entrance.”

“Lot of thefts from pharmacies around here,” said Lancaster, who had come to stand next to him. “Not surprised they have a camera. Logical place to hit it from the rear. That’s why the door’s barred and locked.”

“We need to get the footage from this camera, and we need it now.”

They hurried around to the front. A clerk was behind the cash register and there was an off-duty police officer near the entrance.

Lancaster flashed her badge at him. “I know you,” she said. “Donovan, Fourth Precinct? Right?”

“Yes ma’am. What do you need, Detective Lancaster?”

She explained, and they walked together over to the cash register, where Donovan conveyed this to the cashier. He said, “I can pull it.”

A few minutes later Lancaster and Decker were walking out of the drugstore with the DVD. They drove straight back to Mansfield, where Lancaster popped the disc into her computer and brought up the images.

There was a time stamp so Decker gave her the date to forward to. She worked the computer’s controls until Decker said, “Stop it right there.”

She did so and the frame on the screen froze.

He said, “Now roll it forward in slow-mo.”

Lancaster hit the requisite buttons to accomplish this, and they watched as the waitress exited the bar, opened the door of the Leaf, and climbed in after disconnecting the charging cable. A few moments later she drove off.

Ten minutes later she drove back up again, got out, reconnected the cable, and reentered the bar.

“But the guy said she didn’t come back,” noted Lancaster.

“Just wait a minute,” said Decker.

The woman came back out a few seconds later, turned, and walked off down the alley.

Decker looked at Lancaster. “She went back in to hang the keys on the hook. Bar guy probably never even saw her.”

“Right.”

“So she picked up Leopold and then dropped him off somewhere. Pretty smart to do it with someone else’s car. No plate for us to run.”

“But we can check the car for her prints. She wasn’t wearing gloves.”

While Lancaster put in a call, Decker was staring at the screen.

When she clicked off he said, “Okay, run it again but this time enlarge the image as much as you can.”

Lancaster did so, several times, at Decker’s request. From where the camera was angled they were watching from the rear of the car. They could see her slide into the driver’s seat and later swing her long legs out to exit. Her short skirt rode up her thighs when she did so. But there was no direct shot on the face.

“She’s got great legs,” said Lancaster. “Gotta give her that.”

“ He does,” corrected Decker. At least I think it’s a guy .

“The barman was right, though.”

“About what?”

Lancaster said, “He told us he’d seen lots of guys as girls when he worked off-Broadway. But he said this one was really good. And she — or he — is. I mean, those really look like a female’s legs.”

Decker slowly nodded and then looked back at the image. He ran it through two more times before shutting it down. But there was still never a clear image of the person’s face.

“So?” said Lancaster. “Any mental breakthroughs?”

Decker shook his head. Only there was something. It seemed to be staring him right in the face, but he just couldn’t make it out.

Lancaster yawned and stretched and then looked around at the activity going on in the library. “I wonder when Bogart will show back up?”

“He didn’t tell me his travel plans,” said Decker. “He came up to where Sizemore lived on a jet. I assumed he’d be returning the same way. He would have beaten me back in any case.”

“Well, he hasn’t checked in here.”

“Probably not the only case he’s working.”

“Maybe not, but I hope Mansfield takes priority, even with the FBI.”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Decker absently.

Lancaster checked her watch. “It’s nearly eleven and I’ve been at this since five this morning. I have to get home. You need a ride? I doubt you should walk. It’s starting to really come down out there.”

She was staring out the window of the library, where, under the lights, the snow was falling rapidly.

“Okay. I guess I’m done here for now.”

They walked to the exit.

She said encouragingly, “We have quite a few leads, Amos, we just have to run them down.”

“They aren’t leads, Mary. They’re mostly fluff that will go nowhere. They’ve planned well.”