Дэвид Балдаччи - The Fix

“That hardly seems fair for what she did.”

“She lost her father over this,” said Brown. “She’s going to have to live with that the rest of her life. That might be more punishment than sitting in a prison cell.”

Decker said, “But what none of this explains is the core issue that began this case for us. Why did Dabney kill Berkshire and then himself? They have to be related to what Natalie did. But how are they connected? If we don’t answer that, we answer nothing. And what the hell is the point of that?”

He got up and walked out.

“The man is ticked off,” said Brown.

Jamison settled her gaze on the other woman. “He doesn’t like bullshit. He likes to cut right through that to get to the truth.” She paused. “How about you?”

“How about me what?”

“Do you like bullshit better than the truth?”

Brown looked at her coolly. “Do I take your aggressive tone to mean that Decker told you what happened between me and Melvin last night? And you’re upset about it?”

“He did tell me. And I was upset about it. But then you’re both consenting adults, so there you go. No, I was talking about your ‘blowing’ it, as you said about the gambling debts. I thought you were supposed to have experience and be this hotshot agent. Decker saved your ass on that one. But what I can tell you is that he will never rely on anything else you say again. Because the man with the perfect memory is never going to forget that a veteran like you made a rookie mistake by assuming something was true when you hadn’t bothered to prove that it was actually true. He said your dad was on some honor wall at DIA. Maybe you want to be too. Well, in my humble opinion you’ll need to up your game. But then maybe you don’t care about that. I’ll leave you alone now so you can think about that, if you even want to bother. And tell Melvin I said hello the next time you see him. But if you hurt him in any way, I will kick your ass.”

And with those biting remarks, Jamison got up and followed Decker out.

Decker and Jamison drove home in silence. When they got to the apartment she said, “You want me to whip up some dinner? And I don’t mean in a microwave. I can do chicken and rice.”

He shook his head. “No, thanks. Not really hungry.”

“You don’t want to get too skinny,” she joked, but Decker had already walked down the hall to his room.

He closed the door behind him, sat down on his bed, and picked up the doll. The rain had started back up and the plunks against the window came rhythmically. He stared down at the plastic face with the two large eyes, which looked unblinkingly up at him.

Now every time he looked at this toy he only saw Molly’s face. Decker knew this was not healthy, and he also knew he could not stop doing it. At least not right now.

He’d had a daughter, a beautiful little girl who would have grown up into an amazing woman. He had no doubt about that. Only she’d never had the chance. She had gone to her grave not knowing that some offhand remark in her dad’s past had set off a catastrophic chain of events eventually leading to her and her mother’s deaths.

He stroked the doll’s hair with his finger and then laid it aside. He stretched out on the bed and stared up at the dark ceiling.

It felt like they had been working on this case forever. And yet they had made not a jot of significant progress.

Not a jot.

In many ways, it seemed they had moved backwards .

He had been telling the stark truth earlier. Unless they figured out why Walter Dabney had killed Anne Berkshire they were never going to solve this.

And I witnessed the whole damn thing. And I still can’t figure it out.

He sat up against the headboard.

Okay, he needed to take this step by step.

Fact: Dabney was duped into stealing secrets to pay off millions in fictional gambling debts.

Fact: By her own admission Natalie had embroiled her father in this scheme.

Speculation: Natalie did not know about the espionage angle.

Fact: Dabney was terminally ill.

Fact: Dabney shot Berkshire.

Fact: Berkshire’s past was a mystery and the parts they knew were made up.

Fact: Berkshire had an old cottage and a beat-up car.

Fact: Berkshire had millions of dollars.

Fact: Berkshire had what looked like spy paraphernalia in a storage unit.

Fact: She was a substitute teacher and a volunteer at a hospice.

Fact: She had a flash drive hidden at the cottage.

Fact: Someone had ambushed Decker to get it.

Speculation: The secrets stolen by Dabney had to do with backdoor access into critical national security sensitive platforms.

This last one he had moved into the speculation section because Brown had been the one to provide that information and also because she had lied to him about this question earlier. He did not know it for sure, and Bogart had been unable to verify it because DIA had stonewalled access.

So where did all this get him?

He got off the bed and walked over to the window and peered out.

He closed his eyes and went frame by frame in his memory.

Oftentimes, this allowed him to see something that was off. A red flag where one slice of information did not jibe with another.

Other times it gave him a sense of which direction he should go.

And still other times he came away empty.

As frame after mental frame rolled through he prayed that something, anything, would pop for him. What someone had said or done. An action that was off-kilter. Anything, really.

Come on. Anything.

Come on.

He opened his eyes.

His axiom on Berkshire had been that she did nothing without a good reason. If he was right about that, he had overlooked one-half of the equation.

Shit!

Jamison was startled when Decker came bolting out of his room and shot down the hall like a torpedo. She had just lifted to her mouth a spoonful of cereal that she was eating next to the kitchen sink.

“What the hell?” she exclaimed.

“We have to go.”

“Go where?”

“Dominion Hospice.”

The rain had picked up and Jamison’s wipers were having a hard time keeping pace. Wedged into the passenger seat like a watermelon in a sock, Decker looked fidgety and upset.

“You want to tell me why we’re going to the hospice?” said Jamison.

“Why would she be volunteering there?”

“I don’t know. Why would she be substitute teaching at a school?”

“Because her storage unit was right across the street. I think she wanted to be close to that stuff for some reason. And remember her comments to Billings? I think she liked feeling superior to American teachers and students. If so, that scratches that one off the list. That leaves the hospice. And if she was still spying, I’ve crossed altruistic off my list. So why the hospice?”

They arrived at Dominion Hospice. Visiting hours were over, but their credentials gained them access. The director, Sally Palmer, had gone home for the night, but the evening manager, a man named Alvin Jenkins, met with them in his office.

Jenkins was short and flabby, in his late fifties with glasses and a circle of graying hair surrounding a bald pate. In answer to their inquiries he said, “I never met Anne Berkshire, though I had heard the name. I work evenings, and I understand that she would come in during the mornings.”

“You have other volunteers?” said Decker.

“Oh yes. Quite a few. Mostly older, retired folks who have the time to come in and visit.”

“Do you have a list of them? And one with all of your employees? Nursing staff and admin, everybody.”

He turned to his computer and hit some keys. “I can print them out for you, but what is all this about?”