David Baldacci - The Last Mile

As soon as Decker hit the first step his brain popped with the color blue. It was so sudden that he misjudged the riser and stumbled a bit. Milligan caught him by the arm.

“You okay?”

Decker nodded, though he wasn’t feeling okay.

He had only experienced blue like that when he had seen his family’s bodies in his old house. And every time he had visited it since.

Electric blue: It seemed to overwhelm every sense that he had. It was unnerving, uncomfortable.

And I just need to get over it.

He blinked rapidly, only to find the blue reemerge each time his eyes opened.

Synesthesia is not all it’s cracked up to be.

He picked his way carefully up the rickety stairs and hit the landing.

There were only two bedrooms up here — Mars’s and his parents’. They had shared a bathroom.

Decker stepped into the first bedroom. He assumed it was Mars’s. The bed was still there, and so were crumbling posters of R&B singers Luther Vandross and Keith Sweat. On another wall was the confirmation that this was not the parents’ room — tattered posters of supermodels Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer.

“Red-blooded American male,” commented Milligan. “Jeez, it’s like we opened a time capsule or something.”

“Where was the shotgun rack?” asked Decker.

Milligan pointed to the far wall. “Over there. Single rack with a small drawer underneath to hold the ammo boxes.”

They next went into the parents’ bedroom.

Decker stood against one wall and thought back to the diagrams in the old police reports. Bodies were right under the front window, side by side. Roy was closest to the window, Lucinda on the side nearest the bed. The glass had blackened and shattered from the heat. The plywood had been nailed to the exterior of the house, closing this gap.

Unlike their son’s room, this space had been emptied.

“What happened to the furniture?” asked Decker.

“I imagine it was all taken as evidence,” said Bogart. “And the firefighters might have had to carry some of the combustibles out while they were dealing with the blaze.”

Decker nodded. “Maybe we can find out for sure. And those square marks on the wall. Pictures hung there. I wonder what happened to them?”

Milligan said, “I can make some calls.”

Decker opened the closet door and shone his light around the interior. He was about to close the door when he stopped and leaned farther into the closet.

“Check this out.”

Bogart and Milligan joined him and stared at where Decker was pointing his light.

“‘AC + RB’?” said Bogart, reading off the faded letters someone had written on the side wall of the closet. “What does that mean?”

Decker took a picture of the writing with his phone. “I don’t know. They could have been there before the Marses even bought the place.”

“Maybe.”

“Or maybe the Marses wrote them. Which means it could be important.” Decker gazed around. “Who made the 911 call about the fire?”

Milligan said, “I don’t think they ever determined that.”

“People really didn’t use cell phones back then. And I doubt reception was great back then in this area. So it probably wasn’t a car driving past.”

“Well, it could have been. And then the people went to their house and called.”

Bogart said, “But if they’d done that they’d know where the call came from. They could trace it.”

Milligan was already nodding. “That’s true. I’ll have to check.”

They went back downstairs.

Here Decker saw what he had seen before. A faded picture of a young Melvin Mars in his high school football uniform. It was hanging on the wall. On a small shelf were more old photos of Mars at various ages.

“Surprised they’re still here,” said Bogart.

“Like you said, no one wants to come into a house where people were killed. And not too many people live out this way. And strangers passing by wouldn’t even be able to see the house from the road, particularly now with everything overgrown.”

Decker looked around some more.

“But it’s interesting what we’re not seeing.”

“What’s that?” asked Milligan.

“Pictures of Roy and Lucinda Mars.” He turned to Milligan. “It’s like they never even existed.”

Decker looked at his watch.

They had driven to the house where Ellen Tanner had hooked up with Melvin Mars that night. It was small, old, and set off by itself. There wasn’t another home within twenty miles of it. And back then it was probably even more isolated.

“Why’s a young woman living all the way out here by herself?” Decker had asked.

Neither Bogart nor Milligan had an answer.

Then they had driven back to the site of the old motel, which was now a strip mall. They had next driven to the Marses’ home. All three locations were off the same main road, a fairly straight shot.

Decker said, “It’s one hour in between Ellen Tanner’s old house and the motel. And about forty minutes from the motel to the Marses’ house.”

Milligan, at the wheel of the car, nodded. “He left Tanner’s at ten p.m. He said he reached the motel about an hour later, or eleven o’clock, which works. But the motel clerk testified that he checked Mars in at one-fifteen a.m. So he could have driven another forty minutes to his house, killed his parents, and driven back to the motel and made it easily by one or a bit after. That’s what the prosecution successfully argued.”

“Not easily,” countered Decker. “He had to get to the house, shotgun his parents, get the gas, and set them on fire. That would take some time.”

“But it could be done, there’s no denying that.”

“And the police report said a car matching Mars’s was seen leaving the vicinity of their house about the time the coroner thinks the murders occurred,” added Bogart.

“That’s right,” said Milligan. “And the witness was a long-haul trucker who was based here and knew the Marses.”

Bogart nodded. “And he died five years ago, so we can’t talk to him.”

Decker said, “But we have Charles Montgomery. We can talk to him.”

“I got an email back from the folks in Alabama. It’s all set. We can speak to him the day after tomorrow.”

Decker’s phone buzzed. It was Jamison.

She said, “We’ve talked to Mars. Davenport is writing up her report now.”

“What does she think?”

“I’m not sure. She plays things close to the vest.”

“What do you think?”

“He seems very sincere, Amos. But he could also be very manipulative. I just don’t know which one yet.”

“Did he tell you anything new?”

“Not really. He reiterated his innocence. We went over his actions on the night his parents were killed. He can’t explain the timing. He said he went to sleep at the motel and woke up when the police knocked on his door.”

“Well, he’s had two decades to perfect that story. But one thing does bother me.”

“What?”

“If he planned this all out, why can’t he come up with a plausible explanation for the time gap? He had to know it was going to be a problem.”

Bogart, who had been listening in, said, “Criminals usually slip up. And they usually slip up on the timeline, Amos. They can’t be in two places at the same time. You know that as well as anyone.”

“They do slip up, but not by that much,” countered Decker. “Fifteen minutes, maybe half an hour can be fudged, but not hours. It was a huge hole. If he was meticulous in other respects, why not with that critical piece? I’m just saying it’s something to keep in mind.”

Jamison asked, “When will you be back?”