David Baldacci - The Last Mile

“I’ve seen an old, grainy picture of your parents. But tell me what your mother looked like to you.”

Mars’s face spread into a smile. “She was so beautiful. Everybody said so. She could’ve been a model or something. My dad said he married way over his pay grade.”

Decker held up his phone. “I took a picture of this in your parents’ closet. Any idea what it means?”

Mars read the screen. “AC and RB? I have no idea what that means. That was in their closet?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know. I never looked in their closet.”

“Okay. Your dad worked in a pawnshop and your mom taught Spanish and did some sewing?”

“Yeah.”

“Who’d she sew for?”

“Some local company needed some piecework done. Didn’t pay much, but she could work at home.”

“And the Spanish? Did she go to a school to teach?”

“No, she didn’t teach kids. She taught adults. White dudes mostly. You had a lot of folks coming over the border to work and such. People who hired ’em had to learn the language so they could tell ’em what to do. So my mom taught ’em.”

“And where did she learn Spanish? Was it her native language?”

“No. I mean, I don’t think so. She wasn’t Hispanic, if that’s what you mean. She was black. A lot darker than me. I’m pretty sure she was an American.”

“Based on what?”

“She spoke like one. And she didn’t have any foreign accent.”

“Did you learn Spanish from her?”

“Bits and pieces, but we mostly spoke English. My dad was a stickler on that. We weren’t Spanish. We were Americans, he would say. He didn’t like it when she spoke Spanish at home.”

“And she worked another job?”

“Yeah. The sewing and the Spanish lessons didn’t pay much. She worked for a company that cleaned places around the area. And she’d press clothes. The woman could iron like a pro, I’ll tell you that. Hell, she’d iron my jeans I wore to school.”

“Did you ever ask them about their pasts?”

“I remember once wanting to know about my grandparents. It was grandparents’ day at school when I was in the third grade. Just about everybody else had grandparents who came in. I asked Dad about it. He said they were dead. And then he didn’t say anything more.”

“Did he say how they died?”

Mars slapped the bed rail with his free hand. “Shit, what does that matter? You think my dad killed his parents? And you think I killed mine?”

“No, I don’t think you killed your parents. I don’t know if your father killed his. He might have.”

Mars had been about to say something else but then stopped. He looked right at Decker. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You know nothing about your parents, Melvin. You know nothing about any of your relatives. There was one picture of your parents in their house. They never told you anything about themselves. Why do you think that is?”

“You mean you think they were hiding something?” Mars said slowly.

“At least it’s worth exploring. Because if they were hiding something it might give someone else a really good reason to kill them.”

CHAPTER

18

OKAY, WHAT ELSE have we found out about Roy and Lucinda Mars?” asked Bogart. The entire team was assembled around a conference table in the rental space.

Milligan glanced at Decker and said, “Okay, I have to admit, it’s a little funny. There’s just really nothing on them that we can find. There were Social Security numbers issued to them, but when I dug into them nothing else came up.”

“Nothing?” said Bogart. “You think they stole the numbers?”

“It’s possible. And they did have driver’s licenses on file twenty years ago, but I couldn’t find anything else about them.”

“Roy Mars had a job,” said Jamison. “And so did Lucinda. They had to have FICA taken out of their paychecks and they had to file tax returns and such.”

“Not that we could find,” said Milligan. “The pawnshop where he worked is long since gone, but they could have paid him in cash or barter. And maybe the same for his wife. And lots of people don’t file tax returns because they don’t make enough money and don’t owe anything.”

“But you still have to file,” pointed out Jamison. “It’s a federal crime not to.”

“And lots of people ignore that,” countered Milligan. “And apparently the Marses were those kind of people, because the IRS has no record of them. And Texas doesn’t have a personal income tax.”

“How about the house?” asked Bogart. “Was there a mortgage on it?”

“Again, not that I could find,” said Milligan. “But in the real estate records Roy and Lucinda Mars were listed as the owners.”

“Okay,” said Bogart. “That doesn’t leave much to go on.”

Milligan glanced at Decker. “I made some inquiries. The cops can’t tell me who made the 911 call about the fire. If they ever knew, those records are long gone. I also asked about the interior of the house. The missing pictures on the wall and all. Apparently they didn’t take crime scene photos of any of that. Just the bodies.”

“Well, that was careless,” opined Bogart.

“Do you think he’s innocent?” asked Milligan.

“Leaning that way,” said Decker.

“Why?” asked Bogart.

“The blood in the car. I gave Mars two plausible and exculpatory explanations of why her blood would be in his car. Neither could be disproved by the cops. Nosebleed or cut. He rejected both. Said she’d never been in his car. A guilty man would have jumped at either scenario. But not Melvin.”

The others glanced at each other, the stark plausibility of what Decker had just said sinking in.

“So that was a test for Mars?” asked Davenport.

“And he passed it,” said Decker. “At least in my mind.”

He held up a sheaf of papers that had been stapled together. “This is the rest of the autopsy report on the Marses. It just came in from the coroner’s office. They’d misplaced it.”

“How’d you find out about that?” asked Bogart.

“The front of the report listed thirty-six pages as the length. There were only thirty-four pages attached. I made a call.”

Jamison said, “And is there anything significant on the new pages?”

“One thing. Lucinda Mars had Stage Four glioblastoma.”

They all stared at him, stunned.

“Brain cancer?” said Davenport.

“ Terminal brain cancer, according to the report.”

“Melvin never mentioned that,” said Jamison.

“Maybe he didn’t know,” replied Decker.

Milligan said, “But how does that bear on the case?”

“I don’t know if it does or not,” said Decker. “She was dying, but then someone killed her.” He glanced at Davenport. “Let’s set that aside for a minute and focus on the son. What’s your conclusion about his psychological makeup?”

Davenport pulled out some written notes.

“He’s well above average in intelligence, with a combination of book and street smarts. He graduated from college early after majoring in business. The man is no dummy. He has an interesting combination of keeping things close to the vest but then appearing to open up, as in making very forceful claims of innocence and of being wrongfully persecuted.”

“Not unusual for a man who’s spent two decades in prison,” noted Bogart. “He’s learned how to play the system.”

“Maybe,” said Davenport. “And I have seen that, of course, but there seems to be something different about Mars. I just can’t quite put my finger on it. He desperately wants to know more about this Charles Montgomery. He wants to know the details that Montgomery allegedly knows that would tie him to the murders. And he is wary that the authorities will try to connect him to Montgomery in some sort of murder-for-hire scenario. He’s convinced that even if he is innocent he won’t get out of prison. In fact, he’s borderline paranoid on that.”