And I helped put you there because maybe I didn’t do a thorough enough investigation.
Jamison was watching Decker and put a hand on his arm. His eyes popped open and he abruptly moved away from her. He didn’t notice her hurt look at his reaction.
Lancaster examined the last mark that was to the right of the teardrop. “I’ve never seen one like that before, though,” she said.
“Looks like a star with an arrow going through it,” said Jamison. She looked at Decker. “Any ideas?”
“Not yet,” he replied. He looked at the ME. “How far along was his cancer?”
The ME shuddered. “Advanced. If the bullet didn’t get him, my guess is he had a few weeks left. Actually, I’m surprised he was still able to function.”
“He said he was on street meds,” said Jamison.
“The tox screens will show what was in his system. He had nothing in his stomach, no food or anything, I mean. I would imagine his appetite would have been negligible at that point. But he must have been a strong man to keep going with that level of cancer in him.”
Decker said, “Well, maybe wanting to prove his innocence gave him that strength.”
“Anything else of interest?” asked Lancaster.
“We’ve got his clothes over there in those evidence bags.”
Lancaster looked at Decker. “He also had a small duffel. We’ve got it at the station. Nothing much in it, but you’ll probably want to go through it.”
Decker nodded as he continued to stare down at the body.
Three tats. The spiderweb looked to be the oldest. That made sense. When Hawkins had first got to prison, he was probably pissed beyond belief, if he was indeed innocent. The web tat would have been one of his few ways to vocalize that anger. The teardrop tat probably came soon thereafter. Fresh meat in prisons did not remain fresh for long.
Then there was the unidentified one. Star with an arrow through it. He would have to find out what that one meant. Because that one looked to be the most recent. Decker could tell because Hawkins had recently lost weight, probably because of his illness. The other two tats showed signs of his shrinking weight, and the corresponding change in the width of his forearm. The star, though, evinced no signs of this. And the markings looked fresher too. He might have had it done right before he left prison, in fact.
And if he’d had this tat put on close to when he was released it might have held some significance for him at that time.
And since Decker had missed there being no muddy footprints in the house, he was determined to not miss anything else on this case.
Homicide detectives rarely got do-overs. He wasn’t going to screw this one up.
Again.
Chapter 12
IT WASN’T MUCH.
Decker was at police headquarters staring at it. The duffel held a few items of clothing. A bus ticket for Hawkins’s ride from prison. A wallet with some cash. Some paperwork from the prison that Hawkins had drawn graffiti over.
There was a dog-eared paperback book by a writer Decker had never heard of. It had a garish cover of a man holding a knife against a scantily clad woman’s throat. It was straight out of a Mickey Spillane yarn from the 1950s, he thought.
There was also a photo in the wallet of Hawkins’s daughter, Mitzi.
Her last name was now Gardiner, Lancaster had found out. She lived in Trammel, Ohio, about a two-hour car ride from Burlington. She’d been in her late twenties when her father went to prison. Lancaster had also learned that she was now married and the mother of a six-year-old boy.
The picture of Mitzi was from when she’d been in elementary school. Decker knew it was her because Hawkins had written his daughter’s name and age on the back of the photo. And Hawkins had written there, “Daddy’s Little Star.” That might be the reason Hawkins had the star tat on his arm. The photo obviously represented far happier times for the Hawkins family. Mitzi looked bright and innocent, all cheeks and smiles, as kids did at that age.
And then the dream had shattered. She had grown up to be a drug addict and petty criminal to finance her habit. She’d done short stints in jail, and longer ones in rehab. The little girl with the limitless future was no more.
Yet apparently she had finally gotten her life together.
Good for you, thought Decker. But he also knew that he would have to talk to her. Her father might have gotten in touch with her after being released from prison.
Lancaster walked in and looked at the pile of items on the table.
“Nothing?”
Decker shook his head. “Got a question.”
“Okay.”
Lancaster sat down and popped a stick of gum into her mouth.
“Stick to the gum and quit the smokes,” advised Decker.
Her lips pursed. “Thanks Dr. Decker. So what’s your question?”
“Who called it in?”
“What?”
“Who called in the disturbance at the Richardses’ house that night?”
“You know we never found out the answer to that.”
“Well, I think we need to find it out now.”
“How?” she said incredulously. “It’s been too long.”
“At the time, I read the transcript of the call and listened to the recording as well. The caller was a female. She said she’d heard a disturbance at the house. The cops were sent out and arrived shortly thereafter. Then so did we once the homicides were confirmed.”
“That we know.”
“But how did the caller know there was a disturbance? The call didn’t come from the landlines at the neighboring homes. It didn’t come from any traceable cell phone. So where?”
“I guess we weren’t too focused on that. We just thought it was a Good Samaritan passing by.”
“A convenient Samaritan, anyway. And one who is passing by in a monsoon down a dead-end road? Why go down there unless you lived there?”
Lancaster thought about this for a few moments. “And then once we got there all signs pointed to Hawkins once you found the print.”
Decker nodded because he knew this was true. And it was grating on him beyond belief.
“Okay,” he said. “We need to go over this case from square one. No predisposition that Hawkins was good for it. Fresh eyes, wide open.”
“Decker, it’s been over thirteen years.”
“I don’t care if it’s been thirteen hundred years, Mary,” he snapped. “We need to make this right.”
She studied him for a long moment. “You’re never going to get over it, are you?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do.”
Decker stared at her moodily. “I need you one hundred percent on this.”
“Okay, Decker, but please keep in mind that I’ve got a slew of other cases to work on, not just Hawkins’s murder.”
Decker scowled. “This has to be your priority, Mary. If the guy really didn’t do it, we screwed his life up, sent him to prison where it looks like he was raped, and then let somebody murder him.”
“We didn’t let anyone murder him,” she retorted.
“We might as well have,” Decker shot back.
“Problem?”
They both looked over at Jamison standing in the doorway.