Dickerson looked over at Decker. “Is all that true?”
“I still work for the FBI. And I do have ties to the community.”
Childress jumped in. “I’m afraid that’s simply not true. He has no home here, or other property. Or job. Or—”
“My family is buried here,” said Decker quietly, looking not at Childress, but staring directly at Dickerson. “That’s why I came back to town. To visit the graves of my wife and my daughter. It would have been her fourteenth birthday.” He paused. “So my ties to this community run very deep. About as deep as they can, in fact.”
Natty clucked his tongue and rolled his eyes at this. Childress looked visibly put out by the statement. However, Bailey’s eyes watered and she looked down at her hands.
Dickerson nodded. “Mr. Decker, I accept your not-guilty plea, and you are released without bond on your own recognizance. A trial date will be set. I just ask that if you are planning to leave the area that you let the court know.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Your Honor, until all of this is settled.”
Dickerson disappeared into his chambers. As soon as the door was closed, Childress stepped directly in front of Decker and looked him up and down. Now that the judge was no longer around, the man’s entire demeanor had changed from professional and genuine to cocksure and mean.
“I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that you’re back in town, Decker. Because your ass is going down for this.” He looked over at Natty. “What are the sentencing guidelines for this again, Natty?”
“One to three. Double that for aggravated circumstances.”
Childress stared gleefully at Decker. “Here’s hoping for aggravated circumstances, then.”
Decker looked him over. “You must not want to solve Hawkins’s murder.”
“Why do you say that?” said Childress, the grin still planted on his face.
“You assigned Natty to it. He can’t even solve the mystery of why you’re a dick.”
Bailey coughed and looked away, rubbing at her eye.
“You think you’re so much smarter than everybody else, don’t you?” barked Childress.
“No. But I know I screwed up the Richards and Katz murders. And I’m here to fix that.”
“The only thing you should be working on are your obstruction and interference charges.”
“I think that’ll play itself out okay.”
“Oh, you do, do you?” said Childress, his grin deepening as he shot a glance at Natty before looking back at Decker. “And why the hell is that?”
“I don’t want to waste my time telling you, because you wouldn’t understand.”
Childress jammed a finger in Decker’s chest. “I’m smart enough to be the superintendent of this fucking police department.”
“No, you’re really not. That’s all due to you benefiting enormously from a principle.”
“You’re damn right I have principles.”
“No, I said principle. Singular.”
Childress looked at him strangely. “What the hell are you getting at?”
“It’s actually named for you, Childress.”
“What is?”
“The Peter Principle.” Decker turned to Bailey. “I guess my lawyer, whenever I find one, will be in touch, Beth.”
She nodded. “Thanks, Amos. I can give you some recommendations.”
Decker looked over at Natty. “When I find Hawkins’s and the Richardses’ and Katz’s murderers, I’ll let you know.”
“You’re not to go anywhere near that,” said Natty angrily.
“Somebody tried to kill me,” said Decker. “I don’t take kindly to that.”
“We’re working on that,” said Natty.
“Any leads?” asked Decker.
“We’re working on it,” repeated Natty. “I don’t like you, Decker. You know that. But I like even less people trying to take out a cop. I’m gonna get whoever did that.”
Childress appeared to still be focused on what Decker had said to him.
“There’s no law against an FBI agent investigating a crime,” said Decker.
“I know you’re not working this case for the FBI,” said Natty.
“Based on what?” said Decker.
“Based on…based on…based on I damn well said so.”
Bailey gave this comment a well-deserved eye roll, picked up her briefcase, and said in an incredulous tone to the still confused-looking Childress, “The Peter Principle?” When Childress still looked perplexed, she added, “For God’s sake, just Google it.”
She walked out.
Decker followed her.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” snapped Childress.
Decker kept right on walking.
Chapter 26
DECKER HAD JUST SETTLED into his bed.
His arrest and the bail hearing had shaken him more than he cared to show. With someone like Childress breathing down his neck, solving this case was going to be even harder. And it was difficult enough as it was.
He rolled over and punched his pillow, shaping it to be more comfortable.
Decker’s memory—his albatross and gold mine all in one. It allowed him incredible tools to successfully do what he did, but also imprisoned him within an indestructible cell of recollections any other human being could simply allow time to extinguish.
He was actually glad Lancaster had had to recuse herself and Jamison had gone back to the FBI. Better to suffer this alone. After this case, he might just chuck the FBI and move off somewhere by himself. Well, he might not have a choice about that, actually. He knew Bogart was growing weary of his constantly going off on his own cases. The FBI was many things, and a bureaucracy with rules and ways of doing things was one of the main ones. Decker couldn’t keep bucking that bureaucracy and those rules without suffering the consequences.
So it might just be me going it alone after this.
This admittedly self-pitying analysis came to an abrupt halt when the knock came at his door.
Groaning, he looked at his watch.
It was nearly eleven o’clock.
He turned over and closed his eyes.
Knock, knock.
He ignored it.
Then pounding followed.
He jumped out of bed, slid on his pants, padded across the small room to the door, and flung it open, ready to read the riot act to whoever was there. And if it was Natty, to perhaps do more than that.
It was not Natty.
Instead, there stood Melvin Mars—all nearly six-foot-three, two hundred and forty chiseled pounds of him.
Decker was so taken aback that he blinked and then closed his eyes for a full second. When he reopened them, Mars was still there.
Mars chuckled at this. “No, I’m not a dream, Decker, or a nightmare.”
The pair, rivals from their college football days, had run into each other again when Mars, a Heisman Trophy finalist and lock to be a first-round NFL pick as a running back from Texas, had been sitting on death row for murder when another man had come forward claiming to have committed the crimes. This revelation had come on the very eve of Mars’s execution.
Decker had helped to prove Mars’s innocence, and Mars was given a full pardon and a huge monetary reward from both the federal government and the state of Texas as compensation for the erroneous guilty verdict as well as the racist and brutal treatment Mars had received at the hands of his prison guards. He owned the apartment building in D.C. where Decker and Jamison lived, leasing apartments out to those hardworking folks who otherwise could not afford rental prices in the capital with its high cost of living. He had been dating a woman whom they all had encountered during a previous investigation. Harper Brown worked for military intelligence. Unlike Mars, she came from money, but the two of them hit it off immediately. The last Decker had heard they were vacationing somewhere in the Mediterranean.