Memory Man

She idly played with the button of her jacket, shooting glances at him. Preparing for what she had really come here to do. To say.

“We made an arrest, Amos. In your case.”

Amos Decker opened his eyes. And kept them open.

Chapter 5

Decker placed his hands on the table.

Lancaster noted the hands turning to fists and the thumb rubbing against the forefinger so hard it was leaving a mark.

“His name?” asked Decker, staring at a mound of uneaten scrambled eggs.

“Sebastian Leopold. Unusual one. But that’s what he said.”

Decker once more closed his eyes and turned on what he liked to call his DVR. This was one of the positives of being what he was. The frames flew past his eyes so fast it was hard to see, but he could still see everything in there. He came out the other end of this mental exercise with not a single hit.

He opened his eyes and shook his head. “Never heard of him. You?”

“No. And again, that’s just what he told us. It might not be his real name.”

“No ID, then?”

“No, nothing. Empty pockets. I believe he’s homeless.”

“Run his prints?”

“As we speak. No hits yet.”

“How’d you get onto him?”

“That was the easy part. He walked into the precinct at two o’clock this morning and turned himself in. Easiest collar we’ve ever made. I’ve just come from interviewing him.”

Decker shot her a penetrating look. “After nearly sixteen months the guy walks in and cops to a triple homicide?”

“I know. Certainly doesn’t happen every day.”

“Motive?”

She looked uncomfortable. “I just came here to give you a courtesy heads-up, Amos. It’s an ongoing police investigation. You know the drill.”

He leaned forward, nearly clearing the width of the table. In a level voice as though he were staring at her across the distance of their slung-together desks back at the police station he said, “Motive?”

She sighed, pulled a stick of gum from her pocket, bent it in half, and popped it into her mouth. Three quick chews and she said, “Leopold said you dissed him once. Pissed him off.”

“Where and when?”

“At the 7-Eleven. About a month before, well, before he did what he did. Man apparently holds a grudge. Between you and me, I don’t think the guy is all there.”

“Which 7-Eleven?”

“What?”

“Which 7-Eleven?”

“Um, the one near your house, I believe.”

“On DeSalle at Fourteenth, then?”

“He said he followed you home. That’s how he knew where you lived.”

“So he’s homeless but has a car? Because I never walked to that 7-Eleven in my life.”

“He’s homeless now. I don’t know what his status was back then. He just walked into the precinct, Amos. There’s a lot we still don’t know.”

“Mug shot.” It wasn’t a question. If he had been arrested they had to take his picture and his prints.

She held up her phone and showed it to him. On the small screen was the face of a man. It was sunburned and grimy. His hair was wild and he was crazy-bearded. And, well, in that way, Leopold looked like Decker.

He closed his eyes and his internal DVR turned back on, but at the other end there were, again, no hits.

“I’ve never seen him.”

“Well, he might look different now.”

He shook his head and said, “How old?”

“Hard to say and he didn’t. Maybe early forties, maybe.”

“How big is he?”

“Six feet and about one-seventy.”

“Lean or flabby?”

“Lean. Pretty wiry, from what I could tell.”

“My brother-in-law was my size, construction worker, and he could bench-press a truck. How’d Leopold manage it in a hand-to-hand confrontation?”

“That’s part of the investigation, Amos. I can’t say.”

He looked directly at her again but this time let his silence speak for him.

She sighed, chewed her gum ferociously, and said, “He told us your brother-in-law was drunk at the kitchen table. Never saw it coming. He said he thought he was you, in fact. At least from behind.”

He thought he was killing me when he was slitting my brother-in-law’s throat?

“I don’t look anything like my brother-in-law.”

“From the back, Amos. And I’m telling you, this Leopold is a whack job. His elevator doesn’t leave the basement.”

Decker closed his eyes.

So then this whack job with the broken elevator for a brain next went upstairs and shot my wife and strangled my daughter?

He opened his eyes when Lancaster rose from her seat.

“I have more questions,” he said.

“Well, I have no more answers. I could lose my badge for coming here and telling you what I just did. You know that, Amos.”

He rose too, towering over her, a great big blob of a man who could cause little children to run screaming away in fear just by…being.

“I need to get in to see this guy.”

“Impossible.” Lancaster was already backing away. Then she noticed the bulge at his waistband.

“Are you carrying?” she said incredulously.

He didn’t glance to where she was staring.

“I turned in my weapon when I left the force.”

“Not what I asked. Anybody can buy a gun. One more time. Are you carrying?”