Decker looked at the bloody wall. “Well, once is one time too many.”
They walked past a large table on their way back to the fulfillment center. Decker noted the unrolled sheaf of papers on it.
“What’s that?” he asked.
Ross walked over to the table. “Construction drawings for the addition. It’s pretty much the existing one just halved in size. Why?”
Decker stared down at the drawings, the mental frames flowing past in his head, until he arrived at one, and then moved on to a second one. When he put the two together in his head, it literally clicked inside his brain.
At least his memory seemed to be working okay now.
“No reason,” he said.
Chapter 36
DECKER, WHAT ARE you doing?”
Decker had pulled out the construction drawings he’d seen earlier in the Mitchells’ front closet.
He had sat down at the kitchen table and was unrolling them as Jamison had come into the room.
He flattened out the drawings and looked up at her. “These are construction plans for the Maxus FC.”
Jamison sat down across from him. “So what? And why did you stay behind?”
“I wanted to see where Frank died.”
Jamison looked dumbstruck. “Why? It was an accident.”
Decker looked over her shoulder at the doorway to the kitchen.
“Where are Amber and Zoe?”
“Amber’s still out and Zoe’s taking a nap. I don’t think she slept much last night. She could barely keep her eyes open on the drive back here.”
Decker refocused on the drawings, leafing through the pages until he got to the one he wanted.
“Hang on a sec.”
He jumped up and ran out of the room.
“De—” Jamison began and then stopped, shaking her head. She glanced over the plans but had no idea what she was supposed to be looking for.
A minute later Decker returned with a folded piece of paper in his hand. He opened it on the table, smoothing it out.
“What is that?” Jamison asked as Decker rummaged in a couple of kitchen drawers until he found a pencil. He didn’t answer but sat down at the table and started making lines on the paper.
As Jamison studied him, she said, “That was the piece of graph paper we found in Toby Babbot’s trailer.”
“Yep.”
“What are you doing with the pencil?”
“Filling in the indentations on the paper. Remember, whatever he drew was done on the piece of graph paper above this one in the pad. But his marks were carried onto the paper because of the pressure he was applying.”
“Okay, I get that. Probably many a marriage has ended because a cheating spouse didn’t know that the bottom page carries impressions made on the top page. But what does that have to do with anything?”
Again, Decker didn’t answer. He kept filling in the lines and then sat back when he was finished.
Jamison looked down at the paper.
“Compare it to this page of the construction drawings for the FC,” said Decker.
Jamison looked between the two documents and her jaw dropped. “They’re the same, just on a smaller scale.” She looked at Decker. “Why would Toby Babbot have been recreating the construction drawings for the Maxus Fulfillment Center?”
“I don’t know. But I want to find out.” Decker picked up the piece of graph paper. “When I saw the plans for the addition, it jogged my memory of the plans I’d seen in the closet here.” He held up the paper. “And then it struck me that the marks on this looked very close to the marks on the drawings in that closet.”
“Well, I think your memory is as good as ever, then,” said Jamison. “But I don’t really see why we should waste time on this.”
“Because somebody tried to kill us while we were in Babbot’s trailer, Alex. Maybe he wanted to kill us, or maybe he wanted to get rid of some sort of evidence.” He tapped the graph paper. “Like this.”
“But evidence of what?”
Decker sat back. “I don’t know.”
“He could have just taken it. Why burn the place down?”
“He might have meant to do that, but we interrupted his search. He might have been afraid we’d find it or something else that Babbot might have had. So he torched the place with us in it. Two birds with one stone.”
Jamison folded her arms over her chest. “What did you find out about Frank’s accident?”
He told her what Ted Ross had said.
She shook her head and scowled. “A renegade robot, great. Makes you want to chuck all this technology and go back to hammers and shovels.”
She eyed her partner as he stared at the wall opposite him, obviously lost in thought.
“Decker?” He didn’t answer. “Decker, you’re not thinking that Frank’s death was something other than an accident, are you?”
He finally came out of his reverie. “Just because someone told us it was an accident doesn’t mean that it was an accident.”
“But the alternative would be…Decker, Frank had no enemies here. Why would anyone want to kill him?”
He looked over at her. “How do you know he didn’t have any enemies?”
“Why, because…he…They hadn’t been here that long. And he was such a sweet guy.”
“I didn’t know there was a certain time period one needed to create enemies. And even sweet guys can make an enemy of someone not nearly as sweet. What I do know is Toby Babbot had the plans for the FC in his trailer. Someone burned down that trailer. And now Frank dies at that FC because a robot arm that’s not supposed to be on suddenly went berserk and killed him.”
“How could those two things possibly be connected?”
“I don’t know if they are connected. But they could be.”
“But we already have six other murders we’re investigating.”
“I realize that.”
“And you have no proof that Frank was murdered.” She lowered her voice. “And you cannot go around telling people, especially my sister and Zoe, that Frank might have been murdered, Decker. They’re traumatized enough.”
“I have no plans to tell anyone that.”
“But then how are you going to investigate it?”
“The company that built the robot is sending a team in to see what happened. I’m sure they’ll give a copy of that report to the cops and we can get it from them. At the very least they’ll have to share it with Amber, so we could get it that way too.”
“How quickly will the report be done?”
“No idea. Which is why I’m not waiting. I’ll make inquiries.” He added hastily when he saw Jamison about to object, “I’ll discreetly make inquiries about the fulfillment center.”
“But you’re supposed to be helping Green and Lassiter, and now I guess Agent Kemper, with these murders.”
“I’m still going to do that. In fact, I’m going to work on it today.”
“So I don’t see why you’re adding in Frank’s death, which may simply be an accident. These sorts of robot accidents involving people have happened before.”
“Yeah, they have. I looked it up. The odds, I very roughly calculated, are about the same as dying in a plane crash.” He stared at her. “So, do you still think it was probably an accident or maybe worth investigating?”
When Jamison didn’t answer, he rose and headed for the door.
“Where are you going now?” asked Jamison.
“Back to high school,” replied Decker.
Chapter 37
IF THIS WAS the current state of education in America, Decker thought, the country was in serious trouble.
Baronville High School looked like it was nearly ready for the wrecking ball to come through. In fact, it wouldn’t have taken a demolition team to knock the place down, it appeared one guy with a sledgehammer and a six pack of Red Bull could do the job just fine.
The roof had holes in it, some windows were broken, and the front door stuck so much that Decker nearly wrenched his shoulder out of joint tugging it open.
When he entered the school and headed to the office he could smell mildew and damp everywhere. The linoleum floors looked untouched since they had been installed. The trophy cabinet outside the office had no trophies inside it.