Billings looked at Decker. “Is that important?” she asked.
When Decker didn’t answer, Jamison said, “Yes, it’s very important.”
Decker got up and walked out without a word.
Billings looked at Jamison and said, “I guess you have one of those on your hands too.”
Jamison smiled, stood, and said, “Good with the bad. If we need anything else, we’ll be in touch. Thanks.”
CHAPTER
40
“SHE HAD ONE like this.”
Decker and Jamison were driving to meet Melvin Mars for dinner. Decker was holding the doll they’d found at Berkshire’s storage unit.
“Who, your daughter?” asked Jamison, glancing over.
Decker nodded and then put the doll down next to him.
“You don’t really talk about your family much,” said Jamison cautiously.
“What am I supposed to say?” replied Decker, not looking at her.
“It takes time, Decker. We all process differently. And you process in a way that is totally unique.”
“Time doesn’t heal my wounds, Alex. For me there is no such thing as time, at least when it comes to memories.”
“Don’t you have a way of, I don’t know, walling things off?”
“If I did, I think I would have tried.”
They drove in silence for a few moments.
“What are the odds that two different people, Dabney and Berkshire, would use pretty much the exact same phrase?” asked Decker.
“Who could they be referring to? The same person? Different people? Each other, maybe?”
Decker shook his head. “I don’t know. If each other, then they must have known each other.”
“So apparently she was good at math and had a slight accent. Does that tell us anything?”
“Yeah, that she was good at math and had a slight accent.”
Jamison sighed and changed the subject. “So how is it working with Harper Brown?”
Decker shrugged. “She keeps things close to the vest, but I think she wants to solve this case as much as we do. Maybe more since now it’s turned into a spy case involving her agency.” He paused. “Her father worked at DIA. He’s on their Torch Bearers Wall for extraordinary service.”
“Huh, maybe that explains things.”
“Explains what?”
“Why she’s so damn driven.”
“She’s wealthy too. Lives in a big house near Capitol Hill. Her great-grandfather was some fat-cat investor way back. Invested in blue chips long before they were blue chips.”
“Wow, just what I wanted to hear.”
He glanced at her. “You okay?”
“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be? She’s a knockout, has this cool career, and she’s loaded. Yay! Good for her.”
Decker rubbed at his knees, which were crammed against the dashboard. “I have to admit, her BMW has a lot more room than your car.”
“Do you want to walk the rest of the way?” Jamison said between gritted teeth.
*
When they entered the restaurant they saw that Mars was already seated in the back. He rose and waved to them. They joined him and sat down.
“I’ve met all the people in the building,” said Mars. “Good folks.”
“When did you do that?” asked Jamison.
“Yesterday and today. I think you picked a great location, Alex. Thanks.”
Mars looked over at Decker, who had said nothing.
“You okay, man?” asked Mars.
When Decker didn’t answer, Jamison said, “Case is not going all that well.”
Mars nodded and said, “Can’t have it good all the time, but you guys will get there.”
“We don’t always get there, Melvin,” said Decker quietly. “The bad guys win too sometimes.”
“I got faith in you, Decker. You don’t let the bad guys win.”
Decker pulled the doll out of his backpack and placed it on the table.
“What is that?” asked Mars, looking puzzled.
“A clue,” answered Jamison.
“You’re kidding.”
“It was used to steal secrets,” said Jamison. “It’s got a hidden compartment.” She picked up the doll and showed him.
“A doll baby, damn,” said Mars. “That’s going pretty low.”
The waitress came and they ordered. She glanced at the doll but said nothing. When the woman walked away, Jamison said, “So how would the exchanges take place, do you think?”
“I’m not sure,” admitted Decker. “The doll would need to get from A to B and then back to A.”
“It seems sort of James Bond stuff,” said Mars. “I mean, don’t they just, you know, hack stuff now and steal it electronically?”
“Well, this was back when they didn’t do it like that,” said Jamison. “They used floppy disks and dolls and, I don’t know, microdots. And rolls of film that would fit inside the doll.”
Decker took the doll from Jamison. While they ate, he said nothing. He just kept staring at the doll.
*
Later that night, after Jamison went to bed, Decker sat at the kitchen table holding the doll. After a few minutes he rose, put on his coat and a ball cap, and headed out. It was drizzling. His walk carried him along the river. He had taken his gun with him because it was just that sort of a neighborhood, especially at night.
He reached the same bench he had when he’d been jogging and sat down.
He liked the night often better than the day. Light tended to intrude on him, even when it wasn’t bombarding him with harsh blues in the face of death.
And he could think. And use his memory to try to catch some anomaly, some inconsistency that would point him in the right direction. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and listened to the rain falling.
But his thoughts were actually not on the case. He was not thinking about Walter Dabney, or Anne Berkshire, or anything along those lines.
Molly and Cassie.
Daughter and wife.
Dead nearly two years now. And as time passed it would be ten years, then twenty, then thirty, then…
He could imagine the passage of time. He could imagine the lessening of grief, of loss. But he could not imagine that lessening happening to him. All he had to do was reach back into his perfect memory and there it would all be, the discovery of the bodies, in their full hellish glory, with not a single impression or observation subtracted from the equation or diminished by the passage of time.
He opened his eyes and there she was.
“I don’t like being followed,” he said crossly.
Harper Brown sat down next to him.
“I’m not too keen on having to follow you.”
“So why do it?”
“Protecting assets, Decker. And DIA considers you a prime one.”
“I work for the FBI.”
“For now you do. But there’s always tomorrow.” Before he could respond she said, “What were you thinking about just now?”
“Nothing.”
She laughed lightly. “As if.”
“Why are you here?”
“I already said.”
“They could have sent a flunky to follow me. I see this as a waste of your time. You have bigger fish to fry.”
She took something out of her coat pocket. It was a piece of laminated paper. “I finished reading the Russian communication.”
“And?”
“And I might have found something.”