Текст книги "Memory Man"

Автор книги: David Baldacci

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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

Chapter

52

DECKER SAT AT the table, looking out the window. Jamison sat across from him, watching him nervously.

In an effort to lighten the mood, she said, “Okay, I have to admit, this beats my Suzuki.”

“You mean your clown car,” commented Decker, still peering out the window.

They were traveling at forty-one thousand feet and well over five hundred miles an hour in the Bureau’s sleek tri-engine Falcon.

He looked up when Bogart placed cups of coffee in front of him and Jamison, then sat down across from him. The FBI agent unbuttoned his jacket and took a sip from his own cup.

Jamison looked around the plush interior. “Nice ride.”

Bogart nodded. “The FBI pulls out all the stops for cases like this.” He eyed Decker, who was still staring out the window.

“So you took a hit on the football field and it changed your life forever?”

“It changed my brain, and with it my life.”

“And again, you don’t want to talk about it?”

Decker said nothing.

“What do you think we’ll find at the Wyatts’ house in Colorado?” asked Jamison, peering anxiously between the two men.

Decker said, “Whatever we find will tell us something we didn’t know before. And it will get us one step closer to Belinda Wyatt.”

Bogart took another sip of coffee. “What made you look in Wyatt’s direction? We were searching for a man and she’s a woman, or she was when you knew her.”

In answer Decker opened the laptop in front of him and spun it around so Bogart could see the screen. Then he ran the video.

Bogart looked at the frames and then turned back to Decker.

“Okay, it’s a woman getting out of a car. The waitress from the bar. Leopold’s accomplice. Maybe this Belinda Wyatt person. She certainly looks like a woman to me.”

“Did you notice how the person got out of the car?”

Bogart glanced at the screen. “You said it was a guy masquerading as a woman. But now that we know Wyatt has this intersex condition, we don’t really know what she is, male or female. So it could just be her being a woman because she is a woman. Maybe she never had the operation.”

“That’s right. She may be exactly what she was twenty years ago. We know Leopold couldn’t have committed the murders. If Wyatt is involved with him, that leaves her. She’s the shooter.”

“Okay, but I’m not getting what you mean about her climbing out of the car. She swung her legs out and stood up. Like a girl or a guy would.”

“No, not like a guy would. Nothing like a guy would.”

“I’m not following.”

“Turn to the side and stand up, like you’re getting out of a car.”

“What, now?”

“Yes, now.”

“Decker!”

“Just do it.”

Bogart looked put out, but he turned to his side and put his legs out into the aisle. He was about to stand when Decker stopped him.

“Look at your legs.”

Bogart stared down at his splayed legs. “What about them? I swung them out into the aisle, which I have to do in order to stand up. The person on the screen did the exact same thing.”

“Look at the distance between your thighs.”

Bogart stared down at the large gap between his legs. “So what?”

“Look at the screen.”

Bogart glanced at the screen. There the person’s thighs were nearly touching.

“Look at the hand,” added Decker.

Bogart looked at the person’s hand. It was knifed into the narrow crevice between the thighs, edging the skirt down.

“Your legs were spread out and your hand was nowhere near your legs.”

“Well, she’s wearing a dress, I’m not.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re a guy and, wearing a dress or not, you wouldn’t do it. You’d spread your legs and stand. And the person’s in an alley. No one is there to catch a glimpse up the dress. So why keep the legs together? Why place your hand there for added security to prevent prying eyes?”

“I give up. Why?”

“It’s the difference between being raised female and male. Women do that motion automatically. It’s ingrained in them from an early age, as soon as they start wearing a jumper and tights, and then a dress or skirt. My wife taught our daughter that motion when she was just a little girl. Every mom does. But a guy would never think to do it. Never. Dress or no dress. Guys don’t worry about people looking, because guys are always the ones who are looking.”

Bogart stared down at his legs, and then at his hand, and lastly over at the screen where the frozen image showed explicitly everything that Decker had just explained. He looked at Jamison, who had been following this conversation closely. Before he could say anything, she swung her legs out into the aisle. She was wearing a skirt. Her knees were pressed together and her hand was in the same position as the person on the video.

“It is hammered into us, Agent Bogart,” she noted. “Just like Decker said. It’s just automatic, especially when one is wearing a skirt.”

Bogart exclaimed, “So let me get this straight. Are you saying that our shooter is a woman, Decker?”

“I’m saying that if our shooter is Belinda Wyatt—and I believe she is—then she has retained the muscle memory from when she was raised as a girl. Whether she’s now a man after having surgery, I don’t know. Ironically enough, she may like that, after having been considered a freak for straddling genders, because she’s now able to use it to her full advantage. She’s a chameleon gender-wise. She can play both roles. It makes for very effective cover.”

Bogart swung his legs back in and rested his elbows on the table. Jamison did the same.

“Why do you think she killed Sizemore?” asked Bogart.

“That’s the other reason I started to focus on Wyatt. She was his favorite. He made that clear to me. He never told me about her background, but he spent a great deal of time with her.”

“Okay, but why would she kill him, then?”

Decker gazed at Bogart with a look of disappointment. “It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? He seduced her and had sex with her while she was at the institute.”

Jamison and Bogart stared at him goggle-eyed.

“Damn,” said Jamison. “That does make sense. Sizemore was a slimeball. He got kicked out of the institute for doing that very same thing with another female patient.”

Bogart said, “So he seduced this physically and emotionally battered teenager when she was at her most vulnerable just so he could get laid? Some favorite.”

Decker said nothing to this. He had returned to gazing out the window.

“You don’t miss much, do you?” noted Bogart.

“So long as I see it or hear it, then it’s always with me.”

Jamison said, “But what if someone tells you a lie? You remember it, but not necessarily as a lie, right?”

“Unless I’m told something else that doesn’t align with the earlier statement. Then I can start to figure out what’s true and what’s not. Small things tend to lead to big results. People don’t mess up on the big details. They fall down on the small ones.”

“What about Leopold? How did those two hook up?”

Decker looked back out the window and watched the clouds pass by.

He had no answer to that question.

He might never have an answer to that question.

Belinda Wyatt and Sebastian Leopold. Two of the most unlikely partners ever. But like the two killers in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, people paired together could do things unimaginable to each of them acting alone.

And he wondered what they were plotting right now.

Chapter

53

THE ADDRESS IN Colorado was at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, up a long paved road that had only a single house at the end that one reached through a motorized gate. But it was a substantial home, an estate really.

The SUVs slowly made their way up. An FBI team from Denver had met them at the private airport where the jet had landed. There were eight agents plus Bogart, Jamison, and Decker. Local law enforcement was down below keeping guard over the road.

“It’s out of the way,” said Bogart as the large two-story home came into view.

“Did you expect it not to be?” said Decker.

When they pulled to a stop Bogart looked at Jamison. “You stay put.”

“Come on. Decker wouldn’t let me go in Sizemore’s place either.”

“Well, I’m pleased to be considered in the same league with Mr. Decker,” retorted Bogart. “Until we get the all clear, you stay right here.”

They climbed out of the SUVs and the team quickly surrounded the house. A large separate building that looked to be a four-car garage was set off to one side. There was a pool in the rear grounds, covered now for winter. There were no other buildings. And there were no cars visible either.

“Place looks abandoned,” said Bogart. “For such a nice residence, the grounds are pretty let go.”

“We’ll see,” replied Decker.

The air was cold and everyone’s breath was visible.

Two agents went toward the garage while the others headed for the house. Three went to the rear, and the other half covered the front. With Decker next to him, Bogart knocked on the front door, identified himself, said that he had a search warrant, and asked to be let in. All he got in answer was silence.

He gave the countdown over his phone to the team in the rear.

Both doors were blown in by hydraulic battering rams.

The agents swarmed inside, clearing the rooms one by one until they came to the stairs. They headed up, cleared six bedrooms, and then stopped at the last one.

“Holy shit,” said one of the agents, lowering his weapon.

Bogart and Decker entered the room and stared down at the two chairs situated in a sitting room off the main bedroom area.

There was a body in each chair, entirely wrapped in plastic that was compressed tightly around their figures. The faces visible through the plastic were of a man and a woman.

“Mr. and Mrs. Wyatt, do you think?” asked Bogart.

“Anything is possible,” replied Decker.

*  *  *

Eight hours later the forensic team and ME had finished their work. The bodies had been identified as Lane Wyatt and his wife, Ashby. Their time of death was hard to pin down because they had been embalmed.

“Damnedest thing,” said the ME. “But it’s well done. Whoever did it had some experience doing it.”

“So all the blood removed and the fluid pumped into them?” said Bogart.

The man nodded. “And then they were wrapped in the plastic, and it looks like someone used a heat source to compress and then seal the plastic. Probably used a hair dryer. That and the embalming really preserved the body. No air could get in. The bodies are in remarkable shape.”

“And they could have been here a long time or a short time?”

“I’ll try to work up a TOD window for you, but it won’t be easy.”

Bogart said, “The cars in the garage are between two and four years old and the registrations are still current. And the food in the fridge, while expired, is not that old. And the house is in reasonably good shape. I don’t think they’ve been dead for years, unless someone has been living here while they’ve been in their ‘packages.’”

He looked at the ME. “Cause of death?”

“Not particularly evident. No visible wounds on the bodies. Could have been poison, but obvious signs would be long gone. There might be some trace of it in their tissue. And I might be able to get some blood out of them. There’s usually some left even with embalming.”

“Find what you can,” urged Bogart.

The ME nodded and left.

Bogart turned his attention to Decker and Jamison, who were sitting at the kitchen table going over some papers they’d taken out of a shoebox. Bogart sat across from Decker.

“Well, at least there were no cryptic messages to you painted on the walls.”

Decker nodded absently and said, “I doubt they expected us to get to here. Which is actually a good thing.”

“Why?”

“It means they’re fallible. And it means we’re closing the gap. The tortoise and the hare? Remember?”

“But why leave the bodies like that? They must have assumed someone would find them.”

Decker looked at him. “According to what your people found out, the Wyatts were retired. They had no family other than their daughter, and no friends. They kept to themselves.”

“So folks might not have missed them,” said Bogart. “At least for a while.”

“We should check to see if they used a pool service company. The pool was probably only winterized a couple months ago. If they came up to do it, they might have seen the Wyatts.”

“Good idea.”

Decker said, “The Wyatts had money. This place is over ten thousand square feet. And there’s a Range Rover, Audi A8, and Mercedes S500 in the garage.”

“Money can’t buy you happiness,” remarked Jamison.

Bogart looked back down at the papers. “What do you have there?”

Jamison said, “Letters from Belinda to her parents when she was at the institute. Your team found them in that shoebox stuffed under some junk in a closet upstairs.”

“What do they say?”

Decker said, “To sum it up, they’re letters from a frightened young woman imploring her parents to come see her. To come take her home.”

“Marshall said they never visited her.”

“So her letters went unanswered.”

“Marshall said they were part of the ignorant folks and really didn’t care about her. I wonder why they kept the letters?”

“Because of this,” said Decker.

He and Jamison laid the reverse side of all the letters out on the table side by side. Each page had a single capital letter written on the back. When read together and combined into words they spelled out something.

“‘I WILL KILL THEM ALL,’” read Bogart. “So she will kill them all. Meaning her attackers?”

“Or people who dissed her,” said Decker, glancing up at Jamison. “Or people associated with the one who dissed her.”

“And you still don’t know why Wyatt would think you did that to her?”

“No. But my wife and Special Agent Lafferty were both violated. Not raped, but sexually mutilated.”

“But Belinda was raped. And Mrs. Wyatt wasn’t mutilated.”

“She wouldn’t be. This didn’t start with her. And she’s not connected to me.”

“Comes back to you again. Always you.”

Jamison looked at Bogart. “Decker said you used to be an analyst at Quantico?”

“That’s right.”

“I have a friend at ViCAP.”

“She has lots of friends,” commented Decker dryly.

Bogart said, “Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. I was assigned there for two years.”

Jamison said, “Then you must have seen things like this before.”

Bogart nodded. “I’ve pretty much seen it all.”

“Okay, so walk us through it. What would the mutilation symbolize?”

Bogart clasped his hands in front of him. “Actually, mutilation of the female genitalia can have a lot of reasons behind it. It’s like a cornucopia of psychoses. Freud would have had a field day with it. I’ve seen a number of cases, all serial killers, where it was employed.”

“Then give us some examples of reasons,” said Decker.

Bogart leaned in, and while his voice grew softer, it also grew firmer. “It can be symbolic of a hatred of women and what they represent—being mothers, giving birth. The female genitalia are the gates to the birth canal, to be a little crude about it. I’ve seen killers do that to women because their mothers abandoned them. Or let them be abused by others. Mothers are supposed to protect their children, always be there for them. When a mother doesn’t do that it can lead to some really messed-up minds. The mutilation is a way of closing those gates, shutting off the birth canal permanently—not that murder didn’t already do that. But in their minds they’re actually doing something positive.”

Decker said, “Meaning another child can’t be born to that woman? And won’t be abandoned or abused?”

“Exactly.”

Jamison interjected, “Well, Belinda’s parents abandoned her to her fate at the institute. They never visited her there. They ignored her pleas to come and get her. And could she have seen the rape and beating she endured as her mother’s not protecting her?”

“Possibly,” replied Bogart. “In fact, probably. Particularly if she wasn’t supportive afterwards.”

Decker said, “But then why was the message directed at me? Why target my family, people I know? Where do I fit in all this? I don’t remember even speaking to her.”

“We’re talking about a sick mind, Decker. There’s no way we can understand or make sense out of what went on in her head. This actually didn’t start with you. This started with her being raped and nearly killed. And then her parents abandoning her afterward. And it started even before that, with her condition, and people’s reaction to it. Her life was never going to be normal.”

“And then there’s Leopold,” said Jamison. “Let’s not forget about him!”

“And then there’s Leopold,” repeated Bogart. “Decker, you’re still convinced he’s Belinda’s partner in all this? I mean, you haven’t seen him since he left that bar. I know you told me about the waitress—supposedly Belinda—and her borrowing the barman’s car, but you have no hard evidence that she actually picked up Leopold in it. She could have just used it to run an errand.”

Decker shook his head. “She left the bar for good after she brought the car back. And the temp agency hadn’t sent her. She was there to ferret Leopold away. He was the one who picked the bar. So I have no doubt that he’s involved. He confessed to a crime he couldn’t have committed. And he knew that he couldn’t have committed. He played the role of a mentally unbalanced person well, but sitting in that bar he had moments of lucidity, not random, but intentional. He overplayed his hand. He knew exactly what he was doing.”

“But why confess in the first place?”

“It was their opening salvo. After murdering my family. The confession got my attention. They knew I’d find out about it, investigate it. They lured me in. They wanted me to participate in their game.”

“Some game,” Bogart said disgustedly. “But they waited a long time in between killing your family and attacking the school.”

“It all took time to plan out. They had to find the details of the passageway, among other things.”

Jamison said, “But who’s the leader of the pack? Wyatt or Leopold? Plus, how did they meet? Where does he come from? How did they hatch this whole thing?”

“All good questions,” noted Decker. “For which we unfortunately have no answers.”

Bogart said, “We’ve had no hit on the criminal databases. The guy has no record that we can find.”

Decker jerked his head. “Criminal databases?”

“Yeah, that’s where we typically look for criminals. We ran Leopold’s prints through IAFIS, it’s the largest criminal database in the world. I should know because the FBI runs it.”

“But Belinda Wyatt wasn’t a criminal. She was a victim. Maybe Sebastian Leopold was too. Maybe that’s how they hooked up.”

Jamison gazed at Bogart. “So maybe you’ve been looking in the wrong databases.”

Chapter

54

THEY FLEW BACK to Burlington and Decker was driven to the Residence Inn. Decker looked at Bogart and then flicked his gaze to Jamison.

The FBI agent understood. He said, “Ms. Jamison, we request the pleasure of your company at our safe house.”

She snapped, “What? No, I’ll be—”

“Perfectly happy to accept or else I’ll put you in a jail cell if I have to,” interjected Bogart.

“On what charge?” she retorted.

“Publishing false information in a newspaper and inciting a riot against one Amos Decker.”

Jamison started to say something but then sank back in her seat and said with a scowl, “Fine, have it your way.”

As Decker was climbing out of the SUV Bogart hooked his arm.

“We pop anything on Leopold’s prints and DNA in noncriminal databases, I’ll call you right away.”

“I’d also like you to send me whatever you can find on Belinda Wyatt’s past.”

Bogart nodded and then he drove off.

Decker headed up to his room and sat on his bed. He eyed the gun in his waistband and thought back to when Captain Miller had come knocking on his door. If he hadn’t, would he have shot himself?

With the clarity that came after stepping back from a stressful situation, Decker knew that Miller was right. If he eliminated himself this pair would go on killing. If Decker had somehow dissed Belinda Wyatt, others could have too. Or maybe they would start on Leopold’s list of “dissers” next.

He closed his eyes and thought back to two periods of time, one recent, the other much further in the past. He took the latter first, stopping at those frames in his mind.

Belinda Wyatt. Tall, blonde, thin, and androgynous-looking, scared all the time. Her personality had been so invisible as not to exist. Although her mind could do extraordinary things after what had happened to her, Decker recalled her as lacking confidence and even a shred of self-esteem. She barely talked in the group sessions. Decker had felt for her, to the extent he could with the new way his mind worked.

What had happened to him was brutal. But he had stepped out onto that field of his own free will with the knowledge that pro football was insanely violent, far more vicious than even the most die-hard fan could imagine.

Belinda Wyatt had been gang-raped, sodomized, beaten, and left for dead. She had been horribly violated. There was nothing voluntary about that. She had had no say in it. She had been dealing with a difficult enough life situation as it was. With the discovery of her parents’ bodies, it was clear that she was involved in all the other killings. And nothing in her past, no matter how horrific, would justify her doing what she had. But she was not the only one to blame for all this.

Next Decker’s mind moved forward to the recent past.

He was sitting in the jail cell opposite Sebastian Leopold. He recalled down to the last detail the man’s features and manner. The empty eyes, the utter calmness, the disregard for his personal safety since he had confessed to a triple murder. Of course, now Decker knew that Leopold was aware he would never be convicted of those crimes because he had a rock-hard alibi supplied by the police, of all people.

That had to mean that Belinda Wyatt had murdered his family. And she had to be the shooter at Mansfield too. Once again, Leopold had an alibi. Provided once more by the police.

Decker’s mind ground to a halt at that point. By the police? Was that important? Significant? Imperative to understand? He didn’t know, because he didn’t have enough information.

*  *  *

The frames whirred back and forth in his head, going over every word of the conversation between him and Leopold. Then the frames stopped whirring and Decker’s eyes opened.

Is good.

Even though he had perfect recall, sometimes his mind, just like anyone else’s, turned words into what it thought they should be instead of what they actually had been. He had done that here, mentally correcting Leopold when no correction was necessary. Decker had just assumed it was a contraction. Is good to It’s good. He had modified the words that way because he thought he had just misheard. But he hadn’t. He couldn’t have. He was sitting right next to the man.

He picked up his phone and called Bogart.

“You need to expand your search to the international databases focusing on Europe. Interpol should be able to help. Germany should be at the top of the list, to start with.”

“Why?” asked Bogart. “Why the international angle?”

“Because I remembered something wrong. And now I just remembered it right.”

Decker put the phone away. “I don’t really drink. But it’s good.” An American would say that all the time. But no American would say, “I don’t really drink. But is good.” In fact, Leopold might have actually said, “Ist good.”

And the slight guttural undertones of the speech coupled with the sharp, angular bone structure of Leopold’s face made Decker believe he was European, possibly German or Austrian. There was enough homogeneity in those populations that the facial features were far more uniform over the generations than in melting pots like the U.S.

So it might be that Belinda Wyatt, undoubtedly a homegrown American girl perhaps turned boy, joined forces with an older European male. How do two such very different people meet? How do they come together to plan something like this? Decker felt sure if they could track down Leopold’s true identity a lot of questions would start being answered.

As he thought about this another possibility entered his mind.

He said out loud, “7-Eleven.”

That had undoubtedly been a clue. In her interview notes, Lancaster had instinctively interpreted it as a reference to the ubiquitous convenience stores. But was there more to it than that? Leopold had not wanted to come right out and say he was actually referring to 711 Duckton Avenue. But he had to know that Lancaster had misinterpreted his statement. She had actually asked him which 7-Eleven, and when Leopold had been noncommittal she had just assumed it was the one closest to Decker’s home. But Leopold had let that go. He would know that the police, that Decker more importantly, would check that out. That he would go to that store on DeSalle and see what he could see. And that meant—

He might be wrong. But he didn’t think so. In fact, Decker thought he was absolutely right.

He left his room and headed back out into the night.