Leopold blinked and rubbed at his neck. “Yeah, I guess I see that.”
“And, no, I’m not a cop. So you followed him. How?”
“What do you mean, how?”
“Car, foot, bike?”
“Ain’t got no damn bike.”
“So a car?”
“If I ain’t got a bike, I ain’t got no car.”
“So on foot, then?”
Leopold nodded slowly and then studied Decker closely, perhaps to see his reaction to this.
Decker wrote something down on his pad. He wiped a bead of sweat off his brow even though it was cold in the basement cell. If he was discovered here, he could go to jail. And he didn’t actually like talking to people, so the briefer the better. But he had to do this. This might be his only chance.
“So you found out where this ‘dude’ lived and then you planned to kill his family. But you waited a month or so. Why?”
“Who said I waited a month?”
“That’s what you told the police.”
Leopold hunkered back down, the rat hiding among the crevices. Only there was no place to hide in here.
“Okay, that’s right. I had to plan it out. Watch the place, see what the lay of the land was, so to speak.”
Decker glanced down at the tattoo. “When were you in the Navy?”
Leopold’s eyes flashed for just a second. “Who says I was?”
Decker pointed at the tat. “Two dolphins. Sailors often have those. You have it positioned so it won’t show from under your uniform sleeve, per regulations.”
Leopold looked down at the tat as though it had betrayed him.
“I’m not in the Navy.”
“So you got the lay of the land and then went there that night. Take me through it.”
Decker glanced over his shoulder at a sound. But it was only the jailer walking down the corridor. He rubbed another bead of sweat off his cheek.
“Take you through it?” parroted Leopold.
“From the moment you got there to the moment you left. Let’s start with how you got there.”
“Walked.”
“House address?”
Leopold hesitated. “It was a two-story, yellow siding, carport on the side.”
“How’d you get in?”
“Side screen door into the kitchen.”
“Remember any details of the room?”
“It was a damn kitchen, man. Stove, dishwasher, table, and chairs.”
“Remember the color of the walls?”
“No.”
Decker glanced at his watch again. He had to speed this up, and his anxiety at being here was growing by the second.
“Who’d you kill first?”
“The dude. Thought it was the guy that dissed me. But I guess it wasn’t.”
“How do you know that?”
“Pictures in the paper. After.”
“Go on.”
“He was at the kitchen table. Been drinking.”
“How do you know that?”
Leopold looked up, obviously irritated. “Why you keep me asking me that?”
“Because the cops will. The court will. The jury will want to know these things.”
“Hell, I confessed.”
“They can still try you.”
Leopold looked shocked by this. “Why?”
“To make themselves look good. How do you know he’d been drinking?”
“Beer bottles on the table.”
“How’d you kill him? He was a lot bigger than you.”
“He was drunk. I took my knife and cut him, right here.” He pointed at his neck.
“He was found in the adjoining room.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s right. But, see, he crawled in there, after I cut him. Bleeding like a bitch. Then he, hell, he just didn’t move again.”
“Did he make any sounds?”
Leopold said, “Yeah, but not no loud ones.” He pointed to his neck again. “Got him here. Couldn’t make much noise.”
“Remember what he was wearing?”
Leopold looked blankly at him. “Long time ago. Pants? Shirt?”
“What next?”
“Knew he had a family. Went to go kill them too.”
“Take me through it,” Decker said calmly, though he was feeling the opposite. His heart was beating so fast he could feel the pulses in every part of his body, like he had a thousand tiny hearts pumping madly.
Almost there, just hang on, Amos, just hang on.
“I went up the stairs. First room on, on—”
“The left?” suggested Decker.
Leopold pointed at him. “Yep. The left.”
“And?”
“And I went in. She was in the bath—no, she was on the bed. That’s right, on the bed. Pretty little thing. She had a nightie on. See right through it. Damn, the bitch looked good.”