even if she hadn’t understood exactly what that meant.
Maybe I don’t either.
Everything seemed to come back to Walter Dabney. That was partly by default. They had been able to thoroughly dig into his past, whereas they had had far less to go on when it came to Berkshire.
By far his biggest asset was his memory, so he turned to it once more.
His eyes closed and the frames flipped past.
There was something that someone had said. He wasn’t sure it was even related. For some reason it seemed an outlier comment, but perhaps with a secondary meaning that would shed light on something.
The frames slowed and his brow furrowed.
It was almost like the reels of a slot machine clacking away and then slowing as the cycle neared its end, showing you to be either a loser or a winner, if the images all lined up perfectly.
Come on. Line up for me. Make me a winner. I could use it.
Surprisingly, the image of Melvin Mars came into his head. They had been talking about something at Harper Brown’s house right before they had been attacked.
The clacking sound diminished; the frames continued to slow.
Mars had said something about Brown. It had sounded perfectly innocuous when he had said it. It had flowed very naturally from the conversation they had been having. It wasn’t related to the case at all.
One…two…three.
The clacking slowed down more. The whirring images too, so that Decker could start to see a firm image taking shape.
Mars had been telling Decker how impressed he’d been with Brown. How well traveled she was, but how she put on no airs even with all the wealth she possessed. Mars had said he had admired that. He liked hanging with her.
She was fun and cool and she made him feel good.
But, no, it was not that. It was something else.
It was like he was holding a piece of flypaper, and bits of confetti, representing the facts of the case, were swirling in the air. If he could just get them to drop down and stick to the flypaper, things might start making sense.
More clacking and more spinning images.
Five…six…seven…eight.
Jackpot.
The single word burst into his head, jumping out in the same way the highlighted ones in the Harry Potter book had leapt from the page.
He sat up so fast he became a little dizzy.
Athlete.
CHAPTER
73
DECKER WALKED OUT of the FBI morgue after having talked to Lynne Wainwright again. He had had new questions and she had given him helpful answers.
He went to the WFO, sat at a computer, and started searching. The information started to flood in, and the pieces started dropping into place at an increasing pace. It was like the dam had opened and the water was flowing freely.
Finally.
He found terms he had never encountered before, including several he couldn’t come close to pronouncing. He looked at pictures of people from decades ago.
So many of them.
Disgraced now.
Diseased now.
In pain. Dying before their time.
It had all been monstrous. And the world had largely looked the other way.
But it had obviously given others opportunities. And they had seized them.
And he had also remembered something else.
A picture where a picture should never have been.
He should have seen it before, but he hadn’t. It had seemed unimportant, when he should have realized that there was no such thing as something unimportant in an investigation.
He got up, walked out, and headed to Bogart’s office.
The FBI agent was there with Milligan and Jamison. They told him that Agent Brown was on her way.
Decker said, “Tell her to meet us at the Dabneys’.”
“Why?” asked Bogart. “What’s there that we need to go back?”
“Pretty much everything.”
* * *
Thirty minutes later they pulled up in front of the impressive mansion. Brown’s BMW was already parked near the front door. She got out as they headed to the house.
“What’s up?” asked Brown. “Why are we here?”
Milligan pointed at Decker. “Because of him.”
Jules answered the door. Decker said, “We need to speak to your mother.”
“She’s not here.”
“Where is she?”
“If you must know, she’s at my father’s grave.”
“Where is that?” asked Decker.
“Can’t you just leave her alone?”
“Where is it?” Decker asked again.
Jules hesitated and then told him.
“One more thing,” said Decker. “I need to look at one of the photo albums you showed me earlier.”
* * *
They pulled into the cemetery through a set of open wrought iron gates. Brown had left her car at the Dabneys’ home and ridden over with them.
“I hate cemeteries,” said Jamison. “Buried in the dirt and eventually people stop coming to see you. No thank you. I’m being cremated.”
“I think you’ve got a while to think about that,” noted Bogart.
He steered the car down a side road using the directions Jules had given them.
A Jaguar convertible was parked at the curb. As they pulled up, they saw Ellie Dabney sitting on a stone bench in front of her husband’s freshly dug grave. The tombstone was not up yet.
As they all got out of the car, Brown said, “Decker, are you going to tell us what’s going on?”
“You’re going to hear everything in about two minutes,” he replied. He led them up a path until they reached Ellie.
She looked up at them with unfriendly eyes. “Jules called me to say you were headed here. I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m visiting my husband. I would appreciate some privacy.”
“I can understand that,” said Decker. “Unfortunately, this can’t wait.”
He sat down on the bench next to her as the others encircled them.
From his pocket Decker took out a photo and held it out to Ellie.
“My parents,” she said. “Where did you get it?”
“They died in a mudslide?”
“Yes, it was horrible.”
“And everything was washed away? The house, the barn, them? Their bodies were never found. That’s what Jules told us.”
“If I hadn’t been at school I would have died too.”
“So you lost everything? Your family? All your possessions?”
“Yes! I had nothing left except the clothes on my back. I had no family left. I was sent to an orphanage.”
Decker nodded. “So where did this photo come from, then?”
Ellie started to say something but then stopped. She cleared her throat and said, “Fortunately, I had it with me. I carried it with me always.”
Decker nodded. “I thought you might say that.”
“Because it’s the truth.”