Chapter 61
DECKER SAT UPin bed and listened to the rain pouring down outside.
Does it ever stop raining here?
He looked over at the small table under the window. He’d laid his clothes there. And on top of them was his badge.
He rose, walked over, and picked it up.
It wasn’t an FBI special agent badge,because he wasn’t one. But it was a federal badge and it did have the authority of the FBI behind it. And Decker had arresting authority as a member of an FBI task force.
Decker had carried a badge for over twenty years now. He’d had it the night he’d discovered that he no longer had a family.
He’d had it with him when Alex Jamison and then Melvin Mars came into his life.
He carried it now in Baronville, PA.
It had provided him comfort when he’d needed it. It had provided him a means to the only ends he had ever cared about.
The truth.
But that was not why he was now looking down at his badge.
He glanced out the window, and though he couldn’t see it, he knew exactly where the home of Dan Bond was located.
The old man should have been allowed to live out the remaining years of his life in peace. But someone had not allowed him to do that. And Decker was going to make that person pay.
Decker swiveled his head in the direction of the house where Alice Martin lived. And just a few doors down from that was Fred Ross and his sawed-off shotgun.
He cast his mind back to that firstnight, after he’d found the bodies. He and Jamison had driven down the street. There had been no cars parked on it.
However, Fred Ross’s van had been parked under his carport.
Ross said he’d been at the hospital. And Decker had confirmed that that was true. And he had been transported by ambulance, meaning his van would have been under the carport that night.
Thesethoughts were interrupted by a tap on his door.
“Yeah?”
Jamison said, “It’s me. Got a minute?”
Decker said, “Give me a sec.” He checked his watch. It was after midnight. He pulled on his pants. “Okay.”
Jamison, dressed in a robe, came in.
“What’s up?” he said.
“I got to thinking about our meeting with Norris and I decided to do some digging.”
“Digging on what?”
“Insurance premiums.”
“Okay.”
“I emailed a friend of mine who’s in the insurance business and asked her some questions. Specifically, I gave her Keith Drews’s information. The back injury, the fact that he was a prescription drug user, and also where he lived. I just got the reply back.”
He glanced at his watch again. “Your friendworks late.”