Decker said, “That’s right. And maybe Stevens knew somehow that Mitzi was now living high on the hog. At that point Hawkins didn’t care about his daughter. She’d cashed in big-time by framing him. Before he died, he wanted his name cleared. He put an arrow through his little ‘star,’ got out of prison, and came to us.”
“If his daughter knew that, she would be a prime suspect in killing him.”
“She didn’t have an alibi for his murder, so we’re going to have to dig deeper on that.” He paused. “Oh, and Mary?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks for saving my butt tonight.”
After Decker clicked off, he looked back down at Hawkins’s shriveled body. The man had gone to prison for a crime he hadn’t committed. Then he’d found out that he had been set up and he wanted the truth to come out, as his last act before dying.
Well, Decker was going to carry the ball forward now.
“I’m sorry, Meryl. You deserved better. From me and everybody else.”
He rolled Hawkins’s remains back into the cabinet and closed the door.
It was too late to see Mitzi Gardiner now, but he had somewhere else he needed to go.