The Last Mile by David Baldacci
Mars rolled over in the bed and stared at the wall.
Bogart glanced at Decker, whose gaze was still on Mars.
“Your mother’s blood was found in your car. Do you have an explanation other than it came from you?”
“No.”
“Could she have been in the car before? Maybe cut herself or had a nosebleed?”
“No. None of that happened. She never used my car.”
Decker said, “Did you get along with your parents?”
“Why?” said Mars over his shoulder.
“Well, the motive the prosecution painted during your trial was that—”
“I know what that man said,” interrupted Mars. He rolled back over. His features were calmer, or perhaps just resigned. “My parents never made any demands on me when they knew I was going pro. I was going to take care of them. Buy them a house, a new car, set them up. I had it all planned out.”
Decker cocked his head. “You’re a good planner, right?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. But the prosecution brought in witnesses who said otherwise about your parents. That they wanted more money than you were willing to give them.”
Mars said slowly, “Not both of them.”
Bogart said sharply, “So one of them did say things like that? The testimony was correct? Because you just told us they had made no demands on you. So were you lying to us?”
Mars licked his lips nervously. “My father. He kinda changed the last few months. He was moody and would get mad at Mom and me for the least little thing. I thought he was getting off in the head or something. But I guess it was the money thing. He figured out how much I’d probably be getting with my first contract. This was before the rookie rule. I’d done my homework, and if I went in the top three I was looking at a seven-million-dollar signing bonus. This was over twenty years ago. You know what that works out to be today?”
“Over ten million five hundred thousand,” said Decker.
Mars looked at him funny. “That’s right. How’d you know?”
“Lucky guess. And that was just the bonus?”
“Right. You got more over the course of the contract, but the signing bonus was the thing. And I was looking at maybe a seven-year deal that I could opt out of in three years. If I made All-Pro and led the league in rushing, I could write my own ticket. I mean, my next contract would make my rookie deal look cheap.”
“But you never got that chance,” said Decker.
“Does it look like I did?” he snapped.
“So what did your father say to you about it?”
“He wanted to be taken care of. I told him I would.”
“But?” said Decker.
“But…but he said he wanted something in writing. To make it, you know, legally binding.”
Bogart looked at Decker. “This wasn’t part of the trial transcript.”
Decker kept his gaze on Mars. “No, it wasn’t. And why was that, Melvin?”
Mars sat up. “That was one of the reasons why I didn’t testify at trial. My lawyer was afraid if I got asked about it I would have to reveal it.”
“Reveal what?”
“That I signed a one-page contract saying that thirty percent of my rookie contract would go to my parents.”
“And what happened to this contract?” asked Bogart.
“I guess it don’t matter now.” He let out a long breath. “I got rid of it.”
“How, in a fire maybe?” Bogart said sharply.
“Hey, I know this doesn’t look too good for me.”
“That is an understatement,” retorted Bogart.
CHAPTER
17
WITHOUT TAKING HIS eyes off Mars, Decker said, “Agent Bogart, can you give us a minute, please?”
Bogart looked like he was going to say no, but Decker added, “Just two old footballers going to have a little one-on-one. That’s all.”
Bogart slowly rose. “I’ll be out in the hall.”
When the door had closed behind him, Decker drew his chair a little closer to the bed. He put his large hands on top of the bed’s side rail.
Mars said, “Okay, I see how this is playing out. You’re here just to trick me and make sure I go back to prison. Well, I ain’t talking to you anymore without my lawyer being here.”
“I already told you, Melvin, I’m here to find the truth. If you didn’t kill your parents I will do everything in my power to prove that and get you out of prison with a full pardon.”
“I didn’t kill my parents. But I’ve been sitting in a prison cell for two decades getting ready for the needle, and then having to wait some more and then get ready for it again. You know what that’s like?”
“Not even close,” said Decker.
Mars looked surprised by this comment. He glanced toward the door. “Why’d you ask your partner to leave?”
“I thought you might be more comfortable just talking to me and not the FBI.”
“But you’re with the FBI.”
“Until about two weeks ago I was living in a dump in the middle of Ohio with about sixty bucks in my pocket and not much of a future beyond shit PI cases.” He paused. “If you still want your lawyer, I’ll leave right now.” He stood.
“Hold on. You…you told me my case was similar to something to do with your family?”
“Certain parallels, yes.”
“What happened to your family?”
Decker sat back down. “Somebody murdered them. My wife, daughter, and brother-in-law. I found the bodies when I came home from work one night.”
All the hostility in Mars’s features disappeared. “Damn, man, I’m sorry.”
“About sixteen months went by with no arrests. Then this guy walks into the police station and confesses.”
“Shit, did he do it?”
Decker gazed at him. “It was a little more complicated than that.”
“Okay,” replied Mars, looking uncertain.
“But we got the people responsible. And they were held accountable.”
“They in prison?”
“No, they’re in graves.”
Mars’s eyes widened at this.
Decker said, “But that’s history and it’s over. Let’s talk about the present. Your present.”
Mars shrugged. “What you want me to say, Decker? I was a black man accused of killing his parents and one of them was white. Now, this is the South. This is Texas. Everybody loved me when I was a football star. But when I was charged I had no friends left. I was just a black dude fighting for my life. Hell, Texas executes more people than anybody else, and a whole lot of them are black.”
“The contract with your parents?”
“I knew I was innocent, but I listened to my lawyer. I can carry a football and score touchdowns, man. But I didn’t know anything about laws and courts back then.”
“So your lawyer knew about the contract?”
“Yeah, I told him. But he said we didn’t have to tell the prosecution nothing. It was their job to find out about it.”
“I guess technically that’s true.”
“But morally, I know, it sucks. I wanted to get on the stand and tell my story. I wanted folks to hear it from my point of view. But he convinced me not to. So I didn’t. Then we lost and I was screwed anyway.”
“What’d you do with the contract?”
“I flushed it down the toilet. But let me tell you, I had no problem with giving my parents that money. I was going to make a lot more. I was working on endorsement deals that would’ve paid me more than my football money.”
“And then it all went away.”
Mars shook his head wearily. “Faster than I could run the forty.”
“Tell me about your parents.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I want to know about their pasts. Where they came from? Were they born in Texas? Did they come from someplace else?”
Mars looked perplexed by this. “I’m not sure wha
“How about relatives? That you visited or visited you?”
“That never happened.”
“No relatives?”
“No. We never went anywhere. And nobody came to see us.”
“That’s pretty unusual.”
“I guess, looking back on it. But it was just the way it was. And my parents, I guess you’d call it, doted on me. So that was cool. I liked that.”
“Tell me about your father.”
“Big man. Where I got my size and height. Strong as an ox. My mom was tall for a woman, about five-nine or so. And man she could run, let me tell you. We’d go out on runs together when I was a kid. She could sprint and she had endurance. Ran me into the ground until I got to high school.”
“So you got your speed from her?”
“Guess so.”
“Maybe she was an athlete when she was younger. Maybe your dad too.”
“I don’t know, they never said.”
“There were no photos of them at your house. Were there ever any?”
Mars leaned back against his pillow. “They didn’t much like getting their picture taken. I remember there was one of them on a shelf in the living room that was taken when I was in high school. That was about it.”
Decker scrutinized him.
Mars said, “Hey, I know it sounds kinda crazy now, but back then it was just the way it was, okay? I didn’t think nothing of it.”
“I’ve seen an old, grainy picture of your parents. But tell me what your mother looked like to you.”
Mars’s face spread into a smile. “She was so beautiful. Everybody said so. She could’ve been a model or something. My dad said he married way over his pay grade.”
Decker held up his phone. “I took a picture of this in your parents’ closet. Any idea what it means?”
Mars read the screen. “AC and RB? I have no idea what that means. That was in their closet?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know. I never looked in their closet.”
“Okay. Your dad worked in a pawnshop and your mom taught Spanish and did some sewing?”
“Yeah.”
“Who’d she sew for?”
“Some local company needed some piecework done. Didn’t pay much, but she could work at home.”
“And the Spanish? Did she go to a school to teach?”
“No, she didn’t teach kids. She taught adults. White dudes mostly. You had a lot of folks coming over the border to work and such. People who hired ’em had to learn the language so they could tell ’em what to do. So my mom taught ’em.”
“And where did she learn Spanish? Was it her native language?”
“No. I mean, I don’t think so. She wasn’t Hispanic, if that’s what you mean. She was black. A lot darker than me. I’m pretty sure she was an American.”
“Based on what?”
“She spoke like one. And she didn’t have any foreign accent.”
“Did you learn Spanish from her?”
“Bits and pieces, but we mostly spoke English. My dad was a stickler on that. We weren’t Spanish. We were Americans, he would say. He didn’t like it when she spoke Spanish at home.”
“And she worked another job?”
“Yeah. The sewing and the Spanish lessons didn’t pay much. She worked for a company that cleaned places around the area. And she’d press clothes. The woman could iron like a pro, I’ll tell you that. Hell, she’d iron my jeans I wore to school.”
“Did you ever ask them about their pasts?”
“I remember once wanting to know about my grandparents. It was grandparents’ day at school when I was in the third grade. Just about everybody else had grandparents who came in. I asked Dad about it. He said they were dead. And then he didn’t say anything more.”
“Did he say how they died?”
Mars slapped the bed rail with his free hand. “Shit, what does that matter? You think my dad killed his parents? And you think I killed mine?”
“No, I don’t think you killed your parents. I don’t know if your father killed his. He might have.”
Mars had been about to say something else but then stopped. He looked right at Decker. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You know nothing about your parents, Melvin. You know nothing about any of your relatives. There was one picture of your parents in their house. They never told you anything about themselves. Why do you think that is?”
“You mean you think they were hiding something?” Mars said slowly.
“At least it’s worth exploring. Because if they were hiding something it might give someone else a really good reason to kill them.”
CHAPTER
18
OKAY, WHAT ELSE have we found out about Roy and Lucinda Mars?” asked Bogart. The entire team was assembled around a conference table in the rental space.
Milligan glanced at Decker and said, “Okay, I have to admit, it’s a little funny. There’s just really nothing on them that we can find. There were Social Security numbers issued to them, but when I dug into them nothing else came up.”
“Nothing?” said Bogart. “You think they stole the numbers?”
“It’s possible. And they did have driver’s licenses on file twenty years ago, but I couldn’t find anything else about them.”
“Roy Mars had a job,” said Jamison. “And so did Lucinda. They had to have FICA taken out of their paychecks and they had to file tax returns and such.”
“Not that we could find,” said Milligan. “The pawnshop where he worked is long since gone, but they could have paid him in cash or barter. And maybe the same for his wife. And lots of people don’t file tax returns because they don’t make enough money and don’t owe anything.”
“But you still have to file,” pointed out Jamison. “It’s a federal crime not to.”
“And lots of people ignore that,” countered Milligan. “And apparently the Marses were those kind of people, because the IRS