The Last Mile by David Baldacci
has no record of them. And Texas doesn’t have a personal income tax.”
“How about the house?” asked Bogart. “Was there a mortgage on it?”
“Again, not that I could find,” said Milligan. “But in the real estate records Roy and Lucinda Mars were listed as the owners.”
“Okay,” said Bogart. “That doesn’t leave much to go on.”
Milligan glanced at Decker. “I made some inquiries. The cops can’t tell me who made the 911 call about the fire. If they ever knew, those records are long gone. I also asked about the interior of the house. The missing pictures on the wall and all. Apparently they didn’t take crime scene photos of any of that. Just the bodies.”
“Well, that was careless,” opined Bogart.
“Do you think he’s innocent?” asked Milligan.
“Leaning that way,” said Decker.
“Why?” asked Bogart.
“The blood in the car. I gave Mars two plausible and exculpatory explanations of why her blood would be in his car. Neither could be disproved by the cops. Nosebleed or cut. He rejected both. Said she’d never been in his car. A guilty man would have jumped at either scenario. But not Melvin.”
The others glanced at each other, the stark plausibility of what Decker had just said sinking in.
“So that was a test for Mars?” asked Davenport.
“And he passed it,” said Decker. “At least in my mind.”
He held up a sheaf of papers that had been stapled together. “This is the rest of the autopsy report on the Marses. It just came in from the coroner’s office. They’d misplaced it.”
“How’d you find out about that?” asked Bogart.
“The front of the report listed thirty-six pages as the length. There were only thirty-four pages attached. I made a call.”
Jamison said, “And is there anything significant on the new pages?”
“One thing. Lucinda Mars had Stage Four glioblastoma.”
They all stared at him, stunned.
“Brain cancer?” said Davenport.
“Terminal brain cancer, according to the report.”
“Melvin never mentioned that,” said Jamison.
“Maybe he didn’t know,” replied Decker.
Milligan said, “But how does that bear on the case?”
“I don’t know if it does or not,” said Decker. “She was dying, but then someone killed her.” He glanced at Davenport. “Let’s set that aside for a minute and focus on the son. What’s your conclusion about his psychological makeup?”
Davenport pulled out some written notes.
“He’s well above average in intelligence, with a combination of book and street smarts. He graduated from college early after majoring in business. The man is no dummy. He has an interesting combination of keeping things close to the vest but then appearing to open up, as in making very forceful claims of innocence and of being wrongfully persecuted.”
“Not unusual for a man who’s spent two decades in prison,” noted Bogart. “He’s learned how to play the system.”
“Maybe,” said Davenport. “And I have seen that, of course, but there seems to be something different about Mars. I just can’t quite put my finger on it. He desperately wants to know more about this Charles Montgomery. He wants to know the details that Montgomery allegedly knows that would tie him to the murders. And he is wary that the authorities will try to connect him to Montgomery in some sort of murder-for-hire scenario. He’s convinced that even if he is innocent he won’t get out of prison. In fact, he’s borderline paranoid on that.”
“Well, considering how he was almost killed in prison, I don’t think I would call his paranoia unjustified,” said Decker, drawing a sharp glance from Davenport.
“If Mars had hired him to murder his parents twenty years ago why would Montgomery come forward now?” asked Jamison. “Right before Mars was to be executed?”
“The timing is a little…” began Davenport.
“Convenient,” Decker finished for her.
Bogart said, “So you think this was all planned out? By Montgomery?”
Decker shook his head. “He’s on death row in an Alabama prison. How would he have even known Mars was going to be executed?”
The others just looked at him blankly.
Decker said, “So we need to hear that right from Montgomery himself.”
“You think he’ll tell you the truth?” asked Davenport, as she watched Decker closely. “The last words of a doomed man?”
“Not even close,” replied Decker.
* * *
Holman Correctional Facility had been opened in 1969 and was filled to the brim with far more inmates than it was designed to hold. Located in southern Alabama where summer temperatures could soar to over a hundred degrees, the facility had no air-conditioning, and relied on industrial fans to move hot air around. Nicknamed “Slaughter Pen of the South” because of its reputation for violence inside the walls, and “the Pit” because of its geographical location at the bottom of Alabama, Holman housed Alabama’s death row.
Decker and the rest of the team had made the trip on a commercial jet. They all wore FBI windbreakers, creds clipped to their jackets. Bogart’s briefcase smacked against his thigh as they walked toward the prison’s front entrance.
They were cleared through prison security after Bogart, Decker, and Milligan surrendered their weapons, and were escorted to a visitors’ room by one of the prison guards.
“Tell us about Montgomery,” Decker said to the guard as they walked along.
“He’s a loner. No trouble. He bothers nobody and nobody bothers him. It’s odd, though.”
“What is?” asked Bogart.
“Well, in Alabama you get a choice on how you’re executed. And Montgomery is the only one I’ve ever known to choose the electric chair over lethal injection. Why would you want to fry versus go to sleep?”
Bogart and Decker looked at each other. They continued on and were soon seated in a room opposite a heavily shackled Charles Montgomery while two burly guards hovered in the background.
Montgomery was white, a little over six feet, and had just turned seventy-two. His shaved head had a noticeable indentation on the top left side. His eyes were brown, his teeth even but stained with nicotine, and his once hard body had softened some. His forearms were muscled and heavily tatted and his ears were pierced for earrings, but no such hardware was allowed in here.
He raised his eyes to theirs and, starting with Bogart, went from left to right and then back right to left. Then his gaze dropped to his manacled hands.
Bogart said, “Mr. Montgomery, I’m Special Agent Bogart with the FBI. These are my colleagues. We’re here to talk to you about your recent confession regarding the murders of Roy and Lucinda Mars in Texas.”
Montgomery still did not look up.
Bogart glanced at Decker before continuing.
“Mr. Montgomery, we would like to hear from you the details of the night you allegedly murdered the Marses.”
Montgomery said curtly, “Nothing alleged about it. And I already told ’em.”
The tone was not hostile, simply matter-of-fact.
“I appreciate that, but we need to hear it from you, too.”
“Why’s that?” asked Montgomery, still looking down.
Decker had been running his gaze over the man, taking in small details of his appearance and demeanor.
“Was it a beating in here?” he asked. “Or was it Vietnam?”
Now Montgomery looked up. In that emotionless gaze it was readily apparent that the condemned man was one very dangerous person.
“What?” he asked quietly.
In response Decker touched the left top of his head. “Your skull’s been partially cut away leaving that indentation. Was it a beating? Some kind of combat injury? You served in Vietnam.”
“Mortar round exploded twenty feet from me. My buddy died. I got a hole in the head.”
“Your file says you were i
“Eighteenth Infantry, First Battalion, out of Fort Riley,” Montgomery recited automatically.
“When did you come back stateside after the war?”
“Nineteen sixty-seven, mustered out a month later.”
“Didn’t want to be career military?” asked Decker.
Montgomery gave him a surly glance. “Yeah, it was so much fun and all.”
Bogart pulled out a file from his briefcase. “So you were in Texas then when the Marses were murdered?”
“Had to be, since I killed ’em.”
“Run us through that. How did it happen?”
Montgomery glanced over at him, impatience on his features. “It’s all in your file. So why do I have to do that?”
“We’re just trying to confirm everything. And we would like to hear it from you. That’s why we came here.”
“And if I don’t want to say?”
“We can’t force you,” said Decker. “But we were wondering why you came forward in the first place.”
“You know my sentence?”
“Yes.”
“So what does it matter? Get it off my chest. Maybe help with the Big Man in the hereafter.”
“I can understand that. But to get Mr. Mars off your story needs to be confirmed. The FBI can do that faster than the state folks can. So if we both want the same thing, why not cooperate?”
“You look way too fat to be with the FBI.”
“They made an exception for me.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I like to get to the truth. Can you help me do that?”
Montgomery gave a long, resigned sigh. “What the hell does it matter? Okay.” He rubbed his face with his chained hands and settled back in his seat.
“You heard of PTSD?” he asked Decker.
Decker nodded. “Yes.”
“Well, they never tested me for it, but I got it. And all that crap that was burning over there? Munitions, chemical weapons. Agent Orange shit they dropped on our fuckin’ heads? And who the hell knew what the Vietcong were chucking at us. Breathing all that in, day after day. It messed me up. Surprised it didn’t give me cancer. Then that mortar round blew up next to me.” He pointed to his head, his shackles clanging as he did so. “And they had to cut out a part of my skull. Hell, maybe part of my brain, VA never said. And then the headaches started.”
“You got the Purple Heart,” said Bogart.
“Big shit. That’s all I got.”
Decker interjected, “So the headaches started?”
“Yeah. And the VA didn’t want to hear nothing about it. I got no treatment. But I tried to get on with my life. I got married, tried to keep a job, but it was no good. The pain never stopped. And when the docs wouldn’t write no more prescriptions I took matters into my own hands.”
“To get drugs, you mean?” asked Davenport. “For the pain?”
“Yeah. It was just little stuff at first. To get money to get the drugs. Then I started taking the drugs from people I knew had ’em. Cut out the middleman and go right to the source.” He smiled darkly. “The Army taught me to be efficient.”
Davenport said, “The drugs you were probably taking are heavily addictive. So you got hooked and couldn’t stop?”
“Yeah. I was a total druggie. Do anything to get more.”
“And then what?” asked Decker.
“Then things just snowballed. It was like I was a different person. Things I never woulda done before, I’d do. Hurt people, steal shit. I didn’t care. I got busted a few times on petty crap but never did no real jail time. But my first marriage unraveled and I lost my job, my house, everything. Then I just started drifting across the country, trying to get the headaches to stop.”
“And how did that get you to the Marses?”
Montgomery looked down again, his thumbs pressing together, his brow furrowed.
“See, I didn’t know that was their name, not at first.”
“Okay, but walk us through that night,” said Decker.
“I come into town the night before, just passing through. Didn’t know nobody and nobody knew me. It was a one-traffic-light shithole.”
“You said the night before. Did you stay anywhere?” asked Bogart.
Montgomery looked at him crossly. “And pay with what? I had nothing in my pocket. Not even no change. I was hungry but I couldn’t buy no food either. Much less a place to stay. I slept in my car.”
“Keep going,” said Decker.
“I drove past this pawnshop the next day. It was in the little downtown area. At first I didn’t think anything of it, but then I got an idea. I went inside, thinking maybe I might pawn something. I had my medals, and an old service pistol. If I pawned those I could get something to eat. And I was riding on close to vapors. So I could maybe fill up my tank and head on to the next shithole. Anyways, there was a dude in there. Tall, white guy.”
“That was Roy Mars,” said Jamison. “He worked there.”
Montgomery nodded. “But I didn’t know that was his name back then. I pulled out my stuff and showed him. But he told me they weren’t interested in crap like that. Lotta former soldiers in Texas, he said, and then he pointed to a case full of guns and old medals dudes had pawned and never come back for.”
Bogart and Decker exchanged a glance.
Montgomery continued. “Anyway, that pissed me off. I asked the guy if he was a vet and he said that was none of my business and if I was looking for a handout I’d come to the wrong place because they were barely making a living as it was. Then the door opened and another customer came in. I walked over to the corner and watched. When the man opened the cash register I saw all the money in there. That’s when I knew the dude had lied to me. He had money. He wasn’t barely getting by. That pissed me off even more.”
“What did you do then?” asked Bogart.
“Went back to my car and waited. Army teaches patience. I was hunting this dude and didn’t care how long it took. He closed the shop up at nine, got in his car and drove off. I followed him. He got to his place, which was in the middle of nowhere. No other homes around. That was fine with me. He went inside. I parked my car and got out.”
“What kind of car were you driving?” asked Decker.
Montgomery didn’t hesitate. “Rusted-out piece of shit ’77 V-eight Pontiac Grand Prix, dark blue, big as a house. You could land a chopper on the sucker’s hood.”
“Surprised you remember that in such detail.”
“I lived in that car for about a year.”
“Did you own it?” asked Decker.
Montgomery lifted his gaze to him. “I stole it from somewhere and got plates off a ride in an impoundment lot in Tennessee. Don’t remember where.”
“So you were waiting outside the house?” prompted Decker.
“Right. I pulled surveillance on the place. Again, what the Army taught me. I was able to see in a couple of windows without being seen. It was just the two of them. Him and, I supposed, his wife. I remember she was black, which surprised me him being white.”
“Okay,” said Decker. “What then?”
“I waited until maybe eleven-thirty or a little later.”
“You’re sure about that?” asked Decker.
Montgomery flashed him a surprised look. “Yeah, why?”
“Just trying to confirm. Keep going.”
“So’s I got in through the back door. It wasn’t locked. I had my gun out.”
“What kind of gun?” asked Bogart.
“My service piece, one I tried to pawn.”