The Last Mile by David Baldacci

  “You’re not as fat as you were, Decker. You want to start working out with me?”

  “I’d be dead in five minutes.”

  “I’ll start off slow.”

  “Maybe. Let me ask you something.”

  Mars sighed and motioned him in. They sat in chairs next to the bed.

  Decker said, “Did your mother have any family heirlooms?”

  Mars laughed out loud. “Heirlooms? Shit, Decker. What, you think she had a pot of gold or something? You think we’d have been living like we were if she’d had damn heirlooms?”

  Decker was unperturbed. “Maybe not gold. But how about silver?”

  Mars looked like he was going to laugh again, but then he abruptly stopped. “Damn.”

  “What?”

  “She had a silver teapot.”

  “Where did she say it came from?”

  “Like her great-grandmother or something.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “I don’t know. She kept it in the bedroom in her closet.”

  “Did she polish it?”

  “Yeah, sometimes.”

  “How did she polish it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “With a cloth?”

  “Yeah.” He paused and concentrated, evidently thinking back. “But she would finish off the polishing with her—”

  “With her fingers?” Decker interjected.

  “How’d you know that?”

  “You finish off polishing fine silver with your fingers. At least well-trained servants do. Or used to do.”

  “Servant?”

  “House cleaner, expert seamstress, silver polisher, professional clothes presser? Those are all skills of someone working as a servant in a very wealthy household. And that may be where the silver teapot came from.”

  “Where would my mom have been a servant in a wealthy household? I mean, you’re talking like British royalty stuff.”

  “Actually, you’d be surprised. And maybe it was also the place where she learned Spanish.”

  “You think rich folks would’ve just given her a silver teapot?”

  “No. I think she probably stole it.”

  Mars rose and looked down at Decker. “My mother was no thief.”

  “I’m not saying she was.”

  “Then what the hell are you saying?”

  “She might have been a slave in that household.”

  “A slave. Are you serious? Where?”

  “Did your mother use foul language?”

  “Never. She was very proper in that way.”

  “But she used the word chocha? Which could translate to ‘whore’ or ‘vagina’? That doesn’t seem very proper.”

  Mars sat back down, looking confused. “Yeah, but she was upset. I told you that.”

  “But it doesn’t fit the context of the argument she was having with your father. Where would a whore come in? Was she accusing your father of using a hooker or of being some kind of pussy?”

  “No, my old man would never have cheated on her. And I don’t think anyone would call my father a pussy. And it wasn’t like she was angry at him. She was more scared than angry, really.”

  “Which reinforces my point that the word doesn’t make sense. If you were using the typical Spanish translation,” he added.

  “Is there an atypical one?” asked Mars warily.

  “Spanish is obviously spoken in many countries. And other countries and other regions of other countries sometimes have very different translations for the same word.”

  “And did you find one for chocha?”

  “I did.”

  “What country?”

  “Colombia. More specifically the Cali region. That location is the basis for the theory I’ve come up with.”

  “Wait, you’re saying my mom was from Colombia?”

  “I’m not saying she was from there for certain, but at some point in her life I think she ended up there. Maybe against her will. Which is where the slave thing comes in.”

  “Who the hell in Colombia was in the slave trade?”

  “The drug cartels in Cali. I did some research. Back when the cocaine trafficking was centered in Colombia, drug czars would threaten the families of people and use that as leverage to keep them in harness. Or they would kidnap people, especially women, and use them as servants in their households. They took people from other countries, including the United States. I think your mom might have been one, but I think she escaped. And she took that silver teapot with her as partial repayment for what they did to her. It really was a shot in the dark on my part, and I could have been wrong. But I thought she might have taken something with her, just to get back at whoever was holding her.”

  “And you’re sure it was Colombia? But how can you be?”

  “Because of the translation. Apparently it’s particular only to the Cali area.”

  “But you haven’t told me what the translation was.”

  “Chocha in the Valluno dialect means ‘possum.’”

  Mars stared blankly at him. “And why would a possum make any more sense than the other translations?”

  Decker drew a long breath and then just said it.

  “Principally, Melvin, because possums can play dead. Which seems to be exactly what your father did.”

  CHAPTER

  48

  SO YOU THINK a cartel is behind all this?” asked Bogart.

  Decker sat across from him, Milligan, and Jamison in Bogart’s room at the motel. Decker had filled the others in on his deductions and his conversation with Mars.

  “I don’t know for sure, but one certainly could be. If Lucinda escaped and also stole from them, they could have come after her. She might have married Roy then and they fled to Texas together.”

  Milligan shook his head. “So twenty years later they get seen on ESPN and the cartel comes after them again? According to you she was a house servant. Why would they care? And back then the cartel wars were going hot and heavy. Drug bosses were getting killed left and right or else put in prison. And now forty years after the fact they’re still coming after the Marses?”

  “Unless she had something else on them,” said Jamison. “Something really damaging or valuable that would still be important all these years later, and the leaders today want it back. That could be what was in the safe deposit box.”

  “Still a stretch,” said Milligan.

  “It is a stretch,” conceded Decker. “But it can’t be discounted. Not yet. We have to follow it up.”

  “How?” asked Milligan. “You’re talking forty years ago, Decker. The people involved are either dead or geriatric. And, since we’re talking cartels, most likely dead. There are all new players now. And Colombia has really cracked down on drug trafficking in the last two decades. Most of the business has moved to other places, like Mexico.”

  “All true,” said Decker. “But one way to follow it up is to find Roy Mars.”

  Bogart said, “We have people looking for him, but it’s a long shot. He hasn’t been seen in a long time.”

  “You’re wrong there,” said Decker. “He was seen very recently.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Milligan. “Where?”

  “In Alabama.”

  “No one saw him in Alabama,” countered Milligan.

  “Patricia Bray did. She saw the guy in the Avalon.”

  “Wait a minute,” interjected Bogart. “Are you saying that the man who blew up Regina Montgomery was Roy Mars?”

  “Of course it was. Right age. Right physical description.”

  Jamison said, “Have you told Melvin that you suspect that was his dad?”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to?”

  “I don’t know,” said Decker. “What do you think?”

  Jamison looked at the others and said, “I think he has more than enough on his plate right now. Until we know for sure, I say we tell him nothing.”

  “Agreed,” said Bogart, and Milligan nodde
d.

  “But, Decker, why would Roy Mars have killed Regina?” asked Jamison.

  “She screwed up. She spent the money he paid her. We went back there a second time. That told Mars something was up. He was staying nearby for this very reason. To see how interested we were in her. Charles Montgomery was dead. The kid would have been told nothing. Regina was the loose end. Maybe Roy intended on killing her regardless. He had no trouble dispatching Reardon and burning up his body. The guy is a killer.”

  Milligan said, “Do you think he might have worked for the cartel? Maybe as an enforcer for them? He could have met Lucinda that way.”

  “It’s possible, although the cartels didn’t cast a wide net back then and kept their muscle pretty much homegrown, so bringing in a white guy from America was probably not in their protocols. But he could have been in South America and met Lucinda there. Maybe he helped her escape from the cartel.”

  “But this is all still speculation,” countered Bogart. “We have no proof that any of this is true.”

  Jamison said, “So Roy Mars paid off Montgomery to lie to get Melvin out of prison. But if Roy committed the murders for which Melvin was convicted, he framed Melvin. Why would he work so hard to get him out of prison now?”

  Bogart said, “I was wondering the very same thing. That seems very inconsistent.”

  Decker turned and gazed off.

  “Decker?” said Jamison. “Can you explain that?”

  He glanced back at her. “Maybe it all comes down to a promise made.”

  “A promise made? To whom?” said Jamison.

  “To Lucinda Mars.”

  Bogart shook his head. “You’ve totally lost me.”

  Decker turned to Jamison. “You remember that I asked Melvin when he was hypnotized if his father had ever told him that he loved him?”

  “Yes. I was pretty shocked that you asked that.”

  “I did it because I wanted to know the lay of the land.”

  “The lay of the land?” said Milligan, looking supremely confused. “Come on, Decker, it’s like you’re speaking in tongues.”

  “I don’t think Roy loved Melvin, but Lucinda did. I think Lucinda knew what Roy was going to do. Kill her to spare her from suffering with the brain cancer. They probably planned that part out together. Remember, this was twenty years ago and they were in a small town, with little money, and I doubt her end would have been painless. So they made that compact. Roy would kill Reardon, Lucinda switched the dental records to cover that end. Roy cleaned out the safe deposit box. He had an argument with Lucinda in which she used the word chocha. That told me she had spent time in Cali and learned her Spanish there. It also told me that she was aware that Roy was going to pretend to be dead—a possum, in other words.”

  “But if she was part of the plan, why the argument?” asked Bogart.

  “Buyer’s remorse. She loved her son. She was sick, dying. Even if she knew what the plan was that doesn’t mean she had to love it. She obviously didn’t.”

  “How much could she love Melvin if she let him be framed for her murder?” asked Jamison. “He spent two decades in prison.”

  “Maybe his mother thought he would be safer in prison.”

  This statement came from Milligan. The others looked at him.

  He said, “Look at it this way, if they were afraid the cartel had found them through the ESPN piece—maybe they’d actually received a warning or threat—then they knew if they didn’t disappear their death warrant was signed. But how could Melvin disappear with them? The guy was a college superstar, everyone knew him. He was going to be drafted, play in the NFL. They could sneak off and fade away, but not him. Yet they couldn’t leave him behind because the cartel would come and either kill him or torture him for information about his parents and then kill him.”

  Bogart said, “But the cartel could have reached him in prison.”

  Milligan replied, “Yeah, but not as easily as him being on the street. It was probably the lesser of two evils. But they also might have thought the cartel would believe that in prison Melvin was no threat to them. And if they believed he had killed his parents then they might have assumed that Roy and Lucinda had told him nothing about the cartel and their secrets,” he added.

  Decker appraised the man. “Agent Milligan, nice reasoning.”

  Milligan grinned. “Thanks. And Decker, you can call me Todd. We are on the same team.”

  Jamison said, “Well, I’m not buying it.”

  They all looked at her.

  She continued, “To protect your son you frame him for murder? And he gets the death penalty? Yeah, a real softer option.”

  Milligan said, “I’m not saying it’s the right answer, Jamison. I’m just saying it’s possible.”

  Bogart said, “Okay, for argument’s sake, let’s suppose it’s true. Then why did Roy come back and do what he did to get Melvin out?”

  “Melvin was going to be executed,” said Decker immediately. “And I’m thinking that Roy made a promise to his wife that if that ever came to be he would step in and save Melvin. And he did.”

  Jamison said, “That’s what you were referring to when you said a promise had been made?”

  Decker nodded.

  “All these years later?” asked Bogart. “He might have died, and then Melvin would have been up shit creek.”

  “But he didn’t die. And he did fulfill the promise.”

  “In a way he must have loved his wife very much,” said Jamison.

  “I believe that he did,” said Decker. “I can only imagine what it took to pull the trigger on that shotgun and end her life. Even if he knew he was sparing her six months of agony.”

  “Could you really do that to someone you loved?” asked Milligan skeptically.

  “I think you could only do that to someone you really loved,” said Decker. “It would be the hardest thing you ever had to do, but you would do it because of that love. And I think a part of Roy Mars died that night. The only positive thing in his life was gone.”

  “And Melvin?” asked Jamison.

  “Father did not love his son. He was sorry for what he was about to do. Remember he told Melvin he was sorry that night? It was for the mother’s sake, not the son’s. But there’s something off there, only I can’t figure out what. So now the question becomes, where is Roy Mars?”

  “Wait a minute,” said Jamison. “Maybe the cartel isn’t even involved in this. Like Todd said, after forty years they could all be dead. Roy paid off Montgomery, got Melvin off, and then killed Regina. He could be the only one out there.”

  Decker shook his head. “Then who kidnapped Davenport?”

  “Roy?” offered Jamison.

  “Why?”

  She started to say something but then stopped. “I don’t know why.”

  “There is someone else out there. But Melvin getting out of