White continued to stare at the departing Decker before turning to Andrews. “If you find out, be sure to tell me.”
Chapter 27
IT HAD BEEN A SHITTY thing to do to White, Decker knew. And he’d still done it. He had his reasons. He didn’t know if they were good ones, but they were his.
And he’d gotten an idea in his head and had decided to just run with it. Alone. For him, sometimes alone was best.
He drove to Cummins’s gated community and used his credentials to clear security; the same guard was there.
“Any of that stuff I dropped off help you guys?” the man asked.
“Working on it,” said Decker as he tapped the gas and sped off.
The forensics team was still at the house. He put on his gloves and booties and made a beeline for the bedroom. The bodies had been removed but he had had Helen Jacobs email him the pictures of the deceased from the crime scene.
His personal cloud had been percolating last night and early this morning. And when he had laid one memory plate on top of another, a number of inconsistencies had popped up. That was why he was here.
He opened the door of a bedroom down the hall from the judge’s. It was as neat as a pin, a place for everything and everything in its place. He could tell this was Tyler Davidson’s room only because of the two footballs perched on a shelf and some high school textbooks set out on a desk.
This looks nothing like my old teenager bedroom. I was a slob back then and still am. But Tyler was clearly focused and organized, at least while he was with his mom.
He returned to the judge’s bedroom, sat in a chair, and took in the space, slowly, one section at a time. He slipped out his phone and went through the photos of Judge Cummins, one image at a time, from her toenails to her fingernails, hair, face, and clothing. He went into the bathroom and made a careful search of the drawers, counters, and cabinets. He did the same with her closet.
Then he sat in the same chair and looked at the images of the slain Alan Draymont. The twin bullet holes in his chest. The suit. All the rest.
One memory frame after another slipped through his mental process, with every discrepancy noted and analyzed.
Okay, I can finally feel it coming together.
He went downstairs and looked in the dishwasher and saw what he thought he would. The same for the recycling bin. The forensics team had made a note of all this, but no one had put it all together yet. Until now. Things were becoming apparent to him that he should have seen before.
Because you’ve half-assed this case up to this point, that’s why.
Draymont had known Alice Lancer. He had been to her home. That was not unusual—they did work together. She was the one who had been tagged as knowing about Draymont’s assignment with Cummins, and the threats. But his place had been tossed. And Lancer was missing. And so was Patty Kelly. He knew of no connection among the three of them, though he was now certain there had to be one.
Based on his memory analysis and what he had found here, he phoned Helen Jacobs and asked her a question. Then he asked her a more detailed query for which she did not have the answer.
“I’ll get right on that,” she had said, almost apologetically.
He had already checked the list of contents of the bathroom trash can made by the forensic team, and what he thought should have been on that list wasn’t.
He stared down at the toilet.
Yep, probably flushed.
And if he was right about all this, the case would take on a whole different dimension.
Decker walked out of the house and saw Doris Kline lifting some groceries out of an old-model yellow Mercedes convertible.
“Need some help?” he asked.
She turned and saw him. “Sure, save me a trip.”
He grabbed two bags while she carried one. His bags clinked. He looked in them to see the bottles of vodka, scotch, and gin. The lady apparently liked them all. He saw several boxes of crackers and a wedge of cheese poking out of her bag.
“Having a party?” he asked as he followed her into the house.
She looked at him slyly. “Yeah, a party of one, unless you’re interested.”
“On duty, sorry. Besides, I don’t think it would go well with the eggs I had for breakfast.”
He set the bags down on the kitchen table and looked around the space. Dark, not overly clean, dated furnishings, and just a sad air all around.
He glanced at her to find Kline watching him.
“What did you expect?” she said. “I told you my ex had the better lawyer. I got the house and he got the cash. Now he’s traveling the world making whoopie while I can barely pay a high schooler to cut the grass.”