The Fallen

by David Baldacci

  He moved swiftly down the darkened hallway, bouncing off one wall. Something fell to the floor as he brushed against it.

  It was a picture.

  Decker cursed himself because he had just contaminated what was now a crime scene, an act he would have found unforgivable if someone else had done it. Yet it couldn’t be helped. He didn’t know what was going on here. What he had seen might just be the tip of the iceberg.

  He cautiously poked first his gun and then his head around the corner. He cleared the space with two long visual passes and straightened.

  Decker now knew what had triggered first the spark and next the flames.

  And the flickering lights.

  Exposed electrical wires had indeed been commingled with liquid.

  But it wasn’t water.

  It was blood.

  Chapter 2

  DECKER?”

  Decker peered around the corner to see a soaked, shivering, and barefoot Jamison standing farther down the hall from where he’d just come.

  “You got your gun?” he asked quietly. Wave after wave of electric blue light was pouring over him. He felt nauseous and dizzy.

  Jamison shook her head.

  He motioned her toward him.

  She hurried forward, turned the corner, saw what Decker already had, and stopped dead.

  “Good God!”

  Decker nodded. It was a fitting expression for what they were both seeing.

  After all, the man was hanging from the ceiling.

  A rope had been inserted through a hook that had once held a chandelier that was now lying on the floor.

  The noose had been placed around the man’s neck.

  Yet death by hanging did not typically cause blood loss.

  Decker stared down at the wooden floor. The blood had pooled and then flowed toward the wall, where it had encountered the frayed electrical cord of a floor lamp and begun the electrical shorting process.

  Before Jamison had appeared, Decker had used his foot to tap out the sparks after unplugging the cord. Part of a square of carpet and a dangling strip of wallpaper had caught on fire. He had used his wet jacket to beat out the flames on the wall, and had rolled up the carpet to smother the fire there. Then he’d stepped back so as not to further interfere with the crime scene. It was right then that Jamison had called out.

  His gaze ran up and down the man’s body, searching for a wound that might explain the copious amounts of blood.

  He saw none. And he couldn’t do a deeper probe now. That would have to await the police. But something else couldn’t wait.

  Giving voice to what he’d been thinking, Jamison whispered, “Do you think there’s anyone else in the house?”

  “That’s what we need to find out. Do you have your phone?”

  “No.”

  “Neither do I. And I didn’t see one in here. Okay, I want you to go back to your sister’s house and call the cops. I’ll finish searching the place.”

  “Decker, you need to wait for the police. You have no backup.”

  “Someone may be hurt, or the killer may still be here.”

  “It’s the latter possibility I’m worried about,” hissed Jamison.

  “I am a police officer,” replied Decker. “I’m trained to do this, and I’ve got a gun. And the odds are very good that if the killer is still here, he’s smaller than me. Now go.”

  Jamison slowly turned and then ran down the hall and back out into the rain.

  Decker cleared the first floor. The house had a second story and, if it was a true copy of Jamison’s sister’s place, a basement. He moved back down the hall to the stairs leading up. He took the steps two at a time, feeling his thigh muscles tighten a bit with each upward lunge. While spending ten years in uniform before becoming a detective back in Ohio, he had gone into homes where people had died. There were procedures you followed to clear spaces as safely as possible, and all of them were grafted onto his brain. Still, it wasn’t really like riding a bike, for one very compelling reason.

  Bikes didn’t shoot back at you.

  There were two small bedrooms with closets upstairs and a Jack-and-Jill bathroom in between. Decker cleared all of them and found nothing. The place looked abandoned.

  Maybe there was nothing to find except the hanging dead man on the main floor. He slipped back downstairs and found the door to the basement.

  There was a light switch at the top of the stairs, but Decker didn’t move to turn it on. He didn’t know if the electrical short had affected the lights in the rest of the house, but, right now, darkness was his friend. He tested each step before fully placing his weight on it. Still, there were some slight creaks and he winced with each one. He reached the bottom of the stairs without anyone trying to attack him.

  He looked around. It was quite dark down here and he couldn’t see very clearly, but the space appeared to be unfinished. There was the musty odor that one often associated with unfinished basements.

  He cautiously moved forward and almost fell to the floor. Regaining his balance, he quickly retreated.

  He had to risk a light now. He skittered back up the steps and flipped the switch. The lights came on. His gun pointed in front of him, he slowly came back down the stairs until he saw what he had tripped over.

  The face looked up at him as the electric blue pulses once more started drumming against him.

  It was a man, who looked to be in his late thirties. He had dark hair and pale skin, and was of a medium build. He appeared to be about five-ten, although it was hard to be accurate about that since he was lying on the floor.

  All those observations flowed automatically through Decker’s mind from his long career as a cop. And they were secondary to the single most important observation he was making.

  The man was in a police uniform.

  Decker knelt down next to him and checked for a pulse at his neck.

  There was none, and the skin was very cold. He felt the limbs. They were stiff, indicating that rigor had begun. Decker’s experience as a homicide detective caused him to automatically consider both the cause and the timing of the death.

  He ran his gaze over the body, looking for wounds, but saw none. He wasn’t going to move the corpse. He had already compromised the crime scene enough.

  He focused on the man’s mouth. There was a bit of foaming there. That could be an indication of at least a couple of ways he could have died.

  A fit.

  Or poison.

  Okay, cause of death is not obvious. What about timing?

  He looked at the man’s nostrils. Blowflies. Female. They’d already laid eggs, but the infestation was minimal. Blowflies could smell dead flesh from miles away and were a policeman’s best friend, because with the biological death clock having commenced, the invasive insects would help determine the time of death.

  But when Decker put all of these forensic elements together, mental alarms started sounding. Something was definitely not making sense.

  If the limbs were stiff, that meant the deceased had been dead for a while. In fact, the body could be reversing the rigor and moving from the large muscle groups back to the small, which meant the person could have been dead quite a long time. And while that jibed with the coolness of the body, it most assuredly did not align with what else he was observing.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of sirens approaching.

  He quickly retreated up the stairs, holstered his gun, stepped out onto the front porch, and waited.

  A squad car pulled up to the house about fifteen seconds later.

  While Decker had been inside, the storm had lessened somewhat, though lightning still crackled and thunder still boomed. At least it wasn’t raining sideways anymore.

  As the police officers exited their vehicle, Decker called out and held up his FBI creds. Both cops pulled their weapons and one trained his Maglite on Decker.

  “Hands out where we can see them!” shouted one cop, who looked young and a little nervous.<
br />
  Since Decker already had both hands up in the air where they could definitely be seen, he couldn’t do anything more than say, “I’m a Fed. My partner called this in.”

  The cops advanced until they reached the stoop. The other cop, who looked to be in his forties, with a trim, graying mustache, holstered his gun, took the creds, and checked them. Then he illuminated Decker’s face with his light.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Two dead bodies inside. One hanging in the living room. One in the basement.” Decker glanced at the man’s uniform. “I don’t know if he’s a cop or not, but the guy in the basement is wearing the same type of uniform you are.”

  “What?” snapped the older cop.

  “You say he’s dead?” said the young cop, who was still pointing his gun.

  Decker’s gaze swiveled to him. “Yeah, he is. And could you aim your weapon somewhere other than at me?”

  The young cop automatically looked to his partner, who nodded while handing back Decker’s credentials.

  “Show us,” ordered the older cop.

  At that moment, Jamison dashed around the corner.

  The young cop swung his gun around and lined her up in his sights.

  “No!” roared Decker. He leapt forward and hit the cop’s arm just before he fired. The bullet sailed barely a foot above Jamison’s head. She sprawled in the grass.

  The younger cop stumbled back and pointed his sidearm at Decker’s head.

  “She’s my partner,” barked Decker. “She’s the one who called you. Alex, are you okay?”

  Jamison slowly rose and came toward them on jelly legs. She took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine.” But she looked like she might throw up.

  The older cop gave his partner a piercing gaze, and asked to see Jamison’s credentials. After reviewing them he handed them back and looked at his partner.

  “You almost shot a Fed, Donny,” he said severely. “And now you’re going to have a ton of paperwork to fill out while your butt is anchored to a desk job. And Internal Affairs will be all over you. Congratulations.”

  The younger cop holstered his weapon, scowled, and said nothing.

  “Show us,” the older cop said again.

  “This way,” replied Decker.

  Chapter 3

  I DON’T KNOW him,” said the older cop, who on the way inside the house had told Decker and Jamison that he was Officer Will Curry. His partner shook his head too. They were looking down at the man in uniform lying on the floor of the basement. They had already seen the body upstairs, and neither of the officers had recognized him either.

  Curry pointed to the man’s chest. “No nameplate. We all wear one.”

  “Would you know him?” asked Decker. “I mean, is the police force that small around here?”

  Curry thought about this for a few moments. “I don’t know every person in uniform, but I do know a lot of them.”

  Decker said, “There’s no pistol in his holster.”

  Curry nodded. “Yeah, I saw that. And there’s no comm pack either. Look, I need to call this in. Homicide will be taking this over. Donny, we need to tape the perimeter. And don’t let anybody near this place.”

  Donny left to do this while Curry pulled out his phone, walked over to a far corner of the basement, and made the call.

  Decker knelt down and looked over the body.

  Jamison gazed over his broad shoulder. “How did he die?” she asked.

  “No obvious wounds. Just like the guy upstairs, although there’s all that blood.”

  “Death by hanging is usually bloodless,” said Jamison. “Unless something ruptured inside the guy and it came out somewhere.”

  “There was no blood on his clothes,” replied Decker. “So, I don’t see how that could be the case.”

  Curry came back over to them. “Okay, I’ll need to get your statements, and you both need to get out of here. The detectives will have my head if they find you here.”

  They walked back upstairs and filed out the rear door. Curry noted the damage. “How’d that happen?”

  “That would be me breaking into the house,” said Decker. “I’ll explain why.”

  The storm had mostly passed, the skies had cleared some, and a few stars could actually be seen overhead.

  Curry pulled out his notepad. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

  First Decker and then Jamison gave their accounts. As they finished they heard someone calling out to them.

  “Alex, is everything okay?”

  They all turned to see Amber and Zoe at the rear fence that separated the two properties.

  “Go back inside, I’ll be there in just a few minutes,” Jamison called back. She turned to Curry as Amber and Zoe returned to their house.

  “My sister Amber and her daughter, Zoe. We’re visiting with them.”

  “So they live there?” said Curry.

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll need to talk to them. They might have seen something leading up to whatever happened to the two vics.”

  “Sure, that’s fine,” said Jamison.

  “What is it that you two do at the FBI?” asked Curry.

  “We track down people who hurt other people,” said Decker. “Just like what happened in that house.”

  Curry seemed to sense where Decker was going with this. “This isn’t a federal case.”

  “It’s funny how things can appear to be one thing and then turn into something else,” replied Decker. “So maybe we can help.”

  “Decker,” said Jamison in an offended tone. “We’re on vacation. We’re here to get away from all that stuff.”

  “Maybe you are,” said Decker. “But I had no reason to get away from ‘all that stuff.’”

  “Not my call,” said Curry. “You can take it up with homicide.”

  “Fair enough,” said Decker.

  Curry closed his notebook. “But since you’re here now, you got any thoughts on the matter?”

  Decker glanced back at the house. “Hanging someone is personal. It’s a control thing. It’s a terrible way to die because that guy simply strangled to death, or maybe his vertebrae finally popped. Either way, it takes a while.”

  “And the blood?” asked Curry.

  “Where did it come from? If he bled out somewhere else and the blood was collected and brought here and spread out on the floor, what was the point?”

  “And the guy in the basement?” asked Curry.

  “Is he a cop or not? If not, why was he in uniform? And again, how did he die? I didn’t see an obvious wound, but there was some foam on the mouth, so it might be poison. And another thing. Who owns this house? Was it the two men? Or somebody else?”

  Curry had reopened his notebook and was jotting things down. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. I think your ME might have a tricky time determining the time of death.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because what I saw tonight was pretty much forensically impossible.”

  Chapter 4

  AMBER HAD SENT a reluctant Zoe off to bed and was now sitting with her sister and Decker in the living room of her home.

  “Two men dead?” said Amber in a trembling voice. “Murdered? I can’t believe it. In the house right behind us? My God!”

  “The police will want to talk to you at some point,” said her sister.

  “Why?” asked Amber frantically. “We know nothing about it.”

  “Standard procedure,” noted Decker in a calming voice. “Because of your proximity to the crime scene. Nothing to get anxious about. It’s all routine.”

  “Have you called Frank yet?” asked Jamison, rubbing her sister’s shoulder.

  Frank Mitchell was Amber’s husband.

  “I tried to, but he’s not answering his phone. When I called the office, they said he was in a meeting. With this new job, he’s having to work ungodly hours.”

  “What does he do?” asked Decker.

  “He’s the assis
tant manager at a fulfillment center. They fill online orders for lots of different companies. That’s why we moved here, because Frank got the job. He worked for the same company in Kentucky, but this is a step up for him. They employ a lot of people.”

  “Warehouses are the big job creators now,” said Jamison knowingly. “I’ve been reading articles on it. It pays okay, above minimum wage, with benefits, but it’s really physically hard work.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Amber. “Frank worked as a picker at the one when we lived in Kentucky. It was nonstop movement. They scored him on how many packages he was able to process. Thank God Frank moved up into management. He’s in his thirties, and in good shape, but the pace just wore him down, and he always had aches and pains.”

  Amber looked toward the back window, at the house where two people had been found dead. “I thought this was going to be a fresh start for us. But now here we are, next to a murder investigation.”

  Jamison said, “It could be something totally unconnected to the neighborhood. The two men in there might be from somewhere else.”

  Amber did not look convinced. “What am I supposed to tell Zoe? She’s very sensitive and very observant. She’s going to have a ton of questions.”

  “I can talk to her, if you like. Or Decker can.”

  Decker looked startled. “I think it’s better if you speak to her, Alex,” he said.

  “But you were talking to her out on the deck.”

  “That’s why I think it’s better if you talk to her.”

  Jamison looked at her sister. “Amber, it’s going to be okay.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Don’t understand what?” asked Decker.

  “These aren’t the only murders in Baronville recently. I saw it on TV.”

  “What other murders?” asked Decker quickly.

  Amber was about to reply when someone knocked on the front door.

  When she opened it, a man and a woman, both grim-faced, were standing on the front stoop.