The Fallen

by David Baldacci

  Baron led them down a well-worn path through stands of trees. Farther down he turned right.

  “The grounds used to encompass the land all the way to the bottom where you reach the road heading into town,” he explained. “But the property was sold off over the years. There’s not much left, but what is, I think, are the prettiest parts.”

  He led them out of the woods and past a long column of rhododendrons to a large pond whose surface was half covered with vegetation. The ground sloped down toward it on all sides.

  “I would come here as a child,” said Baron, gazing at the water as they neared the edge. “We could never swim in it. You see the plant growth? The vines reach all the way to the bottom. You can easily become entangled. Indeed, one of my ancestors nearly drowned in there. Ever since then we would only come down to admire it. Or take a little rowboat across to the other side. It’s quite deep in the center. And it used to have fish stocked, but that was a long time ago.”

  “And your parents?” prompted Jamison.

  “My parents died in there,” he said simply.

  “But you just said no one went swimming in there.”

  “They weren’t swimming. They were in their car.”

  Decker said, “How did a car get here?”

  “Back then there was a road leading from the house to here. A long time ago my great-grandfather had it put in. That was when money was more plentiful. They would drive their cars here and picnic. They’d spend the whole day here, I was told. When I was a child, I remember my father bringing me and my mother down here, though we never had the luxury of an all-day picnic. But it was still very nice. Some of my happiest times here were with my parents.”

  He sat down cross-legged on the grass. Decker and Jamison remained standing.

  “Now I come here sometimes just to think. And look at the water. And drink,” Baron added. “I was in college at the time, just beginning my second year, when I got a call from the police. They had found my parents in their car at the bottom of the pond. They were quite dead, of course.”

  “My God,” said Jamison.

  Baron looked up at her. “I doubt God had anything to do with it.” He glanced back at the water.

  “What did the police say at the time?” asked Decker.

  “They were convinced it was either an accident or, more likely, some sort of suicide pact. Even back then we were paupers, though I didn’t know it. My parents were feeling the strain of keeping up the Baron image without the financial resources to do so. You see the house the way it is now. Back then it was better and we could still afford help both in the house and with the grounds, but it was difficult. My father was a good man. He could see the handwriting on the wall. He went to college and law school. He made a good living as an attorney, but it wasn’t nearly enough to maintain all that the Barons had accumulated. My mother brought some money to the marriage, but it wasn’t enough either.”

  “So why not sell the house and grounds and move?” asked Jamison.

  “Even back then the house was crushed under a mortgage, which really made it unmarketable. And there were tax bills and other debts, all of which accumulated interest. It seemed like the harder my father worked to pay them off, the faster the debts grew. He kept going, but he ended up robbing Peter to pay Paul. I know they were thrilled when I received a baseball scholarship to college.”

  “He could have declared bankruptcy,” suggested Decker.

  “To him it was a matter of honor. He was not going to walk away from it.”

  “So he might have felt desperate,” observed Jamison.

  Baron abruptly stood. “Not desperate enough to kill himself. And even if he had come to that decision, he certainly would never have suggested that my mother join him in the hereafter.” He paused. “I would like to think that the subject of their only child might have come into any such decision-making process, and that my parents would not have wanted to leave me all alone.”

  “Could it have been an accident, then?” said Jamison.

  “I don’t see how. You couldn’t accidentally drive your car into the pond. It had to have been deliberate.”

  “But you think it was deliberate murder?” said Decker. “Did your parents have enemies?”

  “They had enemies simply by being Barons.”

  “What did the police conclude?”

  “I’m not sure they ever officially concluded anything. They did tell me that they suspected my parents had died either accidentally, or intentionally by their own hand. But no suicide note could be found.”

  Decker nodded. “Could they have been incapacitated first and then placed in the car? With the slope, all someone would have to do was put the car in neutral and it would roll right into the water.”

  “I asked the police that.”

  “And what did they say?”

  “That it was still an ongoing investigation and they couldn’t provide those details.”

  “And when the investigation no longer was ongoing?” asked Jamison.

  “Apparently it still is, because the police never released a definitive finding one way or another. And they still won’t answer any of my questions.”

  “You still ask?” said Jamison.

  “About once or twice a year. I used to write letters or make phone calls. Now I do it by email directly to the police commissioner.”

  “And does the commissioner answer you?”

  “With language that would be inappropriate to use in front of a lady,” replied Baron, with a glance at Jamison. “And now, unless you have anything further, I really need to get back to that nap.” He abruptly walked off.

  Jamison turned to Decker, who was still staring at the pond.

  “Now that is one complicated man,” she said. “Shooting one-liners one second and then telling us his parents were murdered the next.”

  Decker glanced back in the direction of Baron, who was just disappearing into the woods.

  “Decker? Did you hear me?”

  He nodded.

  “Do you think his parents could have been murdered?”

  “I’m in no position to say one way or another. And that’s not why we’re here. We have six recent murders to investigate.” He turned back to look at the pond.

  “But you are curious, aren’t you? I can tell.”

  Decker turned and walked past her.

  “Wait a minute, where are you going?”

  “While Baron is ‘napping,’ I want to look around.”

  Chapter 28

  DECKER, WE CAN’T just barge into the man’s house while he’s here. We don’t have a warrant.”

  She was hustling after Decker and caught up to him after he cleared the tree line and the mansion and other buildings came into view once more.

  “I just want to look around the grounds and maybe in some of the outbuildings.”

  “We still need a warrant to do that.”

  “Do we?”

  “You damn well know we do.”

  Ignoring this, he kept walking until he reached the garage, which was not attached to the house but was separated by a lumpy brick courtyard. The garage had six bays, and all six were wide open, allowing them to see clearly inside.

  “Just the one Suburban,” observed Decker. “Looks pretty old.”

  The truck sat a bit crooked in the bay closest to the house.

  “I don’t see anything that jumps out,” said Jamison.

  Decker stepped into the garage and examined one of the walls.

  “Look at this, Alex.”

  She drew up next to him and looked at the hole in the wall.

  “It’s a hole, so what?”

  Decker pointed around. “There’re holes over there and over there. And I noticed some in the house when we were passing down the hall. And they were in his study too.”

  Jamison’s face screwed up. “That’s weird. Do you think he has rats? And they opened the walls to check for that? Or mold?”

  “That might be it. I would im
agine a place like this is overrun with vermin and mold.”

  “Great, and we’ve been breathing it all this time.”

  “Well, he’s been breathing it all his life.” Decker glanced over her shoulder. “Maybe we’ll have better luck with that building over there.” He headed off to a structure set about a hundred yards away.

  Jamison hurried after him, glancing back at the house to see if perhaps Baron was watching them.

  Decker reached the building.

  It had stone walls, a tin roof, and a thick wooden door, with a pair of windows bracketing the front portal.

  “What do you think this is?” asked Jamison.

  “One way to find out.”

  Decker opened the door and stepped inside.

  Jamison scooted in after him, looking uncomfortable at this illegal intrusion.

  Inside were shelves with clay pots, an old copper sink, stacks of wooden boxes with faded writing on the sides, and hooks on the wall from which a variety of gardening tools and instruments hung. On the countertops were old seed packets and long, shallow wooden boxes with metal mesh over them. Next to that were some old leather-bound journals.

  Jamison opened one and looked down at the spidery writing that included plant references, weather, soil conditions, and lists of supplies and materials.

  “It’s a potting shed,” she concluded. “I haven’t seen one of them since, well, I never have except on HGTV. Some of the entries in this journal are dated eighty years ago.”

  “They probably had a full-time outdoor staff way back when. Maybe a flower and kitchen garden.”

  Decker tried the tap and water came out.

  “Really smells in here,” said Jamison. “And look, there are holes in the wall here too. I bet there are whole colonies of critters living inside there.”

  Decker opened some drawers. “And you have rotting soil and mulch and maybe decaying plants, plus mold and mildew collected over the decades. Not a nice mixture, but—”

  He stopped talking when he opened what looked to be a closet door and peered inside.

  “Check this out.”

  Inside the space was a pillow, a thin rolled-up mattress, a blanket, and a small duffel.

  Jamison peered over his shoulder. “Do you think someone was staying here?”

  “Maybe.” Decker pulled out the duffel, set it on the counter, and opened it. Inside were a couple of threadbare shirts, a dirty pair of men’s dungarees, sneakers, and a rolled-up canvas fanny pack.

  When Decker unrolled it, Jamison said, “Damn.”

  They looked down at a trio of syringes, three needles with corks on the tips, a few vials of liquid, a spoon, a crack pipe, a length of elasticized rubber, some plastic baggies containing white powder, a Bic lighter, four joints, and a clasp knife.

  “Basically, your classic druggie’s survival pack,” said Decker.

  “You think this belongs to Baron?”

  Decker held up the pants to his legs.

  “Baron is about two inches shorter than me. These pants are for a guy under six feet, so no, I don’t think so.”

  “Some squatter, then?”

  “That’s more likely.”

  “Do you think Baron knows about it?”

  Decker stared out the window at the main house. “I don’t know. There’s a direct sightline from here to there. Unless whoever it was came and went at night.”

  “Well, they probably would if they were here illegally.”

  “But why pick this place when we’ve been told that there are lots of empty homes in Baronville where people squat? Why come all the way up here to a crappy old potting shed? It’s not like you could come and go so easily. And if the guy is squatting, it’s not like he can drive a car right up here and not expect to be seen. He can get water from the tap, but I don’t see any food around. How does he eat? And there’s no bathroom here.”

  Jamison said, “So maybe Baron does know about it. Maybe he feeds him and lets him use the facilities in the house.”

  “So he’s feeding a druggie and allowing the guy to stay in the old potting shed. Why?”

  “Baron is sort of down and out too. Maybe he feels sorry for the guy.”

  Decker shook his head. “I could better understand that if Baron were rolling in dough, which he’s not. And apparently everybody in town hates him.”

  “Maybe this guy isn’t from Baronville.”

  “If so, how did he come to be here? You wouldn’t look at this place from a distance and be able to see that it was run-down. And how could he know only one person lived here? Or that there were outbuildings where he could stay?”

  “He might have talked to some people in Baronville and learned all that.”

  “I wonder where this guy is now?” He looked at the drugs and the accompanying paraphernalia. “And why leave this here? Most druggies I ran into when I was a cop would never leave their stash behind.”

  He picked up one of the plastic baggies. “Nickel bag of coke. About a gram’s worth. These vials are probably heroin. Three to four bucks a pop in a metro area. Maybe more in a place like this. The elastic band is used to pulse the vein for the injection site. The lighter and the spoon are to make crack from the cocaine. Water and a pinch of baking soda. You stir off the residue, then you smoke the liquid coke in the pipe.” He looked closely at the three syringes. “Never seen three needles for one druggie, though.”

  “Maybe he’s trying to avoid infections.”

  “You mostly get that if you’re sharing needles with someone else.”

  After a thorough search they turned up a few more items: a bottle of antiseptic wipes, two cell phones, a list of phone numbers written out on paper. And, cleverly hidden behind a cut-out panel under the sink where the pipes went into the wall, they found the pot of gold.

  Or drugs, rather.

  Fifty baggies of powdered coke, twenty vials of liquid heroin, and ten rocks of crack, along with a roll of cash rubber-banded together, and a loaded Sig Sauer nine-millimeter with the serial numbers filed off.

  “Decker, this guy’s not a user. He’s a dealer.”

  Decker didn’t answer because he was staring at something on the floor.

  Jamison looked at the spot. “It’s a narrow line in the dust,” she said. “Like something was dragged over it.”

  Decker got down on his knees to examine the mark more closely.

  He stood and looked at Jamison. “What do you want to bet the person staying here won’t be coming back?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That mark isn’t from something being dragged over the floor. It’s from a bike tire. I think we just found Michael Swanson’s final place of residence.”

  Chapter 29

  THEY HAD TAKEN photos of what they had discovered in the potting shed and then put everything back. Since they had no warrant, anything they found would not be admissible in court if it ever came to that.

  They drove off and wound their way back down the hill to Baronville.

  “Do we tell Green and Lassiter what we found?” asked Jamison as she steered the vehicle.

  Decker shook his head. “No, they’d be pissed about what we did, and there’s no need to fight that battle right now. And we have no idea if that stuff really belongs to Swanson. It’s just a hunch. But his old landlord did say he rode a bike.”

  “Long ride up here and back.”

  “Hey, if it’s the only wheels you have?”

  “So where does that lead us?”

  “To the possibility that John Baron is lying to us. He says he didn’t know Costa; I’m convinced he did.”

  “Come on, Decker, lots of businesses sponsor Little League teams. You can’t expect a bank bigwig to know all the coaches.”

  “Granted. But I wouldn’t expect a bigwig to keep a photo of the team at his house either. And it’s not like Baronville National Bank is Goldman Sachs or Citibank. Everybody probably knows everybody else. And if that stuff does or did belong to Swanson, then that m
eans that Baron possibly knew two of the four victims. And Costa’s secretary said the bank holds the mortgage on this place. For all we know, Costa is the point of contact for Baron.”

  “We could ask for alibis from him.”

  Decker shook his head. “I don’t want to go there with him, not yet. He’s cagey. And he apparently is alone a lot of the time, so what sort of alibi could he reasonably provide for two sets of murders?”

  Jamison glanced at the truck’s clock. “Oh no, we’re going to be late.”

  Decker glanced at her. “For what?”

  “Zoe’s birthday dinner.”

  “Do we have to go?”

  She looked at him, dumbstruck. “I’m the one who’s taking them to dinner, Decker. It’s at the nicest restaurant in town. You knew about this. It’s one of the reasons we’re visiting them now. To celebrate Zoe’s sixth birthday. I have her presents in the back of the truck at least, so we don’t have to go back to the house.”

  “But we’re in the middle of an investigation.”

  “And we’ve been working on it all day. And we have to eat. So we’re going to the dinner.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, Decker. We’re going!”

  “Alex—”

  Jamison made a slashing motion with her free hand. “Not another word. She’s my niece and I love her more than anything.”

  Decker sighed and slumped back against his seat.

  * * *

  The restaurant was half full. When Jamison had said this was the best restaurant in Baronville, Decker hadn’t known what to expect. But it was comfortably furnished and sparkling clean. The wait staff wore white shirts and black bow ties, the napkins were linen, and the menu had some dishes Decker had never heard of but that sounded tantalizing.

  Amber and Zoe were in dresses, and even Decker could tell that Amber had taken time with her makeup and her and her daughter’s hair. This was apparently a big deal. Decker’s mind took him back to his own daughter’s birthdays. They were big deals.

  He glanced at Jamison, who gazed adoringly at her niece.

  “Did you have a good day at school, Zoe?” she asked.