“So you gave him a place to stay?”
“I found him in the shed one day sound asleep. He’d been kicked out of so many places, he apparently biked all the way up to my property just to see if there was a place he could land for a while. He ended up staying longer. I voiced no objections. It’s not like I lacked for extra space.”
“We found his stash in the shed. It wasn’t just pot and pills. It was harder stuff than that. And he had a gun and a big roll of cash.”
Baron spread his hands. “I didn’t condone it. But if I cast out everyone who sold drugs around here, well, I’d be as lonely as I apparently am, if that makes any sense.”
“Okay, you knew Swanson and Tanner, after you told me you didn’t. And Costa? The banker with the picture of your Little League team in his home?”
“Under penalty of perjury and going to that federal pen you mentioned, I did not know him. What I have, I have in cash and other negotiable instruments, which I keep hidden at my home.”
“Is that wise?”
“I don’t know. But it’s how I do things. The banks did not treat me or my family very well when we needed some help. I had no reason to entrust them with the little I had left.”
“So you can think of no reason why Costa would have that photo of you and your team in his home?”
“Other than he was proud we’d won the championship? No.”
“What about Toby Babbot?”
Baron shook his head. “Didn’t know him.”
“He was on disability. Had a metal plate in his head from an industrial accident. Lived in a ratty trailer, because he couldn’t afford anything else.”
“He’s not alone in that in Baronville.”
“His place got torched while Jamison and I were inside it.”
Baron’s eyes widened. “Someone tried to kill you?”
“That’s usually the case when you try to burn down a structure with people inside.”
“Why would someone do that?”
“Maybe you could tell me.”
Baron thought about this. “When did Babbot suffer his industrial accident?”
“Several years ago.”
“Here in Baronville?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s strange.”
“Why?”
“What industry do we have here where someone could have that kind of an accident?”
Now Decker looked surprised. “That’s a fair point. And you’ve given me something to check out.”
“What’s that?”
“How broadly someone defines the term industrial.”
Chapter 39
SO, MY GUT was right.
Decker was in the Mitchells’ kitchen staring down at a report on Toby Babbot’s accident that had required the insertion of a metal plate in his head.
When the “industrial” accident had happened, he’d been working on the construction of the Maxus FC. He’d been driving a forklift that had collided with another piece of heavy equipment. Babbot hadn’t been wearing his safety harness and had been thrown clear of the forklift, resulting in the head injury.
A fractured skull.
He had health insurance through his job, so his medical bills had been covered. But apparently alcohol had been found in his bloodstream at the time of the accident. Thus any lawsuit he might have filed against the company was problematic. However, the company might have been hedging its bets, because they had allowed him to stay on for a few months in an office capacity before letting him go.
Decker heard the front door open. A few moments later Amber appeared in the doorway.
She looked so pale and shaky that Decker didn’t know how she was able to stay upright.
“Do you know where Zoe is?” she asked.
“Alex took her to run some errands for you.”
She nodded. “How are you doing?”
Decker looked embarrassed that she would be worrying about him at a time like this.
“I’m fine. Can I, um, get you anything?”
“No, I…I don’t need anything. Thank you for getting Frank’s car and personal items.”
“It was really nothing, Amber. We were glad to do it.”
Her lips trembled. “I got Frank a really nice coffin.”
Decker felt his skin turn cold. He wanted to get up and give the woman a supportive hug. But the thing in his head stopped him from doing that.
Tears beginning to slip down her cheeks, Amber said softly, “I’m going to go lie down.”
All Decker could do in response was nod.
He listened to her walk down the hall to her bedroom on the main floor.
The door closed behind her.
Next, he heard something hit the floor.
Shoes.
And then the squeak of bedsprings.
Amber flopping on the bed.
And then came the sobs that easily reached all the way to the kitchen.
Unable to endure the cries of the bereaved woman, Decker quickly rose and went out onto the rear porch, where all of this had begun.
He felt himself shaking all over. What Amber was experiencing was what he had experienced. And seeing someone who had lost a loved one to violence had brought all those memories flooding back.
You can’t go there, Decker. If you do, you’re no good to anybody.
He forced himself to focus on the house behind them.
The spark of electricity. The fire. The discovery of the bodies. All that had followed.
He sat in a deck chair and continued to stare at the place, even as his thoughts wandered to other facets of the investigation. And then he arrived at one particularly disturbing one.
If Babbot had been killed because of something at Maxus, then what about Frank Mitchell?
Was the accident not really an accident?
After all, if you could program a robot to do one thing, you could program it to do another thing.
But why kill Frank Mitchell? What would have been the motivation?
He pulled out his phone and called Todd Milligan, a team member of his at the FBI. He asked Milligan to check out anything he could find on the Maxus Corporation.
Milligan knew Decker well enough to not ask any questions. He simply said, “On it.”
Decker put the phone away and continued to stare at the house where the bodies of two DEA agents had been left. They had been killed elsewhere, that was now clear, but Decker had no idea why. Or why that house had been chosen as the location for their bodies.
He closed his eyes and let his memory flash back to the first time he’d met Frank Mitchell.
They had been sitting in the living room after Frank had gotten home from work. Frank had been naturally upset at two murders having taken place almost in his backyard. He’d been curious about the killings, but that was normal too. It would have been unusual if he hadn’t been curious.
Then Decker moved on to another image.
It was a photo. Of a Little League baseball team.
And maybe something more than that.
* * *
He met Jamison on his way out. She was holding Zoe’s hand as they came up the front walk. In her other hand was a bag of groceries.
“Where are you going?” she asked him.
“Just back out to check on a few things.”
“How’s it going?”
“It’s going.”
“Don’t do anything—” She stopped and glanced at Zoe. “You know.”
“I know.”
As he hurried away, Zoe called after him, “Mr. Amos, you’re going to come back, right?”
Decker stopped and slowly turned. “I’ll be back, Zoe. I promise.”
He drove over to Bradley Costa’s apartment and used the key Lassiter had given him to let himself in.
He walked right over to the photo on the shelf.
A smiling John Baron stared back at him.
The boys all looked happy too. They should have after winning the state championship.
Why would a young and single banker leave New York City and come to this place? Decker had to imagine that especially for a young person with money, the enticements of the Big Apple would trump anything Baronville had to offer.
He stared at the photo and then his gaze slipped to the frame around it.
Why not check the obvious? he thought. In fact, he should have done it before. He picked up the photo, turned it around, and flicked off the little metal tags that held the back of the frame on. He took out the cardboard backing and then the photo itself.
“Damn,” he muttered.
There was a name and an address written there.
“Stanley Nottingham,” he read off.
Underneath the name was an address in New York City.
Decker slipped the photo into his jacket.
Who was Stanley Nottingham in New York City, and why would Costa have this information written down on the back of the Little League photo?
He thumbed a text to Todd Milligan asking the FBI agent to look into this for him as well. If Decker had to travel to New York to talk to Nottingham, he would. The man might be able to explain why Bradley Costa had come to Baronville. And that information might lead to something else.
And then the case might finally start to make sense.
Criminal investigations usually involved minutiae piled on top of minutiae, until something clicked with something else, or, sometimes, contradicted something else. Either way, it could lead you in the right direction.
And Decker desperately needed something to go right.
He left the apartment, got back into his truck, and set off for his next stop.
Betsy O’Connor, Toby Babbot’s last known roommate.
Chapter 40
IT WAS BEYOND horrible, what happened to him.”
Decker was sitting at a coffee shop. Across the table from him was Betsy O’Connor, who worked as a waitress there. She was about five-five with a blocky build. Her graying hair was cut short and a pair of eyeglasses dangled on a chain around her neck. Decker had gauged her age at closer to fifty than forty.
He spooned some sugar into his coffee and said, “So you lived with him for a few years?”
“Yes. I mean, it was totally platonic,” she hastily added. “My husband was an ass who liked to beat me when things went wrong in his life. I dated a couple of guys after my divorce and found them to be much the same. So, I’ve chucked men, at least for the foreseeable future.”
“But Babbot was different?”
“Look, Toby had his issues, but he was basically a good guy who’d had a crappy life. That’s why we were living together. We had to. We couldn’t make ends meet otherwise.”
“How’d you two come to know each other?”
O’Connor looked a bit embarrassed. “At an addiction meeting. We were both coming off issues with pain pills and trying to get our lives back on track. We were both working, but the jobs just didn’t pay enough. Together, though, we made enough to live in a small house.”
“I understand that he’d been in an accident. Had an injury to his head?”
“That’s right. At the construction site, when they were building the fulfillment center. That was such a rough time for him. At first the company was helpful, but then they got nasty and cut him off.”
“I understand there was an issue with alcohol?” said Decker.
“That was trumped up. Toby hadn’t had a drop of alcohol for years. I would know. I lived with him when all that was going on. He worked so hard trying to get back to normal.”
“But he never did get back to normal?”
“No. He tried but just couldn’t keep a job. And I tried to make things work for us, but in the end my paycheck just wouldn’t cover the expenses. So we had to move out. Broke my heart. I really liked that place. It was my first real home after my divorce.”
“We found quite a few prescription bottles in his trailer. They were all painkillers.”
“Well, he was in a lot of pain because of his injuries.”
“I understand that you now live with some other people in an apartment?”
O’Connor dropped her gaze and fingered her coffee. “Yes, like when you’re in your twenties. But I’m not a kid anymore. It wasn’t the future I had mapped out at this stage of my life, but there you go. This job only pays minimum wage with no benefits. I work another job part time after I leave here, but both don’t even add up really to a livable wage.”
“Did you ever try getting hired at Maxus?”
“Me and every other person in town. They employ a lot of people and it’s really the only thing going here now. But I couldn’t pass the physical requirements. Lifting all that weight and walking all that way. Or running, more like it. I’m probably going to have to move. I’m burned out on this place. I need a fresh start.”
“Babbot lived in a trailer after he stopped living with you. Did you ever visit him there?”
O’Connor nodded. “Several times. I’d bring him some home-cooked food. Give him a few dollars. I hated that he was living in that trailer. It didn’t even have electricity or running water.”
“Somebody burned the trailer down.”
O’Connor looked alarmed. “What?”
“While my partner and I were in it.”
“Dear God!”
Decker pulled out the sheet of graph paper that he had penciled in.
“Did you ever see this while you were at Babbot’s trailer?”
She examined the page. “No, what is it?”
“It’s basically the construction plans for the fulfillment center.”
“Why would Toby have had that?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. Did he ever mention working on the center?”
“Before he was injured he seemed to like the construction work. It paid pretty well, and he didn’t have to lift stuff. He drove a forklift and other heavy equipment. Maybe this paper relates to the work he did there.”
“But I don’t know why he would bother to replicate construction drawings on graph paper. Did he say anything about the center after he was injured?”
“Not much until they turned against him. Then he was angry.”
“How angry?”
“Well, since he’s gone now, I guess it doesn’t matter. He said he was going to get back at them.”
“How?”
“He never said.” She paused. “You don’t think he was planning to, oh, I don’t know, maybe bomb the place? Would that be why he would have made those drawings?”
“It’s possible. Do you think he was capable of that?”
“Before his injury, no. But after, he changed. Head injuries can change you, did you know that?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard something like that,” Decker said drily. “So, you think it was possible for him to be violent?”
“I don’t want to think that. He never was with me. But I guess it was possible. They really had screwed him.”
“Anyone in particular?”
“It was mostly the company lawyers. Toby didn’t have the money to hire anyone, so he handled all that himself. It was a chore, I can tell you that. Lawyers can be nasty.”
“No one wanted to take it on contingency?”
“Toby said there weren’t that many lawyers left in town, and none of them wanted to get on the bad side of the biggest employer in town.”
Decker nodded. “Did he ever mention Joyce Tanner, Michael Swanson, or Bradley Costa?”
“No, never. But wasn’t Joyce Tanner the name of the woman he was found with?”
“Yes.”
O’Connor shrugged. “Well, he never mentioned her to me.”
“How about John Baron?”
She frowned. “He lives in the mansion on the hill.”
“Yeah. Although I’ve been up there and I wouldn’t call it a mansion anymore.”
“Well, it’s a lot mo
re than I’ve got.”
“But did Babbot ever mention John Baron?” asked Decker.
“Not that I can recall. I’m not from here, but Baron’s not very well liked, is he?”
“Not very.”
O’Connor said, “I’ve heard some people say he’s really rich. That he has money stashed away up there.”
“And he lives like a pauper because why?”
“I know, I could never figure that out either.”
“There was a Bible verse written on the wall of the room where Babbot’s body was found.”
O’Connor looked curious. “The paper said something about that.”
“Does that ring any bells for you? Was Babbot religious?”
“Toby never went to church as far as I know.”
“So, nothing else you can remember?”
She thought for a few moments. “I really don’t think so. Toby was a good man who just got dealt a bad hand. I guess that could describe a lot of us. But then again, our life is what we make it, right? Bad choices. You can’t blame others for that.”
“I guess not.” Decker rose to leave.
“Mr. Decker, do you think you can find who killed Toby, and the others?”
“That’s what I’m trying to do.”
“He didn’t deserve to die like that.”
“I can’t really think of anyone who does.”
Chapter 41
BACK IN HIS truck Decker took out the piece of graph paper and studied it more closely. Then he lifted the paper so it was only a few inches from his face.
He had drawn in all the lines, but he had missed some indentations that had appeared at the bottom right-hand corner of the paper.
He took a pencil from the glovebox and ran it over the indentations until something appeared.
As he examined it more closely he concluded it was the scale to which the drawings had been done. An inch per a certain number of feet.
He put the paper in his pocket and drove off. On the way, he called Detective Green and asked for an address for Dr. Freedman, the physician who had prescribed all the pain pills for Toby Babbot.
“He’s in prison for being a pill mill doc.”
“Overprescribing pain meds to people like Toby Babbot?”
The Fallen Page 20