Decker’s jaw fell slightly.
Hawkins smiled at this reaction, but it didn’t reach his eyes. They were pale and still, with perhaps just a bit of life left inside them.
“Now you remember me, right?”
“Why are you out of prison? You got life, no parole.”
Jamison reached them and put herself between Decker and Hawkins.
Hawkins nodded at her. “You’re his new partner, Alex Jamison. Lancaster told me about you too.” He glanced back at Decker. “To answer your question, I’m no longer in prison ’cause I’m terminal with cancer. One of the worst. Pancreatic. Survival rate past five years is for shit, they tell me, and that’s with chemo and radiation and all that crap, none of which I can afford.” He touched his face. “Jaundice. You get this, it’s way too late to kick it. And it’s metastasized. Big word, means the cancer’s eating me up everywhere. Brain too now. It’s the last inning for me. No doubt about it, I’m done. Hell, maybe a week at best.”
“Why is that a reason to release you?” asked Jamison.
Hawkins shrugged. “They call it compassionate release. Inmate usually has to file for it, but they came to my cell with the paperwork. I filled it out, they got doctors to okay it, and there you go. See, the state didn’t want to foot the bill for my treatments. I was in one of those private prisons. They mark the bill up to the state, but it doesn’t all get reimbursed. Gets expensive. Hurts their bottom line. They figure I’m harmless now. I went into prison when I was fifty-eight. Now I’m seventy. Look like I’m a hundred, I know. I’m all jacked up with drugs just to walk and talk. After I leave here, I’m going to be throwing up for a few hours and then take enough pills to sleep a bit.”
Jamison said, “If you’re on prescription painkillers, somebody’s helping you.”
“Didn’t say they were prescription, did I? As a matter of fact, they’re not. But it’s what I need. Not like they’re putting me back in prison because I’m buying street drugs. I cost too much.” He chuckled. “If I’d known that, I woulda got sick years ago.”
“Do you mean they don’t provide any help for you on the outside?” asked Jamison incredulously.
“They said a hospice place would take me, but I got no way to get there. And I don’t want to go there. I want to be here.” Hawkins stared at Decker.
“What do you want from me?” asked Decker.
Hawkins pointed his finger at him. “You put me in prison. But you were wrong. I’m innocent.”
“Don’t they all say that?” noted Jamison skeptically.
Hawkins shrugged again. “I don’t know about anybody else but me.” He glanced back at Decker. “Lancaster thinks I’m innocent.”
“I don’t believe that,” said Decker.
“Ask her. It’s why she told me where you were.” He paused and looked at the dark sky. “You got another chance to get it right. Maybe you can do it while I’m still alive and kicking. If not, that’s okay, so long as you get there. It’ll be my legacy,” he added with a weak grin.
“He’s with the FBI now,” interjected Jamison. “Burlington and your case are no longer his jurisdiction.”
Hawkins looked nonplussed. “Heard you cared about the truth, Decker. Did I hear wrong? Come a long way for nothing if that’s so.”
When Decker didn’t answer, Hawkins pulled out a slip of paper. “I’ll be in town the next couple of nights. Here’s the address. Maybe I’ll see you, maybe I won’t. But if you don’t come, well, fuck you from the hereafter.”
Decker took the paper but still said nothing.
Hawkins glanced at the twin graves. “Lancaster told me about your family. Glad you found out who killed ’em. But I suppose you still felt guilt, though you were innocent. I can damn well relate.”
Hawkins turned and walked slowly back between the graves until the darkness swallowed him whole.
Jamison turned to Decker. “Okay, I know nothing about this, but it’s still nuts. He’s just taunting you, making you feel guilty. And I can’t believe the guy would come here and butt in while you’re trying to... trying to spend time with your family.”
Decker looked down at the slip of paper. It was clear from his features that something akin to doubt had just now crept into his mind.
Jamison watched him, resignation spreading over her features. “You’re going to see him, aren’t you?”
“Not until I see someone else first.”
Chapter 2
Decker stood alone on the porch. He had asked Jamison to not accompany him here. He preferred to conduct this visit alone, for a number of reasons.
He remembered every inch of the more than four-decades-old split-level ranch. This was not simply due to his perfect recall, but also because this house was nearly an exact copy of the one in which he and his family had once lived.
Mary Lancaster and her husband, Earl, and their daughter, Sandy, had resided here for as long as Lancaster had been on the Burlington police force, which matched Decker’s tenure there as well. Earl was a general contractor who worked sporadically owing to the fact that Sandy was a special needs child who would always require a great deal of time and attention. Mary had been the family’s primary breadwinner for a long time.
Decker stepped up to the door. He was about to knock when it opened.
Mary stood there dressed in faded jeans, a blood-red sweatshirt, and dark blue sneakers. Her hair had once been a pasty blonde. It was now full of gray and hung limply to her shoulders. A cigarette was perched in one hand, its coil of smoke drifting up her slender thigh. Her face was as lined as a thumbprint. Lancaster was the same age as Decker yet looked about ten years older.
“Thought I might see you tonight,” she said in a smoker’s gravelly voice. “Come on in.”
He checked for the tremor that used to be in her left hand, her gun grip hand. He didn’t see it.
Okay, that’s a good thing.
She turned, and he followed the far shorter woman into the house, shutting the door behind him, a tugboat guiding a cargo ship safely into port. Or maybe onto the rocks, he didn’t know which. Yet.
Decker also noted that Lancaster, always thin to begin with, was even more gaunt. Her bones seemed to jut out at odd angles within her loose clothing, as though she had left multiple hangers in them.
“Did the gum stop working?” he asked, glancing at her lit cigarette.
They sat in the living room, a small space littered with toys, stacks of newspapers, open cardboard boxes, and a layer of chaos that was palpable. Her home had always been like this, he knew. They’d started using a maid service before Decker left town, but that had come with its own set of problems. They’d probably decided terminally junky was preferable.
She took a drag on her Camel and let the smoke trail out her nostrils.
“I allow myself one a day, about this time, and only when Earl and Sandy are out. Then I Febreze the hell out of the place.”
Decker took a whiff and coughed. “Then use more Febreze.”
“Meryl Hawkins found you, I take it?”
Decker nodded. “He said you told him where I was.”
“I did.”
“That was taking a liberty. You knew why I was in town. I gave you a heads-up.”
She sat back and scraped away at a spot on her skin with her fingernail. “Well, I sure as hell didn’t do it lightly. But I thought you’d want to know.”
“Hawkins also said you believed him.”
“Then he went too far. I told him I could see his point.”
“Which is what, exactly?”
“Why would he come back here, dying, to ask us to clear his name if he’s not innocent?”