“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.
What had been bugging Decker ever since he’d found out about Bradley Costa was one question:
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.