“Sit on the bed.”
He looked at Decker and then Jamison, as though wondering when they were going to put a stop to this nonsense. Neither said anything.
Mars looked back at Davenport.
“Sit on the bed,” she said. “This won’t hurt. I promise.”
He sat. She stood in front of him and took a pen out of her pocket. She held it up in front of him at an angle that made him lift his gaze a bit.
“Can you keep your eyes on this pen?”
“This is silly.”
Decker said, “Melvin, just do it, okay? It’s worth a shot.”
Mars sighed and focused on the pen. “Okay, now what?”
“Just follow the pen.”
Davenport started to move the pen slowly up and down and then from side to side. She spoke in a low, conversational voice the entire time.
Mars did as she asked and his gaze went wherever the pen did. The movements were slow, rhythmic, and her voice began to modulate, matching the movements of the pen.
Then Mars shook his head. “This is stupid.”
Davenport kept the pen raised and said, “I know many athletes get into a zone before they play a game. Did you?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Pretend you’re getting ready to play a football game. Get your head right. Relax. But focus.” She glanced sideways at Decker. “You’re about to play Ohio State and run over Decker again.” She then pointed to the pen. “This is the zone, Melvin. You can get there. The big game. For all the marbles. Just concentrate. This pen is the goal line. Go get it.”
Mars settled back and stared at the pen, his gaze still slightly elevated due to the angle at which Davenport was holding it.
In a whisper to Decker she said, “Give him some football direction, low even tones.”
Decker looked wildly uncertain about this.
Davenport said in a soothing voice, “You can do it, Amos. Just like when you were talking to Tommy Montgomery.”
Decker nodded and began speaking in a halting low voice as he gave Mars the scenario on the field: The ball was snapped. Mars took the handoff. The A-gap was clogged, the B-gap a possibility. Mars had to read the linebacker’s eyes, strong safety coming up on the left, right guard just had to maintain his block for another second, a glimpse of daylight.
Davenport motioned for Decker to stop talking.
As Decker had been speaking, Davenport had slowed the movements of the pen and Mars had matched this with his gaze. Finally, she held the pen steady in the air and Mars stared at it, his eyes glassy and fixed, his features relaxed.
“Melvin, can you hear me?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered, his voice unlike his usual one.
Davenport slowly lowered the pen, but Mars’s gaze remained fixed on the same spot.
She said, “You’re in college at the University of Texas. Do you remember that?”
He nodded.
“You’re home now with your parents, though. Okay?”
“Yes.”
“This is after ESPN showed your parents on TV. They found out, right?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Somebody at the pawnshop told my dad. He was pissed.”
“They’re acting strange now, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell us how?”
“Nervous. And angry. My dad was really upset.”
“Because it showed him on TV?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say why that had upset him?”
“No.”
“What about your mother? Did she talk about it?”
“She said to just leave Dad alone and he’d be okay. She…she didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Did you see your father doing anything unusual during that time?”
“He worked late a lot. And he didn’t eat. And he drank a lot.”
“Did he and your mother argue?”
“I could hear them yelling, but I couldn’t really hear what they said.”
“Could you hear anything?”
Mars’s brow furrowed. “Some Spanish word. Funny one. My mom said it.”
“What was it?”
The brow furrowed more deeply. “Ch-chocha.”
“Chocha, you’re sure?”
Mars nodded. “Chocha. I looked it up. It actually has a couple of meanings in Spanish. It could refer to a prostitute, or”—here he squirmed a bit—“or the private parts of the female anatomy. I didn’t know what they were talking about. It made no sense.”
“Can you remember anything else about that time?”
Mars was silent for a few moments and Davenport waited patiently.
“I came home one night and he was sitting in his chair. Mom wasn’t there.”
“Okay, go on.”
“I asked him how he was doing. And he looked at me in a way…”
“Yes.”
Tears had appeared in Mars’s eyes. “In a way that scared me. Like…like he hated me.”
“Okay. Did you talk to him?”
Mars shook his head. “I was scared. I was going to go up to my room, but then he said something.”
“What did he say?”
“He said…he said he was sorry.”
Davenport glanced at Decker and Jamison. By her expression, she had evidently not been expecting this answer. But Decker didn’t look surprised.
She turned back to Mars. “Did he say what he was sorry about?”
Mars shook his head. “Then he just got up and walked out.”
“Do you have any idea what he was referring to?”
Mars shook his head again. “I asked my mother about it the next day.”
“And what did she say?”
“She just started to cry, and then she ran out of the room.”
“Did you tell the police about this?”
“No. I didn’t think to. I mean, I didn’t know what was wrong. I never thought that was connected to whoever killed them.”
Davenport looked at Decker. “Anything else?” she whispered.
Decker stepped forward but kept out of Mars’s line of sight. In Davenport’s ear he said something. She started, looked at him strangely, and then turned to Mars.
“Melvin, did your father…did your father ever tell you that he loved you?”
Jamison shot Decker a surprised look.
Mars kept staring straight ahead. “No. He never did.”
“Okay. When I count to three you’re going to wake up. You’re not going to remember anything that we discussed. Okay?”
Mars nodded.