Memory Man (Amos Decker 1)

Bogart looked at the frames and then turned back to Decker.

“Okay, it’s a woman getting out of a car. The waitress from the bar. Leopold’s accomplice. Maybe this Belinda Wyatt person. She certainly looks like a woman to me.”

“Did you notice how the person got out of the car?”

Bogart glanced at the screen. “You said it was a guy masquerading as a woman. But now that we know Wyatt has this intersex condition, we don’t really know what she is, male or female. So it could just be her being a woman because she is a woman. Maybe she never had the operation.”

“That’s right. She may be exactly what she was twenty years ago. We know Leopold couldn’t have committed the murders. If Wyatt is involved with him, that leaves her. She’s the shooter.”

“Okay, but I’m not getting what you mean about her climbing out of the car. She swung her legs out and stood up. Like a girl or a guy would.”

“No, not like a guy would. Nothing like a guy would.”

“I’m not following.”

“Turn to the side and stand up, like you’re getting out of a car.”

“What, now?”

“Yes, now.”

“Decker!”

“Just do it.”

Bogart looked put out, but he turned to his side and put his legs out into the aisle. He was about to stand when Decker stopped him.

“Look at your legs.”

Bogart stared down at his splayed legs. “What about them? I swung them out into the aisle, which I have to do in order to stand up. The person on the screen did the exact same thing.”

“Look at the distance between your thighs.”

Bogart stared down at the large gap between his legs. “So what?”

“Look at the screen.”

Bogart glanced at the screen. There the person’s thighs were nearly touching.

“Look at the hand,” added Decker.

Bogart looked at the person’s hand. It was knifed into the narrow crevice between the thighs, edging the skirt down.

“Your legs were spread out and your hand was nowhere near your legs.”

“Well, she’s wearing a dress, I’m not.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re a guy and, wearing a dress or not, you wouldn’t do it. You’d spread your legs and stand. And the person’s in an alley. No one is there to catch a glimpse up the dress. So why keep the legs together? Why place your hand there for added security to prevent prying eyes?”

“I give up. Why?”

“It’s the difference between being raised female and male. Women do that motion automatically. It’s ingrained in them from an early age, as soon as they start wearing a jumper and tights, and then a dress or skirt. My wife taught our daughter that motion when she was just a little girl. Every mom does. But a guy would never think to do it. Never. Dress or no dress. Guys don’t worry about people looking, because guys are always the ones who are looking.”

Bogart stared down at his legs, and then at his hand, and lastly over at the screen where the frozen image showed explicitly everything that Decker had just explained. He looked at Jamison, who had been following this conversation closely. Before he could say anything, she swung her legs out into the aisle. She was wearing a skirt. Her knees were pressed together and her hand was in the same position as the person on the video.

“It is hammered into us, Agent Bogart,” she noted. “Just like Decker said. It’s just automatic, especially when one is wearing a skirt.”

Bogart exclaimed, “So let me get this straight. Are you saying that our shooter is a woman, Decker?”

“I’m saying that if our shooter is Belinda Wyatt—and I believe she is—then she has retained the muscle memory from when she was raised as a girl. Whether she’s now a man after having surgery, I don’t know. Ironically enough, she may like that, after having been considered a freak for straddling genders, because she’s now able to use it to her full advantage. She’s a chameleon gender-wise. She can play both roles. It makes for very effective cover.”

Bogart swung his legs back in and rested his elbows on the table. Jamison did the same.

“Why do you think she killed Sizemore?” asked Bogart.

“That’s the other reason I started to focus on Wyatt. She was his favorite. He made that clear to me. He never told me about her background, but he spent a great deal of time with her.”

“Okay, but why would she kill him, then?”

Decker gazed at Bogart with a look of disappointment. “It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? He seduced her and had sex with her while she was at the institute.”

Jamison and Bogart stared at him goggle-eyed.

“Damn,” said Jamison. “That does make sense. Sizemore was a slimeball. He got kicked out of the institute for doing that very same thing with another female patient.”

Bogart said, “So he seduced this physically and emotionally battered teenager when she was at her most vulnerable just so he could get laid? Some favorite.”

Decker said nothing to this. He had returned to gazing out the window.

“You don’t miss much, do you?” noted Bogart.

“So long as I see it or hear it, then it’s always with me.”

Jamison said, “But what if someone tells you a lie? You remember it, but not necessarily as a lie, right?”

“Unless I’m told something else that doesn’t align with the earlier statement. Then I can start to figure out what’s true and what’s not. Small things tend to lead to big results. People don’t mess up on the big details. They fall down on the small ones.”

“What about Leopold? How did those two hook up?”

Decker looked back out the window and watched the clouds pass by.

He had no answer to that question.

He might never have an answer to that question.

Belinda Wyatt and Sebastian Leopold. Two of the most unlikely partners ever. But like the two killers in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, people paired together could do things unimaginable to each of them acting alone.

And he wondered what they were plotting right now.

Chapter

53

THE ADDRESS IN Colorado was at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, up a long paved road that had only a single house at the end that one reached through a motorized gate. But it was a substantial home, an estate really.

The SUVs slowly made their way up. An FBI team from Denver had met them at the private airport where the jet had landed. There were eight agents plus Bogart, Jamison, and Decker. Local law enforcement was down below keeping guard over the road.

“It’s out of the way,” said Bogart as the large two-story home came into view.

“Did you expect it not to be?” said Decker.

When they pulled to a stop Bogart looked at Jamison. “You stay put.”

“Come on. Decker wouldn’t let me go in Sizemore’s place either.”

“Well, I’m pleased to be considered in the same league with Mr. Decker,” retorted Bogart. “Until we get the all clear, you stay right here.”

They climbed out of the SUVs and the team quickly surrounded the house. A large separate building that looked to be a four-car garage was set off to one side. There was a pool in the rear grounds, covered now for winter. There were no other buildings. And there were no cars visible either.

“Place looks abandoned,” said Bogart. “For such a nice residence, the grounds are pretty let go.”

“We’ll see,” replied Decker.

The air was cold and everyone’s breath was visible.

Two agents went toward the garage while the others headed for the house. Three went to the rear, and the other half covered the front. With Decker next to him, Bogart knocked on the front door, identified himself, said that he had a search warrant, and asked to be let in. All he got in answer was silence.

He gave the countdown over his phone to the team in the rear.

Both doors were blown in by hydraulic battering rams.