The Last Mile (Amos Decker 2)

“Your dad was engaged in a gunfight with whoever did try to kill us.”

Milligan looked around. “You think there might be some bodies around here?”

“I don’t know.”

Mars looked at him. “So my dad saved our butts?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Well, I’m glad he was here today, otherwise we wouldn’t be.”

Mars looked off in the direction of where his dad had fled. “If he would just come and talk to me, maybe we could work together.”

“He can’t do that, Melvin.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s murdered people. If he did come forward we’d have no other option than to arrest him.”

Mars slowly nodded. “I guess so.”

“Don’t try to make your father out to be something he’s not.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t think I have to say it,” replied Decker. “And keep in mind that I’m here to find the truth. And while I know that you’re innocent, I also know that your dad isn’t. Nothing can change that. Nothing you can do can change that. It is what it is. You have a life to lead. Don’t think it’s going to be with your dad. Because that’s not going to happen.”

Decker headed toward the road, while Mars stood where he was, looking down at the dirt.

Milligan joined Decker. “I think you were a little harsh back there, Decker. Why come down on him like a ton of bricks?”

“You think it’s better to give him false hope?”

“You can use some tact.”

“I don’t have any. And Melvin’s already lost twenty years of his life. I don’t want him to waste another second over a lost cause.”

CHAPTER

55

BAIL.

Money put up to secure the freedom of a human from incarceration.

At least temporarily.

The practice had been around nearly as long as there were bars with people put behind them.

It was just a way to make money off another’s misfortune. There were many businesses built on that concept, and they were all thriving, because misfortune was always in abundance.

Decker sat at the table in his motel room.

The fire at the Marses’ old house had been put out, but the place was heavily damaged. The doors in the garage had been jammed shut. And the door leading from the garage into the house had been blocked off by wedging a long metal pipe between the door and the opposite wall. The police had found an accelerant in the kitchen, which meant that the fire had been set deliberately.

They had looked for the car seen racing away from the scene, but there had been no sightings. Decker was convinced that Roy Mars was in that car. He had no idea who had set the fire, or how they had escaped.

Several bullet holes had been found in the exterior walls of the house near the garage. That could have been evidence of a gun battle between Roy Mars and whoever else had been there.

More FBI agents had traveled down to Texas to help with the investigation, now that an FBI agent had nearly been killed.

What Decker was looking at now were incomplete records. In Charles Montgomery’s first arrest in the 1960s, part of the bail record had long since been lost, including who had posted the bail.

But in the records of the second arrest, Decker found the name of the person posting bail.

“Nathan Ryan,” he muttered.

Ryan had posted bail for Montgomery in Cain, Mississippi, on the morning of February 22, 1968. Who was Ryan, and why would he have put up a bond of five hundred dollars—significant money back then—for Montgomery?

Did they know each other? Were they friends? He obviously couldn’t ask Montgomery that.

He closed his eyes and his mind cast around for a fresh angle from which to pursue the matter.

He opened his eyes and also the notebook that lay in front of him.

January 11, 1968, Tuscaloosa, Alabama. DUI and pot possession.

February 21, 1968, Cain, Mississippi. Drunk driving and illegal gun possession.

Both states in the South, and both within a short time period.

Both involved driving a car under the influence.

Was that a theme or pattern, or just the shenanigans of a young, disillusioned former soldier from Vietnam acting out his immense frustrations?

He had mustered out in March 1967. So why the approximately ten-month period where he had not been arrested for anything at all? Wasn’t it more likely that he would do his petty crime spree right after he’d gotten back?

What had happened to him in the intervening ten months? And after his arrest in Mississippi it seemed that Montgomery had cleaned up his act, at least until he had started committing far more serious crimes later, culminating in his execution.

He closed his eyes again and let his mind wander.

I wonder how many police officers it took to corral Montgomery on those two occasions?

Was it one cop car, two, four, six?

Only to find the driver drunk?

Back then drunk drivers were treated far more leniently. With a wink and a nudge and a night to sleep it off, with lots of coffee thrown in. That happened even when others were hurt or killed. And Montgomery apparently had hurt no one.

Tuscaloosa and Cain.

Both in 1968.

There might be one obvious common denominator.

He opened his laptop again, went online, and did another search.

January 1968, Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

On January 10, an NAACP office had been bombed. Four people were killed. Three civil rights activists and a lawyer from New York. All black.

No one had been arrested for the crime.

And Charles Montgomery had been there, arrested for DUI and possession of marijuana, and he’d posted bail the next day.

He did another search.

February 1968, Cain, Mississippi.

There were many things that had happened there that month. But one event was predominant and carried the most headlines and, now, the most digital ink.

On February 21, fifteen members of an African-American church, including the pastor and four young girls performing in the youth choir, had perished in a bombing.

And the next morning Charles Montgomery had had bail posted for his gun possession and drunk and disorderly charges.

Decker couldn’t fathom the odds of the man being in the two cities at the same time these bombings were being perpetrated. If it were merely a coincidence, it was the mother of all serendipity.

He typed the name Nathan Ryan and added “Cain, Mississippi.” Then he put in the word “bombing” and hit the return key.

He read through the first few results.