Her smile faded. “I hadn’t thought about that. I will, thanks, Amos.”
He looked down at his food and drew a deep breath. He was done, just waiting for her to leave. He closed his eyes. He might just go to sleep right here.
She idly played with the button of her jacket, shooting glances at him. Preparing for what she had really come here to do. To say.
“We made an arrest, Amos. In your case.”
Amos Decker opened his eyes. And kept them open.
Chapter
5
DECKER PLACED HIS hands on the table.
Lancaster noted the hands turning to fists and the thumb rubbing against the forefinger so hard it was leaving a mark.
“His name?” asked Decker, staring at a mound of uneaten scrambled eggs.
“Sebastian Leopold. Unusual one. But that’s what he said.”
Decker once more closed his eyes and turned on what he liked to call his DVR. This was one of the positives of being what he was. The frames flew past his eyes so fast it was hard to see, but he could still see everything in there. He came out the other end of this mental exercise with not a single hit.
He opened his eyes and shook his head. “Never heard of him. You?”
“No. And again, that’s just what he told us. It might not be his real name.”
“No ID, then?”
“No, nothing. Empty pockets. I believe he’s homeless.”
“Run his prints?”
“As we speak. No hits yet.”
“How’d you get onto him?”
“That was the easy part. He walked into the precinct at two o’clock this morning and turned himself in. Easiest collar we’ve ever made. I’ve just come from interviewing him.”
Decker shot her a penetrating look. “After nearly sixteen months the guy walks in and cops to a triple homicide?”
“I know. Certainly doesn’t happen every day.”
“Motive?”
She looked uncomfortable. “I just came here to give you a courtesy heads-up, Amos. It’s an ongoing police investigation. You know the drill.”
He leaned forward, nearly clearing the width of the table. In a level voice as though he were staring at her across the distance of their slung-together desks back at the police station he said, “Motive?”
She sighed, pulled a stick of gum from her pocket, bent it in half, and popped it into her mouth. Three quick chews and she said, “Leopold said you dissed him once. Pissed him off.”
“Where and when?”
“At the 7-Eleven. About a month before, well, before he did what he did. Man apparently holds a grudge. Between you and me, I don’t think the guy is all there.”
“Which 7-Eleven?”
“What?”
“Which 7-Eleven?”
“Um, the one near your house, I believe.”
“On DeSalle at Fourteenth, then?”
“He said he followed you home. That’s how he knew where you lived.”
“So he’s homeless but has a car? Because I never walked to that 7-Eleven in my life.”
“He’s homeless now. I don’t know what his status was back then. He just walked into the precinct, Amos. There’s a lot we still don’t know.”
“Mug shot.” It wasn’t a question. If he had been arrested they had to take his picture and his prints.
She held up her phone and showed it to him. On the small screen was the face of a man. It was sunburned and grimy. His hair was wild and he was crazy-bearded. And, well, in that way, Leopold looked like Decker.
He closed his eyes and his internal DVR turned back on, but at the other end there were, again, no hits.
“I’ve never seen him.”
“Well, he might look different now.”
“It’s not concealed. You can see it, can’t you? From where you’re standing?”
“That’s not the same thing, Amos, and you know it.”
He held out his hands one next to the other. “Then cuff me. Take me in and put me in the same holding cell as Sebastian Leopold. You can take my gun. I won’t need it.”
She backed away some more. “Just don’t push this. Let us do our job. We’ve got the guy. Let it run fair and square. We have the death penalty here. He could get the needle for what he did.”
“Yeah, ten years from now, maybe. And so for a decade he gets a