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“What?”
“He worked on Wall Street. Why come to Baronville and work in a bank? Last time I looked, they had bankson Wall Street. This is like the exact opposite of what the guy was used to.”
“Some people want change,” replied Jamison.
“That much change? You come to a dying town? With what expectations?”
“That you’ll have an opportunity and things will turn around. Like his secretary said, he was happy, he was generating business. He had this place.”
“And he ends updead from a gunshot, hanging from a chain in an auto repair facility with a brand on his forehead. Some opportunity.”
“Decker, he couldn’t haveknownthat would happen,” pointed out Jamison.
Decker didn’t answer her. He just kept looking around.
Jamison said, “Green told us that Joyce Tanner was laid off from JC Penney. Nothing suspicious there. Five other peoplewere laid off at the same time. And then the store ended up closing. No ties to Costa, at least that we can see. And none to Babbot. We haven’t checked into Michael Swanson yet. Maybe they were all buying drugs from him.”
“We didn’t find any drug paraphernalia at Babbot’s place. And none was found here or at Joyce Tanner’s apartment. And no one we talked to mentioned that they had seensigns of illicit drug use by Costa, Tanner, or Babbot.”
“But drugs might still be involved somehow. Babbot was on heavy painkillers. And theDEAis here, after all.”
Decker tapped his finger against the wall of glass overlooking the city.
“Maybe they have no connection to each other,” he said.
“Meaning their deaths were random?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Well, if they don’t have a connection to each other, then by default, doesn’t that mean their deathswererandom?”
“Not if the four of them all had a connection toanotherperson, but not to each other. The spider in the web, the hub of the wheel.Thatperson might be the common denominator.”
Jamison sat down in a chair and mulled this over.
“But who couldthat person be?”
“Well, if I knew that I’d be able to solve the case,” said Decker. “Let’s go.”
Jamison jumped up. “Where?”
“Michael Swanson’s last digs.”
***
The last known address for Swanson, given to them by Detective Green, was a motel in an area of Baronville that was about as run-down as either Decker or Jamisonhad seen so far.
“Looks like where I used to live,” said Decker as he stared around the small room with a communal bath down the hall. They had been told by the manager of the motel that Swanson had left there two months ago. There was no forwarding address.
They went back to the manager’s office after looking over the empty room. “Did the police come by?” asked Jamison.
The manager, a grizzled, reedy man in his fifties, nodded. “And I told them the same thing I told you. Mike left here about eight weeks ago. Haven’t seen him since.”
“Well, you won’t see him again, since he’s dead,” noted Decker.
“Hell, everybody knew Mike sold drugs. You live in that world, you die in that world.”
“What else can you tell us about him?” askedJamison.
