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“I know we’ve talked about this before, but what is it really like not to forget anything?”
“My personal cloud, you mean?” he said, tapping his temple. “It’s probably a lot like your memory, only mine’s a little more neatly organized and a lot more accessible than yours. You have it all up there, too, but some memories are so crowded out by others that you can’t reach them anymore. I don’t have that problem.”
“A blessing, and a curse.”
“It is if you have something you’d rather forget, which most of us do.”
“I know it’s hard, Decker.”
He stared out the window at an endless sky, which, to him right now, seemed as big as his personal memory. “Life is hard for everybody, Alex. Anybody who says otherwise has just decided to ignore all the shit that comes with waking up every day and walking out the door.”
She said, “So your way of coping is focusing entirely on your work?”
Decker glanced at her, his features inscrutable. “My way of coping is just finding the truth, Alex. If I can do that, then I can deal with everything else.”
THE FARM LOOKED LIKEsomething out ofThe Grapes of Wrath, only with less dust and a modicum of water sources.
They pulled to a stop in front of the plank-sided house and got out. There was a dirty and ancient Jeep two-door parked in the front. They could see a barn in the distance, and corrals full of cows collected around a water trough and salt lick. There was also a paddock where some bow-backed horses nibbled grass. The overall operation looked neat and efficient.
The leaning mailbox at the end of the dirt road had saidPURDY, so they knew they were in the right place.
Before they could reach the front steps, the screen door opened and a woman stood there, a Remington over-under shotgun in hand. She was in her midfifties, with long gray hair, a slender, wiry build, and a pair of piercing blue eyes. She had on faded dungarees, weathered boots, and a checkered shirt tucked into the pants. The belt holding them up was made of knotted leather. Her face was wrinkled and tanned. And full of suspicion.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
Jamison immediately took out her FBI creds and badge.
“FBI Special Agent Alex Jamison. My partner, Amos Decker. Are you Beverly Purdy?”
Instead of de-escalating the situation, this only caused the woman to raise the gun and point it directly at them, her finger near the trigger. “What the hell do you want? You tell me right now.”
Decker stepped forward, putting himself between Jamison and the gun. “We wanted to talk to Ben, if he’s here.”
She snapped. “He’s not. But why do you want to talk to him?”
“We’re not with the Air Force, if that’s what you’re thinking. And we have no interest in whether he might be absent without leave. We just want to talk to him about his last posting, in London, North Dakota.”
“Bullshit. You’ve come to arrest him.”
“Why would we do that?”
“You just said. AWOL.”
“We’re investigating a series of murders in London.”
“Ben didn’t kill nobody.”
“We’re not suggesting he did. He was long gone before the killings took place. But he said something to someone back in London. We just wanted to ask him what he meant by that. We believe it might have ties to our investigation.”
The woman slowly lowered the weapon. “He’s not here, like I said.”
“Was he here at some point?”
“He might’a been,” she said guardedly.
“Do you know where we could find him?”
She shook her head. “Got no idea. Haven’t heard from him in a while.”
