Memory Man

Decker looks around outside the bar. Leopold couldn’t have disappeared so quickly without help, so Decker concludes that someone picked Leopold up in a car.

When Decker returns to Mansfield, Lancaster informs him that the FBI wants to talk to Decker immediately. They’re interested in the number of leads he’s been able to find that others missed. Decker meets the leader of the FBI team—Bogart. A female assistant named Special Agent Lafferty accompanies Bogart.

Decker gives them a summary of his family’s murder and everything he’s learned about Leopold and the school shooting. When Decker insists that he never disrespected Leopold at the 7-Eleven, Bogart speculates that perhaps Decker forgot.

Decker demonstrates his power of recall by giving Bogart the day of the week on which the agent was born. He then goes on to say that Leopold isn’t the killer but is somehow connected to the crimes. When Lafferty asks why Decker thinks Leopold is a suspect, he replies, “Because he’s inexplicable. And I don’t like people who are inexplicable” (168).

Once Decker is finished talking to the FBI, he wanders back to the cafeteria. He’s still grappling with the problem of why the shooter began his killing spree at the opposite end of the school. The shooter obviously needed something on that side of the building.

Decker goes outside to study the school cornerstone. It was built in 1946, just as World War II ended and the Cold War began. He realizes that Americans were paranoid about a nuclear attack at the time and might have taken precautions to protect their children.

The army base next door might have built additional protective structures after the war. Decker is stymied because he needs more information to confirm his theory: “The man who can’t forget anything doesn’t know enough. How ironic is that?” (171).

Decker realizes almost immediately that if he doesn’t know enough about army construction projects in the 1940s, then maybe the shooter didn’t know enough either. He confides to Lancaster that Debbie might have learned all about the base from her great-grandfather. They decide to return to the Watson home to ask a few more questions.

Decker and Lancaster arrive at the Watson home, which is in turmoil. Mrs. Watson is in the process of packing up and leaving her husband. Between insults screamed back and forth between the spouses, Decker gleans a few additional facts from Mrs. Watson.

The army built a bomb shelter underneath the school. The access tunnel inside the school had been boarded up decades earlier, and nobody knew its location.

Decker calls the US Army to get a copy of the bomb shelter’s plans. He eventually reaches someone who knows about the construction project; she tells him to send an official request in writing so she can release the information he needs.

Assuming it could take months of red tape to process the application, Lancaster and Decker go back to the school to try to find the secret entrance themselves.

Decker and Lancaster start their search in the cafeteria. A section of wall with student rules posted on it catches Decker’s attention. He notices scuff marks on the linoleum floor in front of the wall that weren’t made by shoes.

He discovers a concealed door that swings out on oiled hinges. The door leads down a passageway to another boarded-up door leading to the bomb shelter itself. At the far end of the room is yet another disguised exit. Following this passage, the two detectives find themselves in the storage room behind the shop classroom.

When Decker wonders how the shooter could come and go so easily through this space, Lancaster informs him that shop class was canceled for the school year after the teacher quit.

Decker notices heel marks on the floor that must have belonged to Debbie. This is the room where she met the shooter. Decker has now formed a theory of how and when she was killed: Debbie arrived in the shop classroom, anticipating a romantic rendezvous. The killer struck the left side of her head from behind, meaning that he was left-handed.

The killer then hooked the back of Debbie’s sweater to her locker door to prop the body upright. The killer made his appearance before the video camera, then went back to shoot Debbie in the face with a shotgun, obscuring her earlier injury.

As Decker and Lancaster retrace their steps through the underground passages, Decker focuses on the killer’s footprints. He notes that the shooter wears size nine shoes which would be unusually small for a man over six feet tall.

Decker wonders how the shooter left the building: There are two sets of tracks going toward the shop class but only one set coming back to the cafeteria. 

While Lancaster goes to inform Miller and the FBI about the secret entrances, Decker continues to wonder how the shooter got out of the school without returning to the cafeteria.

Decker goes back down the tunnel stairs and notices yet another concealed exit branching off the main passage. When he follows this route, he finds himself in the army base itself. The killer could have used this access point to come and go as he pleased.

The FBI and police arrive and find Decker waiting at the base for them. He recaps what he and Lancaster have learned.

Bogart questions Decker about Decker’s special abilities. Bogart confides that his own brother is autistic, and Bogart was trained as a profiler. Bogart believes in using every available method to capture criminals and wants to partner with Decker. Decker says he already has a partner and leaves.