Memory Man

Decker and Jamison go to meet Lancaster at the station house. Decker asks Lancaster to read back Leopold’s confession statement word for word. Lancaster assumed Leopold meant the local 7-Eleven store near Decker’s home. Instead, Leopold was giving Decker a clue: The numbers seven and 11 refer to a street address.

Decker knows where this address is, but he isn’t sharing the information with Lancaster or Jamison. He simply asks Jamison if she has a car, announcing that they need to go to Chicago. 

Decker stuffs himself uncomfortably into the back seat of Jamison’s subcompact. As they travel toward Chicago, he explains the address clue. The “7-Eleven” actually refers to the street number “711”.

The name of the street itself is hidden in the email handle of “Mallard2000—a play on words that translates to “Duckton.” The address they’re looking for is 711 Duckton Avenue in Brockton, Illinois. Decker recognizes this as the address of the Cognitive Research Institute, where Decker lived for several months while his hyperthymesia and synesthesia were being studied.

Jamison wonders why Decker has suddenly opened up and shared these details about his past. He says, “‘I figure I owe you the whole story because you’re putting your life on the line’” (262). 

Decker and Jamison arrive at the eight-story building that once housed the institute. Unfortunately, the research facility is no longer there, and the receptionist doesn’t know anything about it. Decker then checks with the florist shop in the lobby, which was open when he lived in the area.

The florist owner remembers when the institute moved but doesn’t have a current address. She does, however, have contact info for a Dr. Harold Rabinowitz, a retired researcher. When she phones, Rabinowitz says he would be delighted to see them. 

Decker and Jamison arrive at Rabinowitz’s apartment. He remembers Decker but can’t see him because Rabinowitz has gone blind. They chat about the institute as Decker vainly tries to recall who Decker might have insulted there.

Decker remembers an incident with a researcher named Chris Sizemore. Sizemore believed that Decker didn’t really belong at the institute. As a professional athlete, Decker had courted his brain-altering injury and, according to Sizemore, he was taking up space that should have been reserved for genuinely exceptional minds.

Rabinowitz confirms that Sizemore had his favorites among the patients and that he left the institute under a cloud. Rabinowitz is hesitant to go into specifics, but he does give Decker the new address of the institute. 

After Decker and Jamison leave Rabinowitz, they stop for a meal. Both speculate that Sizemore could be either Leopold or the killer whose face Decker never saw clearly. During their conversation, Rabinowitz calls with a forwarding address for Sizemore that the institute provided.

Sizemore now lives in a town halfway between Chicago and Burlington, so the Decker and Jamison decide to visit him next. They arrive in a downscale neighborhood, which suggests that Sizemore has fallen on hard times. There are no signs of life in his house, so Decker slips around the back and breaks in to investigate.

He moves from room to room, seeing no one. Upstairs, he finds a decaying corpse lying on a bed. The killer has once again left a message for Decker on the wall: “Wrong again. If he’s rotted now, it took you long enough. Keep trying. Maybe you’ll get there. Or maybe not. Xoxo, bro” (280).

Bogart and the FBI arrive at the latest crime scene. They’re able to confirm that the corpse is Sizemore and that he’s been dead about two weeks.

Bogart asks who else Decker might have enraged at the institute, but Decker can’t remember: “‘If it hasn’t come to me then it’s not there […] I don’t have things come to me. I go inside my head and retrieve them. There’s a difference’” (282).

Jamison points out that the killer is still playing mind games with Decker by leaving another message on the wall. Fresh out of new ideas, they both agree to get some sleep and head back to Burlington in the morning.

On the drive home, Decker tells Jamison that she should leave town. He fears that anyone working with him will be targeted next. She’s frightened but won’t say that she’s leaving. When they part, Decker asks her to let him know her plans either way.

Back at the Mansfield command center, Decker compares notes with Lancaster. She was able to determine that the majority of the shooting victims are connected to the football team. The assistant principal is the only exception. Decker is convinced that this is no coincidence. The football team holds some meaning for the killer.

Decker suggests that he and Lancaster visit the bar where Decker met Leopold to ask a few more questions.

Before entering the dive bar, Decker and Lancaster scan both sides of the street for surveillance cameras, but there are none. They go inside to talk to the bartender again.

He confirms that the mysterious waitress skipped out the same afternoon when Leopold and Decker met. Decker notices the car key fob the man is carrying and asks what sort of car he drives.

The bartender says that it’s a quiet, electric model that’s parked in the alley. He usually leaves the key on a hook by the door. Decker believes the waitress drove the car around to the front to collect Leopold and then returned the car later in the day before disappearing for good.

Decker and Lancaster walk to the alley behind the bar to examine the area where the car is kept. They notice a surveillance camera positioned above the pharmacy next door. After commandeering the footage, they return to Mansfield to watch the DVD.

The camera confirms that the waitress did borrow the car, brought it back later, and slipped inside to place the key back on its hook. Watching the waitress get out of the car, Lancaster remarks that, for a man, he looks like a very convincing woman—especially his legs.

Decker reruns the video several times. He still can’t see the waitress’s face, but something about the image is bothering him: “It seemed to be staring him right in the face, but he just couldn’t make it out” (296).

Lancaster and Decker decide to quit for the evening. As Lancaster is driving Decker home, the police radio on her dashboard reports a criminal incident. The address is Lancaster’s house.

Lancaster is wild with anxiety by the time she and Decker drive up to her house. She’s worried that her husband and daughter have been killed. Once the police calm her down, they tell Lancaster that her family is safe and in protective custody.

Miller comes out of the house to caution Lancaster. The killer has staged a mock murder scene using inflatable dummies, and he has posed them to mimic the deaths of Decker’s family. Each mannequin sports a red mark where the killer inflicted injury and a red “X” over the eyes:

It was the most sinister thing Decker had ever seen. It was like the threes marching in the dark at him. Pale, bloody, staring, silent, lifeless; the symbolism reeked of depravity (300).

The killer has also scrawled another taunting message on the wall in the bathroom suggesting that Decker could stop all the pain by killing himself now. Decker abruptly leaves the scene, telling his partner that this is “about me and them” (302).