“Of killing someone.”
“Who?”
“A banker here in town.”
Decker tried to keep his features calm. “When was this?”
“Oh, decades ago. Donna was just a little girl.”
“Why did he kill the banker?”
“Because the bank foreclosed on his house. Donna’s father worked at the last textile mill in town. It closed down and left Rich Lassiter high and dry along with about a hundred others. He lost his house, he lost everything. He apparently got drunk one night, went to the man’s home, and set fire to it. The banker, I forget his name, lived alone. Anyway, he died in the fire. Rich, I guess, was horrified at what happened. But he admitted to setting the fire. He went to prison. And he died there about two years later. Maybe from guilt, I don’t know.”
“So Lassiter would have still been a little girl?”
“She was a very sad little girl after what happened to her father. I think she turned to religion to help her through the tough times. Her mother committed suicide from a drug overdose after Donna came back here when she finished college.”
“That’s pretty tragic all the way around,” said Decker. “Getting back to the present, what did you tell Detective Green about the night the men’s bodies were discovered?”
“That I didn’t see anything. I had a headache and went to bed early.”
“What time was that?”
“Jeopardy! had finished up, and I was puttering around for a bit, so it was certainly after eight.”
“Did you hear or see anything before you went to bed? Even if it wasn’t connected to the house?”
Martin thought about that. “I remember the storm starting to come in.”
“Do you remember hearing some sounds right before the rain started?”
“What sort of sounds?”
Decker thought back, pulling the frames up in his head.
Good question, what sort of sounds?
“I’m not sure. Just some unusual sounds. I was staying at the house behind that one. I also saw a plane flying over.”
Martin shook her head. “I didn’t see or hear a plane. Didn’t wake up until around six the next morning.”
“The police sirens didn’t wake you?”
“I took a sleep aid, so no, they didn’t.”
“Have you ever seen people coming or going from that house?”
Martin drank some more tea and pushed the cookie plate toward Decker, who took one and bit into it.
“There was one thing,” she said suddenly.
“What was that?”
“Well, it didn’t have to do with the house where those men were killed. It was the house next to it.”
“You saw something?”
“It was a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t mention it to Detective Green because he just asked me about the night the dead men were found. Anyway, I saw a man enter the house, oh, around eleven at night. Now, I knew the Schaffers, who used to own that house. They died and their children tried and failed to sell it. So it’s been sitting empty all that time.”
“Go on,” prompted Decker.
“Well, this man was walking down the street. I didn’t see a car. The only reason I saw him was because Missy wanted to go out, and I opened the door and there he was on the street. It was a full moon and really bright, so I saw him pretty clearly. Well, he walked down the street and into the Schaffers’ old house.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Tall, over six feet, I think.”
“White, black?”
“Oh, definitely white. And he was thin.”
“Could you see his face?”
She shook her head. “And then, two nights later, I saw it again.”
“The same man?”
“No, this time it was another man. Shorter, under six feet and stockier. He was also white. He went into the house. I kept looking for a while but he never came back out.”
“And no car?”
“No, he just came walking down the street and went in. Same time of night. I was up because, well, I’d napped earlier and then woken up around nine. You do that when you’re old,” she added.
“Did you report this to the police?”
Martin shook her head. “No. I didn’t think to. I mean, for all I knew the men had rented the place and had a perfect right to be there. And if they didn’t, well, I’ve seen folks use empty houses before. Lots of homeless around here. If they needed a place to stay…”
Decker looked at her curiously because Martin suddenly looked nervous. “Was there any other reason you didn’t report it?”
She looked down. “Hard times makes for hard…people. If I called the police and they came and did something and the people found out I’d been the one to call? I’m old and I live alone. I don’t want to cause any trouble, for me or anyone else.”
“So, a tall, thin white guy and a shorter, stockier white guy?”
“That’s right.”
A few minutes later, Decker headed toward the house Martin had been talking about.
He could be wrong, but the men Martin had described could very well have been Beatty and Smith, the two dead DEA agents.
Chapter 32
DECKER STOOD LOOKING at the house where he had found the two dead men. He swiveled his head and stared at the home next to it, where maybe DEA agents Beatty and Smith had been seen going in around two weeks ago.
The black SUV was empty. The DEA agent on watch here was apparently making his rounds.
There were no other cars on the street. Or people.
Decker looked across the street at the house where Dan Bond, the blind man, lived. It was dark. But then again, light and dark wouldn’t matter to Bond.
He would deal with Bond later. For now, he had a possible lead to run down.
Decker walked briskly to the rear of the property and looked around. He eyeballed the Mitchells’ house, which he couldn’t see clearly because, unlike the Murder House, the backyard of this house had bulky, overgrown bushes at the rear fenceline.
He looked to his right and could make out the Murder House, though there was a lot of vegetation growing wild between the two structures. Not surprising considering both of them had been empty for a while.
He eyed the rear of the house. There was a deck tacked on to the back of it too, though it seemed to list to the right a bit, as though the sunken support posts were starting to give way.
Decker could make out the flashlight probes in the darkness from next door, like stabs of lightning in miniature.
The DEA agent making his rounds.
Decker placed his bulk behind a formidable oak tree until the light passed on and the fellow Fed headed back to the front of the house.
He counted off the seconds in his head until he heard the thunk of the SUV door closing.
He stepped up to the back of the house and tried the doorknob.
Surprisingly, it turned freely.
Perhaps not so surprisingly, if people had been coming and going from here.
He went inside and used his phone’s flashlight feature to look around. The house’s interior was similar to the one next door. It had probably been put up by the same builder, perhaps the whole neighborhood had.
He swept through the kitchen and entered the living room and shone his light around. Nothing. No furniture, nothing on the walls. No rugs. Curtains did cover the windows, but they were soiled and falling apart.
He heard a noise and looked around. He passed his hand over a floor register. The heat had just come on, which showed the house had electricity. Yet Decker couldn’t risk turning on lights without the agent from next door possibly seeing them and coming to investigate.
The place smelled of damp and mothballs and abandonment.
He checked the upstairs and found the same conditions.
He went to the basement, and, considering what he had found the last time he’d entered a basement, took out his gun.
He reached the bottom and looked around.
Dampness and mildew and dead bugs.
But no dead bodies.