“I know, I could never figure that out either.”
“There was a Bible verse written on the wall of the room where Babbot’s body was found.”
O’Connor looked curious. “The paper said something about that.”
“Does that ring any bells for you? Was Babbot religious?”
“Toby never went to church as far as I know.”
“So, nothing else you can remember?”
She thought for a few moments. “I really don’t think so. Toby was a good man who just got dealt a bad hand. I guess that could describe a lot of us. But then again, our life is what we make it, right? Bad choices. You can’t blame others for that.”
“I guess not.” Decker rose to leave.
“Mr. Decker, do you think you can find who killed Toby, and the others?”
“That’s what I’m trying to do.”
“He didn’t deserve to die like that.”
“I can’t really think of anyone who does.”
Chapter 41
BACK IN HIS truck Decker took out the piece of graph paper and studied it more closely. Then he lifted the paper so it was only a few inches from his face.
He had drawn in all the lines, but he had missed some indentations that had appeared at the bottom right-hand corner of the paper.
He took a pencil from the glovebox and ran it over the indentations until something appeared.
As he examined it more closely he concluded it was the scale to which the drawings had been done. An inch per a certain number of feet.
He put the paper in his pocket and drove off. On the way, he called Detective Green and asked for an address for Dr. Freedman, the physician who had prescribed all the pain pills for Toby Babbot.
“He’s in prison for being a pill mill doc.”
“Overprescribing pain meds to people like Toby Babbot?”
“You got it.”
“How long has he been in prison?”
“Nearly a year, so I don’t think he has anything to do with what happened.”
Decker didn’t necessarily agree, but he didn’t argue the point.
“Where in prison?”
“It was a federal crime, so he’s out of state. Indiana, I think. No rhyme or reason how the Bureau of Prisons allocates prisoners.”
“Thanks.”
“How’s it going with your investigation?”
“It’s going.”
Decker clicked off and studied the road. If he couldn’t talk to Freedman, he’d try someone else on his interview list.
He turned the truck around and headed back toward the Mitchells’. Before he got to their street, he turned and pulled to a stop in front of the residence across from the Murder House.
This place belonged to Dan Bond, the only person who lived on this street with whom Decker had not spoken.
He knocked on the door and immediately heard footsteps.
A voice called out, “Yes, who is it?”
“I’m Amos Decker, Mr. Bond. I’m with the FBI. I just wanted to ask you a few questions about what happened across the street.”
“I don’t like to open my door to strangers.”
“I understand that. But I just need to ask you a few questions.”
“Do you have a badge?”
“I do.”
“Can you put it through the cat door?”
Decker looked down and saw the small hinged opening. He took out his badge and put it through the slot.
He heard noise on the other side and after about thirty seconds his badge was passed back through the pet door. He picked it up and looked at it. There were fingerprint smears all over it and also what looked to be flour. He rubbed the badge off on his jacket and put it back in his pocket. Then a few moments later he heard three separate locks being undone.
The door opened a few seconds later to reveal a small, shriveled elderly man standing on shaky legs.
“Mr. Bond?”
“Yes?”
Dark glasses covered Bond’s sightless eyes.
Over his shoulder, Decker could see the man’s white cane hanging on a wall hook.
“Can I come in?”
“I suppose so, yes. I felt your badge. It seemed legitimate.”
“That’s because it is.”
“You can never be too careful.”
“I agree with that.”
He stepped back and Decker passed through.
Bond closed the door behind him, walked slowly over to a chair in the front room, and sat down.
Decker assumed the man must know intimately where every stick of furniture was in his house.
Decker sat down opposite him. The house smelled strongly of cooked kale and mothballs. But also of freshly baking bread.
“Sorry if I interrupted your baking.”
Bond waved this off. “I was already done. The loaf’s out of the oven now. It’s one of my few pleasures left. I bake at all hours of the day and night. I don’t need much sleep. Never did actually.”
Bond was completely bald, with a pink, flaky scalp. He was dressed neatly in khaki pants and a short-sleeved blue shirt with a white T-shirt underneath. He had on black orthopedic shoes.
“Do you live alone?” asked Decker.
“Yes, ever since Dolly passed. She was my cat. That’s why I have the pet door. I had a wife too. Betty. She died twenty-one years ago last week. Cancer. I’m ninety-one and I look every day of it even if I can’t see myself.”
Bond cracked a smile at this quip.
“You look fine. Nice house.”
“It’s old, just like me. I’m not going to get another cat. I won’t outlive it, and who would take care of it?”
“Does someone come here and…help you out?”
“Used to, yes. And there used to be a lot more neighbors. But the ones I haven’t outlived have moved away for the most part. Sad to see. But just the way it is. Price of sticking around too long.”
Decker looked around. “How do you get to the store? And the doctor?”
“I walk with my little cart to the store. It takes most of the day. Sometimes my youngest son comes, but he lives in Pittsburgh. And I don’t go to the doctor anymore. I don’t see the point. They just give you more pills to take.”
“Have you been in Baronville long?”
“All my life.”
“What did you do?”
“I was an accountant.” He touched his glasses. “I wasn’t always this way. Macular degeneration. Started in my sixties. Went totally blind about ten years ago.”
“I wanted to ask you a few questions about the night the two men were discovered in the house across the street. Were you home?”
“Oh yes. At night, I’m always home.”
“I assume the police have already been by to talk to you?”
“Yes. A Detective Lassiter. She asked me a lot of questions. I don’t think I was very helpful.”
“Well, I might ask you the same ones. What do you remember about that night?”
“Sirens.”
“I mean before that.”
“Remember the storm. It was a doozy.”
“Anything else?”
Bond sat back in his seat and scratched his chin. “I remember a car starting up and driving off.”
Decker said, “I heard that too. And I also saw a plane go over, a few minutes before the storm blew in.”
Surprisingly, Bond shook his head. “No, that wasn’t a plane.”
“No, it was. I saw it in the sky. The blinking lights and all through the clouds and fog. It was pretty damn low. So it was either taking off or more probably landing.”
“No, son, that wasn’t a plane.”
“But I saw it, Mr. Bond.”
“I know what you’re thinking. That I couldn’t see anything. Thing is, we never have a plane come low over here. No airports of any kind around here that I know about. And Pittsburgh is way to the south of us, and Cleveland way to the west. So even if they were landing or taking off, they’d be far up in the sky by the time they passed over here. But maybe you saw blinking lights and assumed it was a plane. But it was so cloudy, and even foggy, like you said, that you couldn’t see the actual plane, could you? You just saw lights?”
Decker blinked and let his memory frames go back to that moment in time.
I saw the lights or the reflection of lights. But that was all. The clouds and fog were too thick. But it had to be a plane.