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Chapter 13
I CAUGHT UP with Sampson. “What’s up? What did you find out?”
“Something weird. Maybe a break,” he said. I followed him to another small ranch house. He knocked on the door, and a woman appeared almost immediately. She was only a little over five feet, but easily weighed two hundred pounds, maybe two-fifty.
“This is my partner, Detective Cross. I told you about him. This is Mrs. Hodge,” he said.
“I’m Anita Hodge,” the woman said as she shook my hand. “Glad to meet you.” She looked at Sampson and grinned. “I agree. Ali when he was younger.”
Mrs. Hodge walked us through a family room where two young boys were watching Nickelodeon and playing video games at the same time. She then led us down a narrow hallway and into a bedroom.
A boy of about ten was in the room. He was seated in a wheelchair that was pulled up to a Gateway computer. Behind him on the wall were glossy pictures of more than two dozen major league baseball players.
He looked annoyed at the intrusion. “What now?” he asked. “That’s short for get out of here and leave me alone. I’m working.”
“This is Ronald Hodge,” Sampson said. “Ronald, this is Detective Cross. I told you about him when we spoke before.”
The boy nodded but didn’t say anything, just stared angrily my way.
“Ronald, will you tell us your story again?” Sampson asked. “We need to hear it.”
The boy rolled his eyes. “I already told the other policemen. I’m sick and tired of it, y’know. Nobody cares what I think anyway.”
“Ronald,” said his mother. “That’s not true and you know it.”
“Please tell me,” I said to the boy. “What you have to say could be important. I want to hear it in your words.”
The boy frowned and continued to shake his head, but his eyes held mine. “The other policemen didn’t think it was important. Fuckheads.”
“Ronald,” said the boy’s mother. “Don’t be rude. You know I don’t like that attitude. Or that kind of language.”
“Okay, okay,” he said. “I’ll tell it again.” Then he began to talk about the night Tanya Jackson was murdered, and what he’d seen.
“I was up late. Wasn’t s’posed to be. I was playing on the computer.” He stopped and looked at his mother.
She nodded. “You’re forgiven. We’ve been over this before. Now please tell your story. You’re starting to get me a little crazy.”
The boy finally cracked a smile, then went on with his story. Maybe he had just wanted to set up his audience a little.
“I can see the Jacksons’ yard from my room. It’s just past the corner of the Harts’ house. I saw somebody out in the yard. It was kind of dark, but I could see him moving. He had like a movie camera or something. I couldn’t tell what he was taking pictures of, so it made me curious.
“I went up close to this window to watch. And then I saw there were three men out there. I saw ’em in Mrs. Jackson’s yard. That’s what I told the police. Three men. I saw ’em just like I see two of you in my room. And they were making a movie.”
Chapter 14
I ASKED YOUNG Ronald Hodge to repeat his story, and he did.
Exactly, almost word for word. He stared me right in the eye as he spoke, and he didn’t hesitate or waver. It was obvious that the boy was troubled by what he had witnessed and that he was still scared. He’d been living in fear of what he’d seen that night and then learning that murders had been committed in the house next door.
Afterward, Sampson and I talked to Anita Hodge in the kitchen. She gave us iced tea, which was unsweetened and had big chunks of lemon in it and was delicious. She told us that Ronald had been born with spina bifida, an outcropping of the spinal cord that had caused paralysis from the waist down.
“Mrs. Hodge,” I asked, “What do you think about the story Ronald told us in there?”
“Oh, I believe him. At least I believe he thinks he saw what he did. Maybe it was shadows or something, but Ronald definitely believes he saw three men. And one of them with a movie camera of some kind. He’s been consistent on that from the first. Spooky. Like that old Hitchcock movie.”
“Rear Window,” I said. “James Stewart thinks he sees a murder outside his window. He’s laid up with a broken leg at the time.” I looked over at Sampson. I wanted to make sure he was comfortable with me asking the questions this time. He nodded that it was okay.
“What happened after the Fayetteville detectives talked to Ronald? Did they come back? Did any other policemen come? Anyone from Fort Bragg? Mrs. Hodge, why wasn’t Ronald’s testimony part of the trial?”
