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Chapter 9
TWO PEOPLE ATa dining room table shotgunned to death.
That’s what Green had just told Jamison.
Talk about a last meal.
They were in a house that seemed much like the residence where they had found the two dead men.
“Damnedest thing I’d ever seen,” said Green as he chewed his gum. “Sitting rightthere, and bam. They both died instantly, the ME said. Close quarters with a shotgun usually has that effect.”
“Did the vics live here?”
“Not as far as we know. No one lived herelegally. The bank owned it too, like the other place.”
“Any connection between the two people?”
Green consulted his official notebook. “None that we could run down. Different walksof life. No known ties.”
“Tell me about them.”
“Joyce Tanner was white and fifty-three years old. She worked at JC Penney before it closed. She was unemployed at the time of her death. She was divorced with no kids. Her ex left the area a long time ago. We’re still trying to track him down, but there’s no basis right now to believe he had anything to do with it. Toby Babbotwas white and forty years old, on disability because of a work-related injury.”
“Babbot have any family?”
“Never married, no kids that we could find.”
“Were they from Baronville?”
“No. Babbot moved here from Pittsburgh about six years ago and worked at a plant building air-conditioning units. Plant closed down. Then he did some miscellaneous work.”
“And Tanner?”
“Her parents were killed in a car accident in Connecticut. She came here to live with her aunt and uncle about forty years ago. They raised her here and then they died too. Natural causes,” he added.
“Any idea how the pair ended up here?”
“No. We canvassed the neighborhood after it happened. But you can see for yourself, there aren’t that many folksaround who could have seen something. So we got no leads at all.”
“Were they eating dinner when it happened?”
“No. It was like they were made to sit in the chairs and then they were shot.”
“Anything else about the deaths that was curious?” asked Jamison.
Green pointed to the wall that still bore the bloodstains from the homicide. “Their killer wrote somethingthere with a Sharpie. We cut it out and collected it as evidence.”
“What?”
“A Bible verse.”
“Which one?”
“Not one of the well-known ones. I’m a good Methodist. Go to church every Sunday. And I still had to look it up.”
Green glanced down at his notebook and flipped through some pages. “Slaves, accept the authority of your masters, with all deference.For it is to your credit if being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly.”
He closed his notebook and looked up at Jamison.
