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Chapter 32
DECKER STOOD LOOKINGat 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 noother 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 thelight 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 insideand 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 soiledand 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 upstairsand 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.
If the two DEA agents had spent time here, there was no sign of it. No discarded takeout meals. No placeto sit. No clothes in the closet. At first Decker had thought the two had set up a surveillance nest here, but there was absolutely no sign of that. They could have taken their equipment with them. But why have such a nest here? What was there to see?
And if they were usingthishouse, how had they ended up dead in the place next door?
He was about to go back up the stairswhen he froze and backed away to a far corner of the basement.
A door had just opened on the main level. Whether it was the front or back he couldn’t be sure.
Next, he heard creaks on the floorboards just above him.
