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.
If the two DEA agents had spent time here, there was no sign of it. No discarded takeout meals. No place to 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 using this house, how had they ended up dead in the place next door?
He was about to go back up the stairs when 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.
It had been the back door. The person was now heading to the front of the house.
Decker gripped his pistol.
His dilemma now was obvious. It could very well be that the person above was the agent from next door. He might have seen Decker moving around inside, or maybe had glimpsed his cell phone flashlight and gone to investigate.
Decker did not want to draw down on a fellow Fed.
But if it wasn’t the guy from next door?
The footsteps headed up the stairs. Decker waited until they returned to the main level a minute later.
He didn’t hear any sirens. He couldn’t see outside. Had the guy called in backup?
Then he heard what he knew he eventually would.
The basement door opened.
Keeping to the back corner of the basement, Decker called out, “Amos Decker, with the FBI. Identify yourself.”
“DEA Agent Stringer from next door,” said the voice immediately.
Decker didn’t move. “I’d like to believe you, but I need to see some ID.”
“Thinking the same thing. How do you want to do this before I call in reinforcements?”
“Don’t you recognize my voice?” said Decker. “I was pretty vocal with Agent Kemper when we were at the morgue.”
“I just got to town this morning with a new shift of agents.”
“Okay, toss your creds down the stairs and I’ll toss mine up.”
“Look, I’m supposed to be here and you’re not, and I don’t know who the hell you are, so toss your creds up, right now.”
Decker took his time pulling out his creds. He slipped his gun inside his waistband and with his free hand dialed a number on his phone.
“Give me a sec to get them out,” he called up the stairs.
Kemper answered after two rings.
“I’ve got a situation,” whispered Decker. “Is an agent named Stringer assigned to the house tonight?”
“No. Jenkins has the night shift. Eight to eight. Never heard of an Agent Stringer.”
“Okay, get some guys over here now. I’m in the house to the left of the crime scene when facing it from the street. I’m in the basement, with a guy pretending to be one of yours.”
Before she could say anything else he clicked off and looked down at his phone.
“You got two seconds to toss them up or this is going to get ugly,” said the man calling himself Stringer.
“Coming right now.”
Decker crept forward and approached the staircase from the side.
He put his thumb on the screen of his phone and readied himself, flicking the flashlight on at the same time as he tossed the phone in front of the stairs, with the light shining up them.
Four shots were fired instantly.
Four suppressed shots. The bullets hit the floor and ricocheted off.
Though he hadn’t been hit, Decker let out a yell as though he had so the other guy would let down his guard.
A moment later, he fired half his mag up the stairs in an arc wide enough to cover the entire width of the doorway.
He heard an impact, and then another, and then a grunt.
He stepped out of the way as something came rolling down the steps and landed in a heap at the bottom.
Decker retrieved his phone and shone the light on the bundle.
It was a man.
A dead man now, thanks to Decker.
As he stared down at the corpse, Decker felt himself audibly gasp.
Normally, when he was confronted by death, Decker’s synesthesia would kick in. The hairs on his neck would rise, as though an electrical current was running through him, he would feel dizzy and nauseous, and, most significantly, he would see the most vivid shade of electric blue. It would assail him from all angles, suffocating him.
Yet he wasn’t experiencing any of those things. He just saw a body.
It was as though his synesthesia had simply vanished.
And then he heard the sirens.
And then heavy feet clattering on the front porch.
Agent Jenkins from next door, he was certain.
The cavalry was here.
Decker slumped down on the bottom step and waited.