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 furniturewas 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. Idon’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.”