Chapter 15
BEFORE HE WASmurdered, Toby Babbot didn’t live in a house or an apartment. He resided in an old dented mobile home trailer a few miles outside of town. The road in was part gravel and part dirt, and the small plot of yellowed grass surrounding the trailer was encircled by trees.
Jamison pulled their SUV to a stop in frontof the trailer and they got out.
Decker immediately pulled his gun. “Someone’s inside,” he whispered to Jamison, who also drew her weapon.
Decker had glimpsed a shadow pass in front of one of the trailer’s windows.
“Do you think there’s a back door?” asked Jamison as they approached.
The next moment they heard someone running away from the rear of the trailer.
“I guess that answers that,” said Decker as he raced toward the dwelling, Jamison hard on his heels.
They reached the corner of the structure and stopped for a few moments, scanning the area behind it.
“There!” barked Jamison, pointing toward the right side of the thick woods.
She and Decker reached the tree line and plunged ahead. Though Decker was big andbulky and not in the best of shape, he maneuvered around the trees with a surprising nimbleness. Only he had lost sight of the person and stopped so abruptly that Jamison ran into him.
Gasping, Decker looked around. The sounds of the person running seemed to echo from all directions.
“Where did he go?” said Jamison.
Decker shook his head. “Lost him.”
Theyheard a car door slam shut and an engine roar to life.
Decker once again sprinted forward, yet he broke free of the trees only in time to see twin taillights disappearing down another gravel road.
Jamison joined him a few moments later. They were both bent over sucking in air.
Regaining her breath, Jamison said, “I will never pull your chain again about not beingin shape.”
Decker straightened and muttered, “Well, I wasn’t fast enough to catch the person. I couldn’t even see if it was a man or a woman. And I got zip on the vehicle, not even a letter on the license plate.” He kicked a rusty old can lying on the ground.
“Decker, we did all we could.”
“Let’s at least see if we can find out what they were looking for,” he grumbled,stalking off toward the trailer.
They went in through the rear door.
“No forced entry here. And the front door didn’t look damaged either.”
“So it was either open or the person had a key,” reasoned Jamison.
Inside, the place didn’t look like it had been searched. Yet there was stuff everywhere, neatly stacked on tables, chairs, counters, and the floor.
“Pack rat,” said Decker knowingly. “But when you don’t have a lot, you don’t throw anything away.”
“Green said they got no prints from here other than Babbot’s.”
“So no visitors, unless they wore gloves.”
“Well, the place just had a visitor,” Jamison pointed out.
When they were finished searching, Decker leaned against the wall in the tiny kitchen.“No grab bars or special toilet in the bath. No wheelchair access. But a bunch of empty bottles for prescription painkillers. So what was his disability?”