“Green said he was going to check.”
“If it were obvious he wouldn’t have to check. And where’s the guy’s car?”
Jamison looked out the front window. “Maybe he didn’t have one.”
“He did at some point. Thereare wheel ruts in the dirt. He probably parked in the same spot every time. And there are old empty cans of Valvoline motor oil behind the trailer.”
“Maybe Babbot drove his car to the house where his body was found.”
“If he did, that should have been in the file. Since it wasn’t I’m assuming that’s not what happened.”
Decker went back over to a table built into thewall halfway between the kitchen and the front room.
There was a large pad of graph paper on it.
He sat down at the table and looked at the pad. “I wonder what this is for?”
Jamison joined him and stared down at the paper.
“I used something like that when I would do my math homework in high school, but my pad was a lot smaller.”
Decker bent downand looked more closely at the top sheet. “There are impressions on it.”
“You mean from whatever was written on the sheet above it?”
Decker nodded. “I think so.”
He carefully tore off the sheet and handed it to Jamison, who slid it into a plastic evidence pouch she had brought from the SUV and then placed it into her bag.
Decker picked up some magazinesfrom a table and flipped through them. He did the same with some books on a small shelf. “Babbot had an interesting mix of reading tastes,” he said. “From porn to mechanical to guns to history to conspiracy theories.”
“Sounds just like a lot of America,” said Jamison impishly.
Decker next picked up an empty prescription bottle from the kitchen counter. “And unfortunately, thisis a lot of America.” He eyed the label. “This was Percocet. But there were other empty bottles for Vicodin, OxyContin, Tylox, and Demerol. All potent stuff.”
“And all addictive. Overmedicating. It’s one reason we have an opioid crisis.”
“Dr. Freedman,” he said, reading off the prescription label. “That was the name on the other bottles.”
“Then Freedman might knowabout the disability,” replied Jamison.
Decker looked around. “I wonder how long Babbot lived here? He was on disability. It doesn’t exactly pay enough to allow you to live in luxury. And if he had to move recently because his bills were adding up, we could at least have a shot at talking to a neighbor. They might be able to tell us something helpful about Babbot. Green will probablyhave that information.”
He looked out the rear window at the trees and grumbled, “Here all we have are squirrels and deer.”
“What was that?” said Jamison suddenly.
Decker looked at her. “What?”
“Thought I heard something. At the front of the trailer.”
They went over to the front window and looked out. It was very dark now.
“I don’t seeanything,” said Decker.
“Might have been an animal.”
He sniffed the air. “You smell that?”