“No, this time it was another man. Shorter, under six feet and stockier. He was also white. He went into the house. I kept looking for a while but he never came back out.”
“And no car?”
“No, he just came walking down the street and went in. Same time of night. I was up because, well, I’d napped earlier and then woken up around nine. You do that when you’re old,” she added.
“Did you report this to the police?”
Martin shook her head. “No. I didn’t think to. I mean, for all I knew the men had rented the place and had a perfect right to be there. And ifthey didn’t, well, I’ve seen folksuseempty houses before. Lots of homeless around here. If they needed a place to stay…”
Decker looked at her curiously because Martin suddenly looked nervous. “Was there any other reason you didn’t report it?”
She looked down. “Hard times makes for hard…people. If I called the police and they came and did something and the people found outI’d been the one to call? I’m old and I live alone. I don’t want to cause any trouble, for me or anyone else.”
“So, a tall, thin white guy and a shorter, stockier white guy?”
“That’s right.”
A few minutes later, Decker headed toward the house Martin had been talking about.
He could be wrong, but the men Martin had described could very well have been Beattyand Smith, the two dead DEA agents.