59: Poole knocked again, louder this time.
The icy wind numbed his cheeks and neck, and he cursed himself for not wearing a scarf.
His knocking at the house on the left side of the abandoned property had gone unanswered. He’d peeked in the windows, and it didn’t look like anyone was home. A dog spotted him, looked up from under a blanket on the floor, then went back to sleep without a single bark.
A neighbor had been home at the house on the right of the abandoned property, but she offered little in the way of useful information. The woman answered the door in a huff, her fingers clasping her thick pink robe tight around a rather rotund body. Golf blared from the seventy-inch television behind her at an ungodly volume. The display seemed completely out of place, much too large for the small living room and outdated décor. Empty Amazon boxes were stacked precariously just inside the door next to a coat rack dripping with at least a dozen coats, hats, and scarfs. Two small dogs sat on the couch and began yapping the moment he knocked, their agitation increasing as the door swung open and he came into view. The house smelled like cheese.
The woman frowned at him, yellow teeth behind chapped lips. “What?”
Poole held up his badge. “I’m with the FBI. I’d like to ask you a few questions about the house next door.”
She ignored the badge, her stare fixed on him. “I don’t know nothing about next door.” She turned back to the dogs. “Shut the fuck up! The both of you!”
They hushed long enough to regain their breath, then started again.
“Have you seen anyone enter or exit the house in the past few weeks?”
“The owners don’t give two rat’s asses about that place. Since Hector died, his kids have let it go to shit, the ungrateful lot. He should have let me have the place. I was the one who took care of him when the cancer began to eat him up and he couldn’t go to the store no more. I was the one.”
Poole could only imagine the caregiving skill set this woman possessed. “What about after Hector passed, who was in the house?”
Her hand shot up and scratched her cheek, leaving the dry skin pink. “Ain’t nobody been over there but maybe kids. Better they hang out there than in the streets, so nobody says much about it. If Hector’s kids don’t want them in there, they should install a better lock. Maybe put some paint on the place. Hector wouldn’t have let his house go like that.”
“What about the mail? Is someone keeping an eye on the mail for Hector’s kids? I didn’t see anything piled up, so someone must be collecting it.”
“Man across the street took to collecting the mail. Nice fellow.”
“Which house?”
The woman pointed. “The green one there.”
When she released the robe, the frayed terry cloth fell open enough for Poole to get a glimpse of the happenings underneath, and he wished he hadn’t.
Poole now stood at the green house across the street.
He knocked again.