Page 35 of So Lethal

“Don’t mention it. What are we talking to the neighbor for?”

“I want to know if he saw Marcus leave his house on the nights of the murders. If the timeline matches up, then we might have enough evidence to bring him in for questioning.”

Michael looked doubtful, but he didn’t question her. Faith knocked on the door, and this time, it opened immediately. Casper was a full head shorter than Faith thought he would be. He grinned up at Faith with his squinty eyes and said, “Couldn’t get nowhere with Marcus, huh?”

Faith left that unanswered and asked, “Are you two close?”

Casper scratched his belly button and said, “Well, I don’t know about that. We get on all right, I guess, but we don’t talk or anything.”

“How about the rest of the neighborhood?” Faith asked. “Does he have any problems with anyone?”

“Not that I know of,” Casper replied. “He’s not the friendliest type, but before the gas explosion, he was all right.”

“And now?”

“Now he keeps to himself. When you do talk to him, it goes kind of like your conversation did. He gets real upset on account of the fact he can’t hear you.”

“Has he ever been aggressive toward you or anyone else that you know about?”

Casper blinked a couple of times. “You mean like violent?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head. “No, not really. Say, do you two want to come inside? I just made some soup if you’re interested.”

“We’ll pass on the soup,” Michael replied, “but we’ll have a seat on your sofa if that’s okay.”

“Sure.”

He turned around and shuffled deeper into his house. The interior here reminded Faith a lot of Cliff Kowalski’s apartment except that instead of faded vinyl laminate, the floor was faded and threadbare carpet. The two agents took a seat on a sofa that has absolutely no support after decades of abuse from Casper’s compact but prodigiously overweight body. Turk sat in front of them and watched Casper carefully lower himself into an easy chair.

Casper sighed with relief and said, “It’s a real sad thing what happened. He used to work for Pacific Gas and Electric. He was working on a gas line for Western Telecom’s building when the line blew. Fortunately for him, he was outside when the explosion hit, so he survived, but the noise blew out both of his eardrums.”

“Did he tell you all of that?”

“No, I heard it on the news. They didn’t give his name, but when he was gone for two days and came home with bandages around his head, I knew it must be him.”

“And he’s been in a bad mood ever since?” Michael asked.

Casper chuckled. “Well, I’d be pretty upset if I lost my hearing in an explosion too.”

“Has he gone out at night recently?” Faith asked.

Casper scratched a thin layer of stubble on the wattles of his neck. “Well… he used to go out Tuesday nights, but I haven’t seen him do that in a while.”

“Within the past week, has he gone out?”

“He heads out to stop by the liquor store sometimes. Poor feller’s figurin’ to drink himself to death, I think. I’m usually in bed by eight, though, so I don’t know if he’s gone out any later than that.”

“Would the other neighbors have seen anything?” Faith asked.

Casper shrugged. “You can ask them, but I doubt it. Folks here don’t pay much attention to other people. It’s kind of sad if you ask me. No one cares about their neighbors anymore. Used to be if folks were in trouble, there’d be a community around to help them out. Even if you weren’t friends, you took care of each other. Now everyone just goes through life alone.”

He tilted his head. “Maybe I’ll go see Marcus. I’ll bring him some donuts, just to let him know someone’s thinking about him.”

“Give that a few days,” Faith said. “We need time to figure out what the deal is with him.”

“Yeah, that reminds me. You ain’t told me what he’s in trouble for.”

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