The Intruders (2007) by Michael Marshall

Author:Michael Marshall [Marshall, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Thrillers, Suspense, Mystery & Detective, General
ISBN: 9780007325313
Google: BrMEaOcxMfEC
Amazon: B002RI9QZS
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2007-01-01T22:00:00+00:00

As I was walking down the path, I saw a man standing in the doorway of a house on the other side of the street. I changed course and walked over to him.

“Are you supposed to be in that house?” he said.

“Yes. You live here?”

He nodded. He was early sixties. Gray hair thinning over the top, the mild eyes of a man who watches, and thinks, and is content to live that way. “Terrible, what happened.”

“Which was?”

“Well, you know—the murders.”

“You think Bill did it?”

He opened his mouth, hesitated. I knew what he needed to hear from me.

“I don’t,” I said. “I think Gina and Josh had another caller that night.”

“I didn’t see anyone,” the man said firmly. “And I don’t know anything, really. I…well, they’ve lived here over ten years. I saw them every day, near enough, one or the other, sometimes all. Wave, say hi, you know. Not a week before it happened—three, four days—I saw the two of them go out one night. They were arguing about something, bickering, kind of. Not loud, but right there in the street, as they walked to the corner. Happened once in a while. You understand what I mean?”

I did. “Thank you. That’s very helpful.”

The man nodded again, folded his arms, and slowly returned indoors, still looking back at the house.

I headed a further block south down Federal and knocked on the front door of something that might have once been a Craftsman bungalow worth preserving. After a very, very long time, a light went on behind it. I was mildly surprised by this—it was only early afternoon and, by Seattle’s standards, barely overcast—until the door was opened and I saw it was very dark inside, almost as dark as the Anderson house had been.

She stood in front of me now. Perhaps eighty, bent over to half my height, her face like an apple that had been left in the sun for a summer. When she looked up, her eyes reminded me of the windows in the building I’d stood outside in Belltown that morning, reflecting nothing but the clouds behind my head.

“Mrs. McKenna?”

“Yep.”

“You mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Nope.”

“You told the police that on the night of the fire up at the Andersons you saw someone coming down the street, see what had happened, then run away. That right?”

“Nope.”

I hesitated. “Did you say ‘No’?”

“Yep.”

“My understanding was that—”

“Didn’t see ‘someone.’ Saw Bill Anderson. You understand me now?”

“Yes I do.”

“Good. What’s your point?”

I looked across at the front of your house. “You always have your drapes drawn like this? Day and night?”

“Keeps out the light.”

“I can see how that would work. So, if you don’t mind me asking, how were you able to notice Mr. Anderson as he passed by on that evening?”

The old woman looked up at me suddenly, and her eyes were no longer reflective. You could see something inside now and tell that it was still very much alive.

“You one of them?”

“One of who?”

She stared hard at me a moment longer, shook her head.

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