“I did actually.” She scratches her chin with a thin, blue-veined hand. “Percy sleeps on the floor right by my bed, and he usually doesn’t make a peep all night, but Saturday night I woke up because he was downstairs in the kitchen, barking his head off.”

“What time was that?” I ask, my pencil raised.

“Just before two a.m.”

Chase and I glance at one another. “What did you do?”

“Well, I went downstairs to see what the commotion was about. He was at the back door barking, so I turned on the porch light, but I didn’t see anything. I said, ‘Percy, you nuthatch, there’s nothing out there.’ I figured it was a tomcat maybe.” She sniffs, swipes her nose with the hankie again. “Was it the murderer, do you think?” she asks, her voice a near whisper.

“We don’t know. Would you mind walking us through the kitchen, showing us what happened?”

“No problem.” She waves her hand and shuffles to her feet.

We walk slowly behind her down a short dark hall, floorboards squeaking, the smell of Vicks in her wake. The dog sticks like glue to her side as if he’s part of the demonstration, which I guess he is.

The kitchen is as cluttered as the rest of the place, and the smells of a thousand meals linger in the air. The porcelain sink is faded to gray, and the yellow curtains over it are stiff and look like they’ve hung there for decades. The appliances are clean but aged, and the table is piled with neatly folded newspapers. I move the little curtains aside and see the tall, ivy-covered fence that separates Mrs. Murray’s property from the Bradleys’. The top of the garage roof is visible, nothing else.

Mrs. Murray walks to the back door, and we follow. Percy pushes his nose in the crack between the edge of the door and its frame. “This is how I found him,” she says. “But he was barking to beat the band. He wanted to get outside.”

“Does he have a loud bark?” Chase asks.

She smirks. “He could raise the dead. The people who used to live behind me complained a time or two. But the officer who came out was real nice. He told me not to worry about it. Said they should be glad Percy was around to monitor the neighborhood.”

“Did you open the door when you came downstairs?” I ask.

“The inside door, but not the storm door, so I didn’t let him out. I didn’t see anything amiss. He calmed down, and I went back up to bed.”

“So you turned on the porch light and looked out back a little before two a.m.?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t see or hear anything going on by the Bradleys’ garage?”

“Not a thing.” She places her hand over her heart. “Is that where it happened?”

I nod. “Would you open the inside door and turn on the light.”

“Well, it was dark then.”