He backed out of the scene, closed both doors, and walked back into the side yard between Osborne’s and Simpson’s houses. A sheriff’s car pulled up in the street, and a deputy got out, someone that Virgil hadn’t yet met. Virgil walked out to the street, and said, “Barry Osborne’s been murdered. We need to keep the site as tight as we can. Don’t let anybody near the doors. Not even other deputies.”

“The sheriff’s on his way,” the deputy said. He was wearing a name tag that said “Logan.”

“Okay. I’ll be right in the neighborhood. When he gets here, tell him to find me. He shouldn’t go inside.”

—

Virgil saw Simpson peering out a window. Her back door was on the other side of the house, and Virgil gestured to her, then walked around back. Jenkins was talking to the lawn guy, who’d quit mowing but was still sitting on the machine.

Virgil knocked on Simpson’s door.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” she asked, as he stepped inside. The layout of her house was identical to that of Osborne’s: a mudroom inside the back door, with another door leading into the kitchen.

“He was murdered,” Virgil said. “Did you hear a gunshot between about eleven-thirty and noon?”

“No, nothing like that; but I had the TV on, and my hearing’s not so good, so it’s always turned up.”

“You saw nobody in his yard, walking up to the house?”

“No, his house is on the wrong side for me to see much. I’m mostly in the kitchen, or the TV room, and they’re both on this side. You could talk to Marvel Jackson across the street. She’s got a better view.”

He asked about the man on the lawn mower.

“Davy Apel? I don’t know, he’s . . .” She put her fingers to her lips.

“You started to say something else,” Virgil said.

“Oh, Davy and I don’t get along,” she said. “I have that big maple tree out back, and the leaves used to fall on his yard. There was nothing I could do about it—leaves fall off trees, that’s what they do. Anyway, he got all angry about it—every year—and used to call me up and want to know what I was going to do about it. Well, what could I do? So, back in the fall of 2007, I was gone one day, and he came into my yard and cut some limbs off the tree. That’s why it’s all lopsided like that . . . I called the sheriff on him, but nothing happened. Anyway, Davy and Barry were friends.”

“Did Davy ever say anything that made you think he might get violent with you?”

“Oh, no, no, nothing like that. No.”

—