She looked scared as she searched the empty street behind me. “Fine.” She motioned for me to come inside. “Hurry up.”
I took a step inside before she slammed the door behind me. I was greeted by a huge expanse framed by two staircases on either side of me, a gigantic picture window overlooking Golden Rock Trail, and a life-size autographed photo of Eli Hudson mounted on the living room wall. Apparently, everyone was a fan.
“I’m Marlene.” She held out her hand in the daintiest of ways.
I shook it carefully. “Thank you for talking to me.”
“I’ve kept this all bottled up for so long. It’s probably best I talk to someone. Are you going to tell the police?”
“Do you want me to tell the police?” I asked.
“I guess it doesn’t really matter. It’s not as if I did anything wrong.”
“That is true.” I didn’t really know if keeping information from the police was considered a crime, but it probably wasn’t exactly moral.
“Come with me. Early every morning, before the sun comes up, I sit on my porch watching for wildlife. That day I watched as two thugs murdered that scrawny little man.”
“Two thugs?” I asked. My insides clenched.
She nodded. “Both looked like they were big enough to be linebackers.”
“Broncos fan?”
“My son plays for them,” she said pointing at the photo of Hudson. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t know what a linebacker was.”
“I’m sorry, you’re Eli Hudson’s mother?” I stopped in my tracks. Now that I knew it, I could see the resemblance. Mostly around the eyes.
“Of course. What woman would have a huge photo of a random football player framed in their living room?”
I could name a few.
“I actually met him a few days ago. Not that he’d remember. It was just at a signing. Does he know you’ve put him on Tinder?” And he was matched with me? My heart did a little flip-flop.
She looked at me, tapping her slippered foot on the hardwood floor.
“Sorry. You were saying?”
She nodded and continued out to the enormous deck suspended onto the back side of the house. “I was here”—she pointed to a chair—“and they were there”—she pointed to the trail where we had found the body.
“Wasn’t it dark? How did you see anything?” I asked.
“Porch lights. Everyone leaves their back deck lights on at night. It lights the path up really well.”
“Can you tell me exactly what happened? From the beginning?”
“It was quite odd. The one—Boy Boy, I’m assuming—carried the gun with one hand and pulling the scrawny man along with the other.”
“And what was the other large man doing?”
“He followed along. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it didn’t seem to make Boy Boy very happy.”
For not wanting to talk, this lady sure was doling out some serious information. “Go on.”
“So they got to right there”—she pointed at the spot in the trail where we’d found the body—“and I knew something was going to go down. I grew up in the hood—the only little white girl on the block. I’ve seen my fair share of bad things.”
My mind struggled to reconcile the image of this woman growing up in the hood and the woman sitting before me. The one who looked and spoke like she could be headmaster at a preparatory school.
“Is that when Boy Boy shot him?” I asked.
“Well, first they fought a bit. It looked like the big white guy was trying to stop Boy Boy, trying to talk reason into him. But then it looked like Boy Boy might shoot them both so the big guy got out of the way and Boy Boy shot the scrawny guy.” She took a breath. “The white guy didn’t watch him shoot the scrawny guy but had a blanket with him and covered the dead guy with it before following Boy Boy back from where they came.”
“And where was that?”
She pointed to a row of trees behind which sat the parking lot where I’d first met Garrett little more than a week before.
“Did you call the police at this point?”
She turned and walked back into the house. “I thought about it. But right after he killed the scrawny guy, Boy Boy looked up, and I think he saw me watching. He pointed his gun in my direction as a warning, I’m sure because there’s no way he would have hit me from such a long distance with such a tiny gun.”
There was the hood talking.
“So I did what I did when I saw things go down in the hood. I minded my own business. The guy was dead. There was nothing I could do to save him. And if I’d tried, I might have ended up with my own head missing like that girl they found at the other reservoir.”
She likely didn’t know that only a few minutes after she saw Boy Boy kill the boy, he had died himself.
“Thank you,” I said. “I really appreciate you speaking with me.” I wasn’t sure if this exonerated Garrett, but it certainly made it sound like Garrett was in the right. If it was him there with Boy Boy in the first place.
“Can I get you a cup of tea or coffee?” she asked hustling to the kitchen. “I don’t have company very often.”
I hesitated. I really needed to speak to the Three Amigos before the sun got too high and the fish stopped biting, but the sadness in her eyes gave me pause. “Coffee, please. But just one cup.”
Her face lit up. “Cream? Sugar?”
“Yes and double yes,” I said. She poured us each huge mugs of steaming coffee from her fancy stainless steel coffee pot. “Thank you.”
“So you said you met Eli? How was he? A gentleman, I hope?” She led me into the living room where oversized leather chairs looked like they hadn’t been used—well—ever.
“I did. But like I said, he probably doesn’t remember—”
“Of course I remember you,” a booming voice from behind me nearly made me spill my coffee down the front of my white
