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I’m embarrassed to say, I couldn’t place the accent.
    I took a business card out of the side compartment of my briefcase. “I’m Finley Tanner from Mr. Caprelli’s office. We represent Travis Johnson.”
    Her eyes grew wide. “No. I already talked to the police. I have no more to say.”
    She didn’t take the card but she did slam the door in my face. So much for Tony’s theory. And it didn’t get much better as I worked my way down the block. A few of the people weren’t home, the rest either wouldn’t talk to me or took my card and promised – my ass – to call me back because they were in the middle of something.
    I’d almost given up hope when I rang the bell of the last house on the street. It was a well-kept home, with a tricycle and some kid’s toys littering the manicured lawn.
    “Yes?” she asked through a security door.
    She was a pretty African-American woman I put somewhere in her forties. And shock of shocks, she was actually smiling at me.
    I introduced myself. “I’d like to talk to you about Travis Johnson.” She was not on the police canvass sheet.
    She opened the security door and invited me in. As she walked toward the kitchen, she stopped along the way to pick up toys. She offered me a seat at her glass-topped kitchen table. There were fingerprints and smudges on the table. Middle school and elementary school calendars were pinned to her refrigerator with magnets.
    I took out a legal pad and the tape recorder. “I hope you don’t mind, Mrs. . . .”
    “Greene,” she supplied. “I don’t care if you tape me. I think it’s awful what they’re putting that boy through. Coffee?”
    “Yes, thank you.” Excitement made my heart beat a little faster. After so many slammed doors, I was thrilled to not only have someone talk to me, but someone who apparently believed in Travis and had coffee. “So you knew Travis?”
    She shook her head. “He used to tutor my oldest in math. Did it for free, too.”
    “How long have you known Travis?”
    She rubbed her chin. “About five years. Since he moved in with the family.” She shook her head. “I’ll never know how those people qualified as foster parents. I wouldn’t let them watch my goldfish.”
    “You saw something unusual?”
    She nodded. “Travis always had some sort of bruise someplace. Then there was the broken arm a year ago. Said he fell off his bike.” She scoffed. “He didn’t own no bike.”
    I was writing quickly. “Any other incidents you can think of?”
    “Had a black eye a time or two. Said he got it at karate practice but I didn’t believe him.”
    “What did you think happened?”
    She leaned closer. “I think the dad was polishing his fist and it went off. That man had a nasty temper.”
    “How so?”
    “He chased down one of the kids riding his bike on the street. Swore the kid scratched his car. That boy was only seven and here was a grown man chasing him with a baseball bat.”
    “Did anyone contact the police?”
    She nodded. “The kid’s parents. The Henley’s. They live two blocks over.” She pointed in the general direction.
    “Did anything happen?”
    “Yeah. The dad went to their house and kicked Mr. Henley’s ass. Since then no one had the nerve to go up against him. He was a bully, plain and simple. Beat his wife up, too.”
    “She told the police he never hit her.”
    “Let me tell you something,” she said as she patted my hand. “She was a prisoner in that house. When the windows were open you could hear him yelling and screaming all the way down here. She wasn’t even allowed to go to the end of the driveway to get the mail out of the box.”
    Maybe Tony had a chance at getting the truth out of her now that her husband was dead.
    “Anyone else you can think of who might have had a run in with him?”
    Her brow furrowed. “There was the block party last year.”
    “What happened?”
    “Travis was there playing with the younger kids. You know – giving them piggyback