Page 30 of Nothing Left

"I had a work meeting late on Friday, which was made more difficult because of the noise. I was speaking to clients in Chile, so the time difference made the meeting necessary," he said. "With the bedroom door closed, the window blinds down, and my earphones on, I managed."

"So you were in the meeting at what time?"

"From about eleven to midnight," he said.

"And then?"

"Then I had a shower and went to bed. I borrowed my wife's other set of earplugs, but the client had a few more questions, so I ended up messaging him to and fro on my phone until about two a.m. Then, I finally went to sleep."

Juliette considered this version. It was problematic that nobody could be fully cleared, but she also believed that Costa was a busy businessman who'd been preoccupied with a work issue. However, this meant he was awake and around at the time when the murder could have happened.

As he turned to the computer and moved the mouse to show her the questions, she noticed something else. He was left-handed. That substantially reduced the possibility that he could have committed the crime because the pathologist had said the killer was right-handed.

He and his wife had been annoyed by the noise, but Juliette was going to conclude that they hadn't been killers. However, did Costa know anything?

"Perhaps you heard something from next door? Any sounds after two a.m.?" She remembered that Dr. Manuel had placed the time of death somewhere between two and four a.m.

He frowned. "I had the earplugs and didn't hear a thing. But I will tell you something." He glanced at the cat. "At about two-thirty, I guess, when I was almost ready to fall asleep, I saw Ginger sit up in bed. He was listening, and I thought he was looking in the direction of the fire escape that ran outside our kitchen. For a moment, I wondered if there was an intruder, someone there. Then Ginger lay down again, and I thought no more of it and went to sleep."

Again, Juliette thought, they were tantalizingly close to getting answers. This was another piece of the puzzle. Footsteps on the fire escape might have passed by. But now she was thinking of it, those footsteps could have belonged to the 'creepy guy' that the other neighbors had told her about. He could have been the one who snuck down that way to get in.

"We're looking to speak to someone else in your apartment building, a dark-haired man who's been here about a month. Do you know where we can find the tenant information?"

He shrugged. "If it's the dark-haired man who's been here a month, my wife will know. She's complained before now that he's been loitering around and looking through windows," he said, causing Juliette to have a sudden, sharp pang of insight.

"Thank you for your time," Juliette said, trying not to show the excitement in her voice. "We'll follow up on that lead."

She left the bedroom and headed back to the kitchen, where the wife was taking a row of long loaves that looked like baguettes out of the oven. She appeared to be over her flare of temper and was humming softly as she laid them out to cool.

To Juliette's surprise, she wrapped one of the warm, fragrant loaves in brown paper and handed it to her.

"Here, here, take this," she said briskly. "I was angry earlier on and lost my temper when speaking to you. This is my apology."

"There's really no need, but thank you," Juliette said, knowing that it would be the gracious and right thing to accept the gift. "I have one more question."

"And what is that?" she asked.

"The new resident of your apartment building, a dark-haired man with a mustache? Your husband said you might know of him?"

Now, she glowered, getting angry all over again. "That man! He is not right in the head. He is, how do you say? A stalker? That is what I think. I have complained about him before now. The one time I was making bread in my kitchen, and I looked up, and he was just standing and watching me through the window there, by the fire escape," she said indignantly. "Now, I keep the blinds closed."

Juliette was getting confirmation, over again, that this was an important person to speak to.

"Do you know his name? Or which apartment he's in?"

"I don't have any idea of his name. The superintendent wouldn't tell me. But he's on the top floor and in the apartment in the far right-hand corner, number 412, I think. If you speak to him, tell him to behave himself better!" Hands-on her hips, she sounded furious once more.

Juliette thanked the woman for her time and the bread and stepped out of the apartment.Seeing as how they couldn't exactly approach a strong suspect while holding a loaf of freshly baked bread, she quickly called Sierra to come up. They met when the elevator arrived on the third floor.

"We got a gift," she said. "Take it. We're going to the top floor to interview a new suspect. I think this might be an important lead."

The excitement she saw in Sierra's face was also churning in Juliette's stomach as she and Wyatt turned away, heading for the stairs, and the top floor, corner apartment.

It was time to go and speak to the creepy stalker.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

This stalker was relatively new to the community, he had attracted a lot of negative attention, and he seemed to like using fire escapes. Most of all, Juliette respected the fact that multiple women in the building had perceived him as creepy and had a bad feeling about him. At last, things were adding up.

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