Page 27 of Nothing Left

"Yes. One of the women was stabbed." Juliette paused. "Who was there when you delivered?"

"There was a woman who took delivery of the pizza. Pretty, with dark hair. She seemed less drunk than the others. There was another woman who was busy trying to clean up a broken coffee pot, or something on the floor, with the help of a man. But they were not doing a good job of it. I think there was one other man there, pouring drinks."

So that had been the situation when he arrived. Samantha had been the more sober one and she’d taken the pizza.

"Did you leave straight afterward?"

"Yes. I hurried out. They were making a lot of noise, and when my clients are noisy, the neighbors often get angry, and then they blame the delivery company."

Juliette was encouraged that Alfonso seemed like a good witness. He was definitely perceptive and had noticed the details.

"Do you know if they locked the door when you left?" she asked.

"I closed the door when I went out because of the noise. I think I heard the latch click into place, but I cannot be sure," he admitted.

"Was there anyone in the corridor, anyone around?" Wyatt asked, his face intense.

"No, I didn't see anyone in the corridor. There were a group of girls coming into the downstairs lobby as I left," he said.

"Can you confirm the time you left?" Juliette asked.

Alfonso nodded. "Yes. I called my wife as soon as I was out of the building to tell her I was coming home. I always do that so she knows I am on my way. This time, she needed me to stop off at the late-night drugstore to get some cough mixture for our child, so I went there, bought the cough mixture, and then came home."

He showed his phone, confirming the message and the purchase. Juliette was satisfied that he was cleared, but Alfonso had now pointed them in the next direction that she knew they needed to go.

And that was now to speak to the other occupants of the building, who’d been exposed to these noisy students and might have gotten angry.

If one of the neighbors had been a psychopath with a taste for murder, Juliette might be face to face with the killer soon.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Knocking on the apartment door to the left of Heather and Samantha's student digs, Juliette immediately realized that this was also a home to students and night owls. Although it was now after ten-thirty a.m., the young woman who answered the door had clearly just woken up. Her tawny brown hair was mussed, her face was blotchy, and she was wearing a dressing gown.

"Good morning," Juliette said in Spanish, flashing her FBI ID. "I'm Agent Hart, and I'm investigating a murder that happened in the building two nights ago. May I ask you a few questions?"

She was standing shoulder to shoulder with Wyatt while Sierra was in the car, monitoring the chat boards and online activity.

The young woman rubbed her eyes sleepily. "Uh, sure. Come on in. Sorry, my Spanish isn't very good." Then, as the words sunk in, she looked horrified, as if she had only just realized the meaning of the question. "What? A murder? Here?"

"Next door to you," Juliette said, now speaking in English.

"Two nights ago?" The woman frowned, looking perturbed as she turned and led the way into an apartment that was messier than the next door one had been, though with less evidence of hard drinking. There was another woman asleep on the couch; there were several soda bottles and coffee mugs lying around, and there was a pile of books and papers on the coffee table.

"Evette, these are police," the tawny-haired woman said. "They say there was a murder in this building."

"What?" The woman on the couch sat bolt upright, looking horrified. "A murder? Was that what happened next door? I saw the police downstairs when I came home yesterday, and down the corridor was taped off. Someone said there had been a serious crime, but they didn't know what it was."

"Yes, it was next door to you," Juliette said.

The two women exchanged an appalled glance.

"Now that I think of it, I heard police radios from that apartment when I got home. I thought there must have been a robbery or something," the tawny-haired woman said. "I never realized it was so bad."

"That’s where the two American and British students live. I don't know their names, but they seem really nice," Evette said.

"You know, now I'm thinking about it; I think I heard something about this on the news; I just didn't connect it. One woman stabbed another?" her friend said, looking confused. "I had no idea these were our neighbors."

“Unfortunately, Samantha Cole was stabbed,” Juliette confirmed.

---