Page 10 of Nothing Left

CHAPTER SIX

Under normal circumstances, Juliette guessed that the apartment building where Heather and Samantha had stayed would have been a vibey place. It was nestled in an area of tiny homes, shops, bars and restaurants, a couple of miles from the university.

But now, the presence of two uniformed police guards at the main entrance, and the forensic van parked near the door, gave it a very different ambiance.

The officer who had picked them up from the airport had brought them here. He'd parked nearby and directed the three of them to the correct apartment.

The police at the apartment’s main gate were checking IDs before allowing people inside, clearly needing to keep curious bystanders, and the media, away from the fourth-floor apartment where this murder had occurred. The media was crowded outside, though. Juliette saw a TV van, several photographers, and a crowd of interested bystanders was waiting. There was also a group of protesters with hand-drawn placards.

"American Murderess,"one of the placards screamed in Spanish, and another,"Send Your Killer Home".

Hate and fear were evident in every stroke of the pen, and Juliette fervently hoped that the prison manager had listened to her pleas and moved Heather to solitary confinement. Seeing the sentiment in these posters reinforced to her that the young woman was not safe where she was.

As she, Wyatt and Sierra approached, camera lenses swung in their direction.

"What on earth is all of this?" she heard Sierra mutter. The young techie was not used to media attention, particularly not at this stage of an investigation.

"Just ignore them," Juliette muttered. "Don't answer any questions, and keep your head down." That was assuming any questions were shouted in English. She heard a few questions in Spanish but couldn't make out exactly what the people were asking above the noise of the crowd. From the tone, though, they were angry.

She showed her ID to the police at the door and headed inside, making for the elevator and riding up in silence to the apartment. Another policeman was posted outside the doors. He, too, checked their ID before allowing them past.

"Please, put on foot covers," he requested. They took the foot covers from a box and put them on before walking down the terracotta tiles of the narrow corridor.

Again, Juliette experienced the disconnection between what was here, and what should have been. This beautiful apartment building, with its wrought iron railing and cream plastered walls, and a stunning view out over Barcelona, should have been a happy place where students came and went freely and in safety. But instead, it was the scene of a hideous crime.

There was still a forensic tech working inside, a young man white-suited, who greeted them in a brief, formal way before resuming his task. Juliette headed in, noting the apartment's layout at a glance and that it was very small. She turned in the hallway and addressed Sierra, who was looking pale.

"I think we go through the rooms, and you stay outside," she said. Sierra nodded gratefully, moving over to the balcony railing as Juliette and Wyatt headed in.

It was a pretty place, though as tiny as she'd expected. The shoebox-sized hallway led to a kitchen with a stove, cupboards, and a table big enough for two. It adjoined a living room with enough space for a two-seater couch, a coffee table, and a TV.

There was a fire door on the far side of the living room leading out to a fire escape. Testing the door, Juliette found it to be open. So all entrances and exit points were currently open, and she had no real way of knowing what was locked up on that drunken night.

There were some photographs and ornaments on the mantelpiece. One of the two women was a collector of porcelain, or else, the apartment's owner was. There was a porcelain doll, a stretching cat, and a black and white cow.

There were also a couple of framed photos - one of Heather and Samantha and the other of a whole group of students at the university.

It was a typical student abode, epitomizing the carefree life that Heather had enjoyed before everything had gone so wrong.

A short passage led to the two bedrooms, with a bathroom in between them. Now this was where they needed to look carefully, Juliette knew.

The first bedroom was Samantha's, which was obvious from the paper sign on the door saying, "Sam's Place," which looked to have been cut from the pages of a travel magazine and might originally have been a pub or hotel sign. Perhaps Samantha had been amused by the similarity in the name.

Then, the bathroom. And Juliette caught her breath as she saw the blood and the smears.

She quickly took out her iPad, comparing photos. So Heather must have lain on the floor near the toilet, with the knife near her. And she'd then woken, picked up the knife - she could see that smear and the bloody fingerprints on the floor - and then moved to the shower. The shower door stood open, and the floor was caked with blood. Juliette wrinkled her nose, trying to breathe through her mouth. It was a stark and violent scene.

"Was she stabbed in the shower?" she asked Wyatt, who glanced at the case notes and shrugged as Juliette continued. "It looks like she might have been stabbed outside it and then forced in or dumped in."

That was the picture that these bloodstains were painting. There were splashes and smears outside that indicated where the first cut had been made.

"You know," Wyatt said, sounding serious, "It's going to be difficult to clear this woman. Because I will say, Juliette, from the evidence, it's not looking good."

She shook her head. She didn't want to agree, but she had to. It wasn't looking good. If she closed her eyes, she could visualize how a violent fight might have played out. How a drunk woman in a rage, on drugs, not thinking clearly, might have stabbed her friend and then shoved her backward into that shower.

Even though she believed in Heather's innocence personally, Juliette found herself having doubts as she looked at the scene. Most definitely, a judge would not be convinced by the young woman's tearful protests when combined with the vast memory gaps. Not when looking at this compelling and bloody evidence.

But she had to keep an open mind and investigate every possibility. That was what she had been trained to do. She took a careful, shallow breath through her mouth and looked around the bathroom again. Then she glanced down at the iPad, taking in the image of the knife lying in that blood.

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