“So, imagine you’re the killer. You strike Beverly on the back of the head, and as Dr. Ortiz said, she falls over and hits her head on the corner of the table. You’re starting to freak out because you can see the blood spreading on the carpet. You’re still holding the statue, but you can wipe that off. There’s blood everywhere, and now you have to go back home. How did the assailant get inside one of the units without a trace? Maybe they ran downstairs and out the front door, washed off in the rain, enough so they wouldn’t track blood through their apartment, and then return through the back. They grab the brick and bust out the window near the back door to make it look like someone came in that way, but instead, they run over to the staircase and go back to their apartment unseen. Only problem there is that you’re telling me nobody used the gate code for the backyard last night.”

Greg nodded. “What are we missing?”

“I don’t know,” Claire said softly. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, one more thing,” he said. “We got the analysis on all the blood in the stairwell,” he said. “Most of it belonged to the victim.”

Claire froze. “Most?”

“Yes,” Greg said. “There was a smudge at the bottom of the staircase on the first floor, on the wall, and a small chip in the paint. As if someone fell forward and knocked into it.”

“But it wasn’t the victim’s?”

“No, it doesn’t match.”

“Can you tell how long it had been there?”

“Yes,” Greg said. “Judging by how much it had dried—or, I should say, hadn’t dried—it had to have happened earlier that same night.”

Claire opened another file folder and pulled out some of the pictures from the scene. There were pictures of the first-floor hallway, of the third-floor landing, and of the outside of the building. She flipped through them mindlessly, searching for anything at all that would shed some light on what really happened to Beverly Brighton.

When she saw it, she stood up abruptly, knocking her chair back.

“What is it?” Greg asked, looking up.

“Of course!” Claire exclaimed.

“Of course what?” he asked.

Claire blinked at him for a moment and then finally responded.

“I need to make a call.”

• • •

An hour later, Claire was pulling up in front of the building on Oak Street. She rang the doorbell for the first-floor apartment.

“Hello?” Meggie Bentley said.

“Ms. Bentley, it’s Detective Claire Puhl. Mind if I come in?”

There was a pause, and then the door buzzed, and Claire stepped inside. As she walked toward the first-floor apartment, she heard a noise. The door opened, and Meggie Bentley peered out.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Do you mind if I come in?”