“So since early this morning?”
“Yeah.” He glanced away again.
He must not have a job to get to during the day. “Do you live along here?” She pointed down the street with her pen.
“Next block over.” He pushed back his hoodie and revealed spiky, teal-colored hair. “I’m a light sleeper.”
“Can anyone confirm that you were at home and in bed before coming here?”
“My girlfriend, Cindy.” He looked around the crowd. “She just went to get us coffee.”
Amanda nodded. It would seem neither of them held a day job. “So why have you been here all this time? Do you like watching fires?” The comment Sullivan had made about firebugs loving to watch their creations wasn’t far from her mind.
“Not particularly. Suppose I’m still here because… well, someone died in there, right?” He swallowed roughly, his Adam’s apple heaving. “I watched the medic get the body from the firefighters, and now you’re here asking all these questions. Was the person murdered?”
“It’s an open investigation.” She was about to ask if he’d seen anyone around the house, particularly any squatters, when a woman called out Simon’s name.
She looked to be about the same age as Simon. She wore large dark-lensed sunglasses, and her hair was blond with teal highlights. To match her boyfriend’s hair? She stepped through the crowd holding two coffee cups. She handed one to Simon and, with a bit of a scowl, faced Amanda. “Who are you?”
“Detective Steele with Prince William County Police. And you are?”
“Cindy.”
“Where do you live?” Amanda asked.
Simon’s brow scrunched up. “I told you—”
Amanda held up a hand. “If Cindy could answer…”
“Just a block over.” Cindy slurped back some coffee.
“An address?”
Simon rattled it off, and Amanda noted it in her book, then looked at Cindy. “Where were you when you heard the sirens?”
“I just—”
Amanda leveled a glare at Simon, and he stopped talking. She wanted to hear Cindy’s response.
“In bed.” Cindy nestled into Simon’s side, and he put an arm around her.
“Are you familiar with the house at all, maybe the people who squatted here?” Amanda flicked a finger toward 532.
“Not really,” Cindy replied and put her lips to her coffee cup.
“You ever see anyone go into the house or around it?”
She shook her head. “No reason. I mean, we don’t live on this street.”
“And you, Simon?”
“Nope.”
“All right, then. Before I leave, I’ll just need your full names and a number to reach you in case I have any more questions.”
“Sure.” Cindy provided the information, and Amanda recorded it in her notepad.
She left the young couple and went on to interview several more in the crowd. Most weren’t that interesting. Everyone was curious. One or two waxed philosophical on how all humankind was connected and thereby affected by the loss of anyone—stranger, friend, or foe.
When two uniformed officers arrived to assume responsibility for interviewing those in the crowd, Trent came over to her.
“I want to go speak with the immediate neighbors,” she said to him. “I want to hear firsthand if any of them witnessed any activity around that house.”
“You got it.”
She led the way to number 534, the house next to their crime scene, and knocked on the door.
“Hey!” a man called out.
Amanda and Trent turned, and a forty-something man with a bad comb-over was headed toward them. They held up their badges, and the man groaned.
“Detectives Steele and Stenson with the Prince William County PD,” Amanda said. “And you are?”
“Ted Dixon.”
“You live here, Mr. Dixon?” She jacked a thumb over her shoulder.
“Uh-huh.” He chewed on his bottom lip, and she expected to see blood drawn.
He was clearly uncomfortable, and she’d get to the root of why that was, but first she had some procedural questions to ask. “How long have you lived here?”
“Ah, five years.”
“Did you know your neighbors next door?”
“Not by name. But they’ve been gone a while now.”
Between the boarded windows and now this, she was really leaning toward the likelihood the bank had repossessed the property. “Was it a family or a couple or…?”
“Just a couple. Say, in their forties. No kids that I saw.”
“And when did they leave?”
“Several months ago.”
That surprised her. Amanda had expected it would have been longer ago than that given the boarded windows. It would seem something kept it from going on the market. She scribbled in her notepad, Why not for sale?
“Hey, whatcha writing there?” Ted jabbed a finger toward the page, and Amanda held it toward her chest to take it out of his view.
“Nothing you need to worry about.” She offered him a small smile.
“Okay,” he said, not that he sounded convinced.
“You ever see anyone hanging around the place after that couple moved out?” Trent interjected.
Ted looked at him. “Yeah. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Amanda asked, skeptical. “It’s a yes or no type of question, Mr. Dixon.”
Ted glanced over a shoulder, then back at her, and stiffened. “No. I never saw anyone.”
She didn’t have to spend any time studying him to tell he was lying. He just wasn’t about to talk to the police, and she couldn’t force him to—yet. She handed him her card. “Call me if your memory returns.” She turned and left.
Trent matched her stride. “I think he saw something.”
“Makes two of us.” She faced him. “People were squatting at five thirty-two. We know that because of the mattresses, but who are they and where are they now?”
“And did they kill Jane Doe?”
Amanda considered this and shook her head. “You know what? Probably not. Why burn down their shelter?” She glanced at a cruiser posted in front of 532. The place would have surveillance on it for a while, and if anyone suspicious came around, they’d be brought in and questioned. She had faith in that. Just as she trusted canvassing officers to talk to all the neighbors. “I’m thinking we head back to the station, pull the property records, and see if we can get our hands on that nine-one-one recording. Then we’ll come back and talk to the person who placed the
