Christopher nodded. The more they could understand about the killer, the better the chance that they might be able to catch him before he killed anyone else.
For now, though, they needed to talk to people at the Cherry Blossom Retirement Home. Christopher pulled his car up outside it, the home a sprawling, modern building that had been made to look a little less imposing by honeysuckle climbing up the side and a few trees out front.
There wasn’t the same spread of police vehicles that there had been at the Estrom house. Those had already been and gone, the crime scene investigators having done their work. Even the reporters had moved on to the new killing. It meant that everything was quiet as Christopher and Paige got out and headed over to the front door.
They were met by a male orderly who wore medical scrubs and had a lanyard around his neck that identified him as Billy. He was a large man, but there was a soft edge to him, only added to by the apologetic smile he gave Paige and Christopher.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “We sent out an email to the families of the residents the other day. There has been an incident here, and for a couple of days we’ve been advised to keep visitors away.”
Christopher held up his ID.
“We’re not visiting relatives,” he said. “We’re here to talk to the staff and residents about the murder.”
Christopher saw the change in the man’s expression. It was more worried now, obviously unsettled by the presence of himself and Paige. He waved them inside, into a hallway lined with comfortable chairs and artwork that was obviously designed to be used for a waiting area.
“We’ve only just managed to calm some of the residents down after what happened,” Billy said. “Mr. Graves, the man who found poor Zoe, had to be sedated.”
“Would it be possible to talk to him about what he saw?” Paige asked.
The orderly shook his head almost instantly. “It won’t do you any good. He has Alzheimer’s. Even when he started calling for help, I didn’t think there was anything seriously wrong. He can react that way sometimes. You just have to distract him and let him talk until he calms down a little.”
That was what they’d said the last time Christopher had been here. And he doubted that anything would have improved with time. Even Paige couldn’t get anything out of a man who literally couldn’t remember.
“And it would put a lot of additional stress on him,” the orderly replied, obviously trying to protect the resident.
Christopher was willing to let that go. He wasn’t about to make life worse for one old man, especially when there was no prospect of getting useful information from him.
“You were here, though,” Paige said. “You said that you heard him calling for help. What did you see?”
Christopher was impressed that she’d caught that.
“I saw… I saw Zoe just lying there, face down. I saw the blood. I tried to help her, but there was Mr. Graves screaming, and other residents coming around to look, and… it was just chaos. People everywhere.”
Meaning that the CSI team probably wouldn’t have any usable DNA or fingerprint results for them. The whole scene would be far too contaminated for that, even if the killer hadn’t been as careful as he seemed to have been at the Estrom house.
“Were you here the night before?” Paige asked.
Billy nodded at that. “I sleep here a lot of nights. In a place like this, you want more than one overnight nurse on duty, because if anything happens, you need the extra pair of hands to be able to move people, or to deal with one thing while another happens.”
“And did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary?” Paige asked.
To Christopher, the orderly looked almost guilty as Paige said that. Was he hiding something?
“No, I didn’t,” Billy said. “And if I had, maybe Zoe would still be alive. If I’d seen this guy coming in…”
“Then it might have been you dead,” Christopher said. “You couldn’t do anything to protect her.”
That was what the guilt was: not being able to save someone he’d worked with. Guilt at not being able to help. Christopher saw that from witnesses sometimes. They thought that they’d failed the victim because they hadn’t managed to see something that would allow the perpetrator to be captured immediately. He’d seen it from agents too, even felt it, knowing that every delay on a case might allow a killer to kill again.
“Can you tell us about Zoe?” Paige asked. “What was she like?”
“She was always so bright and vivacious,” Billy said. “So good with the residents. Always there to help when they needed her.”
“Do you know much about her life outside of here?” Paige asked.
“She had a pretty quiet life, I think,” Billy said. “Lived alone in a rental apartment, saving up for a deposit to actually buy somewhere. She used to talk about how one day she was going to move to the West Coast somewhere.”
“Did anyone dislike her?” Christopher asked, wanting to know if there was anywhere obvious that they could start to look for answers.