CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Laura spotted the neighbor in question immediately when they walked outside. He stuck out like a sore thumb: dressed in a cheap and ill-fitting suit, very obviously not law enforcement from how uncomfortable he looked, hugging his arms against himself and glancing at the house with a distressed expression then away, as If trying to stop himself from remembering or thinking about it.
He was standing with a police officer who stepped aside as Laura and Nate approached, as if letting them take the floor.
“Hi,” Laura said, injecting her voice with a little lightness but still keeping it low and quiet, trying to reassure him without being gauchely cheerful. She thought of her partner on the last case, the inimitable and indefatigable Agent Bee Moore, and fought down the urge to smile at the image of how sunny and bright she would have been right now. “I understand you’re the neighbor who found the body?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice shaken and stuttered. “I’m Owen. I live over there.” He pointed a few houses down, making it clear that his route must have had him walk along the sidewalk past Perez’s home on the way out.
“Can you tell me what you saw?” Laura asked. “Start from the beginning and describe everything, if you can.”
Owen glanced nervously at the cop who had been standing with him.
“We know you’ve probably been asked this already,” Nate said sympathetically. “It’s just standard procedure. We need to get the information from you so we can carry on with the investigation – you’ll make a more formal statement later. We just want to hit the ground running.”
Owen swallowed and bobbed his head in a quick nod, his eyes going down to the ground and tracing invisible patterns there. “I was walking to work,” he said. “I saw this glow coming out of the window of Xavi’s house, which was weird because it’s so early. Everyone’s usually asleep when I head to work. And if they aren’t, they would have their curtains closed. Xavi usually goes out to work before I do, so his curtains are usually closed and his truck is usually gone, but the truck was still in the driveway.”
That was one confirmation, at least. Xavier Perez would have closed his curtains when he went to bed. Either the killer left them open because they hadn’t been closed yet, or he opened them on purpose. “Was there anyone else around?” Laura asked. “Before or after you saw the glow?”
“No, it was quiet like usual,” Owen said. He shivered slightly, glancing towards the house involuntarily. “As I got closer, I saw that it was kind of flickering and I realized it must have been the TV I was seeing. I thought I’d glance in and give Xavi a wave if he was awake. Or maybe knock on the door if he’d fallen asleep on the couch or something, you know. I thought maybe he’d slept in and didn’t know he was late for work. So I looked in.”
“What did you see?” Nate asked, when he seemed reluctant to continue.
“Xavi was on the couch,” Owen said, his eyes going unfocused as he stared at the ground. “His head – there was blood on his head. And his eyes… I could see he was gone. And there was that creepy mannequin. I turned away and called 911 right away.”
“You did the right thing,” Laura assured him. “Was there anything else you noticed that stood out?”
Owen looked at her. “Other than the fact that my friend is dead?”
Laura picked up on that immediately. “So, you weren’t just neighbors?”
“No,” Owen said, and shrugged. “Well, yes. I guess that’s just how Xavi was. He saw it as neighborly to help people out. He wasn’t like how some people can be, all cold and only interested in themselves. He was nice to everyone.”
“What kind of things did he do to help out?” Laura asked, curious.
“He was just helpful all the time. Helping people carry stuff, or move furniture around. He would always offer if he saw you struggling with something. If anyone in the neighborhood had bad news he would cook them a big dish of something. He even gave me advice sometimes about work stuff when I wasn’t sure what to do.”
“He was a big part of the community here, then?” Nate asked.
“Yeah, totally,” Owen nodded. “I mean, if you can call it a community. Not a lot of people around here get involved with one another. We don’t have, like, cookouts or parties or whatever. But Xavi was different and he was always open for a chat with anyone.”
“What about his work?” Nate asked. “What did he do? You said he was usually up even before you were.”
“He was a third-party freight driver,” Owen said, sounding as though he was reciting something that Perez had once told him. “I don’t know what that means exactly, but I guess he drove a lot of trucks and took goods all over town. Out of town, too. Like a courier, I think, but with really big loads instead of just someone’s lunch or whatever. He worked for this company, I think it was like… Mariesville Freight or something obvious like that?”
Laura nodded. “I think we get the idea,” she said. That was an interesting lead they could possibly follow up. If his work took him all over town, then it was possible he had connections in lots of different areas. That could make it easier to find a link between him and the two others. Or maybe he was the link. “Have you seen anything unusual around the neighborhood over the last few days or weeks? Maybe a strange vehicle, or someone you didn’t recognize who was hanging around?”
Owen shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so,” he said. “But, you know, I’m out for most of the day, so if there was someone hanging around I probably missed it. But wait, you think he was targeted?”
The phrasing struck Laura as odd. “Targeted?”
“Yeah, I mean, we’ve all seen the reports about the bodies on the local news,” Owen replied. “This mannequin thing – it’s, like, a theme or whatever, isn’t it? It keeps happening? So, I guess I just figured this is some crazy serial killer or something. Don’t they usually go after strangers, not people they know?”
Laura blinked.
“Sometimes,” Nate hedged. “Anyway, we’re following up all avenues right now to make sure we don’t miss anything. There’s nothing else you can think of to tell us?”
“I don’t think so,” Owen said again. He looked down sadly. “Man. I just can’t believe that this guy took out Xavi like that. He was such a good guy. And this means there’s a killer around here somewhere, right? At least, he was here. Right in the same neighborhood as me. Any of us could have ended up victims!”