“There’s a back,” she said. “Little patios.”
“You live on the ground floor?”
“Yes.”
“Did you hear any noises, a window breaking, a door being forced, by any chance?”
“The windows were open,” she said. “It’s been hot.”
She thinks I’m stupid, but at least she’s talking.
“When were you first aware that this man was in your apartment?”
“When I saw him,” Mary Elizabeth Flannery snapped.
“Where were you, what were you doing, when you first saw him?”
“I was in my living room, watching television.”
“And where was he, when you first saw him?”
“Just standing there, in the door to my bedroom.” She grimaced.
“Can you describe him?”
“No.”
“Not at all?”
“He was wearing black overalls, coveralls, whatever they call them, and a mask. That’s all I could see.”
“What kind of a mask?”
“A mask, over his eyes.”
“I mean, what color was the mask? Did you notice?”
“It was a Lone Ranger mask,” she said. “The kind with a flap over the mouth.”
“Black?”
“Yes, black,” she said.
The Lone Ranger, Hemmings thought, wore a mask that covered his eyes only, not with a flap over his mouth.
“Did he have anything with him?”
“He had a knife,” she said, impatiently, as if she expected Hemmings to know all these details.
“What kind of knife?”
“A butcher knife
.”
“Was it your knife?”
“No, it wasn’t my knife.”