A Bystander's Final Confession

I was about to head out for coffee when I saw the street below my apartment building swarming with police cars and ambulances. An unspoken tension tightened the air.

Detective Donovan intercepted me. Blair, the influencer across the hall, was dead.

"I'll cooperate fully," I assured him. "I just hope you catch the killer soon."

The detective looked up, his gaze sharp as a scalpel, dissecting me.

"I never said it was a murder."

I smiled. "You didn't have to. Blair was a creature of habit. She never missed her morning fitness class. This was no accident." I added, tacking on a lie, "Besides, I'm a true-crime buff."

The scrutiny in his gaze softened, replaced by a flicker of something I couldn't quite read.

"I'll be back for a formal statement."

As he was leaving, his gaze flickered to my TV screen.

"I don't see any true-crime shows in your Netflix history."

His sharp observation sent a jolt through me, but I smoothed my expression over in an instant. "I prefer true-crime podcasts."

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1

The residents' group chat was blowing up. Word was that Blair's body was horrific, as if she'd been doused in acid—her face completely destroyed.

I had lived in this apartment building, The Astoria, for three years. Blair had been here even longer.

She was an influencer, always glamorous and perfectly put-together. It was hard to reconcile the glamorous woman I knew with such a brutal murder.

To die like that...

Not even caffeine could untie the anxious knot in my stomach. All day, every tiny sound made me jump.

That evening, Detective Donovan came to my door.

He asked if I had seen anyone suspicious on the night of the incident.

I thought for a moment. "That night, a man claiming to be a building maintenance worker rang my doorbell. But something felt off."

I let a moment of feigned hesitation hang in the air.

"I checked the feed on my smart doorbell."

"What did you see?"

"At first, nothing. Then, a pair of bloodshot eyes suddenly filled the frame, staring with pure malice. I was so terrified I killed the feed instantly."

"A moment later, I heard the doorknob rattle."

Then, as if a thought had just struck me, I grabbed Detective Donovan's arm.

"Right, and he tried a master key on my door, but it didn't work. That's why he couldn't get in."

He wrote down everything I said, then stood up to leave, saying he would investigate this "maintenance worker."

The police did investigate, but they came up with nothing.

The building's records showed that a maintenance worker had come to repair the public pipes, but he had a perfect alibi.

The lead went cold.

For the next three days, an eerie calm settled over the apartment building, like the quiet before a storm. Then, on the evening of the third day, the police tape went up again.

It was Professor Eleanor from the floor above me.

She was found dead in her home, her vocal cords brutally removed.

It was a grim reminder that Professor Eleanor's life had been anything but easy.

Even through the thick ceiling, I could often hear her husband's vicious tirades.