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For sure, this man was a creepy stalker, Cami decided. He was trying to justify his behavior, but she had a feeling that he was glossing over most of it.
"So, you were served a restraining order. Fair or not, what I'd like to know now is whether you obeyed it," Connor said. "Were there any times you might have breached that order?"
"Look, my route to work takes me right past her house," Seth said. "If I was late for work then I wasn't going to avoid her house, not if I needed to be at work on time. That order was oppressive and could have cost me my job."
"What work do you do?" Connor asked.
"I work in the furniture factory, doing forklifting. I normally work early mornings to midday, but I sometimes do later shifts and weekend shifts."
He didn’t seem to be closely linked to IT in any way, but more of a hands-on guy. It didn't rule him out, of course, because he might have had a different job in the past.
She decided to test this theory. "Do you have much computer knowledge?" she asked.
Seth stared at her with a surprised sneer on his face. "Do I look like I do? You think I've been tracking her online or something? Is that what this's about?"
"You weren't tracking her online?"
"I don't do much online. A couple of chat groups, and I think my CV is published somewhere. I don't understand that whole side of things."
That confirmed to Cami that he was not IT savvy, as she'd thought. But maybe he'd found another way to disable those alarms or got into the house afterward.
"Did you know a woman called Caroline Elder?"
"Who the hell's she?" Seth shot back.
"Did you go past Shiree's house recently?" Connor pressed, keeping him off guard with the questions.
Now, Seth looked at him with narrowed eyes.
"Did you?" Connor asked again. Then, with a sigh, he said, "Look, if you did, and it violated the terms of that order, you might as well tell us. The order can't be enforced any longer because she is now deceased."
"Understood," Seth said. Now, he looked as if the barrier of resistance he'd thrown up was starting to dismantle.
"Is that what you're worried about? That you violated the order?"
"Yeah. I admit, I did."
"What did you do?"
"A couple of weeks ago. The Tuesday before last, I worked a late shift and went past there late at night. I saw her husband's car wasn't there, but the lights were on and someone was moving around inside. So, I watched for a while. I guess maybe I was hoping that I could attract her attention. Or maybe I just wanted to look at her.” He gave Connor a sidelong glance.
“Did you do more than look?” Connor asked.
“I didn't do anything else. I just kept out of sight of the neighbors and watched. I guess—I just wanted to know that she was okay."
Cami doubted that. She thought that Seth had probably been hoping she’d be walking around naked or something like that. It seemed more his style. However, now that Connor had gotten him talking and admitting he'd done that, Cami knew there were harder questions to come.
"You were already aware that she was murdered. You mentioned her name to us. How did you know that?"
"I . . . I—okay. You might as well know. I went past late this afternoon, after work. I saw the place was swarming with police. I stopped and asked one of the neighbors, and they told me what had happened. I was really torn up about it. I couldn't believe it. I went to the bar to let off some steam, and I was still there when you came."
"And earlier on?"
Shiree had been murdered midafternoon. So where had Seth been then?
"I was at work. I worked from seven a.m. to four-thirty p.m. I didn't clock out at all. I was busy at the factory the whole time. They were rearranging one of the storage areas. Look, I’ll show you my time sheet. And you can call the company to confirm it.”
And just like that, it was impossible that Seth could be their killer. His guilt had been from violating the restraining order, but he'd had an alibi at the time of the murder.
