It was later in the day when he started getting nervous about the situation. In his passion, he had forgotten that semen was very identifiable genetic evidence and his wiping, however thorough, would not have eliminated everything. He contemplated re-entering her apartment to scrub them more thoroughly, with ammonia or something like that, but he decided that that would be even more dangerous. His next few days were very stressful as he was plagued with fear of being discovered.

His relief came four days after her death, when the landlord came knocking at her door. He could easily overhear his bellowed explanation that her work had called him, worried about her not showing up. From the peephole, Carl watched as the landlord used his key to enter her apartment and discovered the body. His reaction was more of annoyance than of surprise--it gave Carl the impression that something like this had happened before.

When the police arrived, they didn’t treat the apartment like a crime scene at all. Everyone involved seemed to think that it was all very cut-and-dry and no foul play was suspected. They didn’t even knock on his door to ask if he had overheard anything. And so they were certainly not going to swab her feet for genetic evidence.

Carl moved out of the peephole apartment a few months later, when his lease was up for renewal. There had been other neighbors after Maddie but none could ever be as memorable as her.