Chapter 323 - Useful Evidence

"So, you're saying that you thought Avaleigh was the victim and this man was the murderer?" Officer Liang asked as she looked at the photos that Steven brought.

Steven nodded his head nervously.

"And...this photo was taken at the hotel last night?" Officer Liang confirmed as she pointed to a photo in the lobby.

Avaleigh did indeed seem like she had a stalker. But, it was unclear whether there was any link to Mimi's death.

"Did you take any other photos at the hotel?" Officer Liang asked.

Steven scratched the back of his neck and hesitated before he pulled out his camera from his backpack and handed it to the police officer.

"Yes...I followed Avaleigh up to her room and watched her door from the end of the corridor..." he sighed. 

He didn't want to mention this at first, but now that the officer was asking, he had no choice but to cooperate.

Officer Liang turned on the camera and scrolled through the photos on Steven's memory card. 

"You do realize that these photos put you at the scene of the crime, right?" Officer Liang asked as she raised an eyebrow and continued scrolling. The timestamp at the bottom showed that Steven was there until, at least, midnight. After that, there were no more photos, but it didn't prove that he had left either. Could he have walked into Mimi's room and killed her?

"Did you know that Mimi's room was next to Avaleigh's?" Officer Liang asked as she scrolled past a photo of Mimi entering her room.

"No," Steven replied. "It was just a lucky coincidence. "My assignment was to focus on Avaleigh. She's one of my long-term artists. There are 5 of us in the Kpop department and we are each assigned 10 artists to follow on a long-term basis. So, obviously, we don't have enough resources to focus on every single artist; we only focus on the most popular ones. When I saw Mimi enter next door, I was quite surprised. Since it was a lucky coincidence, I took a few photos for extra content."

Officer Liang nodded her head and continued clicking through the photos. The paparazzi had a habit of taking burst shots and just snapping photos of every little movement, so there were a few thousand photos on the camera. By the time she clicked through the first 200, her finger was already feeling a little tired, but she wanted to look at every single photo in detail. The hotel's cameras were under maintenance, so this was probably the only footage of the corridor from last night.

As she clicked through a few more photos, she suddenly stopped. The timestamp was 10:09pm. A man with a trolley entered Avaleigh's room with what appeared to be dinner.

Officer Liang had questioned the staff in the hotel to see if anyone entered Mimi's room between the estimated time of death, and supposedly, someone attempted to deliver dinner at 10:45pm but no one answered Mimi's or Avaleigh's door. The staff member assumed that the guests were asleep, so he slipped a note under the door telling them to call when they awoke and he would redeliver the food. But, he never got a call. The note was found under Mimi's door when they checked the crime scene so the hotel staff seemed to be telling the truth. But, why did this photo clearly show that someone delivered food to Avaleigh at 10:09pm and actually went inside her room?

Officer Liang continued to click through the photos with curiosity. Then, at 10:24pm, the man with the trolley was seen leaving Avaleigh's room. But, not only did he not go to Mimi's room at all, there was suddenly a woman in a cleaner's uniform next to him. Officer Liang zoomed into the photo and her lips curved slightly. 

"I thought you were an experienced paparazzi. Didn't you even notice that your target had left her room?" Officer Liang laughed.

Steven looked at the policewoman with confusion. "Didn't she fall asleep in her room? Someone tried to deliver dinner at 10:45pm and she didn't answer the door, so I left at about midnight when I realized I wasn't going to get anything."

Officer Liang leaned over and showed Steven the photo she had stopped on. "Avaleigh left her room at 10:24pm, that's why no one answered the door."

Steven looked at the photo carefully and gasped. He had been tricked. Avaleigh was dressed as a cleaner and she had snuck out with Emerson Wu.

Officer Liang smiled. This was exactly what Emerson and Avaleigh had told her earlier.

But, just as she looked at the photo in the man's hands, she noticed something in the background. She quickly sat down next to Steven and zoomed in. A man that appeared to be a maintenance worker was at Mimi's room. She anxiously clicked forward on the photos. The man knocked on the door, said something, and Mimi welcomed him inside. This man was wearing the same uniform as the men that were fixing the cameras in the hotel. But, Officer Liang had clearly questioned the maintenance workers and none of them had left the control room.

Since her fingers were getting tired, she quickly urged Steven to keep clicking through the photos. Steven understood and pressed on the next button. After Emerson and Avaleigh left, the timestamp jumped to 10:45pm, when a hotel staff knocked on Mimi's door to deliver dinner. Just as the man had said, he knocked but no one answered, so he left a note under her door. He then knocked on Avaleigh's door and no one answered either so he did the same thing.

Officer Liang frowned, "Did you see the maintenance worker leave Mimi's room before this?"

Steven quickly realized why she was asking and shook his head with slight fear in his eyes. He had been so focused on Avaleigh the entire time that he didn't even notice the maintenance worker enter Mimi's room, let alone leave it.

He quickly clicked through the rest of his photos for the night. Between 10:45pm and midnight when he left, he only snapped a few random photos of other guests walking past, but there were no photos of the maintenance worker leaving and he had no memory of ever seeing the man.

"Go back to the photos of the maintenance worker entering. I want to see if we can find a relatively clear photo of his face..." Officer Liang instructed.

Steven immediately nodded his head and did as told. The man had a hat on his head and he had his head down most of the time, so there were no photos of his face. But, one thing was clear. He had his sleeves rolled up and peeking out from underneath was a dragon tattoo - a dragon tattoo that Steven quickly recognized.

Steven glanced at the photos of Avaleigh's stalker that were laid out on the table and felt a shiver down his spine. "It's him," he said as he pointed to one of the photos where the man was wearing a sleeveless top.

The tattoo matched the one that Avaleigh's stalker had...

It turned out...he did indeed have useful evidence...