by Blake Pierce
“I appreciate that,” Jessie said, only now realizing how relieved she was at that news. She felt her grip on the steering wheel relax involuntarily.
“How did it go with Crutchfield?” Ryan asked. “Did you tell him that you figured out the clue?”
“Eventually. He seemed tickled that I got it. He even promised to give me a clue that he said would help me with my dad’s whereabouts and the Hancock Park murder. But all he ended up doing was spouting cliché aphorisms. He sounded like a bad psychic.”
“How so?” Ryan asked. “What did he say?”
“He was blathering on about truth and lady justice and power and responsibility. It was like a Hallmark card started throwing up or something.”
“Wait a second,” Ryan said, his voice suddenly dead serious. “Tell me his exact words.”
“I don’t remember his exact words,” Jessie said, surprised at the detective’s reaction. “He was throwing so much at the wall, it all started to run together.”
“Try, Jessie,” he insisted. “I think it might be important. Tell me everything he said that sounded like a lame cliché.”
“Okay, there was something about power requiring responsibility.”
“With great power comes great responsibility?” Ryan suggested.
“Yeah, that was it,” Jessie said.
“What else?”
Jessie played back the conversation in her head.
“He said something about him not being defined by the games he plays but by what he does,” she recalled.
“It’s not who I am underneath but what I do that defines me?”
“He didn’t say exactly that but it was in that universe.”
“Okay, tell me the truth and justice one,” Ryan demanded, sounding more excited than she’d ever heard him.
“What is this about, Ryan?” Jessie asked impatiently. “What am I missing?”
“I’ll explain in a moment,” he promised. “But please, just tell me what he said.”
“He said I needed to focus on the battle for truth and lady justice.”
“Did he say ‘the never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way’?” Ryan pressed.
“He didn’t say anything about the American way. And he specifically said lady justice. But that’s the gist. Can you please tell me what the hell has you so amped?”
“Jessie, have you never read a comic book?” he asked incredulously.
“I can honestly say that I never have. And I’m kind of proud of it. What does that have to do with anything?”
“All of those lines he slipped into your conversation are from superhero comic books. The one about power and responsibility is from Spider-Man. The one about what you do defining you is from Batman. And the truth and justice line is from Superman.”
“Okay,” Jessie said. “First of all, I had no idea you were such an incredible nerd. Second, what has that got to do with anything?”
“Because,” he replied excitedly, “in addition to Dr. Roy’s main office on campus, he also occasionally used a lab to do psychiatric studies. A university police officer is headed over there now to check it out. It was going to just be a formality. But I don’t think it should be anymore.”
“Why not?” Jessie wanted to know.
“Because Roy’s campus lab is in the Kent Clark building.”
“Like Kent Clark, Superman’s alter ego?” Jessie asked, recalling the character.
“His alter ego is actually Clark Kent. But it’s close enough, especially considering the line from Crutchfield. And it was only after World War Two that the catchphrase added the reference to the ‘American way.’ According to the school’s website, which I’m looking at now, the Kent Clark Building was built in 1942, when the comic book line was simply “truth and justice.’ I think he’s hinting that any clues about your father can be found there.”
“That makes sense,” Jessie said, getting excited herself. “You’re brilliant.”
“I thought I was just a nerd,” he replied.
“If it gives us a fresh lead, I’m happy to move past nerd to genius.”
“The only thing is the lady justice thing. The quote never referred to ‘lady.’ It seems odd that he would throw that in there.”
“Maybe there’s statue of a lady in the lab or something,” Jessie suggested. “Is the university cop there yet?”
“I’ll call him and loop you in,” Ryan said.
While he did that and Jessie waited, an uncomfortable thought entered her head: had her father simply been loitering in Southern California because that’s where Crutchfield was? Or did he somehow know that Jessie was here too? She felt a shiver of anxiety at the thought that he might be only a few miles from her at this exact moment.
“Officer Plumley,” Ryan said, bringing her back into the present, “you’re on the line with myself and our profiler on the case, Jessie Hunt. Can everyone hear?”
“I can,” Jessie said.
“Me too,” Plumley added. “But why does a missing person case need a profiler?”
There was silence for a second as both Jessie and Ryan realized the oddness of her involvement.
“Sometimes,” Jessie said, jumping in, “it helps to create a profile of a potential victim as much as it does a perpetrator. We can often determine if someone was the victim of foul play or just took off on their own based on behavior patterns prior to his disappearance.”
“Got ya,” Plumley said, apparently satisfied. Jessie was pretty pleased with herself. In addition to sounding convincing, her answer had the added benefit of being true.
“So are you in Dr. Roy’s lab now?” she asked.
“I was. Now I’m having a custodian unlock a small office annex connected to it. That’ll just be a minute.”
“Is there any chance we can video chat?” Jessie asked. “Maybe you can show us what the lab looks like?”
“I can do that,” Plumley said. “Give me a sec.”
As he set up the video, Jessie pulled off the freeway and parked in a nearby gas station parking lot. By the time she turned off the ignition, the video was up and running.
“Are there any images of ladies in the room?” Ryan asked. “Maybe a tchotchke or a photo or something?”
“No,” Plumley replied as he panned across the lab. “The place is pretty sterile—just a bunch of desks with monitors on them. I don’t see anything in the way of personality at all.”
“Damn,” Jessie heard Ryan mutter under his breath. “I thought that would be it for sure.”
“Hold on,” Plumley said. “We’ve got the office open now. It’s tiny. I think it used to be a closet. You want me to show you what’s in there?”
“Can’t hurt,” Jessie said.
Plumley slowly moved the camera around the room. The whole thing took about five seconds. There was a small, uncluttered desk in the corner next to a mini filing cabinet and a trash basket with a poster on the wall above it.
“I don’t see anything that screams ‘lady’ in there either,” Ryan said, disappointed. “Maybe we have him look through the filing cabinet?”
“Hold on a second,” Jessie said. “Officer Plumley, can you zoom in a little on that poster?”
“Sure,” he said and got tighter on the image, which appeared to be a university logo. As he got closer, she recognized it as a yellow and black tiger.
“That makes sense,” Ryan said, clearly thinking along what he thought were the same lines as Jessie. “Dr. Roy went to Princeton. Their logo and team mascot is a tiger.”
Jessie stared more closely at the poster, allowing a hazy memory from her childhood to bubble to the surface. After a few seconds, she spoke.
“That doesn’t fit, Ryan. There’s nothing personal anywhere else. But Dr. Roy puts up a poster of his alma mater?”
“Okay, good point,” Ryan said. “I have a feeling you’re about to make another one.”
“Just that it’s not actually the Princeton logo. Princeton’s is orange
and black. This one is yellow and black. It’s for Mizzou—the Missouri Tigers.”
“You a big fan?” Officer Plumley asked.
“No,” Jessie said. “But my father was.”
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Jessie couldn’t hear a word.
Officer Plumley was saying something, blathering on about college football. But all Jessie could hear in her head was the thundering shout of “Go Mizzou!” as her dad jumped up from his easy chair to cheer on the team after they’d scored a touchdown.
She couldn’t have been more than four. But she could clearly recall him scooping her up in his arms and spinning her around. She remembered the contact high she got off his enthusiasm even if she didn’t really understand what he was so happy about. It was one of her only good memories from childhood that involved her dad.
“Officer Plumley,” she said, interrupting his monologue about the primacy of the west coast offense, “can you please pull the poster off the wall and see if there’s anything on the back of it? But before you do, put on your evidence gloves.”
Officer Plumley did as he was asked. Both Jessie and Ryan waited silently. After several seconds, the phone, which had been resting on the desk pointed up at the ceiling, focused in on the back of the poster, which Plumley placed on the filing cabinet.
“Can you see that?” he asked them.
“Not really,” Ryan admitted. “It’s not very clear.”
“It looks like a note written in pencil,” Plumley said. “It reads: Junebug’s dad was here. He can’t wait to see her again.”
*
Jessie finally felt something close to normal again.
After a forty-five-minute drive, she was almost to the coffee shop in the Larchmont Village district of Hancock Park where she was supposed to meet Andi Robinson. It had taken her this long to fully process the situation. But there was no way around it—just as her father knew that she would eventually see the video of him talking to Crutchfield, he had anticipated that she would find the note on the poster too.
When the note was written two years ago, no other person alive, save for Bolton Crutchfield, even knew of his pet name for her. And not even Crutchfield knew about the importance of the University of Missouri in their shared memory. This was the work of her dad, intended to get her attention, to unsettle her, and just maybe to reach out to her in his own warped interpretation of paternal affection. It was all too much to process in the moment so she let it go as best she could.
She had a call to make anyway. So once she arrived on South Larchmont Blvd., she parked in a spot under the shade of a huge tree in front of an artisanal cheese shop and dialed. Lacy picked up on the first ring.
“Did they find out who did it?” her friend asked anxiously, skipping pleasantries altogether as she referred to the break-in culprit.
“Not the individual who actually did it, at least not yet. But we know who ordered it.”
“Wait—someone ordered a break-in of my place?” Lacy asked, confused. “It wasn’t just some random thing?”
Jessie was hesitant to get into particulars. But if she was going to set Lacy’s mind at ease that it wouldn’t happen again, she had to give a few details.
“No,” she admitted. “It was related to a case I’m working on. Someone was trying to send me a message. That’s why nothing was taken.”
“A case? But the apartment’s in my name. How did this person even know you’re staying there?”
“That’s a very good question,” Jessie said, “one that I intend to look into in more detail soon. But the important thing to know is that I confronted this person and that sort of thing won’t be happening again.”
Instead of a sound of relief on the other end of the line, there was silence. Jessie suddenly felt uneasy. Lacy was almost never quiet. Something was wrong.
“What is it, Lace?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, Jessie,” Lacy said, her voice thick with emotion. “But this isn’t going to work. I can’t be worrying all the time about some suspect in one of your cases deciding to teach you a lesson or send a message. I have the beginnings of an ulcer from the break-in, even before you told me that. Now I’ll never get a night of sleep.”
“But this was an aberration,” Jessie protested. Even as the words came out, though, she wondered if it was true. There was no guarantee Crutchfield wouldn’t do something else. And what if her father discovered where they lived? Lacy was right to be concerned.
“You can’t know that,” Lacy said, voicing the same concern. “I don’t feel safe. And I don’t think I ever will if we’re roommates. I don’t want to be a bitch but you’ve got to move out, sweetie. And I mean like right away.”
Jessie nodded even though no one could see her. She could almost feel her friend’s sense of guilt through the phone.
“I get it,” she said quietly. “That makes total sense. I should have been more sensitive to your concerns. I’ll pack up my stuff and be out tonight.”
“You’re still my girl,” Lacy said, clearly fighting back tears, an amazing thing since Jessie had never known her to come close to crying. “We can still hang and get drinks and do whatever. I just need to know that the place where I rest my head at night is safe.”
“I understand,” Jessie said. “Don’t feel bad. I’m not upset with you. We’re cool, okay?”
“You sure?”
“Of course. We’ll hang out this weekend,” Jessie promised.
Just then, she saw Andi walk by on her way to Coffee Klatch. She was dressed casually in sporty sweatpants, a light sweater, and a windbreaker. She wore a Dodgers baseball cap with a blonde ponytail poking through the hole in back. Jessie looked at her watch. It was 3 p.m. She was right on the dot.
“What do you want to do?” Lacy asked, obviously trying to soften the blow.
“We’ll figure something out,” Jessie replied, hoping she didn’t sound too harsh. “Listen, I actually have a witness interview starting right now so I have to run. But we’ll do something. Don’t feel guilty, Lace. This is on me.”
She heard her friend start to reply just as she hit “end.”
Damn. She’s going to think I’m pissed.
She quickly texted a heart emoji before getting out of the car and hurrying to the coffee shop. Walking in, she saw that Andi had secured a table in the corner of the near-empty café and was waving her over.
“I already placed my order,” she said. “I had to get over here and lay claim to this sweet table before it got pinched. You never know when there’s gonna be a rush.”
“Smart move,” Jessie said, playing along. “Plus, you want to be there to bat away the tumbleweeds, right?”
“I like the way you think,” Andi said approvingly. “You want to sit?”
Jessie nodded. She placed her order and sat down, trying to determine how best to broach the subject of Victoria Missinger’s potential infidelity with a personal trainer. She decided to ease into it.
“Is that hair choice Beverly Country Club approved?” she asked, pointing at Andi’s cap.
I like to live on the edge,” she said as her drink arrived, “except when it comes to beverages, of course.”
“Of course,” Jessie agreed before fake whispering, “Why the safety precautions around beverages?”
“I’m lactose intolerant,” Andi fake whispered back. “So this is a soy milk latte. My rebel streak only goes so far.”
“I see. Well, you can’t always be fighting the man. Take me, for example. I once drank a shot of goat’s blood during spring break in Mexico, so you know I’m hardcore-ish. But the other day, I ate one of my friend’s french fries. I started wheezing so badly he nearly had to call an ambulance. Turns out it was fried in peanut oil.”
“Pretty allergic, huh?” Andi asked sympathetically.
“I had to bust out the emergency inhaler. If I hadn’t had it, I might not be here chatting with you today.”
“They really should note that sort of thing on the men
u,” Andi said. “I’m sure you’re not the only one who’s had that happen.”
“You know, they might have. I should have looked before having one.”
“It’s funny,’ Andi said as she took a sip, “my father had a theory about all that. He said that our whole generation is soft, that back in the day no one had allergies or intolerances. They just sucked it up.”
“Maybe the survivors did. Too bad for the rest of them though,” Jessie quipped before she could stop herself. “I’m sorry but your dad sounds like a real piece of work.”
“Yeah. He’s dead now.”
“Oh jeez,” Jessie said, her face turning crimson. “I didn’t mean…”
“It’s okay,” Andi said, waving her off and giving a rueful smile. “A piece of work is a diplomatic way to describe Thoreau Robinson. Other people have been far more colorful. I guess when you’re that brilliant, you forget some of the social niceties.”
“Smart fella?” Jessie asked, trying to lighten the mood a bit.
“He wasn’t too shabby in the brains department. He taught chemical engineering at Caltech until he hit it big. Invented some new polymer, patented it, and just like that, we were richer than the Beverly Hillbillies.”
“And rather than go into the family business, you decided to go into the lucrative… country clubbing industry?” Jessie asked, her eyebrows raised.
“Yup,” Andi said, taking another sip of her drink. “But don’t think I was always this ambitious. I actually did follow in his footsteps for a while. I got in to the same school, although it was more of a legacy thing. How were they going to refuse the daughter of a former professor who paid for a wing named after him? I even got solid grades, though I had to work pretty hard for them.”
“Sounds like it was working out okay,” Jessie said neutrally, unsure where the story would end up.
“It was. I was working on my master’s when he passed away. For a while after I studied even harder, sort of in honor of him. I had a four-point-oh the semester he died. But over that summer I started to question it.”