by Blake Pierce
“Question what exactly?” Jessie asked.
“All of it,” Andi said, her eyes getting hazy as she stared off into the distance. “Why I was spending all my energy pursuing something I wasn’t passionate about. Once the external pressure of his expectations was gone, I just didn’t care anymore. I wanted to have a little fun. My entire youth was about trying to live up to his legacy. Once I didn’t have to do it anymore, I felt free. And ever since, I’ve just pursued what makes me happy. I have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Sounds like a nice life,” Jessie said.
“I like this life better than the old one—that’s for sure. I may not be saving the world. But I also don’t constantly feel like I’m a failure either,” Andi said, then turned her attention to Jessie, her eyes now focused again. “What about you—do you have daddy issues too? Was he rough on you?’
“You could say that,” Jessie said in the understatement of the millennium. “I’m still kind of working through it actually.”
“I get it,” Andi said. “Don’t worry. I won’t push. It’s funny, though, how we embrace or reject our fathers. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground.”
The truth of those words hit Jessie like a punch to the gut. She tried to push mixed images of two fathers—one a serial killer, the other a lawman—out of her head. It took enormous effort to reply without revealing the churning she felt inside.
“So,” she said, clunkily changing the subject, “if you aren’t planning to invent any polymers in the next week or so, what do you do to keep busy?”
Andi looked like she wanted to continue the deep discussion. But apparently deciding to let Jessie off the hook, she responded in kind.
“Other than playing golf and constantly remodeling my house,” she said, “I’m not sure I have any true passions. It’s only recently that I’ve allowed myself to become open to actually falling in love. Like I said, I was always go-go-go. I never even had a real boyfriend in high school or college. How embarrassing is that? I’m trying to make up for lost time, I guess.”
“So have you found Mr. Right?” Jessie asked, taking advantage of the opening. “Maybe that trainer your club lady friends were gossiping about?”
“I admit I’m a romantic, Jessie,” Andi said, rolling her eyes. “But even I’m not naïve to think I can find true love with a personal trainer.”
“Not even with Dan Romano?” she asked facetiously. “As we’ve been investigating the Missinger case, we’ve found him to be very…popular.”
“Look, I can’t say I never partook of his services. He was very… accommodating. But I’d like to think I can do better.”
“What about Victoria?” Jessie asked. “The consensus seemed to be that she wasn’t interested in anything extra he might be willing to offer.”
“From what I could tell Victoria wasn’t the infidelity type. If she was cheating with anyone, it was with those kids she raised money for. Sometimes it seemed like it was all she could talk about.”
“Is that a bad thing?” Jessie wondered.
“Not for the kids, obviously,” Andi said. “But in a social environment, it sometimes got to be a bit much. She was relentless and not very subtle about pouring on the guilt trips if she thought someone wasn’t doing their part.”
“Sounds like she was a challenging personality,” Jessie said, trying to tease out more details without being too obvious about it.
“Look, I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, especially someone who, unlike me, actually was trying to save the world. But the general consensus around here was that she could be kind of…brittle. That’s how the rumors got started.”
“Rumors?”
“About Michael,” Andi said, lowering her voice even though there was no one else around. “It was clear that he admired his wife’s passion for her work. But folks got the sense that he would have liked her to direct a little more passion his way. Some hinted that he might be compensating with other, more willing partners.”
“Anyone in particular?”
“I don’t have any inside knowledge,” Andi said. “Like I said yesterday, I didn’t hang in their circle that much. But you remember what Marlene said about the maid when you were eavesdropping?”
“About her getting rid of Victoria so she could have Michael to herself?” Jessie recalled. “She said she was kidding.”
“She did say that,” Andi agreed. “And she was probably joking. But it’s not the first time I’ve heard there might be something going on there.”
“Do you believe that?” Jessie asked her.
“I tend not to believe ninety percent of what I hear around the club. And normally I’d keep something like that to myself. But since this is a murder investigation, I figured I should mention it. Better to err on the side of caution and say something so you can check it out rather than just stay silent for the sake of propriety, right?”
“Absolutely,” Jessie agreed.
Just then her phone pinged. She looked down and saw a text from Ryan. It read: Update on the trainer, Dan Romano. Call when able.
“Big news?” Andi asked.
“Hard to tell,” she replied. “But I need to find out. You mind if we cut this short?”
“Totally cool. Let me know if I can be of any more help.”
“I may do that,” Jessie said.
“And when this is all over,” Andi added, “maybe we can get a drink or something. You seem like you’d be a fun hang when you’re not, you know, investigating murders and stuff.”
“That sounds nice,” Jessie agreed as she got up. “I’ll call you when we get this resolved, assuming I don’t reach out to pump you for more info before then.”
As she got back in her car, Jessie called Ryan.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“The husband that Romano was worried about beat him up with a golf club. He’s unconscious at the hospital.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
“What?” Jessie demanded disbelievingly as she peeled out of her parking spot and headed back to the station.
“And if you can believe it—that may actually be useful news.”
“How is that possible?” Jessie wanted to know.
“It turns out that the husband—his name is John Kasdan—has been suspicious for a while. He was tailing Romano to see if he hooked up with his wife. He found them together this afternoon and just went off.”
“I’m waiting for the good news,” Jessie said.
“Right,” Ryan remembered. “Well, I wasn’t the one who interviewed him. But apparently Kasdan has been extremely forthcoming. I guess he’s in that triumphant, post-golf-club-attack mode. He said he’s been following Romano for days, taking photos, keeping a log of his movements. The log is very detailed. And it doesn’t show Romano going anywhere near Victoria Missinger’s house. In addition, the photos Kasdan took are time-stamped and some of them are for the window in which Victoria was killed. Romano was otherwise engaged at the time.”
“So basically, the man who beat up Dan Romano is also his alibi in a murder case?” Jessie concluded.
“Pretty much.”
“Well, that jibes with what Andrea Robinson said,” Jessie said. “There was no scuttlebutt around the club about Victoria and Romano. Is he going to be okay?”
“It’s too early to say. According to witnesses, he took several hard blows to the head.”
“Ugh. So we can cross him off the suspect list. But he may have brain damage? I don’t know if he’d take that trade-off.”
“Probably not,” Ryan said. “And as long as we’re talking dead ends in the case, I have another one for you.”
“Great,” Jessie said as she hit the brakes. There was a wall of afternoon traffic in front of her. “It just keeps coming.”
“Welcome to the LAPD. Anyway, our tech team looked at the security camera footage from the Missinger house. There’s nothing for the window of death. The whole grid for that area went down.”
“Don’t those systems have battery backups?” Jessie asked.
“They do. But this one only lasted for about forty-five minutes. The blackout started at one-oh-nine p.m. The M.E.’s rough time of death was between two and four that afternoon. So there’s a long stretch of unmonitored time.”
“Jeez,” Jessie muttered, still staring at brake lights as far as the eye could see. “Any more bad news for me?”
“Actually yes,” Ryan said apologetically. “I just saw the security footage from your apartment at the time of the break-in. Whoever did it was well aware he was on camera. I can tell the perpetrator was male based on size, but couldn’t discern much else. He was wearing a hoodie and gloves and kept his head down the whole time. I couldn’t determine ethnicity or age. Just that he was a male, approximately five-foot-ten to six feet tall and between a hundred seventy and a hundred ninety pounds.”
“Maybe I can give Lacy the update as I’m moving out,” Jessie said sarcastically.
“What?”
“She says she doesn’t feel safe with me living there,” Jessie told him. “And I can’t blame her. She’s not. Crutchfield could send someone back. My father could find the place. Any new roommate is a potential target. That’s why I’m going to stay in hotels until I find someplace new. I was hoping to just grab what I need for now and leave my other stuff there until I have a more permanent residence.”
“When are you leaving?” Ryan asked.
“As soon as we wrap up for the night.”
“Why don’t you just head over there now?” he suggested. “There’s nothing essential here that you have to pursue tonight. We’ll pick it up in the morning.”
“Thanks, Ryan. That will be a lifesaver. With traffic right now, it might still take me another hour to travel the six miles back to my place. But there is something I want to check out first thing tomorrow.”
“What’s that?”
“I never looked at the footage of your interview with the maid, Marisol Mendez. I know she was out of town at the time of the killing. But Andrea Robinson hinted that folks at the club thought she might be cleaning more than just floors. If that’s true, maybe we can squeeze her a little and get her to pull back the curtain on things. I keep getting the sense that there’s more going on with this couple than we know. If it’s true that Marisol was sleeping with her boss, we’ll have some extra leverage to get her to be more forthcoming.”
“I’ll have the interview queued up and waiting for you tomorrow,” Ryan promised. “And one more thing…”
“What’s that?” Jessie asked, noticing a note of hesitation in his voice.
“If you need a couple of suggestions for short-term living arrangements, I can send you some. Over the course of my wedded bliss, I’ve been forced to spend a few nights elsewhere when the couch wasn’t getting the job done. I know a couple of places downtown that don’t cost a fortune and don’t require you to bunk with roaches.”
“Ew! Yes, I’ll take that list, please. And some bug spray too, just in case.”
“I’ll text them over in a bit. The list of places, not the bug spray. Have a good night, Jessie.”
“Thanks. You too,” Jessie said.
She hung up and tried to force the thought of cockroaches out of her head by focusing on the task directly in front of her—exiting Lacy’s apartment. She just hoped it didn’t mean she was exiting their friendship too.
She wanted to believe what Lacy had said—that they could still stay close. And they mostly had even when Jessie moved to Orange County. But this time was different. Lacy was upset over something that Jessie was responsible for, even if unintentionally. There was no way it wouldn’t color their relationship going forward.
Jessie couldn’t help but think how odd it was that just as one longtime friend was creating some space, other women were appearing to fill the void. Jessie would have to turn down Kat’s suggestion of being roommates for her own safety. But the very fact that she’d brought up the idea suggested an unexpected fondness between them. Considering how combative their initial meeting had been when Jessie first went to interview Bolton Crutchfield, it was amazing how far they’d come.
And now there was the chance that Andi Robinson might become decent friend material too. Jessie appreciated how she constantly punctured holes in her own self-importance. It was clear that she was swimming in money. But she hadn’t let it go to her head. It didn’t hurt that she wasn’t involved in law enforcement either. It might be fun to spend time with someone local who didn’t know an APB from an IED.
But if they did start hanging out more, she’d have to be careful to avoid the Dearest Daddy talk. While it was clear that they had paternal issues in common, the less Andi knew about the magnitude of Jessie’s, the better off she’d be.
Thinking of just how awful a parental role model Xander Thurman was reminded Jessie that her adoptive dad, Bruce Hunt, was exactly the opposite. Somehow their estrangement since Ma’s cancer came back had twisted her view of him.
When she thought of him now, she pictured his disapproving face when she said she was going to marry Kyle. But it retrospect, maybe she should have been as guarded as her guardian was.
She recalled his lukewarm reaction when she said she planned to pursue a master’s in forensic psychology. But she could see now that he might only have been worried that she was re-immersing herself in the world of trauma that had so defined her childhood.
Looking back, it was apparent that all the moments she’d viewed back then as judgmental or hypercritical were more likely just concerned parenting. And while he’d clearly not been enthused by some of her choices, he never actually tried to talk her out of them.
He asked questions. He probed. But in the end, the decisions were always hers and he always stood by her. Bruce Hunt had been a father in every way she needed, even if she didn’t know it at the time.
So why am I so hard on him?
Jessie grabbed her phone and called him. It went straight to voicemail, usually a sign that he had turned it off to take care of Ma or so he could concentrate on poker with the boys. After the beep, she left a message.
“Hey, Pa, I just wanted to check in with you to see how you’re doing. If you’re playing poker, I hope you’re winning a lot of M&Ms. The job here is going okay. I’m adjusting. Still dealing with a few hiccups caused by the smoldering ruins of my marriage.
“But otherwise, I’m good. I was just thinking of that first time you took me skiing on the bunny slopes near Cloudcroft. I must have fallen thirty times in the hour we were up there. I remember yelling at you, blaming you, saying you bent my skis on purpose. But you just helped me up every time, dusted the snow off me, and picked up where we left off. You never yelled. You never rolled your eyes. You never lost your patience, at least not visibly. I just wanted you to know that I appreciate that. I didn’t then but I do now. Anyway, like I said, I was just checking in. I’ll be in touch. Bye.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Jessie wasn’t sure how she’d never noticed it before.
She was only blocks from Lacy’s apartment, waiting at another endless traffic light, when she saw the sign: Downtown Children’s Outreach Center. That was the charity that Victoria Missinger was involved with.
Though it was already dark outside, all the lights in the center were blazing. It was still open. Then she chastised herself for being surprised.
Of course it’s open. It’s not like these kids’ problems stop at six p.m.
When the light turned green, she moved to the right and parked in front of the center. She turned off the ignition and sat there for a moment, not entirely sure what she planned to do next. Then, deciding to let her instincts guide her, she got out and headed for the entrance.
The first thing she noticed was the security. It wasn’t NRD level, but there were outer and inner security gates and cameras mounted at various locations. Someone had paid good money to make sure this place was secure. She was pretty certain who that had been.
She buzzed the call button and a female voice came over the intercom.
“How may I help you?”
“My name is Jessie Hunt. I’d like to speak to the program director.”
She was buzzed in and met at the second gate by a security guard who apologized before thoroughly patting her down. After being admitted inside the building, she was directed through a metal detector. After that, she was met by a second security guard who said words she’d probably repeated dozens of times today.
“This facility does not permit unauthorized pictures. Please remain in designated areas. Do not interact with minors without prior authorization from a staff member. Profanity is not permitted. Failure to comply will result in immediate removal and potential arrest. Please sign this release indicating that you have been informed of these policies and will follow them.”
Jessie signed the form and handed it back.
“Who are you here to see?” the guard asked.
“Whoever’s in charge,” Jessie said.
The guard waved for her to follow her down the hallway. Jessie noticed that the second they rounded the corner from the lobby, the entire vibe of the facility changed. The entrance area had been sterile, with white walls, fluorescent lights, and tiled floors. This wing was carpeted and painted yellow, with kids’ drawing framed and posted on the walls. Vaguely holiday-themed classical music could be heard playing softly from speakers set up throughout.
The guard stopped at the door to an office with a nameplate on the side that said Roberta Watts, Program Director. Jessie peeked inside. The place was a mess, stacked high with manila folders and banker’s boxes. One corner of the office had a kid-sized couch festooned with stuffed animals. A small table nearby was covered in books.
“Ms. Watts, you have a visitor,” the guard called out.
The head of a woman who had apparently been sitting on the ground popped up from behind one of the banker’s boxes.
“Thanks, Kim, I’ll take it from here,” she said, standing up and walking over to shake Jessie’s hand.