The Perfect Impression

by Pierce, Blake

  Peters took a deep breath. It seemed to help him. He looked less defeated already.

  “How did your interview with Aldridge go?” he asked.

  “Oh yeah, that,” she said, realizing she hadn’t shared any details from that charming experience. “He’s a first rate jerk. Under normal circumstances, I’d have him tossed in a cell just to teach him a lesson. But more importantly, he told me that his wife bailed yesterday on an afternoon ferry, angry with him about something. He got belligerent when I asked what about, which seems vastly more suspicious now than it did a few minutes ago. I had him write up his movements last night so hopefully we can confirm them later.”

  “So where does that leave us?” Peters asked.

  “With over a half dozen credible suspects, most of whom claim to have been drunk, no cameras to verify anyone’s whereabouts, and no keycard logs to establish a timeline. Unless the medical examiner comes back with a smoking gun, we’ll have to stitch this thing together with unreliable testimony.”

  She looked at Peters. Thanks to her litany of horribles, the detective’s brief stretch of resolve seemed to be fading. She tried to remedy it quickly before he was too far gone.

  “Let’s start with staff,” she said. “It’s easier to account for their time. We don’t have any reason to suspect most of them. Barksdale, Leena at the front desk, the security guys—none of them have obvious motives, and no witnesses mentioned of them being near Gabby’s room.”

  “Except for Tex the waiter,” Peters noted.

  “True,” Jessie said. “We can’t eliminate him. He admits being near the room at multiple times during the likely window of death.”

  “Right,” Peters agreed. “He said he dropped off the room service tray at ten thirty-six and was on the same floor with another order when he found Melissa Ferro screaming as she ran out of the room at eleven twenty.”

  Jessie didn’t consider that definitive.

  “But according to the logs of the only department at this hotel that keeps them, almost all of his time in between those visits can be accounted for in the kitchen or on other room service runs. It’s not impossible that somewhere in there, he went into Gabby’s room and stabbed her, but it’d be tight and it’s hard to imagine that he wouldn’t get at least a little bloody.”

  “Okay, so we set him aside for now,” Peters said. “To my mind, the only thing we know for sure is that Gabby Crewe died sometime between when she placed the room service order and when Melissa Ferro found her.”

  “Be careful,” Jessie cautioned. “We can’t dismiss the possibility that Ferro did it herself and is giving us a bogus timeline.”

  “Ugh,” Peters groaned. “I feel like we’re sinking in quicksand here.”

  “A little,” Jessie conceded. “But your point is still applicable. The murder clearly took place before eleven twenty, no matter who did it. And we can actually shrink the window of death even more. We don’t know when the killer got to Gabby’s room. But we do know the murder couldn’t have occurred until after the room service tray, including the steak knife, was dropped off at ten thirty-six.”

  “I assume that the killer arrived toward the end of that window of time, after Gabby had finished eating,” Peters said.

  “Why?”

  Peters looked appalled at her question.

  “Someone would have to be awfully cold to kill a person and then eat a late-night breakfast,” he said.

  “I’ve seen worse,” Jessie countered. “But I think you’re right. This doesn’t feel like it was done by someone who reveled in the murder after the fact. Having said that, it’s possible that Gabby and her murderer ate together before the attack. She was naked at the time and I didn’t notice any defensive wounds, both of which would suggest she was comfortable with the person and not expecting what was about to happen. Did the M.E. mention anything about that?”

  “Actually,” Peters said, flipping through his notes, “he did say that there was no obvious sign of a struggle, which fits with your suspicion. So assuming she knew her killer, that likely means it was one of the people she came here with.”

  Jessie wasn’t comfortable with the blanket assumption, but the point was valid.

  “In general that makes sense,” she agreed. “But let’s not exclude everyone else. If these people have been coming here twice a year for a while, she may have developed a few other vacation friends we’re unaware of. But for now, I agree that we have to hone in on her travel companions.”

  Peters looked at the page of his notepad open in front of him.

  “That means her husband, Steve, along with Richard and Melissa Ferro, Barry and Marin Lander, and Theo Aldridge. I guess we can eliminate Ariana Aldridge, since she left the island before the murder took place.”

  Jessie wasn’t ready to drop Ariana from the list just yet, at least not until she heard back from the cop sent to her house. But she didn’t want to overwhelm Peters, so she let that go for now.

  “So what are people’s alibis?” Jessie asked, before answering her own question. “Steve Crewe and Richard Ferro both claim they were in the bar, which the bartender confirms in part.”

  “In part?” Peters repeated.

  “She said they were definitely around but she couldn’t account for exactly when. People were going to the restroom and to the courtyard with the fire pit. She wasn’t willing to vouch for every minute, just acknowledged that they were around a lot.”

  “So a half-alibi then,” Peters said bitterly. “Then there’s Melissa Ferro. She claims that she found the body after discovering the door wasn’t completely closed. My notes say that prior to that, she was freshening up in her room after being out and about. That doesn’t seem super ironclad.”

  “No,” Jessie agreed, recalling how Ferro’s facial expression had gone from upset to calculating when pressed on her exact whereabouts. “I believe the phrase she used was ‘flitting about,’ to describe what she was doing. If you recall, Steve Crewe burst into the conference room with his beer mug before we could pursue her alibi further.”

  “So I guess we should revisit that with her,” Peters said, underlining her name in his notes.

  “I think so,” Jessie said. “And then we have the Landers, who were very happy to share that from about ten on, they were in their room in bed, though definitively not sleeping.”

  “Another claim we have no way of verifying,” Peters said, frustration leaking into his voice. “I’m guessing your best buddy Theo Aldridge won’t be much more help.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” she confirmed. “He’s supposedly putting together that timeline of where he was and with whom. But he was as vague as Melissa Ferro when we talked. I suspect we’ll have to press him harder on the second go-round.”

  Peters toggled back and forth among the pages of his notebook for a few more seconds before looking up at her.

  “So basically, we can’t eliminate anyone.”

  “Basically,” Jessie agreed.

  She was debating how best to proceed when a young man she didn’t recognize entered the room.

  “Sorry to bother you,” he said diffidently from the doorway. “I’m Darren, one of the security guards Mr. Barksdale called in last minute. He asked me to pass along a message to you both.”

  “What that?” Peters asked.

  “He said that the castle walls are crumbling.”

  “What does that mean?” Jessie asked.

  Darren looked a little sheepish as he answered.

  “That’s his colorful way of saying things are going to crap. Guests are getting restless again. He mentioned that you hoped they might sleep for a few hours but they’re not. He’s getting lots of calls from guest rooms, people demanding to check out so they can make the morning ferry. He says it’s ridiculous because the boat won’t leave for hours yet but some of them are being…quite forceful in their language.”

  Jessie sighed as she rubbed her eyes. It seemed that her threat to them all that trying to leave t
he island would have consequences had lost its power. She gave Peters a tired smile.

  “Let’s go put down the rebellion,” she said.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Ryan Hernandez was up before dawn.

  It was hard to sleep without Jessie in bed beside him. And after what she’d told him last night about the Night Hunter, he was anxious to go into the office, even though it was a Sunday.

  He started his morning routine, noting that he moved a lot quicker now than even a few weeks ago. Of course, quicker was a relative term. It meant that, with the assistance of a cane, he could get to the bathroom in thirty seconds instead of sixty. It meant that he could get dressed in five minutes instead of eight. It meant that he could tie his own shoes. But considering that after waking from a coma six months ago, he couldn’t move at all, he thought he was making solid progress.

  He quietly made breakfast, not wanting to wake up Jessie’s sister, Hannah. The girl was challenging enough on a good night’s sleep. Without it, she was extra scary.

  He would never say it out loud, but part of him was looking forward to her turning eighteen in a few months. At that point, Jessie would no longer technically be accountable for her. It didn’t mean she’d feel any less responsible, but at least if the kid stayed out all night, she couldn’t be held liable for whatever trouble her sister got in. Considering that Jessie was only thirty years old herself, being free of responsibility for an eighteen-year-old she’d known for less than two years seemed like a generally positive thing.

  He wondered if Hannah would want to move out after her birthday. Though she was a constant challenge, he didn’t love that idea. With all the trauma that she’d suffered in the last few years, she didn’t seem ready to be on her own. But if she insisted, they couldn’t stop her.

  More probable was that she’d leave the house when she started college. She’d mentioned it several times already. And despite everything she’d been through, Hannah was an excellent student who had already gotten a few scholarship offers. Ryan suspected that a few of them were partly due to her notoriety as the child survivor of an infamous serial killer, but whatever paid the bills.

  That last thought gave him a pang of guilt. He ought to have more patience with her. The fact that she was a functional human being rather than babbling incoherently in an institution was a testament to her toughness and mental fortitude. If that sometimes manifested as rudeness or icy disinterest in others, was that really all that different from other kids her age?

  He knew that some of his low-grade resentment was due to his desire to start a real life with Jessie. After all, they lived together now. He was recovering nicely. She had a normal job when she wasn’t taking freelance gigs helping solve murders. He wanted to move to the next level. But with Hannah at the center of Jessie’s world, that just didn’t seem possible right now.

  Ryan took his last sip of coffee and made a conscious decision to put those concerns out of his head, deciding that focusing on a potential serial killer might be a good distraction. He slid a note under Hannah’s door to let her know where he and Jessie were. Then he ordered his rideshare, reset the security system, and went outside to wait for the car.

  He was able to do many things that hadn’t been possible just weeks ago, but driving was not yet among them. As he waited for his driver to arrive, he texted Jessie to let her know their status here on the mainland and see how things were going on Catalina Island. He didn’t get an answer. She must be pretty busy.

  *

  As he limped through the main lobby of Downtown Station, Ryan went over how he planned to broach things with Captain Decker. He had decided to stick only to the connections between the two recent cases and make no mention of the possible Night Hunter angle.

  Decker had made it clear what he wanted when he brought Ryan on in a consulting capacity. Homicide Special Section, the investigative jewel of the department and Decker’s baby, was in trouble.

  Garland Moses, the department’s top profiler, had been murdered. His heir apparent, Jessie Hunt, had left LAPD to pursue a career in academia, only occasionally taking cases Decker didn’t trust in lesser hands. Ryan, the head of the unit, had been incapacitated since the summer.

  That still left the unit in the hands of competent, talented professionals. But without Jessie’s brilliance and Ryan’s experience and leadership, Homicide Special Section just wasn’t that special anymore. HSS was supposed to take on the most challenging, high-profile cases in the city. But with a few notable exceptions, their recent case closure record was unimpressive. According to Decker, the unit was starting to be viewed as a glorified money pit that no longer delivered the glowing headlines headquarters craved.

  That’s why Decker had Ryan scouring cold case files. It was also why he had ordered him to poach any case he thought might help restore HSS’s luster, even if another station was already well into their investigation. That decision bred even more animosity, only making the unit’s position more tenuous.

  So while Ryan was glad to be able to bring Decker a case that might change that dynamic—a potential serial killer murdering attractive young Angelenos in a horrific way—he also had reservations. If he mentioned the Night Hunter at all, he feared Decker would run with it, using the legendary killer as a way to regain the unit’s clout.

  Even as he considered the thought that this might be the infamous killer he’d read about in textbooks, another fear crept into his gut, one he didn’t like to acknowledge: what if he wasn’t up for hunting the man down? He’d been out of the game for half a year, which was challenging under any circumstances. But to hit the ground running (or hobbling in his case) by pursuing someone who’d slaughtered more than eighty innocent people? Was he really the man for this?

  Of course, as he and Jessie had discussed, there was no guarantee that this was the Night Hunter’s work. In fact, he was dubious. The man might not even be alive, and if he was, he’d be a senior citizen. This could be a protégé or a fan boy copycat. Suggesting it was the Night Hunter and having that not be true could permanently destroy HSS’s reputation, guaranteeing its demise.

  So after he passed through the fairly quiet bullpen on this Sunday morning, making his slow, deliberate way to Decker’s office, he vowed to be equally deliberate in what he revealed.

  “Detective Hernandez,” Decker said, standing up as Ryan entered his office. “I’m surprised to see you here so early on a Sunday. What would Ms. Hunt say?”

  “I think you know she’s too indisposed to say anything, sir,” Ryan said as he hobbled over to the chair across from Decker’s desk and settled in.

  He wondered how long the captain had been here. The man’s starched dress shirt was already showing signs of wrinkles. His tall frame seemed in danger of folding in on itself. And his hair, comprised mostly of occasional white strands, looked like it was trying to escape his head entirely.

  His deeply creased face made him look much older than his sixty-one years and the bags under his eyes seemed to stretch almost down to the nostrils of his eagle-like nose. Only his eyes, sharp and penetrating, hinted that this was a man not to be underestimated.

  “Good point,” Decker said, sitting back down. “But if she could, I doubt she’d be enthusiastic about your presence here today. If you’re willing to risk her wrath, there must be a good reason for it.”

  “There is, sir. I think I’ve found a case that might serve our purposes.”

  Decker leaned back in his chair. He looked like he was on the verge of a smile but managed to fight it off.

  “Please, Detective,” he said, impressively hiding his enthusiasm. “Tell me what you’ve got.”

  But before Ryan could do that, a uniformed officer came into the room unannounced.

  “Sorry, Captain,” he said when he saw he wasn’t alone.

  “That’s okay, Officer Braden. Where are we?”

  “Hostage negotiator is on the scene; sharpshooters too. Bomb squad is on the way. We’ve cordoned off a two-b
lock zone and are evacuating civilians.”

  “Excellent,” Decker replied calmly. “Keep me apprised.”

  “Yes, sir,” Officer Braden said, and left as quickly as he arrived.

  “Something interesting going on?” Ryan asked.

  “A gentleman took over a coffee shop on Spring Street. He’s got a gun and is threatening to kill customers. He also claims to have planted pipe bombs in several surrounding buildings. I’m surprised you didn’t hear it on the radio coming in.”

  “My driver preferred country music standards to news. I didn’t have the heart to ask him to change the station. I can fill you in on my thing later if this is a bad time.”

  “No,” Decker said, waving his hand dismissively. “I’ve done everything I can here. Every available officer is deployed. I’m in ‘wait and see’ mode now. I could use the distraction.”

  Okay, then,” Ryan replied, handing over the carefully redacted file he’d prepared for the captain. “I think these two cases may be connected. They both involve, young attractive people tortured using an X-Acto knife.”

  Decker sat quietly for a couple of minutes, flipping through the file.

  “So both of these murders occurred in the last four months?” he asked, finally looking back up.

  “Yes, sir,” Ryan told him.

  “And you’re sure that the same kind of device—this X-Acto knife tool—was used in both incidents?”

  Ryan shook his head, not wanting to overplay his hand.

  “I can’t be completely certain because the male’s body was so badly burned in the van crash. But the crime scene photos match those from the female’s home. Long sections of skin removed in ribbon-like patterns. Based on initial estimates of time of death, both medical examiners thought the victims were alive through much of the ordeal. Though they were different genders, both victims were young and attractive. The incidents appear to have occurred around the same time of night. It seems unlikely that it’s just a coincidence.”