The Perfect Secret (A Jessie Hunt Psychological Suspense Thriller—Book Eleven)

by Blake Pierce

“Wild,” the guy said, taking off his sunglasses to reveal red-tinged, clouded eyes that weren’t surprising considering the scent emanating from him. “Yeah, he’s out back by the pool. You wanna say hi?”

  “I think we’d like that very much,” Jessie said, smiling pleasantly. “Can you lead the way?”

  “Sure,” he said, apparently not at all troubled by having law enforcement show up unannounced. “Is everything cool?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” Jessie told him. “We’re investigating a crime and we’re hoping Percy can help us out. Do you work for him?”

  The guy laughed wheezily at the question.

  “You could say that,” he said. “I’m Wally, by the way. I’m what you might call a procurer of items.”

  “What kind of items?” Karen asked.

  “Oh, household necessities. Everything from toilet paper to kombucha.”

  “I see,” Karen said, not pressing him on what other necessities might be on the shopping list.

  They passed through a long central hallway, lined with paving stones, into a more modern living room with a wall-sized TV screen at one end, and finally to a sliding door that led outside. When it opened, they were enveloped by the sound of piped-in music, which Jessie assumed was Avalon’s. She wasn’t a connoisseur of his work. They walked up a set of stone stairs that opened onto a kidney-shaped pool with a waterfall and a water slide.

  There were half a dozen people, all men, spread out around the pool. Some were in chairs, others on chaise lounges. One guy was seated at the mouth of the slide, dangling his feet in the water. Jessie was pretty sure that at least some of them were band members. Beer bottles were strewn about and two of the guys were sharing a bong.

  Jessie and Karen ignored them and walked over to the man sitting in a chair in the shade of an umbrella-adorned deck table. He was dressed only in red swim briefs, a bold choice under any circumstances, but especially when the temperature was hovering in the mid-sixties. His salt and pepper chest hair looked like a bird’s nest and most of the skin on his back and arms was covered in tattoos. His gray hair was even longer than that of his procurer, Wally.

  They both recognized him as Percy Avalon, lead singer of Humbert Humbert, a hugely successful rock band from the early 2000s that still attracted solid crowds on their seemingly endless tours. Avalon was known as a wild man in the band’s heyday, repeatedly arrested on drunk and disorderly charges. He once even got into a fistfight with the lead singer of another band backstage at the Grammys. Both men were arrested, though they were each allowed to perform onstage before being carted off. In more recent years, Avalon seemed to have mellowed, at least until the recent false imprisonment charge that Milly Estrada got knocked down to accessory and time served.

  “Uh-oh,” Avalon yelled over the music as he saw them approaching. “Professionally dressed women in my house? This can’t be good.”

  “Hello, Mr. Avalon,” Karen said loudly when she was close enough to be heard. “I’m Detective Bray of the LAPD. This is Jessie Hunt, a consulting profiler for the department. We need to ask you a few questions about the party you attended on Saturday night.”

  Avalon stretched his arms out in the air as he closed his eyes tight. He seemed to be concentrating.

  “What party did I go to Saturday, boys?” he shouted to the collective group.

  “Jasper’s,” called out the guy sitting on the water slide.

  “I thought that was Friday night,” Avalon countered.

  The guy in the chair closest to him shook his head and, even though he was only feet away, bellowed his reply. Jessie winced at the volume of his voice.

  “Friday was Jenna’s Malibu thing,” he barked. “Remember, we jammed on the beach until the neighbors called the cops.”

  “Oh yeah,” Avalon remembered, turning his attention back to Karen and Jessie. “It seems some people don’t like impromptu concerts outside their window at two in the morning—lame. So what about Jasper’s party?”

  “We’re looking into the death of Millicent Estrada at the party that night,” Karen announced loudly. “We understand that you knew her, that she was your attorney, in fact.”

  Avalon sat up straight in his chair.

  “Shut the music off!” he yelled to no one in particular. “Shut it the hell off!”

  A second later, everything went quiet.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  “Milly’s dead?” he asked, sounding serious for the first time.

  “I’m afraid so,” Jessie said, watching him closely. “She was murdered at the party.”

  Avalon lowered his head, as if he might be saying a silent prayer. When he lifted it again, he looked somber.

  “That’s a real bummer, man,” he said quietly. “She was a cool lady, super tough. You know she helped me out of a jam a little while back. I could have spent some serious time behind bars if it wasn’t for her. And she helped my boy Wavy Davey over there too. She got a four-year sentence knocked down to just over a year, didn’t she, Davey?”

  Wavy Davey, the guy sitting on the water slide, nodded. He didn’t look nearly as appreciative as Avalon.

  “Yeah,” Avalon said. “He’s my roadie extraordinaire. Things just weren’t the same on tour without him. Nobody else knew how set up my snacks right.”

  Jessie tried to get him focused back on the case. The guy seemed easily distracted.

  “So you didn’t have any animosity towards Milly for not preventing you from spending time in jail while you awaited trial?” she asked.

  “Nah, man. She didn’t have control over that. And she got me a sweet private cell—said I was at risk in general population. She was a smart lady.”

  “So where were you that night?” Karen asked.

  “Oh jeez, it was a long night. But we spent most of it by the fire pit, hanging out and doing an acoustic set. How long were we out there, boys?”

  At the mention of the fire pit, Jessie suddenly realized that this was the same band that one of the party girls sipping mimosas on the patio yesterday had referenced listening to. Apparently the girl was too young to know that the band was called Humbert Humbert and not Hubert Humphrey. It seemed that Jessie wasn’t quite as culturally illiterate as she’d feared.

  “We probably jammed non-stop from about one a.m. until after four,” the guy sitting next to him said. “We only stopped because Jasper’s house lady shut us down, said the cops were going to show up.”

  “Oh jeez,” Avalon said, hitting himself in the forehead. “I remember that. I thought there were neighbors complaining about the noise, like at the beach house in Malibu. You don’t think it was because of Milly, do you?”

  “That’s very likely,” Karen said. “So can anyone verify this jam session outside of your friends here?”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem, madame detective,” Avalon replied laconically. “You could probably check with the couple dozen chicks that were with us. Lots of them were shooting video on their phones. Find them and it should show what was up.”

  “I think we’ll do that,” Jessie said before turning her attention to the roadie extraordinaire. “Hey, Davey, can you come over here? I have a few more questions for you but I don’t want to yell.”

  Wavy Davey pushed himself off the slide into the water and swam over. While they waited, Karen asked one last question.

  “What do you think of Jasper, Mr. Avalon?”

  The singer smiled, revealing yellowed, tobacco-stained teeth.

  “He’s solid—knows how to throw a party and how to party. That’s a special skill set.”

  “He ever seem to party too hard?” Jessie probed.

  “Is there such a thing?” Avalon asked seriously.

  Wavy Davy grunted as he pushed himself out of the pool. Someone tossed him a towel as he stood up. Karen pointed back to the house and he followed the women back down to the living room at the bottom of the stairs.

  Wavy Davey looked like a guy used to living his life on the road. His skin was b
lotchy and his stubble was patchy and uneven. His hair was thin on top but long in back, resting on his shoulders in a thick, oily gray clump. He pulled a T-shirt on over his pale, ample belly.

  “Have a seat,” Karen said. “What’s your full name, Davey?”

  “David Dwight Pasternak.”

  “But you prefer Davey?” she asked.

  “It’s not really a matter of prefer,” he said. “Percy started calling me Wavy Davey so that became my name.”

  “I’m wondering, David,” Jessie said, hoping to throw him off a bit with the proper name, “were you as happy with Milly’s legal efforts on your behalf as Percy was?’

  He shrugged.

  “She did the best she could, all things considered,” he answered.

  “That doesn’t sound like a full-throated endorsement,” she noted.

  “I mean, what do you want from me? I spent fourteen months behind bars. I didn’t get any private cell either. It was rough. That wasn’t her fault but I’m not going to pretend I was psyched to be there.”

  “Well, David,” Karen said, following up on Jessie’s tack. “You were convicted of false imprisonment.”

  “Actually I confessed, on her advice.”

  “You’re saying she coerced you into a confession,” Karen pressed.

  Davey looked at the both of them. The look of resignation that had been plastered on his face until now had been replaced with something closer to resentment.

  “Listen,” he seethed. “I’ll deny this on the record, and none of it matters now because of double jeopardy, but I think we all know the truth. I never did anything to that girl. I took the fall for Percy. He was super high that night and he…couldn’t perform with her, if you get my meaning. He was paranoid that she was going to spill that on social so he took her phone and locked her in the hotel bathroom. When his head finally cleared, he called me and I helped clean up the mess. I just didn’t know the mess it would cause me, even after I got out of prison.”

  “What mess?” Jessie asked.

  “It screwed me up pretty bad,” he said, no longer making eye contact. “While I was in there, I was constantly worried about getting attacked or worse. I still have nightmares about the bars slamming shut at night. I was never a big drinker before. But since I got out, I’ve been doing whatever I can to numb myself. It hasn’t been great.”

  Jessie felt some sympathy for him, but not enough not to do her job.

  “So David,” she said, “Milly pressured you into doing time for Percy, you’re drinking heavily, and you end up at the same party as her. Did you run into her at all?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “You don’t know?”

  He lowered his head, not answering. For a moment, Jessie thought he was clamming up. But when he lifted his head again, she saw that his eyes were wet. When he spoke, his voice sounded pinched with emotion, as if he was trying not to break down.

  “I’d like to think I would never hurt Milly, or anyone. I’ve never gotten in any legal trouble before that hotel thing. But I don’t remember much about that night. I got piss drunk. I passed out at some point. When I woke up, I was lying by the gate to one of the petting zoo stalls. I was freezing and had ant bites all over me, which makes me think that’s where I was all night. Someone had to wake me up so I didn’t miss the limo the guys were taking back here.”

  “So you don’t have any alibi at all?” Karen asked.

  “Maybe you could check my phone?” he suggested. “Can’t you use it to track where I was?”

  Jessie and Karen exchanged exasperated looks.

  “I wish,” Jessie said. “Stay here for a minute, Davey.”

  She and Karen went to the far corner of the room where he couldn’t hear them.

  “I don’t see how we don’t bring him in,” Karen began. “He’s got motive and no alibi. He’s not even sure he’s innocent.”

  Jessie couldn’t disagree on the merits. But that didn’t stop her from making the case against it.

  “If we arrest him, it’s going to get out,” she said. “Blabber will scream that the killer has been caught. And that will make it doubly hard to get that search warrant stay lifted. Otis will argue that we have no reason to go back to his place if we have a suspect in custody.”

  “Jessie,” Karen implored. “We can’t not arrest a suspect because it might hurt our chances of arresting a less credible suspect.”

  “I don’t think Otis is a less credible suspect. I think he’s just better at putting barriers in our way. Now, if you think that pathetic creature over there was responsible for this, I’ll back you and we can take him in right now. But if you have any doubts, let’s hold off. We can put a monitoring bracelet on the guy if need be. But we both know he’s not going anywhere and I don’t think he’s a threat to anyone else other than himself.”

  Karen looked at her with an inscrutable expression that Jessie suspected she’d used many times on her husband and son. Finally she seemed to crack.

  “Fine, we’ll hold off for now. But he doesn’t leave this house and we have him fitted with an ankle monitor. And if nothing new breaks with another suspect by this time tomorrow, we haul him in. I can’t lose my job because I let a guy skate on your hunch.”

  “Thank you,” Jessie said.

  “Don’t thank me just yet. I don’t see any way to get at Otis.”

  “I may have an idea,” Jessie replied. “But I have to pursue it on my own. Would you be willing to go back to the station and work with Jamil, see if there’s groupie footage of Humbert Humbert performing like Avalon said?”

  “So I get the grunt work and you go on a secret mission,” Karen said. “Can’t you tell me anything about it?”

  “Trust me, Karen, for your own safety, I can’t say a word.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  Hannah thought she looked hot in a jailbait kind of way.

  She gave herself a final once-over before running out to the guest parking lot to meet Elodie and hopefully, Rico. She had on the plaid miniskirt, which she couldn’t kneel or bend over in without risking an indecency charge.

  As Elodie had suggested, she’d put her hair in pigtails using the hot pink hair ties from the bag and added purple butterfly barrettes for good measure. She didn’t have braces but had come up with what she considered an equally clever idea.

  Over lunch she’d bought a pack of bubble gum, which she smacked repeatedly. It also let her blow big, sticky bubbles that would explode, allowing her to provocatively peel gum off her lips. The second Elodie saw her, she nodded approvingly.

  “I like the way you think, girl,” she said. “I may have to steal that one from you.”

  “Just trying to make a good impression,” Hannah said, playfully jutting her hip out for emphasis.

  “Don’t get cocky,” Elodie said, indicating for Hannah to follow her as she walked along the sidewalk. “Rico likes a little swagger in his girls, but not too much.”

  “Got it,” Hannah said. “Where are we going, by the way?”

  “He’s picking us up around the corner, off school property and away from their security cameras. That’s for our protection as well as his. We don’t want to get called into the principal’s office to explain this—got to be careful.”

  Hannah nodded in understanding. As they walked to the corner, she tried to plan out in her head how she could get Rico to reveal something incriminating. It was going to be challenging to show enthusiasm and get information without drawing any suspicion.

  Plus she had to make sure to record the conversation without being discovered. That reminded her of the trick she’d thought of earlier in the day. She pulled out her phone. Elodie looked at her sideways.

  “I’m just going to silence it,” Hannah said. “So it doesn’t ring in the middle of anything important.”

  Elodie nodded, agreeing that it was good idea. Quickly, Hannah went to the voice memo app, opened it, and turned off the screen again. Before she had time to say another
word, a silver BMW with tinted windows pulled up at the corner just ahead of them.

  “That’s Rico,” Elodie said. “Put on your babydoll face, girl. It’s showtime!”

  Hannah plastered on her best pout as the window rolled down. The person in the driver’s seat was not what she’d expected. Somehow she’d pictured Rico as a burly, tatted out dude with a beard and bling. But the guy eyeing her was skinny, pale, and blond. He looked like he could be Elodie’s older brother. She prayed that wasn’t the case.

  “Get in,” he said by way of greeting as he put on a pair of sunglasses.

  Elodie hopped into the passenger seat. For half a second, Hannah wondered if she’d made a horrible mistake that would result in Jessie finding her severed head in an alley. But it was too late to bail now so she slid into the backseat behind Elodie. The moment the door closed, Rico peeled out.

  Hannah wasn’t sure if she was supposed to introduce herself or wait. Deciding to let Rico take the lead, she snapped on her seatbelt and settled in, trying to keep the tingle of uneasiness in her gut from overwhelming her senses. She needed to stay alert and focused.

  Rico spent the next few minutes silently weaving up and down streets and alleys. Hannah got the feeling that he’d done this routine many times before. Eventually he pulled into a two-story parking garage behind a strip mall and parked in an isolated spot on the first floor. He turned off the ignition, took off his sunglasses, revealing light, grayish eyes, and turned to Elodie.

  “Wand her,” he said to Elodie, who looked to the backseat.

  “We’re going to get out of the car for a minute,” she said. “I need to wand you to make sure you’re not wearing a wire or anything.”

  Hannah got out without complaint. Elodie ran the wand over her entire body. When she was done, she looked over at Rico, who still looked skeptical.

  “Do the top,” he said.

  Elodie turned back to her.

  “To be extra careful, he wants you to take off your top. You can keep your bra on but I have to check the underwire to see if there’s anything hidden in there.”