by Blake Pierce
She managed to calm down a little by the time her ride arrived to take her to Central Station. But as she sat in the back seat, turning everything over in her head, she felt the heat rising up her neck again. She seethed in vengeful silence.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
By the time Jessie got to the station, she was ready to blow.
She stormed through the bullpen, heading down the back hallway to see what progress Detective Gaylene Parker had made on the sex trafficking case. If it wasn’t sufficient, she was ready to ream the woman out.
But before she got there, she heard Karen Bray call out to her from the other end of the hall.
“Jessie. Didn’t you hear me?”
“What?” she demanded, reluctantly turning around. “No. Can’t it wait?”
“No. Jamil has some major updates. You need to come to Research.”
Jessie forced herself to remain calm. Refusing to check out what Jamil had uncovered because she was focused on something else more pressing would only raise more suspicions. She needed to keep Karen from asking too many questions for her own sake. Besides, whoever had stolen that thumb drive was probably watching her closely too. If she barged into Parker’s back office, it would be a pretty big tell as to what was on her mind.
“What has he got?” she asked, pretending everything was normal as she followed Karen back to Research.
“I’ll let him show you,” Karen said. “He did the heavy lifting. But I should warn you, you probably won’t like it.”
Of course not. Why should anything go my way today?
She followed Karen into Research, where Jamil was studying one of his monitors.
“What have we got?” she asked.
“You want the good news or the bad news first?” he asked.
“Your call, Jamil.”
“Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t know what you’d consider good or bad. So I guess it doesn’t matter.”
“Still waiting, Jamil,” she reminded him, trying not to sound too testy.
“Right,” he said sheepishly, getting down to business. “So as Percy Avalon apparently told you in his interview, he and his band did perform an extended impromptu set for much of the night. We’ve found multiple uploaded clips from at least at least five fans. Using those, I was able to piece together his timeline pretty conclusively.”
“What does it show?” she asked.
“They started the set at twelve fifty-six a.m.,” Jamil said, showing her a timeline he’d created on a second monitor. “They didn’t wrap up for good until four oh-two a.m., though they did take several breaks in between. For most of the break time, they just hung around the area, doing a lot of…getting to know their fans. They did take two longer breaks, both about ten minutes. One was from one forty-seven a.m. to one fifty-eight a.m. The other was from two fifty-two a.m. to three oh-four a.m. In both cases, Avalon is off camera. That second break is technically within the window of death for Ms. Estrada.”
“But…” Jessie said, leadingly, already sensing where he was going with this.
“But,” he said, “the chances that Avalon could have stopped singing, gone all the way to Otis’s private residence in West House, had some encounter with Ms. Estrada in which he removed her top and killed her, all before getting back to resume the set at three oh-four, are, to say the least, remote.”
“There’s more,” Karen said. “Show her the footage when they picked back up at three oh-four a.m.”
Jamil hit a button, and a time-stamped image of Percy sitting down on a stone bench began to play. The guy immediately made a crack about his aging bladder. He looked relaxed and untroubled. There was none of the anxiety or nervousness one might expect of a man who had just rushed back from breaking a woman’s neck only minutes earlier halfway across the property.
Jessie had met people who were cold enough to react that way after committing murder, but not many. Plus he didn’t look winded. She had to admit that while not a technical impossibility, the likelihood that Percy was Milly’s killer seemed remote.
“What about Davey?” she asked.
“Ah, now that’s another story,” Jamil said, pulling up a new series of clips and walking her through them. “I used facial recognition from every social media video I could find to track his whereabouts. He’s hanging out with the rest of the band and the entourage regularly until around one forty-five a.m.”
Jessie pointed to a few of the images.
“It looks as if he’s drinking in almost every clip you have of him,” she noted.
“What’s the significance of that?” Jamil asked.
“He claims he passed out at some point and woke up near the petting zoo.”
“That’s certainly possible,” Jamil conceded. “Here’s the last definitive image I have of him, in the corner of the screen while the band is playing at one forty-four a.m. You can see him get up and head off toward the west. He’s stumbling and looking generally unsteady. After that, he completely disappears until we see him getting in the limo with the band as they leave the estate.”
Jessie looked over at Karen, who was doing an impressive job of hiding her “I told you so” face.
“Did they put the ankle monitor on him yet?” she asked.
“Yep,” Karen said, “about an hour ago. Even so, you know this means there’s probably no way we can avoid picking him up.”
“I know it doesn’t look good,” Jessie conceded. “But this could either sink him or reinforce his claim that he passed out. Either way, you promised we’d wait until tomorrow. You’re not breaking your word, are you, Detective Bray?”
She said it with a playful lilt in her voice, but both of them knew this was a crucial moment for their current partnership and any future one. Jessie had to know where the woman’s loyalties lay.
“I made a promise,” Karen said. “I keep my promises. But remember you made one too. If we don’t have somebody else in our sights by lunchtime tomorrow, we’re taking him in, right?”
“Right,” Jessie said reluctantly. “Then I guess we better find our guy, or girl for that matter. Jamil—any luck locking down Nancy Salter’s whereabouts?”
He shook his head.
“I’ve been focused on this. That was next, along with trying to nail down how many senators, Oscar winners, and sultans were there. Any priority preference?”
Jessie thought about it.
“Let’s start with Salter,” she said. “That shouldn’t take as long. Either we can lock in her movements or we can’t. I have a feeling the others are going to require more bureaucratic hoop-jumping so let’s hold off on those. Also, when you get a minute, I need you to check security footage from Beto Estrada’s cottage this morning. Let me know if you see anything unusual after he left for work.”
“Is that all?” Jamil asked, looking slightly exasperated.
“For now,” she replied without pity. They all had major workloads. He’d get by. “Now if you both will excuse me for a few, I have to check in on another matter. Text if you need me.”
“Is this check-in part of the whole ‘can’t tell me for my own safety’ thing?” Karen asked.
“I can’t answer that,” Jessie said, smiling. “For your own safety.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Jessie didn’t knock.
When she opened the door to the Vice Unit’s back office, Detective Gaylene Parker, who was alone in the room, looked up, startled. But Jessie didn’t apologize as she closed and locked the door and sat down opposite the head of the unit.
Talking to Karen and Jamil had calmed her down a little. She no longer felt the need to scream at Parker, which wouldn’t have been very constructive anyway. But she wasn’t in the mood to give her a pass either.
Parker’s expression quickly changed from surprise to defensiveness. She clearly knew why Jessie was here and was girding herself for whatever onslaught was forthcoming. The woman crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows skeptically.
Gay
lene Parker was somewhere in her mid-forties. A short African-American woman with an unfussy haircut and little makeup, she oozed veteran weariness. With the department for over twenty years, she’d worked her way up from street cop to detective to undercover vice to leading that unit. She’d even helped out HSS on occasion when they were short-handed.
Jessie always found her to be straightforward and competent with a no-nonsense attitude that was refreshing. But she was also extremely protective of her unit—both its people and its reputation. Even before she spoke, Jessie could see that she was on edge, aware that Vice might be blamed for yesterday’s breach of security.
“How’s it going, Gaylene?” Jessie asked, trying to avoid starting off adversarial.
“To be honest, I’ve been better, Jessie. I’m having one of those days. You know about those, don’t you?”
“I do,” Jessie assured her. “I’m having one of them myself. I was kind of hoping we might help each other out on that.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“Well,” Jessie said, treading carefully so as not to alienate a possible ally or adversary, “I know you’re probably as frustrated as me about what happened yesterday. And I know Decker is trying to get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, I’m hoping you’ve had some success in finding leads on the case itself.”
“I’m waiting for the part where you help me out,” Parker said, not sounding especially accommodating.
Jessie could feel the irritation rising in her chest. She was the one who had secured the trust of a skittish potential witness. She brought in the Marla lead. She had a possible suspect using all his power to shut this down. What else was she supposed to do?
“I’m happy to run down any leads you have in mind,” she said evenly. “I’m already in the thick of it with a potential suspect, one I assume Decker briefed you on.”
“Here’s the problem, Hunt,” Parker said, apparently deciding they were no longer on a first name basis. “I’m trying to make sure my own house is clean. At the same time, I’m trying to investigate the circumstances of a detective’s death, one from another division, without getting noticed. And I’m being asked to figure out if a mysterious, anonymous teenage girl was being trafficked by one of the most powerful men in the world. So my plate’s a little full.”
Jessie’s reservoir of patience was just about full too. She took a deep breath before responding, hoping to take one last swing at amicability.
“I get your predicament, Gaylene. I don’t envy it. But I’ve got a mess of my own, including a murder victim found at the home of that same powerful man, who knows I’m looking at him for the crime. I’ve also got a source who thinks, rightly, that his life might be in danger because the evidence he gave me was almost immediately stolen, likely at the behest of that same powerful man. So I’ve kind of got a target on my back. Maybe we could prioritize here. Decker said he’s looking into the leak, which means you can set that aside. And if you let Internal Affairs handle Detective Shore’s death, you’ll be free to focus on the claims made in that audio file.”
Parker shook her head.
“Decker doesn’t trust IA right now,” she countered. “That’s why he has me looking into Shore, because we were both Vice. I knew him. I know the guys in that unit and how they think. But I have to tread carefully. So it’s taking longer than I’d like.”
“Okay, then hand over the Marla component to me and I’ll look into it.”
“You have time for that?” Parker challenged. “I thought you were conducting a murder investigation.”
The question stung in a way Parker hadn’t intended. Jessie didn’t have time. Jasper Otis was walking free. Beto Estrada was in danger. Milly Estrada was dead in a freezer, her murder unsolved.
And there was her own life too: a new job starting up next week, a boyfriend trying to reclaim his life, and a sister just trying to keep her head above water. All that was already on the back burner at this moment and she was going to take on another responsibility?
And yet some part of her knew they’d understand. If she told them that she had a chance to stop the sex trafficking of teenage girls, but doing so required her to be here now, they’d support her. She was sure of it.
“I’ll make time.”
The other detective shrugged.
“Fine,” she said, handing over a small piece of paper. “I looked up these files this morning. They include every mention of our mogul friend in any case in the last ten years. I also pulled all the files that allege sex crimes against an HPI.”
“HPI?” Jessie repeated.
“High profile individual,” Parker said. “We use the term in reports so we don’t have to open the can of worms that comes from mentioning names before we’re ready to charge. It protects us and allows us to do back searches without drawing attention.”
“How do you distinguish among HPIs?” Jessie asked.
“We usually put a footnote in the report corresponding to the first mention of the HPI. It includes a description. You’ll have to go through those footnotes to see who’s under suspicion. I can tell you that our mogul friend is in there quite a bit. I believe he’s described as a ‘bald, middle-aged international media professional.’ If you come across that phrase, you know you’ve got our boy.”
“Okay, thanks,” Jessie said. “How many files are we talking about?”
Parker looked at her with something close to pity in her eyes.
“I’d rather not say. I don’t want to depress you.”
*
Depressing was an understatement. Hopeless was more accurate.
After nearly two hours in the tiny annex office of the file room where she’d set up shop, Jessie needed a break. She stood and stretched, trying not to let the dozens of horror stories she’d just read overwhelm her.
There were over two hundred HPI cases in the files from just the last decade. Of those, seventeen used the description that Parker told her matched Jasper Otis. In addition, there were six additional cases that specifically mentioned him by name.
But in every instance, something happened to undermine the case, making it impossible to proceed. Evidence disappeared. Victims retracted their statements around the time that their bank accounts became suddenly flush. Others were threatened with lawsuits that mentioned everything from slander to harassment. In each case, those girls retracted their statements as well. Two girls went missing soon after giving their statements. They were never found and no one followed up.
From everything that Jessie had read, Jasper Otis was a serial sexual predator. Assuming that half of what these girls claimed was true, he had committed multiple crimes. He forced bound girls to have sex with him. He ordered them to have sex with other men in front of him.
One girl alleged that he had taken a group of them on private planes to a foreign country. She and some girls returned stateside. But others were sold to men from the other country and left behind. There were other, more specific allegations that Jessie didn’t feel up to replaying in her head again. Independent of whether he was responsible for Millicent Estrada’s death, the man was a monster who had to be stopped.
She got a text from Hannah telling her that Nurse Patty was leaving, to be replaced by the night nurse, a guy named John. Jessie texted back that she’d be home within the hour. Then she carefully returned the files, all of which she’d taken screenshots of, to their proper locations. She didn’t want to leave any out that the mole could use to retrace her steps. Then she went upstairs to confront Captain Decker with the magnitude of the situation.
She was walking across the bullpen to his office when a smallish, sweaty guy in his early twenties wearing a sweatshirt and bicycle shorts approached her. He looked so skittish that her hand involuntarily went to her holster.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Yes ma’am,” he said politely. “I spoke to the front desk sergeant and he had me wait over in one of those chairs.”
She looked over. He
had indicated the spillover area where suspects and witnesses were held until they could be interviewed. Each chair had a metal bar across it that could attach to handcuffs if someone needed to be kept from moving about. It was rare for the general public to be allowed in the area.
“Do you have a statement to give?” she asked, confused. “Didn’t someone direct you to Detective Bray?”
“No ma’am,” he said, pulling something out of the backpack dangling off his shoulder.
“Careful,” she warned, undoing the safety guard on the holster. “Why don’t you tell me what this is about before you start yanking stuff out of bags?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you. It’s just an envelope with some paperwork. May I?”
“Slowly,” she told him.
He delicately removed what was indeed a thick manila envelope.
“You are Jessie Hunt, correct?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she answered as he handed her the envelope.
“You’ve been served.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
She read the papers in Decker’s office while she waited for him to return.
The documents were from attorneys for Jasper Otis and they were endless: claims of harassment, trespassing, slander, intimidation, false imprisonment (that one was apparently related to the uneventful interrogation in his dining room), and stalking.
She couldn’t help but notice how similar some of the legal allegations were to those made against the girls who claimed he’d sexually assaulted them. Though the sheer volume of allegations—twenty-two in total—was daunting, they weren’t having the effect she suspected was intended.
Rather than feeling intimidated, she was just pissed. Jasper Otis didn’t seem to understand that he was using his power to bully someone who had literally faced down death multiple times. She didn’t know how this would play out, but Jessie wasn’t going to back down. If Otis had done his research, he would have known better.