by Blake Pierce
He looked to be on the verge of tearing up again now. But he managed to stifle it and continue.
“I asked myself if I even wanted to know the truth. If I was right, I’d have to deal with my whole life blowing up. So I just started crying. I saw how wretched I’d become and how much of a mess of a person I was to be in this situation.”
“And yet, there you were,” Jessie reminded him softly, hoping to delicately pry more out of him.
“Not for long,” he countered. “When the cramps faded, I went back downstairs and headed home. I was ashamed of my behavior. I vowed to turn over a new leaf and stop taking Claudia for granted. I needed to try harder to get the romance back in our lives. I knew some of her friends had affairs and I told myself that I’d let that get in my head, that I’d allowed jealousy to let my imagination get carried away. Then I got the call.”
“About her death?” Karen confirmed.
“Right. I was still trying to wrap my head around it when you two showed up. All of a sudden I had the double whammy of shame at what I’d done and knowing how it would look to you. So I lied about where I was and just hoped you’d catch her killer before my drive up here came to light. I know it was stupid but I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
He lowered his head. Jessie looked over at Karen, whose eyebrows were raised in skepticism. It was hard to blame her. While everything Wender said made sense if one was inclined to believe him, much of it was also damning if they started from the assumption that he was guilty. Nothing he’d said had definitively changed that dynamic. Either he was innocent or he was too smart to break.
“Did you see anyone suspicious when you left?” Jessie asked, deciding to finish up with the obligatory question they couldn’t get to earlier. “Anyone you recognized?”
He shook his head.
“I wasn’t really paying attention at that point. I was in my head.”
“It’s quite convenient that no one can corroborate anything you say,” Karen noted, unable to help herself.
He looked up at her with a flash of anger.
“It’s only convenient if you think I’m guilty. But as I’m innocent, I consider it very inconvenient.”
Jessie saw it both ways. There was no one to confirm his story. But the security video was working while he was there and there was no footage of him in or near the suite. Nor was there any DNA or fingerprint evidence of him on the door or in the room.
“Look,” he said, snapping her out of her reverie. “I’ll do whatever I have to do in order to prove it wasn’t me. I’ll provide blood samples. I’ll take a lie detector test. I may be an idiot but I’m not a killer.”
Jessie didn’t respond, letting Karen take him up on the offer while she retreated to her thoughts. They couldn’t officially eliminate him. But unless something dramatic changed soon, Jessie knew that even after getting him to speak at length without his lawyer, they didn’t have enough. Even if he had killed his wife, they couldn’t prove it.
It wasn’t official yet, but in her bones she sensed they’d just lost their best suspect. Worse, she had no idea what to do next.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
No amount of coffee helped.
Jessie sat in the snack room, waiting for the call from Jamil to let her know he was ready to share what he’d found. But she wasn’t holding much hope. Looking over at Karen, she saw that the detective felt equally down.
There were multiple credible suspects staring them in the face, but none of them had moved beyond credible to something concrete enough to act on. Jessie couldn’t remember the last time she felt this low in the last few months.
She tried to rouse herself. The afternoon was fading fast and she realized she should call Ryan and Hannah to check on them and update them on her status for the evening. But the thought was too depressing. She knew they’d both be curious about her progress and she didn’t want to revisit her failures at the moment.
Just then, Captain Decker walked by, headed to his office. Suddenly her disappointment was replaced by indignation. She hadn’t yet had a chance to call out the man for manipulating her into this case. Now seemed like a perfect time.
She hopped up and hurried after him. He moved briskly, unaware that she was behind him. Only when she followed him into his office and closed the door did he register her presence.
“Hunt, I didn’t see you there,” he said, mildly startled as he sat down behind his desk. “What have you got for me?”
“Nothing much,” she said, less respectfully than usual. “Maybe you should have tricked someone else into taking this case.”
His face fell as he saw where this was headed.
“You sound upset,” he said, admitting nothing.
“Wouldn’t you be?” she shot back. “First you told me you just needed my input on this case. Then, when you had me interested, you implied that Detective Bray had specifically asked for my help. But you were the one who told her I should sign on to the case.”
“I was just trying to give you a little nudge, Hunt,” he replied.
“I get that,” she said, refusing to let him off the hook. “But this whole consultant thing only works if I can have confidence that you’re being honest with me. Now I’ll always have doubts about your motives when you call me.”
Decker looked like he might be about to offer an olive branch, but then seemed to reconsider.
“Are you sure you’re not just lashing out at me because the case isn’t going as well as you hoped and you need a scapegoat?”
Jessie was surprised at his unwillingness to admit his mistake. It wasn’t like him. She wondered why the man was being so obstinate.
“Captain, both things can be true at the same time. I can be frustrated that we don’t have a solid suspect and feel that you betrayed my trust. They’re not mutually exclusive. I’ve had enough deception in my life. I didn’t think I’d get it from you.”
That seemed to hit home. His face softened slightly.
“You’re right,” he finally said. “I should have been up front with you from the start. I’ve been under a lot of pressure to close cases lately and I guess I let my desire to do that cloud my judgment. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” she replied. Now that he’d apologized, most of her frustration with him faded away, leaving her upset only at failing to find Claudia Wender’s killer. Still, she couldn’t help making one final dig. “Any other secrets you want to share?”
He hesitated and she couldn’t tell if he was serious or joking.
“Not that I can think of right now,” he said.
“Then I better get back to work. This case isn’t going to solve itself.”
He looked like he might be about to say something more but thought better of it and let her go.
On the way out, she noticed a missed text from Karen: Where are you? Jamil’s got some stuff for us to look at. She quickly replied: Doing a little family housekeeping. Will be there soon.
Then she headed for the station courtyard, where she could actually follow through on what she’d told Karen she was doing by calling home. As the phone rang, she watched the sun fade from the sky in the west. It wasn’t yet five, but in another ten minutes it would be completely dark out.
“Hey,” Ryan said, picking up after the fourth ring.
“Everything okay?” she asked. “It took a while for you to answer.”
“I’m fine. I was in the living room but left my phone in the kitchen so it took a while to get it. I don’t know if you’re aware, but I was stabbed in the chest a while back so I move a little slower these days.”
“I think I heard something about that,” she said, playing along. He sounded like he was in a good mood and she didn’t want to mess with it. “How’s it going there?”
“Not bad,” he said. “The Rams just won so I thought I’d reward myself with some pizza.”
“Because of all your hard work?” she teased.
“That’s right,” he said. “Cheering and groaning reall
y takes it out of you. How many should I order? Will you be home for dinner?”
“It depends,” she told him. “If I don’t come up with a promising lead soon, there won’t be much reason for me to stay here much longer tonight. But pizza? I’m kind of surprised Hannah didn’t want to make something for us.”
“She said she was wiped out from her afternoon so I didn’t press.”
“What was she doing that tired her out so much?” Jessie asked.
“She said she went window shopping on Melrose and that she had a headache and her feet were killing her. She did actually look like she was hobbling a little. She’s in her room now. Should I go get her?”
“No, that’s okay,” Jessie said. “I don’t want to bother her if she’s tired on a Sunday afternoon. Let her take it easy. Order a couple of pizzas and just save me a few pieces, okay?”
“Sure,” he said with way more enthusiasm than she thought pizza deserved.
“What’s up?” she asked. “You sound different than usual.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize it was that obvious,” he said. “I may have some news. Nothing bad, I swear. But I’d rather discuss it with you in person when you get home.”
“Ooh,” she said playfully. “Mystery, drama. At least I’ve got something to look forward to tonight.”
“Really not going well, huh?”
Though he couldn’t see her, she shook her head anyway.
“I’m at a dead end and I don’t have any way out.”
There was silence on the other end of the line and for a moment, she thought they’d been disconnected. But then he replied.
“No you’re not,” he told her.
“What?”
“You’re not at a dead end,” he said. “Jessie, I don’t know the particulars of where you are in this case and I’m not asking you to tell me. But what I do know is that if you do what you do best, you’ll solve this thing.”
“And what do I do best?” she wondered, genuinely perplexed.
“You scratch the itch.”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“In every tough case I worked with you, when we hit a wall, you’d always go back to that one thing that was gnawing at you, the piece that didn’t fit, the loose string, the question without a good answer. More often than not, pursuing that question led us down the road to the answers we were after. So do that. Ask yourself what part of this case doesn’t make sense and then follow the road. See where it takes you.”
Jessie smiled.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you too,” he replied. “But I also love pizza. So I have to go now.”
After he hung up, she sat alone in the courtyard, thinking. She wasn’t sure how long she was there, but when her phone buzzed with another text from Karen, she didn’t even respond.
Instead she got up and headed to research to meet them. It took all her self-control not to run.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Claudia was living a lie.”
Jessie started talking the second she entered the research department, before Karen or Jamil even had a chance to turn around to face her.
“What?” Karen said.
Jessie pulled up a chair opposite them and sat down.
“We keep trying to solve this case by asking who would upend Claudia Wender’s seemingly perfect life. But what we should be doing is focusing on the inconsistencies in her life. That’s where a motive to kill her will come from. I don’t think this is about someone being jealous that Claudia was living the fairy tale. I think someone was pissed that Claudia was living a lie.”
Over the course of her comments Jamil and Karen had both gone from confused to transfixed. Since neither spoke, she figured she had the green light to continue.
“What’s been bothering me is how Claudia’s perfect life seemed to be a facade. Even before we learned her husband’s suspicions of infidelity, we knew something was off. She had this great marriage but slept with a stripper without needing much of a push. And Jerry Blatt told us she seemed sad before he slept with her, so we know she wasn’t troubled by guilt over their encounter. Something else was bothering her.”
“I’m guessing you have a theory?” Karen said.
Jessie nodded.
“I suspect we all have a similar one. Even before he learned about the stripper, Joe Wender had suspicions that his wife might be cheating. The more I think about it, the more I suspect he had good reason. And if she was cheating and felt guilty about it, maybe she was thinking about coming clean. If her lover wasn’t okay with that idea, that’s a motive for murder. If we can determine if she really was having an affair, we might have a new suspect.”
“I might be able to help with that,” Jamil said. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. I’ve been going through the family receipts, credit card statements, and so on. Wender was right. Claudia did have drinks at hotel bars in Orange County pretty regularly, though she never actually officially stayed at any of them. And she wasn’t just doing this for the last couple of months. I have records going back to the spring. Sometimes she’d go as many as eight times in a month, but never in a Westport Beach hotel, only in surrounding towns. I just got a batch of surveillance footage from a couple of the hotels for the dates in question. I was about to go through it.”
“I think that’s a fantastic idea,” Jessie said enthusiastically, standing up because of the excitement. “We need to go back to basics on this. The one thing we know for certain is that Claudia was killed in that hotel suite. Let’s assume for now that it wasn’t done by her husband or one of her friends. We need to find out who else might have wanted to harm her.”
“Okay,” Karen said. “So Jamil’s going to look through the footage from the Orange County hotels. What should we do?”
“I think we should go back over all the data from the Hollywood Center Hotel to see if we can uncover any unexpected activity in the hotel or the suite around the time of Claudia’s death.”
Jamil raised his hand.
“I already logged the times of all the keycard swipes in the hotel after the last moment we know she was alive, when Jerry Blatt left the hotel suite. They just need to be cross-referenced with guest and employee names. You could do that.”
Karen pointed at Jamil with her thumb.
“You should keep this guy around,” she joked to Jessie. “He’s not a total waste of space.”
“Don’t say that,” Jessie warned. “We don’t want him getting a big head.”
“Too late,” Karen cracked.
Jamil gave them both a sheepish grin. Jessie only let the moment linger briefly before snapping them back to business.
“We should also look at the surveillance video again, at least when it was working. We know Claudia was killed after one-oh-seven a.m. When did security shut down again, Jamil?”
“At two-oh-one a.m.,” Jamil said. “The whole system went offline. When it finally rebooted, it was two twenty-two. Then it happened again at four thirty-seven and reset at four fifty-two.”
“So, we’ll start at one-oh-seven and work our way through the night toward morning,” Jessie said, turning to Karen. “Do you want to watch video or check keycard timestamps?”
“What a choice,” Karen said. “It’s like asking if I’d rather watch paint dry or grass grow. I guess I’ll watch the video. At least that way, I might see some interesting-looking people.”
Jessie had been thinking the same thing but said nothing as she grabbed the printout of keycard access data and moved to a desk with good lighting. She was going to need it.
*
An hour later, after poring over endless numbers and reluctantly letting Ryan know she wouldn’t be home for dinner, Jessie found something she considered odd.
“Check this out,” she said. “There were almost three dozen keycard swipes from different members of the birthday girls’ night crew from the time they arrived at the hotel until Jerry Blatt left.”
“That’s
not surprising,” Karen said, “considering how often they were going in and out.”
“Agreed. That’s not the strange part. Look at this.”
She pointed to the row she’d highlighted. Karen studied it for a second.
“So after the stripper left them,” the detective noted, “there was nothing else until a keycard swipe in an elevator in the lobby at two-oh-three a.m. There was a second swipe entering the suite at two-oh-six a.m.”
“Right,” Jessie said. “I get why no one flagged either swipe earlier. Both came from Lauren Kiplinger’s keycard. Since she was one of the women staying there, it didn’t seem strange that she would be entering her own room. But the officers doing the initial review didn’t know what we know.”
Karen saw where Jessie was going with this and excitedly responded.
“Which is that Lauren was supposedly passed out when Blatt left the suite.”
“Exactly,” Jessie said.
“Maybe she was faking it,” Karen volunteered.
“Or it could be more innocuous,” Jamil countered, looking up from his monitors. “She might not have been completely out, just temporarily zonked. Maybe she went to get ice and everyone was so drunk that no one noticed.”
“Either of those makes sense, except for one thing,” Jessie said. “The first keycard swipe was in the lobby elevator at two-oh-three. But I don’t remember Lauren ever leaving the room after Blatt left. Karen, did you see her exit the suite after that in any of the footage you went through?”
“No,” Karen said. “I didn’t see their door open once from the time Blatt left until the video feed cut out at two-oh-one.”
Jamil piped in.
“Could she have left the suite right after the cameras cut out, taken the elevator down to the lobby, then swiped her card to go back up and reenter the suite?”
Jessie thought about it. She didn’t want to dismiss the idea but she was skeptical.
“Those elevators moved pretty slowly. I’m not sure it’s even technically possible in the time allotted. Even so, why would she leave and come right back up?”
