The Perfect Impression

by Pierce, Blake

  “We’ll be back as soon as we can,” he added before turning on his heel and leaving without another word. Jessie felt an angry heat rising up the back of her neck as she watched him stride off arrogantly.

  “Hey, Detective Peters,” she called out to him once the door closed behind them. “Is it your intention to throw me under the bus in every interaction we have tonight?”

  He stopped and turned around. He wasn’t smiling.

  “You can handle it,” he said unapologetically. “I have to live here after you go. I don’t need to alienate the entire town in one night.”

  Jessie had come into this situation planning to be polite, if only to grease the wheels. But her patience with the guy was wearing thin already. Maybe it was being awake for almost twenty hours. Maybe it was the bumpy helicopter flight in. Maybe it was the cold. Maybe he was just an asshole. But she’d had her fill of it. If he was going to tar her as the “big gun from the city,” maybe she’d act like it.

  “Is that how you conduct your law enforcement around here, Detective Peters—too afraid to ask tough questions because you don’t want to alienate the locals or scare off rich tourists?”

  “Hey—” he started to object but Jessie cut him off.

  “If that’s how you operate, maybe you’re better off joining Stone in there as a security guard. But if you consider yourself an actual cop, maybe you should be less worried about who you’re alienating and a little more focused on trying to catch the person who murdered a woman in her hotel room.”

  “That’s not fair,” he protested. “This is a four-person department. We don’t usually deal with murders here. In fact, before now, we’ve only had six in a hundred twenty years. But I’m running ragged around here trying get this solved.”

  “It’s absolutely fair,” she shot back. “That’s called doing your job. Now you can whine or you can step up. Either way, as you said, it’s my show. So take me to the victim, because we’re wasting valuable time.”

  Peters looked sullen but he didn’t speak again. Instead he led her to an elevator, where he punched the button for the top floor. The doors closed and they headed up to see the woman with the knife in her chest.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The hall was deathly quiet.

  It took Jessie a moment to understand why. It wasn’t just that it was the middle of the night. Every guest on this floor was down in the ballroom right now. The only people around were her, Peters, the sheriff’s deputy standing guard outside the hotel room, and the dead person on the other side of the door.

  She let Peters lead as they approached the room. The skinny deputy at the door looked nervous and sweaty, as if just being in proximity to a dead body was too much for him. He didn’t look a day over twenty-two.

  “How are you doing, Keith?” Peters asked him.

  “Okay, sir,” Keith said. “Nothing major to report. A few people came down the hall, looky-loos. But I shooed them off without much problem.”

  “Good job,” he said, before nodding at Jessie. “Keith, this is Jessie Hunt. She’s a criminal profiler from LAPD’s Homicide Special Section back on the mainland. She’ll be helping us out. Jessie Hunt, this is Deputy Keith Heck. He’s been on the team here on the island for about four months now.”

  “Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Keith said.

  “Likewise,” Jessie replied. “Mind if I take a look inside?”

  He stepped aside without a word. Jessie put on her latex gloves and opened the door. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gabrielle Crewe’s body on the bed. But instead of focusing on it, she began by looking around the room first.

  She had discovered through unpleasant trial and error that once she fixated on the victim’s body, everything else seemed to fall away, putting her at risk of missing small details. So she’d learned to study everything else at a crime scene before turning her attention to the body. That was especially important in this case, as she was working without a net. There was almost no support staff on the island. Her titular partner was more adversarial than supportive. She was essentially alone.

  The suite was like a large, billowy cloud with a bed. Everything was different shades of white and cream, from the thick curtains, to the carpeting, to the canopy bed draped in a sheer scarf sheets. There was a fireplace next to a hot tub and a sitting area with a massive flat-screen television. Nothing seemed out of place. There was no obvious sign of a struggle. The bathroom looked equally undisturbed. A room service tray with empty plates rested on the dresser beside the TV. Jessie couldn’t help but notice that there was no knife on the tray.

  “No one heard anything?” she asked both men.

  “Not based on our preliminary interviews,” Peters answered.

  “What about security footage from the hallway?” she asked. “Have you had a chance to look at it yet?”

  Peters paused before sighing loudly.

  “There isn’t any,” he finally said.

  “The hotel doesn’t have hallway footage?” she asked incredulously.

  “It doesn’t have any footage at all,” he told her, sounding uncomfortable with the admission. “Other than the main entrance and the lobby, they don’t record anything.”

  “How is that possible? Just a month ago, I investigated another murder in a hotel and they had cameras everywhere but the stairwells. The Paragon seems like a luxury destination. How much does a room go for here?”

  “This suite goes for eight hundred dollars a night,” Deputy Heck offered helpfully.

  Jessie turned to Peters.

  “That kind of money and they don’t consider the safety of their guests enough of a priority to install a few cameras?”

  The detective paused before answering, as if trying to be honest without being truly forthcoming.

  “The Paragon considers itself a bastion of privacy,” he said. “They’ve cultivated a reputation for offering folks seclusion and confidentiality. That’s part of why it’s so popular with mainlanders. It gets a lot of return guests. I guess they decided that cameras undermined the vibe.”

  Something about the policy didn’t make sense to Jessie. A place like this was opening itself up to all kinds of liability in the event of something like what occurred tonight. She found it hard to believe they’d risk a massive lawsuit just to maintain a reputation for being discreet. But it was clear that Peters wasn’t going to be much help in unraveling that mystery.

  Frustrated, Jessie finally turned her attention to the woman on the bed. Without warning, she felt an unexpected tide of panic ripple through her. She clenched her fists tight together, digging her nails into her palms to keep from screaming out loud or running from the room. Even as she fought the grip of horror, she understood where it came from: this was just how Ryan had looked after Kyle plunged a knife into his chest.

  She had somehow managed to push that memory from her head in recent weeks. But seeing this woman in the same position made it all flood back with an intensity she was unprepared for. Her breathing had quickened and she felt frozen in place. She could sense Detective Peters’s eyes on her and instructed herself to get a grip.

  Stay calm. Breathe slow. Step forward slowly. Set aside everything else. Focus on the victim.

  The sound of her own voice in her head—cool and professional—gave her the confidence to approach the body. With each step toward the bed, the anxiety faded and a sense of normalcy returned.

  This was a stabbing victim, but it wasn’t Ryan. He was home, either still working in the kitchen or asleep in their bed. He was safe. And so was she. It was time to get back to work. Something about that last instruction clicked. Jessie’s eyes cleared, followed quickly by her mind.

  She focused in on the victim. It was obvious that Gabrielle Crewe had been quite beautiful when she was alive. But now her body, surrounded in a halo of blood, had sunk into the mattress. The tips of her blonde hair were matted where the blood had begun to coagulate. Her unseeing brown eyes stared up at the ceiling. Her tan skin had
started to turn pallid. She was completely naked.

  Jessie counted at least three stab wounds to her chest other than the one where the knife was currently embedded. That suggested either a crime of passion or that someone wanted to give that impression. Killing a person wasn’t an easy thing for most people.

  In her experience, those who planned their murders ahead of time usually only did the minimum necessary to accomplish the task. This was literally overkill. She tried to look beyond the blood for any other signs of violence: defensive wounds on the arms or legs, bruising, or unusually contorted limbs.

  She found nothing, though there was a splotch of blood on the carpeting at the foot of the bed, suggesting the first wound might have been inflicted while she was standing and that she had fallen or been pushed back onto the bed.

  That detail hinted that Crewe was somewhat familiar with her attacker. It wasn’t impossible, but it was hard to imagine that an unwanted stranger had gotten so close to her while she was completely nude without her having screamed or struggled.

  Jessie felt a pang of sadness. Even after seeing so many dead bodies, most had a way of getting to her. This woman had made herself vulnerable before another human being. Her reward was to be brutally cut down by someone she almost certainly trusted. Just below the sadness, Jessie could feel another emotion bubbling up: righteous anger.

  Her previous dread about the knife now a memory, Jessie leaned in close to get a better look at the murder weapon. It was a steak knife, embedded in the woman’s chest up the heel. It had a plastic handle designed to look like wood. Now only inches away, she noticed something curious.

  “Do you have a medical examiner on the island?”

  “Not officially,” Peters said. “The head of emergency services over at the medical clinic can handle it in a pinch. But we usually wait for someone from the Long Beach medical examiner’s office to come over. My understanding is that he’s on his way right now. But he didn’t have access to a helicopter so the boat will be another half hour or so.”

  “What about a crime scene team?” she asked, ignoring his barb. It seemed objectionable to get into an argument with him in the presence of a murder.

  “I believe they’re coming on the same boat,” he answered.

  “We need to have them pay special attention to this knife. It looks like it’s been wiped clean. If that’s the case, I bet the rest of the room was too. Getting prints might be a challenge.”

  “I’ll tell them,” Deputy Heck promised.

  Jessie looked up from the bed at the two men standing expectantly in front of her.

  “I’m not sure there’s much else we can do up here. I think it’s time we start interviewing folks.”

  “Who do you want to start with?” Peters asked.

  “The husband,” she replied. “Always start with the husband.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Jessie stared in the bathroom mirror.

  Before diving into the interviews, she’d made a pit stop to freshen up and make sure she looked appropriately professional and intimidating for the upcoming questioning. After getting Captain Decker’s call, she’d rushed out of the house so quickly that she hadn’t had a chance to do much more than change from her pajamas to jeans and a sweater.

  She undid her ponytail and ran a brush through her shoulder-length brown hair. She swished a little mouthwash and put some drops in her green eyes, which were tinged with the redness of exhaustion. She considered adding a dusting of makeup but decided that it wasn’t necessary. Even at almost two in the morning, she thought she looked pretty decent. And if she stood at her full height, making use of her athletic, five-foot-ten frame, she could be intimidating too.

  When she stepped out of the restroom into the hall connecting all the ballrooms, she immediately noticed that Detective Peters and Tommy the bellboy weren’t alone. They were with an attractive, athletic-looking woman wearing a heavy jacket over a pink jogging suit. Her black hair was pulled back in a bun. She was talking to the detective in the corner, her voice borderline desperate.

  “I have to be first,” she pleaded to Peters. “The sooner they know, the faster they can do something.”

  Peters glanced up, saw Jessie, then turned his attention back to the woman.

  “Ms. Ferro, please wait here for a moment,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  He left her where she stood and came over. Jessie said nothing, waiting for him to explain.

  “That’s Melissa Ferro, the friend who found the body,” he said. “As I’m sure you heard, she’s demanding to talk to you right away. I didn’t know if you wanted to stick to your ‘husband first’ plan or give her the first go.”

  “That’s fine,” Jessie said. “It may actually be more valuable to get some baseline facts on timeline from her, since we don’t have any footage to work with. Besides, I have a feeling holding her off might cause a scene. Is there somewhere we can question her privately?”

  Peters stepped over to a diagram of the floor and studied it silently for a few seconds.

  “Most folks are in the Catalina Ballroom, where we stopped in earlier. But per your instructions, a few were moved across the hall to the Wrigley Ballroom. That leaves two smaller meeting rooms unoccupied. Take your pick.”

  Jessie chose what looked like the smaller of the two, the Harbor Room. Peters seemed to agree with the call, giving a curt nod before returning to the woman.

  “Ms. Ferro, your squeaky wheel is about to get greased. If you could please come with us?”

  Melissa followed him to the room, with Jessie right behind. When they entered Jessie was immediately glad she’d chosen it. It was more of a small conference room than a meeting room, with one large circular table that was too big for the space, creating a mild sense of claustrophobia.

  She took off her jacket and put her backpack on the table in front of her. The table could easily seat eight, but with only three of them, Melissa Ferro took off her jacket as well. Jessie noticed that the jogging suit underneath was stained with blood. Ferro, who didn’t seem aware of it, sat down. Her gray eyes darted everywhere. She looked isolated and vulnerable. That’s the way Jessie liked it.

  Peters took off his jacket and cap for the first time since Jessie arrived on the island. Without them, he seemed immediately less gruff. He had an unruly shock of long, thick, sun-bleached blond hair, which suggested he spent a lot of time on the water. His skin was a little leathery, but more likely due to his recreational activities than age. At thirty, she suspected she was only a few years younger than him. She also suspected that if he were to ever smile, he might actually be pleasant-looking.

  “So, Ms. Ferro,” he started, “as I mentioned previously, we have some extra help on the case. This is Jessie Hunt. She’s a specialist in these kinds of killings. I know you gave me a brief rundown of how you discovered your friend earlier, but I’d like you to repeat it now.”

  Melissa Ferro looked momentarily overwhelmed, as if the idea of revisiting the horror might be too much for her. After a moment, she seemed to recover and appeared ready to begin. But Jessie jumped in before she could.

  “Ms. Ferro,” she began, deciding to take charge of how the questioning would proceed, “I don’t need you to go through everything again. Instead, I want to focus on some specific details if we can. But before we start, I just wanted to offer my condolences. I understand you were friends with Gabrielle. This must be very difficult for you.”

  “It is,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. “I can’t get the image of her out of my head.”

  Jessie nodded sympathetically, trying to build a rapport as quickly as possible.

  “Okay, then let’s not start there,” she suggested. “Tell me about finding the door open.”

  “Right,” Ferro said, relieved. “I had been out and about and returned to my room to freshen up. When I left, I thought I’d see if Gabby and Steve—that’s her husband—were around and wanted to hang out, maybe go down to the bar.”
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br />   “What time was that?” Jessie asked.

  “I’m not positive but I know I got back to my room around eleven fifteen, so maybe eleven twenty?”

  “That fits,” Peters chimed in. “The room service waiter said he arrived on the floor around that time. He heard Ms. Ferro screaming a few seconds later. And like I said before, we got the first call at the station at eleven twenty-four.”

  Jessie didn’t love the detective confirming Ferro’s testimony in real time with her there. That kind of discussion was better had outside the presence of a witness who might also be a suspect. Not wanting to exacerbate tensions, she pressed on.

  “What happened next, Ms. Ferro?”

  “The door was open a little bit, barely noticeable if I hadn’t been right in front of it,” she answered. “I wasn’t sure if they were in there or if they forgot to close it when they left, so I called into the room. No one answered so I pushed it open more. I called out again but didn’t hear anything. The lamp light was on so I went in further. That’s when I saw her.”

  She stopped, seemingly temporarily undone by the memory. Jessie waited a few seconds before proceeding, happy to use the time to study the woman for signs of deception. Unable to discern anything overt, she continued.

  “How long were you in there?”

  “Not very long, maybe thirty seconds,” Ferro replied. “I called out to her. She was naked and I thought she might be sleeping, even though something felt wrong. I rushed over to the bed. The light was low and I didn’t even register the knife or the blood at first. I think I was in denial or something. I shook her to wake her up. Then I realized that her eyes were open. I backed up and saw the knife and all the blood. After that, I just kind of lost it. I started screaming and ran out of the room. That’s when I saw the waiter.”

  She stopped talking and shook her head as if trying to get the image out of her head. Jessie gave her another moment before pushing a bit.