The Perfect Impression

by Pierce, Blake

  She assumed the other two stubs would be for Theo’s outbound and return trips, but they weren’t. The third stub was another trip from Long Beach to Avalon on Saturday night, arriving at 6:30 p.m. The fourth was for a return trip on the first ferry out on Sunday morning at 9 a.m.

  Jessie stared at the collection of tickets, letting the magnitude of what she was seeing coalesce in her brain. There was only one logical explanation for these timestamps. Ariana Aldridge, despite her claims of having gone back to L.A., had apparently returned to Catalina on Saturday night without telling anyone.

  “You said a granola bar was okay?” Ariana asked as she stepped out of the pantry with one in her hand.

  She looked at Jessie and then down at the counter. Her expression made it clear that she understood what had been uncovered.

  “It’s not what you think,” she said defensively.

  “What is it then?” Jessie asked, not making any sudden movements. Ariana hadn’t run away or attacked her, and there was no reason to escalate the situation if it could be avoided.

  “I did leave the island,” she insisted. “You can see that from the stub.”

  “But you went back.”

  Ariana Aldridge sighed heavily as she put the granola bar on the counter.

  “Yes,” she admitted in a quiet voice. “The whole ferry ride back to Long Beach, doubts were racing through my head. By the time we reached the terminal, I was sure that Theo had stayed behind to cheat. I’d seen him ogling several hotel employees. I couldn’t just go home and pretend like it was no big deal. So I got a ticket for the very next ferry back to Avalon and turned right around.”

  “Where did you go once you arrived?” Jessie asked.

  “I checked in at the cheapest hotel in town. Then I bought some supplies.”

  “What kind of supplies?” Jessie pressed.

  “I found a novelty shop that sold kitschy stuff. I bought a blonde wig, big sunglasses, and a baseball cap.”

  “Why?” Jessie demanded. It seemed that as long as she kept the questions coming and made them short, Ariana was happy to answer.

  “I knew about the dinner reservation at seven thirty and I wanted to observe what was happening without being noticed. So I hurried over to a spot across from the restaurant they were at. I watched them hang out there for hours and then followed them back to the hotel. Once they got settled in at the bar, I snuck in quietly, sat in a corner, and watched everyone. It seemed like Theo was really flirting with Gabby. She was talking to Rich and Theo kind of inserted himself into their conversation and was leaning in really close to her when they talked. It looked suspicious.”

  “Couldn’t he just have been leaning in because it was loud?” Jessie asked.

  “Maybe,” Ariana conceded. “But right after that, Gabby left. Theo talked to the others a little, but after a couple of minutes, he went upstairs too. I wanted to follow him but I couldn’t go up in the same elevator with him in case he realized who I was. I couldn’t take the stairs right away either. I was afraid that if he saw some strange woman barging up the stairs to his floor, he’d be wary. So I waited a few minutes before going up. But before I could, my mom called because Ginny was running a slight fever. I went out to the courtyard and told her where the medication was and walked her through Ginny’s soothing routine. It took a few minutes before she was comfortable with everything and I could hang up.”

  “What time was that?” Jessie asked.

  Ariana reached into her pocket.

  “What are you doing?” Jessie demanded, stiffening.

  “I’m just getting my phone,” Ariana replied, apparently taken aback by Jessie’s intensity. “I was going to check when my call with my mom ended.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Ariana scrolled for a few seconds before answering.

  “I hung up at ten thirty-nine,” she said.

  “Okay. What then?”

  “I went up to our floor, but of course the hallway was empty by then, so I went to our suite and…listened at the door.” She seemed to choke up briefly, as if overwhelmed by the indignity of what she’d been reduced to, before gulping hard and going on. “I didn’t hear anything so I moved on to Gabby’s.”

  “You didn’t try the Landers’ suite? Didn’t they also leave around the same time as Theo?”

  “To be honest, I didn’t really notice them. Now that I look back on it, I think they were all talking to each other before Theo went up. But I was so focused on his whispering with Gabby that it never occurred to me to suspect that he was going to their room.”

  Jessie couldn’t help but notice that, although Ariana’s voice was composed, her body seemed clenched up, like she might burst at any moment. It could simply be attributable to remembering a stressful event, or it could suggest she was on the verge of doing something dodgy.

  Either way, Jessie took an imperceptible step back and glanced around, making sure that there were no potential weapons in easy reach. She’d just recently had a case in which a woman threatened to kill herself with a kitchen knife and didn’t intend to end up in a similar situation.

  “So you said you went to Gabby’s suite,” she prompted.

  “Right,” Ariana replied, not needing additional coaxing. “I stood outside her room and pressed my ear to her door. It was humiliating. But I didn’t care because I heard them.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “Voices: Gabby’s and another person. It made perfect sense that it was Theo.”

  “But it wasn’t Theo,” Jessie reminded her. “He was with the Landers at that time. What made you think it was him? Was it a male voice?”

  Ariana’s face dropped.

  “Now that you ask that, I don’t know. I just assumed it was. But the other person was quieter than she was.”

  “How do you know she didn’t just have the TV on?”

  “No,” Ariana insisted. “I definitely recognized her voice. Why would she be talking at a normal volume with the television on? It was a conversation.”

  “Could you hear anything she said?” Jessie asked.

  Ariana paused again, either scanning her memory or pretending to.

  “No,” she finally said.

  Jessie fixed her eyes intently on Ariana as she asked the next question after that.

  “What did you do next?”

  Ariana seemed to sense the magnitude of the question and of her answer.

  “I left,” she said simply.

  “You just left?” Jessie repeated, unable to keep the skepticism out of her voice.

  “Yes,” Ariana replied forcefully. “I left the hotel, went back to mine, and cried myself to sleep. I left on the first morning boat back here.”

  “To be clear,” Jessie said, “you left Avalon early on Saturday afternoon, then turned right around and took a ferry back to the island that evening, wore a disguise, and covertly watched your husband all night? And when you heard what you thought was him in a hotel room with another woman, you just left?”

  “I was in shock,” Ariana said self-righteously.

  “Are you sure you didn’t just go back downstairs and wait a while, then go back up to the room and knock on the door to confront them, find only Gabby there, and give in to your rage?”

  Ariana stared back at her coldly.

  “I’m sure,” she said flatly.

  “Well, I’m not. And I’ve got to do something about it.”

  “What does that mean?” Ariana asked warily.

  “It means I need to take you in.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  As she watched Ariana Aldridge sit forlornly in an interrogation room at LAPD’s Central Station interrogation room glass, Jessie supposed it could have been worse.

  Ariana didn’t put up much of a fight. Before they left the house, she gave Ginny a kiss and called her husband several harsh but appropriate names, but she didn’t make any aggressive moves toward him. Jessie did still cuff her for the ride to the station as a precaution. After
that, while Ariana waited to be interrogated, Jessie and Detective Peters argued from the observation room on the other side of the two-way mirror.

  “You should have told me,” he repeated for the third time since they’d arrived.

  She’d already explained why she didn’t include him in the questioning of either the Landers or the Aldridges, but he was still put out. The truth was that she did feel a little guilty about it, but not enough to apologize.

  “She’s all yours now,” she said instead. “I didn’t arrest her. She still thinks she can talk her way out of this. Hell, maybe she can. I told her you were going to go over every second of her time on the island and that if she couldn’t substantiate her alibi for you, then she should expect to be charged.”

  “If she didn’t convince you, why should I expect to have a different reaction?”

  Jessie, her skull thick with exhaustion, tried to make herself understood.

  “I didn’t check every detail of her story. Maybe I missed something. All I know is that all the other people in their group seem to have someone to vouch for at least part of their time. She doesn’t. Beyond that, she snuck back on the island. She wore a disguise. She had clear motive to kill Gabby, even if she was wrong about her having a tryst with her husband. That’s a lot to overcome. But I’m happy to let you be the one to either absolve or charge her and let the Avalon Sheriff’s Station get the credit.”

  He was about to object but then thought better of it, apparently realizing the arrangement might work out well for him.

  “What do you plan to do?” he asked.

  “I plan to go home. I’ve got some family stuff to deal with and then I have a pillow with my name on it. I don’t know that there’s much more I can do tonight. If you get a confession and close the case, congratulations. If something new and astounding comes up, call me. If she just sticks to her story, then we’ll go back at it tomorrow. Cool?”

  She didn’t wait to hear his answer as she walked out the door. Glancing down the hall she was tempted to go to the research department and check in with Jamil. She knew Ryan was out running down leads on his case with Trembley.

  But even though she was sure Jamil would be happy to fill her in, she couldn’t help but think that Ryan might resent it, as if she was checking up on him like an anxious mother. Besides, he was sure to share every detail when he got home. So, using all the willpower she had left in her bleary-eyed, bone-tired body, she turned in the other direction and headed for the station exit.

  *

  No one was home.

  Jessie knew she wouldn’t find Ryan but she’d expected to see Hannah. It was starting to get dark out and she was tempted to text her. But then she paused, wondering if she really wanted her sister home right now, considering the conversation they needed to have.

  She texted Ryan to see if he was wrapping up soon, in the hope that he might be able to come home in time to offer some emotional backup for the inevitable sisterly confrontation to come. He responded almost immediately with a selfie of him and Trembley in a car, both making goofy faces. The caption below the picture read: Ride-along fun! She didn’t have the heart to bring his spirits down so she sent back a smiley face and left it at that.

  Though she knew it was pointless, she checked her messages again in case Peters had any updates or questions. There were none. If he had something to share, he would have called. She grabbed an apple from the fridge and wandered around aimlessly.

  Eventually, she poked her head in Hannah’s room, in the futile hope that maybe the girl had fallen asleep and she’d just missed her. But the bed was empty. She sat down on it, debating what to do next.

  Against her better judgment, she pulled out her phone and checked where Hannah was. Though her sister had turned off her own phone’s location services, Jessie had secretly installed another GPS tracking system that ran in the background, imperceptible to any user who didn’t know exactly where to look.

  After an initial check to make sure the app was working, she had generally avoided using it, at least in recent weeks. She told herself that if she only used it in an emergency, she wasn’t really violating her sister’s privacy. But now, as she opened the app, she silently admitted that her justification didn’t hold much weight. But that didn’t stop her.

  To her relief, she saw that Hannah was at Tommy’s Coffee. Only half a mile away, it was her favorite hangout. She often spent hours there after school or on weekends, feet curled up under her on a worn loveseat in the corner of the coffeehouse.

  The pit of anxiety in her gut, one she hadn’t even realized was there until now, subsided. She fell back on Hannah’s bed, letting herself sink into the mattress. She looked up at the ceiling, wondering what her sister thought about at night when she stared up at the same light sconce Jessie was looking at now.

  When she was lying in this very bed last summer, was she planning to confront that drug dealer when she went on the stakeout with Kat? Or was it a spur-of-the-moment thing? What about when she volunteered to pose as an underage escort to bust a sexual slavery ring? Was she resting her head on this very pillow when she decided to break into Kat’s office to get information on a missing girl that led her to a pedophile?

  That last one was a whole other level. At least with the dealer, Kat had been there. At least with the sex slave ring, there were multiple undercover cops in vehicles close by. But it’s not like the guy she confronted was just going to get a little handsy with her. He was a child rapist who had attacked her. Jessie had seen the bruises that proved it.

  She sighed in frustration, unsure how she could broach all these new horribles while keeping her cool and not pushing Hannah further away. At her wits’ end, she closed her eyes and gave her brain a break, allowed it to float wherever it wanted.

  For several seconds, her thoughts receded and she pictured only the rolling waves of the ocean from earlier today. To her surprise, when her mind reengaged, it landed on a word she hadn’t expected, one that had passed through her head only briefly moments earlier: handsy.

  Why had that particular word taken up residence in her thoughts? She seemed to recall hearing it said by someone in just the last twelve hours, which meant it wasn’t used in the context of Hannah. It was almost certainly spoken while she was on the island. And that’s when it hit her.

  Maura the bartender had used the word to describe how Steve Crewe and Rich Ferro sometimes got with the bar waitresses and with her, until she shut them down. While it was still unseemly, the behavior made more sense in the context of the lifestyle she now knew they embraced. At least it did for Crewe.

  But now that she thought about it, it didn’t make a lot of sense for Richard Ferro, a gay man who had reached an understanding of sorts with his wife. Why would he be making passes at waitresses? It was possible that he was doing it for Crewe’s benefit. He’d admitted that he wasn’t out to his friends. Maybe he felt he needed to engage in some kind of public performance to maintain the image.

  But this group didn’t seem like the type to care about that sort of thing. After all, the Landers hadn’t tried to keep their threesome with Theo a secret because it involved two men. They’d done so because the hookup violated their rule against intermingling within the friend group. The idea that Steve Crewe would have balked if Rich Ferro had pinched a waiter’s butt instead of a waitress’s seemed unlikely. So why do it?

  That’s when she remembered another moment from earlier in the evening, when she and Detective Peters were interviewing Ferro in the Paragon Hotel Harbor Room. Leena from the front desk had come in with a message for the detective. As she walked over to him, Richard Ferro’s eyes had followed her with curiosity. In retrospect, Jessie thought they were filled with something closer to desire.

  At the time, he hadn’t known Jessie was watching him so there was no reason to play at being straight. It was something he’d done without thinking about it, instinctively. Simply put: he was attracted to the cute front desk girl, which meant that he was a
t the very least bisexual. It also meant that he’d misled her, which made her wonder what else had he lied about.

  She suddenly sat up in the bed. It occurred to her that neither she nor Peters had ever actually contacted County Supervisor Philip Blake to confirm Ferro’s version of events. They had just accepted it based on what he said and on Maura the bartender’s partial alibi saying she’d seen them leave the bar together.

  Whether they had let it slide because neither of them wanted to upend the complicated family dynamics of a man who supposedly wasn’t out yet or because they were hesitant to question—and potentially alienate— a politician who might run for mayor, it was a huge mistake. And it was mostly her fault.

  Peters was sheriff’s detective, yes. But he worked for a tiny department and had a boss who wanted this whole case to go away. This wasn’t on him. Jessie was supposed to be a highly regarded criminal profiler. No amount of lack of sleep could excuse the oversight. She silently castigated herself, noting that this was one of the major downsides of only consulting for the department from time to time. She risked losing her edge.

  She texted Jamil, knowing he’d be able to get Supervisor Blake’s personal contact information far quicker than she could. While she waited for him to find it, she thought again about Ariana Aldridge, forcing her brain to shake off the cobwebs that had allowed her to leave the woman in Peters’s custody, simply hoping it would all work out.

  The more she reconsidered it, the harder it was to buy that the woman would have left that hotel hallway only to coldly return later to kill Gabby Crewe. Seeing her in Theo’s office with a baby in her arms, her eyes flashing, it was clear that Ariana was one to get passionate in the moment. But once the anger subsided, she at least appeared to be a sane, reasonable person.

  After having dealt with her, Jessie thought there were two far more likely scenarios. She could imagine Ariana banging on the door and confronting what she thought was Gabby and Theo together right then and there. Or she could also have done exactly what she claimed: run off in distress to lick her wounds.