The Perfect Neighbor

by Blake Pierce

  Randy smiled back at her, apparently impressed. But she saw a sliver of apprehension behind his eyes and knew that the answers she wanted would be forthcoming.

  “I saw the girl,” he admitted sullenly.

  “When?”

  “About ten minutes before you and Detective Hernandez stopped by. She was wearing a hoodie, thinking she was being sly, and had on a small backpack, but I recognized her. Like I said, Carl wasn’t fooling anyone. She had her own key and she used it to enter the house via the side door.”

  “What else?”

  “I saw Carl drive by while we were talking, headed to his place. He couldn’t have been in the house for more than two minutes before he came running out. So if you’re looking at him for this, you might reconsider. I doubt he had time to do much of anything in there.”

  “Is that it?” Jessie pressed.

  “That’s it. You still gonna drag me downtown?”

  Jessie was tempted, just to see how he’d handle it. But she relented.

  “You’re good for now. But if I have more questions, I expect you to give me answers without attitude.”

  “Yes ma’am,” he barked, saluting.

  “Where were you by the way, Randy?”

  “When?”

  “In the time between when you saw the girl go in the house and when we showed up?”

  Randy tried to scowl at her but his facial muscles were too tequila-loose to get the job done.

  “Are you asking for my alibi? I’m an old drunk in sandals, Jessie.”

  “Where were you?” she asked in a tone that suggested he was in danger of returning to backtalk territory.

  “I was right here,” he said. “I haven’t moved in an hour and don’t intend to move again until this mug is empty.”

  She was inclined to believe him, though she gave his feet a quick glance before leaving. There was nothing resembling blood on them. And the timeline didn’t fit anyway. Randy couldn’t have killed Kelly, gotten back to his porch, then thrown on an all-black outfit, survived a fight with Ryan, and returned to his porch. It was ridiculous.

  But as she walked back to the Landingham mansion, something about that thought reverberated in her mind. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it but she knew it would make sense when she got back to the house.

  Without even thinking about it, she broke into a run.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The coroner was removing the body as Jessie led the small group up the stairs.

  She was first, followed by a uniformed officer, Carl Landingham, Ryan, and a second officer. She marched down to the master bedroom and walked in. It was just as she’d left it. As she looked around, the fuzzy thought that had been dancing in the back of her brain stepped forward. She waited until everyone else had filed in to begin.

  “Mr. Landingham,” she began, using his last name to reestablish some sense of formality now that he’d calmed down a bit. “You said that you’ve been out of town since last week, correct?’

  “Yes,” he said. “My wife and I left last Thursday. I came back this afternoon. She’s supposed to return on Sunday.”

  “Today is Wednesday,” Jessie noted. “Other than Kelly Martindale, have you allowed anyone else access to your home while you were gone?”

  “No.”

  “Did you come upstairs when you got home today,” she pressed. “Perhaps to change?”

  “No. Like I told you earlier, I got home and saw Kelly right away when I got to the stairs. I ran out of the house immediately. This is the first time I’ve been upstairs since I got back.”

  So far everything he’d told her comported with the theory that was forming quickly in her head. She pressed on.

  “When you left last week, did you go in a rush? Not have time to make the bed or take dishes downstairs?”

  “No,” he answered, glancing at the unmade bed. “Eileen is very particular. She would never leave an unmade bed or a dirty dish. Everything has to be just so. She’s always complaining that our maids don’t do as good a job as she does.”

  “So she wouldn’t have left it like that?” Jessie said, pointing at the bed.

  “No way.”

  “Are these yours?” she asked, looking at the clothes folded on the dresser and the sneakers on the floor in front of it.

  Carl walked over to get a closer look at the outfit. He reached his hand out.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Ryan reminded him.

  Landingham pulled his hand back and instead peered closely at the clothes before kneeling down and studying the sneakers.

  “None of this stuff is mine,” he finally said.

  Jessie tried to contain her excitement.

  “Can you look around and tell me if anything is missing?”

  Landingham looked at her with skepticism.

  “How would I know? We have a lot of stuff.”

  Jessie tried to stay cool, tried not to raise her voice.

  “I don’t mean anything valuable, like jewelry or technology. I’m thinking clothes—maybe your favorite T-shirt for lounging around the house, that kind of thing.”

  Landingham disappeared into the walk-in closet, with an officer in tow.

  “What are you thinking?” Ryan asked quietly.

  “I have a theory but I want to hold off until I get an answer from him.”

  It only took another moment for Landingham to call out. He emerged from the closet with a proud expression his face.

  “Something is missing—my favorite pair of pajamas. I only wear them occasionally but they’re super comfortable. They’re silk, navy blue. The hanger they were on is on the floor in there.”

  Jessie sensed Ryan’s eyes on her and turned to face him, trying to corral the thoughts pinballing in her head.

  “Here’s what I think happened,” she said slowly. “Lots of people around here leave town for stretches of the summer. That means lots of empty homes. I think this guy, the killer, is a squatter, but not just a regular one. He’s a guy who knows the neighborhood well, its rhythms and the people who live here and vacation elsewhere.”

  “You think he’s a local?” Ryan asked.

  Jessie nodded, honing her hypothesis with each new word.

  “I think he’s like Randy out there if Randy didn’t have a home base. Maybe he’s homeless. Or maybe he fell on hard times or had a run-in with the law. Whatever the reason, this guy has been camping out in people’s homes when he knew they’d be gone.”

  “It would be hard for a homeless guy to know the vacation schedules of residents,” Carl offered.

  “Good point,” she replied. “More likely he’s someone who has or had interaction with locals and heard their plans. He could be anything from a barista to a waiter to an employee at a property rental agency. Whoever he is, I don’t think he followed Priscilla Barton into the Bloom house as part of some home invasion. I think he was already there because he knew the Blooms were out of town.”

  No one spoke for a moment as the idea settled in.

  “Same at this place,” Ryan added, getting on board. “He must have known the Landinghams would be gone too.”

  “Right. But something went wrong there,” Jessie said, turning to Landingham. “Were you supposed to come back today?”

  “No. For the last five years, we’ve left on a Thursday and came back a week later on the Sunday. I…” He stopped mid-sentence.

  “What?” Jessie demanded.

  His face turned pink as he answered.

  “I came back early. I told Eileen I had a business meeting. But it was really so I could spend time with Kelly without worrying about getting caught.” He paused before adding a question. “Does this mean she died because of me?”

  “So the killer must have thought he had half a week left,” Jessie mused, ignoring Landingham’s anguished question. “He was likely napping in the bed here after a little snack, enjoying the silk pajamas. Then some girl wakes him up, thinking it’s Carl. She runs when she realizes it’s not him.
He chases her. Maybe in the past he would have just snuck out.”

  “But she’s seen him and he’s already on the hook for one murder,” Ryan interjected.

  “Exactly,” Jessie agreed. “He can’t let her give a description to the cops, so he pursues her down the hall. Her heel breaks at the stairs. Either she falls or he pushes her. Either way, he finishes her off in the foyer. But before he can go back upstairs and change into his own clothes, Carl here comes home. So he has to bail, barefoot and in silk jammies.”

  Carl was standing in front of them in horror-stricken silence. But neither Jessie nor Ryan were focused on his feelings of guilt right now.

  “So we’re not dealing with a thief,” Ryan said, more to himself than to her.

  “No, not unless you count the stocking, which feels like it’s a whole other thing. We’re not dealing with home invasions or theft. We’re dealing with a guy who wants to live these people’s lives, relax in their homes, wear their clothes and eat their food. That’s probably what he was doing up until the run-in with Priscilla Barton. And that encounter seemed to set something off in him.”

  “After her, then Garland and the girl today, it’s like he’s got a taste for it now,” Ryan noted.

  The mention of Garland’s name felt like a slap across the face. In all the excitement, Jessie had forgotten about her murdered mentor. She suddenly felt like Carl looked: guilt-ridden. But she pushed the feeling away. She was on a roll and she knew that Garland would rather her focus on catching his killer than mourning his loss.

  “Yeah,” Jessie said, before adding something else that had just occurred to her. “It means something else too.”

  “What?” Ryan asked.

  “There’s no way this guy ran out of here in silk pajamas, only to attack you minutes later in that cabana wearing all black, including a ski mask. There just wasn’t enough time.”

  “So what are you saying—that we have a squatter killing people and another guy in the same neighborhood wearing all black and attacking cops in broad daylight?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” she replied.

  Her mind reeled at the thought: two violent offenders operating in the space at the same time but apparently unconnected to each other. She thought she was getting a handle on the squatter killer. But the other attacker confounded her. Who was this mystery man?

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Kyle was still riding a wave of adrenaline when he got back to Claremont.

  After changing clothes in Rick’s 4Runner, he was now out of that stifling black outfit and wearing a casual T-shirt, shorts, and a baseball cap. He walked into the Claremont Colleges Honnold/Mudd Library and made his way to the restroom in the Finance section. When he was safely in a stall, he texted Rick’s burner phone that it was time. While he waited, he made sure that everything was in order. He set the 4Runner key on the toilet paper dispenser and began undressing.

  His body ached more than he would have liked. The altercation with Ryan Hernandez hadn’t gone as smoothly as he’d hoped. The guy didn’t look it in his cheap detective’s suit, but Hernandez was shockingly strong. Apparently Jessie liked the big boys. The embarrassing truth was that if Kyle hadn’t had the element of surprise and been on top of him in their fight, he wasn’t certain it would have gone his way. Next time he’d take proper precautions.

  He was almost done when he heard the bathroom door open and Rick whistle the opening bar to The Bridge on the River Kwai theme song, the sign that it was him entering. Kyle coughed twice to confirm and Rick stepped into the stall next to him. Neither of them spoke.

  Kyle slid his clothes, cap, and the key under the dividing wall between the stalls and waited for Rick to do the same. Less than two minutes later, Kyle flushed the toilet and stepped out of his stall, now wearing the khaki slacks, button-down shirt, and loafers that Rick had on moments earlier.

  The keys to his Prius, along with his personal phone, the one he knew was being tracked, were in the slacks pockets, along with his wallet and ID. He checked himself in the mirror briefly, then left the bathroom and headed in the direction of the parking area where he knew his car would be waiting. As he exited the restroom, he noticed Agent Poulter sitting unobtrusively in an easy chair across the way. He nodded at him and smiled.

  He was just reaching the bottom of the main stairwell in the library lobby when Poulter and Agent Cress fell into step behind him. Once they were all outside, Poulter called out to him. Kyle turned around, a broad, phony smile plastered across his face.

  “What can I do for you, Agents?” he asked politely.

  “You’re here at the library for hours on end,” Poulter said. “I’m wondering why you’re spending you’re time in the finance section. I think it’d be better spent in criminal justice, don’t you?”

  Kyle kept the smile wide, knowing Poulter was just letting off some steam, clearly frustrated at having nothing on him.

  “You know, Agent,” he said mildly, “other guys who just got freed from prison after a miscarriage of justice might consider this harassment and call their lawyers on the spot, but not me. I know you’re just doing your job.”

  “Our job is to arrest you when you slip up, Voss,” Agent Cress growled.

  “Slip up?” Kyle repeated innocently. “I don’t know what you mean. This is the new me. I’m on the straight and narrow. It’s all clean living from here on out. I’m squeaky clean or whatever other cliché you care to use.”

  “You’re not fooling anyone,” Poulter said acidly.

  Kyle smiled sympathetically, ignoring the blond, muscular guy who walked past the three of them in a T-shirt and shorts.

  “I’m not trying to fool anyone, Agent,” he said patiently. “I’m just trying to lead my life. Did it ever occur to you that I felt bad about you guys having to sit outside my townhouse in near hundred degree heat? I could have checked out those books and read them at home. But instead I studied them in the cool, air-conditioned library so you two could get a little reprieve. And this is thanks I get, to be accosted and insulted?”

  Neither agent had an immediate response to that. Seeing them stand there mutely filled him with glee. He tried to rein in the snark as he continued.

  “To make it easier on you guys, here’s my plan for the rest of the day. I’m going to stop off at the market, pick up some sushi and maybe some wine if I’m feeling wild. Then I’m going to binge a few episodes of Mindhunter and crash early. You can let your night replacements know. In the meantime, I promise to drive slowly.”

  He didn’t wait for a reply. Instead he turned and headed for the parking garage. As he walked, he went over the plan for the night in his head. It was true that he would be having sushi but there would be no wine.

  He needed to keep his head clear because he was going out tonight.

  *

  Jessie was so anxious that she could barely eat.

  They were in a holding pattern right now, unable to take any tangible steps until they heard back from others. They were waiting for any results from the fingerprinting and DNA testing at Carl’s place.

  They’d convinced the local D.A. to ask a judge to approve a warrant to search all the unoccupied homes on the Strand but the Homeowners Association was fighting it. Apparently they didn’t think that the police marching up and down the Strand searching homes was a great look. Meanwhile Jessie was waiting for a call from an eager young MBPD researcher named Jamil Winslow, who was following up on a hunch she had.

  In the interim, they’d decided to have a light bite in sight of the Pacific Ocean. They sat on the outside patio at a hipster gastropub, waiting for their food.

  “I feel like, even though we’re only in our thirties, everyone here is looking at us like we’re old-timers,” Ryan said, trying to break the tension.

  Jessie smiled tightly. She didn’t feel chatty but she didn’t want to be rude. They both sipped iced tea silently. She tried to give herself a mental break and appreciate the slightly lower temperat
ure that arrived as late afternoon began to bleed into early evening. The break didn’t last long.

  Ryan got a call just as their food came.

  “Bad news,” he said when he hung up. “There were no unusual prints found at the Landingham house and DNA results won’t be back until tomorrow.”

  Jessie shook her head in amazement.

  “That’s stunning if he was squatting there,” she said. “It means he’s been extremely diligent about wearing gloves and wiping surfaces down.”

  “He can wipe up prints,” Ryan agreed. “But not DNA. Remember, I ordered the killer’s clothes and shoes be sent to forensics. Between that and whatever they pull from the bed sheets and stocking, it’s not crazy to think we’ll have something to go on tomorrow.”

  Jessie sensed a note of uncertainty ion his voice.

  “But…” she prodded.

  “But if what they find doesn’t match someone already in the system, we’ll still be stuck.”

  Jessie took a bite of her turkey wrap and chewed slowly.

  “How is it?” Ryan asked.

  “Not bad at all,” she said, finding the chewing motion unexpectedly relaxing. “But not worth fourteen bucks. What about you?”

  “Same. I feel like we’re being charged half for the food and half for the view.”

  “It is a nice view,” she admitted.

  “Mine’s better,” he said.

  It took Jessie a second to figure out that he was talking about her.

  “So debonair,” she said, batting her eyes elaborately. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

  Because his original dress shirt was ripped and bloody, he had borrowed an extra T-shirt from one of the officers until they stopped at a local shop and picked up a new work shirt. Jessie had insisted he buy the sea foam green one. Despite his initial protestations, he eventually agreed. She knew he secretly liked how he looked.