The Perfect Neighbor

by Blake Pierce

  “Okay,” Jessie said. “That helps a little. We certainly can’t eliminate him based on that.”

  “Right,” Jamil agreed. “But more interestingly, he had connections to both female victims. Detective Hernandez showed photos of both female victims to Brandee. She didn’t know Priscilla Barton. But she did recognize Kelly Martindale. She said that she and Hemsley would sometimes see Kelly out at clubs in the area with ‘an old dude’ that Barney knows.

  “Barney and Carl are friends?”

  “No,” Jamil corrected, “at least not according to Brandee. In fact, she said that Hemsley considers Carl an arrogant jerk. But they definitely know each other from when Hemsley lived on the Strand.”

  “Okay, that’s something we can work with,” Jessie said.

  “There’s more,” Jamil said. “Guess who owns the house Barnard Hemsley used to live in, before he sold it at a loss?”

  “I couldn’t possibly.”

  “Garth and Priscilla Barton! He sold them the place about a year ago.”

  Jessie looked over at Ryan, who was smiling.

  “What are the chances that these are all coincidences?” he mused.

  “It’s a small community,” Jessie countered. “And knowing these people doesn’t mean he had a motive for killing them.”

  “No,” Ryan conceded. “But it’s more than we had before. And if this is some kind of obsessive stalker fetish thing, we now have proof that he was at least aware of both these women. Plus, according to what Brandee told us, he has easy access to that brand of stockings. Tell her the other thing, Jamil.”

  “Oh, right,” Jamil said excitedly. “Based on court records, at least three of Hemsley’s recent clients have homes within a block of either the Bloom or Landingham residences.”

  Ryan picked up from there.

  “So it stands to reason that he might have met with those clients at home, within peeping distance of the houses where these attacks took place.”

  Jessie considered the information.

  “All of that is supposition,” she pointed out unconvincingly. “None of it is definitive.”

  “No,” Ryan conceded. “But nothing we’re finding makes him seem less guilty.”

  Jessie nodded. She couldn’t argue with anything he’d said, though something still made her reluctant to jump on the Barney train.

  “Let’s go talk to him and his lawyer,” she offered. “Maybe he’ll be chattier if confronted with all this. Thanks, Jamil.”

  The young researcher smiled enthusiastically. Jessie suspected this was the biggest case he’d ever dealt with and he was riding the adrenaline high.

  When they stepped into the interrogation room, Barney was seated, while his lawyer remained standing. The man was the same height as his client but perhaps a hundred pounds lighter and ten years older. He was bald, save for a narrow strip of gray along the back of his head. He had a mild manner which was reinforced by the sweater vest and Dockers he wore.

  “Giles Orlean,” he said, extending his hand to both of them. “I represent Mr. Hemsley. It’s an honor to have such celebrated law enforcement personnel in our sleepy little town.”

  “Not so sleepy of late, Counselor,” Ryan pointed out.

  “And not so celebrated either,” Barney piped up. “Giles here told me about your reputation, Jessie. I didn’t realize you were the chick who was under fire for going on racist Facebook rants. Maybe that explains my unprovoked, violent arrest. Trying to overcompensate by bringing down a rich white guy, huh?”

  Jessie held her tongue, fully aware that Barney was trying to bait her in front of his lawyer.

  “Barnard,” Orlean said soothingly, “we might all be better served by lowering the temperature a bit. I’m quite confident that we can clear up this misunderstanding with a little open communication.”

  “I wholeheartedly agree,” Ryan said, dropping photos of Priscilla Barton and Kelly Martindale on the table in front of them. “You’re currently under arrest for assaulting a law enforcement officer. Depending on the information we get from you now, those charges could change to include multiple counts of murder. So maybe you’d like to help yourself.”

  “Who are these women?” Orlean asked, unfazed by the sight of two dead bodies.

  “I was hoping Mr. Hemsley could help us out with that,” Ryan said, pointedly not calling him Barney this time.

  “I don’t recommend that Mr. Hemsley respond until you give us a little more to go on, Detective,” Orlean replied.

  Before Ryan could counter, Barney started talking.

  “Hey, I recognize that one,” he said, pointing at Kelly Martindale. “She’s the hottie that asshole Carl Landingham was nailing when his wife was out of town. I remember she and Brandee grinding on each other at a dance club a few months ago. It was pretty awesome, though Carl didn’t seem to love it. She’s dead now? What a waste.”

  Jessie saw Giles Orlean roll his eyes in frustration.

  “What about the other woman?” Ryan asked.

  Barney squinted as he leaned in to get a better look.

  “I don’t know that one,” he said. “She’s not bad, although she looks like she’s getting a little long in the tooth.”

  “She was thirty-one. And you do understand that you’re talking about a dead woman, right?” Jessie reminded him. “You don’t seem to have an ounce of compassion about that.”

  “Why should I care?” Barney demanded. “I don’t know her.”

  “Are you sure about that, Barney?” Ryan asked, dropping the formality. “Because you sold your house to her last year.”

  “What?” Hemsley replied, less annoyed by Ryan’s first name dig than he’d been earlier. “I sold my house to some oil and gas goober from Louisiana, name of Barber or something. He would have paid twice my asking price but I wanted to screw the Homeowners Association by lowering the property value. Plus, he was a real wannabe. I figured he’d annoy all the snooty locals real good.”

  “That ‘wannabe’ was Garth Barton and this is his wife, Priscilla,” Ryan told him.

  “Okay,” Barney said after looking again. “I never met her, only the husband. I’m sure she was just as annoying as him.”

  “Did you find her annoying when you passed by her place and the Bloom house to see your nearby client?” Ryan asked. “Did you tell Kelly Martindale she was a hottie when you visited the two clients you had less than a block from Carl Landingham’s place?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man,” Barney insisted, though he seemed less forceful than he had been earlier. “I meet my clients at the office, not their homes.”

  “Always, Mr. Hemsley?” Jessie pressed. “Do you want to lock yourself into that statement? Because we can check your phone data against the dates of these meetings and if they don’t match up, you could be in some real trouble.”

  “Ms. Hunt,” Giles Orlean said, sounding huffy. “I think we’ve had just about enough of these scurrilous allegations.”

  “Mr. Hemsley,” Jessie said flatly, ignoring Orlean, “both those women were murdered within walking distance of your office, as was an LAPD profiler. You had multiple clients in the immediate vicinity of the murder scenes. You have personal connections to both female victims and no firm alibi for any of the times of death. You can see why this is a problem, can’t you?”

  Barney Hemsley looked at her as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Maybe for you. But not for me. I didn’t kill anyone and I’m getting my legal assistance pro bono, so this is just an evening’s entertainment, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Ryan and Jessie looked at Orlean, confused. Red-faced, he explained.

  “Barnard represented me in my divorce,” he said sheepishly. “He did it gratis…”

  “Because his wife was such a bitch,” Barney interjected.

  “And I said that if he ever got into a criminal scrape,” Orlean concluded, “I would do the same for him.”

  “Well then,” Ryan s
aid, “it’s lucky there are no formal charges yet, Barney, because this could get really expensive otherwise. We haven’t even gotten to the pantyhose.”

  “What pantyhose?” Barney demanded.

  “The ones found around both female victims’ throats, the same brand that Brandee says you bought multiple pairs of for her.”

  “Whatever, man,” Barney said dismissively, though a hint of uneasiness had crept into his voice. “I don’t pay attention to pantyhose brands. She wanted them. I bought them. Pretty cheap way to keep her happy and compliant, if you ask me. And what about the profiler, did he get ‘hosed’ to death too?”

  He chuckled at his own joke. Jessie had a flash of Garland lying on the ground, old and weak, his body broken and his brilliant mind forever gone. Her stomach turned over even as her heart started beating double time. She leaned in close so that their noses were almost touching and growled at him.

  “That profiler was my friend, you sick bastard. And if you’re responsible for his death, I’m going to make sure you burn for it.”

  Hemsley laughed.

  Jessie suddenly felt her blood rush faster. Her cheeks flushed and for the briefest of seconds, her vision got cloudy. She felt a blind fury come over her and made no attempt to fight it.

  She was just raising her arm to clutch the man’s throat when she felt Ryan’s arms wrap around her chest, physically lifting her up and carrying her back several feet. She struggled to shake free but his grip was unbreakable. Orlean stood in front of his client, trying to reduce the tension by eliminating her sightline to him.

  “I understand you’re upset, Ms. Hunt,” he said. “But that kind of outburst isn’t productive for anyone.”

  “Typical emotional woman,” Barney jeered. “Getting your panties all in a bunch, or should I say pantyhose? I don’t give a rat’s ass about your profiler buddy. What do you think of that?”

  “Shut up!” Orlean hissed at him as Ryan dragged Jessie out of the room and slammed the door.

  “I’m gonna kill him, Ryan,” she snarled.

  “If we’re lucky the state will do it for us,” he told her. “But not if you mess it up. Go take a walk. Cool off. I’ll handle this, okay?”

  “Aren’t you pissed?”

  “Of course I am. I want to rip his trachea out, just like you were about to. But I want justice for Garland and those women more. So I have to swallow my anger. But rest assured, if this guy did it, he’s not going to be laughing much longer.”

  After several deep breaths, Jessie nodded. She knew he was right. Going off on Barney Hemsley, whether he was guilty or innocent, wouldn’t do anything to help Garland.

  “I’m going down to the pier,” she said.

  “Good idea,” he agreed. “I’ll check in with you in a bit.”

  He gave her a kiss and squeezed her arm affectionately. She tried to force a smile but found she couldn’t. As she walked toward the station exit, he returned to the interrogation room.

  “Barnard Hemsley,” she heard him say loudly, “I’m placing you under arrest for the murders of…”

  The door slammed shut, cutting off the rest of the sentence. She knew what came next. But it didn’t make her feel any better.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  The wind had a surprising bite to it.

  As hot as the day had been, with the sun now having set, the ocean breeze felt suddenly malevolent, slicing against her sensitive skin with unexpected ferocity. She embraced it.

  There was something clarifying about the sting. It cleared her mind and forced her to focus. The fury of the interrogation room was already starting to fade, replaced by a desire to put the pieces together, to ensure that Barney Hemsley paid the price for his actions.

  She felt a buzz in her pocket and checked her phone. The text was from Hannah, saying the cops had arrived, cleared the building’s lobby and parking structure, and were currently doing a sweep of both the condo and the whole thirteenth floor. Jessie texted back thanks for the update and asked her to relay any additional ones.

  She returned the phone to her pocket and took several additional deep breaths, trying to clear her head. She was at the very end of the pier, in the same spot where she’d stood with Ryan earlier today, seemingly a lifetime ago.

  In the distance she could see the lights of several massive cargo ships, all waiting to unload their freight at the Port of Los Angeles. Much closer in, she saw a few surfers braving the black waters, oblivious to the sea monsters she felt sure were lurking just out of sight. Monsters liked the dark, though not necessarily the one she was hunting.

  While Garland had been killed at night, both Priscilla and Kelly were murdered when the sun was still out. That was a brazen act, especially in such a highly populated, heavily trafficked area. It seemed hard to believe someone could have done those things and simply left the scene without being noticed. And Barney Hemsley, with his flyaway hair, rotund stomach, and garrulous nature, didn’t strike her as the type to recede into the shadows unnoticed.

  Frankly, despite the mounting evidence against him, Barney didn’t seem right for this in any number of ways. The guy had everything—a huge house, a lucrative career, and a pliant, adventurous girlfriend.

  More compellingly, he just didn’t seem like an obsessive, furtive guy. All his desires were right out in the open. If he was into choking attractive women for kicks, Brandee seemed amenable. And had she not been, he surely could have found women willing to play that game for the right price. Plus, he just didn’t seem like the squatter “type,” whatever that meant.

  Yes, he had clear connections to both women. But they weren’t as personal as Ryan had suggested. And they could have just been coincidences. Barney was a grotesque human being. But he was also smart, or at least wily enough to almost taunt her into assaulting him. The idea that he would kill women that he knew could be traced back to him, even if they were crimes of passion, seemed doubtful.

  Jessie couldn’t dismiss him as a suspect. But for the time being, she decided to set him aside. In fact, it might be worthwhile to do something unusual. Instead of trying to get into the killer’s head, maybe she should shake things up and get into someone else’s head: Garland’s.

  Something had made him come back to this neighborhood and return to that house on his own, late at night. That was not standard procedure. What was eating at him so much that he couldn’t wait until the next day to check it out? She pulled out his notepad and flipped through it to the last page.

  “OTB,” “missing h,” and “fetish?”

  Those were the only words scribbled on it. The last two phrases made some sense. She was confident that “h” referred to hose, though she wasn’t sure what “missing” meant. “Fetish?” was clearly a reference to liking to choke women with stockings.

  The top result when she’d searched the term “OTB” online was for off-track betting, which seemed random and unlikely. But he wouldn’t have written it down if it wasn’t important. She pulled out her phone and searched the term again. She got the same results. Frustrated, she was about to put the phone away when it occurred to her that since he considered all three terms to be connected, perhaps she should put in all three terms together.

  Shy typed “OTB” again and had just started to add “missing h” when she realized she could now change “h” to “hose.” She stopped mid-type as her brain did the equivalent of a silent, internal fireworks show. It was all suddenly clear, as if someone had laid out the facts, buffet-style, in front of her. She recalled Brandee’s comment earlier, “only the best for the best, right?” Only the Best wasn’t just a description of the stockings. It was their name: OTB.

  She cleared the search screen and started fresh, this time typing in the phrase “Only the Best stockings pantyhose.” The first result was for the boutique that Brandee was so fond of, right here in Manhattan Beach, less than a quarter mile from where Jessie now stood. She tapped the link. The page loaded to reveal the company’s website, complete with its logo,
a diamond with the letters “OTB” inside.

  Before she knew what was happening, she found herself running. Doing her best to ignore her tender back, she moved as fast as she could, until she was back in front of the Bloom house where both Garland and Priscilla Barton had died.

  Since the second death, the department had assigned an officer to stand watch at the home 24/7. She flashed her ID at him and hurried past, going inside and taking the stairs two at a time. When she got to the master bedroom, she turned on the light and hurried over to Gail Bloom’s dresser. After putting on gloves, she slowly opened the top drawer and looked in.

  Just as she had remembered, the drawer was messy, as if it had been rifled through. But if her hunch was correct, it wasn’t the killer who’d gone through Gail Bloom’s underwear but Garland himself, just before he’d been killed. She looked through it now, just as he had, and made the same suspicious discovery that he had: Bloom had no OTB stockings.

  Jessie again unknowingly did the same thing Garland had and knelt down to see if perhaps one had fallen under the dresser. But there was nothing there. She closed her eyes and thought the scenario through. In the end, she came to the same conclusion that her mentor had.

  The logical assumption would have been that the killer was in the house, maybe even this bedroom, when heard Priscilla Barton enter and grabbed a stocking to use as a weapon. But if that was the case, then one would assume he’d leave the other stocking here in the bedroom or that it would have been found during the search of the house later. But it hadn’t.

  Furthermore, not only did Gail Bloom have no pairs of OTB stockings in that drawer, she didn’t seem to own any pantyhose at all. If that was true then there was only one other conclusion to draw—the killer had brought the stocking with him into the home and had it in his possession at the time of the attack.

  What kind of man sneaks into a wealthy stranger’s home to squat, and when discovered, kills the woman with a high-end stocking that he had already had in his possession? And what kind of man uses that same brand of stocking to kill a second woman two days later?