by Kate Gable
"The one and only time I saw her was about a week ago.” Jesse grabs his phone.
"You're not going to be deleting any texts there, are you?” Pellegrino asks, looking over his shoulder.
“No, I’m trying to show you something.”
Jesse shows him the text string as Pellegrino shines his flashlight on the screen.
"We met up last Tuesday. She didn't look anything like her pictures. I mean, they were filtered or something. Who the hell knows? She was too young. I knew that she was underage and nothing happened."
"What do you mean?"
"We met at a coffee shop. Starbucks, right on Melrose. She kept telling me that she was twenty-one, but I could tell that there was no way she was that old. I didn't want to talk to her after that."
"Oh, yeah, because you're such an honorable guy?” Ross asks.
"Listen, I was looking for a date, a girl that I could, you know, hang out with, have a good time with. I'm not into kids and she was just looking to fuck around."
"What do you mean by that?" Ross asks.
"I don't know. She just gave me this vibe. It's hard to explain. It's like she was having a good time just by lying and seeing me react to her lies. It was so stupid. I mean, it was so obvious. She just wanted to catch me or something."
"So, what happened then?" I ask.
"I bought one cup of coffee. I talked to her maybe for ten minutes, standing up at the counter. We didn't even sit down. Then I asked her why the hell she lied to me."
"And?" I ask. "Did she tell you?"
"She said that she wasn't lying. She said that she was twenty-one and the girl in the picture. She said that I was the one that was wrong."
"She kept telling you that her name was Mary-Anne?" I ask.
"Yeah, like I'm some sort of idiot. I mean, her name might have been Mary-Anne, but at that point, I already didn't believe a word coming out of her mouth. I wasn't sure if it was a set-up or what the hell was happening.”
He gasps for air, running over his words.
“That was it. I left,” Jesse says after a brief pause. “You can go talk to the employees there or get the tape or whatever, but you'll see that that was it and when she texted me after that, I didn't text her back. I blocked her, actually, because she wouldn't stop.”
A part of me is skeptical. I'm tempted to not believe him.
Ross, Pellegrino, and I exchange looks all asking the same question. If this guy is telling us the truth, then what could have happened?
"What about on the eighteenth?" I say. "I saw in your messages that you had plans to meet up."
"No. Absolutely not.” He shakes his head.
I open her Instagram account and I show him what I'm looking at: messages from him to her to meet up that night.
"I did not write them. Are you serious? This is not... No. Absolutely not.” He looks at the screen again. "No. I told her that I would never meet with her again. She was psycho. I mean, she was like a little kid, but she was insane. I did not write those messages."
"So, why are they here?" I ask, staying calm.
Suddenly, the room starts to feel incredibly small and is shrinking more with every second.
We walk out of the apartment and don't say a word until we get to the vehicle.
"What do you think?" Pellegrino asks, turning toward us as we form a huddle.
"I got the feeling that he's telling us the truth," I say. "He seemed genuinely shocked that she's dead, but they had plans to meet up that night, right? I mean, that's what the text messages say."
"I agree, except for that one bit. I mean, do you think that he would have met up with her again?" Pellegrino asks Ross.
Ross shakes her head.
"That guy seemed genuinely freaked out. I don't know. I've never seen that kind of reaction before. He was so put off. He wasn't pretending like he didn't know her. He was kind of angry about who she said she was, but to meet her again? I don't know. Is there any way to check whether the messages are fake or not?"
“There's a way to find out when they were sent, but how could she have faked them?" I ask.
When we return to the station, I go over to talk to Ben Lawrence, the computer tech and show him what we have. He squeezes me in and thinks about it for a moment.
"There's no way that she had his log-in info?"
"I don't know," I say. "I mean, of course that would be the easiest way, right? She'd log in, she'd pretend that they had plans to meet up, but to what end? I mean, why?"
"I don't know," Ben says, shaking his head.
He wears a button-down shirt and his hair is cut short. No glasses, though, so not exactly a full cliché of what a person in his job would look like, but pretty close.
Ben is friendly, gregarious, and actually seems to like women more than computers. Plus, he's good at what he does. We trust him.
"I'll go through the files again. I'll see if she logged into any other devices to try to trace this back. Give me a few hours.”
I nod and leave him to it.
22
I go back to my desk and try to figure out what else could have happened. I mean, the simplest explanation is, of course, that Jesse is lying. He did have plans to meet with her.
I go over everything that I have seen of him in that conversation; the room, the facial expressions, the anger. He was quite angry.
Angry people are capable of a lot and if he were that angry when he was talking to us, detectives from the LAPD, total strangers, then how angry would he have been with a girl who dared to lie to him?
Unfortunately, in this business, girls tend to be killed for a lot less than that. A man's anger goes a long way and casts long shadows.
I decide to go get something to eat from the vending machine just as I start to feel the lump in my throat. When you do this for a while, you tend to try to forget that these are people's lives that you're dealing with. These aren't just stories.
These aren't just things that happen to other people. These are their whole lives, and you come into contact with them at the worst possible points.
You get to tell the story of their deaths.
You get to find out what happened.
You get to give people closure, their families mostly.
We talk about justice being served, but is it really ever served? The people who are dead are still dead. There's no bringing them back. Their killers are put in prison. Some are executed. That doesn't change the outcome though. That doesn't take away the pain of that night. It doesn't bring back anything that happened. So, justice, vengeance, or whatever you want to call it, that's just for the surviving family members. That's what they get. What does the victim get?
Less than an hour later, Ben Lawrence walks up to my desk with a big grin on his face like he has found something.
"What's up?" I ask, popping a pretzel into my mouth.
"Somebody logged into Jesse Broward’s Instagram from Courtney’s computer and texted him."
"Really?" I ask. "How do you know?"
“I didn’t check for this earlier but when I went through it again, I saw that somebody had logged into his Instagram at precisely 6:50 p.m.”
“Courtney?” I ask.
“They texted back and forth and set up a meeting. Instagram was open on the Chrome browser and it was logged into his account. Her Instagram was open on Safari.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“Someone using her computer was able to talk back and forth and set this whole thing up to make it look like they had met up that night or had plans to meet up that night.”
“Courtney?” I ask again.
“Either Courtney or someone using her computer pretending to be Courtney."
"Oh, wow. Huh," I say out loud, furrowing my brow.
"What could this mean?” Ben asks.
"Well, do you think that she did it?"
"She might have done it. But it might have been someone else using her computer,” he offers.
That s
eems unlikely, I say to myself.
When we walk over to Ross and Pellegrino to share the news, they seem as perplexed as I am.
"Who else was in the house at that time?" Ross asks rhetorically.
“Her parents,” I offer.
“But they wouldn't have done anything like that, right?" Pellegrino asks.
We shake our heads. It seems unlikely.
"Well, the only thing I know," Ben says, "is that it was someone using her computer and according to the GPS, the computer was at her house. So, it could have been her. It could have been her parents, or I guess some other person who came over to the house and did this."
"It was definitely not Jesse texting her back, right?" I confirm.
"Definitely not. The messages look like they had been read almost immediately and they were read from right there in that house, which couldn't have been the case since he wasn't there."
I nod as the wheels start to turn in my mind about all of the possibilities. There's still a lot to confirm, especially when it comes to all of this technology stuff, but for now, we all know what we need to do. We need to talk to the parents.
I reach out to Mrs. Reynard while Pellegrino calls Dr. Reynard. We try to organize a time for them to come in. Mrs. Reynard seems distracted and a little bit annoyed when I call, which is an unusual reaction from someone who should be consumed entirely by the death of her daughter. Again, it's hard to judge in these situations. They had just had the funeral and her husband had gone back to work, leaving her alone in the house.
She says that she absolutely cannot come tonight, and I offer to stop by.
I wait for her to say no, but she doesn't.
When Pellegrino gets off the phone with Dr. Reynard, he says that he couldn't even get through.
"They told me that he was in surgery. Apparently, some sort of big emergency thing."
"I can't believe that he went there the night of his daughter's funeral," Ross says, shaking her head.
She’d recently adopted a little squeak of a dog and has spent a small fortune on his bed, clothes, and everything else that people who love dogs more than people usually do. When she brought him over to the precinct my heart melted and I immediately wanted to get one, too. But unlike Ross, I live alone and the long hours I put in at work would just be too unfair to an animal.
“I find that hard to believe as well, except that we should all know what it's like to be a workaholic,” I point out. “Sometimes it's easier just to spend your time working, distracting yourself rather than really feeling the moment, the pain of it all.”
Our eyes meet and Ross and Pellegrino are the first ones to look away. I know that they know what I mean. Everyone here does.
We all like to work a lot. The hours busy our minds and help us forget whatever unhappiness we deal with on a daily basis in our personal lives.
That is the not-so-secret secret about detectives. We're all running away from something, pretending that something's not happening.
We like to stay busy. We like to stay active. We like to log lots of hours so that we don't have to think about life and the meaninglessness of it all too much. We each seek solace in whatever is available and appealing; religion, philosophy, alcohol, toxic relationships.
For many years, that's exactly how I dealt with my father's death. I don't believe that he committed suicide for a moment, but Mom does and we have basically reached an understanding of letting each other believe what we wish.
We're like those families on opposite ends of the political spectrum. If we want to be happy and continue to celebrate holidays together and have some semblance of a family, we have to agree to disagree and never talk about certain things.
"I don't know many doctors," I say, "but I have a feeling that they're workaholics just like cops and maybe this is the only thing that he could think to do to take his mind off things."
They nod. They know I'm right. I'm not trying to take his side and it's a totally crappy thing to do to your wife, who doesn't have the luxury of escape, but sometimes it's the only thing you can do to protect yourself.
"Why don't I drive over to Mrs. Reynard's?" I say. "I will talk to her and then reach out and let you know if it's anything of interest."
They nod. Their shift is ending. They've been working on this non-stop, logging a lot more hours than I have.
"We can always interview Dr. Reynard tomorrow morning or maybe I can even go talk to him tonight. We'll see how long it all takes."
"We can wait to do both tomorrow morning," Pellegrino suggests.
“No.” I shake my head. "I want to get this done. I think I'm going to try to get the press conference organized for my sister tomorrow morning and it's about a three-hour drive out there."
“The mountains are going to get a lot of snow," Ross says. “It's going to drop into the fifties here. Lots of rain is expected.”
"Yeah? Then it’s going to be in the thirties up there," I say with a nod. "Let me talk to Mrs. Reynard just in case I get snowed in. Then we can go from there. I'll call you."
I arrive at Mrs. Reynard's Brentwood home just as the sprinklers come on. She has a big, wide, open lawn and a Tudor-style home that, from the looks of it, is probably more than 5,000 square feet. The façade is white with neat trim around the windows. The front is immaculately landscaped, and I doubt that she does any of it herself.
I park my car right up front and make my way up the driveway. I see her through the kitchen window, talking on the phone. She walks back and forth nervously and gestures wildly. Her hair is pinned up on top of her head and it looks like she's even wearing glasses, something I haven't seen before.
The door knocker is elegant and thick, and it makes a loud dinging sound. I use it instead of the doorbell. I stand on a welcome mat that says, Welcome to Our Home in elaborate script.
As soon as she opens the door, I smell the irresistible scent of cinnamon streaming in from the kitchen. My mouth starts to water. It immediately reminds me of the cinnamon cookies that my mom used to make every fall.
"Mrs. Reynard, I'm sorry to bother you again."
She sees me and the expression on her face shifts. It's almost like she takes a breath of fresh air. It's hard to explain. The tension seems to vanish, which is an unusual thing to happen.
“I have to go,” she says into the phone and waves me inside.
The foyer of the house is grand and beautiful. There's an enormous bouquet of flowers on the table right out front and the crystal chandelier sparkles in the night light.
"Can I get you something to drink or eat? I'm just about to have some of the food that people brought over for the funeral. If you want any, there's plenty."
I'm about to say no, but I nod before I can. I follow her into the pristine marble kitchen with Shaker-style cabinets and brushed brass doorknobs. The farmhouse sink is empty of dishes and even patted dry. It has either never been used or has been immaculately cleaned.
There are two islands parallel to one another. The one without the sink is covered in food platters and the rest of the kitchen, the entire perimeter, is covered in white flowers.
"We just had the funeral today," she says, and I give her a nod.
She's still dressed in her black clothes; black jacket, black pencil skirt, and black blouse underneath, but she's no longer wearing her heels or pantyhose. Her feet are bare and the nail polish on her fingernails is peeling, like she had been picking at it.
"Can I make you some tea?" she asks. "I'm going to have some myself."
"Yes, that actually sounds great." I nod and take a seat at the circular marble table across from the second island.
The chairs are plush and gray with gold legs. I've never sat on a kitchen chair that was this comfortable.
She brings over two mugs. Hers says, Happy Fall, Y'all and mine says, Hang in there. I doubt that she got these on purpose, but mine is particularly poignant in this situation.
She holds open a box of tea bags, each one organized in its
own particular container, and I grab the orange crush one, herbal, caffeine-free. I plop it into my mug of hot water as she offers me sugar in a silver sugar bowl.
"No, thank you.” I shake my head.
She doesn't take any for herself but tosses two bags of chamomile into her mug. She sits across from me and we don't say anything for a few moments.
I wonder where all of her friends are and why they're not here or maybe her family. If anyone were here, I wouldn't be able to talk to her like this, but this is my in. This is my opportunity.
"I wanted to ask you about your daughter," I say, taking a sip of my tea and letting the warm liquid run down my throat.
23
Mrs. Reynard sits across from me. She looks tired and worn out. I know that she has been through a lot, but I need her help.
"Sure," she says with a shrug. "What do you want to know?"
I reach into my purse. This is the moment of truth.
"I'm going to record your answers. Is that okay?" I say, pulling out a recorder.
At this point, many people usually tell me to get out of their house and call their lawyer. It's illegal to record confidential conversations, including private conversations or telephone calls without a two-party consent in California. It's actually a crime to record a private conversation, but someone can legally record a communication made in a public place. The law also doesn't apply to police and some private citizens when recording a conversation to gather evidence of an offense.
She looks at the recorder and nods gently.
"I just want to make sure that I get everything right," I say, looking at the recorder again.
"Yeah, whatever. It's fine," Mrs. Reynard says, rather despondent.
I turn it on and I start asking her about her daughter.
"Can you tell me what Courtney was like, growing up?"
Mrs. Reynard takes a deep breath and exhales very slowly.
"She's been a very difficult child ever since her brother was born.”
Mrs. Reynard averts her eyes and doesn't meet mine but talks as if she's talking to no one in particular.
