The Perfect Alibi (A Jessie Hunt Psychological Suspense Thriller—Book Eight)

by Blake Pierce

  “Did he have any connection to Morgan Remar?”

  “None that we could discern,” Ryan said. “And he had an alibi for that night too. He was home with his new girlfriend, who vouched for him. The BHPD guys are following up but he seemed like a guy who had moved on more than one nursing a grudge.”

  Jessie nodded without speaking.

  “I appreciate that,” he said quietly.

  “What?”

  “You not rubbing in the fact that you thought he was a long shot from the start.”

  Jessie shrugged.

  “It had to be checked out,” she said.

  “How’s it going otherwise?’ he asked, hinting at their earlier argument.

  “How do you think it’s going?” she asked, keeping her eyes on Fischer.

  “Probably not great,” he said, his shoulders sagging. He looked around the observation room to make sure they were alone before continuing. “Listen, on the way back from Beverly Hills, I got to thinking and came to a startling realization.”

  “What’s that?” Jessie asked, though she wasn’t especially interested in the answer.

  “I realized that I’m an asshole,” he said.

  She looked at him, stunned.

  “What?”

  “Yeah,” he said, his eyes now on the floor. “The more I thought about it, the more it became clear to me that maybe suggesting the woman I love was having a psychotic episode wasn’t the way to go.”

  “No?” she asked, only able to get out one word at a time.

  “No. I realized that I can choose to believe one of two things. Either you’re a paranoid nut job who slashed your own tires, abused your sister, turned into a racist overnight, and conveniently ‘left’ hardcore anti-psychotic drugs in my car. Or someone really is attempting to ruin your life and tried to co-opt me into that by getting me to buy into the allegations against you.”

  “Which way are you leaning?” she asked quietly.

  “I’m leaning toward believing the person I’ve entrusted my life to on multiple occasions, the woman who makes me smile when I think of her face, the person I care most about in the world.”

  Jessie tried to fight off a smile.

  “You’re leaning that way?”

  “I may already be there. Do you forgive me?”

  She looked at him hard and realized that she wasn’t entirely sure.

  “You really hurt me, Ryan,” she said quietly. “You made me doubt myself. I haven’t felt that way in a long time. I didn’t think it would ever happen with you.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  The dark room was silent.

  “Look,” she finally said. “I accept your apology. But I’m not sure I’m ready to just jump back into things the way they were. I know I can count on you at work. You’ve always had my back. But I need to know I can count on you the rest of the time. I thought I could. But that confidence is a little shaken. I think we need to ease back into things on the personal front.”

  “Okay,” he said, though he didn’t look like he thought it was. “I understand. And that’s fair. You let me know when you’re ready and I’ll be here.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and then, forcing herself to climb out of the emotional well she was in, added, “In the meantime, we’ve got a suspect to talk to. You in?”

  “I am,” Ryan said, taking her cue and returning his focus to the professional. “Decker gave me the basics on my drive back. It sounds like this guy has some promise.”

  “Maybe,” Jessie said, making sure he didn’t get too excited. “On paper he’s a real contender. He admits to knowing three of the four women. No definitive alibi for either murder yet. He’s critical of their marital indiscretions in his notes. And he looks roughly like the guy in the video.”

  “You don’t sound convinced,” Ryan noted.

  “I’m not,” she granted. “For one thing, he reached out to the tip hotline multiple times. I checked and his calls are in the system but they were either overlooked or dismissed.”

  “Ray Sands told me they’ve gotten over thirteen thousand tips and have barely had a chance to work through half of them.”

  “Maybe that explains it,” Jessie replied.

  “Right,” Ryan said. “Plus, he might have called in to cover his tracks for when we discovered the connection. If he didn’t call, he’d look especially guilty.”

  “That’s true,” Jessie allowed. “But that’s not what’s making me question whether it’s him.”

  “What is?”

  “He doesn’t seem to have any connection to Caroline Gidley. He said he didn’t know her and he allowed our tech crew to look through his computer files. There’s no record of her.”

  “Could he have deleted it?” Ryan wondered.

  “I suppose, though I bet our people would be able to uncover that. Besides, if it’s him, why delete her records and not the others? I feel like there’s another connection among these women that we’re missing and once we find it, it will break everything open.”

  Neither spoke for a moment. Jessie’s phone rang suddenly, making both of them jump. The call was from the front desk.

  “Hunt here,” she said.

  “Ms. Hunt,” the desk clerk said. “There’s a Katherine Gentry here to see you. She said it’s urgent. What should I tell her?”

  Jessie looked at Ryan, whose eyebrows were raised.

  “She’s as pissed at me as I was at you,” she told him. “If she’s here, it must be something important.”

  “Go ahead,” Ryan said. “I’ll get started on questioning Fischer. You’ve laid the groundwork. I’ll play dumb, make him walk me through everything again and see if he makes a mistake.”

  “Thanks,” she said, before replying to the desk clerk, “Tell her I’ll be right there.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  Jessie’s mouth was dry.

  As she approached the station reception, she noted that she was more nervous about talking to Kat than she was before most interrogations. Though she still felt raw about her friend saying she had Caroline Gidley’s blood on her hands, she understood Kat hadn’t really meant it.

  And she could even sympathize. Kat was frustrated. Jessie had asked for her help on numerous occasions when it served her purposes. It wasn’t crazy to ask why she couldn’t have reached out to ask Kat to look in on the women who’d been abducted, especially when she was already intimately involved in the case.

  True, she’d been exhausted at the time and not thinking clearly. But she had to admit that some part of her just didn’t want to farm out such an important job to a person whose potential screw-up might reflect badly on Jessie. It was selfishness.

  Hey, maybe Warren Fischer does have a point.

  She stepped out into reception where she saw Kat leaning against a pillar, scrolling through her phone. In her jeans and leather jacket, she looked less like an investigative professional than a regular civilian. But maybe that was the point—she wanted to blend in. It was just a different style than Jessie was used to. It didn’t mean it was wrong.

  “Hey,” she said as she walked over. Kat looked up. Her eyes had the same nervousness that Jessie felt.

  “Hi,” she replied. “Sorry to bother you at work. I know you’re busy. But I have news and I didn’t want to share it over the phone.”

  “What is it?” Jessie asked, intrigued and concerned at the same time.

  “Nothing good,” Kat said. “Can we go outside?”

  “Yeah, but we’ll have to go out the side exit. Those protesters out front would lose it if they saw me.”

  Kat nodded in understanding and followed Jessie through a maze of hallways until they reached a side exit of the building in the alley. They could still hear the chanting protesters but no one was in sight. Kat launched in.

  “I got a message a little while ago from a woman named Delia Armbruster. She said DPSS was conducting an investigation of your guardianship of Hannah and needed me to come in for an interview
tomorrow afternoon. She asked me to call back to confirm. But considering I had no idea what the hell was going on, I thought I’d check with you first.”

  Jessie sighed.

  “I don’t want to bore you with all the details,” she said heavily.

  “I have a feeling I won’t be bored,” Kat said.

  “Okay,” Jessie said. “The short version is that someone—I’m not sure who yet—is trying to ruin my life. I mentioned it in passing the last time we…spoke. They hacked my social media to make me look racist. They planted anti-psychotic drugs that made Ryan think I was having a breakdown. They slashed my tires. And they anonymously called DPSS to say I was abusing Hannah. The call you got was related to that last bit of fun.”

  “Jeez. Should I go in?”

  “I don’t even know how they got your name but I don’t think you have a choice,” Jessie said. “I have an interview tomorrow too, in the morning. They said I could bring counsel. Of course, I don’t have one. The last attorney I dealt with was my divorce lawyer.”

  “I might be able to recommend someone,” Kat said. “When I got fired and the psychiatric prison started blaming me after Bolton Crutchfield escaped from the place, I hired a bulldog who shut them down. The threats stopped within a week of bringing him on. He specializes in representing individuals going up against large companies or bureaucracies. This sounds right up his alley. Want his info?”

  “Yes,” Jessie said, surprised at the relief in her own voice. “Thank you.”

  “Sure,” Kat replied before they fell into an uncomfortable silence.

  “I’m glad you called,” Jessie finally said. “I was meaning to reach out to you. I wanted to tell you something.”

  “Okay.”

  “I screwed up. I’m sorry. I should have asked for your help watching the abductees. I just…no, that’s it. I’m sorry.”

  Kat squinted at her as if the sun was in her eyes.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I know that wasn’t easy to say, especially considering everything you’re dealing with right now.”

  “No excuses,” Jessie told her. “I should have reached out. I didn’t. You deserved better than that from a friend.”

  Kat leaned against the brick wall of the station and shook her head slightly.

  “I might have been a little hard on you,” she replied. “Saying you were responsible for Caroline Gidley’s death wasn’t fair. The truth is, even if you had asked me to look in on one of those women, she would have been my last choice. I just assumed that in the hospital, she’d be the safest one of the group.”

  Jessie shook her head far more vigorously than Kat had.

  “Don’t let me off the hook. I should have asked you to look in on one of them. I should have pushed Decker harder.”

  “Jessie,” Kat said softly. “I have to let you off the hook because I know you won’t let yourself off. I know you tried to get the powers that be to protect them and they didn’t listen. I was just mad because I made a promise to Morgan Remar and her family. I felt like I betrayed them. But that’s not on you.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Jessie muttered.

  “You know what?” Kat said, forcing an upbeat tone. “We both feel like failures. Let’s think about what we can do about that. How are things going with the investigation? Is there any way I can help?”

  Jessie thought for a moment.

  “I’m not sure. Ryan’s in there right now questioning a couples’ counselor. I found out the guy had seen all three married victims.”

  “That sounds promising,” Kat offered.

  “Maybe,” Jessie allowed. “But I’m not totally convinced. We don’t have anything tying him to Caroline Gidley. As you know, she wasn’t married.”

  “No, but she was engaged,” Kat reminded her. “He didn’t see her at any point?”

  “It doesn’t look that way. The counselor turned over all his files and our tech crew has been going through his digital files. There doesn’t seem to be anything.”

  “I’m surprised he wouldn’t fight giving you all that stuff,” Kat said. “Aren’t there privacy rules for that sort of thing?”

  “There are, but he said that since it was all in the public record because of the divorce proceedings, he could release the info. That’s why he was also willing to tell me that all three women cheated.”

  “That makes sense,” Kat said. “I suppose he would have said the same thing about Caroline too if she’d been one of his patients.”

  Jessie looked at her, confused.

  “Wait. What do you mean?” she asked. “What difference would it make if she was unfaithful? There wouldn’t be any legal paperwork for her if she was only engaged, right?”

  Now Kat was the one who looked confused.

  “There is,” she said. “But not because of the cheating, because of the ring.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jessie asked.

  “Gregg Dozier sued her to get his engagement ring back.”

  Jessie stood there for a moment, allowing the fireworks that had just started exploding in her brain to subside. Kat stared at her with concern.

  “Either you have an idea or you’re having a stroke,” she said. “Please tell me it’s the former.”

  Jessie smiled at her.

  “Do you have all your case files with you?” she asked.

  “They’re in my car,” Kat replied.

  “I think we should go for a ride.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  They barely made it in time.

  The law offices of Brendon, Hannigan & Gellar officially closed to visitors at 5 p.m. But the place was full of staffers well into the evening. So when Jessie and Kat arrived at 4:57, demanding to speak to the office manager, the receptionist’s lame assertion that they’d have to come back tomorrow didn’t go over well.

  “Please tell your manager that if she doesn’t speak with us now, we’ll be returning tomorrow with a phalanx of LAPD officers in tow,” Jessie said firmly.

  The receptionist nodded submissively and darted to the back.

  “You’re sure Ryan’s cool with this?” Kat asked for the third time.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jessie assured her again. “He’s still questioning Warren Fischer, fruitlessly, it sounds like. He said as long as you didn’t question anyone and just helped out with research, it shouldn’t be an issue. Just keep a low profile.”

  “Don’t I always?” Kat asked, winking.

  A moment later, the receptionist returned with a fifty-something woman who looked like she could cut glass with her cheekbones. In fact, everything about her was sharp-edged, including her tone.

  “Threatening staffers probably isn’t the ideal way to endear yourself to me,” the woman said piercingly as she walked over. “You almost made Miranda here cry.”

  Jessie decided to go with honey unless vinegar was needed.

  “I’m so sorry, Miranda,” she said to the receptionist before turning her attention to her boss. “We’re just in a serious time crunch. Who are you, may I ask?”

  “I’m the Team Lead for Firm Strategies and Facilities. My name is Moira Halperin. What do you want?”

  Jessie smiled to herself. It was apparent that Moira had insisted on that title, though it was clear to everyone that she was the firm’s officer manager. The woman was proud but insecure, a combination that was susceptible to manipulation.

  “Moira, I’m Jessie Hunt with the LAPD. This is my associate, Katherine Gentry. We’re investigating a series of murders and we believe you can help.”

  “I know who you are, Ms. Hunt,” Moira said in nasally huff. “I watch the news. And frankly, I don’t cotton to your views.”

  Kat started to respond but Jessie shot her a look that shut her up before she spoke herself.

  “Be that as it may,” she replied, “you have information here that could be relevant to our investigation. Nothing we need from you is outside the public record. We could get it from the court. Unfortunately,
they’re closed for the day and you’re not so here we are.”

  “Technically, we are closed,” Moira said snippily.

  Jessie could sense that Moira wasn’t going to back down in front of someone she supervised so she tried to deescalate things. She saw an empty conference room off to the left and pointed to it.

  “May we speak privately for a minute?” she asked.

  Moira glanced at the room, then at the very curious Miranda, who seemed nowhere near tears, and nodded. Once they were inside with the door closed, Jessie laid out the facts.

  “Moira, I’m going to level with you. We think the person who murdered two women in the last two days is going to try to kill a third tonight. And we believe that information in some of your files could help us find the perpetrator. Both women were involved in legal disputes in which your firm represented the other party. Two other women we believe are at risk also had cases in which your firm was involved.”

  “Are you asserting that Brendon, Hannigan & Gellar is somehow involved in this?” Moira asked, truly aghast.

  “Absolutely not,” Jessie lied. “Would we be coming to you for help if we thought the firm was in any way responsible? We just know there’s a connection. It’s not a coincidence that two dead women and two women facing that fate had legal interactions with your firm. All we want to do is look at the public filings and see what that connection might be.”

  “Couldn’t you just review the documents digitally?” Moira asked. “Surely the police department has access to the LA Court database?”

  “We do,” Jessie said. “But neither my associate nor I are experts at navigating the database and time is short. The first victim was murdered in late evening. The last one was killed yesterday afternoon. We’re in the window where it might happen. Looking at the hard copies will save us time. And your assistance will reflect well on the firm, a clear sign that you have nothing to hide.”

  Moira pondered the idea. Jessie remained silent, allowing the woman to draw her own conclusions. While it was true that Jessie was no expert in the database, she could muddle through. Kat was more adept. But the real reason they were there was that Jessie did indeed suspect Brendon, Hannigan & Gellar, or at least one of their lawyers, of ill intent.