by Blake Pierce
As Jessie had guessed when Kat mentioned the lawsuit over the wedding ring outside the station earlier, the firm representing Caroline Gidley’s former fiancé was the same one they were at now, the same one that represented all three of the married women’s ex-husbands.
Not coincidentally, as Kat discovered on the drive over, according to the documents Scott Fellows had sent Jessie, the firm also represented Construction Associates, which meant any lawyer here could access information about legal disputes that might force various construction sites to shut down temporarily.
And while Jessie was hopeful that something in the legal paperwork would reveal the killer’s identity, she also just wanted to get into the offices and look at the lawyers to see if any of them matched the man in the hospital video footage.
“I suppose you can look at the files,” Moira finally said. “Assuming you take nothing and are gone in an hour. Can you abide by those terms?”
“We can,” Jessie promised.
“Very well then,” Moira said. “Give me the case numbers and I’ll have one of the girls bring you copies.”
“Thanks so much,” Jessie said, managing not to smirk until Moira had left the room.
*
It only took about twenty minutes for Jessie’s enthusiasm to turn to desperation.
Things looked promising at first. All three divorce cases referenced the counseling sessions with Warren Fischer, which meant that someone reading the files could have easily researched him in order to frame him. But the Caroline Gidley ring dispute had no connection to Fischer.
Furthermore, it became clear within minutes that none of the same lawyers had handled all of the cases. Brendon, Hannigan & Gellar was a mega-firm that operated throughout California. Their Los Angeles office had fifty-nine attorneys. Only one had handled even two of the cases. But it was a woman named Jessaline Pordoux, who had moved with her French husband to Paris last year.
After that disappointing revelation, Jessie had been reduced to “getting lost” on the way to the ladies’ room. As she walked through the halls of the firm, she held her phone at her side, recording as she slowly walked past every door, hoping to stumble across the man who was a perfect match for the hospital video.
She saw lots of men, but most were hunched over computer screens and none jumped out at her as obvious candidates. Besides, if the killer did work here and was planning to attack again tonight, it was quite possible that he’d already left for the day.
“What now?” Kat asked when Jessie returned. She was clearly frustrated that her contribution, which had led them here, seemed to be another dead end.
Jessie rubbed her temples, hoping to get another fireworks spark, but nothing came. She looked up.
“I’m out of ideas,” she said, unable to keep the defeated tone out of her voice. “I think all we can do now is circle the wagons.”
“What does that mean exactly?” Kat asked.
Jessie turned to her and did her best to smile.
“You up for a stakeout?”
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
Jessie wasn’t worried about slashed tires tonight.
For the third time this week she was parked outside Brenda Ferguson’s house. But unlike the previous two visits, this time she hadn’t left the car. She and Kat found a spot a half block down the street, where they could eat burgers and sip coffee while they kept an eye out.
“Should we be eating salads?” Kat asked after a big bite. “I feel like we’re a stereotype right now.”
“I think we’d be a stereotype if we ate salads too,” Jessie pointed out. “There’s no way to win that one, so I’m going to eat what I want. I doubt Ryan and Trembley are questioning their stakeout dining choice right now.”
Whatever they were eating, those detectives were doing it outside Jayne Castillo’s house. After consultation with Captain Decker, they’d all agreed that having extra support for the uniformed officers on guard was a good idea. They had also agreed that, while the officers on duty were made aware of their presence, the families would not be. No need to freak them out more than they already were.
Jessie had volunteered to go to the Fergusons’. She didn’t admit it out loud, but part of the reason was that Brenda had kids. The death of either woman would be a tragedy but Jessie couldn’t bear the thought of those children losing their mother. So she and Kat were here.
Ryan didn’t seem to care where he was sent and Detective Alan Trembley was just happy to be around for the ride. As the low man on the totem pole, he rarely got his pick of assignments. But spending the evening with the celebrated Detective Ryan Hernandez was one he happily jumped at. Trembley made up for his lack of experience with an enthusiasm that often bordered on giddiness.
As they sat in the car, Kat chomped down a few fries before moving on altogether from discussing dining habits.
“So Ryan ended up thinking Warren Fischer wasn’t the guy either?” she asked.
“By the time he finished the interrogation, he was as skeptical as me,” Jessie answered. “But he still had a tail put on him just in case. Someone will be following the guy all night.”
“Speaking of all night, is Hannah going to be okay if this thing runs into the wee hours?”
“She’s been on her own through the night often enough that she’s used to it by now. But I haven’t been able to reach her to tell her what’s going on. I think she’s screening my calls.”
“Use my phone,” Kat suggested. “She loves me.”
“First of all, it makes me feel great to know she’d answer your call but not one from her own sister. Second, that’s a fantastic idea. Give me your phone.”
“Wait,” Kat scolded. “Let me call her. I’ll chat her up for a moment, and then hand it over. She’ll be less likely to hang up after talking to me than if she picked up a call from me and you answered. Delay the trickery.”
“That is another great idea,” Jessie admired. “You are getting better at being sneaky every day.”
“Thank you,” Kat said as she called, putting the phone on speaker.
“No,” Jessie said. “Take it off speaker. I don’t want her to think I’m monitoring her every word.”
Kat switched it back just as Hannah picked up. Jessie could still hear her slightly but forced herself not to strain to catch every word. The two of them talked for a minute before Kat pulled the rug out.
“Hey, girl,” she said. “I have someone here who wants to say hi. Hold on a second.”
She handed Jessie the phone, who spoke more hesitantly than she would have liked.
“Hey, it’s Jessie.”
After a long pause that made her briefly think her sister had hung up, Hannah replied.
“Hi. Is this what you’ve been reduced to—putting your friends up to calling me?”
“Something like that,” Jessie said, deciding there was no point in defending herself. “I needed to get a hold of you somehow to let you know I might not be home tonight.”
“What a shocker.”
“I also wanted to apologize.”
Another long silence.
“For what?” Hannah finally asked.
“For suggesting you might have called Social Services,” Jessie said. “I was upset and grasping at straws. I should have never said that.”
She didn’t mention the fact that she still wasn’t certain it didn’t happen. But telling Hannah that at this moment seemed like an unwise move.
“I can’t believe you would ever think that,” Hannah said quietly.
Jessie tried to answer without lying.
“I can’t explain everything that was going on in my head at that moment. And even if I could, it wouldn’t justify what I said. But I had a moment of weakness. After a major lack of sleep and the sense that I was being targeted by powerful forces I couldn’t even identify, much less stop, I lashed out at the person in front of me. I’m not proud of it. I’m hoping that we can work through it and that, if I can professionally survive this
investigation, you’ll want to stick around.”
“Maybe if you get me a new pair of AirPods, I could put in a good word…”
“What?” Jessie asked.
“I’m just kidding,” Hannah said after a long, cruel pause. “Of course I want to stick around. You’re not perfect but you’re better than my other options by a long way.”
“Thanks?”
“It’s a compliment,” Hannah assured her. “Anyway, I plan to testify myself. We’ll get through this. That is, assuming you don’t kill me with your scones before I talk to these people.”
“Hey!” Jessie said, feigning hurt feelings, before conceding. “Actually that seems fair. Maybe you could make me some of your scones. It might give me something to look forward to after I get through this night.”
“Sure,” Hannah said, her voice hinting at something more.
“What’s wrong?” Jessie asked.
Hannah’s indecision was almost audible. Finally she replied.
“It’s just, maybe I can do more than bake scones to help. Remember, some of the things I told you about girls I knew at school helped when you were investigating that porn actress who was murdered. Maybe I could offer a different perspective on this case.”
“Is that how you want to spend your evening?” Jessie asked incredulously. “Listening to details about a murder investigation?”
“It’s either that or binging more episodes of Top Chef. And those are all reruns.”
Jessie looked over at Kat, who had clearly been listening in. She gave a “why not?” shrug. It wasn’t a crazy idea. Maybe reviewing what they knew would allow them to come up with an angle they’d missed so far.
So as they finished their burgers, she walked her sister through the details of the case, from the first abduction of Brenda Ferguson a month ago to their visit to the law firm earlier this evening. Hannah asked occasional questions. Many were thoughtful but none of them sparked any sudden revelations.
When Jessie concluded by telling her that the visit to the law office had been a dead end, Hannah spoke.
“What about the paralegals?”
“What?” Jessie said, not following.
“You said none of the lawyers worked on all four cases, but what about the paralegals? Remember, my adoptive dad was a lawyer. I remember he used to always say that he’d never have won a single case if not for his paralegals. Sometimes they would be handling a dozen cases for multiple lawyers all at once. He used to give them huge gifts at the holidays because he said they were the lifeblood of his firm. Did any of them work on all the cases?”
Jessie and Kat exchanged embarrassed looks.
“I have no idea,” Jessie admitted.
“They’d be referenced in the footnotes of the firm’s copies of each document they prepared, even if it was never filed with the court,” Kat said. “Good thing I took photos of every page I looked at while we were there.”
Jessie looked at the phone in her hand, realizing the answer to their questions might be there.
“Hey, Hannah, mind if we let you go for a bit?” she asked. “We need to see if you maybe just solved our case.”
“Okay,” Hannah replied. “But if I did, I definitely deserve those AirPods.”
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
His name was Joseph Setts.
It hadn’t taken long to determine that. Once they knew where to look, it was obvious. Though his name didn’t appear on any documents filed with the court, it was visible in the footnotes of work product related to all four cases. He’d worked on each case, sometimes for months at a time.
Once they’d learned that, Jessie pulled up his employee page on the firm website. It didn’t offer any personal details. But there was a photo, which she used as she went back through the video she’d secretly taken when walking the firm’s halls.
She found him ninety seconds in, sitting at a desk in a paralegal office. He was the only one there, his attention focused intently on the screen in front of him. As he typed, Jessie thought she saw a bandage poking out under his right sleeve at the wrist.
She thought of the hospital footage in which the killer had the bandage on his right forearm. Then she flashed back to the mental image of Morgan Remar, lying dead on the floor of her kitchen with a butcher knife clutched in her hand. None of it felt coincidental.
Jessie studied him on the screen as she called Ryan and Decker, conferencing them in.
“Our guy’s name is Joseph Setts,” she said without preamble. “I’m sending you images of him now.”
He looked to be in his early thirties with short brown hair, brown eyes, and a pleasant, unremarkable face. Nothing about him screamed serial kidnapper and murderer. But in Jessie’s experience, a person’s motives were rarely discernible based on looks alone.
More immediately, despite the bandage, there was no way to tell for certain if the guy at the desk or in the employee photo was the same man from the hospital footage. The wig, glasses, and graininess of the video were too limiting. But even without that visual proof, there was more than enough to think this was their guy.
She filled both men in on the details as she sent them everything she had. Decker sprang into action.
“Get to that law firm, Reid,” he ordered while he kept the rest of them on speaker. “Have Pete Clark lead a unit to Setts’s home. I want experienced officers on that assignment. Tell Camille Guadino to get authorization to track the guy’s phone and car location data and to put out an APB, including facial recognition.”
When she was done barking, he returned his attention to the stakeout teams.
“You all stay put,” he ordered. “At this point, knowing who he is doesn’t help unless we know where he is. And since it’s reasonable to suspect that he’s headed to where one of you two is anyway, there’s no reason to change what you’re doing.”
“What if he’s not headed our way?” Trembley asked on Ryan’s phone.
“If that’s not his plan for the night, we’ll find him,” Decker said. “But better to assume he’s coming to you and be wrong than the alternative. Stay alert, people.”
*
Detective Ryan Hernandez wasn’t worried about Alan Trembley staying alert. The guy was nearly bouncing off the walls already.
“Trembley,” he said to the overexcited detective in the passenger seat, “just stay cool. It’s only just getting dark. We might have a long night ahead of us. You’re so pumped that, at this rate, you’re going to burn out before midnight.”
“Sorry,” Trembley said, taking a series of too-fast deep breaths. “I’ve been on stakeouts before. I’m not sure why I’m so amped for this one.”
“Maybe it’s the three cups of coffee you’ve had,” Ryan chided mildly.
“I just don’t want to drift off, you know? That’s my fear—falling asleep and having something terrible happen.”
“Don’t worry,” Ryan promised. “If you fall asleep, I’ll give you a solid punch in the gut to wake you up.”
Trembley looked at him, unsure if he was being messed with. Ryan let him wonder as he retreated into his own thoughts.
It had been a rough few days. Until their recent break in the case, he’d felt like he’d been spinning his wheels. Add that to pissing off his girlfriend by essentially accusing her of being a whack job and he could be having a better week.
He hoped that if they could resolve this case, he’d have a little down time to square things away with Jessie. Everything just felt too unsettled right now. He wasn’t sure where he was sleeping most nights. And on the nights he was at her place, there was a teenage girl there who, despite being shockingly well-adjusted all things considered, was still a constant threat to erupt like a hormonal, trauma-ridden volcano. It was intense. Something had to change to make it less so.
He was weighing his options on that front when he saw it. There was movement on the roof of the house next door to the Castillos. Though it wasn’t completely dark out yet, the light was too low to see clearl
y.
He grabbed his binoculars with one hand and whacked Trembley with the other to get his attention. The other detective followed his gaze and grabbed his own set of binoculars. As Ryan focused in, he saw what looked like a male with short brown hair exiting a second floor, street-facing window and scurrying across the roof to the adjoining roof of the Castillos. He looked like he was about to leap from one to the other.
“This is Hernandez,” he said into his radio, using the frequency designated for the officers on guard. “Be advised. I have a white male on the roof of the home just south of the Castillo residence. He seems to be planning to jump across. No visible weapons but proceed with caution. Do not engage until we are on scene. We are leaving our vehicle now and approaching from the southeast.”
He hooked the binocular strap around his neck, nodded at Trembley, and got out. The two of them hurried across the street. The officer standing on the front doorstep moved onto the lawn so he could get a better view. By the time they got to the Castillo front yard, the suspect was mid-leap.
Unfortunately for him, he misjudged the distance. His torso landed on the roof but his legs fell short, slamming into the exterior wall of the house. The man grabbed at the roof gutter, trying to keep from falling. But within a few seconds, his grip failed and he dropped to the ground. The hedges broke his fall slightly before he thudded down, his back slamming hard against the grass below.
The uniformed officer joined Ryan and Trembley at the side of the house. The other two men had their weapons drawn. Ryan had pulled out his flashlight, which he shined into the man’s eyes.
But it wasn’t a man at all. The person lying on the ground with his legs snagged helplessly in the hedges was a teenage boy who looked to be about sixteen. When he saw three men standing over him, two with guns pointed at him, his eyes went wide with panic.
