THE PERFECT IMAGE

by Blake Pierce

  “She closed seventy-eight percent of her cases as a detective, including busting up a local drug ring that targeted her for assassination after she started making things difficult for them, all before she turned thirty. I think you’ll like her, Hunt.”

  “Why is that?” Jessie asked.

  “She’s almost as stubborn as you.”

  Jessie had to fight the intense urge to stick her tongue out at the captain of LAPD Central Station.

  “Where are the files on Fahey and Pierson?” she asked, showing what she considered admirable restraint.

  “On Hernandez’s desk,” he said. “You’ll have to review them on the way out there. They’re expecting you in Santa Monica within the hour. So get your asses in gear.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The bullpen looked different.

  Since the last time Jessie had been at the station for her debriefs more than a week ago, the set-up had been reconfigured to make room for Jim Nettles and Susannah Valentine. She couldn’t help but notice that she no longer had her own desk. It had been reassigned to Valentine, who didn’t appear to be around at the moment.

  Jessie tried not to take offense at the change. After all, Valentine had to sit somewhere and Jessie only came in on special occasions, when Decker really needed her and it didn’t conflict with her teaching schedule. But it still smarted a bit.

  Her wounded pride was forgotten as soon as she saw the collection of happy HSS faces as she and Ryan approached. She realized that she hadn’t seen everyone together since before the trip up to Wildpines, back when she, Ryan, and Hannah were under U.S. Marshal Service protection because of the threat from the Night Hunter.

  “Long time, no see!” bellowed Detective Callum Reid.

  Despite his cheerful demeanor, Reid looked tired. Jessie wasn’t surprised. In a rare moment of vulnerability a few weeks ago, he’d confided that he had a serious heart condition and intended to retire as soon as he felt that HSS was back on its feet. No one else in the department was aware of his plans and though Jessie suspected the decision was imminent, she wasn’t going to mention it if he wasn’t ready.

  Other than his weary bearing, Reid looked the same as usual. In his mid-forties, he had a bit of a belly. His brown hair was beginning to recede and he wore black-framed glasses that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Dragnet. He gave her a big hug, and then did the same with Ryan.

  Next to him, Detective Karen Bray looked equally pleased to see them, if far more healthy than Reid. Approaching forty, Karen had dirty-blonde hair pulled back in her now-standard ponytail. She was still the petite, eminently professional cop Jessie remembered.

  But unlike when they first partnered together on the case of a murdered actress, there were no heavy bags under her eyes or food on her blouse. Maybe that was because her child was no longer waking her up in the middle of the night. But Jessie suspected it was also due to working in a friendlier job environment than the Hollywood Division she’d recently transferred from.

  Jim Nettles, a longtime beat cop recently upped to detective, waved warmly despite looking generally apprehensive. Jessie assumed the nervousness was because of the training he and Valentine had today. She wanted to tell him not to worry; that his years of experience would more than compensate for his relative newness to being a detective. But since that might embarrass him, she said nothing. At thirty-seven, he was a walking callus of a man who’d spent fifteen years patrolling downtown streets. He didn’t need a pep talk.

  The biggest surprise was the presence of Jamil Winslow, who normally stayed in his research cave all day. Jamil was a brilliant investigator who operated a computer like Beethoven played a piano, able to uncover connections and details that slipped past far more experienced people. Small and fragile-looking, the twenty-four-year-old was indefatigable, often staying at work long after his colleagues were asleep in bed. He was also abidingly polite. Jessie had never even heard him curse.

  But according to Kat, he’d grown restless at being perceived as just the research guy. Because of that, he’d accompanied her and Nettles into the field while they were searching for the Night Hunter. It was lucky that he had, because he was the one who found the listening devices the killer had set up to try to uncover Jessie’s location. As they approached now, he broke into a big, confident grin.

  “What’s got you so giddy?” she asked him.

  “Oh, didn’t you hear?” Reid told her before Jamil could reply. “Winslow here has been promoted. He’s not just a research grunt anymore. He’s the official lead research grunt assigned exclusively to HSS. No more side gigs for the Vice or Gang units.”

  “Not only that,” Karen added teasingly, “Decker is letting him hire his own assistant grunt. He’s going to be a supervisor at the tender age of fifteen.”

  “I’m twenty-four,” Jamil reminded her, though he didn’t seem all that annoyed.

  “I guess it’s not that impressive then,” Karen poked.

  “Congratulations, Jamil,” Jessie said with complete sincerity. “You really deserve this.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Hunt,” Jamil said, blushing and averting his gaze.

  Ryan looked about to add his well-wishes when someone spoke up from behind them.

  “What did I miss?” a female voice asked.

  Jessie turned around to find herself face to face with one of the most striking women she’d ever seen. About five foot six with long, black hair, olive skin, and sparkling hazel eyes, she had a lithe, athletic frame and a confident stance that suggested she knew how to use her body as a weapon in a pinch. Jessie knew who she was before the introductions were made.

  “Jessie, this is Detective Susannah Valentine, the newest addition to HSS,” Ryan said. “Susannah, meet Jessie Hunt, our consulting criminal profiler.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Jessie said, extending her hand.

  “It’s an honor,” Valentine replied, shaking vigorously. “I’ve been watching your exploits from my little township with fascination. Every time I think you can’t top yourself, you go out and do it. You’re a real star.”

  “Thanks,” Jessie said, though she couldn’t help but notice that Valentine was describing her more like a tabloid celebrity than a criminal profiler. She tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, adding, “Anything I can do to ease your transition, just let me know.”

  “Now that you mention it,” Valentine said, pulling open one of the drawers in what used to be Jessie’s desk and taking out a large Ziploc bag, “I collected some stuff of yours I found. I’ve been saving it for you so it wouldn’t get tossed out.”

  She handed it over with a saccharine smile but her intent seemed clear. Jessie got the distinct impression that she was really saying “This is my territory now. Pack your stuff and get out of my way.”

  “That’s so sweet,” Jessie said, refusing to let Valentine see her irritation.

  Ryan seemed to sense the unspoken tension and stepped into the breach.

  “We’d love to catch up with everyone,” he said quickly. “But we’re just here to grab the case files and go. We can talk more later.”

  Jessie wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to chat with everyone but held her tongue.

  “Sounds good,” Reid said. “We’ll get out of your hair.”

  “Actually, Reid,” Ryan replied, “Decker said you and Bray might be able to help us out. The case he assigned us has two connected murders. He has us headed to Santa Monica to investigate the most recent one from last night. Are you able to look into the older killing in Brentwood?”

  “No problem,” both detectives said simultaneously.

  “Thanks,” Ryan replied. “Here’s the file on that one. Can you send us a copy while we drive? We’re already late.”

  “You got it,” Karen assured him.

  Ryan grabbed the Santa Monica file and he and Jessie headed for the door. Once they were out of earshot, he leaned over to her and whispered, “Valentine’s not usually that much of a bitch.”

&nb
sp; Jessie looked over at him skeptically.

  “If you say so.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  It looked more like a boutique hotel than a single-family home.

  In fact, when Ryan and Jessie first pulled up at the Fahey residence, that’s initially what she thought it was. Located on 2nd Street, just north of the Fairmont Miramar Hotel, the huge house faced west, near a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It was surrounded by small hotels and large, fancy apartment complexes. The California Incline Foot Path, which led down to the beach and Pacific Coast Highway, was within walking distance.

  They got out and headed up the path to the place, a Spanish-style mansion protected by a ten-foot stucco wall that circled around the entire property. Glancing over at Ryan, Jessie again observed that his limp was barely perceptible anymore. In fact, he was walking faster than she was. As they got closer to the security gate she noticed, to her surprise, that there was no police presence on the street.

  “Where’s the SMPD?” she asked. “Did they bail the second we were assigned to the case?”

  Ryan shook his head.

  “My understanding is that they were going to stick around to update us,” he said. “I’m guessing they parked around back to keep a low profile. The murder hasn’t broken on the news yet and I bet Simon Fahey prefers it that way.”

  They reached a large metal gated entrance at the end of the walkway. Ryan buzzed the call button. After a few seconds they got a staticky response.

  “Residence,” said an admirably unflustered-sounding woman.

  “Hello,” Ryan replied. “I’m Detective Ryan Hernandez with LAPD’s Homicide Special Section, along with Jessie Hunt. We’re here about the investigation.”

  “One moment, please,” the voice said.

  It didn’t take long for the gate lock to click open.

  “Someone will meet you at the front door,” the voice promised.

  They stepped inside, pulled the gate closed, and headed toward the house. With the high wall no longer blocking their view, Jessie got a better look at it. It wasn’t on a large lot, but it made up for the lack of lateral space with four stories. In fact, it was taller than the hotel next door.

  The exterior was a mix of additional stucco and sandstone wall cladding. There were multiple ivy-strewn balconies on each floor. A small Koi pond surrounded by flowering cacti sat just to the left of the entrance. The place even had what appeared to be a bell tower.

  As they stepped onto the front porch, the front door opened to reveal a fastidious-looking woman in her late forties. She wore business attire and her gray hair was tied up in a bun. She looked like she’d been crying recently.

  “Hello,” she said quietly. “I’m Ann Roth, the Faheys’ house manager. Thank you for coming. Mr. Fahey is just upstairs showering now that he finished his interview with the other detectives. He’ll be back down soon. In the interim, I can take you to meet your colleagues from the Santa Monica Police.”

  “That sounds good,” Ryan said, matching her hushed tone.

  They followed Ann down the central hallway past a wide set of floating stairs that Jessie had to crane her neck to see the top of. After passing through several rooms seemingly intended solely to house historic furniture, they came to a more modern-looking living room with a couch that seemed like people actually sat on it.

  Standing at the far end of the room, speaking to each other in low voices, were two men. One was a skinny, youngish-looking uniformed SMPD officer. The other man, in his mid-thirties, with a deep tan and slicked-back black hair, wore a nice suit and shiny shoes. Jessie guessed he was a detective. He looked over when they entered the room.

  “Ah, I see the cavalry has arrived,” he said with the very disdain that Ryan had been worried they’d encounter.

  “Ryan Hernandez,” he said evenly, pretending not to notice the other man’s tone. “This is Jessie Hunt.”

  “The legendary profiler in the flesh,” the man in the fancy suit said with something less than admiration. “What an honor it is to have you here. I’m Detective Clarke Gore. This is Officer Butler. We’re on messenger duty.”

  “Has everyone else already left?” Jessie asked, unable to hide her surprise as she and Ryan walked over.

  “Yep,” Gore replied, sounding bored. “The deputy medical examiner and the crime scene unit cleared out about an hour ago. The rest of our guys took off a half hour later. We’ve been waiting for you; expected you at ten a.m. It’s closer to eleven.”

  “Sorry,” Ryan said, keeping his cool. “We only found out we were assigned to this an hour ago. With traffic, it took a while.”

  “Well, let’s not waste any more time,” Gore replied irritably. “I can brief you on what we know. We already talked to the husband but I assume you’ll want to re-interview him. He should be down in a few minutes.”

  “Sure,” Ryan said. “Maybe you can start by giving your impressions of Fahey—his credibility and such.”

  Gore shrugged.

  “He seemed pretty dazed to me,” he said, finally easing up on the sarcasm, “like he was having trouble processing the reality of the situation. Hard to know if that’s legit but verifiable data backs up his alibi. We’ve already got footage of him dining at some D.C. restaurant last night with a couple of celebrities who went on the lobbying junket with him. A cable news crew caught him going into Senator Black’s office this morning. He agreed to share his phone data so we can verify his other movements. I guess that’s something you two will have to follow up on.”

  Jessie got the distinct impression that Gore was fed up with being here and would do almost anything to end this briefing. She wasn’t inclined to accommodate him.

  “I guess so,” she said. “So what can you tell us about the crime scene?”

  “Follow me,” Gore replied curtly.

  He led them into the adjoining kitchen. It was massive, with a huge, metal center island. Above it was a collection of hanging pots and pans. There were two refrigerators, an eight-burner stove, and a three-level oven. Jessie noticed that one slot in the knife block was conspicuously empty.

  “Was that the murder weapon?” she asked, pointing in that direction.

  Gore nodded.

  “It’s already bagged and back at the main station on Olympic Boulevard. The chief medical examiner still has to confirm for sure but on visual inspection, the wounds match the blade.”

  “Was there any sign of forced entry?” Ryan asked. “Anything reported stolen?”

  “Not that we could find. We’re still checking for missing items but nothing so far. And according to Belinda, the housekeeper who found her this morning, all the doors were locked. Everything seemed normal. She arrived at six a.m.; said she usually cleans downstairs for a while until the family comes down around seven. The thing that finally got her attention was seeing blood leaking out from the other side of a pantry door, which was locked. The M.E.’s preliminary estimate is that she’d been dead for five to seven hours.”

  “Locked exterior doors,” Jessie noted. “No sign of forced entry. Attack occurs in a confined space. It all happens when the husband is out of town. This doesn’t feel like a crime of passion to me. It looks planned, deliberate.”

  Everyone was quiet for a moment as that disquieting possibility settled in.

  “When did the house manager, Ann Roth, get here?” Ryan asked, breaking the silence.

  “She usually arrives around eight,” Gore explained. “But she said that Belinda called her in hysterics as soon as she discovered the body. Apparently she wasn’t sure what to do, especially with the kids in the house. She didn’t know if they’d been killed too and was afraid to go upstairs to find out.”

  “So it was Roth that called you guys?” Jessie asked.

  “Correct,” Gore said. “She called it in while driving over here; said she got here just before seven. Our first unit, including Officer Butler here, arrived just minutes later.”

  “That’s right,” Butler said ner
vously when Gore nodded for him to take over. “We went upstairs with Ms. Roth to check on the kids—Quentin is four and Cicely is two. They were both still asleep. She called Mr. Fahey in D.C. to tell him what happened, and then stayed upstairs with the little ones while the CSU folks did their work downstairs.”

  “Where are the children now?” Jessie asked.

  “When they woke up, Roth had Belinda get them dressed and take them out a side door far from this area. They went for breakfast and then to a park. I think that’s where they are now. When he arrived, Mr. Fahey insisted that they not come back until the crime scene was cleaned up and all of us were gone.”

  “Speaking of the crime scene, can you show us the pantry?” Jessie asked.

  “There are actually three,” Officer Butler said as he motioned for them to follow him. “Mrs. Fahey was found in what Belinda called ‘the small one.’”

  He directed them to the open pantry. Jessie thought that for a “small” pantry, it was pretty big, certainly larger than anything she’d ever had. It was completely empty and there was no sign that a person had been killed inside.

  “Everything’s been taken to the station as evidence,” Gore said. “We’re testing every soup can and cereal box in the hope that something pops—fingerprint, DNA, whatever. We’re also checking some partial shoe prints we found in the blood. There are photos of everything, including the body as it was originally found. I can AirDrop you the data file that we’ve developed so far.”

  “That would be great,” Ryan said.

  Gore pulled out his phone and sent the file. Jessie’s phone had just buzzed to indicate she got it when a voice spoke from behind them.

  “I want to see those photos too.”

  They all turned around to see who it was. Jessie recognized him immediately from the web search she’d done on the way over. Standing before them in only boxer shorts and a white T-shirt was Simon Fahey.

  CHAPTER SEVEN