THE PERFECT IMAGE

by Blake Pierce

  He didn’t look good.

  In addition to apparently forgetting to get completely dressed, Fahey seemed stunned, as if he’d been hit over the head and had only just regained consciousness. His eyes were red and cloudy, and his brown hair was damp and disheveled. Though he looked to be tall—well over six feet—he appeared to be sagging in on himself.

  “I don’t think that’s a great idea, Mr. Fahey,” said Detective Gore, who was the first among them to recover from the sight of the man. “This is the sort of thing you can never unsee. That’s not how you want to remember your wife.”

  “I deserve to know what was done to her,” he insisted, his voice cracking. He looked on the verge of collapsing. Jessie hurried over to him and gently took his forearm.

  “Let’s sit down, Mr. Fahey,” she said, leading him to the nearby breakfast nook.

  “Who are you?” he asked as he settled onto a bench. Jessie took the bench across the table from him.

  “My name is Jessie Hunt,” she said, feigning ignorance that he’d specifically requested her unit. “I’m a criminal profiling consultant for a special unit of the LAPD called Homicide Special Section. This is Ryan Hernandez, the lead detective for the unit.”

  “Right,” Fahey said vaguely. “I remember you now. I requested you guys. You were on the news a few weeks ago, caught that Night Hunter guy; killed him.”

  Jessie didn’t contradict him. This wasn’t the time to address any inaccuracies in his version of events.

  “That’s us,” she said. “And we’re to help you, but Detective Gore is right. Seeing those images right now would only make things worse. There will be lots of time to review them when your wife’s killer is on trial. But for now, I don’t recommend it.”

  “Okay,” he said weakly, “if you say so.”

  He lowered his head forlornly, as if it was too heavy for his neck to support. Despite her natural inclination to be suspicious, Jessie was overcome with compassion. Assuming he was innocent, this man’s whole world had just been blown up. His wife was dead. His children were motherless. No matter how many times she dealt with situations like this, it never got any easier, especially when there were kids involved. She could only imagine the frenzied heartbreak he must have felt on his cross-country flight this morning, unable to do anything to make it better. He was still undoubtedly a suspect, but at least in this moment, sympathy won out over scrutiny.

  “I think it would be best,” she reiterated before moving on. “But let me tell you what could help. I know you’ve already been interviewed, but Detective Hernandez and I have a few quick questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “Okay,” he said, lifting his eyes and attempting to make eye contact.

  “Thank you,” she said, leaning in closer to him. “First, Detective Gore tells us you’re sharing all your phone data with us, correct?”

  Fahey nodded numbly.

  “Great. That will help us a lot,” she said before moving on to a question she already suspected the answer to. “Now I noticed that you have a security system with cameras set up in various locations. Have you provided the login information yet?”

  “He has,” Gore said, answering for Fahey. “We’ve already looked at it and the attacker scrupulously avoided getting in the frame of any of them.”

  Jessie did her best to hide her frustration. She already assumed that was the case or else Gore would have told her right away. The question was intended to get Fahey talking and the detective had stepped on that effort. She tried again.

  “Thank you, Detective,” she said, and then turned her attention back to Fahey. “Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt Gillian? Anyone who threatened her—a friend she had a falling out with or a co-worker?”

  Fahey shook his head vigorously.

  “No. Gilly almost never got into it with folks. The worst stuff she ever talked about were things like someone parking over the line into her space at work so she couldn’t get into it or a PTA mom not showing up for a fundraiser. I don’t remember her ever being truly worried about someone she dealt with.”

  “Is there someone else she might have discussed a concern like that with?” Ryan followed up. “Maybe someone in HR at work or a female friend she was close to?”

  “I guess it’s possible,” Fahey conceded, “but I doubt it. She always asked me to look over any potentially sensitive work correspondence before she sent it out to make sure it was okay, so I doubt she’d have addressed a work issue without talking to me first. As to female friends she’d confide in, I don’t even know who that would be. Gilly was friendly with lots of women but I wouldn’t say she was tight with any one person in particular.”

  Fahey seemed like he might say more but then he seemed to lose his focus. Jessie wasn’t sure what more could be gleaned from the guy in his current state. She looked over at Ryan to see if he felt differently. He shook his head that he didn’t.

  “Okay, Mr. Fahey,” she said, starting to stand up. “That’s all we have for you for now. We’ll let you know if that changes.”

  Fahey nodded meekly.

  “One more thing,” Ryan added as if it was an afterthought. “We know that you have to travel to D.C. often for your work. But I’d ask that until we get resolution on this, please don’t leave the state without authorization.”

  “Of course not. I would never leave the kids,” he said before having some kind of realization. “Oh god—how am going to tell my children that their mother is dead?”

  Jessie was stunned at the question. Hadn’t he been asking himself that the entire flight back to L.A.? Before she could think of a diplomatic reply, his phone rang.

  “It’s our housekeeper, Belinda,” he said, ashen-faced. “What do I do?”

  “Answer it,” Ryan told him without hesitation. “You need to go to your children and tell them the truth in whatever way you think they’ll understand. Don’t lie to them and suggest that Mommy is coming back. Your job is to be there to support your kids. Our job is to find out who did this and catch them. We’ll do ours. You just focus on making your little ones feel safe. Got it?”

  Fahey nodded and answered the phone. The rest of them filed out of the room to give him some privacy. As she walked away, Jessie attempted to focus exclusively on what needed to happen next: getting to the Santa Monica police station to see Gillian Fahey’s body and review the case file. But no matter how hard she tried, it was impossible to ignore the sound of Simon Fahey breaking down on the phone as he tried to speak.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  As always, the morgue was freezing.

  Ryan pretended not to notice while he waited for the medical examiner to remove the sheet from Gillian Fahey’s body. Though he’d seen hundreds of dead bodies over the years, he always found it best to steel himself for what was to come.

  It was just the three of them in the frigid, antiseptic room—him, Jessie, and the M.E. That was because, after showing them to a small conference room where they could set up shop and pointing to the elevator that would lead them to the basement morgue, Detective Gore had unceremoniously abandoned them.

  “Good luck,” he had told them with clear relief on his face that his responsibility to them was complete. He was gone before they could reply.

  Ryan studied the M.E., a small, bald man in his fifties whose office door placard read Dr. Morris E. Orzabal, Chief Medical Examiner. Orzabal had a dour expression that Ryan thought seemed appropriate for the task at hand and he wasn’t especially chatty, which was fine. It always felt unseemly to engage in small talk in the presence of someone who’d had her life violently snuffed out.

  “You ready?” Orzabal asked.

  He and Jessie both nodded. The M.E. pulled back the sheet to reveal Fahey’s naked body. Her sagging flesh pressed down on the metal table below her. Her eyes were closed and her hair had been pulled to the sides of her head so it didn’t bunch up under her. It was thickly matted with dried blood.

  Other than two deep cuts—one on he
r neck and another on her upper thigh—there was no indication of further assault. No bruising to speak of. No superficial cuts that might have suggested she’d tried to evade the killer while they swiped at her with the knife. Of course, where could she go? She’d been cornered in that pantry.

  There was blood all down her front where it had gushed out from her neck. Similarly, her entire left leg was stained red. But setting that aside, Ryan found himself agreeing with Jessie’s earlier theory that this murder was well planned and not spur of the moment, especially in light of how the killer managed to avoid all the home security cameras.

  “The cuts are very clean,” he noted. “I don’t see any sign of hesitation or sloppiness.”

  “I agree,” Orzabal said. “Whoever did this was very precise. He or she knew exactly where to use the knife to kill without getting messy. The wounds occurred only at the carotid and femoral arteries. She would have bled out, probably lost consciousness within thirty seconds, and died in under a minute, if not less. I obviously haven’t begun the autopsy yet but barring some shocking revelation, I think the cause of death is clear.”

  Ryan couldn’t disagree.

  “I don’t see any obvious signs of struggle, no defensive wounds,” Jessie noted. “Have you had a chance to test under her fingernails yet?”

  “No,” Orzabal answered. “I will do that momentarily, but I’m skeptical that it will reveal much.”

  “Me too,” Ryan said. “This whole thing looks professional. The killer struck fast, knew exactly where to attack to get maximum impact with minimal effort.”

  Jessie sighed softly. Ryan looked over at her. After all their time together, he knew that sound. It meant his secret fiancée had come to some conclusion, usually one that surprised herself. He loved that they could read each other so well, but was apprehensive about what ugly realization she had come to.

  “What?” he asked expectantly.

  “It’s weird to say this,” she began, “but this murder almost feels…considerate. Her death wouldn’t have been painless but it would have been quick. It wasn’t sadistic or intended as cruel. It’s almost clinical, as if the killer was testing their skills, to see if they could complete the goal they’d set out to accomplish. It feels like some kind of experiment.”

  Ryan didn’t know whether that prospect made the killing somehow better. He was inclined to think it was worse. If the person who did this was testing themselves, how many times would they need to take the exam before they felt they passed it?

  *

  The conference room that Gore had put them in was stiflingly hot.

  As they started reviewing the files on both murders, Jessie compared the details of Gillian Fahey’s death with that of Siobhan Pierson in Brentwood a week and a half earlier. They were remarkably similar. Both were cut in almost exactly the same places with similar knives from the victims’ own homes.

  “I’m going to see if I can find a fan,” Ryan said, breaking her concentration. “There’s no way I can spend hours in this room without any circulation. I’d just as soon go to the Pierson house to see things in person than sit around here.”

  “That would be a waste of time since Reid and Karen are handling it,” Jessie reminded him. “Let’s just wait and see what they have to say.”

  “Shouldn’t they be done over there by now?” Ryan asked. “How long did they leave after we headed out?”

  Just then, Jessie’s phone rang. It was Karen Bray.

  “Speak of the devil,” she said, answering the call and putting it on speaker. “Hey, Karen, we were just talking about you guys. Are your ears burning?”

  “Jessie,” Karen said, her tone immediately suggesting that something was very wrong. “I’m sorry I couldn’t call until now but I haven’t had time.”

  “What is it?” Jessie asked, instantly focused.

  “Reid had a heart attack.”

  “What?” Ryan demanded.

  Jessie’s heart sank. She found that she was unable to speak.

  “He’s alive,” Karen said quickly. “The doctor said it was mild and that he should be okay.”

  “When did this happen?” Jessie finally managed to ask.

  “We were on our way to the Pierson house in Brentwood when he started complaining of chest pain. I was driving and we were only five minutes from Providence Saint John’s Health Center so I drove straight over. That’s where we are now. The doctor said that even though it wasn’t the most severe attack, it was good that we were so close.”

  “Is he conscious?” Ryan asked.

  “No,” Karen said. “The doctors just finished putting in a stent. He’s zonked out in recovery right now. They said they want to monitor him so they’re keeping him here for at least a few days.”

  “Should we come over?” Jessie wanted to know.

  “No,” Karen insisted. “There’s nothing to do right now. His wife is on her way. I’m staying at least until she arrives. Depending on how she’s doing, I might stick around. I’ve already called Decker so he’s making arrangements for Callum to take an extended leave.”

  Hearing that last comment, Jessie had a brief moment of guilt as she questioned whether she should have said something. If she had gone to Decker with what she knew about Reid’s heart problems, would he be in a different position right now?

  She dismissed the thought. Reid had confided in her and she swore to keep his secret. She had to respect his wishes. Still, when he and Decker finally got a chance to speak, she suspected their conversation wouldn’t be about a leave of absence so much as retirement. Callum Reid had only been holding off on it until HSS was in better shape. It clearly was. There was no reason for him to stick around now.

  “But we obviously won’t be able to go to Brentwood,” Karen added, snapping Jessie out of her internal debate. “I did just get a text from Susannah Valentine offering to postpone her training and go in our place. Should I tell her to do it?”

  “No,” Jessie said more firmly than she’d intended. She tried to calibrate her next words better. “Tell her thanks, but I would hate for her to have reschedule the training. Besides, we’re already right here. It’s silly for her to drive all the way from downtown when we can be there in ten minutes.”

  She could feel Ryan’s probing eyes on her but refused to look in his direction.

  “Okay. I’ll let her know,” Karen said. “Oh, the nurse is waving at me. I think Reid may be waking up. I’ve got to go.”

  She hung up. Jessie gathered the case file, hoping Ryan wouldn’t say anything about how she shut down the offer of help from Valentine. He didn’t.

  She did feel a little ashamed of how definitive she had been. She wasn’t sure exactly why she was so opposed to the new detective participating in the case, though she had to admit that it was likely tied up in their earlier, tense interaction. Was there more to it? Was she jealous of the new girl?

  Those were questions she probably needed to explore, but not right now. Right now she was going to investigate a murder in Brentwood and satisfyingly, the new girl was not.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “I need to start an almond farm.”

  Jessie couldn’t help but laugh at Ryan’s words. He was right. If being the heir to an almond farm fortune meant living where the Piersons did, she was on board too.

  After a quick drive over from the station, they got buzzed in. Once the automatic gate opened, they drove up to the Pierson Estate. And that’s what it was—an estate. They lived just a few miles north of the Faheys’ mansion, on a quiet residential street off Montana Avenue, near the Brentwood Country Club. The Pierson place lacked one thing the Faheys had: an ocean view. But they made up for it.

  Unlike the Fahey home, whose lot butted right up to hotels and condo buildings on all sides, the Piersons didn’t live within fifty yards of their closest neighbors. Their property was surrounded by a metal gate that actually had pointed spikes at the top. The structure was barely visible behind the veritable forest that lined the
driveway.

  “Better almonds than peanuts,” she said. “Remember, I’m allergic to those.”

  “How could I forget,” Ryan replied. “Isn’t peanut oil what Andrea Robinson slipped into your drink that night to poison you? Speaking of which, how did your chat with her go?”

  “Not great,” Jessie told him, frowning at the memory of the visit. “She wants me to support moving her to a different facility. She made vague promises about telling me where she gets her inside info if I do.”

  “Are you going to?” Ryan asked.

  “I haven’t decided,” Jessie said curtly. “I’ve been a little busy since we met so it’s not at the top of my priority list. Should we go introduce ourselves?”

  Ryan must have sensed that she didn’t want to discuss it further because he didn’t pursue it.

  “Sure,” he said. “Let’s see how an almond heir lives.”

  *

  Pretty well as it turned out.

  The Piersons’ home wasn’t as many stories tall as the Faheys’—it had only three. But it had actual wings separated by a central portico section. Its design seemed to be modeled on the White House, which suggested something about how the Piersons thought of themselves. As Ryan was parking, they got simultaneous texts.

  “It’s from Jamil,” Jessie said. “So far he’s coming up empty on that search of the victims’ social media that I asked him to do. He says there are no obvious connections between Gillian Fahey and Siobhan Pierson. No online friends in common. No shared groups. No indications of any feuds of any kind. He’s going to dig deeper but that might be a dead end.”

  “That’s surprising,” Ryan said as they got out of the car. “I would have thought that with all Simon Fahey’s political connections, he would have interacted with a family as powerful as the Piersons.”

  “He may have,” Jessie replied. “But it’s just not showing up in their social feeds.”

  “Maybe they’re connected through their kids?” Ryan suggested.