THE PERFECT IMAGE

by Blake Pierce

  The previous time he had been at Whitney Carlisle’s house there was no backyard deck. He ought to have anticipated that the couple might have had work done inside the house as well. But he hadn’t noticed anything when sneaking inside or hiding in the closet, so it never occurred to him that the very bedroom Whitney ran into to escape might have been changed from one bedroom into two. It almost cost him.

  Truthfully, if the woman had just kept running for the front door instead of trying to take him out with that lamp, he probably wouldn’t have caught her in time. He wasn’t going to chase her into the street and try to drag her back inside by her hair. After all, his goal wasn’t to terrorize these women. That defeated the purpose of the kill. Each one was designed to prove his skill. He couldn’t make elegant cuts if the victim was flailing wildly about.

  He needed to do better this time, be more cautious and less cocky. That was especially true after discovering that the woman he’d photographed leaving the Pierson mansion wasn’t a detective at all. She was the celebrated criminal profiler Jessie Hunt.

  It only took a quick Google search of her exploits to appreciate that he’d need to be at the top of his game to outwit her. It was one thing to have an air of unshakable confidence at work, but for this kind of job, a little humility was required. Besides, these were people’s lives he was taking and he needed to do it properly, not in slipshod fashion but with some respect.

  That’s why he was down the street from the next subject’s house right now—to make sure things ran smoother this time. He walked slowly down the block as he studied the place again, looking for any sign that things had changed since he’d been inside the home two months ago. Everything looked the same.

  Just to be sure, he pulled on his hoodie—the one he’d picked up from Goodwill earlier in the day—then continued down the sidewalk until he was in front of her place. He noted happily that her husband’s car was in the driveway. That comported with what he’d already confirmed: Dr. Colin Lennox wouldn’t be on duty at the hospital until 5 p.m., leaving his lovely wife, Sheena, alone for the night.

  As he passed by the house, he checked to make sure the security cameras were still in the same place and that there was still that loose board in the fence on the right side. He was reassured to find that both were exactly as they had been the last time he walked by yesterday evening.

  He got an unexpected jolt of giddiness when he glanced though the window and actually saw Sheena there in the sitting room. She appeared to be playing the piano with her back to him. Her brown hair was pulled up in a bun and her professional blouse and skirt suggested she might not be finished showing houses to clients yet today. A Realtor’s work was never done.

  He kept walking another half block so it wouldn’t look suspicious when he crossed the street and returned back in the direction from which he’d come. As he stepped off the curb onto the street, he stumbled slightly. He recovered quickly but the jerky movement made him inhale in sharp pain.

  The blow that Whitney Carlisle delivered to his ribs with that lamp last night had really done a number on him. He didn’t think any of them were broken but they were definitely bruised. It stung whenever he inhaled deeply.

  He tried to put the discomfort out of his head as he walked back to the end of the block. He might be hurting right now, but in just a few hours, he would be the one inflicting the damage.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  Jessie was barely off her own street when she had both Ryan and Jamil on the phone.

  “Where are you?” Ryan asked before she could share her theory.

  “I just left the house,” she said. “I’m headed back to you.”

  “I thought you were going to try to nap a little.”

  “I was,” she replied, getting irked. “But something came up, and if you let me, I’ll explain what.”

  “Sorry,” he said, sounding a little hurt. “What is it?”

  “I appreciate the concern but you’ll understand in a second,” she replied quickly, trying to smooth things over. “Are you still there, Jamil?”

  “I am,” he said after a pause. “I just didn’t want to get in the middle of that little spat.”

  “Wise man,” Jessie said jokingly, though she felt bad for the poor kid. “Here’s what I’ve got. Ryan, do you remember how, when we were at the medical examiner’s to look at Gillian Fahey’s body, you talked about how deliberate and clean the arterial cuts appeared?”

  “I remember.”

  “Okay,” she said, “but we never really took it to the next level. I think we should be looking at people who make these kinds of precise slices for a living—I’m talking about butchers and surgeons, that kind of thing. I think we should even expand it to people who just require steady hands for a living, like acupuncturists and makeup and tattoo artists. I’m sure there are other professions I’m forgetting.”

  “That makes a lot of sense,” Ryan agreed. “Any job where people need to use their hands in skilled, detailed ways. We could include carpenters and mechanics.”

  “Or jewelry designers,” Jamil volunteered, getting into the act, “and artists like painters or sculptors.”

  “Exactly,” Jessie said. “And Kat pointed out something else to me. We shouldn’t assume the killer is a regular visitor to the victims’ homes. Some people can go to a place once and memorize everything about it, and if the killer was at the victims’ homes with the specific intent to return, they’d be even more attentive. This will probably expand the search to an unpleasant degree, but I think that we need to include anyone who was at each house even one time. Is that doable, Jamil?”

  “Sure,” he said confidently. “I’ve already uploaded all their calendars. It’s just a matter of expanding the search parameters. I’m sure it will yield results. But there are two problems.”

  “Of course there are,” Ryan groaned.

  “The first,” Jamil said testily, “is that we won’t necessarily know if some of these services were in-home or at another location. I’m assuming a butcher didn’t cut meat for these women in their houses, but an acupuncturist? Who knows? You guys will have to make the calls to find out. The second issue is the same one we had with Vince Hutchence. If these transactions were conducted in cash and they were one-time only, it’s very possible the victims didn’t log them in their calendars. All three of these women were pretty organized, but there’s a limit.”

  “Noted,” Jessie said. “Just do the best you can and we’ll take it from there, Jamil. Ryan, I’m hoping to meet you at the station in about a half hour. I should be there by two p.m. Fingers crossed we have something to work with by then.”

  *

  Jessie was halfway to Santa Monica when she got the call.

  She recognized the number immediately. It was the main line for the Twin Towers Correctional Facility. She answered right away, steeling herself for some horrible news. Had Hannah not really been at the coffeehouse but rather out doing something that had gotten her arrested?

  “Hello?” she said urgently.

  There was a long pause. Then an automated female voice said, “Collect call from Twin Towers Correctional Facility—Women’s Forensic In-Patient Unit. Will you accept a collect call from—?” The voice stopped abruptly and was replaced by another, far more familiar one that loudly and quickly declared, “Hey, lady. It’s your favorite sociopath, Andy. Say yes!”

  Jessie had forgotten all about Andrea Robinson. But now she knew what the call would be about: Andy’s request to support her relocation to a different prison in exchange for information supposedly more valuable than her Night Hunter intelligence. The beep indicating she should reply sounded. With just a moment to answer, she made the only choice she could.

  “No decision yet,” she said hurriedly. “I’ll let you kn—”

  A beep cut her off before she could finish. She didn’t know how much of that Andy had heard but she wasn’t going to wait to find out, so she hung up.

  Even if she had already de
cided whether or not to accept the proposal, there was no way she was going to have a conversation with Andrea Robinson in her current state. Andy was tricky enough to deal with when Jessie was at the top of her game. But right now she was exhausted, stressed about the case, and had a throbbing hip. Talking to the woman now would be like throwing herself to the wolves.

  She was still thinking about it when Jamil called. She was surprised to hear from him so soon. This was likely very good or very bad news.

  “Ms. Hunt, I’ve already got Detective Hernandez conferenced in,” he said. Before she could reply, he continued. “I’m still searching but I wanted to let you know about the potential hit I just got. I think it’s promising.”

  “Go ahead,” Ryan said without the teasing tone from before.

  “I found a plastic surgeon named Dr. Roland Gahan that all three women used,” he said excitedly.

  A tide of enthusiasm washed over Jessie. A plastic surgeon made perfect sense.

  “Wow!” she exclaimed. “That could be a home run—works with his hands and knows all about human anatomy.”

  “Exactly,” Jamil agreed. “But as much as he would be a good match, at first I thought I’d hit a stumbling block: what surgeon does procedures in people’s homes, right? But when I checked his website I made a discovery—he offers free initial in-home consultations. If a potential patient is apprehensive about being seen at his office or if their schedule is just too full, he’ll go to them.”

  “It fits together nicely,” Jessie marveled. “That’s exactly the kind of appointment that a person might leave off their calendar or at least note cryptically. And since the consultation is free, there’d be no bank or credit card record.”

  “All true,” Jamil said. “But there had to be a record of payment for the actual procedures, which is how I know that all three women made payments to something called “R.O.S.E.”

  “What’s that?” Ryan asked.

  “That’s what showed up on their billing statements. It’s not technically correct but it’s supposed to be an acronym for Roland Surgical Enterprises.”

  “I guess that works better than using his last name and having it be R.G.S.E.,” Ryan said. “That one doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.”

  “No, but either would afford them some privacy,” Jessie noted. “So Jamil, these billing records definitively show that all three women underwent procedures with Gahan?”

  “I can’t say for certain what they were paying for, but these bills are for thousands of dollars and they match the going rate in town for a few specific plastic surgery procedures.”

  “How long ago were they?” she asked.

  “Siobhan Pierson has several bills. The most recent is last spring. Gillian Fahey was well over a year ago. Whitney Carlisle saw him in September. Her bill was also the least expensive.”

  “So none of these women conclusively saw him more recently than four months ago, and some much farther back than that?” Ryan mused. “That’s a long time to harbor a grudge.”

  “If Dr. Gahan did do this,” Jamil said, “I think I know a reason why he might have waited so long to act.”

  “Why?” Jessie asked. It was always nice when someone else could suggest a motive.

  “I’ve been looking him up while we were talking. It seems like he’s fallen on hard times of late. A highly touted plastic surgeon from New York relocated to Santa Monica about six months ago. It looks like he started siphoning off Gahan’s patients. It didn’t help that about two months ago, one of Gahan’s patients sued him over dissatisfaction with a procedure. They settled but word got out. Between the new doctor in town and the lawsuit, he started losing patients fast. I’m seeing lots of nasty online comments. It almost looks like there was an organized campaign against him.”

  “Were any of the negative comments from the victims?” Jessie asked.

  “I’m searching now using all their known handles,” Jamil said. There were several seconds of silence before he responded. “I’ll keep searching but I’m not finding anything so far.”

  “Of course that doesn’t change much,” Ryan pointed out. “They could have smeared him through old-fashioned literal, in-person word of mouth. It’s harder to track that. And if they were bad-mouthing him, it could easily have gotten back to him.”

  “I think it’s time we talk to the good doctor in person,” Jessie concluded. “I want to look in his eyes when we ask him about this stuff. Can you send us his address, Jamil?”

  “Doing it now,” he said.

  Jessie stopped at the next light and glanced at the map on her phone.

  “I can be there in ten minutes,” she said, energized by the potential of the new lead.

  “I’ll meet you there,” Ryan told her. “And please, don’t go in without me.”

  “I wouldn’t go anywhere without you, lover,” she said gleefully, as much to make Jamil uncomfortable as to tease her secret fiancé.

  “I’m officially hanging up now,” the young researcher said.

  Jessie continued chuckling long after the line went dead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  Jessie got there first.

  After she arrived at Gahan’s office building in Ryan’s car, she got out and stared at the building that might harbor a triple murderer. Her muscles tensed involuntarily at the thought of what she might be facing in suite 505.

  That was the top floor of the steel and glass tower that dominated the block. Every other structure near the corner of Arizona Boulevard and 14th Street was residential. But none of the surrounding homes or condo complexes was higher than two stories. Just then, Ryan’s rideshare pulled up right behind her and he hopped out. He looked up at the building as he walked over.

  “If Gahan is struggling financially,” he said, “I’m surprised that he can still afford to keep his practice here. This is a prime location.”

  Jessie tended to agree. Maintaining a practice in an area like this would require a steady stream of income, something that the doctor was allegedly having trouble with.

  “Let’s see how he manages that,” she said, leading the way inside. They took the elevator to the top floor. Once they stepped out, she looked at the directory on the wall.

  “There are only six suites on this entire floor,” she noted. “They must all be huge. Can you imagine the rent for one of them?”

  Gahan’s office was situated at the southeast corner of the building. That meant the views inside would include downtown Santa Monica and the entire bay. She could almost taste how desperate Roland Gahan must be to keep his practice here and maintain the illusion that all was well.

  Ryan opened the office door and they stepped inside. Jessie instantly sensed that something was off. The waiting room was empty and there was no one at the reception window. In fact, peering past it, she noticed that, other than the room they were in, it looked like all the lights were off everywhere else.

  “Awful quiet in here,” Ryan whispered, unsnapping the holster of his gun.

  Jessie nodded.

  “Almost like the office is closed and someone forgot to lock up,” she added.

  “I don’t like it,” he muttered.

  “Let’s find out what’s up,” Jessie said. Ryan nodded.

  “LAPD—anyone here?” he called out.

  When no one replied, she too unsnapped her holster. Ryan tried again.

  “This is the Los Angeles Police Department. Is there anyone currently in this office?”

  Again, there was no response. He moved quietly over to the door connecting the waiting room to the rest of the office and turned the knob. It wasn’t locked. He opened it and looked back at Jessie.

  “Exigent circumstances,” he mouthed silently before stepping across the threshold. Jessie followed right behind him. Sometimes they fudged whether a situation was really exigent, but in this instance it felt completely legitimate.

  The rest of the office was as massive as she’d anticipated, with tinted windows that gave an unob
structed view of a chunk of the California coastline. No lights were on and the only illumination came from outside. They searched the exam and procedure rooms, as well as the lab, but came up empty. The nurses’ station and break room were also unoccupied, as were all the bathrooms.

  They moved silently to the very corner of the suite, where the door to the only room they hadn’t checked was closed. Bold letters on the door’s name plate read: Dr. Roland Gahan. From somewhere inside, Jessie heard an indistinct, barely audible sound that she couldn’t identify. Ryan noticed it too. As he took out his gun, he motioned for her to open the door.

  She grabbed hold of the knob and silently turned it before gently pushing the door open. Inside, a man in a suit sat behind a desk with his back to them. His body was shaking slightly and though it was muffled, it sounded like he might be crying.

  “Dr. Gahan?” Ryan asked. “I’m Detective Ryan Hernandez with the Los Angeles Police Department. Can you please turn around slowly?”

  The man didn’t appear to startle at the words. Instead, he slowly swiveled his chair around to them. Jessie saw that he was indeed sobbing softly. But that’s not what bothered her. Roland Gahan was holding the muzzle of a revolver in his mouth.

  The sight of it made her own mouth suddenly go dry. She could feel her heart pounding against her chest wall. She tried to control it as she quickly evaluated the situation.

  Gahan, a heavyset, moon-faced man in his fifties with glasses and the remnants of blondish-gray hair, looked like he’d been sitting there for a while. His eyes were puffy, suggesting he’d started crying some time ago. There were also now-drying strands of saliva on his dress shirt, which indicated he might have had that gun in his mouth for a while, drooling intermittently as he debated whether or not to pull the trigger.

  In that instant, she decided she needed to take the initiative. The man in front of her was twitchy and his index finger was curled around the trigger way too tight. If he killed himself, it might take hours or even days to find out for certain if he was their murderer and they didn’t have days, maybe not even hours. Besides, it didn’t seem advisable to have the big detective with the gun try to talk him down.