by Blake Pierce
Ryan looked at his watch.
“It didn’t even take half that time for you to come up with this lead. I shouldn’t have jumped the gun,” he said, sounding defeated.
“Hey, don’t do that,” she scolded. “Everything pointed to Gahan. He may still be our killer. I just had a funny feeling that he might not be. You couldn’t go to Captain Decker with my funny feelings.”
“Maybe I should start,” he muttered before seeming to move past his self-flagellation. When he spoke again, his voice was loud and forceful. “Okay, I’ll call Decker while you reach out to Jamil about getting a court order for Sumner’s phone. Then we should go pay him a visit.”
Jessie nodded, heartened and a little turned on by the fire that had returned to her fiancé’s eyes. It was time to get back to work.
*
Sumner’s office, like so many places they’d visited on this case, was only minutes from the station, located on 4th Street near Wilshire. Jessie noted to herself that it was also only a ten-minute walk from the Fahey house.
They walked up the exterior steps to the office, which was one of several on the second level of a brick building with a chic handbag boutique down below. They had tried calling the numbers listed on the website but everything went to voicemail, which was full. So while they waited for Jamil to get back to them with other contact numbers for the guy, they decided to make the three-minute drive to the address listed on the website.
Ryan knocked on the door, which had no business name, only the suite number 202. They waited, neither of them optimistic that anyone would be here at this hour. It was close to 6 p.m. and the sun had completely set.
To their surprise, a light came on behind the door’s frosted window. Ryan undid his holster, then rested his hand back against his leg. The door opened to reveal a petite, young blonde woman that Jessie doubted was older than twenty-five. She looked like she spent more time at the beach than in an office.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But we don’t take in-person bookings. You need to fill out the form on the website. Someone will get back to you within forty-eight hours.”
“We’re not customers,” Ryan told her, taking out his badge. “We’re with the LAPD and we need to speak to Mr. Sumner.”
The girl’s pouty certitude melted away.
“Um, he’s not here right now,” she said shakily
Jessie decided that if they were going to get this girl’s help, they needed her to be calm and focused rather than terrified, so she stepped in.
“What’s your name?” she asked warmly.
“Cyndi Butler,” the girl answered. She looked like she was on the verge of tears.
“Cyndi, I’m Jessie. Why don’t we go inside and explain why we’re here?”
“Okay,” the girl replied, holding the door open for them.
When they stepped inside, Jessie was surprised at how tiny the space was. There was only room for one desk with a rolling chair and another folding chair beside it. A large cabinet rested against one wall. On the back wall were dozens of kitchen implements, all hanging from hooks. There were pots, pans, and assorted cooking utensils, some of which she didn’t even recognize.
Ryan closed the door behind them and Jessie had Cyndi sit in the rolling chair while she took the folding one.
“We need your help, Cyndi,” she said. “It’s important that we find out where your boss is right now. Do you know?”
“No,” she answered flatly, wincing in apprehension that she didn’t have the right answer.
“Can you pull up his calendar?” Jessie suggested.
“Did he do something wrong?” Cyndi asked.
“It’s nothing like that,” Jessie said with an assurance that surprised even her. “We’ll explain more later, but right now we really need to see that calendar. Can you access it?”
“I can,” she told them, as she clicked on the desktop screen. “But I don’t think it will help.”
“Why not?” Jessie asked gently.
“Because Curt doesn’t have a House Cook—that’s what we call them—tonight, so there’s nothing scheduled,” she said, clicking onto the calendar page on the screen. “It does say he’s tentatively planning to do a video tutorial tonight for a YouTube cooking channel he partners with.”
“What does that mean?” Ryan asked, taking Jessie’s cue and keeping his tone of voice less threatening than before.
“He provides the channel with weekly content, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes it’ll be a real-time professional cooking tutorial. Other weeks he does a Q&A session. He occasionally switches up the day but he always likes me to keep Tuesdays open.”
“Does he usually do those from his place?” Jessie asked. “It doesn’t look like this office is equipped for that kind of thing.”
“Yeah,” Cyndi said. She was still nervous but seemed to settle down with each passing moment. “He’s set up his whole kitchen with lighting and mics. It’s very professional. That’s the main way he gets clients, other than through word of mouth.”
Jessie wanted to dive into more detailed questions about what was in his calendar for the dates of the murders. She was even tempted to have the girl call Sumner to ask where he was. But she sensed that Cyndi needed a little more comforting before going there, so she asked a question she knew the assistant could handle but might still prove valuable.
“So Cyndi,” she asked in her best “curious” voice, “what is a House Cook exactly? I hear they’re very popular these days.”
“They are,” the young woman agreed, launching into a spiel that Jessie suspected she’d used many times before. “It’s an opportunity for anyone to have a fine restaurant-quality meal prepared in the comfort of their own home by a top level chef. You don’t have to provide anything other than the appliances and kitchenware. The chef brings all the food and can even select a wine that pairs well with the meal. You can just relax and hang out or, if you like, most chefs will walk you through the dinner as they prepare each course.”
“That sounds really cool,” Jessie said. She sensed that the girl was now calm enough to handle a more challenging question. “I know Curt used to work at some impressive restaurants. Why did he switch to in-home cooking? I mean the real reason, not the official version on the website.”
Cyndi’s expression soured slightly when she realized she wouldn’t be able to go with the authorized explanation. But she shrugged and answered anyway.
“Curt was previously the executive chef at Porcine when it earned a Michelin star. Then he moved on to Glutton, which also got a Michelin star during his tenure. But about a year and a half ago, he got a negative review from the new food critic at the Times, not so much about the food quality but about his culinary arrogance. I’m not even sure what that means, but it had an impact. One day he had the perfect image and then just like that, it was ruined. Business dropped off and he was dumped so the restaurant could do a refresh. He told me he was devastated.”
“Is that when he started the House Cook thing?” Ryan asked.
“Not right away. After Glutton fired him, he couldn’t get work as an executive chef and he wasn’t willing to answer to anyone else. He lived off his savings for a while. That’s when some other chef friends told him he should try this. He was reluctant at first because it seemed like a step down. But when he did some research, he discovered that if he catered to wealthy clientele exclusively, he could rake it in. His cheapest package is five hundred dollars for two people on a weeknight. If you want more, like four people, or a weekend night, or for him to use ingredients from a farmers’ market he visited that day instead of just a grocery store, we’re talking over a grand. Some larger groups have paid five to ten times that. Now he’s so in demand, he’s lucky if he gets a night off, other than the YouTube Tuesdays, which is still work, I guess.”
The girl had stopped shaking was speaking normally again. Jessie figured it was time to get into the really detailed questions.
“That is amazing,”
she said. “And you say he works almost every night, even on Mondays? Like, did he go to someone’s house last night?”
Let me check,” Cyndi said, looking at the screen. “Yep, he had a seven p.m. House Cook here in Santa Monica.”
Jessie looked at the address. It was less than half a mile from the Carlisle home.
“Does he always stick to this part of town?” she wanted to know.
“Not always,” Cyndi said. “He’ll go just about anywhere for the right price, but I know he prefers to stay close if he can. And to be honest, he can. There’s so much demand from folks around here that he doesn’t really need to travel much. In fact, a lot of times the clients live so close that he can walk there from his place.”
“Where does he live?” Ryan asked innocently.
“Up on 10th Street,” Cyndi said. “It’s only about six blocks east of here near El Cholo restaurant on Wilshire, so he’ll walk in to work most of the time too.”
Jessie knew the location. It occurred to her that both Sumner’s home and office were within a half hour’s walk of all three victims’ homes, not just the Faheys’. From the look on his face, Jessie was certain that Ryan was thinking the same thing.
“What about Sunday?” he asked. “Did he have a House Cook then too?”
Cyndi looked back at the calendar.
“Yes,” she said, “that was a big one—eight guests. It was nearby too, up on Montana Avenue near 5th Street.”
Jessie didn’t even have to look at a map to know that intersection was only blocks from the Fahey place. They were two for two.
“Let’s check a date a little further back,” Ryan suggested as if they were playing a little game. “How about the sixteenth?”
That was the night Siobhan Pierson had been killed.
“Sure,” Cyndi said, checking. “Oh, that’s interesting.”
“What?” Ryan pressed.
“That was a Wednesday, which is usually a House Cook night, but he switched it up and did a video tutorial, a popular one too. Last time I checked, it had over half a million views.”
“Any particular reason he switched nights?” Jessie wondered.
Cyndi scanned the screen for a few seconds before her eyes lit up.
“Yeah, I remember now. He did a House Cook in Palm Springs the night before. It was a big deal. With the travel and the dozen guests, he pulled in twelve grand for the night. I’m sure he was spent after that and considered making a video to be a breeze in comparison.” She paused for a moment and Jessie knew something had changed. Cyndi added, “He gave me a five-hundred-dollar bonus for putting that Cook together.”
“That was nice,” Jessie said, sensing what was coming.
“Tell me again why you’re looking for him,” Cyndi said, her voice harder than before.
Loyalty was beginning to trump fear. Jessie looked over at Ryan, unsure how forthcoming they should be. Sumner was looking like a credible suspect, but if they told the girl the truth and they were wrong about him, there could be lawsuit implications. But if they were right and she warned him, he might escape or worse, someone else might die.
“The truth is that we think he might be in danger,” Ryan said in a hushed voice. “We need to reach out to him, but if the threat to him is nearby, maybe even listening in, he could be at real risk.”
“Oh my god!” Cyndi said, putting her hands to her mouth. “What kind of threat?”
“We’re not at liberty to say,” Ryan said cryptically but firmly.
“That’s why we need you to call him,” Jessie added. “And when you do, you have to sound totally normal, for his sake. His life could depend on it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Curt Sumner was out on what looked like a leisurely walk.
In reality it was a stakeout, as he waited for Sheena Lennox to follow the next step in her evening routine: walking the dog. She should be heading out in the next few minutes.
Her doctor husband, Colin, had already left for the hospital over an hour ago. Curt knew that because he lived just two streets over from them and just “happened” to be on another brief stroll right as Dr. Lennox backed out of the driveway.
After watching him drive away, Curt had returned home to brush his longish, black hair, which had gotten windswept outside. Then he checked the status of the video tutorial he intended to post tonight. He’d actually completed it a week ago, but he planned to have it automatically uploaded about an hour from now.
He’d carefully orchestrated the shoot, even altering the clocks on the oven and the wall to match the time he anticipated slicing up Sheena. That would make for a nice alibi.
Just before leaving the house, he’d changed into a different outfit from the one he’d worn for either of the earlier walks today. The pants, hooded sweatshirt, and shoes had never been worn. He’d bought them all with cash months ago at a sporting goods store in San Pedro, a good thirty miles southeast of here. After he completed the task tonight, he would bleach and bag them. Early tomorrow morning he would drop them in a nearby Taco Bell dumpster just minutes before the trash truck came by.
To go that one extra step, he’d left his cell phone in the kitchen and had his calls forwarded to a burner phone he kept with him, so it looked like he’d never left the house even when he was out. He loved it when all the pieces fell into place.
That’s what these killings were about—precision, balance, striving for perfection. That’s not how it began, of course. There were other motivations the first time he cut a woman with a knife. But now he was all about testing his limitations, going beyond his comfort zone while still doing work he could be proud of.
It’s not like he had anything against Sheena Lennox. When he’d done the House Cook for the couple last summer, both she and Colin had been quite lovely. His talents were an anniversary gift from another couple who had used him, so they were happy to have him at all.
Curt found that the guests who were gifted his services were usually far more gracious than those who paid for them themselves. The latter always seemed to be judging whether a particular morsel of food was worth the price they’d paid. It was exhausting.
But the Lennoxes had been wonderful. Sheena played a few songs on the piano before he started cooking. Colin offered him a beer, which he declined. He was on the job after all. He didn’t mention that he needed to stay alert so he could memorize all the details of their house for a future, uninvited visit.
Nor did he say that he lived only two blocks over. He had decided almost the second he learned how close their homes were that the Lennoxes would be ideal for an upcoming Elimination Event, his preferred name for these special evenings.
On the night he cooked for them, he made sure to give special attention to their golden retriever, Georgie Boy, scratching his tummy and giving him scraps from the meal. He hoped that when they were reunited momentarily, the dog would remember their previous positive interaction and not bark at the sight or scent of him. That hadn’t worked out so well with the Carlisles’ dog, Yaz, but maybe he’d have better luck this time.
He stayed half a block down, out of their security camera’s line of sight. Only when he was sure Sheena and Georgie Boy were at least a block away would he follow the specific route that would allow him entry to the back door, which he’d learned was never locked until they went to bed.
He was reviewing the route in his head when his burner cell phone rang, forwarded from his regular one. It was Cyndi. She rarely called after hours. He was the one who might occasionally reach out while on a House Cook with a frantic request for her to pick up an ingredient he’d forgotten. He was tempted to let it go to voicemail, what with Sheena about to walk the dog any minute. But because she called so rarely, he decided to pick up. Besides, this might actually help burnish his alibi.
“Hey, Cyndi, what’s up?”
“Hi, Curt,” she said. “I just wanted to double-check the schedule with you. I got a reminder alert on my phone to reconfirm the time of your Cook tomor
row in the Palisades. Is it still at eight?”
She sounded a little odd. Curt wondered if she might be tipsy.
“That’s right,” he said. “Unless something changed that I’m not aware of.”
“No, we’re good. For a minute I thought you might be double-booked but I think I just forgot to close out an old Cook from last week. How’s everything going?”
“Good,” he said. “How are you?”
He was pretty sure she wasn’t drunk but she definitely sounded more prim than usual, like back when she was on her best behavior in those first weeks after he hired her.
“I’m okay,” she answered, “just closing up the office. Sorry to have bothered you. I hope I didn’t interrupt the tutorial.”
“No,” he said without hesitation. “I was actually taking a little break to tweak the lighting before finishing up. I’m planning to eat my work afterward.”
“Not many people can say that,” Cyndi said before laughing awkwardly.
“No, I guess not,” he replied. “Hey, Cyndi, is everything all right with you?”
“Yeah. Totally. Everything’s cool. I think I’m just a little tired. Is everything cool with you?”
Just then, Sheena and Georgie Boy emerged from the front door of the house.
“It will be when I finish up this tutorial,” he told her. “You mind if I get back to it?”
“No. Of course. Sorry. You should do that.”
She sounded genuinely flustered now.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Cyndi,” he said. “Get yourself a good night’s sleep, okay?”
“Yeah. You too. Goodnight.”
It took Curt a second to realize that she had hung up. He looked at the phone as if it might offer an explanation for her bizarre behavior. Glancing up, he saw that Sheena and Georgie Boy were already a half dozen houses up the street. In another minute they’d round the corner and head out of sight.
