by Blake Pierce
Her bearing, even in the middle of acts Jessie hadn’t even conceived of, was detached, even aloof. In fact, that seemed to be her thing. As her prominence in the movies increased, a recurring theme developed. No matter what scenario she was in, she always seemed to play a version of the ice princess.
Invariably, her character was a cold, reticent, even haughty teen who seemed unimpressed and sometimes even bored by the strenuous sexual efforts of her partner, sometimes partners. Everyone she engaged with wanted to be the one to crack the code and get her to warm up. Almost always, when she consented to participate, she came across as deeply disappointed by those she dealt with, consistently underwhelmed by even the most elaborate erotic gymnastics.
Jessie had to admit it was magnetic. Even she found herself wondering whether this guy or girl or that particular position or maneuver would be the one to finally satisfy Missy Mack. In a strange way that Jessie didn’t want to consider too deeply, it was almost as if the girl was retaining some semblance of personal power by refusing to show any enthusiasm about what she was doing. It was almost as if she was saying, “You can do these things to me, but know that I’m mostly humoring you. Your presence serves my purposes, but only barely.”
Hey, maybe watching this crap is helping me get some insight into her mindset after all.
There was something else about Mick that Jessie noticed—something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. It was only in a scene in which the girl lied to her parents on the phone about being at the library when she was really in the locker room with the star quarterback that it clicked for her. Mick reminded her of Hannah.
Not in the obvious ways. While she didn’t know her half-sister’s sexual history, she got a definite sense that the girl was fairly inexperienced. And of course both of them were seventeen. But it was their manner that was so similar.
They had the same body language—guarded and taut, as if they might make a break for it at any moment. The eyes of both girls went blank, almost dead, when faced with an unpleasant circumstance. Mick’s eyes in all her sex scenes had the same disconnected look that Hannah’s had when she was tuning Jessie out or leaving an appointment with Dr. Lemmon.
And even though Mick was “acting” when she lied to her parents about her whereabouts, her causal comfort while doing it was reminiscent of how easily Hannah seemed to tell falsehoods, almost as if she wasn’t even aware that she was lying through her teeth.
Jessie decided she needed a break from the images on her screen and the concerns they were raising in her mind. She was just about to close her laptop entirely when she heard a voice behind her.
“Ryan not getting the job done for you?”
Jessie spun around, almost knocking the laptop to the floor. Hannah’s head was poking through a crack in the door.
“I thought I locked that,” she said, feeling her face redden.
“You did,” Hannah said, smirking. “But your bedroom isn’t exactly Fort Knox and I used to have overprotective parents. Considering that, you’d think I’d be the one shame-watching porn.”
“It’s actually for work,” Jessie told her, fully aware how lame that sounded.
“Of course it is,” Hannah said, her tone faux-sincere. “Are you about to go on some undercover operation?”
For half a second, Jessie considered fudging her answer. But then she realized that this might be a rare opportunity to connect.
“Actually, I’m investigating the death of the girl on the screen. She was murdered last night.”
Hannah’s smirk disappeared and she pushed the door open.
“Can I see her?” she asked.
Jessie nodded. Hannah came over and sat down on the bed beside her. She looked at the frozen image of Michaela, who was currently in a close-up, her expression one of mild interest in what was occurring off-camera.
“She looks young,” Hannah said.
“She was. In fact, she was the same age as you. She had just graduated early from an all-girls Catholic high school. She lived in Van Nuys.”
“St. Ursula, right?”
“Yes?” Jessie confirmed. “How did you know that?”
“That used to be my neck of the woods so it makes sense. What’s her name?” Hannah asked, unable to tear her eyes away from the screen.
“Michaela Penn. But her friends called her Mick.”
“She reminds me of girls I knew in school,” Hannah said quietly.
That didn’t shock Jessie. Her half-sister, until her life was upended, had gone to a private all-girls school in the Valley as well. On the surface, their lives probably weren’t that different.
“I’m sure you can see some of yourself in her life,” she agreed.
“No,” Hannah said forcefully. “I mean, I know actual girls like her, who did porn on the side. I bet some of them knew her.”
“You knew girls who did porn while attending your school?”
“A few,” Hannah said. “I can think of at least five. Three had already graduated. One was a senior with me and one was a junior.”
“There were that many girls at your school that did this?” Jessie asked incredulously.
“Yeah,” Hannah replied, stunningly blasé about it. “In fact, some of them did more than that.”
“What do you mean?” Jessie asked, though she suspected the answer.
“They would go on…private dates to make extra money. At least a few of them did. I know the junior did for sure.”
“So this junior girl who did porn and private dates—she was definitely underage,” Jessie said.
Hannah rolled her eyes at the apparent naiveté of the question but managed to answer without sarcasm.
“I assume so. But I was only friendly with the one girl in my year. And she didn’t really advertise it.”
“Did she say why she did it?”
“We didn’t ever talk about it,” Hannah said. “But she was kind of wild—liked to party, liked to…experiment.”
“With drugs?” Jessie asked, trying not to sound too judgmental.
“Among other things,” Hannah replied. “I also think her home life wasn’t the greatest. She’d come to school with bruises sometimes and she’d occasionally talk about her dad being super-strict, like violently strict. I think this was her way of taking some control.”
“That sounds familiar,” Jessie mused. “Apparently Michaela didn’t have the greatest home life either. Her mother died when she was younger and her father was an abusive alcoholic.”
Hannah nodded.
“Sounds like she was a perfect candidate to end up doing what she did.”
Jessie had about a dozen other questions she wanted to ask. But this was the first time in a while that Hannah had opened up about anything and she didn’t want to scare her off or have her shut down. She forced herself to take a slow, calming breath.
But before she could speak again, her phone rang. She looked down. The call was from Officer Burnside.
“I have to take this. It’s about the case,” she told Hannah before she picked up. “This is Jessie Hunt.”
“Ms. Hunt. It’s Officer Burnside from last night.”
“Hello, Officer,” she said, keeping an even tone though she felt a sudden hit of adrenaline. “What can I do for you?”
“I can’t talk for long. But I thought you should know there’s been a hit on Michaela Penn’s stolen laptop. It was just pawned at a shop on Victory Boulevard in North Hollywood.”
“Is the seller still there?”
“No,” Burnside said. “But the shop owner knows him—a guy named Pete Vasquez. Says he pawns stuff in there all the time. He also said Vasquez took the cash and immediately walked into the bar next door.”
“Are your people en route?” Jessie asked anxiously.
“Not yet,” Burnside said. “The owner called me directly because I helped him set up a security system after a robbery. I’m about to report it up the chain. But I decided to call you first. I’m not sure how it will g
o down when my station finds the guy. They’re hyped to nail down a suspect so they can put this thing to bed.”
“You think they might take him out and pin the murder on him?”
“I didn’t say that,” Burnside said emphatically. “I never said that.”
“Okay,” Jessie soothed. “I’m sorry.”
“What I can say is that I looked at Vasquez’s record. He’s done some time but it’s all for stuff like petty theft; never used a weapon, no violent crime. It’s hard to see him as right for a stabbing murder.”
“Okay, thanks, Burnside. How much of a head start can you give me? I’m downtown right now.”
“Not too long. I’m going to the restroom because I think I’m suddenly developing some ‘digestive issues.’ I may be able to dawdle a little after that. But then it’s going to look suspicious. Maybe twenty minutes?”
“I’ll take it.”
“I’ll text you the address now,” Burnside said. “And Ms. Hunt?”
“Yes?”
“Try to bring the detective from last night if you can. I don’t know how this will go down and you may want some backup.” Then he hung up.
With that warning still ringing in her ears, Jessie began scrambling around the apartment, grabbing essentials as she gave Hannah the basics.
“Do you know when you’ll be back?” the girl asked.
“I don’t,” Jessie said as she threw on her jacket. “Your best bet is to finish any homework and expect to crash for the night while I’m still out. Sorry to bail but…”
“It’s okay,” Hannah said. “I understand.”
Jessie gave her a quick smile before bolting out the door.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
At times like this, Jessie wished she had a siren for her car.
Instead she had to rely on that old standby: speeding recklessly and hoping she didn’t get pulled over. She was pulling onto the 110 freeway when she tried Ryan again. He picked up on the first ring.
“Sorry I haven’t gotten back to you,” he said before she could speak. “My phone died. I was testifying all day. I was meeting with prosecutors until just a few minutes ago.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jessie said. “Can you meet me in the Valley? There have been a few developments.”
She explained the situation as she transferred onto the 101 freeway which cut through the Hollywood Hills along the Cahuenga Pass. She did her best to ignore the potholes on the decrepit stretch of road.
It was a lot for Ryan to take in but he seemed to process it all. When she was done, he offered what he admitted was limited insight.
“I don’t know Detective Strode, never heard of him actually. That’s not a great sign,” he said. “Normally a murder like this gets assigned to the most experienced detectives in the Bureau. It’s weird.”
“It’s more than just weird, Ryan,” Jessie insisted. “It stinks. A police sergeant overtly threatens me. A murder victim is cremated before she can be autopsied. A rookie detective gets assigned to the case. Frankly, the question isn’t if someone is being protected but how high up is that person? This can’t all be Costabile, can it? He doesn’t have that much pull.”
“You’re right, it does stink,” Ryan agreed. “And this does seem to go higher than Costabile. But suspecting that doesn’t change how we approach the case. We still have to grind out the work if we’re going to unpeel what’s really going on here. But there is one upside to having a rookie detective assigned to the case. Because I’m representing HSS on this, I may be able to bigfoot him once I get there. Until then, you’ll have to hold down the fort. How far out are you?”
“I’m probably still ten minutes away,” she said.
“Okay. I’m about five behind you. Try not to get yourself shot before I catch up.”
“Aw, so romantic,” she replied before hanging up and immediately calling Garland Moses.
The elder profiler didn’t pick up until the fourth ring and he sounded drowsy when he did.
“Ms. Hunt, have you ever heard the term ‘elder abuse’? It’s after ten p.m.”
“I’m sorry, Garland. You know I wouldn’t call at this hour unless it was pressing. Besides, I never heard back from you. I was a little worried.”
“That’s a lie,” he said flatly, his drowsiness slipping away fast. “I’ll let it go this time. But please, don’t try to play me. I had every intention of getting back to you tomorrow. What is so pressing that it couldn’t wait?”
Jessie decided not to linger on his accurate assertion that she was a liar and moved on to the issue at hand.
“I may be about to enter a hornet’s nest in a few minutes and I really need your guidance. What can you tell me about Detective Wiley Strode and Sergeant Hank Costabile?”
She heard a bed creak and papers being shuffled and imagined him sitting up and putting on his glasses.
“I don’t have much on Strode,” he said, now sounding fully alert. “He was based out of Thousand Oaks until recently. He only just passed the detective exam last year and was reassigned to Valley Bureau. Until now, he’s mostly been a robbery guy, a few home invasion cases. This is his first murder.”
“That seems odd,” Jessie said. “Wouldn’t he normally get paired with someone more experienced, especially for a murder?”
“Normally? Yes. Of course, if there was a backload or major cases in the division, he might not.”
“Do you know if there’s a backload?” Jessie asked.
“I checked their case board earlier this evening. It’s nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, there are two homicide detectives not currently assigned to any priority cases. And yet, Strode was put on this.”
“What does that mean to you?” Jessie pressed.
Garland paused briefly before responding and she knew he was entering sensitive territory.
“There could be completely innocuous reasons for it that we’re just not aware of,” he began. “Or it could be an indication that someone with the power to influence case assignments wanted a less experienced detective on it or at least one with less pull in the Bureau. I tried to go through the paperwork to see who that might be. But the chain of command on this thing has been cleverly disguised. Your good friend Costabile’s fingerprints are all over the place. But he couldn’t authorize this kind of assignment shifting on his own. He’d have to be doing it on someone else’s authority. And I can’t discern who that might be.”
“So this isn’t all on Costabile?” Jessie asked.
“No. The guy’s been around forever and amassed a lot of power among the rank and file. He also holds sway with the higher-ups in the Bureau and beyond. But the kind of things you’re describing—assigning a rookie detective to a murder case, rushing a crime scene investigation, having a body ‘accidentally’ cremated—he can’t make them happen on his own. He’s getting help.”
“Great,” Jessie said, frustrated, as she pulled off the freeway onto Victory Boulevard. “So it could be anybody.”
“That’s not true,” Garland said with a professorial tone. “It actually limits the number of candidates significantly. There are only so many people with both the authority to make those things happen and the ability to hide their involvement. You just have to find out who they are. But that leads me to one last thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You need to be very careful, Ms. Hunt. Whoever he’s working for, Costabile is dangerous in his own right. The guy has a hair-trigger temper. He’s been involved in multiple questionable shootings and never lost a day of pay. He has friends and lackeys everywhere. Don’t underestimate him.”
“Okay. Thanks for scaring the crap out of me, Garland.”
“Better to be overprepared than taken by surprise. I know you’ve dealt with the worst the world has to offer—brutal serial killers. But a cop with power and ill intent is a different kind of dangerous. Just stay alert.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jessie was more hyper than alert.
&n
bsp; When she pulled up near the Landing Strip, the bar on Victory where Pete Vasquez was supposedly holed up, she had to remind herself not to just barrel into the place.
The cops hadn’t arrived yet so she tried to formulate a plan. Burnside had sent her a mug shot of Vasquez so she knew who she was looking for. Maybe she could sidle up to him and ask a few questions before he realized who he was dealing with. But that would require time to set him at ease—time she didn’t have.
She decided to just go in and figure something out on the fly. As she opened her car door, she heard the sirens. For half a second, she considered sprinting into the bar before the police arrived and trying to whisk Vasquez away before they entered. But she knew the idea was ridiculous. Vasquez had no reason to go with her and she couldn’t physically force him to.
It was moot anyway. A stream of black-and-white cars was already approaching in the distance. At this point, she’d never even get inside the club before they saw her. She closed the car door, quickly texted Ryan “Valley cops are arriving—stuck outside,” and waited to see how it all played out.
Three squad cars and an unmarked sedan pulled up in front of the bar and everyone hopped out. Among them were Sergeant Costabile and a youngish-looking man with short blond hair in plainclothes who she assumed was Detective Strode.
A patron loitering outside the front door saw them coming, yanked open the door, and ran inside. Even from across the street, Jessie could hear a voice shouting, “Pig raid! Pigs outside!”
The cops exchanged anxious looks and picked up the pace as all but one of them hurried inside. While the remaining officer stationed himself in front of the door, two additional squad cars sped down the street and screeched to a halt. Jessie watched them scramble out as well. Her attention was suddenly diverted by movement in the alley behind the bar.
