by Blake Pierce
“Nice,” she said, hanging up before he could get sincere again.
She opened the door and gave the phone back to Murph.
“Let’s get you somewhere out of the way,” he said, not commenting on anything he may or may not have heard.
They returned to the conference room, which was now empty. Jessie grabbed a handful of potato chips and looked through her list of Claire’s other dates from the LOL website.
There were two she was particularly interested in. One was the movie star. The other was a tech CEO. Both had dated her in the last three months, making their breakups more recent, and potentially, more raw.
She decided to call the actor’s number first, working off the premise that securing an interview with him might prove more challenging than a CEO.
Jett Collison was a legitimate movie star. According to his Wikipedia page, he was only twenty-six. But he’d already headlined multiple blockbuster films. His specialty was playing the slightly nerdy, endearingly awkward but unconventionally good-looking and charming lead in romantic comedies. He was like a younger, American Hugh Grant type. Her adoptive mom, Janice, had loved those 1990s Hugh Grant movies, watching them on repeat. Jessie thought that, were she still alive, she’d probably like Collison too.
Jessie called the number listed on his account and got a perky female voice.
“Jett’s phone. This is Matilda. How can I help?”
“Hi, Matilda. I’m with the LAPD. Is Jett available?”
“Is this some kind of prank?” Matilda asked. “Is this Marnie? I know it’s you.”
“This isn’t Marnie,” Jessie said, snapping into her most professional tone. “My name is Hunt. I work with the LAPD. We’re investigating a blackmail ring and we’re concerned Mr. Collison might be a potential victim. We’d like to speak to him ASAP. Can you put him on, please?”
She waited for Matilda to demand more proof that Jessie was who she said she was. Instead she caved immediately.
“I’m sorry,” Matilda said, sounding chastened. “But Jett is on set. The call sheet has him shooting almost non-stop until about eleven p.m. tonight. If I pull him, it could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and maybe my job. Is there any way you could talk to him tomorrow? He’s off all day.”
Jessie was about to tear into Matilda when she looked at the clock. It was after 5 p.m. already and she still had to reach out to the tech CEO and see what Dolan had found on the Jerebko alibis. It was unlikely she could get to Collison today anyway. She decided to play nice.
“Here’s what I need you to do, Matilda,” she said, still firm but with less of an edge. “Go find your boss and speak to him privately. Tell him that LAPD is concerned that he might be at risk for blackmail related to a group called LOL. When he hears that, he’ll know what it’s about. Have him text me at this number with a location to discuss the matter first thing tomorrow. It’s five-oh-seven p.m. now. If I don’t get that text by seven p.m., my partner and I are going to come to that set and bring him into the station to chat, no matter what he’s shooting. We clear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Matilda said.
“Have a nice evening,” Jessie said before hanging up.
“You seemed to enjoy that more than was professionally appropriate,” Murph said without looking up.
“What—are you the peanut gallery now?” Jessie asked, half-irked, half-amused. “You barely speak for hours at a time and then you bust out random critiques of my investigative techniques?”
“Just an observation.”
Before she could reply the door opened and Dolan stepped in. He looked frustrated.
“What’s the problem?” she asked.
“Jerebko’s latest girlfriend confirmed his alibi,” he said disappointed. “And his phone GPS data does too. We’re checking video cameras from her building but it doesn’t look good.”
“What about Gayle?”
“Same. I didn’t talk to her kids. But her phone data has her exactly where she said she was—at home. Your tech folks even found that she bought a movie on Amazon around eleven forty-five p.m. That doesn’t totally absolve her. The medical examiner is putting time of death as between midnight and two a.m. But nothing I’ve found suggests she’s an avenging angel. Besides, she struck me as a practical sort. She knows that a scandal like this isn’t going to ruin her husband’s reputation. Hell, it might even make him more interesting to voters. Either way, I think we’ve hit a dead end with the Jerebkos.”
“That sucks.”
“Yep. So I cut Milton loose, at least for now. And it gets worse. The preliminary toxicology report came back negative for drugs. Nothing official, but it looks like Claire had a little alcohol in her system. That was it.”
“How is that worse?” Jessie asked.
“Because now the marshal over there is going to start thinking he should apply to the FBI.”
“I’m happy with my gig,” Murph said quietly, somehow managing not to smile.
“What a saint you are,” Dolan said, looking more bothered by Murph being correct about Claire not being an addict than their top suspects alibiing out.
“Maybe I can improve your mood,” Jessie said as she stood up, hoping to move on from the testosterone battle she felt brewing.
“How’s that?” he asked, reluctantly turning his attention to her as she collected her things and started toward the conference room door.
“I have two more suspects for us to check out. One of them is a major tech CEO. I think we could surprise him in his office if we head out now.”
“Sounds promising,” Dolan said. “Who’s the other one?”
“We’ll have to hold off until tomorrow on that one. And I don’t want you to get too giddy. But he’s a real-life movie star. Bring your autograph book, Dolan.”
She saw him open his mouth to offer a quippy retort. But before he could, she was out of the room, leaving him to talk to the door.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
They barely made it.
Even using the sirens, the drive from Central Station to Gunther Stroud’s downtown high-rise office, less than ten miles away, took almost twenty minutes in LA’s rush hour traffic.
Jessie had assumed that a big-time executive would work well past the time arrived—5:36. But when the elevator door opened to the thirty-seventh floor, Stroud was standing there, briefcase in hand, ready to leave. Behind him, the place looked quiet, other than a lone receptionist at the main desk.
He was in his late thirties, medium height, with glasses, tight, curly brown hair, and pale skin that suggested he didn’t leave his office a lot. He seemed distracted and didn’t even notice there were four people standing in front of him until Dolan spoke.
“FBI, LAPD, and Marshals Service, Mr. Stroud,” he said, making the CEO jump slightly. “Mind if we take a moment of your time?”
The man’s eyes opened wide for the briefest of seconds before he regrouped.
“What’s this about?’ he asked.
Jessie heard a hint of an accent, though she couldn’t quite place it—maybe South African? Wherever he was originally from, Stroud had clearly been here for a long time.
“It’s of a sensitive nature,” Jessie said. “Why don’t we go to your office?”
“I’m about to leave for the day,” Stroud protested. “Tell me now.”
Jessie knew that reaction wasn’t going to go over well with Dolan and she was right.
“Okay, Mr. Stroud,” he began, his voice carrying a bite it lacked before. “This is about a club you’re a member of that pairs older, wealthy, sex-hungry men with younger women who wouldn’t normally give them the time of day.”
Stroud glanced back involuntarily at the receptionist before turning around.
“Let’s go to my office,” he hissed under his breath.
As they followed him, Dolan cracked the widest smile Jessie had ever seen from him. Jessie appreciated the dig but wondered how productive it was for getting the answers they needed. Now Stroud
would be on the defensive for the rest of their interview.
As they approached his office, Toomey took up a spot just outside the office. Once the door closed, Murph did the same thing inside the office. Stroud turned to them and started talking before any of them could pose more questions.
“I am very busy. It’s hard to find time to meet women. So I signed up for this website. It’s not illegal. It’s just a way to introduce people to each other. I didn’t pay my dates for sex. I didn’t promise anything. I don’t know what I did wrong.”
“Are you married, Mr. Stroud?” Jessie asked, already well aware of the answer.
He seemed taken aback, but only briefly.
“My wife is assigned to our London office. We don’t get to see each other often. So we have an understanding. She knows I…go out.”
“I wonder who “assigned’ her to the London office?” Dolan cracked, enjoying amplifying his “bull in a china shop” persona.
“It was a mutual decision,” Stroud said in a clipped tone.
“Do you know a woman named Claire Stanton?” Jessie asked, trying to get things back on track.
He didn’t make any effort to hide his familiarity as his face broke into a pleasant smile at the thought of her.
“Yes, of course. Claire and I dated for several months a while back. She’s a great girl.”
“Why did you break up?” Jessie asked.
“She said she had met someone she felt strongly about and didn’t feel right about continuing to see me.”
“Did she give a name?”
“No,” Stroud scoffed. “That wasn’t her way. She was very discreet.”
“So you believed her about meeting someone else?” Dolan asked, a little surprised.
“I didn’t care. Whether she met someone or was lying, she clearly didn’t want to see me anymore. So I accepted it and moved on. There are many pretty girls in Los Angeles.”
“Where were you last night?” Jessie asked quickly, hoping the random barrage of questions might knock him off guard.
He looked perplexed for a moment before responding confidently.
“I was here.”
“In the office?” she asked.
“Yes, we had a programming bug with our latest update and it was all hands on deck to resolve it. I was up all night working with the tech team.”
“You didn’t leave at any point during the night?” Dolan pressed.
“No. I crashed for a few hours on my couch around four a.m. but I was here the whole time. That’s why I was anxious to leave just now—to go home and sleep.”
“Who can verify your whereabouts last night?” Dolan asked.
Stroud looked at him like he was joking.
“Only about ten software engineers, our marketing and PR leads, our general counsel, and my personal assistant. There was a pizza guy here at one point too.”
Jessie thought she could almost hear the energy leave the room.
“We’ll need all their names,” she said, though she doubted they would. “And we’ll be checking with building security so we can review the security camera footage from last night.”
“No problem,” Stroud said, sensing the pressure on him easing. “My assistant keeps detailed logs. What is this all about anyway?”
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Stroud,” Jessie replied, ignoring his question and handing over a card for Central Station’s detective bureau. “Please have your assistant send those logs to this contact number. And don’t leave town without contacting us first.”
She left without another word. There was no reason to inform him of Claire’s death unless it served their purposes. And for now, at least, it didn’t.
As they took the elevator back down, no one spoke for several seconds.
“Well,” Murph finally muttered, “that was deeply unsatisfying.”
Jessie and Dolan both stared daggers at him. Before either could respond, her phone pinged and she looked down.
“How about that?” she said, brightening slightly. “It’s a message from Matilda, Jett Collison’s assistant. He would be happy to meet with us at his Malibu beach house tomorrow at nine a.m. The address is included.”
“Why don’t we just go over there now and interrogate him?”
Jessie looked at Dolan in stunned silence. It was Murph who finally replied.
“Do you really live in this town?” he asked incredulously. “What do you think is going to happen if an FBI agent, an LAPD criminal profiler, and two US Marshals show up on a film set and demand to question a famous actor? Do you think that’s going to stay quiet for long? Do you think Hunt’s protective status will be enhanced by that, with all the cell phone photos sent to TMZ within minutes of us arriving?”
“Is he really that big a deal?” Dolan asked, surprised by Murph’s unusually strong response.
“He’s a big deal,” Murph assured him. “And if we show up and start throwing our weight around on a film set, we’ll become a big deal pretty fast too. And that’s generally not a good idea when we’re trying to keep a low profile. Maybe we just go to his beach house tomorrow in our unmarked car and talk to him without an entire movie crew around. What do you think, Agent Dolan?”
Jessie had never seen Murph so incensed. Clearly Dolan hadn’t either.
“Fine,” he said, sounding a little pouty. “It’s almost six anyway and I don’t know what else we can do tonight. I say we knock off for the day. I could use a drink.”
“We can drop you off somewhere,” Murph said, “but we need to get Hunt back to the safe house. The night unit is taking over soon.”
“You guys can join me for one drink,” Dolan cajoled. “Come on, you can fill me in on how the movie industry really works.”
“I’m up for a drink,” Jessie said. Anything that kept her out of that carpeted residential prison was appealing to her, even if it meant having a drink with a pain like Dolan.
“Not happening,” Murph said matter-of-factly.
“Come on,” Dolan said. “Do you really think she’ll be in danger in a randomly selected bar? In the last hour we’ve weaved in and out of rush hour traffic with a second car behind us for security. If we were being followed, you guys would know. You can even pick the bar, Marshal Murphy. That way you know neither Crutchfield nor Thurman could anticipate our next location. What do you say, Murphy? Don’t be a killjoy.”
Jessie didn’t join in the pile-on, certain that it was a waste of time. Instead she settled back in her seat, determined to enjoy what was left of her remaining free time tonight, even if it was only in a moving vehicle. She closed her eyes and tried to do a mini-meditation, focusing on her breath as her chest rose and fell slowly.
Her attention was diverted by the sound of Murph’s voice on his comm.
“All teams. There will be a momentary delay in returning to home base. Unscheduled stop upcoming. Timing indeterminate. Details to follow. Follow car—stay frosty.”
Jessie opened her eyes, unsure if she’d heard right.
Am I really going to a bar?
CHAPTER TWELVE
She was. But not right away. First, Murph hopped out to check out the place, called Bob’s Frolic Four, while Toomey circled the block with Jessie and Dolan in the back. The bar was in a weird part of downtown. It was on a busy commercial street, but only two blocks west, the business district ended abruptly and they were in a residential area.
Suddenly the streets had speed bumps and “children at play” signs. The neighborhood, at the edge of the West Adams district, was comprised of an eclectic mix of cottage-style homes and grandiose mansions that looked to have been built before World War II.
But before Jessie could really appreciate them, Toomey had looped around and was headed back to the busy section lined with stores, restaurants, and bars. As they pulled around to the front of Bob’s again, Toomey spoke to them. Hearing his voice was such a rarity that she almost forgotten how it sounded.
“Get out the second I stop,” he instr
ucted. “Murph is waiting at the door. Proceed directly inside. Follow all instructions without hesitation. Understood?”
“Understood,” Jessie said.
“This just might be the best night of my life,” Dolan added giddily as he nodded his assent.
The car stopped and they got out, moving briskly to the door, which Murph was holding open. He directed them through the crowded space to a back room, away from the other patrons.
When they got there, Jessie realized why Murph had been willing to accede to the request. This was a cop bar and the back room was almost exclusively law enforcement. She recognized a few detectives from nearby precincts as well as a few off-duty uniformed officers. There were others whom she didn’t personally recognize but could peg as law enforcement based on their general bearing. Of the dozen people in the room, she guessed all but one were cops of some kind. And that one was the bartender.
Murph directed them to two unoccupied stools at the end of the small bar top. As they settled in, she heard him speak into his comm.
“Jabberjay and Pigeon are in place. Toomey, let me know when you are established in the front room. Collica, maintain position in the front of the location for now and do periodic checks around back. Emerson, continue to surveil the block from the vehicle. Anything unusual—let me know immediately.”
When he was done, Dolan leaned over to him.
“Is my code name Pigeon?” he asked playfully. “That’s kind of insulting, don’t you think? A pigeon is just a rat with wings.”
Murph just shrugged, as his eyes darted around the room, always moving.
“Don’t complain,” Jessie said. “It’s better than Jabberjay. They’re picking literary references to insult me.”
“At least they got creative with you,” Dolan said, before adding, “What literature are they referencing anyway?”
Jessie looked at him, amazed at his cluelessness.
“You are a pop culture black hole, Dolan,” she said.
“And both of you are wasting time,’ Murph noted quietly. “I’m giving you a half hour in here, tops. So you better order those drinks you were so excited about. And Jabberjay, cash only for you, got it? No credit cards. No names. Even here.”
