The Perfect Impression by Blake Pierce

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jessie waited until they were alone to start yelling.

She led Detective Peters into the very Harbor Room where they’d conducted interrogations only hours earlier and began a new one, on him.

“Now I know why there are almost no cameras in this place!” she shouted. “It’s like one big key party!”

“Listen—” Peters began but Jessie cut him off.

“You knew all about it and never said a word. When Barksdale was talking about privacy and confidentiality for guests, you knew they were euphemisms and you let him do it. Worse, you let me waste valuable time going down dead ends when I could have been pursuing real leads.”

“It’s not that simple,” he protested. “You saw what the captain’s like. He’s more the head of a tourist bureau than a cop these days. He hates controversy, anything that reflects badly on the island. How do you think he’d react if I told some mainlander that the fanciest hotel in town is secretly a haven for wealthy Angelenos to get their rocks off with glorified escorts?”

“Is that really the main concern for you?” Jessie demanded. “If your boss is mad at you? What about the woman found with a knife in her chest?”

Peters jutted his lower lip out in a pout.

“There was no evidence that the hotel’s secrets had anything to do with this. I didn’t think it mattered.”

“Everything matters,” she told him.

He looked like he wanted to say something more but stopped himself. That was fine because she wasn’t done.

“Detective Peters,” she began, before changing tacks, “Colby, we are trying to catch a murderer here. Avoiding bad press is not the top priority. I shouldn’t have to tell you that. I get that you’re in a difficult position and I’m sure you’re not psyched to have an outsider come in and take over your investigation. But that’s my mission—to find the person who snuffed out Gabby Crewe’s life. Everything else is secondary to me.”

She considered leaving it there, but after a moment’s reflection, she decided she just couldn’t.

“And frankly, I’d love a little help. I’m a civilian profiler. I have no real authority here. You’re the detective. You’re supposed to be the hard ass who throws witnesses and suspects off their game with aggressive questioning so I can watch their reactions. At least, that’s how it’s worked for me in the past. But here I am, trying to both push their buttons and observe how they respond to being pushed, while you try to give them a soft landing. You have to decide what your priorities are here, Detective. Are you a cop or are you a publicist?”

He didn’t have a response to that. Instead he put his hands on the conference table and lowered his eyes. Jessie watched as he engaged in silent conversation with himself, muttering under his breath and shaking his head. Finally he looked up.

“I screwed up,” he admitted. “How do I fix it?”

“I’m not sure you can,” she told him, softening slightly. “But we don’t have much choice other than to press ahead. We’ve got more suspects than hours left to investigate. And if we don’t uncover the killer before he or she takes that ferry back to the mainland, who knows where they might end up next? If they feel the heat, these kinds of people have the resources to go right to the airport and catch a flight to a country without an extradition treaty. So we have to decide who to re-interview next.”

He nodded, mentally going through the most likely candidates.

“We’ve talked to Theo Aldridge,” he said. “The Landers are each other’s alibi, supposedly going at it in their room. Steve Crewe and Rich Ferro back each other up, at least part of the time. So I say we talk to Melissa Ferro. We never got an answer for what she was doing before finding Gabby. If she was hooking up with a hotel employee and we let her know that’s not our primary concern, maybe she’ll come clean. If she’s still evasive, then we know we might have something.”

Jessie smiled for what felt like the first time in hours.

“I like that plan, Detective,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

*

They found Melissa Ferro at the rooftop bar.

There was a smattering of guests around but none near the spot she’d picked out in a corner facing the ocean. As they approached her, Jessie took a moment to appreciate the view she wasn’t able to see upon her late-night arrival. The bay was dotted with the white hulls of dozens of sailboats, all bobbing forcefully in the choppy water. White-capped waves tore toward the island before getting rebuffed by the rock seawall, sending ocean spray high into the air. The rhythmic, comforting motion made Jessie’s eyes heavy.

Ferro was bundled up against the wind, covered in complimentary hotel blankets. She wore sunglasses and an oversized hat that looked about to fly off despite being tied tightly under her chin. She was holding a glass mug with both hands.

Jessie imagined herself settling in like that and knew that if she did, she’d be asleep in ten seconds. The very thought gave her a small, guilt-induced surge of adrenaline. Gabby Crewe was lying on a slab somewhere. She’d never have a comforting nap again. The least the profiler investigating her death could do was stay awake long enough to get her justice.

“That doesn’t look like coffee,” she noted as she sat down uninvited. Peters pulled up a chair beside her.

“It’s a hot toddy,” the woman responded. “And it’s not my first this morning. I’m going for numb today.”

“Well, then I’m glad we caught you before it took full effect,” Peters said, taking the initiative. “We didn’t get to finish talking last night before your friend Steve burst in.”

“I don’t really have much to add,” Ferro replied, sounding pretty numb already.

“You might be surprised at what doesn’t seem important to you but is valuable to us,” he told her, leaning in as he pulled out his notepad. “For example, you told us that prior to returning to your room last night you were ‘flitting about.’ Can you expand on that?”

With the sunglasses on, Jessie couldn’t ascertain Ferro’s full expression but her lips did purse tightly together before she responded, rarely a sign that one was comfortable with the question being asked.

“I just meant that I was all over place, talking to old friends from past visits, joking around with the staff. At a certain point, I wasn’t feeling so great, so I went to the room.”

“I thought you said you went to the room to freshen up,” Peters pressed.

Melissa Ferro smiled condescendingly.

“I was being discreet, Detective. I didn’t want to say that I thought I was going to vomit.”

Peters nodded understandingly.

“Speaking of being discreet, Mrs. Ferro,” he said confidingly, “I’ve worked here on the island for a few years. I’m intimately familiar with the special relationship this hotel has with its guests. So if you happened to go to your room less out of illness and more for a little extracurricular activity, you can tell us. Our focus today isn’t on being puritanical. We’re trying find out who killed your friend. If you can give us the name of someone who can confirm your whereabouts with more specificity than you have so far, it would serve you well.”

Jessie sat in silence, marveling at Peters’s ability to ask his question without accusation or alienation. Where was this guy all last night?

Ferro seemed to be weighing how to answer. It was obvious that she had done something last night that she wanted to hide. The question now was whether it was simply naughty or something more substantial.

“I’m not sure what’s considered a crime,” she finally replied. “I’m wondering if I need to protect myself.”

Peters smiled sympathetically.

“Look, Melissa,” he said, adopting the persona of a close confidant. “I know how these things work. A guest spends some private time with an employee. At the end of the guest’s stay, they often give a sizable to tip to that employee. There’s a haziness there that protects the guest. If I was trying to make a case involving solicitation, you might be at some legal risk, though it would be hard to prove. But I’m not trying to make that case. Ms. Hunt and I are after a killer. If you can give us the name of someone who can absolve you of that killing, it would serve you well.”

“I just don’t want to go to jail,” she implored.

Jessie wondered if this might be the time to jump in, fearing they might be about to scare her off. But Peters gave an imperceptible shake of his head so she held her tongue.

“I can’t tell you what to do,” he said. “I am a law enforcement officer. There’s always some risk in these situations. But unless you killed Gabby, you’re almost certainly better off being straight with us.”

Melissa Ferro took a big gulp of her hot toddy and wiped her mouth. She seemed to have come to a decision.

“His name is Alejandro,” she said quietly, barely audible over the whipping wind. “Everyone calls him Jandro for short. He works at the golf club next door. When Rich and I play, he’s always my caddy. He’s very knowledgeable. Rich says he should be a club instructor. Sometimes he’ll give me…private instruction. That’s what he was doing last night when I went up to my room.”

“What time was that?” Peters asked matter-of-factly, not lingering on the details of the instruction.

“I know I told you earlier that I got to my suite at eleven fifteen. But that wasn’t true. We agreed to meet there at ten forty-five. I went up a little before that, around ten forty, to get into something comfortable.”

“Did you see Gabby when you went up?” he pressed.

She shook her head.

“Did you see a room service tray beside her door?” Jessie asked, interjecting for the first time since sitting down. Ferro thought for a moment.

“I was pretty drunk but I don’t think so. I feel like I would have noticed it since her suite was so close to ours.”

Jessie made a mental note that if Melissa Ferro was being honest, someone had taken the tray into the Crewe suite between 10:36, when Esteban/Tex the room service waiter dropped it off, and 10:40. Did that mean Gabby was alive at that time or that she was already dead and her killer had brought it inside? The latter seemed like a risky move. What if someone in the hall saw him or her? She glanced over at Peters and could tell that he was asking himself all the same questions.

“What time did Jandro leave your suite?” he asked.

“He was contracted for a half hour—er, I mean…”

“It’s okay,” Peters assured her. “We’re not worried about that part. We just need the times.”

“Right,” Ferro said. “He left at around ten after the hour. I cleaned myself up and went to see what Gabby was up to. Like I told you last night, it was about eleven twenty. That’s when I saw that the door wasn’t quite closed. You know the rest.”

“That’s very helpful,” he told her. “One more question: did Gabby tell you if she was going to be having a rendezvous of her own that evening?”

“No, but I didn’t ask.”

Peters looked over at Jessie to see if she had any additional questions. She shook her head that she didn’t.

“Would Jandro be on the golf course now?” he asked, standing up. Jessie did the same.

“It’s where I’d look,” Ferro said, seeming to lose her focus now that she knew she was no longer under their spotlight. They walked across the roof and into the elevator.

“I should have come clean with you earlier,” Peters muttered after several seconds of silence. “We’re probably going to be able to eliminate half our suspects through their partners last night. I wasted so much time.”

“Spilled milk,” Jessie told him as the doors opened to the lobby. “Let’s just maximize what we have left.”

Peters nodded, leading the way to the door connecting the hotel to the golf clubhouse. When they entered the pro shop, Jessie looked around. The place was small, but it was filled to the brim with all manner Catalina-centric tchotchkes, from balls to tees to cheesy polo shirts. Peters caught the eye of the man behind the pro shop desk.

“Where can we find Jandro?” he asked.

The guy pointed through a glass door, where three young guys in khakis and long-sleeved white shirts were sitting on a bench, joking around. It wasn’t clear who the pro shop guy was referring to.

“Which one?” Peters asked.

Before the man could answer, one of the guys glanced in their direction. He took one look at Peters in his Sheriff’s Department uniform, then leapt up and started running.

“I guess we have our answer,” Peters said, breaking into a run.

Jessie was right behind him.