The Perfect Impression by Blake Pierce
CHAPTER TWO
The wind was biting.
Even with the helicopter doors closed and her thick jacket, Jessie felt chilled as they tore through the air, a few thousand feet above the Pacific Ocean. It didn’t take long to see the twinkling lights of Avalon, the only town of note on tourist-centric Catalina Island.
As the copter approached the heliport, she hoped that her assigned liaison, Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Detective Colby Peters, could offer more details than Captain Decker had. All he knew was that a female guest at a ritzy hotel had been found naked in bed, with a knife in her chest.
The copter began its descent, zipping past the island’s most iconic landmark, the Catalina Casino, a massive, oceanfront structure that had never actually allowed gambling but had been employed as an elaborate theater and event venue since 1929. Jessie remembered taking a tour of the ornate, Art Deco building on her one visit to the island, back when she and Kyle were dating, long before she knew her future husband was a murderous sociopath.
The helicopter passed over Avalon Bay, high enough to avoid waking the people sleeping in the fancy yachts below, before hovering over the helipad and gently touching down. As the rotor slowed, Jessie saw a man in a jacket emblazoned with the sheriff’s department logo wave at her from a safe distance. She waved back, waiting for the blades to come to a full stop. When they did, the pilot opened the door, gave her the backpack she’d brought along, and pointed her to the man she assumed was Colby Peters.
She zipped her jacket up to her neck in a likely fruitless attempt to stave off the bitter, middle-of-the-night January cold on an exposed island. As she walked over, she saw that Peters was better prepared for the elements. His puffy jacket looked cozy and he had on gloves and a watch cap on under his sheriff’s cap. She’d never met the guy but the scowl on his face suggested that he wasn’t exactly enthused to be assigned to this job.
“Deputy Peters?” she asked when she was close enough to be heard over the nearby crashing waves.
“Detective Peters,” he corrected sharply. “I assume you’re Hunt?”
“Call me Jessie,” she said, hoping to get off on the right foot.
“Let me fill you in on what we’ve got,” he replied, not making the same offer to go by first names as he motioned for him to join her.
He moved over to a golf cart parked on the sidewalk and indicated for Jessie to get in the passenger seat. She’d forgotten that there was a strict limit on both the size and number of cars allowed on the island and that many folks got around in these carts. She’d thought it was charming on her previous visit, but tonight she longed for an enclosed vehicle. Peters, who appeared oblivious, launched in.
“The victim is Gabrielle Crewe, age thirty-three. She was found in her suite at the Paragon Hotel, where she was staying with her husband, Steve, and some friends. They were on a group weekend outing. The body was discovered by one of them, Melissa Ferro, whose suite was next door. Ferro said the door was slightly open. A room service waiter secured the suite until we got there. The husband was in the bar at the time. Before he lost it completely, I got him to look around the suite. It doesn’t seem anything was stolen.”
“When was she found?” Jessie asked as Peters tore down the narrow street, populated by closed shops and open bars, occasionally weaving to avoid a drunk reveler on the main drag that ran alongside the harbor front.
“The call to the station came in at eleven twenty-four p.m. We’re only a three-minute drive away. When we entered the room at eleven thirty-one, pallor mortis had just started to set in. I doubt she’d been dead more than a half hour at that point.”
They veered off the main drag and headed inland. Without the lights of a major street, the island was draped in darkness. Jessie didn’t know how Peters could see where he was going. He made a sharp right turn and then a left before hitting another straightaway. In the distance, Jessie saw a large complex that she assumed was the Paragon Hotel. When Peters pulled into the driveway and hit the brakes hard, she knew she was right.
From the outside, the place had the look of a New Orleans French Quarter hotel, covered in ornate grillwork designs, with long, narrow balconies on all the upper floors that ran the length of the building and were adorned with hanging plants and planter boxes full of flowers.
“We’re here,” he said, hopping out. “How do you want do proceed?”
“Where’s the body?” Jessie asked him.
“She’s waiting for you in the room,” he replied. “Do you want to see her first or talk to witnesses?”
“Depends,” she told him. “Are the witnesses all being held separately from each other?”
“All the potential witnesses and friends are away from the other hotel guests in a ballroom with hotel security but they’re not being kept apart from each other.”
Jessie didn’t love that. The more these people interacted, the less distinct their recollections would get. It might also allow a suspect to glean information he or she shouldn’t have.
“Let’s deal with them first and then check out the body. We can return to do full interviews afterward. Lead the way.”
Peters marched through the lobby, unconcerned whether Jessie was keeping up. As they hurried through the cavernous central lounge, she tried take in her surroundings. To her surprise, it didn’t match the exterior at all, instead going for more of a Polynesian look.
The ceiling had exposed dark wood beams, separated by what she appeared to be a faux-thatched roof. Multiple fans hung low, though they were unmoving considering the season. All the furniture was wooden and seemingly hand-carved. The floor was comprised of a composite meant to look like stone pavers. They walked up the stairs to the second floor, where a scared-looking young man stood outside a large, closed door.
“This is Tommy,” Peters said. “He’s a bellman here and graciously offered to make sure no one entered or left the ballroom other than for restroom visits. Tommy, this is Jessie Hunt. She’s a fancy LAPD profiler, here from the mainland to offer her expertise. Anything notable happen while I was gone, Tommy?”
Tommy, a wisp of a kid who looked a special shade of pale, shook his head. Jessie did her best not to let Peters’s jab get to her. He pushed open the doors to reveal about twenty people, all casually milling about, some chatting at a few of the bare banquet tables. There was a woman nursing a baby in the corner. A gangly, scruffy-faced security guard stood at one end of the room, scrolling through his phone. Jessie’s heart sank.
“We need to separate everyone,” she said.
“Even the couples?” Peters asked.
“Even the couples, especially the ones the victim arrived here with. No more than one person per table. If we need to use a second room, let’s do that.”
Peters looked at her skeptically and she thought he might object.
“It’s your show,” he finally said before turning his attention to the assembled, who were all now staring in their direction. “Okay, everyone, listen up. I know you’ve been waiting around. But you’re going to need to wait a little longer. We’ve brought in a big gun from the city to help question you. But she insists that all of you need to separate until we can talk to you individually. That means everyone. Friends, couples—no one sits together anymore. No one talks to each until we’ve talked to you. If that means some of you have to be moved to a secondary ballroom, I’m sure Stone can help facilitate that, right, Stone?”
The security guard who had been on his phone nodded reluctantly.
“Sure,” he said.
“I mean it,” Peters added. “Conversations end now. If you persist, Ms. Hunt here may have you tossed in the pokey. We all understand each other?”
There was a general collection of nods amid the unhappy frowns. Jessie bit her tongue, fighting the urge to ream Peters out then and there. Even before she’d started her interviews, he’d managed to create animosity toward her among the witnesses. This case was going to be hard enough to solve without having hurdles thrown in front of her by her supposed partner.
“We’ll be back as soon as we can,” he added before turning on his heel and leaving without another word. Jessie felt an angry heat rising up the back of her neck as she watched him stride off arrogantly.
“Hey, Detective Peters,” she called out to him once the door closed behind them. “Is it your intention to throw me under the bus in every interaction we have tonight?”
He stopped and turned around. He wasn’t smiling.
“You can handle it,” he said unapologetically. “I have to live here after you go. I don’t need to alienate the entire town in one night.”
Jessie had come into this situation planning to be polite, if only to grease the wheels. But her patience with the guy was wearing thin already. Maybe it was being awake for almost twenty hours. Maybe it was the bumpy helicopter flight in. Maybe it was the cold. Maybe he was just an asshole. But she’d had her fill of it. If he was going to tar her as the “big gun from the city,” maybe she’d act like it.
“Is that how you conduct your law enforcement around here, Detective Peters—too afraid to ask tough questions because you don’t want to alienate the locals or scare off rich tourists?”
“Hey—” he started to object but Jessie cut him off.
“If that’s how you operate, maybe you’re better off joining Stone in there as a security guard. But if you consider yourself an actual cop, maybe you should be less worried about who you’re alienating and a little more focused on trying to catch the person who murdered a woman in her hotel room.”
“That’s not fair,” he protested. “This is a four-person department. We don’t usually deal with murders here. In fact, before now, we’ve only had six in a hundred twenty years. But I’m running ragged around here trying get this solved.”
“It’s absolutely fair,” she shot back. “That’s called doing your job. Now you can whine or you can step up. Either way, as you said, it’s my show. So take me to the victim, because we’re wasting valuable time.”
Peters looked sullen but he didn’t speak again. Instead he led her to an elevator, where he punched the button for the top floor. The doors closed and they headed up to see the woman with the knife in her chest.