The Perfect Impression by Blake Pierce
CHAPTER FOUR
Jessie stared in the bathroom mirror.
Before diving into the interviews, she’d made a pit stop to freshen up and make sure she looked appropriately professional and intimidating for the upcoming questioning. After getting Captain Decker’s call, she’d rushed out of the house so quickly that she hadn’t had a chance to do much more than change from her pajamas to jeans and a sweater.
She undid her ponytail and ran a brush through her shoulder-length brown hair. She swished a little mouthwash and put some drops in her green eyes, which were tinged with the redness of exhaustion. She considered adding a dusting of makeup but decided that it wasn’t necessary. Even at almost two in the morning, she thought she looked pretty decent. And if she stood at her full height, making use of her athletic, five-foot-ten frame, she could be intimidating too.
When she stepped out of the restroom into the hall connecting all the ballrooms, she immediately noticed that Detective Peters and Tommy the bellboy weren’t alone. They were with an attractive, athletic-looking woman wearing a heavy jacket over a pink jogging suit. Her black hair was pulled back in a bun. She was talking to the detective in the corner, her voice borderline desperate.
“I have to be first,” she pleaded to Peters. “The sooner they know, the faster they can do something.”
Peters glanced up, saw Jessie, then turned his attention back to the woman.
“Ms. Ferro, please wait here for a moment,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
He left her where she stood and came over. Jessie said nothing, waiting for him to explain.
“That’s Melissa Ferro, the friend who found the body,” he said. “As I’m sure you heard, she’s demanding to talk to you right away. I didn’t know if you wanted to stick to your ‘husband first’ plan or give her the first go.”
“That’s fine,” Jessie said. “It may actually be more valuable to get some baseline facts on timeline from her, since we don’t have any footage to work with. Besides, I have a feeling holding her off might cause a scene. Is there somewhere we can question her privately?”
Peters stepped over to a diagram of the floor and studied it silently for a few seconds.
“Most folks are in the Catalina Ballroom, where we stopped in earlier. But per your instructions, a few were moved across the hall to the Wrigley Ballroom. That leaves two smaller meeting rooms unoccupied. Take your pick.”
Jessie chose what looked like the smaller of the two, the Harbor Room. Peters seemed to agree with the call, giving a curt nod before returning to the woman.
“Ms. Ferro, your squeaky wheel is about to get greased. If you could please come with us?”
Melissa followed him to the room, with Jessie right behind. When they entered Jessie was immediately glad she’d chosen it. It was more of a small conference room than a meeting room, with one large circular table that was too big for the space, creating a mild sense of claustrophobia.
She took off her jacket and put her backpack on the table in front of her. The table could easily seat eight, but with only three of them, Melissa Ferro took off her jacket as well. Jessie noticed that the jogging suit underneath was stained with blood. Ferro, who didn’t seem aware of it, sat down. Her gray eyes darted everywhere. She looked isolated and vulnerable. That’s the way Jessie liked it.
Peters took off his jacket and cap for the first time since Jessie arrived on the island. Without them, he seemed immediately less gruff. He had an unruly shock of long, thick, sun-bleached blond hair, which suggested he spent a lot of time on the water. His skin was a little leathery, but more likely due to his recreational activities than age. At thirty, she suspected she was only a few years younger than him. She also suspected that if he were to ever smile, he might actually be pleasant-looking.
“So, Ms. Ferro,” he started, “as I mentioned previously, we have some extra help on the case. This is Jessie Hunt. She’s a specialist in these kinds of killings. I know you gave me a brief rundown of how you discovered your friend earlier, but I’d like you to repeat it now.”
Melissa Ferro looked momentarily overwhelmed, as if the idea of revisiting the horror might be too much for her. After a moment, she seemed to recover and appeared ready to begin. But Jessie jumped in before she could.
“Ms. Ferro,” she began, deciding to take charge of how the questioning would proceed, “I don’t need you to go through everything again. Instead, I want to focus on some specific details if we can. But before we start, I just wanted to offer my condolences. I understand you were friends with Gabrielle. This must be very difficult for you.”
“It is,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. “I can’t get the image of her out of my head.”
Jessie nodded sympathetically, trying to build a rapport as quickly as possible.
“Okay, then let’s not start there,” she suggested. “Tell me about finding the door open.”
“Right,” Ferro said, relieved. “I had been out and about and returned to my room to freshen up. When I left, I thought I’d see if Gabby and Steve—that’s her husband—were around and wanted to hang out, maybe go down to the bar.”
“What time was that?” Jessie asked.
“I’m not positive but I know I got back to my room around eleven fifteen, so maybe eleven twenty?”
“That fits,” Peters chimed in. “The room service waiter said he arrived on the floor around that time. He heard Ms. Ferro screaming a few seconds later. And like I said before, we got the first call at the station at eleven twenty-four.”
Jessie didn’t love the detective confirming Ferro’s testimony in real time with her there. That kind of discussion was better had outside the presence of a witness who might also be a suspect. Not wanting to exacerbate tensions, she pressed on.
“What happened next, Ms. Ferro?”
“The door was open a little bit, barely noticeable if I hadn’t been right in front of it,” she answered. “I wasn’t sure if they were in there or if they forgot to close it when they left, so I called into the room. No one answered so I pushed it open more. I called out again but didn’t hear anything. The lamp light was on so I went in further. That’s when I saw her.”
She stopped, seemingly temporarily undone by the memory. Jessie waited a few seconds before proceeding, happy to use the time to study the woman for signs of deception. Unable to discern anything overt, she continued.
“How long were you in there?”
“Not very long, maybe thirty seconds,” Ferro replied. “I called out to her. She was naked and I thought she might be sleeping, even though something felt wrong. I rushed over to the bed. The light was low and I didn’t even register the knife or the blood at first. I think I was in denial or something. I shook her to wake her up. Then I realized that her eyes were open. I backed up and saw the knife and all the blood. After that, I just kind of lost it. I started screaming and ran out of the room. That’s when I saw the waiter.”
She stopped talking and shook her head as if trying to get the image out of her head. Jessie gave her another moment before pushing a bit.
“I assume you got the blood on your clothes when you were trying to wake her up?” she asked.
Melissa Ferro looked down at the jogging suit, seeming to process for the first time that it was discolored and damp.
“Oh no,” she moaned. “I had no idea. I have to get this thing off.”
She started to unzip the top and Jessie saw that she only had a bra on underneath.
“Hold on,” she ordered, making the woman stop mid-zip. “I know the blood is upsetting, but it’s evidence. We’ll have someone accompany you to your suite momentarily so you can change and we can bag the clothing. But for now, you need to stay put.”
The woman squirmed in her chair but didn’t argue. Hoping to get her mind off it, and feeling bad for the truly awful position she was putting the woman in, Jessie went in a different direction.
“So I just want to try to nail down that timeline a little more, Ms. Ferro,” she said. “It could be really important to finding out what happened. Where were you before you went back to your room?”
Melissa Ferro looked back at her, and for the first time Jessie saw calculation in her eyes. She paused for several seconds before answering.
“I was just hanging out with people, you know flitting about. I was kind of drunk so I can’t remember everywhere I was exactly. In fact, I’m still kind of tipsy, which hasn’t been fun under the circumstances.”
Jessie was about to press her for more details when there was a loud banging on the door. Everyone looked over as it burst open to reveal a slightly heavyset man with receding brown hair and a flushed face. He was clutching something in his right hand. It only took a fraction of a second for Jessie to realize it was an almost empty beer mug. Without a word, he slammed it against the wall, leaving him gripping a chunk of jagged glass. Then he stepped forward.