id810
Jessie wasn’t sure she had heard the words properly.
Her brain had been so focused on the case that recalibrating it to think about Costabile took a moment. But Ryan didn’t have that problem.
“What the hell happened?” he demanded.
“Apparently the officers tailing him lost him at a Hollywood area Metro station,” Parker said.
“How long ago did this happen?” Jessie asked, managing to regroup slightly. She looked at the time. It was 3:49.
“About twenty minutes ago,” Parker said. “We’ve got officers checking every Metro stop for ten miles in either direction. We think we’ve got a lead on his plans though.”
“What are they?” Ryan pressed.
“Officer Daniel Carrera, who was one of Costabile’s assigned tails for the day, spoke to a homeless man who got in his way while he was searching for Costabile. He found it suspicious, and after some basic questioning, the man admitted that Costabile paid him to provide a distraction. The man also said that Costabile mentioned something about getting down to San Diego and crossing the border into Tijuana.”
“Why would he reveal that?’ Ryan asked skeptically. “It sounds like something he’d say to throw us off his scent while he was staying here or going somewhere else.”
“You may be right,” Parker conceded. “However, we did find a record of him purchasing a ticket on the Pacific Surfliner train, which left Union Station for San Diego a few minutes ago. We have someone headed to catch it to see if he’s actually on it. But whether we find him or not, I don’t know that there’s much we can do about it.”
“Why not?” Beth asked.
Jessie had the answer to that question, though she didn’t like it.
“Because officially, he hasn’t done anything wrong,” she said. “Even though he was released from prison on a technicality, he’s a free man. He can go wherever he wants. Chief Decker only assigned those officers to watch him because he was worried that Costabile might pursue a vendetta against me. And maybe he intends to. But it’s just as possible that he got sick of having a couple of cops following him around wherever he went and decided to bust loose of them for a few hours. He could be at a friend’s house or a strip club blowing off steam. Even if they find him, and I’m not sure they will, what can they do? Arrest him for slipping their tail?”
“All of that is true,” Parker acknowledged, “but just the same, Chief Decker has asked me to ensure that precautions are taken in case he didn’t really leave town. Two officers are being sent to your home in case Costabile tries to sneak in. We’d also like to post two more to watch your sister in case he goes after her. My understanding is that she”s staying at Kat Gentry”s place to help her out during her time of grieving.”
“That’s correct,” Jessie said, not asking how Parker knew that detail.
“That will make it easier,” the captain said, “better to have them in the same place.”
“I appreciate that,” Jessie told her.
“Not a problem,” Parker said. “I’d also like you to keep us apprised of your location as you pursue this case. Just let the dispatch sergeant know about any stops you make, and he’ll make sure that a squad car is in the immediate vicinity. That is, unless you prefer we just have a car follow you wherever you go tonight.”
Jessie looked at Ryan, who shrugged.
“I don’t have a problem with it,” he said.
He might not, but Jessie did.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” she said. “Costabile doesn’t have any clue where we’ll be, and I don’t want to scare off any witnesses or suspects we talk to by having a squad car right behind us the whole time. Besides, the man isn’t an idiot. Even if he does have it in for me, he know we’ll be on high alert until he’s found. He’s not going to try anything stupid after just getting out of prison. So no on the tail thanks, Captain. But having a squad car in the area is probably a good idea.”
“I’ll arrange it with the dispatch sergeant,” Parker said. “Just call when you get moving. By the way, do you have any new suspects?”
“That’s what we’re trying to determine right now,” Jessie told her, not wanting to get into a back-and-forth about Robertson until she was confident enough to plead her case.
“Alright, then I’ll leave you to it,” Parker said.
After several seconds of silence, Beth spoke.
“She’s gone now.”
“Can you shut the door, Beth?” they heard Jamil say quietly.
Jessie and Ryan exchanges a curious glance, waiting to see why the researcher was suddenly being so cautious.
Once they heard the door close, Jessie asked.
“Why so secretive, Jamil?”
“Because while you were all talking, I found something else,” he said, “but I didn’t exactly come by it legitimately, so I didn’t want the captain to know.”
“Color me intrigued,” Jessie said. “What is it?”
Jamil sighed.
“I don’t feel great about this, but I think it was worth the risk,” he said. “I was going through Danielle Robertson’s personal information, and I found a reference to her having a juvenile record. As with all juvenile files, it’s sealed and inaccessible without a court order. But I hacked the system anyway.”
Everyone was quiet for a moment, stunned that a straight arrow like Jamil Winslow would do such a thing.
“We can deal with the moral issues associated with that decision later,” Ryan eventually said with mild disapproval. “But since it’s already done, what did you find?”
“Apparently when she was in middle school, Robertson was the victim of vicious bullying,” Jamil said. “It started out with teasing and name-calling. Other girls would refer to her as “Junior” and “Chip” as in ‘chip off the old block’ because her last name was Robertson, as in “Robert’s son.” Really dumb stuff. But it eventually escalated to the point where some girls would text her, telling her that she should kill herself.”
“Oh my god,” Jessie muttered.
Jamil continued, clearly attempting to push through because the material was so unpleasant.
“This group of girls apparently cornered her in a classroom after school one day and relentlessly berated her, telling her different ways that she should end things. When one of them shoved her against the teacher’s desk, Robertson grabbed a stapler and began beating that girl about the head with it. The other girls called a teacher for help. By the time Robertson was pulled off the first girl, she was unconscious. She ended up losing an eye.”
No one could think of anything to say, so Jamil pressed on.
“She was going to be sent to a juvenile detention facility, but when the enormity of the bullying she faced was uncovered, her lawyer managed to get her placed in a diversion program at a psychiatric facility. When she was released a year later, her family moved to a different town for high school. There were no subsequent issues listed in her record. She graduated with honors, got into a great school and graduated in four years. You know the rest.”
“So are we thinking that the horrors she suffered in middle school a dozen years ago made her some kind of ticking time bomb that exploded this week?” Beth asked.
”It could be more complicated than that,” Jessie said. ”We don”t know what kind of indignities she suffered in that psychiatric facility. She may come out seeming recovered, but it’s possible that she just shoved down whatever was churning inside her.”
She looked at Ryan, whose expression suggested he was less skeptical than before. But she could tell he still wanted more. She gave it to him.
”Plus, we all heard what Shane Willoughby said. It seems like Avery Sinclair was the adult version of the mean girls that Danielle knew as a teenager. I don’t know about Tabitha Reynolds or Naomi Hackett, but Clarissa Langley didn’t sound like a barrel of laughs. Maybe the accumulation of nastiness from these women eventually made her snap.”
“Maybe,” Ryan conceded, “but that’s still not as direct a motive as Mitchell Vaughn losing a realtor award to Avery Sinclair last night and her ending up pummeled to death with that very award today. I realize we don’t have motives yet for him with the other women, but that doesn”t mean they don”t exist.”
Jessie couldn’t disagree, even if she felt increasingly confident that Robertson was their killer. She wracked her brain for something so substantial that even Ryan couldn’t dismiss it. And then it hit her. In all her haste to make the pieces fit, she’d passed over the one tidbit that Robertson had provided for them.
“Hold on, Jamil,” she said, “didn’t you say that Robertson’s school bullies called her ‘Junior?’”
“Yes, that and Chip.”
Jessie stared hard at Ryan.
“Shane Willoughby told us that Danielle preferred the kids call her Junior. Why do that when the name is fraught with so much pain?”
“Maybe that was her way of taking ownership of the word so that it lost its power over her,” he offered.
“Or maybe she never really got over it,” Jessie countered, “and having children call her that was a way of continuing to beat herself up all these years later.”
Ryan gave a relenting shrug.
“It’s not the craziest theory I’ve heard,”
“Thanks for the support,” she replied with a playful smirk, before focusing her attention on the researchers on speakerphone.
“Hey guys, can you do a search of Danielle Robertson’s GPS location status to determine when—?”
“She was last at the other victims’ homes?” Jamil interrupted. “Already been working on it for the last minute.”
Jessie was always impressed by the brilliant young man. She waited quietly to hear what he’d discovered.
“It looks like she was at all their homes in the last ten days,” he told them all.
“She could have planted the canisters on those visits,” Jessie posited.
“That makes sense,” Beth ventured. “Maybe she was worried that if she left them any earlier than that, the canisters might be discovered.”
“Possible,” Ryan said, getting in on it now too, “or maybe the poison in the canisters has some kind of expiration date after which it’s not effective.”
Jessie, who thought both those suspicions were credible, had already moved on. The thought of canisters sitting in people’s homes, just waiting for the push of a button, filled her with anxiety. They had to find out who the next victim was going to be.
“We need to compile a list of any other client that she visited in the last ten days,” she announced. “We should include mothers who were as hardcore as the victims were about their kids being tutored during winter break.”
“Working on it now,” Jamil replied.
“Should we focus on divorced women?” Ryan wondered. “Robertson seems to prioritize keeping other family members safe when the canisters go off. If they’re at their dads’ places, the potential victim might be alone.”
“It’s a parameter worth including,” Jessie agreed, “but we shouldn’t limit it to that. Three of our four victims were married. I’m betting the reasons these women were chosen had more to do with subjective criteria in Robertson’s head than anything we can easily pin down.”
“I find three other clients that Robertson visited in the last ten days,” Jamil announced. “Grace Barber lives in Venice. Sienna Ford lives in Marina del Rey. So does Ashley Bailey. And for the record, she is divorced.”
“Any chance you can see if Robertson’s GPS shows her near any of their homes?” Ryan asked.
“Actually,” Beth said, “it’s had her at her Westchester apartment ever since she gave us authorization to access her data. Is it weird that neither her car nor her phone have moved at all since 11 a.m.?”
“She could just be binging a TV show,” Jessie admitted, “or she could have left them at her place while she went out in a cab that she paid cash for, knowing she was being tracked.”
“Why would she leave that stuff at home unless she was going somewhere she didn”t want us to know about?” Ryan asked.
”An excellent question,” Jessie said. ”One, I think we should ask her. But let’s do it on the way to the car.”
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“All three of the clients Jamil listed live south of the station,” Jessie said. “Let’s head in that direction, working our way from one home to the next. While we call Robertson, Beth and Jamil can reach out to these women to find out where they are right now. It’s the Friday afternoon of a long holiday weekend. There’s no guarantee they’re all at home. We need to know where they are and if they’re safe.”
She stood up and grabbed her bag. Ryan got up too.
“We’ll call you back as soon as we get status updates on the clients,” Beth told them before hanging up.
As Jessie and Ryan headed along the hallway of the West Los Angeles police station toward the parking lot, she called Danielle Robertson’s cell phone. It went straight to voicemail. She redialed. The same thing happened. She looked over at Ryan as the pushed through the station’s outer door.
“No answer,” she told him.
His face scrunched up into a grimace as he replied.
“That is definitely not good.”