CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Jessica,” he said with an uptick in confidence, “is that what you go by? Or did you ever shorten it to Jessie?”
Though it probably wouldn’t matter to Bradford, her given name really was Jessica.
She was born Jessica Thurman, daughter of Xander Thurman, a notorious serial killer who claimed her mother—his own wife—among his victims. After the murder, Jessica was relocated to Las Cruces, New Mexico by the Witness Protection Program.
She was adopted by Bruce and Janine Hunt and had her name legally changed to Jessie Madeline Hunt. The middle name was in honor of her murdered birth mother. But she doubted that Bradford cared much about any of that.
“Nope, “ she said, trying to sound casual. “I don’t go in for nicknames. No offense, Tommy.”
“None taken,” he said, an unpleasant grin spreading across his lips.
She felt like things might get out of control at any moment and decided it was time to pull the plug on this experiment
“Oh, hold on,” she said, grabbing her phone. “I just got a text. The auto club is ahead of schedule. They’ll be here any second.”
“But I thought you didn’t feel safe out there,” he said, his grin twisting into an ugly grimace. “Maybe you should wait in here with me until they’re actually here.”
He licked his lips with way more enthusiasm than she found comfortable. He clearly sensed that he had an advantage. The question was what he intended to do with it. She decided the best way to make him stop in his tracks was to drop the pretense.
“Truthfully Tommy, I’m not sure it’s any safer in here right now.”
He took a step toward her.
“Maybe it’s not,” he agreed, licking his lips again.
Jessie tried to remain calm, reminding herself that any halfway normal person who knew she was an LAPD profiler wouldn’t do anything stupid. Then again, Bradford was far from a normal person. Whether he was a murderer or just a racist with delusions of grandeur, she didn’t want to take any chances.
“In that case, maybe I should reach out to my friend,” she said.
“Your girlfriend in Glendale?” he mocked, taking another step toward her. “It might take her a while to get here.”
“No. I was thinking of the detective standing outside.”
Bradford’s twisted smile disappeared. She didn’t wait to see what he would do next.
“Sam, I could use some help in here!”
They both turned to face the door. Three seconds later, it smashed open, slamming against the wall. The top hinge snapped off completely while the bottom one hung on precariously. Sam stood in the doorway with his gun drawn.
“Hands up!” he barked at Bradford, who quickly complied. Then he turned his attention to Jessie. “You okay?”
“I am now,” she said, “but before you arrived, he threatened my safety.”
“That’s crap!” Bradford balked with righteous indignation. “You came in here under false pretenses. You lied to me. That’s police entrapment.”
“I’m not ‘police,’ Tommy,” she pointed out. “I’m just a gal you invited into your home before telling her that she might not be safe here.”
Bradford’s face sank.
“Now if you like,” she continued, “Detective Goodwin here can take you down to the police station where you’ll be booked on whatever charges seem most appropriate. I’m thinking false imprisonment might be a good start. Or…”
“Or what?” Bradford asked anxiously.
“Or the detective can read you your rights, after which you can answer our questions honestly. If we’re satisfied with them, then the worst you’ll have to deal with is some broken door hinges. Otherwise you can refuse and we’ll let you put on a sweater.”
“A sweater?” Bradford asked, confused. “Why?”
“Because it’s 3:30 right now,” Sam informed him, picking up on Jessie’s lead, “and we won’t be able to get you in front of a judge before the end of business today. That means you’ll be spending the night in the holding cell back at Central Police Station, which can get really chilly.”
“Also,” Jessie added, “there might be some minorities in there with you and if they think you killed two women because of their immigration status, they might not be the friendliest to you.”
“But I didn’t do anything!” Bradford objected.
“Prove it,” Jessie said.
“How?”
“Like I said before, Detective Goodwin reads you your rights. Then you agree to answer our questions. You don’t have to, of course. But if you really aren’t involved in these killings, being forthright would go a long way to convincing us.”
Bradford scowled at her. But even before he responded, she knew he would agree. The guy might be a murderer or he might not be. But the idea of being put in a cell, possibly with dark-skinned people, was clearly off-putting to him.
“Fine,” he muttered.
Sam didn’t waste any time in giving him the Miranda warning. Once he was done, Jessie pointed to the small loveseat in the corner. “Have a seat, Tommy.”
He trudged over and plopped down on the seat like a petulant toddler.
Jessie grabbed one of the two chairs from the card table that comprised Bradford’s dining room and sat down opposite him.
“Now, when we spoke earlier and you said you didn’t know about the murders, you were lying, right?”
“Of course,” he said belligerently. “Like you said, the news is everywhere. When someone takes heroic action like that, I’m going to notice.”
“Nice,” Jessie refused to let him get a rise out of her by responding to that. “So you’re saying that it wasn’t you.”
“I could only wish.”
“Really?” Sam asked him sharply.
“What, is it illegal for me to express my opinion now?”
“So you endorse violence then?” Jessie said.
“I don’t engage in violence” he countered. “I don’t suggest violence. But do I embrace it after the fact? Sure. You wanted me to be honest right?”
“I did,” Jessie acknowledged.
“But just to be clear,” Bradford added, “My group, Traditional Citizenry, is an advocacy organization. Our goal is to persuade people of the nobility of our cause. We want to change hearts and minds. We don’t use violence.
That kind of thing tends to backfire and actually create sympathy for the invaders. ”
Jessie had several comebacks for that comment but swallowed them before they got out. She needed to stay focused.
“Is that why you harassed the Tanakas online?”
“What?”
“Come on, Tommy, “ she said, “we know all about your social media posts, first attacking David Tanaka for his top position at a movie studio, and then haranguing the couple about their marriage. That doesn’t look great.”
“I expressed my views,” he retorted unapologetically. “I never threatened them.”
To the best of her knowledge based on what Jamil and Beth had sent them, that was true. But sometimes these things escalated.
“Where were you last night?” she asked sharply.
“So now we’re up to the alibi portion of the interview?” he said with a sneer.
“We are,” Sam told him. “And if you can’t provide a solid one, that sweater had better be really warm.”
That seemed to temper the man’s arrogance slightly. “When exactly are we talking about?”
“Last night between 10:30 P.M. and 2 A.M.,” the detective said.
The sneer returned. “That’s easy. I was at a political rally for a congressional candidate in Orange County.
It lasted until 11. I helped coordinate a meet and greet for him afterwards that ran close to midnight.
Then I drove back here. I probably got home around 1 A.M. I was asleep within a couple of minutes of my head hitting the pillow. ”
“Do you have proof of that?” Sam asked.
“Only if you count video of me up on the stage with the guy and later at the meet and greet. It’s all posted on my website.”
“You got those bleary bloodshot eyes from a rally?” Sam pressed, trying to throw Bradford off balance. “You sure you didn’t do a little partying afterward?”
Jessie fought the desire to wince at her partner’s misstep.
“First of all, wouldn’t it help me if I did?” Bradford shot back. “More witnesses to support my alibi, right? But if you must know, the reason I look so tired is because I got up early, around 6 A.M., to edit and post the video. I wanted to get as many views as quickly as possible.”
“We’ll be checking all that video,” Jessie said, quickly moving on, “and we’ll want the GPS data from your phone and car too. What about Friday night? Where were you between 6 P.M and 2 A.M.?”
The sneer returned. “You really should do your research before you harass a law-abiding traditional citizen,” he mocked.
“I was at a demonstration. The president of Peru was here for the premiere of some crap movie celebrating the “cultural identity” of that backwater. Me and my group members protested outside the theater. But your fellow LAPD thugs said we violated some distance rule and took us into custody. I didn’t get released until around 3 the next morning. The LAPD is my alibi.”
“We’ll have to check that as well,” Jessie said without emotion, “and we’ll need the names of everyone in your group.”
“You’re not entitled to that!” he objected.
“You can give the list to us willingly or we’ll get a court order,” she said.
“But if you make us do the latter, it won’t look great for you.
If someone else is killed and the perpetrator is part of your group, how do you think it will go for you when a jury learns you could have given us their name beforehand and refused? ”
“Plus,” Sam added, “if you don’t comply, we’ll need to do the whole station/sweater thing. We can’t have you out and about calling your members and warning them while we’re trying to get that court order.”
Bradford stared at them sullenly. Jessie decided to throw him a bone.
“Look, you might actually be helping them,” she said. “If we can cross-match every one of your members with people who were also arrested at that protest, they should have alibis too. You’d actually save them from having to replace broken door hinges, like you’ll be doing.”
Bradford pretended to think about it but she could tell that he was going to cave on all fronts. She suspected he was less motivated by helping out his members than by avoiding a night behind bars with people of color.
Either way, she was already preparing herself for the very real possibility that this whole Traditional Citizenry group might be a dead end. If it was, that meant they were back to square one, without a good suspect, and with time running out.