CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Jessie waited impatiently at the crossing for the train to pass.
It had been slowly chugging along for the last five minutes, apparently oblivious to the fact that she was only a couple of miles from home.
After another minute, and with no caboose in sight, she sighed and reached for her phone to let Ryan know that she’d be home a few minutes later than expected. That’s when she saw the envelope.
Against her better judgment and fully aware that whatever paperwork inside would probably cause her stress when she was trying to decompress, she grabbed it.
It was only then that she noticed something she hadn’t picked up on before: the return address was the same as the mailing address.
That meant that no matter what happened with the postal system, the letter was sure to reach her eventually.
She briefly considered waiting until she got home. After all, she’d gotten more than her fair share of hate mail. One never knew if an envelope might contain something more dangerous than nasty words. She shook the envelope but couldn’t hear or feel anything that seemed like powder.
Despite her apprehension, she took a pen and slit it open. There was nothing inside except for a small piece of paper, no larger than a fortune cookie message. She took it out. In typed letters, it read: It’s been too long. Looking forward to seeing you again.
As far as threats went, this one barely registered.
No promises of violence. No retribution mentioned.
Were it not for the anonymous nature of the thing, it might be considered innocuous.
But Jessie knew too well that when it came to her work, no unsigned, typed cryptic message was ever truly harmless.
This was intended to be unsettling and normally it would be.
But she was just too tired to get freaked out right now.
She put the slip of paper back in the envelope and set it on the passenger seat.
When she got home, she’d put it in a plastic baggie.
Tomorrow, she’d take it to the station and let the forensic folks check for fingerprints or DNA.
She was dubious that they’d find anything.
Whoever had sent it didn’t want to be identified, at least not yet.
And she doubted they’d be so sloppy as to leave any traces of who they were.
The train finally passed. She tried to stay patient as the crossing gates went up and the brake lights of the car in front of her finally disappeared as it started moving. She passed over the tracks and made a left turn off Olympic and into her neighborhood.
As she did, her phone rang. She glanced down at it and her heart immediately sank. The call was from Captain Parker. At this hour that could only mean one thing.
*
Jessie couldn’t get close to the Williamson home.
It was in the Hollywood Hills, on a winding road so narrow that two cars couldn’t pass at the same time.
With all the squad cars and emergency vehicles ahead of her, there was no way to get by.
So she parked on the side of the road about a half dozen houses away, put on her hazard lights, and walked the rest of the way.
As she made her way to the crime scene, she took solace in one thing.
Because of the difficulty in accessing the place, the police had set up a perimeter a quarter mile down the hill.
They were only letting law enforcement and residents enter, which meant four television station vans were stuck down below.
By the time one of the cameramen realized who she was, it was too late to get footage of her as she drove by.
When Captain Parker called earlier, Sam Goodwin was already on the line.
Parker briefed both of them as Jessie made a U-turn and headed toward the address that she’d been texted.
The latest victim was named Anastasia Williamson, née Volkov, a Ukrainian model who married heart surgeon Marcus Williamson two years ago.
Just like Maria Cain and Yuki Tanaka, she’d been found stabbed multiple times. Her green card was apparently also found near the body. That was all Parker knew so far. Jessie saw that the medical examiner’s van was just up the way, so she hoped they would have more details to share.
Sam was already standing at the start of the cobblestoned path leading up to the house, waving at her. That made sense since he lived in West Hollywood, a good fifteen minutes closer to here than her own place was. She picked up the pace to join him.
As she got closer, she took note of the home.
Like so many of the places up here, it was an architectural marvel, built into the hill and rising three stories into the trees.
Glancing across the street, she couldn’t help but admire the view from up here.
It was 6:42 and the sun was on the verge of setting in the west. The sparkling lights of the city were twinkling below.
It occurred to her that Anastasia Williamson would never see those lights again. The thought filled her first with pity, and then anger. If they were better at their jobs, she might still be alive.
“What do we know?” she asked once she reached Sam, dispensing with any pleasantries.
“Not much,” he told her. “I was waiting for you before going in. The one thing I did hear was that this scene is sloppier than the others.”
“That’s interesting,” Jessie said. “Let’s go check it out.”
Once they stepped inside, they were greeted by Sergeant Paul Delco.
Jessie had worked with him before and always found him to be competent and professional.
A rail-thin officer in his late thirties with crew cut brown hair, the man wore a permanent scowl that reinforced the sense that he was all business. She didn’t mind.
“Do you have questions to start off or do you want me to tell you what we know so far?” he asked without any preliminary greeting.
“The latter, if that’s okay with Detective Goodwin,” Jessie said. In her experience, Delco was good at cutting to the chase. Sam nodded that he was fine with that.
“The victim is Anastasia Williamson, 27 years old,” Delco said as he guided them down the hall. “Used to be Anastasia Volkov. Was a big-time model back in Ukraine, where she moved from three years ago.”
“Because of the war?” Sam asked.
“Actually, no,” Delco said. “She paid to transport a friend over here who needed surgery and she ended up staying. Married Dr. Marcus Williamson two years ago. He’s the one who found her body.”
“Where is he now?” Jessie asked.
“In the main bedroom,” Delco said, pointing to a nearby staircase as they passed through a large living room. “I’ll let him give you the details but he thinks he might have scared off the killer when he got home.”
“What kind of state is he in?” Sam asked. “Will he be up for questioning?”
“I think so,” Delco said. “He seems upset but not in shock. If I saw my wife in the state that she’s in, I might be. But he’s a heart surgeon so I guess that could have helped him deal with the scene. It’s pretty rough.”
“I saw that the medical examiner has arrived,” Jessie said. “Any preliminaries on that front?”
“Nothing yet,” Delco said. “But he’s only been here about five minutes.”
“He?” Jessie repeated. “It’s not Cheryl Gallagher? She handled the last two crime scenes.”
“Nope,” he answered, stopping where the living room met the kitchen and pausing there. “Maybe it’s a jurisdictional thing or an overtime issue? Regardless, it’s Kelvin Soto in there.”
Jessie knew Soto too, although she hadn’t dealt with him as often as Gallagher.
“Let’s see if he’s made any more progress since you were in there,” she suggested.
Delco led them into the kitchen. Jessie could immediately tell that this scene was different.
Both Cain and Tanaka had been found in dining rooms. But based on the collection of people at the far end of the room, where the kitchen connected to the breakfast room, that was where the body was.
What wasn’t different was the blood spatter that covered the floor and multiple appliances.
It looked like someone had taken a Super Soaker water gun to the room, only one filled with blood.
A smallish Latino man in his forties with brown hair parted neatly to the side stepped away from the group in the corner and walked over to them.
“Sorry to see you again under these circumstances,” Kelvin Soto said.
“Likewise,” Jessie replied. “You’ve probably heard but this is our third scene like this today. Anything you can share so far?”
“Not a ton yet,” he conceded. “The only thing I can say for sure is that she died recently, like within the last hour. She’s still pretty warm.”
Jessie looked at her watch. It was 6:48 now. So Williamson had been killed no earlier than 5:45 P.M.
“You ready to go over there?” Sam asked.
Jessie nodded and followed him and Soto to the breakfast room. The officers and M.E. techs stepped off to the side to give them a clear view of the scene. Jessie inhaled deeply as she took it in.
Unlike the previous victims, who’d been found in their dining rooms, it appeared that Anastasia Williamson had been intentionally placed in the breakfast room, where she lay on the floor next to a chair.
The blood on the back of the chair suggested that she’d been put there but had fallen before she could be tied to it.
That reinforced the idea that her husband had come home before the scene could be properly set.
Next to her head, in a pool of blood, was her green card. A bloody napkin lay beside it.
Jessie focused her attention on the victim.
Even lying on the floor, it was clear that Williamson was tall, easily over six feet.
Her long jet black hair contrasted with her pale skin.
Even with her eyes scrunched tightly together, she was breathtakingly beautiful.
She was barefoot and wore gray sweatpants and a white t-shirt that read: I wish I could help.
Okay…not really. Both were soaked in blood.
There were deep gashes in her neck and chest, but also in her forearms and palms. One didn’t have to be a medical examiner to know that they were defensive wounds. Anastasia had fought back.
Jessie wondered if she had been on heightened alert. Had she heard about the other murders and been more prepared to protect herself? If so, it hadn’t worked, but Jessie found herself admiring the woman’s will to fight. She wanted to honor it, and there was only one way to do that: find her killer.
“I think we should let Dr. Soto do his work,” she said. “Maybe this is a good time to talk to the husband.”
Sam nodded in agreement.
“I’ll take you to him,” Delco offered.
He led them back down the hall and then up the stairs that he’d noted before.
As they rounded the landing and Jessie started up to the second floor, she saw a huge window looking out on West Hollywood.
The sun had completely set now and the darkened sky was peppered with lights.
The rest of the city was going about its business, oblivious to the horror that had occurred here.
Delco guided them to a bedroom at the end of the hall. The door was open and an officer stood in the entrance, where he could see inside.
“Is there anyone in there with him?” Sam asked.
“No,” Delco said. “He declined the support officer so we let him alone for now.”
“Anything we need to know, officer?” Jessie asked the young man in the doorway.
“No ma’am,” he said. “He’s been sitting there quietly.”
She nodded and stepped into the large bedroom. It took a second to locate Dr. Marcus Williamson. Then she saw him in the far corner sitting in a rocking chair. His eyes were closed and he was rocking slowly back and forth. But that wasn’t what drew her attention.
He was covered in blood.