CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
After hours of research, it was all dead ends and Jessie could feel herself getting frustrated. In fact, she had to bite her lip when Sam proposed his theory.
As they sat in the research department with Jamil, Beth, and Officer Devery, who had chosen to stop in after his shift ended, the detective spun his scenario.
“What if the killer is actually one of these women, a recent immigrant? Maybe her rich husband left her and she got jealous of the others, whose lives were so cushy?”
Technically, it was possible, even if there was no evidence yet to support any of that. But Jessie had often proposed motives based on little more than hunches, so she wasn’t in a position to be overly critical, even if she was skeptical.
She was fairly sure that another woman in their social circle who’d gotten divorced and acted salty about it would have been at least mentioned in passing by someone, at some point in their investigation. But maybe not.
“It’s worth looking into,” she said diplomatically, turning to the researchers. “Can you guys do a search for any IILA member who got divorced or separated in the last five years?”
“Just did,” Jamil said almost before she’d finished the question. “There are two. Both returned to their home countries soon after the divorces were finalized.”
Another theory up in smoke. Jessie said nothing and instead returned her attention to the list of IILA members.
When she and Sam had shown Claire Vallejo the list of names, none of them had struck her as obvious candidates to incur the wrath of an immigrant-hating killer.
But maybe the victims’ advocate had overlooked something.
After fifteen minutes of silence, as everyone in the room concentrated, Jessie came across someone who made her raise her eyebrows. The woman’s name was Priya Kapoor Herron.
Kapoor was 30 years old and married to Keith Herron, a prominent philanthropist who made his money in tech and started a foundation to combat homelessness. They’d met when she came to the U.S. from India on a student visa while she pursued her PhD in Public Policy and Administration at USC.
But none of that was what drew Jessie’s attention.
Rather it was her recent announcement that, despite being well into the third trimester of her first pregnancy, she was launching a campaign for City Council.
More specifically, she said that her two major campaign priorities would be improving the city’s response to the unhoused crisis and providing advancement opportunities for members of immigrant communities.
That last proposal was sure to set off opponents and potentially make her a target.
Even though she had yet to read the woman’s complete file, Jessie decided to err on the side of caution and give her a call right away. She tried Herron’s campaign headquarters first. A chipper-sounding young woman answered on the first ring.
“Kapoor Herron for Council District 4,” she said enthusiastically. “This is Lindy. How can I help?”
“Hi. My name is Jessie Hunt. I’m a criminal profiler working with the LAPD. Mrs. Kapoor Herron may have information that could be invaluable to the case I’m currently investigating. Is she available?”
There was a pause. Jessie gathered that Lindy was trying to process what was likely a request she’d never gotten before.
"Um, give me a second, please, ma'am. May I place you on a brief hold?"
“Of course,” Jessie said. When she looked up, she saw that Sam, Jamil, Beth, and Devery were all staring at her.
She gave them a quick explanation. “Priya Kapoor Herron is an IILA member and she’s running for City Council, partly on a platform that involves immigrant engagement.
She struck me as a strong contender for our next victim. ”
A new voice suddenly came on the line. “Ms. Hunt?”
“Yes,” Jessie said, putting the call on speaker.
“This is Mona Gaynor. I’m the deputy campaign manager for Mrs. Kapoor Herron. Can you tell me what this is about?”
“I’m sorry but I need to speak with her directly,” Jessie insisted. “It’s a pressing matter.”
“I understand. Unfortunately Mrs. Kapoor Herron is currently on a flight to Sacramento for a conference. But I’m happy to leave her a message asking her to contact you when she lands.”
“That would be great,” Jessie said, giving her cell phone number. “Can you do it now?”
“Now?” Gaynor said, sounding slightly surprised. “I suppose so. Hold on.”
Jessie listened in as the woman left a message conveying the gist of what she’d been told. When she hung up, she came back on the line.
“It went straight to voicemail, which isn’t surprising if she’s in airplane mode,” Gaynor said. “I’m also sending her a text with the same information.”
“Thank you,” Jessie said.
“Not a problem,” Gaynor said before hesitantly adding, “is this in relation to the recent murders of immigrant women that I’m seeing all over the news?”
“I’m afraid I can’t get into it,” Jessie said. “But please, if she contacts you first, ask her to get in touch right away.”
“I will.”
Once Jessie hung up, Devery was the first to say anything.
“This is good, isn’t it?” he suggested hopefully. “If she’s on a plane to Sacramento, she’s not here. That makes her less vulnerable than the others, right?”
“In theory,” Sam said. “As long as our killer isn’t following her there. While we wait, I suggest we keep looking at other potential victims. We don’t want to make any assumptions.”
Jessie agreed. There was no guarantee that Priya Kapoor’s political aspirations made her the next target. But it certainly raised some red flags.
In fact, now that Jessie thought about it, she wondered why it hadn’t done so for Claire Vallejo too. She should have been aware of the new candidate’s campaign goals, especially since they aligned with her own. She seemed pretty plugged in and this was a major oversight.
As she sat at her desk, turning that over in her head, a familiar tingling sensation washed over her. It was the same one she often got when she was on the verge of making some kind of breakthrough in a case. But other times, it hinted that something was off. That’s how it felt now.
“Hey Jamil,” she said to HSS’s senior researcher. “Can you pull up everything you can find on Claire Vallejo?”