CHAPTER TWO
Jessie was surprised that she had butterflies.
She had been to so many crime scenes that simply arriving at a new one no longer made her nervous. But as Detective Susannah Valentine pulled up at the Hancock Park mansion of Richard and Cynthia Hartley just before 8 a.m., she felt her stomach tighten slightly.
Maybe it was that she hadn’t handled a case in a couple of weeks, not since she’d almost stuffed a rolling pin down the esophagus of the man who poisoned Ryan. Or maybe it was because she hadn’t been all that physically active as she recovered from the injuries she sustained in that confrontation. She hadn’t been able to do her standard five-mile morning runs, and she definitely felt a little less spry than usual.
It could also be that while she and Susannah had worked many cases together, they hadn’t done so in a few months. Jessie was usually paired up with Ryan, and they had a near-telepathic connection when interacting with witnesses and suspects. She and Susannah, after dealing with some early interpersonal bumpiness, were friends, but they hadn’t reached that point yet.
And there was the obvious reason for her bout of nerves: the constant fear that at any moment, her desire to exact violent retribution against perceived wrongdoers might destroy both their lives and her own. She tried not to think about that.
As Jessie got out of the car and took in the giant house that was now a crime scene, she readjusted her clothing. Even though it was mid-April, there was still a chill in the morning air, and she’d decided to wear a light coat over her thin gray sweater. She also had on comfortable slacks and shoes that looked dressy but were actually sneakers, perfect if they had to chase after anyone.
She gave herself a once-over in the car window to make sure she was presentable. Like her sister this morning, she’d put her brown hair in a ponytail. Her green eyes, after a good night’s sleep, were clear and bright. She stood up tall to her full five foot ten height and assessed herself as credibly professional-looking.
The two women approached the house together, walking toward the path that ran through the expansive front yard to the front door. The property was already taped off and there were multiple vehicles in front, including several squad cars, a crime scene unit truck, and the medical examiner’s van.
A young officer with tightly curled brown hair and an anxious manner stood guard near the sidewalk to make sure no lookie-loos got too curious. Jessie suspected that he hadn’t been on this kind of duty too often before.
“Go easy on the kid,” she whispered to Susannah as they got closer. “He looks a little jumpy.”
“What are you talking about?” Susannah said with a sly smile, “don’t I always take it easy on folks?”
“Just don’t scare him any more than necessary,” Jessie pleaded with a knowing smirk. Detective Susannah Valentine was a lot of things, but easygoing wasn’t one of them and scary sometimes was.
Part of that might have been due to sheer physical presence. Susannah was, by all accounts, a bombshell. Almost impossibly gorgeous, she had hazel eyes, deeply tanned skin and long, black hair to go along with a curvy figure that suggested swimsuit model more than cop. This morning, she was wearing a form-fitting magenta top and what looked to Jessie to be painfully tight pants. She didn’t mention them.
Until recently, Susannah hadn’t suffered fools who commented on her appearance, especially leering men types. She was known to crush crass admirers with a withering takedown. She’d mellowed slightly in recent months, since she started dating an older, impossibly chill surfer and police sergeant from Manhattan Beach.
But when it came to work, she still brought the same intensity as always. Her brash, sometimes abrasive personality, along with her “bull in a china shop” investigative passion hadn’t been sanded down by her happier personal life lately. She was still a Doberman of a detective, which Jessie was generally glad for.
It wasn’t always that way. It had taken Jessie a while to warm to the woman. But after they resolved their issues, Jessie found that she actually liked Susannah, in spite of—or maybe even because of—her devil-may-care attitude. Jessie knew that by comparison, she was pretty buttoned-down, and she suspected that she secretly enjoyed living vicariously through Susannah, who seemed unfamiliar with the word “restraint.”
“May I see your credentials please?” the curly-haired officer asked when they got to the beginning of the path.
Jessie shot Susannah a grin. The kid was polite, and he didn’t assume that just because of how Susannah was dressed, she was simply a curious onlooker rather than a cop. She couldn’t crush him for that, nor could she nail him for staring at her lasciviously. His eyes had remained respectfully above her shoulders.
“We’re with Homicide Special Section,” Susannah said, flashing her badge and ID. “They’re expecting us.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the officer said, lifting the tape to make it easier for them to duck under it.
As they started down the path, Susannah looked over at Jessie expectantly.
“See,” she said, “I can take it easy on people. You judge me too harshly!”
“I think that kid had been warned not to break eye contact with you,” Jessie teased, “probably by another officer whose head got bitten off by you in the past and has yet to be re-attached.”
“Now you’re just being mean,” Susannah said, pretending to pout.
Jessie wanted to come back at her again, but as they got closer to the mansion where she knew two dead people were waiting inside, she felt a twinge of guilt. Instead, she focused on the home.
Even for the standards of the tony Hancock Park neighborhood, this place was impressive. It took up almost a third of the block it was on. With its Tudor styling and elaborate hedge designs, it looked like it would be a better fit in the English countryside than the heart of L.A.
Strangely, despite how over-the-top it was, the home had surprisingly little in the way of obvious security. Unlike a lot of homes in the area, it wasn’t gated. One could walk straight up to the front door as they were doing now. Jessie noticed that the side fences were unusually low too. An average-sized person in decent shape could likely scale them without much trouble. She looked around for security cameras. There was a Ring camera near the front door, but nothing else that was immediately visible.
A second officer stood at the door. He was also young, but he didn’t have the same nervous demeanor as his compatriot by the street. Nor did he have the other guy’s tact, as he seemed unable to tear his eyes away from Susannah’s chest as she approached. Jessie wasn’t in the mood for a confrontation, so she short-circuited any.
“Morning, officer,” she said, holding up her ID, “we’re here from HSS. I’m Jessie Hunt. This is Detective Valentine. Who’s the officer in charge?”
The young cop managed to turn his focus to Jessie’s ID, which likely saved him from a tongue-lashing.
“That would be Sergeant Alonzo,” he said. “Go down the main hallway for a while until you get to the last bedroom on the right. That’s where everyone is.”
Jessie nodded and took the lead. Susannah followed, clearly using all of her willpower not to turn around and bust the officer, who was almost definitely sneaking a peek at her backside.
“I thought you showed impressive control there,” Jessie muttered to her as they started down the hallway. “You’ve come a long way, baby!”
“Don’t call me baby,” Susannah said, trying not to smile.
The trip along the hallway, which seemed to go on forever, took longer than expected. They passed ten open doors, five on each side. Jessie counted a living room, a dining room, a bar, a library, and a bathroom on the left, and five bedrooms on the right before they reached the one they’d been directed to.
Jessie stepped inside to find the primary bedroom crowded. The room itself was massive, easily the size of three normal bedrooms. There were two enormous dressers, a reading nook with a small library’s worth of books, and a chaise lounge chair in the corner. She specifically avoided looking at the bed, where she could see two bodies out of the corner of her eye. She wanted to get a sense of the space before focusing on the victims.
She counted four crime scene technicians, the medical examiner and an assistant, as well as four uniformed officers. One of them, a short woman with strawberry blonde hair tied back in a bun, saw them and walked over. Jessie had never met her before.
“You must be the folks from HSS,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Sergeant Justine Alonzo. Thanks for coming.”
“Detective Valentine,” Susannah said, shaking her hand, “This is Jessie Hunt. Thanks for reaching out. Was it you that thought this should be an HSS case?”
“I’d like to take credit,” Alonzo said, “but the first officers on the scene knew this was a weird one and immediately suggested contacting you guys. You’ll see why when you look at the bodies.”
“Before we do that,” Jessie said, “what can you tell us about the couple? Who are they? How were they found?”
“It looks like Richard Hartley was a big-time real estate investor,” Sergeant Alonzo said. “Apparently, he was mostly retired now, even though he was only 44. His wife, Cynthia, was some kind of socialite. She was 43. No kids. Two dogs. We know most of the details we have so far from the dog walker, who was a family friend. Her name is Olivia Townsend. That’s who found them.”
“Is she here now?” Jessie asked.
“No,” Alonzo answered. “One of our officers helped her take the dogs to doggy daycare so that they’d be out of the way. But we got a statement from her before they left, along with her contact information. I’m sure you’ll want to talk to her in more detail later. She could probably use a little time to regroup. She was pretty broken up.”
“We’ll definitely want to speak with her,” Susannah said. “So how did she find them?”
“She said that she came by to do the morning walk with the dogs,” Alonzo said. “Apparently the Hartleys normally do that walk themselves but told her they’d be out late last night and wanted to sleep in. So she let herself in with the key they gave her.”
“If they were supposedly sleeping in, how did Townsend even know anything was wrong?” Jessie asked.
“Because the dogs hadn’t been let out yet,” Alonzo said. “The Hartleys keep the dogs in the mud room at night because they’re noisy sleepers—growling and whining in their dreams. They typically let them outside for a bathroom break first thing in the morning, which holds them off until they’re fed and walked a little later. But when Townsend arrived, the mud room door was closed. She opened it to find that both dogs had had accidents. That had her concerned because she said the Hartleys would never forget to let the dogs out.”
“Never?” Susannah pressed.
“Not according to her,” Alonzo assured her. “She said they viewed their pets as their children. Even if they were planning to sleep late, they’d set alarms to let them go out. So she called out to them from down the hall. When they didn’t answer, she went down there. The bedroom door was open, and she found them as they are now.”
Susannah turned to Jessie.
“You want to take a look at the bodies now?” she asked, well aware of her partner’s preference to save that for last. Jessie nodded. Sergeant Alonzo led them over. The crime scene technicians collectively stepped out of the way all at once, like the parting of the Red Sea.
What Jessie saw when they moved was even more disturbing than usual. Both people were lying on their backs on the enormous bed. They had been stripped naked. There were no obvious signs of trauma on either of them. Cynthia’s head rested on a pillow. Her arms were spread out at her sides, perpendicular to her body. Her legs had been spread into a “V”.
Richard’s head was at the foot of the bed. He was posed the same way. The bottoms of his feet were pressed against his wife’s so that their legs formed a diamond shape. All of that was odd enough, but the strangeness was enhanced exponentially by the fact that, as Captain Parker had mentioned to Jessie on the phone earlier, they were both wearing elaborate masquerade ball masks.
Cynthia’s was variations of pink and purple with glitter and streamers hanging off it. It took Jessie a moment to realize that the glitter was actually comprised of dozens of tiny diamonds. She leaned in closer and noted that the streamers appeared to be satin. She guessed that the mask was worth thousands of dollars. Cynthia’s blonde hair was spread out on the pillow under her, and her eyes, hazel and glassy, were visible through the holes in the mask.
Richard’s mask was equally elaborate, though less jewelry-festooned. There was one ruby at the tip of the mask’s nose. It appeared that the facial features had been carved out of ivory. His closely-cropped dark hair was hidden behind the mask, and his eyes—deep brown—were also open. Jessie wondered if the killer had forcibly opened both victims’ eyes after killing them.
“Do we think the masks were on when they died or put there afterward?” she asked, looking over at the medical examiner, who she knew well.
Kelvin Soto, a smallish Latino man in his forties with brown hair parted neatly to the side, stepped forward. His work manner was as meticulous as his personal grooming, which she appreciated. She was also thankful that he’d held back until then, allowing them to get a sense of the scene on their own.
“Obviously everything I say at this point is preliminary,” he warned, “but I’m assuming that they were placed there after death.”
“Why do you say that?” Susannah asked.
“Primarily because, based on our visual examination so far, we can’t find the cause of death. There’s no obvious damage to either body, and there’s no blood, which makes me think the answer will be under those masks that we have yet to remove. And if whatever killed them was done above the neck, it was probably done without the masks on. Also, you might notice that for both victims, the masks are slightly off-kilter. The most logical explanation for that is that something underneath is causing it. My money would be on hematomas pressing against the side of the masks, possibly caused by blows to the forehead. Once CSU has had a chance to review the masks fully, we’ll remove them and find out for sure.”
“Okay,” Jessie said, turning to Sergeant Alonzo,” I assume photos of the scene have already been taken?”
“They have.”
“I’d like to get those to our research people ASAP,” she replied. “I’m wondering if the way that they’re posed is significant in some way.”
“Significant how?” Alonzo asked.
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “It could be nothing, but if this is designed to recreate a famous photo or work of art, our people will figure it out.”
She knew that HSS’s head of research, Jamil Winslow, and his sole staffer, Beth Ryerson, were probably waiting anxiously in their office, itching to dig into the case. This project would make them happy.
“In the meantime,” Susannah said, “we’ll need access to their phones and any other available tech—desktops, laptops, tablets, smartwatches, etc. We’re going to have to check on all their friends and co-workers, or I guess since he was retired, former co-workers. It’s time to dive into who would want to kill the Hartleys and why they’d do it like this.”
“We’ll gather everything and have it brought directly to Central Station,” Sergeant Alonzo promised.
“Thanks,” Jessie said. “And please have your officer bring Olivia Townsend to the station as soon as they drop off the dogs.”
She’d been impressed with how Alonzo handled the scene in most regards, but there was one exception. She would have preferred that an officer would have removed the dogs on their own and that Olivia Townsend have been kept here.
Now, they would have no choice but to talk to Townsend at the station. Had it been Jessie’s decision, she would have opted to interview her here, when the situation and the woman’s emotions were more raw. By the time she got to the station, Townsend would have had time to regroup, which was good for her well-being, but bad for a profiler who was trying to ascertain the witness’s credibility.
Still, there was no point in crying over spilled milk at this point. If Jessie was any good at her job, she should still be able to dig into Olivia Townsend’s psyche.
That was Jessie’s thing, except, of course, when it came to herself.