CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
They were on their way back to the station in the town car when Jessie saw that she had a voicemail from Hannah. She turned to Susannah, who was driving.
“Can you see when Jamil will have access to the footage from the camera we posted outside the alley entrance?” she asked the detective. “I have to check this message.”
Susannah called HSS while Jessie checked the voicemail. It was a couple of hours old.
“ Hey Jessie ,” her sister said. “ I probably should have mentioned this to you earlier, but I was in class, and then I was debating whether or not to call at all. But I need you to call me back when you get a chance. It’s not an emergency. In fact, I’m not even sure it’s worth your time at all. Just give me a call back when you’re able .”
Jessie immediately hit redial. Despite her sister’s hemming and hawing, it was clear that something was troubling Hannah, and when that happened, it was worth paying attention. Her instincts were usually right on.
“Hi,” Hannah said when she picked up. “How are you?”
“A little uncomfortable in the outfit I’m currently wearing,” Jessie admitted. “And a little nervous after hearing that message. What’s up?”
“Hold on,” Hannah said. “My thing can wait. What outfit are you wearing exactly?”
“It’s a long story,” Jessie said. “Maybe another time. You tell me your thing.”
“No way,” Hannah argued. “My thing might be nothing, but yours definitely isn’t. Tell me what’s going on with you.”
Jessie could feel her sister’s stubbornness through the phone and knew that she’d never pry anything out of her unless she talked first, so she filled her in on the basics of the case and how she’d ended up poured into a dress that she’d never normally wear.
“First of all,” Hannah said. “You have to take a selfie. My day won’t be complete until I see you in a steam room-soaked little black dress. Secondly, if this hedge fund guy isn’t your killer, do you have anyone else in mind?”
“We’re working on that,” Jessie said. “Jamil’s going to have access to the faces of everyone who entered that club pretty soon, but that only helps if we know what we’re looking for. There could be dozens of male suspects, and unless I hone my profile of this guy a little more, someone else might die before we get to him.”
“Well, maybe I can help,” Hannah offered. “What do you know about him so far?”
Jessie decided to play along. It might help to think through her ideas out loud, and Hannah was no slouch in the human behavior department. She might have some insights as an outsider that eluded the pros.
“We know that he’s a male, agile enough to climb over a residential fence, and wealthy and kinky enough to pay eleven grand a month for admission to an underground sex club.”
“So no guarantees, but probably closer to forty than twenty with those kinds of resources, right?” Hannah suggested.
“You never know these days,” Jessie countered. “He could be a twenty-year-old social media influencer raking in millions of dollars a month.”
“So, do you think his motive is like the hedge fund guy?” Hannah wondered, “someone who doubts that his proclivities will go over well in his normal life, so he embraces a secret one, where he can stare at people going at it without being judged?”
“Maybe,” Jessie allowed, “But the hedge fund guy had a hands-off vibe that made him unlikely to get down and dirty like this. These killings feel personal. The way our guy posed the victims—it’s as if he wanted to make them vulnerable even as he was de-personalizing them by putting masks on their faces. It’s like he craves intimacy but, at the same time, doesn’t know what to do with it when he gets it.”
“Okay,” Hannah mused, “so do you think he maybe had sex with these victims at a party and then things ended badly?”
The question made a light go off in Jessie’s brain.
“No,” she said excitedly, making Susannah pause her conversation with Jamil to listen in. “But now that you mention it, I think he wanted to have sex with them and couldn’t for whatever reason. I think our guy coveted his victims. I think he watched them but couldn’t join in. Maybe he had the money to join the club, but no one was interested in him once he got there. Maybe he approached the victims but was rejected by them. I think he thought that this club was his ticket to sexual satisfaction, and when it turned out not to be, he got mad. I think this might be his way of asserting control.”
As she spoke, it was as if the killer’s anger at his victims seeped into her. She could feel her whole body tingling with barely controlled rage at the man who had done these things. Beside her, Susannah’s attention was diverted by something Jamil said to her on the phone. But Hannah’s apparently wasn’t.
“Are you okay?” her sister asked.
“Yeah,” Jessie assured her, whispering now. “This guy just pisses me off.”
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that,” Hannah said.
“Is this what you called about?”
“No, I’ll get to that, but I was talking to Ryan yesterday and he mentioned that you’d been having some of the intense anger issues that I dealt with not that long ago.”
“I wish he hadn’t have said anything to you,” Jessie muttered in frustration. “That’s personal, and besides, I don’t want to worry you.”
“ He’s worried about you, Jessie. And as to it being personal, you know better than anyone that I have some experience with this issue. If anyone can relate, it’s me. Can I help?”
Jessie was quiet for a moment, deciding how best to proceed.
“Maybe,” she said, speaking quietly so Susannah wouldn’t hear, “but that’s something we can talk about another time.”
Now, it was Hannah’s turn to be quiet for a bit.
“Okay,” she finally said, “but don’t let it fester. I can hear the rage in your voice, sis, and I know all too well that if you wait for the perfect time to address it, it could be too late by then.”
“Noted,” Jessie said, hoping to move on, “now what did you originally want to tell me?”
“Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Mark Haddonfield called me.”
“What!”
“Don’t worry,” Hannah said quickly. “He didn’t threaten me or anything. He said he was actually trying to reach you, but you didn’t pick up.”
Jessie vaguely remembered getting a call this morning from a number she didn’t recognize. She’d rejected it and no one had had left a voicemail, so she hadn’t thought about it since.
“I guess I missed it,” she said. “What did he want?”
“He said he wanted to help,” Hannah told her. “Take this with a huge chunk of salt, but he claimed that Ash Pierce approached him on a prison transport bus and proposed that they work together to escape.”
Jessie didn’t know whether to scoff at the idea or be concerned.
“How long ago did he say this happened?”
“Eighteen days ago,” Hannah said. “He was very specific about that.”
“But he’s only coming forward now?”
“He said he didn’t see any advantage to himself until now. And he was worried that Pierce might find a way to kill him if he squealed. But he thinks that with his jury verdict likely coming down today, she might want to use the chaos around that to make her move.”
“Did he sound believable to you?” Jessie asked.
“You never know with that guy,” her sister conceded. “But to be honest, the only reason I decided to tell you all this was because what he said makes sense, knowing what I know about Pierce. She probably would consider this the perfect time to make a move.”
“Did he ask for anything in return?”
“He said he hoped that his assistance might lead to some perks wherever he ends up serving time,” Hannah said. “He sounded resigned to being convicted.”
“Okay,” Jessie said. “I’m glad you told me. I’ll pass the word along to the powers that be at Twin Towers so they can increase security on Pierce as a precaution. Did you tell Kat any of this?”
“Are you kidding?” Hannah said appalled. “She’s already attending every court proceeding involving Pierce as it is. If she knew about this, she might try to pre-emptively impose her own death penalty, just to be safe.”
“Smart move on your part, then,” Jessie said. “Like you said, this could all be some kind of scheme from Haddonfield. We don’t need Kat Gentry going on trial for murder because of a rumor. Thanks for telling me. I’ll take it from here. You can go back to getting straight “A”s. Deal?”
“I’ll do my best,” Hannah said. “But keep me posted. Until this is resolved, I’m going to be a little distracted.”
“I promise to keep you updated,” Jessie said, “but put it out of your head for now. I’m sure it will amount to nothing.”
Part of her wouldn’t put it past Mark Haddonfield to create chaos just to improve his post-conviction situation. But of late, he’d been more of an asset than a liability. He had tried to warn her about an attempt on her life by a rogue cop. He had provided insight on one of her cases that helped lead to the apprehension of a killer.
So when she hung up, her next call was to the Twin Towers administrator to warn him that she’d heard talk that Pierce might attempt an escape and advise that he increase her guard contingent. With that done, she turned to Susannah, who’d been patiently waiting for her to finish her calls.
“So, did Jamil have anything helpful to share?” she asked hopefully. “Do we know our killer’s name yet?”
She didn’t need to wait for an answer. The expression on the detective’s face told her they weren’t out of this thing yet.