CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Jessie was playing the waiting game now, and she wasn’t happy about it.
“Anything yet?” she asked for the third time in the last few minutes.
The young woman seated across from her in the research department at Central Station shook her head. Still nothing.
Jessie sighed, trying not to let her frustration get the better of her. She reminded herself that it wasn’t all bad. At least she was out of that tiny black dress and back in normal clothes. To take her mind off her helplessness, she mentally reviewed what they knew so far.
Jamil had gotten access to all the back alley camera footage behind Elite Spa. Using that, the team had been able to narrow down the attendees to sixteen potential suspects based on their general appearance. They were assuming for now that their killer was a male member of the underground sex club that Gregory Lambert had told them was called “Special Friends Events.”
They narrowed the pool down a bit more by only including men who looked to be between the ages of 18 and 65 and were in decent shape. They also assumed that their killer was wealthy and had some technical or electronic expertise, but neither of those things could be definitely determined just by looking at the video.
Unfortunately, while sixteen suspects was a much smaller group than what they had started out with, it was still far too large, considering their time constraints. The victims had been murdered on each of the last two nights. Jessie feared that the man might be planning another attack right now, one that might take place as early as this evening.
The facial recognition system was going through each attendee, trying to identify them. But searching the LAPD’s entire database of possible matches was a time-consuming process, one that Jessie feared would offer results too late to help them.
Once the system eventually ID’d the men from the party, the HSS team could go through the GPS location data for each of them to see if any had been to the Hartley or Channing residences. But getting approval to run each man’s data through the system was another hurdle to leap. Each of those obstacles added time to the process—time they might not have.
And even once they managed to do all of that, there was another concern that they all shared: there was no guarantee that the killer had even attended the “Afternoon Delight” party. It had been announced on short notice. What if he had to work today and couldn’t get away? Or what if he happened to be out of town? Then all of these machinations would be for naught.
That was why Jessie had suggested a shortcut. The shortcut’s name was Valentina Russo, the young event planner currently seated at a computer screen across from her. She was in that spot because Jessie had decided it was time to shake things up. They had to bring in the organizers of these Special Friends Events.
She had Valentina come into the station and write an e-mail to the “draft” folder of the shared account. It basically said the truth—that she’d been co-opted by the LAPD in their investigation into the murders of three of the club’s party attendees, all of whom were found wearing their masquerade ball masks.
The e-mail continued as follows: The police say they don’t care about shutting down the events. They care about catching a killer. They want the real names of all male club members between the ages of 18-65 who attended at least one party at Elite Spa with Richard and Cynthia Hartley and at least one with Evelyn Channing. They believe another murder attempt is imminent and need a response ASAP.
Russo had added the e-mail to the draft folder a half hour ago. Since then, as the team tried every other avenue to unearth the killer, they’d all waited restlessly while Russo refreshed her e-mail every sixty seconds. Even though it had only been about half a minute since the last attempt, Jessie was about to instruct the woman to refresh again. But before she could, Russo’s phone rang.
The woman nearly jumped out of her seat. Once she recovered, she picked it up and held out the screen to Jessie. It read “unknown caller.”
“If it’s them, it’s likely a burner phone,” she said, then instructed, “Answer it and put it on speaker.”
Russo nodded and, with shaking fingers, did as she was told.
“Hello?” she said uncertainly.
“Put the police on,” ordered a digitally altered voice that Jessie thought was male.
“You’re on speaker with us now,” Susannah told them.
After a short pause, the voice responded.
“Can you guarantee that you aren’t interested in our business?”
“Some of us attended your party this afternoon,” Jessie replied. “As far as we could tell, everything going on there seemed to be activity among consenting adults. That’s not our priority anyway.”
She didn’t mention the questionable legal status of the India-based charity that they were apparently using as a front for their Special Friends Events. That was something the financial crimes unit—or the IRS—could pursue.
“Not prioritizing it is not the same as ignoring it,” the voice noted, perhaps worried about that very issue.
Jessie wasn’t in the mood for semantic games and said so.
“Perhaps not,” she said. “But you need to look at the bigger picture. If it gets out that members of your club are being murdered by another member, how long do you think your business will survive, especially if we let it be known that you were unhelpful in apprehending the killer? Your business might have some issues going forward regardless, but I suspect that particular revelation would be a death knell for you.”
There was another long silence, so long in fact that Jessie wondered if she’d pushed too hard and they’d simply hung up. But then the voice returned.
“We are sending a list of members who meet your criteria to the draft folder now. We expect that this is the end of our communication.”
This time, Jessie knew that the silence that followed meant they’d ended the call.
***
Ten minutes later, they had their marching orders. The list they’d been sent managed to reduce the number of potential suspects from sixteen to nine. But only two of those nine had what they agreed was enough technical or electronic experience to circumvent Evelyn Channing’s security system and know that the Hartley’s was on the fritz after that big storm. And as it turned out, both had been at the party this afternoon.
The first suspect was a thirty-nine-year-old named Thomas Reed. Married with three kids, he had formerly served in the military in a unit that specialized in network-centric warfare. It appeared that his job was to undermine the efficacy of enemy computer networking and information technology. Since leaving the service, he’d become rich as an executive at a firm that prevented exactly those kinds of intrusions into private sector companies’ systems. He definitely had the skills to evade or undermine the basic security at most people’s homes.
The other promising suspect appeared to have a similar skill set. Michael Pearson was a thirty-one-year-old, unmarried multi-millionaire who designed software for home and business security systems. He made his fortune when he sold the company three years ago. He could likely outsmart the victims’ systems in his sleep.
“We’re going to head out,” Susannah announced. “Nettles will pull Detective Garrison from Homicide and pay Thomas Reed a visit. Jessie and I will look in on Michael Pearson.”
“I noticed that you assigned me the guy with military experience,” Nettles said. “Should I be worried?”
“That’s why Garrison is going with you,” Susannah said. “He’s a former Green Beret. You should be safe.”
“It’s going to take a bit of time to get access to their GPS location data,” Jamil warned, “that is, assuming they’re driving and have their phones with them. I don’t know whether these guys will be at work or home, or either for that matter.”
Susannah looked over at Jessie to get her thoughts.
“Have uniformed officers go to both men’s offices,” she said. “They’re less likely to do something drastic in a public environment. But warn the officers to stay alert. Assume their target is armed and dangerous. Nettles and Garrison can check Reed’s home, and we can do the same for Pearson.”
“Sounds good,” Nettles said.
“But we should all remember not to jump to conclusions,” Susannah added as they headed for the door. “These guys both look good for this, but there’s no guarantee that our working theory is right. That’s why, while Jamil tries to get the location data on these two, Beth will be looking at the other seven guys on the list to see if we’re missing something.”
“Will do,” Beth promised.
“Let’s also remember the converse,” Jessie said. “Both of these guys were at the party this afternoon. That means they know the cops were there. They might have gotten spooked. Depending on how they react, that could mean that if one of them is the killer, they’ve gone to ground. Or it could mean that they know there’s a ticking clock. That could lead him to move everything up. If that’s true, then we might not have until tonight. He could be stalking his next victim right now.”
“Okay,” Susannah barked, “with that in mind, let’s move out!”
Jessie noted that the detective had a joyful smile on her face. She was loving this. Unfortunately, Jessie couldn’t claim to feel the same way. Her primary sentiment right now was barely contained fury. She knew that wasn’t a productive emotion under the circumstances.
But knowing it didn’t make the feeling go away.