CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jessie looked at the clock and sighed in frustration.
They still hadn’t heard anything back from Drew Hartwell after what was now a total of four calls. It had reached the point that Ryan had floated the idea that maybe he’d never gone to this conference at all.
“Maybe he faked it so he’d have an alibi,” he suggested, “then snuck back home and killed his wife before fleeing the country.”
Jessie wasn’t going to dismiss the idea, but Jamil did. He and Beth, after some bureaucratic wrangling, had finally gotten access to much of both Diana’s and Drew’s financial information and digital correspondence.
“If he secretly snuck back to L.A. to kill her, he’s doing a pretty good job of covering his tracks,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Ryan asked.
“I have credit card receipts from last night at a hotel bar in Boston during the window of death for his wife. There was also a purchase at a nearby coffee shop a few hours ago. So either he’s still there or he lent his card to someone who is.”
“You buried the lead, Jamil,” Jessie pointed out. “If we know his hotel, we can call and have them try to locate him.”
“I’ll reach out to them now,” Jamil said, looking slightly embarrassed that he hadn’t thought of the idea himself.
“I may have something else worth looking into,” Beth said, staring at her screen.
“What’s that?” Ryan asked.
“I’m going through Diana Hartwell’s emails, and it looks like she was an alumna of the same high school as Caroline Sheffield, Thornfield Academy. In fact, it looks like they were in the same graduating class.”
“That seems notable,” Jessie said, starting to get excited. “What are the odds of that?”
“Considering that it’s an elite boarding school in the affluent San Rafael Hills section of Pasadena with just over a hundred total students, not great,” Beth said before her eyes lit up.
“What?” Jessie asked.
“There’s more,” Beth said, barely able to get the words out fast enough. “There are emails between the two of them. These women knew each other. The communication is sporadic, only every few months, sometimes not for a year or more, but it looks like they were friends.”
Jessie was about to press further when Ryan’s phone rang. His expression told her that her questions would have to wait.
“It’s Drew Hartwell,” he said.
They all went silent as he answered the call and put it on speaker.
“Detective Hernandez here,” he said.
“Detective, this is Drew Hartwell,” the man said, his voice tense. “I have four voicemails from you that don’t say much of anything. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Mr. Hartwell, I’m here with my partner, Jessie Hunt,” Ryan said. “We’ve been trying to reach you for hours. Why are you only getting back to us now?”
“I was in a meeting with our partners’ executive board,” he explained. “To prevent recording or leaks, they require everyone to turn in their phones beforehand. I only just got mine back a few minutes ago. Now, can you please tell me what this is about?”
Ryan looked over at Jessie, who shook her head.
She didn’t want to lead with the news of Diana’s death.
Instead, she preferred to get a sense of the man before giving him life-altering news.
She hoped that by holding off, she’d be able to better tell if his reaction to the news was genuine. Ryan nodded in understanding.
“We’re trying to find out if you or your wife knows someone named Caroline Sheffield.”
“That sounds vaguely familiar.”
“They went to Thornfield Academy at the same time,” Ryan told him.
“Okay, maybe that’s how I know it. I think we may have gone out to dinner with her once. But you should ask Diana about this stuff. She’d know a lot better than me.”
Jessie gave Ryan a look that told him she was ready for him to break the news. She closed her eyes to concentrate on the man’s tone when he spoke next.
“I’m afraid we can’t ask her, Mr. Hartwell, Ryan said, softening. “I’m sorry to tell you that your wife was found dead this morning.”
There was a long silence on the line. When Hartwell responded, he sounded furious.
“Is this some kind of prank? Some variation on swatting or something? Because it’s not funny!”
“No, Mr. Hartwell. Your housekeeper, Carmen, found your wife when she arrived for work this morning.”
“This is B.S.,” Hartwell objected heatedly. Jessie tried to discern whether he was truly angry or using the emotion as a cover to mask his potential involvement. “It can’t be true. How do I know you’re even a real cop? I’m going to hang up and call the LAPD main line.”
“You’re welcome to do that, Mr. Hartwell,” Ryan told him. “In fact, I encourage it. I’ll give you my badge number so you can confirm my identity. But I’m telling you the truth. Your wife was murdered yesterday.”
“Murdered? No, that can’t be. No, no, no!”
Jessie could hear the pain and confusion in the man’s voice, as if he thought that saying no with enough ferocity would make it untrue.
If he was faking all this, he was doing a masterful job.
And unlike Caroline’s ex-husband, Jordy, he wasn’t an actor.
She wanted to help Ryan navigate this conversation, but knew it was beyond that.
She also knew that this was going to get worse. It did.
“Mr. Hartwell, I realize this is hard to hear. And we’re terribly sorry for your loss.
Normally, we’d give you time to process this, and we intend to put you in touch with a grief counselor after we talk.
But right now, we need you to focus. Because it wasn’t just Diana who was murdered. Caroline Sheffield was killed, too.”
“What?” The man sounded totally bewildered.
“We think we may have a serial killer on our hands,” Ryan said slowly. “That’s why I brought up Thornfield Academy. We’re trying to determine if that might somehow be connected to their deaths.”
Jessie knew that Ryan was anxious to get answers, but she couldn’t help feeling that he was pushing the man too hard, too fast. Sure enough, after another interminable silence, she heard what sounded like whimpering on the other end of the line.
She was about to motion for Ryan to reel things back a bit when the whimpers gave way to howls of despair.
She stood up, feeling slightly ill, and headed for the research department door.
This was more than she could handle right now.
Besides, Drew Hartwell wasn’t going to be any use to them, at least not for a while.
And she didn’t intend to use her emotional energy to help get him to that place.
Maybe it was selfish, but she was leaving that job to Ryan.
She hurried out of the room, down the hall, and pushed open the door to the station’s interior courtyard. She needed some fresh air. Once outside, she walked over to the far end and leaned against the brick wall.
She hoped Ryan was able to calm Hartwell down soon. They needed whatever help he could offer. There had been two murders in the last two nights, and they were only hours from the sun going down again.
There was a serial killer out there, and time was running short.