The Perfect Look, page 11
“Should we lift the lockdown?” she asked.
“Yeah. We can leave a couple of officers at the various entrances but I suspect even that’s a waste of time.”
“Speaking of time,” she said, “how do you suggest we utilize ours?”
“I was thinking we should pay a visit to Devin Schumacher’s fiancée. Someone needs to make the notification and I’d rather it be us than some uniformed officer.”
“Out of the kindness of your heart?” Jessie asked skeptically.
“I think we both know it’s out of the suspicion of my heart. I want to see her face when we tell her. We may have our suspect but her motive is still unknown. There’s still the chance that she’s a killer for hire. I want to know if Devin’s bride-to-be had a reason to want him killed.”
“You know it’s almost midnight, right?” Jessie pointed out. “We’re going to show up at a woman’s home after midnight to tell her that her fiancé was found dead and naked in a hotel room?”
“I find that I often get people’s most genuine reactions when they’re tired, stressed, or both.”
Jessie tended to agree. In fact, she might add one more truth-detector to the mix: anger. And before she could stop herself, a nasty thought popped into her head.
Maybe pissing off Devin’s fiancée is our quickest route to the truth.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jessie hated to tarnish the beauty of the evening.
As they drove to the Hollywood Hills home that Devin Schumacher shared with his fiancée, Deborah Morse, she marveled at the twinkling lights of the homes against the night sky. From a distance, it looked like they were embedded into the hills themselves, like permanent Christmas ornaments draping a massive tree.
But soon, for one woman at least, all that beauty would quickly fade. Jessie felt her spine stiffen in anticipation of what she was about to do. If Deborah Morse was truly a grieving woman, that would be hard enough. But if she was something more sinister, Jessie had to be on guard for that too.
They pulled up to the home, which looked modest from the driveway. But as Jessie knew, most of these houses were much bigger in the back, expanding down the hillside with three, sometimes four floors. She doubted this would be the exception.
Ryan rang the doorbell. They waited silently for any reaction from within. Jessie looked at the time: 12:24 a.m. No surprise that it was taking a while. Ryan rang the bell a second time and knocked loudly.
“How long should we give her?” he asked.
Jessie was mildly amused by his impatience.
“A while, Ryan. If she was asleep, it’s going to take a few minutes for her to get herself together. Plus, she might be a little apprehensive about answering the door, considering the hour.”
“So two minutes?” he said, feigning denseness.
“Who is it?” a sleepy, annoyed female voice asked from the decrepit-looking intercom that Jessie had incorrectly assumed didn’t work.
“We’re with the LAPD, Ms. Morse,” Ryan said, his tone becoming instantly somber. “We need to speak with you.”
“What is this about?” the voice asked, still annoyed but much less sleepy now.
“Please come to the door, ma’am. We need to speak to you in person.”
“How do I know this isn’t some kind of scam to get in and rob or rape me?” she demanded.
Jessie fought the urge to roll her eyes. Instead she responded as calmly as she could.
“We’re not here to rape you, Ms. Morse. My name is Jessie Hunt. I’m a criminal profiler with the LAPD. I’m here with Detective Ryan Hernandez. If you want, you can call the department. We’ll hold up our badges and you can verify the numbers with them if you like. But we really need to speak with you.”
“Why are the police at my front door at twelve thirty in the morning?”
“It’s about Devin,” Jessie finally said, realizing that unless she cut to the chase, this process could take ten minutes. They needed to gauge her reaction to the news of his death in real time, not after she’d had a chance to prepare herself.
“Give me a minute,” Deborah said. The line went dead.
Jessie looked over at Ryan.
“Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I didn’t think we had a choice.”
“You were probably right to mention him. Don’t sweat it. We can’t wait out here all night.”
A minute later, they heard scuffling on the other side of the door.
“Show me your badges, please,” Deborah asked with considerably less irritation than before.
They did. Seconds later they heard multiple locks being undone. The door opened to reveal a smallish woman around Jessie’s age. She had dirty-blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail and wore a robe.
“What did he do now?” she asked before either of them got a word out. “Is he in the drunk tank again? Busted for solicitation? Assault? I’m not bailing him out this time!”
“Has your fiancé been arrested often?” Ryan asked.
Jessie could tell he was kicking himself for not checking the guy’s record earlier. But she had made the same mistake. They were both so focused on the killer that they hadn’t looked into the victim’s background thoroughly. Admittedly, they’d been working this case for over fourteen hours and were operating on fumes. But that was no excuse.
“Is four times since we started dating often? I don’t even know what’s normal anymore.”
“He hasn’t been arrested,” Ryan said, clearly deciding to direct the conversation away from their professional screw-up.
He glanced over at Jessie to let her know he was about to drop the hammer so that she could watch Deborah closely. She nodded and he turned back to Deborah.
“Ms. Morse,” he said. “I’m sorry to inform you that Devin is dead.”
She stared at him for a few seconds, as if she hadn’t actually processed his words. She rubbed her eyes as if that might help give her greater clarity of mind.
“I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“Devin passed away earlier this evening,” Ryan repeated, revealing as few details as possible.
“That’s not possible,” Deborah said without confidence, now turning to Jessie. “How is that possible?”
“I’m afraid it’s true, Ms. Morse,” Jessie said as soothingly as possible. “His body was discovered about three hours ago.”
Just as Margo Maines had done, Deborah Morse reached out and gripped the doorframe.
“I need to sit down,” she said, sounding cloudy. “Is it okay if I sit down?”
“Of course,” Jessie told her. “We can help you back inside.”
“Here is good,” she said and slumped down on the front step.
Jessie looked over at Ryan, unsure how hard she should push at the moment. He shrugged, as if to say “you’re the profiler lady.” She gave him a glare and knelt down next to Deborah.
“I know this is a lot to process, Deborah. But we need to ask you some questions while everything is fresh. Your input could be crucial to resolving the case.”
“What case?” Deborah asked, seeming to slightly regroup. “How did he die? Was he killed?”
“It’s too early to draw definitive conclusions,” Jessie hedged. “But we have to consider all options. You mentioned that he’d been taken in for both solicitation and assault. Do you know if anyone involved in those prior situations had expressed animosity toward Devin?”
Deborah stared absently into space. Jessie was about to rephrase her question when the woman looked up at her. Her eyes were clear and more than slightly angry.
“I have no idea. From what he told me, the fights were mostly drunken brawls with strangers in bars. The women he was with? We didn’t really talk about that very much and I was fine with that.”
“Does this woman look familiar?” Jessie asked, showing her the screen grab of Blue Eyes with dark hair.
Deborah looked at the image, squinting as if that might help.
“I don’t know,” she finally said. “I mean, should it?”
“You sound pretty blasé about your fiancé’s indiscretions,” Ryan said, unable to hide the surprise in his voice.
Deborah tossed him a weary glare that suggested he was far from the first person to make this point.
“Thanks for sharing, Detective,” she said acidly. “Listen, Devin is hardly perfect. But he’s funny and passionate and real, which is hard to say about most guys I’ve dated in Los Angeles. He’s from a small town in Ohio, and you could tell. He wasn’t cynical about everything. At least he didn’t used to be. Anyway, he assured me he was going to clean up his act. And if he didn’t, there was always the prenup.”
“The prenup?” Jessie nudged, noting that Deborah was still referring to her fiancé in the present tense.
“Yeah. My father insisted on it and frankly, so did I. My family is fairly well off. Devin’s finances are more…in flux. He’s actually on a fixed allowance that we set up. And the prenup papers are iron-clad. Any infidelity is cause for divorce and he gets nothing. Any arrest on a charge related to prior charges is cause for divorce and he gets nothing. He has to submit to monthly STD checkups and quarterly blood work. Any unsatisfying results are cause…you get the idea.”
“So it’s safe to assume that he wasn’t sitting on a massive nest egg?” Ryan asked.
Deborah looked at him like the question was crazy.
“If you’re asking if this was my doing as some way to get all of Devin’s money, that’s laughable. He’s a good talent agent, but at this stage of his career, he’s still scraping by. He’d be lucky to pull two hundred fifty grand this year. The allowance I give him is more than that. He didn’t have any life insurance policy. And we’re not married yet anyway, so I don’t see how I could have collected, even if he did.”
Jessie and Ryan exchanged a glance that suggested they were thinking the same thing. Apparently, to Deborah Morse, $250,000 was a mere pittance. Neither mentioned it.
“Do you know his phone password?” Ryan asked. “Quickly accessing his texts, calls, and location data could be very helpful in discerning how this happened, and why.”
Deborah gave it to them and then asked them the question Jessie had been dreading.
“Now what?”
Ryan was prepared for it.
“We have a squad car en route. If you could get dressed, they’ll take you down to the medical examiner’s office to identify the body and collect his belongings. We may have more questions for you in the morning. But for now, that’s your only responsibility.”
They joined her inside while she changed. No one said it but they were also there to keep an eye out for any suspicious behavior. As she loitered near Morse’s bedroom, Jessie couldn’t wait for the uniformed officers to arrive.
After her first full day on the job in over a week, her body was exhausted and her brain was mush. She needed a few hours of sleep to regroup and determine their next course of action.
The lab reports on possible evidence, including blood work on Schumacher and prints and possible trace DNA, would be in by then. Surveillance footage from near the hotel might offer some help. She wasn’t optimistic but it was possible.
Hell, anything is possible. Maybe by tomorrow Blue Eyes will have turned herself in. Maybe Garland Moses will have gotten a break in Hannah’s case. Maybe Hannah herself will be waiting for me in the station bullpen after escaping from Crutchfield.
The fact that Jessie could allow herself to believe any of that was credible was the surest sign that she was done for the night. When the uniformed officers finally arrived at close to one a.m., she headed straight to the car. She was asleep before Ryan put the vehicle in drive.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Alex Cutter hid behind a dumpster.
She waited for the sirens to fade into the distance. But just as they did, a new round started up, even closer than the last. She pulled off her brunette wig and tossed it in the dumpster. She would have preferred to just shove it in her bag, but if she was caught with it, there’d be no explaining it away. At least now, her real, short-cropped blonde hair wouldn’t match any footage from the hotel.
Devin Schumacher had really screwed her.
As she knelt by the trash receptacle, trying not to gag on the scents emanating from it, she seethed silently. All her hard work over the last few weeks had been put at risk by one picture frame falling off a wall. It didn’t seem fair, considering all the time and preparation it had taken. She still remembered the crucial moment back in Las Vegas when she’d decided to take charge of her own life.
*
It took a few months before she killed again. For a long time she coasted on the sense of self-determination that came from fighting back against Dan. But after a while, she began to understand that it wasn’t fighting back that had energized her, it was the power she had over him as she beat him into a fleshy mess that gave her the rush.
She had so rarely experienced that power. And as she resumed her normal life, fulfilling the desires of her tricks, that power started to dissipate. She grew to miss it and then to think about it all the time. It became all-consuming.
She believed that, if she was careful, she could catch lightning in a bottle twice. After all, no one suspected a thing. The news reports about Dan’s death all described it as a robbery gone wrong. There was no mention of a woman or of any leads. It was possible that the police were keeping some details to themselves. But for now, the coast appeared clear.
So Alex started to plan the next one. She selected a client, a doctor named Harvey who was also a raging alcoholic. He was sometimes violent in their encounters and almost always verbally abusive. But he was no worse than many others and if he’d been a real estate agent or an architect instead of a physician, he likely would have been safe.
But Alex told the doctor a sob story about a few awful dates she’d had where being able to drug the john and sneak out would have been a blessing. She offered to give him a month’s worth of freebies if he delivered her a year’s supply of powerful sedatives. She made the request when he was drunk. But truthfully, he didn’t take much convincing.
His only requirement was that as part of the deal, they had to have their next date at the Venetian on the strip. He said he’d use the money he wouldn’t have to spend on her for the next month on a suite.
Alex was reluctant because of all the cameras and security at the Venetian. But he was adamant. So, in the days leading up to the date she scouted the hotel in various disguises, learning the location of the cameras and where the security officers liked to set up position.
On the day of the date, she called Harvey on a burner phone and said she’d be wearing a special costume. She told him to take a seat at the Dorsey Cocktail Bar at nine o’clock and she’d find him. He seemed excited by the prospect.
When she sat down next to him that night, in a red wig and floral sundress, he didn’t even recognize her. She had to lean in and whisper something dirty in his ear before he realized it was her. Then she sent him up to the suite, where she met him fifteen minutes later.
There was a point where she reconsidered. After he gave her the supply of sedatives, along with a diamond necklace, she wondered if perhaps she could choose another victim. But her second thoughts went away when he showed her the toys he planned to use on her that night. None of them were designed for her pleasure; in fact, quite the opposite.
Besides, if she let him go and drugged other johns, he might figure it out. He might go to the cops. He was a loose end that needed to be clipped. In retrospect, it was odd how easy the premeditated decision to kill another human being, even one as unpleasant as Harvey, had been.
Her mind made up, Alex sent him to the bathroom to shower so she could “get comfortable.” While he was in the bathroom, she got a drink from the mini-bar for him (he liked vodka and cranberry). She added a massive dose of lorazepam, which conveniently enough, was even more effective when paired with alcohol.
When he came into the room, dressed only in a towel, she handed him the drink, wearing a pair of elbow-length white gloves that he noticed and called “sexy.” She told him to enjoy his drink while she freshened up.
She waited five minutes. When she returned to the room, she feared something had gone wrong. The glass was empty but Harvey was sitting at the foot of the bed, looking as alert as ever.
“Ready, lover?” she asked, hiding her apprehension.
It was only when he tried to speak that Alex knew it had worked. He looked at her and opened his mouth. But instead of words, only garbled grumbles came out. She thought she heard the words “dose me” but couldn’t be certain. Regardless, the panicked look in his eyes told her he understood what she’d done.
Suddenly, the tingling, floating sensation she’d felt in the aftermath of Dan’s death, the one that had faded in recent months, returned with a vengeance.
It was like she’d been dosed with some kind of drug. It was magical.
*
But now, Devin Schumacher’s druggy clumsiness had undermined both her carefully constructed plan and the adrenaline rush she so coveted. The second he knocked over the picture frame and it shattered on the floor, she knew the clock was ticking.
It was possible that the rooms near her were unoccupied. But she couldn’t count on it. Assuming there were guests next door and they were nosy, she had estimated she had about ten minutes before someone from the hotel checked up on them. To be safe, she gave herself half that.
As a result, the Reckoning, as she’d grown fond of calling it, was rushed and unsatisfying.
She did get a little thrill when Schumacher made a feeble attempt to shove her away. Something about him fighting back was especially yummy. Slapping his face had given her a satisfying, if brief, tingle of delight.
The actual strangling was a bit of a letdown. She still got that adrenaline hit of watching his body writhe and his eyes bulge as she wrung the life out of him. But it was slightly dulled by the constant worry that at any moment, someone might knock on the door.
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