The Perfect Veneer Read online

  “Hi,” Violet said, raising her hand in a quick, half-aborted wave, and making brief eye contact before looking away.

  “Hi,” Hannah replied.

  “Hannah,” Kat continued. “This is Violet Sheridan. She arrived while you were on the coffee run. She read a news story about our involvement in the Riley Stroud case a few months back—how we helped rescue the little boy—and apparently it stuck with her. Do I have that right, Violet?”

  The woman nodded hesitantly.

  “Do you want to tell Hannah what you told me, or should I explain, and you jump in where you feel comfortable?” Kat asked, still using her most gentle professional manner.

  “Maybe the second?” Violet suggested.

  “Okay, I’ll try my best,” Kat promised before turning to face Hannah. “Violet needs our help. Her husband just got out of prison a few days ago…”

  “Common law husband,” Violet corrected apologetically.

  “That’s right,” Kat said, flipping through her notepad as she spoke, “An important oversight on my part. Her common law husband, Hank Keene, was just released late last week after serving a four month stint for…what was it again, Violet?”

  “Assault with a deadly weapon,” Violet explained. “He got in fight in a bar and beat a guy up with a pool cue.”

  “Wow, that’s a detail you didn’t mention before,” Kat muttered, shaking her head in disgust. “So anyway, he gets out and the first thing he does is get drunk, then go find Violet for a good time. But she wasn’t in the mood, which he didn’t appreciate. You can see the results of that.”

  Kat pointed at the woman’s face.

  “That’s not the worst of it,” Violet said, lifting up her Reba sweater to reveal multiple black and purple bruises running along her ribcage. “This is what he did after he had his way with me. And he said I was getting off easy.”

  Hannah saw Kat cringe slightly and wondered if her boss was regretting letting her be an intern at this moment, imagining what Jessie would say if she knew that her little sister was being exposed to this kind of horror. But the truth was that Hannah had already seen far worse in her life.

  “What do you mean ‘getting off easy?’” she asked, trying to sound professional even as she felt the indignation rise in her chest. If there was one thing that set her off, it was physically powerful people abusing those who happened to be weaker.

  Violet looked at Kat as if to indicate that she couldn’t go there herself and needed help.

  “Apparently Hank threatened that if she wasn’t more compliant the next time he came around, he was going to kill her; so after he left, she took off and has been on the run ever since.”

  “I gathered what I could carry in a backpack and just bailed,” Violet said, finding a strength in her voice that Hannah hadn’t heard before. “I’ve been staying in cash-only fleabag motels ever since. I knew I couldn’t go to the cops. I tried that before—getting a restraining order—and they said that because California doesn’t recognize common law marriages, there was nothing they could do.”

  “That’s not actually true,” Kat told her. “When it comes to domestic violence restraining orders, you can file for one in California even if you’re just dating the person or used to date them. So common law marriages vs. legal ones are irrelevant. You were intimately involved. I suspect that the cops who told you that just didn’t want to deal with the hassle.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Violet said. “But either way, we’re past that point. If I tried to get one now, it wouldn’t stop him. It would just make him angrier. He doesn’t care about going back to jail. He’s out for blood. That’s why I came to you. I need to get away from him, for good this time. I was hoping you would help me.”

  “And just as Violet was making that request,” Kat explained to Hannah, “our friend in blue arrived at the door. So we had to put our discussion on hold. So now that L.A.’s finest have left, why don’t you tell us what it is you’re hoping we can do for you?”

  Violet looked at them both with uncertainty in her eyes, as if she didn’t know if she could truly trust them with what she had to say next. But then she seemed to cross some line in her head and nodded silently to herself.

  “I have an idea,” she said. “Like I said, I just want to get away from him for good. Whether that means moving to the east coast, to some little town in Iowa, or going to Mexico, I don’t care. But I can’t go anywhere unless I know it’s safe to move around. And I can’t feel safe unless I know where Hank is. It would be great if he was back in jail for a few weeks or even days so I could skip town without worrying about him hunting me down. But even if I just knew where he was, then I could steer clear of him, and get out of town, out of the state.”

  “So you want us to track him down?” Kat asked.

  “Yes,” Violet said. “Find out where he is at the very least. If you can get him picked up for doing something illegal that will get him tossed behind bars for a while, even overnight, that’s even better. But if you can just locate him, that’s good too. I’ll take whatever I can get. I just need time. Also, I was hoping you could help create a new identity for me. Maybe a new birth certificate or driver’s license. I don’t know if that’s even legal. I just want to start fresh but I’m worried that he’ll be able find me again. He might not seem like it, but he’s really good at that sort of thing.”

  Hannah didn’t say a word. She was curious to see how Kat would respond to a request that skirted such legally dubious terrain, even if it was on more morally stable ground.

  “We can certainly look into where he is right now,” she said. “As to those other requests, we’ll have to see.”

  “If it’s a matter of money…” Violet started to say.

  “That’s not the issue,” Kat interrupted.

  “Oh,” Violet said, “well speaking of money, that’s the other reason I came to you rather than some other detective. After reading about what you did for that little boy, I knew I could trust you with this.”

  She stood up, unbuttoned her jeans, and tugged them down slightly to reveal a money belt hidden below.

  “I’ve had some money stashed for a while,” she said, unclipping the belt and handing it over. “Part of it is from some antique furniture I sold that my mother left me when she died. Also, Hank gave me some jewelry a while back, including this one ring with a big emerald in it. I think he might have gotten it all in a robbery. I never asked. But I pawned all of it after what happened last week. And I had a little bit of my own saved here and there over the years. Anyway, it’s all in this belt—everything I have in the world. It comes to just over $30,000. I don’t want it on in me in case he finds me. I figured I could trust you to hold on to it for me. You could take out what I owe you for the case and maybe for the identity papers if you do that kind of thing, and then you can give me back the rest once it’s safe for me to leave town.”

  Hannah said nothing. It wasn’t her decision to make, although she knew what she would do if it was. She couldn’t help but notice that the money belt had flecks of blood on it.

  “I’m not sure about this, Violet,” Kat said uneasily.

  “Normally, I would never give somebody I’d never met all my money, but I’m out of options,” Violet pleaded. “I’m not getting out this city on my own. I have to trust someone, and I figured it might as well be you, Kat. And if you trust Hannah, then I’ll trust her too.”

  Kat looked over at Hannah, as if her approval mattered. Hannah knew that it was a formality, that Kat Gentry would do what she wanted whether her intern agreed or objected. But as long as she was given the opportunity to make her opinion known, she figured she might as well get it on the record.

  She nodded her support for helping Violet. Half of her wanted to get the woman safely out of town. The other half was more interested in in seeing Hank Keene pay for what he’d done. But she kept all that to herself.

  “We’ll do it,” Kat said. “I can’t make any promises on the false documents front. That’s not my area. But here’s what I can promise: we’ll keep you somewhere safe until we can move you permanently. While you’re out of the picture, we’ll do everything we can to locate Hank.”

  “Where do you plan to stash her?” Hannah asked.

  Kat smiled.

  “Mitch’s,” she said. “He owes me.”

  “Who’s Mitch?” Violet asked, confused.

  “He’s my boyfriend,” Kat said. “He has a cabin in the mountains up near Lake Arrowhead. He also happens to be a sheriff’s deputy in that area. So you’d be out of town and with a law enforcement professional I personally trust. And since he’s been staying with me the last few days, you’ve got a ready-made ride, who is currently just a fifteen-minute drive away. Sound good?”

  Violet almost mustered a smile.

  “If you trust him, then so do I,” she said shyly.

  “Good, I’m going to call him,” Kat said. “After that, you’re going to tell us everything you know about Hank Keene—his habits, his friends, his favorite hangouts. With a little luck, we’ll find the bastard by dinnertime.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Jessie was glad she’d had a light breakfast.

  Everything had been fine for the first ten minutes of the drive from their downtown station to the Booth Estate in the Hollywood Hills, as Ryan tore north up the 101 freeway through traffic with the siren blaring and beacon flashing.

  They even had time to call Jamil and Beth and get some background on Lowden Booth, which they hoped would prove useful when they arrived at the mansion. But once they got off the freeway and began taking switchback twists and turns through the hills, first briefly on Cahuenga Boulevard, then Mulholland Drive, followed by Nicholls Canyon Road, and finally Astral Drive to where it ended at
the massive property owned by Booth, Jessie’s stomach engaged in an endless series of somersaults that didn’t stop even after they arrived at the giant metal gates of the estate with the large “B” and were waved through by the grim-faced security guard in the navy uniform.

  “Are you okay?” Ryan asked when she open her door and leaned out. “Are you having head issues again?”

  He was referring to the concussion she’d suffered when Andy Robinson had released a grenade in the mine after her escape attempt. For months after that, Jessie had dealt with headaches, memory loss, confusion, and nausea. But that wasn’t what was making her ill now.

  “No,” she said, trying not to gag. “That drive was a little much, Ryan. I feel like I just spent that ten minutes inside a washing machine. I’m a bit queasy. I just don’t want to throw up in your car.”

  “Do you want me to pull over?” he asked.

  “I don’t want to draw extra attention to us,” she muttered. “As long as you drive slowly the rest of the way, we should be okay.”

  “All right,” he said, his voice laced with concern. “You’re not just saying that about the drive, are you? You’re head really isn’t bothering you?”

  “It’s not that,” she assured him. “I haven’t had a migraine in three weeks. You’ve been to all my appointments with Dr. Varma. Every test in the last month has shown improvement. I just don’t love taking multiple hairpin turns near the edge of 200-foot canyons first thing in the morning. Call me crazy.”

  “Well, I hope you get over it soon, because this private road to the mansion may be a quarter mile long, but we’re coming to the end of it, and I see our Hollywood Station liaison coming out to meet us.”

  Jessie closed the passenger door and sat up. Her eyes were slightly watery from the queasiness, so she blinked several times to clear them. Sure enough, a tall, bald, square-jawed officer in his early thirties was walking crisply towards them. But her attention was quickly diverted by what she saw behind him.

  Dwarfing the officer was a gigantic manor that extended at least the length of a football field across and rose three stories high. It had a desert sandstone color set off by black balcony railings and white shutters. Jessie could make out part of a tennis court behind the house in the distance and what appeared to be a guest house on a hill about another quarter mile farther up the road. An ambulance was parked near a side entrance to the house, as were three squad cars.

  Ryan parked as the officer reached their car. As they got out, Jessie took several long, slow, deep breaths in the hope that she could blow the nausea out of her system and into the ether. It only partially worked.

  “Captain Hernandez and Ms. Hunt,” the man said briskly. “I’m Officer Creed Bailey with Hollywood Station. I was assigned to secure the scene until HSS took over.”

  “How long have you been here, Officer Bailey?” Ryan asked him as they all started walking toward the front door.

  “I got the call at 7:38 a.m.,” he said, looking at his watch. “The first unit was here within five minutes, and I arrived from the station just after eight. It’s 8:18 now, so about fifteen minutes.”

  “All right,” Ryan said as the officer pulled open the huge wooden doors for them, “I realize you haven’t had much time to process the situation but what can you tell us so far?”

  “Yes sir,” Bailey said as he led them through a grand foyer filled with sculptures encased in glass that appeared at first glance to date to classical antiquity. “Neither the medical examiner nor the crime scene unit have arrived yet due to the challenges of navigating the sharp turns required to get here. My understanding is that both will be on scene in the next five minutes.”

  He moved quickly down a long marble-floored hallway with art lining the walls as far as the eye could see. Jessie caught quick glimpses of various rooms as they passed by them: a music room with a grand piano and a harp, a banquet hall, a small library, a second dining room, a tea room, a complete bar.

  “EMTs got here a few minutes before you and are currently treating Mrs. Booth,” Bailey said as they reached a stairwell that extended to a second floor then doubled back to a third. “They moved her to a guest room so they could work on her away from all the hubbub of the main bedroom suite. Would you like to see her first or visit the scene?”

  Ryan looked over at Jessie as they ascended the stairs.

  “Thoughts?” he asked.

  She turned to Bailey.

  “What kind of condition is she in?” she asked.

  “The last time I saw her, a few minutes ago, she was pretty out of it. I believe that she suffered some kind of head injury.”

  “Then let’s start at the scene, get what we can there, then talk to her once her head has cleared a little. Just don’t let the EMTs take her anywhere before we get a chance to speak with her, okay?”

  Bailey nodded and spoke into his radio. Jessie and Ryan stayed quiet the rest of the way as they tried to get to the third floor without visibly huffing. Ryan was almost fully recovered from a stabbing nearly a year ago that had left him in a coma for several weeks. But even though he was back to his well-muscled torso and fit, fighting weight, flights of stairs were still one of his few remaining forms of kryptonite, leaving him winded despite his best efforts.

  For her part, one would never know that only thirteen weeks ago, Jessie had been in a mineshaft collapse that left her with a fractured wrist, cracked ribs, a badly bruised ankle, and at least one concussion. Nor would anyone have guessed that a mere two weeks ago, a serial killer who used drones to target his victims had tried to strangle her to death.

  She was already back to running five miles a day and had re-introduced Krav Maga into her workout routine. But after the near-vomit-inducing drive up here, two flights of stairs had her struggling too.

  They let Bailey lead them down the hall to the bedroom so they could take giant gasps of air without him seeing them. As they walked, Jessie looked out the enormous window that extended up from the first floor all the way to the third, offering a magnificent view of downtown Los Angeles, of Hollywood, and she suspected, on a clear day, of the Pacific Ocean.

  In the window’s reflection, she also caught a clear view of herself as she walked between Officer Bailey and Ryan. She was pleased to see that she wasn’t visibly gasping for air. She was also glad that she’d chosen casual work attire today, with loose-fitting black pants and a thin, long-sleeved olive shirt that Ryan had given her for Christmas, which was a nice contrast to her shoulder-length brown hair, currently tied back in a ponytail.

  She noted that her athletic, five-foot-ten frame, once described by Dr. Lemmon as borderline Amazonian, was no big deal compared to the cops in front and behind her. Officer Bailey was easily six-foot-two and thick everywhere. And Ryan, at six feet tall and a rock-solid 200 pounds, was equally impressive. She made sure to push her shoulder blades back as she strode forward.

  They passed the guest room where two technicians were tending to a patient on a bed that she couldn’t see but was sure was Mrs. Booth, and reached the open door of the main bedroom, where an officer stood guard. Another officer was sitting on the bed in that room with a solid-looking man in his forties, in a suit sporting a gray crewcut.

  Bailey led them past him into an immense bathroom and then into a closet. At first, Jessie wasn’t sure what she was looking at. The closet, while impressive, didn’t seem all that different than those belonging to other uber-rich victims and suspects she’d encountered over the years.

  But then she noticed the shard of light coming from what initially seemed to be the back wall of the closet but was actually a door that must lead to the panic room Chief Decker mentioned earlier. She moved toward it.

  “Can you turn on the light in here?” she asked Bailey.

  He did and she moved closer to get a better look. The design was impressive. Even with the door ajar, she could tell how seamlessly it would fit in with the rest of the closet wall when closed. It had a full rack of long jackets that could mask any imperfections in the faux wall, but there were none to hide.

  The wall was solid and well-made, about four inches thick and composed of some kind of metal with a layer of paint on top. It just also happened to be a door that opened outward into the closet. She wondered where the button was to open the door but would have to save that question for another time.