The Perfect Veneer Read online

  “I think it’s time we visited the Missus,” she said, heading for the bedroom door with Ryan right behind her, leaving Nix to battle his guilt and his demons alone.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Jessie readied herself to talk to the miracle woman of the Booth Estate.

  Before entering the guest room she took a beat to rein in her skepticism about the poor young wife who was lucky to have survived this ordeal. Just because Devon Booth was a perfect suspect didn’t mean she was guilty of anything. Assumptions and preconceptions often led to errors, sometimes fatal ones. She took a deep breath to clear her head and stepped through the door.

  Almost immediately, she was surprised by the energy in the guest room. She had expected Devon Booth to be frothing at the mouth to leave and the EMTs to be standing in a corner, cowed by the powerful woman, but it was nearly the opposite. Booth was sitting quietly, if a little dazed, on the side of the bed, with her hands resting on the mattress as if for both moral and physical support. It was the emergency medical technicians, or at least one of them, who were agitated.

  One, a tall, straw-haired guy in his mid-twenties, was crouched next to Booth, a concerned look on his face, his hand on her forearm to offer her support. The other, a short woman in her late twenties with dark hair in a ponytail, was standing by the bed with her hands on her hips and a huffy look on her face. Her eyes were blazing.

  “These are the folks from Homicide Special Sect—” Officer Bailey started to say.

  “It’s about damn time,” the female EMT interrupted harshly. “We’ve got a concussed patient here who needs to be admitted and we’re being slow-walked because you two can’t be bothered to amble over and conduct your interview.”

  Jessie looked over at Ryan, wondering whether he shared her mix of admiration and distaste for the woman. She appreciated the commitment to patient care and resentment about being impeded, but this was a murder investigation, and their patient was a witness at the very least, if not a suspect. Ryan didn’t look at all amused, though he was clearly trying to suppress his annoyance.

  “Your perspective is noted,” he said with impressive calm, “but we’re here now and we need to speak to Mrs. Booth for a few minutes. I’m sure that your medical interventions can be postponed for that brief period.”

  Jessie started to turn her attention back to Devon Booth, hoping to get a better sense of her, when the female EMT started up again.

  “I’m not so sure,” she shot back. “Concussions are complicated. She could have some bleeding in the brain. Every second is important, and your delays have cost valuable time.”

  Jessie saw Ryan’s whole body tense up. He’d been captain of Central Station for a few months now and his ability to handle the relentless avalanche of frustrating bureaucratic minutiae had improved significantly of late. But this was like having a wasp stinging you during an avalanche and she could tell it was about to send him over the edge.

  “Connie,” she said warmly, noting the name on the woman’s badge, “we appreciate your concern so much. Personally, as a recent victim of a concussion myself, I value how seriously you take this threat. Your commitment deserves to recognized, just like that of your partner…?”

  “Lyle,” the young man offered weakly.

  “Right,” Jessie said. “You and Lyle are doing good work here. You’ve got Mrs. Booth sitting upright. She looks thoughtful and coherent. That’s because of you two. I see that she’s following our conversation. Her pupils appear normal. And I know that in light of what’s happened this morning, she’s going to want to do her part to help us before she leaves. Because she was here when a murder occurred, Connie. And what she has to tell us could be crucial to solving that murder. And I know that’s as important to you as it is to us. So, since we’re all on the same team here, let’s get these questions answered and then let Mrs. Booth be on her way so you can continue to give her best care possible. Everyone good with that? Great.”

  She didn’t wait for Connie’s answer, though she could see from the woman’s expression over the course of her monologue that the fury had faded and the realization that she might be on the precipice of interfering with an investigation had set in.

  Jessie focused on Booth, who looked less dazed than she had a minute earlier. Maybe it was the extra time. Maybe it was the intense back and forth she’d just observed. But her eyes were more focused, and her jaw was less slack than when they’d walked in the room.

  Whether fully alert or not, Devon Booth was a beautiful woman. And while she was significantly younger than her husband, she wasn’t some teenage ingenue. Jessie recalled that during the furious drive up here, Beth had told them that she was thirty-nine, but somehow that hadn’t stuck in her brain. Now though, sitting on the edge of that bed, Devon Booth certainly came across like a full-fledged adult teetering on the edge of forty, rather than the child bride Jessie had foolishly imagined.

  She had long, wavy brown hair that stopped just above her elbows. Her eyes—big, brown, and warm—reminded Jessie of Ryan’s. She had a pert, little nose and full lips that she seemed to come by naturally.

  Even though she was seated and wearing a loose-fitting robe, Jessie could see what was underneath. Booth was wearing a night dress that revealed a full figure and long legs. Everything was well-tanned. Whatever combination of exercise, nutrition, genetics, and medical enhancements that had conspired to make Devon Booth look how she did, Jessie hoped she’d be so lucky in eight years.

  Of course, some of that beauty was marred by the bruise on her right cheekbone, her badly split lower lip, and the golf-ball sized lump on the left side of her head. She seemed unaware of the first two, although she touched the side of her head absent-mindedly before wincing and retracting it quickly.

  It was only then that Jessie noticed the bandage on her wrist. She recalled that Grover Nix mentioned finding her with her hands bound behind her back and she glanced over at her other wrist. It too was bandaged, though some blood was seeping through that one.

  “Mrs. Booth,” Ryan said, taking a step toward her and kneeling down as the male EMT had done, “I’m Ryan Hernandez with the LAPD. This is Jessie Hunt. First of all, we’re sorry for your loss. We’re here looking into what happened this morning. We’d like to ask you a few questions about it before these folks take you to the hospital. It’s really important that we get your perspective while it’s still fresh in your mind. Is that alright?”

  “That makes sense,” Booth said feebly, before adding to Jessie, “I know who you are. You’re the one who catches serial killers. You were kidnapped by the crazy lady a while back.”

  “That’s right, Mrs. Booth,” Jessie said, not loving that her new claim to fame was being “kidnapped by the crazy lady” but choosing to move past it. “We know it’s hard but we need to talk to you about this morning. Shall we start?”

  “Sure. You can call me Devon, by the way.”

  The affable way she said it made Jessie feel pretty sure that the woman was still in shock, but she had questions to ask. Connie and Lyle could deal with that medical issue when she was done.

  “All right, Devon,” she began, “try to recall what happened when you first woke up this morning.”

  “Okay,” Devon said, scrunching up her little nose in concentration. “I remember that I woke up earlier than usual because I heard a sound at the door, like a scraping. I checked and it wasn’t 7:30 yet, which is when Grover usually knocks on the door to wake us up and let us know that breakfast is ready. I shook Lowden awake and he thought it was weird too. He called out for Grover, but no one answered, and the scraping stopped for a second, but then it started up again and Lowden said he thought someone was trying to pick the lock to the door.”

  She stopped for a moment, and looked a little unsteady, like she might lose her balance and tip sideways on the bed. But Lyle reached out and put his hand on her shoulder to steady her.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yes, sorry,” she said with an embarrassed smile. “Just thinking about this is very intense.”

  “Can you continue please?” Ryan asked gently.

  “Right,” she said, returning her attention to him, “so I said we should call Grover, but Lowden told me there wasn’t time. We rushed into the bathroom, and he locked that door. We could hear the intruder get into the bedroom and search around. Lowden led me into his closet. We moved to the very back and he did something I couldn’t see with one of the hangers. All of a sudden, the wall opened up and this loud alarm started to go off. Lowden said to go inside, that it was a panic room. I had no idea that we even had one of those. So we went in. But it was too late.”

  “What do you mean?” Jessie asked.

  “The intruder had smashed in the bathroom door by then. He was too close behind us and got into the panic room before Lowden could close the door. The man—I’m sure it was a man even though he wore a mask because of the voice and his size—had a gun and ordered Lowden into the corner. Then he tied me up really quickly. He ordered Lowden to open the safe that was on the floor. Lowden refused so the man punched me, twice. I fell to the floor and my vision got blurry. I was stunned but I heard him threaten to do worse if Lowden didn’t open the safe. That time, Lowden agreed. He moved over to the safe but then he leapt at the guy, knocking his gun away, and yelled at me to run. It was kind of hard because my hands were tied behind my back, but I got up and started to leave but the guy was much stronger than Lowden and just shoved him away. Then he pushed me hard as I ran by him, and I stumbled. The last thing I remember was my head slamming into the wall. When I woke up, Grover was there. I saw Lowden on the ground with all the blood around him. I don’t know if he hit his head when the intruder pushed him away or if the man slammed his head intentionally late
r on, but I knew he was dead without Grover having to tell me. There was too much blood for him to just be hurt and Grover wasn’t rushing to do CPR or anything. Everything since then has been a blur.”

  Jessie gave the woman a moment to regroup before asking her next question. But sensing that Connie, the EMT, might use the pause as an opportunity to push to leave, she kept the respite brief.

  “You did well to identify that the intruder was male by noting his size and voice,” she praised. “What else can you recall about him? Tall? Short? Skinny? Heavyset? Did the voice sound familiar? Did you recognize the eyes through his mask? What color were they? Did he have any unusual mannerisms? Use any phrases repeatedly?”

  Devon had started shaking her head halfway through the questions and by the end she looked overtly agitated.

  “I realize I should know that stuff,” she said, her voice starting to crack slightly, “but I was petrified. I had just woken up. Then I was in a panic room with a gun pointed at me. I was tied up and punched in the face. My life was threatened. Now my husband is dead. I’m surprised I remember anything at all to be honest. I wish I could tell you more, but I just can’t.”

  By the end, she had started to cry. Not loud sobs, but quiet, half-stifled gasps that she couldn’t quite swallow.

  “Can I please go now?” she managed to choke out.

  Jessie could sense Connie about to assert herself again, but it wasn’t necessary. Though she still had her doubts about Devon, she couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for the woman. Besides, they weren’t going to get anything useful at this point. She looked over at Ryan, who nodded quickly that he was done.

  “Of course,” she said. “We may have more questions for you later but you’re free to leave for now. We hope you feel better soon.”

  Devon Booth nodded her thanks as Lyle and Connie guided her out of the guest room. Once she was gone, Jessie turned to Ryan.

  “What do you think?” she asked. “You buying the helpless wife routine?”

  Ryan tried to stifle a surprised laugh.

  “That feels a little harsh,” he replied. “I definitely think we should check to see what she stands to gain, but if her story holds up when we check the mansion’s interior video, I might be willing to view her as credible. I mean, she was tied up.”

  “How do we know she’s not in cahoots with this intruder and didn’t have him tie her up so that she’d have an alibi?”

  “Fair question,” Ryan said. “Why don’t we go find out.”

  ***

  Much to her displeasure, Jessie had to back down.

  As Simon, the man who ran the control room for Grover’s security team, walked them through the footage from that morning, it became increasingly clear that Devon’s version of events seemed to line up with what they saw.

  There were no cameras in the Booths’ bedroom, much less the closet or the panic room, but there was one showing the hallway just outside the bedroom. Just as Devon had described, it showed a masked man picking the lock to the bedroom. Then it showed him leaving four minutes later, holding a gun but no money, jewels, or other contraband, and running down the hall in the opposite direction from the main stairs just before Grover came into view approaching the bedroom.

  “So if he was in the bedroom area for four minutes, he was only in the panic room for how much of that time?” Ryan asked.

  “We know the alarm went off at 7:26,” said Grover, who was leaning over Simon’s shoulder, “and I arrived at the bedroom three minutes later, just barely missing him. That means he was probably in there for just over two minutes.”

  Ryan looked over at Jessie with a dubious expression.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “If Devon was in on it, this doesn’t seem to fit. Why didn’t she leave the bedroom door unlocked for the guy? Or the bathroom door? Why would she have the intruder tie her up to have an alibi when it doesn’t seem that anything was stolen? If this was some elaborate plan, it seems like a pretty piss-poor one. Plus her supposed accomplice came within half a minute of getting nailed by Grover, who was going to be up there really soon with breakfast anyway. It feels like she would have tried to avoid that.”

  Jessie had to admit that those were all good points. But she had one of her own.

  “I don’t disagree,” she conceded, “but there also wasn’t a ton of time for everything she described to have happened, like for this guy to tie her up and the altercations that followed. It doesn’t really add up, to me.”

  “I don’t know,” Ryan challenged. “It sounded like it was all happening pretty quickly.”

  Jessie tried not to get irked by the fact that he was poking holes in everything she said with Grover, Simon, and Officer Bailey all standing around. In theory, he was just doing his job.

  “Maybe,” she muttered. “And what about audio? Is there none to go with the video footage?”

  “No,” Grover said. “Mr. Booth thought it would be a violation of personal privacy to have audio recorded in the mansion, so he prohibited it, not just for his protection, but for his employees as well.”

  “I get it,” she said, “but it would be nice to verify the snippets of conversation that Devon referenced, maybe catch bits of any fighting or screaming that could support her version of events.”

  “I’m sorry,” Grover said. “It just doesn’t exist.”

  She looked over at Ryan, who seemed perplexed by her focus on Devon Booth. She knew he wasn’t dismissing the woman as a suspect, but he clearly thought that, at least for now, they should move on to other potential options. He was probably right. Until they had something more definitive that pointed to her, it was time to explore alternatives.

  Jessie wondered why she was pushing back so hard. Did she really think that the second Mrs. Booth was a murderous gold digger who had ensnared some co-conspirator in her plan to kill her husband, get beat up, and not steal his money? Or was she just taking her frustrations with Ryan out on the victim’s wife, perhaps unfairly?

  Was her animosity towards Ryan for not being forthright about the repeated threats Zoe made toward him, Hannah, and Kat interfering with her ability to give Devon Booth a fair shake? Was she casting doubt on this woman’s story just because her own husband had given her reason to doubt his words? She honestly didn’t know anymore. And right now, that wasn’t her priority.

  “Let’s have everything sent to the station, all the video, along with the medical examiner and CSU reports,” she finally said.

  “Let’s not forget the safe,” Ryan added. “We should find out if anything was actually taken from it, and if so, what?”

  “Good idea,” Jessie agreed. “In the meantime, we should dig into Lowden Booth’s life and see who else might want him dead.”

  “I’m sure you’ll do your own research,” Grover told her. “But I have a list I can provide to you. I don’t think Mr. Booth would mind at this point.”

  Jessie tried not to sound snarky when she replied.

  “Neither do I.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Mark Haddonfield couldn’t believe his good luck.

  As he sat on the bench on the trail overlooking the city, he wiped the sweat from his brow and did his best to act like every other hiker out for some mid-morning exercise.

  What were the chances that he and Jessie Hunt would cross paths like this? He couldn’t have planned this, even if he’d tried.

  After all, he’d known for over a week now that his next victim would live in the Hollywood Hills. And just by coincidence, it turned out that Jessie was working a completely unrelated murder case of her own less than two miles from where he would implement the next phase in the project he lovingly referred to as “The Strategy.”

  Even better, she seemed to be re-teaming with Ryan Hernandez, her husband and boss, with whom she hadn’t worked a case since they got married three months ago. Mark knew that detail for the same reason he knew so many details about Jessie’s life. In order to destroy her, he had to know her better than she knew herself. And he did.

  As he stood up and stretched all of his six-foot-four wiry frame, extending his long arms to the sky before tousling his curly blonde hair and adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses, he chuckled over the irony: this wasn’t how he thought it would go. Back when he first transferred from Stanford to UCLA for his junior year nine months ago, it was with the dream of taking Jessie’s brand new criminal profiling seminar, impressing her with his knowledge, and eventually becoming her protégé.