Page 6 of The Perfect Prey

She was told the woman would be on her way here soon and requested that she be taken to an interrogation room upon her arrival.Then, she turned her attention to the task in front of them.They had a lot to go over in the interim.

In the two hours that they waited for the dog walker’s arrival, they focused on what they could accomplish.Rather than work in the crowded bullpen area of the station, where detectives for every other unit had desks, they convened in HSS’s small, dedicated research department, where Jamil and Beth were headquartered.

While the researchers sat at their desk, both of which were littered with monitors, Jessie and Susannah sat on the ratty loveseat pressed against the far wall, flipping through printouts on all of the Hartley’s regular contacts, which Jamil had prepared for them before they arrived at the station.That was nothing unusual for him.

Jamil Winslow was a short, skinny twenty-five-year-old with thick glasses and no sense of fashion style.He was also a genius, capable of filtering through massive databases, sorting surveillance video into manageable buckets, or making complex financial records understandable, all seemingly in the blink of an eye.His social skills didn’t always match his intellectual ones, which is where his sole employee came in.

Beth hadn’t prepared packets for them, but she did have hot coffees waiting.In that way, she was Jamil’s opposite.He was all about the stats, less about the people.Beth was more intuitive, able to piece together how personalities fit into those stats.It’s how she sensed that Jessie and Susannah could use caffeine hits when they arrived.

But the young woman wasn’t just touchy-feely.While not a human supercomputer like him, she had an incredibly sharp mind, which people tended to underestimate because she was an attractive, six-foot-plus former college volleyball star.

Right now they were both staring hard at their screens, evaluating the data they already had.Jamil had used a computer program that he’d developed to quickly cull through all of the Hartley’s contacts and come up with the ones that they interacted with the most.That was the list Jamil had printed out.

While Jessie and Susannah reviewed it, he was poring over every name, even ones the couple had only had tangential contact with, to search for folks with criminal records.He’d also set a separate system to create a digital map of the couple’s recent movements, using the GPS data from their phones and vehicles.It would be complete in a few hours.

In the meantime, Beth had reviewed the Ring camera footage from last night and several days prior, looking for any suspicious activity.There was nothing, though, that wasn’t a shock.The killer could have easily avoided detection by walking along the edge of the large yard, staying out of visual range of the camera as they reached the side fence.

“The house did have a conventional security system,” she told them, “but according to the company, some of the cameras were damaged in that huge storm last month.Apparently that screwed up their whole system, which was old anyway, so the company came out and removed it.They were scheduled to install the upgraded version this upcoming Thursday—four days from now.”

“That’s quite a coincidence,” Susannah noted skeptically.“I don’t think it would hurt to check the employee list from the company.Let’s find out if anyone on their staff has a record.”

“Already on it,” Beth said.“So far, nothing, but it’s a big company.They have 42 field technicians, so I’ll keep looking.”

“Excellent,” Jessie said before addressing a consistent theme she’d noticed in the hours that they’d been reaching out to contacts of the Hartleys.“You know, I’ve made nine calls to friends and former colleagues so far.I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had anyone say a bad word about them yet, and that’s without knowing the couple is dead.”

“Same thing,” Susannah agreed.“And it doesn’t sound like these folks are spouting the official line.They all sound genuine when they talk about their affection for the Hartleys.I get that they may have been nice people, but no one’s that nice.Everyone has secrets.”

“Are you sure you’re not just projecting?”Jessie wondered.

The detective looked about to offer a comeback when a young female uniformed officer with brown hair and alert eyes knocked on the open door.They all looked up.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she said cautiously, “but I’m Kaley Doyle.I was assigned to take Olivia Townsend to doggy daycare and then to the hospital.I just put her in one of the interrogation rooms.Thought you should know.”

“How’s she doing?”Susannah asked.

“Better now,” Officer Doyle said.

“Do you think her meltdown was legitimate?”Jessie asked, not pulling punches.

“I’m no expert,” the young woman conceded, “but she was convincing to me.She kept saying how the dogs had to be taken to a safe space, that they sensed something was wrong, but that once they were around other dogs, they’d forget about their anxiety.Once she dropped them off, she kind of lost it.”

“Maybe she had the opposite reaction as the dogs,” Jessie ventured, trying to give Townsend the benefit of the doubt.“It could be that she focused so intently on getting the dogs to a place of comfort, and once that task was complete, her brain couldn’t avoid the memory of what she’d seen on that bed.If it all came tumbling back into her head at once, that could be overwhelming.”

“That’s how it felt to me,” Officer Doyle agreed, “but you guys should be the judge.She’s waiting for you now.”

Jessie and Susannah left Jamil and Beth in the research room as they followed the officer down the hall to interrogation room one.They all stopped outside the door.

“Anything else we should know before we go in?”Susannah asked.

“Just that she’s scared,” Doyle said.“Just being in a police station has her freaked out and putting her in an interrogation room rather than a meeting room has her even more agitated.”

“That’s what we wanted,” Jessie said, satisfied.“Good work.”

Officer Doyle nodded and led them inside, where they found a petite woman in her thirties sitting in a metal chair bolted to the floor.Her hands were resting on a metal table, also firmly attached to the floor.

She had frizzy red hair, pale skin, and more freckles than Jessie could count.She wore a gray long-sleeved shirt, pants, and a sunhat, which dangled behind her, connected by a string at her neck.

“Ms.Townsend,” Officer Doyle said, “this is Detective Valentine and Ms.Hunt.They’re handling the case from here on in and they have some questions for you.”

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