Page 10 of The Perfect Crime

CHAPTER FIVE

Jessie walked down the unfamiliar hallway.In her nearly three years of profiling for the LAPD, she’d never been here before.

She’d been to the Forensic Sciences Division of the police department more than once when the kind of poison used was immediately obvious.But she’d never been to the more specialized toxicology unit which was headed up by Dr.Amelia Roth.That’s who Jessie was supposed to meet with at 9:30, just a few minutes from now.

She stopped just outside the door to the office and allowed herself a moment to regroup before going in.She wanted to make sure that her internal churn wasn’t visible on the outside.She saw her reflection in the glass of the office door mirror.She ran her fingers through her shoulder-length brown hair and determined that she looked presentable.

She was five foot ten but closer to six feet today in the loafer-like black sneakers she wore.Her green eyes—the exact same shade as her younger sister— were clear and fresh.Her outfit—black slacks and a gray, buttoned top—oozed professionalism.And her early morning five-mile runs had her feeling strong and fit.

Despite all that, and her calm and collected outward appearance, she was still fuming over what Sarah Whitaker had described happening to her.What kind of person forces a wife to watch her husband slowly die over several hours?

It was the right question to ask from a profiling perspective.If she could get into the mindset of this killer, it would give them a better chance of catching him.But right now, she was less interested in understanding the motives of the man than in making him pay for his cruelty.She knew that mentality wasn’t constructive to her work, but there it was all the same.

She tried to clear her head, but it was no good.Then she recalled how Dr.Lemmon had recommended employing the box breathing technique in these situations.As she tried to use it, she flashed back to the appointment with Lemmon a few weeks ago.That was when, after delaying for months, she finally revealed her secret to her longtime psychiatrist: that the feelings of bloodlust that she thought she’d permanently channeled into a constructive outlet had returned and curdled into something darker and more violent.

“I thought that when my father died—when I killed him—that whatever part of his vicious nature, the part that turned him into a serial killer, was extinguished from me for good,” she had explained to Lemmon.“But that was clearly naïve.Those urges, the same ones that Hannah has been successfully fighting, have bubbled up lately and I’m worried that sometime soon, they’re going to boil over.”

Dr.Lemmon hadn’t seemed all that stunned at the revelation.Then again, few things stunned Janice Lemmon.The 70-year-old might look meek and unassuming, with her tiny body, thick glasses and tight, little gray ringlets of hair, but she was no pushover.

Prior to her work as a psychiatrist in private practice, she was also a highly decorated LAPD and FBI criminal profiler.Despite being out that game for over a decade, the woman was still sharp as a tack.It was hard to get anything past her.

“So what do you want to do about it?”she had asked bluntly.

“I want to get control over this so that I don’t accidentally kill someone that I should be arresting,” Jessie had told her.

So that’s what they’d been working on in the weeks since: both trying to get to the root of her cravings and finding methods to control them when they sprouted up.It was a frustrating process.

Jessie was snapped out of her reverie by a phone call.The caller ID indicated that it was coming from Twin Towers Correction Facility, one of the main jail facilities for L.A.County.She knew that the call could only be coming from one person: Mark Haddonfield, the twenty-two serial killer she’d caught when he tried to murder her in her hospital bed.

“Hello,” she said.

An automated voice answered.

“You have received a collect call from ‘Mark Haddonfield,'" the voice said, with Haddonfield inserting his name after the pause.Then the robot voice returned."Will you accept the charges?"

“Yes,” she replied.

After a several-second delay, she heard his voice again.

“Hi, Ms.Hunt,” he said chipperly.“How are you this morning?"

“I’m okay,” she answered, “but don’t you have limited time for these collect calls?Maybe you should get to the point.”

“I was just trying to be polite,” said the man who first became obsessed with her, and when she didn’t respond as he hoped, tried to kill her and everyone she loved.“But I’m sure you’re very busy, so I’ll be brief.I need to meet with you.”

“What about?”she asked apprehensively.Every conversation with Mark Haddonfield, no matter how innocuous, was a source of anxiety.

“I’d rather discuss it in person,” he whispered, as if that would make a difference.“Besides, we haven’t interacted face-to-face in weeks.I’m starting to feel unappreciated.”

Though he didn’t say it, a silent threat lingered in the air after that comment.They both knew that if he sensed that he was being ignored, he might resuscitate the kill order from his online manifesto.That couldn’t happen.

“I’m a little overwhelmed today,” she told him, “but I’ll try to come by tomorrow.That’s the best I can offer right now.”

“What are you working on?”he asked.“Is it a case?Can I help?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she answered, ignoring his question.

“I can’t wait,” he said, and his voice was filled with genuine glee.

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