Page 13 of The Perfect Crime

It was almost lunchtime, and Jessie felt like they hadn't made much progress at all.

She looked at the others in the HSS research room and wondered how, with all of them hard at work on the case, they had so little to show for it.

They’d been at this for several hours now.When she returned from meeting with Dr.Roth at the toxicology unit, she found Jamil and Beth already running down leads.

Jamil Winslow ran HSS’s two-person Research department.He 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 Ryerson, also twenty-five, was as adept with people as Jamil was with numbers.Her perpetually chill, friendly vibe was the complete inverse of Jamil’s jittery intensity.And 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.

Jamil had been going over security video from the restaurant last night, or at least trying to.Unfortunately, since the place was so new, only a few security cameras had been set up.One was overlooking the front of the restaurant near the valet stand.Another showed the back hallway leading to the manager’s office, where the safe was kept.But none of the dining room cameras had been set up yet.And with multiple exits from the place, a customer could leave without ever being caught on camera.

Beth had been reviewing the receipts from last night, hoping to create a list of suspects from it.But that was challenging too.The credit card payment system had multiple issues throughout the course of the evening.For people who couldn’t pay with a phone or cash, servers ended up having to give patrons paper copies of their bills and ask them to call back this morning with credit card numbers in order to pay.

Some had done so.Others hadn’t.Regardless, everyone at HSS agreed that the killer was likely to have paid in cash, or if he used a card, almost certainly not called in and potentially implicated himself.

They were even getting help from two other detectives, Susannah Valentine and Sam Goodwin, who had wrapped up the case they were working earlier that morning.

Susannah Valentine was a study in contrasts.To look at her, one wouldn’t immediately peg her profession as police detective.She was also, by all accounts, a bombshell.Almost impossibly gorgeous, she had hazel eyes, deeply tanned skin and long, black hair to go along with a curvy figure that suggested swimsuit model more than cop.Of course, the woman knew how she was perceived and rather than hide from it, she preferred to lean into the persona, to use it like a weapon.That is until recently.

Ever since she started dating an older, incredibly chill surfer and police sergeant from Manhattan Beach, she'd been less defensive about leering remarks on her appearance.Of course, that didn't mean she was any less intense in her investigative style than she used to be.

Her brash, sometimes abrasive personality, along with her “bull in a china shop” investigative intensity hadn’t been handed down by her happier personal life lately.She was still a Doberman of a detective, which Jessie was generally glad for.But that intensity didn’t manifest as overtly when she was doing office work.So far today, she’d been fairly mellow.

Sam Goodwin was the unit’s newest detective.At thirty-three, the man was lean and tall, easily six foot two, with irrepressible brown hair.He made a habit of wearing corduroy sport coats over checkered shirts and black ties, which Jessie said made him look like either a young, absent-minded professor, or the past-his-prime bassist in a band that played Americana music.But his looks belied his reputation.

He had served eight years as a uniformed officer, followed by three as a detective in Vice Division’s Exploitation and Investigative Section, which focused on human trafficking, exploitation of minors, and prostitution connected to organized crime.He may not have formally handled homicide cases prior to joining HSS, but he’d seen ugly things.Since coming aboard, he’d proved a valuable asset.

Neither of their skill sets were best used reviewing databases or calling up co-workers of Whitaker but as their former captain—and current LAPD Chief—Roy Decker had often said, not all police work was busting perps.

So along with Jessie and Ryan, they were reviewing the list of suspicious co-workers that Ryan had provided from his interviews this morning at the Wiley McComb office, looking for anything incriminating.But so far, it was to no avail.

“Where’s Parker?”Ryan asked as he stood up and stretched his arms.

Captain Gaylene Parker, who had taken over the role from him when he’d decided to resume his old position as head of Homicide Special Section, hadn’t been in most of the morning.

“I heard her son had some event that she had to attend,” Susannah said, “but I don’t know any more than that.”

“Well, hopefully we can lock down some more details before she returns,” Ryan said.“If we go all day without providing at least one legitimate lead, she’s going to be…even more unhappy than usual.”

Jessie gave him a half-scowl.After the arranged sit-down between him and Parker with Chief Decker, Ryan was supposed to keep his distaste for the captain to himself so as to not alienate the rest of the HSS team from her.His little comment had come dangerously close to crossing the appropriateness line.

“Once we’re through looking at the background of James Whitaker’s co-workers,” she said, “I think we should dive into his competitors and his clients.Sarah said he could play hardball.Let’s see if anyone thought he went over the line and filed a complaint against him for any reason.”

“That’s good,” Ryan agreed.“We should also see who lost big based on his financial advice.There might be people out there who hold a grudge but didn’t want to make it official.”

“Right,” Jessie agreed.“And if any of them have a medical background, we should definitely flag that.According to Dr.Roth, creating this kind of poison isn’t just something that anyone off the street could do.”

"And let's not forget good old-fashioned jealousy," Susannah volunteered."Are you guys sure that Sarah Whitaker wasn't having an affair with this guy?Maybe he decided to get rid of his competition.Or maybe they did it together, and he tied her up so she wouldn't be a suspect."

“All legitimate areas of inquiry,” Ryan said.Let’s split it all and see what we can find.”

***

Three hours later, they hadn’t found much.

Susannah's affair theory had been intriguing, but searching through all of Sarah Whitaker's financial transactions and GPS data, Jamil hadn't found anything that suggested she'd been involved in a relationship with anyone other than her husband.

Beth’s review of James’s co-workers showed that while there was some competitive zeal among them, nothing appeared to rise to the level of outright animosity.Susannah and Sam had focused on James’s competitors in the investment banking world, particularly those who had lost clients to him in recent years.There were quite a few.

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