Page 29 of The Perfect Crime

He turned back to the screen in front of him.Jessie was about to return her attention to her own file when Captain Parker walked in.

“Hi Captain,” Beth said amiably, “how did the event for your son go yesterday?”

“Fine, thanks,” Parker said, sounding mildly defensive.

Jessie noted that the captain had bags under her eyes, and she wasn’t as put together as usual.Her clothes were slightly wrinkled, which was never the case, and her normally tight hair bun was a little loose.

“Is everything okay?”she asked.

Parker nodded, before fixing her attention on Ryan.

“I’ve been a little out of the loop this morning,” she said, her voice scratchy with exhaustion, “but I could use an update on these poisoning murders.”

Jessie looked over at Ryan and could see his agitation.He clearly thought that the captain’s dismissal of their concern for her was rude, but Jessie sensed there might be more to it than that.She decided to take the lead in answering Parker’s question rather than have Ryan explain while his mood was turning sour.

She walked the captain through their investigation up to that point as succinctly as possible.Then she offered a few conclusions.

“We don’t yet have anything definitive tying either of our strongest suspects to either murder,” she conceded, “but the connection that Jamil just uncovered makes them both worth keeping our eye on.”

“Do you think this ‘trading murders’ theory hold water?”Parker asked her directly.

“I have some reservations,” Jessie admitted, “but it’s as good an idea as we have right now.Having two different killers would answer a lot of our open questions.It would also explain both men’s confidence—even cockiness—that their alibis would hold up, even if they don’t seem rock solid at the moment.But right now, we don’t have enough evidence to go after either of them hard.”

“That’s all I needed to hear,” Parker said.

“What do you mean?”Ryan asked.

“We’ve got two victims of poisoning in the last two nights, and no solid suspects, just two persons of interest,” she said.“That’s why I’ve decided to hold a press conference.We need to warn the public about what’s going on.”

“Don’t you worry that going public with this will cause a panic?”Ryan asked.

"There's already a low-level panic going on," Parker said."The press is reporting on one of these cases already.It's only a matter of time before they have the other one too.I want to set the terms of this thing before the situation gets out of control.I don't want any more poisonings, but I also don't want rich folks to start freaking out and shooting anyone who rings their doorbell while dressed in black.We need to get people to take precautions without losing their heads."

“When do you plan to hold this press conference?”Jessie asked, realizing that they were well past convincing the captain to change her mind.

"It's 9:45 now," Parker said, looking at her watch."I'll get media relations to organize one for 11 a.m.That way, it'll make all the noon newscasts.But I won't be the one doing the press conference."

“Who will?”Beth asked curiously.

But Jessie already knew the answer.She realized that by choosing to brief Parker to protect Ryan from saying something he’d regret, she’d made herself a target.She was right.

“Hunt will,” the captain said with finality.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Jessie waited impatiently in the prison meeting room.

She wasn’t sure if this was the best idea, but she was doing it anyway.

It was 10:13 now and with nearly an hour left until the press conference, she needed something to take her mind off the nerves that were jangling inside her.So she’d made the unusual decision to visit a serial killer—one who’d tried to kill her.

She figured that by focusing her attention elsewhere, her brain wouldn’t spin out in multiple unconstructive directions.That was why she’d chosen right now to follow up on Mark Haddonfield’s collect call from prison yesterday.

As she sat at the bolted down metal table waiting for the man to be brought in, she tried to guess what was so important that he wanted to see her.His trial was starting very soon.Maybe he was planning to plead guilty and thought that if he told her first, he’d get bonus points.

Or maybe he’d learned of some new threat against her and wanted to warn her.He’d done that once before.Now that he considered them to be on the same side, he wouldn’t want any harm to come to the woman he viewed as his “partner.”

Or it could be something more mundane.The deal they’d struck—that as long as she brought him the occasional active case to discuss, he’d instruct his acolytes not to hurt her or anyone she cared about—was pretty cut and dried.

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