Page 19 of The Perfect Illusion

“The victim’s name is Rebecca Martinez. I’ve already had preliminary discussions with the M.E. and with CSU,” he said. “They’re still working on the official time of death, but we already have a pretty good idea of it.”

“How’s that?” she asked.

"Apparently her husband saw her on a home security camera and called it in," Brady explained. "He's on his way back now on a private plane, but I have a call set up with him in a few minutes."

“A private plane,” Jessie noted. “Where was he?”

“This is an unusual one,” Brady explained. “The husband’s name is Kai Cody. He plays for the L.A. Angels baseball team. He was on a road trip with the team in St. Louis. The team owner gave him his private jet to fly back as soon as he heard what happened. He should be here in about four hours.”

“In that case,” Jessie said, trying to process all this, “maybe I should change up my process and look at the body before we talk to the husband. I don’t want to go into that conversation without knowing the details of the situation.”

“Sure thing,” Brady said, leading her into the house. “The reason we think this is connected to the other case is that Martinez was found wearing a sash and tiara, and just like Patricia Hollinger, it appears that she was posed in a specific position post-mortem.”

“So she’s a beauty queen too?” Jessie asked as she followed Brady down a long hallway to a door where a uniformed officer stood guard.

“Her sash says Miss San Diego 2018,” he said. “A preliminary web search confirmed that she won the title that year. You ready to go in there?’

Jessie nodded. Brady took a step inside, and she did too. To her surprise, they weren't in a bedroom as she'd expected. They were in a living room. The group of people hovering around a figure on the sofa revealed where Martinez was. Before Jessie focused her attention there, she honed in on the trail of blood on the carpet leading from the sofa all the way to another doorway.

“She was killed somewhere else and moved in here?” she said more than asked.

“The bathroom,” Brady confirmed. “It’s a mess in there. We’re confident that the murder weapon was a fireplace poker that was found on the floor next to the vanity. It’s covered in blood. CSU is checking it for prints, but I’m not hopeful.”

“I’ll check that out later,” she said. “For now, let’s take a look at the victim.”

She and Brady walked over to the couch. The deputy M.E. and CSU team stepped aside without having to be asked. Jessie stared at Rebecca Martinez.

The woman wore a lavender negligee, not unlike the one that Jessie had planned to change into tonight. She was propped up halfway on the sofa so that it looked like she was lounging there casually, very much like Hollinger had been posed. As Brady mentioned earlier, she had a sash across her chest and a tiara on her head. Both were largely devoid of blood, suggesting they were placed on her post-mortem.

The woman had likely once been beautiful but it was hard to tell that now. There was significant bruising on her face and neck, along with multiple deep, bloody gashes. It appeared that her left side below the ribs had been deeply pierced, likely by the poker. Her long, black hair was matted with blood, and her green eyes were blank and glassy.

Jessie felt a profound sadness for this woman. She guessed that Rebecca Martinez was in her mid-twenties. She was a beauty queen married to a baseball star living in a giant mansion. Her whole life was ahead of her. Until it wasn’t.

The sound of Brady’s ringing phone jarred her out of her thoughts.

"It's Kai Cody," he said. "We agreed to talk at 11:30, but he's calling a little early. You up for this?"

“Not much choice,” Jessie said.

“Let’s do it somewhere else,” he said, leading her out of the living room to the back patio as he answered the call. “Hello, Mr. Cody.”

“Detective Bowen?” the man asked over speaker, his voice sounding scratchy and raw.

“That’s right,” Brady said as both he and Jessie sat down at the patio table. “I’m here with Jessie Hunt, one of our profilers. We’re both terribly sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” Cody said. “I’m just trying to keep my head above water right now. You’ll have to forgive me if I seem a little out of it.”

“We understand,” Brady said. “And we get that this is an incredibly difficult time for you. Having said that, we’re hoping that you can tell us a little more about what happened tonight. The more information we have, the better chance we have of catching whoever did this.”

“Right,” Cody said, sounding beaten down, before sighing heavily. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to employ a technique that I use during games in order to get through this.”

Jessie glanced over at Brady, not sure what that meant. He asked the question for her.

“We’re not sure what that means exactly, Mr. Cody,” he said carefully.

“Just that I’ve developed this thing over the course of my career that helps me in a big moment in a game, or when I’m being heckled by fans at an opposing team’s stadium. I kind of shut out everything except the minute details of the task in front of me. For example, how much is the pitcher that I’m facing sweating? Is the wind making the flags at the back of the stadium blow at all? Is the bat I’m holding positioned at the perfect angle? Zoning in on the particulars allows me to block out any distractions. I call it focused detachment. The only downside is that it makes me into a bit of a stone-faced zombie. Some people say I come across as an emotionless jerk. I’m hoping that if I can go to that place in my head right now, I can answer your questions without completely losing it emotionally.”

“Got it,” Brady said.

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