Page 32 of The Perfect Illusion

“I have one,” Jamil interrupted.

“That’s fast,” Jessie marveled, “but just one?”

"Amazingly, yes," Jamil said. "In almost every case on file, Moran either got his client an advantageous distribution of assets or, at the very least, an equitable one. Except in one case."

“Who is he?” Jessie asked.

“It’s not a ‘he’ actually,” Jamil corrected. “Her name is Diana Hughes. She's 51, a womenswear fashion executive. Worth close to $30 million, according to industry estimates. She got married to a much younger woman two years ago. But it didn't last long. Her wife left her for a guy a year ago. The ex got a large settlement, including alimony. From what I can glean here, the judge wasn’t very sympathetic to Hughes. He seemed to think that she took advantage of her young wife. In fact, he didn’t seem to like adjudicating a lesbian divorce at all. His language is pretty caustic. Regardless, Hughes ended up paying through the nose.”

“How did Moran blunder on this one case and no others?” Brady wondered.

“From what I can tell,” Jamil said. “It looks like he didn’t engage in the vitriolic hyperbole this time around that marked his other cases.”

“Maybe he was being strategic,” Beth suggested. “He might have thought that calling one woman all those names—dirty whore, for example—wouldn’t be as effective when both parties were women.”

“Whatever his reasoning,” Jamil continued, “it didn’t work. By any measure, he lost this one.”

“I’m guessing Diana Hughes didn’t react well,” Jessie mused.

“Your guess would be correct,” Jamil told her. “In the six months since the divorce was finalized, she’s kept very busy. First, she filed suit against Moran for incompetence. She has also been accused of both harassing and stalking her ex. She actually had a restraining order filed against her last month.”

“This sounds promising,” Jessie said, looking over at Brady. To her surprise, he appeared far less impressed. “What’s wrong?”

He sighed before answering.

“I’m just as frustrated as you are about how our leads haven’t panned out,” he replied carefully. “And I’m not saying this one is bad. I just think it doesn’t make sense for our next interview to be with the ex-wife of a woman who isn’t a murder victim.”

“Yet,” Jessie prompted. “She might be saving the most personal kill for last.”

“Possibly,” Brady conceded. “But to be angry at her ex, her lawyer, and maybe even the judge, but take it out on two other women entirely feels like a stretch.”

“It’s a stretch if this is all ‘crime of passion’ stuff,” Jessie insisted, “but if this was well planned out in order to throw us off the scent of the logical suspect while satisfying her urge to kill, it suddenly makes a lot more sense.”

As she spoke, Jessie silently acknowledged to herself that she might be describing herself as much as Diana Hughes. Was she projecting her ever-simmering impulse to exact violent retribution on wrongdoers onto Hughes? It was certainly a possibility, but that didn’t mean she was wrong. But however confident she felt, Brady still looked skeptical.

“Then why dress them up like they were in pageants?” Brady pressed. “What does that have to do with Diana Hughes’s divorce? Was her ex a beauty queen too?”

“Not according to what I see here,” Jamil said. “It looks like she’s done some modeling but was never on the pageant circuit.”

“Look,” Jessie said in frustration. “The connection to the pageant stuff might end up being clear cut. Or it could ultimately only be explained via the mindset of our killer. We might not be able to truly understand the motive until we catch this person.”

“I understand,” Brady said, sounding irritated himself, “but I think we should start with the low-hanging fruit before we try to snag one on a branch high up.”

“Maybe you guys should see what Captain Parker thinks is the best path forward,” Beth suggested, clearly trying to smooth things over.

But Jessie wasn’t in the mood to wait around for a decision from her boss, who didn’t know all the intimate details of the case and might not put as much stock in Jessie’s intuition as she might hope.

“That’s okay,” she said, standing up from the conference table. “We don’t have to agree on everything. Brady, you stay here and work with Jamil and Beth to determine which pageant-related folks are the best suspects. In the meantime, I’ll go have a friendly chat with Diana Hughes.”

“Hold up,” he said. “You shouldn’t go talk to her alone just in case she is our killer.”

“I realize that I’m just a profiler and not a cop, but I can take care of myself,” she told him. “Besides, if Hughes is innocent, she might be more forthcoming if she doesn’t have a detective in her face. And if she’s guilty, she might get overconfident without you there and let something slip.”

“Or she could just grab something heavy and whack you in the skull, which has been concussed multiple times,” Brady reminded her. “Ryan would kill me if I let you go alone.”

“Then I won’t go alone,” Jessie told him, knowing that her pride was now bordering on petulance. “Jamil, where’s Hughes’s office?”

“It’s downtown,” he said, “not too far from here, at the edge of the garment district.”

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