Page 15 of The Perfect Deception
She tried to find a place to put the rage that was trying to gurgle up through her system.If she was going to function as a profiler and a person, she had to get a handle on this.
She remembered what one of her therapists in Taormina had told her: if she was going to get justice for the victims in her cases, she needed to remain level-headed.Getting furious did them no good.And it didn’t help her either.She felt eyes on her and turned to see that Ryan was staring at her apprehensively.
“How are we doing?”he asked gently.
She appreciated the concern but that wasn’t her priority right now.A dead woman was lying in front of her, the second victim in one night of what appeared to be a serial killer.
“I’m ready to get to work.
CHAPTER TEN
When Jessie allowed herself to stand up and stretch for the first time in hours, she noted that the first flecks of dawn were starting to appear in the eastern sky.She glanced at her phone.It was 5:39 A.M.
“I’m going to the courtyard for a few minutes to clear my head,” she said to Ryan, who was hunched over his desk, studying the preliminary report from the medical examiner.
He nodded absent-mindedly, his eyes never leaving the screen.He seemed so intent on what he was reading that she wasn’t even sure if he’d heard her.She didn’t take offense as she was the same way when she really focused in.
She left the bullpen and walked down the hall leading to the courtyard in the center of the rectangular building that was LAPD’s downtown Central Police Station.Even though it was early July, the air at this time of the morning was still pleasantly cool.Jessie breathed it in as she walked over to the small bench at the base of a large tree in the center of the courtyard.Rather than sit down, she gripped the back of the bench with her left hand while she bent her right leg back and grabbed her foot.She pulled up, feeling the stretch in her quad.
As she worked the muscle loose, she tried to process what they knew so far about the murders.According to the M.E, Cassandra Dominik’s death was between 8 and 10 last night.The preliminary report on Olivia Maplewood’s death, which Ryan was currently poring over, pegged her time of death with less certainly, in the 7 to 11 P.M.range, making it unclear which woman had been killed first.
The bloodwork on Cassandra had come back and indicated that she had indeed been drugged with what deputy medical examiner Gallagher believed was an injectable sedative.That opened up the possibility that she’d been sedated elsewhere, maybe even in her own home, and later moved to the bed at the Maplewood’s.Tests were still being done on Olivia to see if she had the same thing in her system.
One thing they did seem to have in common—the wounds to their neck seemed to have been caused by the same knife, which Gallagher suspected was a standard carving knife from any household knife block set.Notably, no knife was missing from either victim's home, suggesting that the killer brought it with them.
They couldn’t be sure of that because neither house had surveillance cameras as part of their security systems.In fact, soon after Jamil arrived at the station for work at 5 A.M, he quickly made a discovery: while the Dominik’s system had standard features, the Maplewood’s was over two decades old and only had a single sensor on the front door.
The crime scene units at both houses hadn’t released their reports yet, but Jessie wasn’t optimistic that they would reveal anything shocking about unexpected fingerprints or DNA at either home.In the interim, she’d been trying to discover additional connections among the couples.
When Beth Ryerson, Jamil's deputy, came in at 6, she'd be able to help with that, as would Hannah, who would show up around 8.But for now, Jessie had been poring over everything that she could find on club memberships in common, vendors they both used, and even potential online communication.It was a lot to review, and she was pretty sure that the combination of lack of sleep and having been off the job for two months was making her miss things the researchers would have caught by now.
Jessie switched legs and began stretching her left quad as she pondered what she did know.The victims were of a similar age.Cassandra Dominik, a yoga instructor, was 34.Olivia Maplewood, the interior designer, was 32.The Maplewoods had been married for seven years, the Dominiks for six.Neither couple had children.Both had moved to Lafayette Square in the last two years.
Jamil had resolved one lingering question soon after arriving at the station: James Maplewood’s alibi seemed to hold up.There was footage of him in an O’Hare terminal in Chicago before boarding his flight and later, getting off the plane here in L.A.Traffic cams also showed him driving his Lotus home at the time he had claimed.
That didn’t mean he hadn’t paid someone to kill either Cassandra Dominik, his own wife, or both.Maybe he’d hired a professional to do the job, someone like Ash Pierce.But he hadn’t done it himself.Jessie briefly contemplated aStrangers on a Trainscenario but with Maplewood returning from Chicago and Dominik in San Diego at the time of the murders, that didn’t seem possible.
She and Ryan hoped to get more answers from the husbands—now widowers—soon.Both men were scheduled to come into the station momentarily to answer more questions.But right now, Maplewood was at the hospital.When he had learned about Olivia’s death, he’d had what seemed like a cardiac event.The officer who’d supervised him in the guest bedroom at his house drove him to the emergency room, where doctors determined that he’d actually suffered a panic attack.
He could have been taken in an ambulance, but Ryan had the officer drive him instead.Officially, it was so Maplewood wouldn’t have to wait for the emergency vehicle to arrive.But the real reason was that he wanted someone to keep an eye on Maplewood, in case he was faking and tried to make a run for it.He didn’t do that.
After Jessie and Ryan found Olivia Maplewood’s body in Michael Dominik’s bed, Ryan called the man back.Though he didn’t explain whose body was found where, he told Dominik that his wife had been killed.
The man was distraught and was not in the headspace to ask about the time of death, which might have revealed that Ryan knew Olivia was dead when he called the first time.That detail might come out later but it wasn’t something they had to worry about now.Ryan could bury his guilt over his deception for a while longer.
What did concern them was how to get Michael Dominik back to L.A.He was borderline hysterical and they didn’t want him driving.Ultimately, Dominik remembered that one of the junior execs from his L.A.office was at the San Diego event too and asked if he would drive him back.The younger man agreed and they were currently on their way here, likely to arrive within the half hour.
Jessie had just started doing some squats when Ryan poked his head out into the courtyard.
“Dominik arrived early.He’s here now.And Maplewood just left the hospital and should be here in the next twenty minutes.You up for some interviews?”
She nodded and headed his way.She was up for anything that could get them closer to the truth.And right now, they felt pretty far from it
CHAPTER ELEVEN
They talked to Dominik first.
As Ryan escorted him into interrogation room 1, where Jessie was already waiting, she took silent note of the man.Understandably, he looked a mess.
