Page 13 of The Perfect Obsession
“I’ll give him a heads up about what’s going on,” Parker assured her, “But let’s not make any assumptions yet.Get back to me after you’ve been to the scene and have a better sense of whether the deaths are really connected.”
“Will do,” Ryan promised.
That conversation was a half hour ago, which was how long it took to get to the Westside in morning traffic, even with the cherry light and siren.As they pulled up into an empty space on the street across from the Hartwell house, Jessie made a mental note for later.
They were only two blocks away from a home where she’d investigated another killing only two and a half months ago.That victim was Rebecca Martinez, a former Miss San Diego who was married to local Major League Baseball star Kai Cody.Jessie had solved the murder, but the case took on personal significance for her long after the fact.
Indeed, it was relevant to her conversation last night with Ryan about having children.Some small part of her wondered if the universe was trying to tell her something.But as she got out of the car, she set the thought aside, at least until after they’d visited the crime scene.
They approached the house, a giant, modern monstrosity.Unlike some of the older homes on this street, which had some character, this one was cookie-cutter and looked like dozens of other uninspired mega-mansions that had cropped up in the area over the last decade.An officer waiting by the front door saw them and made his way over.
“Detective Hernandez, Ms.Hunt?”Even before he introduced himself, Jessie knew this was Detective Booker’s brother.He was equally tall and burlier but had the same eyes.
“Officer Booker,” she surmised.“Thanks for reaching out.”
“Sure.I guess it was lucky that I was first on the scene and noted the similarities to your case,” he said.None of them mentioned that he only knew about the case because his brother had been complaining about it being taken from him.“I can show you inside if you like.”
“Please,” Ryan said as they started back toward the front door.“What do we know so far?”
“The housekeeper, Carmen Morales, found the body,” he said, guiding them through the foyer and down a long hallway.“We got her initial statement, but she was pretty shaken up.The EMTs had to sedate her a few minutes ago.She said she arrived at 8 A.M.Apparently, she usually comes on Thursdays, but has a thing with her kid tomorrow.She was walking around the house to see what areas needed extra attention when she found Diana Hartwell, 28, seated at the dining room table, unresponsive.”
Jessie glanced over and saw Ryan and took note of the same thing she had.Hartwell was the same age as Caroline Sheffield.It could just be a coincidence, but maybe not.
“This is a big house,” Ryan noted.“Does she live here alone?”
“No,” Booker said.“The husband’s name is Drew Hartwell.According to the housekeeper, he does something in corporate law.Apparently, he’s been gone all week at an out-of-town conference.She gave us his phone number, but we haven’t called yet.We figured you’d prefer to reach out.”
He indicated that they should veer left as the long hallway split into three smaller ones.
“We’ll do that after we’re done here,” Ryan said.“What else do we know about the victim?”
“Not much so far,” Booker said.“Morales said that she was a good boss.Apparently, she doesn’t work but does a lot of fundraising for cancer research.Morales said that when her mom got leukemia, the Hartwells paid for anything that insurance didn’t cover.We’re here.”
He stopped at the entrance to an opulent dining room, complete with a massive chandelier and a table that sat twenty.On the floor next to a chair at one end was the body of a woman with long black hair and pale skin.
“Carmen said that when she found her, she was actually sitting at the table, slumped over, head in her hands.But after she shook her to see if she was okay, apparently Hartwell’s weight shifted, and she slid out of the chair.The M.E.put her on her back after that.”
Jessie looked around the room.The chair that Diana Hartwell had been sitting in faced the room’s entrance.Unlike Caroline Sheffield, who had been seated on a couch and could have been snuck up on from behind, there was no way someone could have approached Hartwell without being seen.That almost certainly meant one thing: she was killed elsewhere, then moved in here.
She looked at the carpet and noticed two long indentations that suggested Hartwell had been dragged in here, still wearing her shoes, leaving marks.
“You thinking she was moved too?”Ryan asked, reading her mind.
“Yep,” she said, pointing at the marks.“I wonder if there’s any significance to that.Is she being posed in this room to make some kind of point?”
“That’s a question I’d love to ask once we have this killer in custody,” Ryan said before turning to Booker.“I noticed a Ring camera out front.Any footage available yet?”
“We’re reaching out to the company,” Booker told them.“I told them to send what they find to the Homicide Special Section.There was no sign of forced entry, and Morales did say the front door was locked when she arrived, but we cannot draw any definitive conclusions from that.She also mentioned that there’s no camera at the side door, so if whoever’s responsible entered that way, we may be out of luck.”
Just then, a middle-aged woman wearing protective plastic covers over her clothes rounded the corner.Jessie recognized her immediately as Deputy Medical Examiner Meg Cronin, who handled many westside cases.In fact, she’d been on the scene when Jessie and Susannah Valentine investigated beauty pageant winner Rebecca Martinez’s murder.
She saw them and nodded in sad recognition.It occurred to Jessie that she’d never encountered the woman outside the presence of a dead body.
“Want the particulars?”she asked without preamble.
“Please,” Jessie said.
“As always, everything is preliminary at this point, but we think the approximate time of death was between 4 P.M.and midnight.I realize that’s a huge window, but when we get to the body this late, it’s difficult to be super accurate.Officer Booker here suggested we check for embedded material in the neck based on the similarities to another case.Sure enough, it appears that stands of what we think was a cashmere scarf or pashmina were there.”
