Page 24 of The Perfect Obsession
“Okay, in that case, Amanda and I were home last night.I don’t think we did anything special.Just streamed a show or something.The night before?Oh yeah, I met a client for dinner.It ran late.By the time I got home, Amanda was asleep.”
“All right,” Ryan said.“We’ll need to confirm that with your client and the restaurant.And we’ll want to talk to your wife to verify what you’ve told us.”
“Fine.I can get her on the phone right now.She should be home.”
“Actually,” Jessie said as delicately as she could, “We’d like to speak to her before you do.That way, when she confirms what you said, it will have more credibility.”
“But that means you’d be breaking the news about Caroline and Diana to her,” he objected.“I’d rather be the one to do that, to help her deal with it.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Ryan said firmly.“But you can certainly comfort her once we’ve spoken to her.”
“So what, am I supposed to do—follow you and wait in my car in the driveway or something?”
“We’d prefer to handle it another way,” Jessie said, hoping Ryan would go along with her idea.“We’ll have an officer come by here and hang out with you while we go see Amanda.He’ll hold on to your phone to ensure you don’t communicate with her.Then when we’re done, we’ll inform him that you can reach out, either in person or over the phone.”
“This sounds kind of like you’re arresting me,” Krantz said cautiously.“Should I be getting a lawyer?”
“We’re not arresting you,” Ryan said.“We’re just taking precautions to ensure that when we speak with your wife, we get her unadulterated answers, without influence from you.To be honest, the reason we’re here now is because your connections to both women make you a person of interest.But that’s all you are right now.And if everything you’re telling us checks out, it won’t go any further than that.Of course, if you want to call an attorney, that’s your prerogative.But it won’t change how we conduct the interview with your wife.”
Krantz looked like he might argue some more, but then seemed to think better of it.
“Fine,” he said.“Please just be sympathetic when you tell her.This will be rough for her.
After assuring him that they would, Ryan took his phone.They left him in the conference room while they planned their next step.
“We can’t risk him using an office phone to call her,” Ryan said.“So we’ll have to stay here until the officer arrives to watch him.Do you have any preference who we use?”
“How about Devery?”Jessie suggested.“We know he wants to join HSS.This is grunt work, but I bet he’ll be happy to do anything that involves the unit.”
Harper Devery was just a rookie patrol officer at Central Station, but he’d proven to be good at more than grunt work.On a recent case, he’d actually joined her when she caught a killer and proved himself to be cool in what was a tense situation.And just last month, he’d taken down a suspect who lunged at her while she was questioning him.The kid was still fresh-faced and naïve when it came to everything he’d have to deal with in this job, but she thought he’d earned the opportunity to be more involved.
“I’m okay with that,” Ryan said.“Let’s just remind him not to be too much of an eager beaver.I don’t want him to actually try to do any investigative work.This is just babysitting.”
“Let’s be sure to sell it to him that way,” Jessie said sarcastically.“He’ll love it.”
“I’ll let you tell him,” Ryan said.“You’re better than me at smoothing that stuff over.But let’s get him here quickly.The sooner he comes, the sooner we can go talk to Amanda Krantz.”
“Believe me, I know,” Jessie said, pulling out her phone.She noted the time.It was almost 4 P.M.The realization sent a shiver through her.
They had two victims murdered in consecutive days, each of whom had been strangled in the late afternoon or evening.Soon it would be evening again.They needed to move fast, if they weren’t already too late.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Things didn’t go as Jessie had hoped.
It took them another hour to reach Amanda Krantz.First, they had to wait for Officer Devery to arrive at the Bradbury.As expected, he was over the moon at getting to be part of their investigation, even in a tangential way.When he arrived, he was positively glowing.His cheeks were flushed with excitement, and his eyes were full of eager anticipation at being part of the “team.”Per usual, his boyish demeanor was enhanced by his brown hair, which was trimmed close and parted neatly to the right.It almost looked like his mom had brushed it for him.
“Thanks for letting me help out,” he had said giddily.“I promise I won’t let you down.”
“See that you don’t,” Ryan warned with more forcefulness than Jessie thought was required.
Again, she wondered if this was residual upset over the parenthood conversation.Whether it was or not, she wasn’t going to broach the subject, even if it meant others bore the brunt of his frustration.She’d made her position clear.Ryan would eventually have to work through his disappointment, though hopefully not always at others’ expense.
Once they made it clear to Devery that he wasn’t to leave Alexander Krantz unattended until they called him, they headed out to see Amanda.The Krantzes lived in the Hollywood Hills, on a small road in Beachwood Canyon, not far from the “Hollywood” sign.With rush hour traffic and the winding roads up the hill, they didn’t get to the house until after 5.
Because the street was so narrow, they had to pull up onto the curb in front of the house.A large wooden gate hid the home from view, but when they approached, Jessie noticed that it wasn’t latched.So rather than pushing the buzzer, they walked straight in.
The interior courtyard was charming, with a small Zen garden surrounding a central fountain.Other than that, the home looked like a modest one-story house.But Jessie knew it was an illusion.With almost all of these homes built into the hills, the street-facing portion looked normal.But often the houses, built in part on stilts, extended down several floors instead of up.
