Page 39 of The Perfect People

“That’s not necessarily true,” Jessie reminded her. “Don’t forget, we have Jamil and Beth checking for possible connections between the two women. They’ve only been at that for a couple of hours. Maybe something will pop. This is an insular community, and they didn’t seem to travel in the same social circle. One was a music manager, and another was a surf legend. If there’s a link, it should become clear soon, whether it be past boyfriends, shared business relationships, overlapping service providers, mutual friends, or something else along those lines.”

“I guess,” Susannah said. “I would have thought they’d have found something by now.”

Jessie didn’t say it out loud but so did she. Jamil had found much more complicated connections in far shorter times. She couldn’t help but wonder if he and Beth were being spread too thin. Her other request, for them to call all potential victims of past killers she’d caught and warn them that they might be in danger, was a massive undertaking. And it wasn’t like they could just say “hey, be careful out there.” They had to be diplomatic in how they alerted people. In retrospect, the ask may have just been too much.

She had another concern too, one she was hesitant to bring up, though she suspected it was silently eating away at Susannah too and was likely part of why she was so irritable. This was two murders in two nights. Did that mean this guy was planning another one for tonight?

“Let’s get out of here,” she said, standing up. “I need to clear my head, and I think it would probably do you some good too. You look like you could explode at any minute.”

“Do we have time for that?” Susannah asked.

“We can still discuss the case,” Jessie assured her. “We’ll just do it while we get some coffee and walk by the beach. We’re down here. We may as well take advantage of our surroundings.”

“It’s too hot for coffee,” the detective grumbled.

“Iced coffee then,” Jessie said, feeling like she was dealing with a petulant child.

That seemed to satisfy Susannah. They walked outside and made the short jaunt down to the main drag along Manhattan Beach Boulevard. It seemed that the moment they rounded the corner, and the ocean came into view, the cloud over the detective’s brain cleared.

“Didn’t your little buddy, Officer Shaw, say something about Nicole Boyce’s husband being jealous?” she asked.

“She did,” Jessie recalled as they stopped at a small coffeehouse and got in line.

“Maybe we should look into that,” Susannah suggested. “Is it crazy to suggest that he might kill Shasta Mallory one night in order to establish a serial killer situation when all along his real plan was to kill his own wife the next night?”

“It’s not crazy at all,” Jessie said, pulling out her phone and calling Shaw. “I only wish I’d thought of it first.”

Shaw picked up on the first ring.

“Shaw here,” the officer said promptly.

“Hey,” Jessie said, putting one AirPod in her ear and handing the other to Susannah so they wouldn’t be overheard by other folks in line, “it’s Jessie Hunt. I’m here with Detective Valentine. We had a question for you. You said earlier that Nicole’s friends were joking about how her husband would be jealous about her getting that massage from the Elvis guy. Do you know what the story is there?”

“Oh yeah, they were just teasing her,” Shaw said. “It’s kind of an inside joke around here. Nicole and her husband have a notoriously stormy relationship. They’re like the South Bay’s own personal soap opera, sort of a beachsideDays of Our Lives. They both get jealous all the time because hot-looking fans are always hitting on them.”

“Both of them?” Susannah pressed.

“Yeah, her husband is Lachlan Restrepo,” she explained. “He’s a big wave surfer who’s almost as famous as she is. But if you’re thinking he might be a suspect, I looked into it. He was doing Indicators and Afulu.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Susannah said, annoyed.

“Sorry,” Shaw said sheepishly. “He was in Indonesia for a surfing competition. Those are both surf spots in the region. But I checked around and one of his long-time buddies told me that someone already called to break the news about Nicole and he’s currently on a flight back. His buddy gave me Lachlan’s direct number. I reached out but it keeps going straight to voicemail, which makes sense if he’s over the Pacific.”

“Okay, thanks,” Jessie said. “Can you send that number to us please?”

“Sure thing,” Shaw said. “I’ll do it now. Oh, and one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“Camera crews from multiple sports networks have arrived out front here,” Shaw said. “I just thought you’d want to know. I figured that if they see you, they’ll know something is up and this will go from being a sad sports celebrity death story to something much bigger. You might want to steer clear.”

“Thanks for the heads-up,” Jessie said.

She hung up as she looked over at Susannah’s scowl and could tell what she was going to object to.

“Come on,” she said before her partner could go there, “I know you’re bummed that your theory about the husband being the killer didn’t pan out. And yes, Shaw should have passed along the info about him being in Indonesia to us so we could reach out to him directly. But you can’t tell me that you didn’t do the same sort of stuff—follow up on leads without authorization—when you were an ambitious beat cop trying to make a name for yourself. Cut the kid some slack. She’s doing half the work for us. Plus, that warning about the press presence at the house was big. The longer we can avoid a media firestorm, the better chance we have of solving this thing before it gets out of control.”

Susannah seemed to relent slightly.

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