Page 42 of The Perfect People

“Oh yeah,” Jessie said. “We’ve been so focused on this that I totally forgot about it. Tell us.”

“It wasn’t great,” Beth said. “There were three high-profile singers, all clients of Shasta Mallory, on the front steps, railing against the department, saying that if she was more famous, we’d have already solved the case, but that because she worked behind the scenes, we were dragging our feet. They called it a travesty of justice.”

Next to Jessie, Susannah shook her head at no one in particular. A gust of ocean breeze blew hair into her face, and she angrily brushed it aside.

“They do realize that we’re only involved in the case in the first place because of celebrity hectoring,” she said, frustrated. “This beach town isn’t even in our jurisdiction, and until this second murder added a potential serial killer element, her death wouldn’t have fallen under HSS’s purview.”

“Actually, they never specifically mentioned HSSorthe second murder,” Beth said. “They were so intent on attacking the police department in general that those things never came up.”

“I’ll take that as a win,” Jessie said. “Once HSS gets mentioned, the media’s ears always prick up. We lucked out on that front.”

“Not only that,” Beth added. “From the news reports that I’ve seen, the press hasn’t made the connection between the two cases yet. None of them focus on where Shasta Mallory was killed. They’re all about her famous clients. And the stories about Nicole Boyce spend so much time on her surfing and modeling careers that they barely reference her being killed in her South Bay home. I haven’t heard a single word about Manhattan Beach, strangulation, or house parties.”

“That won’t last long,” Jessie said. “Someone is bound to make one of those connections soon. And if there’s another attack tonight, this place will be ground zero for the media. Speaking of which, do we know how many of these big house parties there are along the Strand every night?”

Susannah’s eyes got wide, clearly remembering her personal experience.

“Back when I was coming here a decade ago, it seemed like there was something going on every few houses,” Susannah recalled, before adding, “Then again, my faculties were a little fuzzy at the time.”

“It depends on the night,” said Jamil, who was apparently back. “As they get deeper into the weekend, there are more parties, and they get bigger. Tonight is Saturday, so I’d guess that there will be at least half a dozen major house parties along the Strand, maybe as many as ten. A few of them will likely be even bigger than Shasta Mallory’s.”

Jessie squinted in the early afternoon sun, looking down the long stretch of beach from the Manhattan Beach Pier to the Hermosa Pier and beyond. The entire stretch was littered with enormous homes as far as the eye could see. The sight was daunting.

For half a second, she considered asking Sergeant Breem if there was any way to just cancel all the house parties this weekend. But then she thought better of it. The small beachside police department didn’t have the resources to enforce such a draconian measure, even if it was willing to try. And it was unlikely that the wealthy denizens of the community would stand for that kind of restriction anyway. These parties were going to happen, regardless of the threat.

“Then we really need to find this guy quick,” she said. “If we’ve come up empty by this evening, that’s multiple potential crime-scenes-in-waiting.”

“Here’s hoping I’m about to help with that,” Jamil said. “Our prime suspect in the Peeping Tom case was a guy named Cyril Currie. He was found in the immediate area of three of the five reported incidents soon after they were called in but could never be tied to any of them so he walked every time.”

“That’s promising,” Jessie said. “What else do you have on him?”

“He fits the basic description of your choking attacker in the two incidents,” Jamil replied, “which was ‘white, medium height, in decent shape, under fifty.’ Obviously, because of the disguises, we can’t narrow it down much beyond that. But Currie is Caucasian, thirty-three years old, five feet ten, and 180 pounds. It’s not a total reach.”

“It’s better than what we had two minutes ago,” Jessie told him. “Where can we find Cyril Currie?”

“According to the info on file, he works at a branch of First Coastal Credit Union on Sepulveda, just south of Rosecrans,” Jamil said.

Jessie turned away from the ocean view to see if Susannah was ready to go meet their latest lead. She shouldn’t have been surprised by what she saw. Her partner had already started sprinting back to the police station and the car.

“Thanks, guys,” Jessie said.

Then she hung up and started running too.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Hannah could feel the eyes on her.

She and the rest of the Wildpines crew were at an outdoor beachside café, all seated around a large circular table. The others were digging into their food, and she pretended to be just as interested in her strawberry-banana smoothie and the big basket of truffle fries they were splitting as everyone else. But her attention was elsewhere, on the man at the small table thirty feet away from her.

It was the first time today that she’d felt uncomfortable. The morning had been delightful, with a late morning wakeup, a light breakfast at the beach house, and the next several hours spent either on the sand or in the water. She’d napped in the sun, played keep-away with the waves, tried her hand at building a sand castle, boogie-boarded, and sat under a big umbrella, discussing fall college plans with everyone.

But now, getting a mid-afternoon snack in the shaded café with everyone chatting around her, she couldn’t enjoy the moment. All she could think about was Jessie’s warning from last night and how potential danger lurked around every corner. She wasn’t mad at her sister for reminding her. That was her job. She was just pissed that she had to constantly be on alert. And in that moment she decided to do something about it.

Hannah took one last sip of her smoothie, stood up, and walked over to the guy’s table. As she did, she took a moment to study him more closely than she could when she was taking furtive half-glances at him.

The guy, who was sipping a beer and nibbling at a salad, had curly brown hair, fair skin, and wire-rimmed glasses. Though he was seated, she could tell from the way he was sprawled out in the plastic chair that he was lanky in an awkward, baby giraffe kind of way. She stopped at his table and glared at him. To her surprise, he met her eyes, unembarrassed.

“Why do you keep staring at me, man?” she demanded.

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