Page 42 of The Perfect Appearance

“Absolutely not,” Jessie replied. “technically I’m not even supposed to be looking into this guy on my own. My only justification is that the detectives told me not to talk to any oftheirwitnesses or potential suspects. I figure since they didn’t come up with this name, it doesn’t count. But if I reach out to Banner’s parole officer, then he’ll start asking questions and possibly want to talk to Wagner and Ortega. Until I think this might turn into something, I want to stay under the radar.”

"Understood," Jamil said. "In that case, I can send you his home and work addresses as of two weeks ago. He’s currently living at a pay-by-the-week motel in Sylmar. And his file indicates that he’s been working for a Santa Clarita construction company for the last month.”

“Great,” Jessie told him. “We’ll be waiting. Good job, Jamil. And let us know if you find any other shared patients.”

She hung up, and seconds later, the text with the relevant addresses came in. Grover looked at it too.

“Excellent,” he said. “I see he included contact information for the both the motel manager and the job site foreman. Your guy Jamil is quite comprehensive.”

“That’s why he’s the best,” Jessie replied. “But we’re not calling those folks.”

“Why not?” Grover demanded.

“Same reason we’re not calling the parole officer,” Jessie said. “I don’t want to involve anyone who doesn’t need involvement. It could get back to Wagner and Ortega. Besides, if this guy is innocent, calling and peppering his boss and the manager of the motel where he lives could upend his whole life. I don't want to do that unless we have to.”

Jessie’s attention was briefly redirected to an older couple slowly ambling from the library back to their car. She wondered if she and Ryan would be spending their senior years making Tuesday midday trips to the public library together. She hoped so.

“I hope you’re not proposing what I think you’re proposing,” Grover warned, tearing her out of her domestic fantasy.

“We’re going to go check out Judd Banner for ourselves,” she told him, confirming his suspicions.

“Jessie, that’s a terrible idea for multiple reasons,” he insisted.

“Why?” she asked, already guessing his objections.

“Let’s set aside that getting to Sylmar and Santa Clarita will take over an hour and that, without checking first, the trip might be a total waste of time. More importantly, it doesn’t sound safe, and keeping you safe is my top priority. What if this guy is the killer?”

“Then we’ll call the local authorities, who will arrest him and transport him, giftwrapped, to Wilshire Station,” Jessie explained.

“But determining if he’s the killer will require personal interaction, which I won’t be permitting,” he told her with a finality that she found mildly impressive and very amusing.

“Not necessarily,” she said. “You could approach him first, make sure he’s not a threat, then set up a FaceTime call for me with him. Then I wouldn’t have to personally interact with him at all.”

“Why would this guy consent to such a thing?”

“If he’s the killer, he probably won’t,” Jessie admitted. “That will be revealing in itself. In that case, we’ll just call for backup. Of course, even if he is our guy, he might still agree to talk. Sometimes these people think they can outmaneuver me with what they consider charm. If he’s up for that, so am I. But if Bannerisn’tguilty, my guess is that he’ll want to be as helpful as possible to avoid complicating his post-prison life. We can use that.”

“So you want me to interrogate him?” Grover asked uncomfortably.

"No," she corrected. "I want you to make sure he's not an immediate threat, then set up a chat between me and him. I'll interrogate him. We get answers, and I'm never in danger. What do you say?"

Grover sighed.

“I say that we’re going to need to renegotiate my rate.”

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Ryan was on his fourth cup of coffee.

After the night he’d had, he was surprised he hadn’t twice that many. As he walked down the hall from the Central Station bullpen to the research department, he did his best to clear the cobwebs from his mind.

It would have helped if any of the investigations he was honchoing were making progress. The reason he'd spent the night on a couch at the station rather than in bed beside his wife was a drive-by shooting in front of a popular arts district restaurant. Unfortunately, that shooter was still at large.

Things weren’t much better on the cases involving HSS. Detectives Karen Bray and Jim Nettles, who had gone up to the Bay Area to interview Mark Haddonfield’s mother, had come up empty. The poor woman had a breakdown when they told her he was a serial murder known as the Clone Killer. She had to be taken to the hospital. They were on a flight back to L.A. right now.

But that wasn’t the only bad news. He’d just come from talking to Detectives Susannah Valentine and Sam Goodwin, who’d given him an update on the search for Haddonfield.

“So we don’t even have a sense of whether he’s still in the city?” he’d asked when they told him that they hadn’t gotten a hit on him on traffic cameras since last week, when he’d fled from his university apartment.

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