Page 26 of The Perfect Illusion (Jessie Hunt #39)

The traffic was much worse on the way back west.

As she got closer, she allowed herself a moment to take in the home in question. This stretch of Santa Monica, just north of Montana Avenue, was all giant, impressive homes. The Walters’s place, on Georgina Avenue, was no different.

It was a three-story modern, with curved metal surfaces colliding into more traditional wooden exteriors. Though it was set well back from the street, Jessie was surprised to find that there was no gate protecting it from passersby with ill intent.

“Jessie Hunt,” Brady said as she arrived. “This is Dr. George Baines. He was just informing me of his preliminary conclusions. Can you repeat them for Ms. Hunt, Doc?”

Baines nodded.

“Based on body temperature and lividity, I’m estimating that the victim was killed sometime between 1:30 and 2:30,” he said.

“It will be clear when you see the body, Ms. Hunt, but the manner of death was by a knife slice to the throat, likely with a serrated blade, based on the wound. There was no immediate sign of struggle, which suggests to me that the victim may have been attacked from behind and never known her assailant was there until it was too late.”

"Thanks, Doc," Brady said. "Unless Ms. Hunt has additional questions, we'll let you get back to it.

“Not right now, thanks,” Jessie said, “but I do have some questions for my partner.”

Baines returned to the house without another word.

“Where do you want to start?” Brady asked.

“First of all, do we even have jurisdiction on this thing?” she asked. “I noticed that Baines had a Santa Monica logo on his lab coat and I know the SMPD can be proprietary.”

“One of the SMPD officers who was first on the scene noted that the scene was similar to the ones from our other victims, so he called his bosses. They informed me and said that if I felt it was one of ours, they’d hand it over.

They didn’t say it out loud but I’m sure they were happy to be rid of it.

If LAPD takes over, it becomes part of our case closure stats, not theirs.

And no one wants an open serial killer case on their books.

As to the M.E., he was already here when I arrived so I figured we may as well let him continue his work. ”

“Makes sense,” Jessie agreed. “How did it get called in?”

"A neighbor noticed Walters's car in the driveway with the trunk open for a while.

When she walked over, she saw two grocery bags sitting there, so she went to the front door of the house to give a heads up.

She rang the bell, but when no one answered, she noticed that the door was slightly ajar.

She pushed it open more and saw what looked like blood droplets on the foyer tile.

So she went in and found the victim. Then she ran out and called 911. "

“Should we go in so I can get a look?” Jessie asked.

“Sure,” Brady said as they approached the house. “Just be aware that the husband, Frank Walters, is on his way over now and could be here soon.”

“Where was he?”

“In the OR,” Brady explained. “He’s a heart surgeon. How’d it go with Hughes, by the way?”

“I don’t think she’s going to end up being our killer,” Jessie conceded. “I’m having the officer who was with me check up on her alibi for this afternoon, but even without one, it’s hard to believe she could have made it from here to her downtown office in the time she would have had.”

“Too bad it didn’t pan out,” he said sincerely, not engaging in any of the “I told you so” commentary that he would have been justified in busting out. That wasn’t Brady’s style and right now, Jessie was glad for it.

She was already doubting her own instinct to press so hard to pursue Diana Hughes.

In the moment, the lead seemed reasonable but Jessie feared that she’d projected her own attitude about retribution onto the woman.

And then, when Hughes became difficult, she’d allowed her frustration to nearly boil over. It hadn’t been her finest moment.

Brady pushed open the front door, leading to a giant foyer with marble tile.

On the floor were small, numbered cards next to multiple blood drops.

She followed the detective past them and into a massive living room, where Jessie noted someone lying on a couch, surrounded by multiple crime scene techs.

Even from this distance, fifty feet away, she could see that the couch and nearby carpet were soaked in blood.

“We think the actual murder was committed in the kitchen,” Brady said.

“The blood is worse in there. It’s all over the walls, as if Walters was upright when she was attacked.

There’s a messy trail of blood from there out to the couch, suggesting the killer dragged her out here while she was still bleeding out and then positioned her on the couch. ”

Jessie walked over to the sofa, and the CSU folks stepped aside to let her pass. What she saw there made her heart sink. She hadn't had time to learn much about the victim. But she knew that the blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman on the sofa in front of her was only 25 years old.

The ugly slice along the front of her throat did nothing to diminish the casual beauty of Walters’s face, which had an unexpectedly serene expression. The rest of her was less composed. The entire front of her torso, from her plaid shirt to her jeans, was drenched in blood.

She wore no sash or tiara. Between that and the casual clothes, one might not have connected her murder to the others, except that she had been carefully positioned, just like the other two victims. Plus, there was the "younger woman married to an older, wealthy man" element.

“What do we know about her?” Jessie asked quietly. “I was getting text updates from Jamil as I drove over, but didn’t get a chance to look at them.”

“Caroline Walters, age 25,” Brady began. “She taught kindergarten at a public school in Mar Vista, about a half hour from here. Was previously married to Kenny Madrona, though they got divorced about eighteen months ago.”

“Why does that name sound familiar?” Jessie asked.

“He’s on the Formula 1 racing circuit, though he’s not very successful,” Brady said.

“But I’m guessing you know him because he’s the son of Ephraim Madrona, a big-time shipping magnate.

Kenny was always popping up in the tabloids as a teenager for getting into trouble.

He and Caroline met in college and got married. "

“Did she do the pageant thing?” Jessie wondered.

“Not as far as Jamil and Beth can tell,” Brady said, “though she did a fair bit of modeling in high school and college. After she dumped Madrona, she met Frank Walters. It was a whirlwind courtship, according to the news items Beth found. They got married ten months ago. But unlike the other victims, she never quit her job.”

Jessie looked into Caroline Walters’s empty blue eyes, and pictured the principal at her school having to somehow explain to a group of five and six year olds that their teacher would never be coming back.

A wave of pained empathy washed over her, but it was quickly replaced by an upsurge of fury.

Her whole body quaked in anger at the person who snuffed out this young woman.

She had to turn away so that Brady couldn’t see her quivering with rage.

“Where’s Kenny Madrona now?” she asked, making sure her voice didn’t betray her emotions.

“We’re looking for him,” Brady said. “But we only discovered his connection to her about fifteen minutes ago, so it’s early times.”

“I assume that Benjamin Moran was Madrona’s divorce lawyer?”

“Actually, no,” Brady said. “That was one of the first things Jamil checked on. Madrona used a completely different firm.”

Jessie was stumped by that one.

“Let’s go back outside,” she said. “I want to hash this out.”

She waited until they were back in the front of the house again before sharing her thoughts.

“This is weird,” she said. “Yes, the positioning of the body is the same as with the others. And the marriage situation comports as well. But there’s a different divorce lawyer entirely, basically blowing up that whole line of inquiry.

And the scene itself doesn’t match cleanly either.

Not only is there no sash or tiara, but no pageant connection with Caroline at all, essentially making all those leads moot too.

That doesn’t even account for the fact that this time, the killer brought their own weapon, that the attack took place in broad daylight and that the time between killings seems to be accelerating.

It’s like everything we thought we knew has gone up in smoke. ”

Before Brady could respond, they both heard a loud screech. Turning around, Jessie saw a man in his early fifties hop out of a bright red Rivian R1S and rush over.

The frenzied expression on his face made her nearly certain that it was Frank Walters.