Blake Pierce - The perfect look

Jessie couldn’t blame them. The man seemed to cultivate an air of slovenliness. He shuffled toward her, seemingly oblivious to the shirttails sticking out above his rumpled corduroys and the stains on his oversized maroon sweater vest. His gray sports jacket, which hung off him like he was a coat rack, looked like it might swallow him whole.

But if one paid closer attention, other things became clear. Behind the thick glasses, his sharp eyes darted around quickly, taking in his surroundings in an instant. Though his hair was disheveled, he was crisply shaved without a stray piece of stubble. His teeth were still sparkling white and in perfect condition. His fingernails were neatly trimmed and the shoelaces on his well-worn loafers were tied in tight double bows. Garland Moses projected the slapdash look of a Columbo-style senior citizen. But as Jessie knew well, it was all an act.

Moses had been solving some of the hardest murder cases in the country for over forty years. He did it first as part of the FBI’s celebrated Behavioral Sciences Division based out of Quantico, Virginia. Then, in the late 1990s, after twenty years of seeing the worst humanity had to offer, he retired to sunny Southern California.

But within months of his arrival, he was courted by the LAPD to serve as a profiling consultant. He agreed, with several conditions. First, he wouldn’t be a formal employee so he wasn’t subject to the rules and regulations of the department and could come and go as he pleased. Second, he got to pick his own cases. And most importantly to him, he didn’t have to adhere to any dress code.

The department eagerly agreed. And despite his outwardly gruff demeanor or, as one officer called him, “a taciturn, short-tempered asshole,” they never regretted it. Ensconced in his isolated, broom-closet-sized office on the station’s second floor, Moses went about his work, where he could be counted on to solve at least three or four high-profile cases a year, typically ones that stumped everyone else.

For reasons Jessie had never understood, Garland Moses seemed to like her, or at least not outwardly object to her existence, which was pretty much the same thing for him. He’d even given her occasional advice on a few of her cases from time to time.

And though he’d never acknowledged it, she had learned that his recommendation had been instrumental in getting her admission into the vaunted, ten-week FBI Academy, which she’d completed just last year.

The highly selective program brought in the cream of the crop from local police departments to train them in the latest FBI investigative techniques. It was usually only available to seasoned detectives with decorated records. But Jessie, a relative rookie, had somehow been admitted. While there, she not only got to learn from instructors at the world-famous Behavioral Sciences unit, she also underwent intense physical training that included weapons instruction and self-defense classes.

Without question, her success at solving multiple high-profile murder cases, not to mention foiling an attempt on her own life by her ex-husband, had played a role in her admission. But of greater significance was almost certainly the good word put in on her behalf by multiple high-level L.A. law enforcement officials, Moses among them.

As he sat down across from her, Jessie felt certain that he could already sense the purpose for her appeal to meet with him early in the morning outside of work. Despite her nervousness, it was almost a relief. If he could already guess what she wanted, she could dispense with all the niceties, persuasion, and flattery her imminent request would typically require. He was here after all. That meant he was at least mildly interested.

“Good morning, Mr. Moses,” she said as he settled in across from her.

“Garland,” he replied in his signature raspy growl as he waved at the waitress for a coffee. “This better be good, Hunt. You were very cryptic on the phone. I don’t like upsetting my morning routine. And you’ve definitely upset it.”

“I’m pretty sure you’ll find the shakeup worthwhile,” she assured him before deciding to simply launch in. “I need your help.”

“I figured. No one asks to meet with me to discuss china patterns, much to my chagrin,” he said, straight-faced.

Jessie decided to take his crack as a good sign and played along.

“I’m happy to do that later, Garland, if you’ve got a hankering. But for now, my interest is less in tableware and more focused on serial-killing child abductors.”

The server, who had just walked over with her coffee pot, gave Jessie a stunned stare. A cherubic forty-something blonde with “Pam” on her name tag, she quickly recovered, glancing away and filling up Garland’s mug.

“I’m listening,” Garland said after the server left, “as apparently was Pam.”

Jessie decided not to ask how he knew the woman’s name when he’d never looked up at her. Instead she launched into her pitch.

“I’m sure you’re aware that Bolton Crutchfield is still on the loose and that just last week, he kidnapped a seventeen-year-old girl named Hannah Dorsey.”

“I am,” he said, offering nothing further.

He didn’t need to. One didn’t have to be a celebrated criminal profiler to know about the monstrous history of Bolton Crutchfield, who had murdered dozens of people in brutally elaborate ways and who had recently escaped from a psychiatric prison.

“Okay,” she continued. “You may also know that I have a bit of history with Crutchfield—that I interviewed him over a dozen times when he was held at the NRD psych prison, where he told me that my good ol’ pops, the serial killer, Xander Thurman, was his mentor and that they’d been in communication.”

“I knew that too. I also know that, despite his admiration for your father, when it came time to choose between you, he warned you about the threat from your father, potentially saving your life. That must complicate your feelings toward him.”

Jessie took a long sip of her coffee as she pondered how to respond.

“It did,” she finally conceded, “especially since he made it clear that he intended to leave me alone from now on and pursue other interests.”

“A détente of sorts.”

Pam tentatively returned to take Garland’s order.

“I’ll have what she’s having,” he said, nodding at Jessie’s toast. Pam looked disappointed but said nothing and retreated to the kitchen.

“Right,” Jessie said. “Of course, I was reluctant to take the word of a vicious killer that he was going to live and let live. And then he took the girl.”

“That bothered you,” Garland noted, stating what he knew to be obvious.

“It did,” Jessie said. “This was a girl I found being held by my father in a home with her adoptive parents. He was torturing her. She barely survived, as did I. The people who raised her didn’t. So when, only weeks later, Crutchfield kidnapped her and killed her foster parents, it felt…”

“Personal,” Garland completed her thought.

“Exactly,” Jessie said. “And now, after a week of forced leave, a week in which Hannah has been in Crutchfield’s clutches, I’m returning to work today.”

“But there’s a problem,” Garland said leadingly, hinting that Jessie should cut to the chase. So she did.

“There is. The FBI has been assigned the case. I know that when I walk through the police station doors, I will be expressly prohibited from participating because of…my personal connection. But, knowing my own nature after nearly thirty years on this planet, there is no way I’m going to be able to just put it out of my head and go about my normal business. So I thought I’d enlist the assistance of someone who isn’t beholden to the regulations that are about to be handed down to me.”