Blake Pierce - The perfect look

Jessie stepped closer to the body, making sure to avoid all the evidence markers on the carpet.

“No obvious defensive wounds,” she noted. “No scratches on his hands. No bruising on his fingers.”

“Hard to imagine he’d just lie there and take a choking, unless it was part of a sex game. Of course, we’ve seen that before,” Ryan said, referring to a complicated case involving S&M that they’d solved recently.

“Or he could have been drugged,” Jessie countered, pointing at the empty glass lying on the desk near another evidence marker. “If something was slipped in his drink, he might not have been able to put up a fight.”

“So I guess we’re ruling out suicide,” Ryan said as he moved closer to the body.

“If he did this himself, that would be a pretty impressive accomplishment,” Jessie said.

She watched as Ryan’s expression changed from amusement to curiosity.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I think I recognize this guy.”

“Really?” Jessie said. “Who is he?”

“I’m not sure. I think he might be a local politician, maybe on the city council?”

“We should check his photo against local pols and other officials,” Jessie suggested.

“Right,” he agreed. “If that bears out, then we can’t rule out a political motivation.”

“True. It could be that someone was unhappy with a vote he’d recently cast or was about to. Of course, one would think that just showing him photos of himself drugged and naked in a hotel room would have been equally effective.”

“Good point,” Ryan acceded. “Maybe it was intended as a message to someone else.”

“Also a possibility,” Jessie said as she looked around the room for something she might be missing. “But I would have thought that as far as messages go, two bullets to the back of the head would have been more impactful. I think we need to find out who this guy is before we can draw any real conclusions.”

Ryan nodded his agreement.

“Why don’t we go down to the front desk,” he said. “Let’s see what they can tell us about John Smith.”

The desk agent who had checked in “John Smith” of City Logistics had ended his shift at six a.m. and had to be called back in. While they waited for him to arrive, Ryan instructed the security office to pull up all video footage from the time of check-in and any key card swipes of the dead man’s hotel room door.

Jessie sat in the lobby with Ryan and waited, watching the ebb and flow of the hotel routine. Some folks were checking out. But most were either tourists milling about or people in business attire headed out for what looked to be “titans of industry”–type stuff.

She knew the desk agent had arrived the second he walked in. Dressed in blue jeans and a casual shirt, the twenty-something, acne-faced kid looked like he’d been woken from a deep slumber and barely had time to throw on clothes, much less brush his hair. He also had another characteristic that seemed to envelop him like an invisible coat: fear.

Jessie tapped Ryan and pointed at the guy. They got up and reached him just as he approached the desk. He waved down a manager, who motioned for him to go to the end of the counter away from the guests.

“Thanks for coming in, Liam,” the manager said.

“No problem, Chester,” the kid said, though he looked put out. “You said it was urgent. What’s this all about?”

“Some folks have a few questions for you,” Chester said, following Jessie’s instructions not to be specific about the reason Liam was being called in.

“Who has questions?” Liam asked.

“We do,” Ryan said from behind him, startling the young guy and making him jump a little.

“Who are you?” Liam asked, trying to sound tough and failing.

“My name is Ryan Hernandez. I’m an LAPD detective. This is Jessie Hunt. She’s a criminal profiler for the department. Why don’t we go somewhere private where we can talk freely?”

For half a second, Liam looked like he might run for it. Then he seemed to get his bearings.

“Yeah, okay, I guess.”

“There’s a small conference room at the end of that hall,” Chester the manager said. “It should afford you some privacy.”

When they got into the conference room with the door closed and everyone had taken their seats, Liam seemed to tense up again. It might have been having two law enforcement officials staring at him, or not knowing why he was being questioned, or the strange white noise being pumped into the otherwise silent room. Jessie suspected it was a combination of all of it. Whatever the reason, Liam couldn’t contain himself.

“Is this about the beer cases?’ he blurted out. “Because I was told it was extra stock and would be thrown out so it was no big deal if I took them.”

“No, Liam,” Ryan said. “It’s not about cases of beer. It’s about a murder.”

Liam’s jaw dropped open so far that Jessie worried it might unhinge from his face.

“What?” he asked when he was finally able to speak again.

“A guest was murdered here last night,” Ryan said. “And it appears that you checked him in, though there’s some confusion about that. We were hoping you could clear it up.”

Liam gulped hard before responding.

“Of course,” he said, apparently happy that he was no longer under suspicion about the beer.

“Yesterday evening at nine thirty-seven, you checked in a man identified only as John Smith. The card associated with the transaction was listed under a company called City Logistics, which appears to be a shell company.”

“What does that mean?” Liam asked.

“It means,” Ryan said, “that the company is owned by another company which is owned by another company, all with multiple people listed as executives, each of whom seem to be lawyers known for setting up shell companies.”

“I don’t get it,” Liam said, looking genuinely confused.

“Liam,” Jessie said, speaking for the first time,” this means that the person who gave you the credit card didn’t want his real name connected with booking the room, so he used this company card with the complicated history. That’s probably why he signed in as ‘John Smith.’ And since the card was never charged, I’m assuming he paid for the room in cash, correct?”

“That sounds like someone who checked in last night,” Liam conceded.

“But here’s what I don’t get,” Jessie pressed. “Even if he paid in cash, the card would have been charged for incidentals like the small bottle of brandy from the mini-bar. How did that get paid for?”

“If we’re thinking of the same guy,” Liam said timidly, “it might be because he slipped me two hundred dollars and said any incidental charges for the room should be taken out of that. He also said that I could keep whatever was left over.”

“How much was left over?” Jessie asked.

“A hundred eighty-four dollars.”

Ryan and Jessie exchanged glances.

“That’s a lot of money, Liam,” Jessie said. “Why would John Smith leave you such a massive tip? And remember, right now you’re just a potential witness. But if your answers end up being less than truthful, we might have to bump you up to suspect.”

Liam didn’t look like he wanted any part of that.

“Listen,” he said, barely able to get the words out fast enough. “The guy never said anything obvious. But he hinted that he might have a friend visit him that evening and the less of a paper trail there was, the better it would be for him. He wanted to keep things off the books, you know?’

“And you were okay with that?” Ryan pushed.

“It was two hundred dollars, man. Times are tight. Even if he had gotten five mini-brandy bottles, I’m still bringing home north of a hundred bucks for doing nothing. Am I supposed to be the moral judge of whether some dude can use this hotel to meet up with his mistress? Worst-case scenario, he rips the room up and I have the corporate card on file in case of emergencies. I figured it was a no-lose situation.”