She pushed away thoughts of how he left the world and tried to focus on how he’d lived in it. A profile in the newspaper had calculated that Garland Moses was responsible for catching at least 1,200 murderers in his career, including over a hundred serial and spree killers. And those were just the ones in the public record.
But his life wasn’t defined exclusively by the cases he solved. Jessie was more inclined to remember other, less celebrated moments. Her thoughts drifted to breakfasts with him at the Nickel Diner—the origin of the voice password to unlock the door—just blocks from the Central Police Station where they both worked.
She recalled how Garland was the one person who seemed capable of making Hannah smile, no matter how foul a mood she was in. The man projected an image of being standoffish and curt. But both sisters had learned it was a front to hide his surprisingly gooey insides. Jessie summoned up memories of the myriad times when he’d bucked her up, expressing confidence in her abilities even when she doubted them.
Feeling tears well up in her eyes, Jessie reached for a tissue in the box on the desk. As she dabbed at them, she noticed something that had escaped her attention the last time she was here. It was a small, metal paperweight in the shape of a coffee mug. On it was a tiny inscription. She picked it up and turned it over in the light to better read the little letters. The words were familiar to her but not ones she would have expected to find on the desk of a man as seemingly unspiritual as Garland Moses. It read:
Whoever kills one life kills the world entire, and whoever saves one life saves the world entire.
Jessie stared at it for a long time. Though he’d never said it out loud, it was clear that, in his own grumbly, unassuming way, this had been his maxim. He’d lived it, even if he never spoke it. She wondered what he’d think of her deleting Captain Decker’s voice message. Would he shake his head in gentle disappointment? What would Ryan say if he could speak right now?
Before she knew what she was doing, Jessie had picked up her phone and dialed Decker’s number.
CHAPTER FIVE
Jessie could tell people were surprised to see her.
As she walked through the station bullpen toward Decker’s office, she thought she caught a few dirty looks too. She pretended not to notice.
When she’d left the department, she’d been formally cleared of having posted racist Facebook comments. Evidence showed that her account, rarely used, had been hacked. But some of her former co-workers clearly still had their doubts. She suspected that was the reason for the nasty glances. But most people just looked shocked to see her three days after she’d officially parted ways with the LAPD.
She knocked on Decker’s door, which was slightly ajar, and waited for a response. Despite her better judgment, she glanced over at the Homicide Special Section unit’s work area. It was currently empty, which suggested everyone was out working a case. Her old desk was bare. Facing it was Ryan’s, which was still covered in papers, as if he’d just left them there to take a coffee break and would be back at any moment.
“Come in,” called out a familiar voice.
She stepped into the office and closed the door behind her. There were two people in the room. Captain Roy Decker stood up behind his desk. He looked somehow appreciably older than when she’d seen him on Friday—tall and skinny, his sunken chest seeming to collapse in on itself. He was sixty but the deep creases in his face made him look closer to seventy. Atop his head, a very few unruly wisps of gray hair clung desperately to his scalp.
Despite all that, he was still somehow formidable. He wore a crisply starched suit and tie, as if he was about to walk into a Fortune 500 company boardroom. His prominent nose twitched slightly, as if actually smelling evidence at that very moment. And his beady, hawklike eyes bored into her, taking stock of her with just one glance.
“Good to see you, Hunt,” he said. “Thanks for coming in. I know Trembley here was glad when I told him.”
Jessie glanced over at Detective Alan Trembley, who was just getting up from the worn-out couch along the wall. Even though they’d both started working at Central Station around the same time two years ago, Jessie couldn’t help but think of him as a rookie. Maybe that was just because he seemed so inexperienced in comparison to Ryan. Or maybe it was because he looked like a full-sized man-child.
Trembley was twenty-nine, only a year younger than Jessie, but he looked like he might still be in college. His curly blond hair was unruly, his glasses were smudged, and his sports coat looked at least two sizes too big, as if he’d borrowed it from his dad. As he stood up, he nervously half-stumbled on his scuffed loafers.
“Hey, Jessie,” he said with a sheepish smile. “Appreciate you helping out.”
“How’s it going, Trembley?” she asked.
“Oh, you know, bananas as usual.”
“Right,” she said, returning her attention to Decker. “So before we go any further, I just want to be clear. I came to hear you out. I’m not making any commitment here. Just so we’re all on the same page.”
Decker nodded.
“I wouldn’t have asked at all but we’re up against it. The entire HSS unit, save for Trembley, is already tied up with other cases. Detective Reid is dealing with two bodies found in L.A. State Park. It looks like they were cut up and the body parts crudely buried all over the area. So that’s fun.”
Jessie said nothing, getting the distinct sense that he wasn’t done. She was right.
“Detective Pointer is handling a spree killing near L.A. Live,” he continued. “With Hernandez indisposed, we even pulled Parker over from Vice to help her out. And with Moses’s passing and your departure, we have a request in for a profiler from another division to help out. We haven’t heard back yet. But to be honest, after having you and Moses at our disposal, I’m not all that excited to bring in the B-team.”
“Understood,” Jessie replied, refusing to be guilted into promising anything. “So what’s the case?”
“I’m going to give you the short version,” Decker answered. “That’s because even though a detective team from Hollywood Station is already on the scene, the folks there are demanding HSS take over.”
“The folks there are demanding?” Jessie repeated incredulously. “I thought you decided what cases Special Section took on.”
“I would have taken this case even if we weren’t asked,” he assured her. “Here’s why: the victim is the actress Corinne Weatherly. Are you familiar with her?”
Jessie searched her memory.
“I know who she is but I can’t say that I’m all that familiar with her work; maybe one or two movies.”
“Trembley can fill you in on that on the way over, assuming you sign on. But it appears she was killed—strangled—on the Sovereign Studios lot sometime last night after she wrapped shooting for the day on a movie. She was only found this morning. Initial indications are that she was killed in her trailer and then moved to the prop department. Apparently when the head moulage artist discovered the body, he didn’t even realize it was real at first. Weatherly was shooting a horror film and the department was littered with fake dead bodies. You can imagine how freaked out he was once he figured out she was both real and dead.”