She had long black hair and skin that was somehow still dark despite the ghostly imprint of death. Her lips were full and her features were delicate in an almost sculpted way. She didn’t appear to be wearing any makeup. She was breathtakingly beautiful.
Her eyes were closed. Because she was lying on her back, the wound to her skull wasn’t visible. Were it not for the red stain underneath her head, she looked like might be asleep.
Jessie sighed silently to herself. Another young life snuffed out before it had really gotten started. It was seeing exactly this sort of thing that made her skeptical that a full-time return to HSS would be good for her mental health.
“We didn’t want to bag her until you got to take a look,” Rhonda Ziegler said quietly.
“I think it’s okay now, don’t you, Jessie?” Karen asked.
Jessie was about to agree when she noticed something on Rutherford’s chest, just at the edge of where the mini dress top stopped. It was a black speck of some kind.
“What’s that?” she asked pointing at it.
Everyone looked closer.
“Is that a fly?” Ziegler asked.
The forensic tech closest to Rutherford bent down. She looked up at Jessie and held up her gloved hand.
“Should I?” she asked.
Jessie nodded. The tech carefully pulled back the top of the dress. On the woman’s left breast, just above her areola, was a word tattooed in tiny black scripted letters. Only it wasn’t a word Jessie had ever heard before.
It read: twil.
CHAPTER FOUR
“What does ‘twil’ mean?” Rhonda Ziegler asked.
Jessie shook her head.
“I have no idea.”
“Can you get photos of that too?” Karen asked the tech with the camera.
While they took the remaining photos and bagged the body, Jessie, Karen, and Rhonda moved over to the dining table.
“Is there anything else we should know about?” Karen asked. “Any video footage? Witness statements?”
“I have people reaching out to the staff right now. Give me a minute and I’ll have them check in.”
They left her alone to make her calls, stepping into the bedroom to see if there was anything worthwhile there. The bed was still made, which didn’t shock Jessie. If Rutherford was murdered last evening, she likely wouldn’t ever have made it to the bedroom. It did at least suggest that her activities in the room hadn’t been amorous.
Jessie poked her head in the bathroom, which offered nothing suggestive. There were hygiene and hair care products on the counter, along with some makeup and a package of disinfectant wipes. Nothing seemed unusual.
“Hey, check this out,” Karen said from the bedroom.
Jessie looked over to see her holding up a book from the bedside table.
“What’s that?”
Before the detective could reply, Rhonda Ziegler poked her head in.
“I’ve got updates for you,” she said, “Lots of them.”
They returned to the living room, where two new officers were standing by the front door, along with a hotel staffer in a lavender vest.
“Frye, Greggs, come on over. Mr. Almeida, if you could just wait there for a moment, please.”
Frye, a terrified, pimply-faced officer in his mid-twenties with curly, red hair, and Greggs, a thirty-something black officer who looked like he’d been on duty all night, joined them.
“Tell them what you learned, Frye,” Rhonda instructed.
“Yes, Sergeant,” he said, his voice squeaky with nerves. “I checked the hotel surveillance system. Everything looks fine up until 10:15 p.m., when the feed cuts out to this floor and elevator number three.”
“How long was it out of commission?” Jessie asked.
“Exactly one hour, until 11:15,” Frye replied. His face had turned a shade of bright pink.
“Well that’s suspicious,” Karen said.
“It could be,” Frye muttered under his breath.
“Could be?” Jessie repeated. “What do you mean?”
Frye’s face was now suddenly more red than pink.
“I just mean that, yes—of course, it’s quite a coincidence that the cameras went out during the window of death for the victim. But it could be a legitimate coincidence too. According to the guy on duty in the control room, these cameras go down pretty often. He says that it happens at least a couple of times a week, maybe more. And when it does, it takes a full hour for the individual cameras to reboot. That doesn’t mean someone didn’t do it on purpose. But he says the system’s so old that it would be impossible to tell.”
“Okay,” Jessie said. “Can we have them collect footage from the other elevator cameras and the lobby footage for that window of time? Maybe something will pop.”
“Yes ma’am. They’re transferring it for us now.”
“Thank you, Frye,” Rhonda said, before turning to the other officer. “What about you, Greggs?”
“Yes, Sergeant,” he said, stepping forward slightly. “When we were up here earlier, Frye mentioned that he recognized the victim from some of her online videos. It got me thinking that someone who posted so much might have given some insight about her situation leading up to the moment of her death. So I started looking around for her phone but couldn’t find it anywhere, which struck me as odd. What social media star is ever without her phone?”
“Good point,” Jessie mused.
“Thanks,” he said. “So I checked with the front desk and got the number she used when checking in. I have it and thought I’d dial it while I was up here, in case it’s somewhere out of sight.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Rhonda said, “Any objections?”
No one had any so Greggs dialed the number and put the call on speaker. They all heard it ring six times but there was no corresponding sound anywhere in the suite. The call went to voicemail and Addison Rutherford’s calm, sunny voice filled the room.
You’ve reached Addison. I’m not available right now. Share your truth and I’ll respond in kind. Wishing you potential unlocked. Talk soon.
The message ended with a beep. Greggs hung up.
“What the hell was that?” he said.
Jessie glanced over at Karen and the look in her partner’s eyes suggested she knew but wasn’t comfortable saying anything with so many people around.
“More importantly, where’s her phone?” Rhonda asked.
“We’ll have our tech guy get on it right away,” Jessie said. “If anyone can locate it, it’s him. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find it in the killer’s car. Can I get that number, Greggs?”
He gave it to her as Rhonda motioned for Mr. Almeida to come over. Calling him “Mister” was generous. Jessie doubted he was much older than Hannah.
“My understanding is that you have information to share, sir,” Rhonda said.
“I already told that guy everything,” he said uneasily, pointing at Greggs.
“Mr. Almeida gave me a formal statement earlier,” Greggs explained before to turning to the kid, “Eli, just tell the folks what you told me, okay?”
Eli seemed to calm down a little at the sound of his first name. After gulping hard, he nodded.