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“I think so too,” she said, starting for the mud room door. “And so you know, I was just looking out for a friend.”
“Yeah, well, does your friend know that you’re kind of a psycho?”
Hannah thought about all the sketchy things she’d done in the last couple of years, including basically murdering a man, and wondered just how far off Finn was.
“You have no idea,” she told him as she walked out.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It was getting late.
Jessie didn’t say anything, but she was really feeling it.
She had started this morning thinking her obligations for the day would be minimal. She would just be meeting with Central Station’s new captain, Gaylene Parker, about rejoining HSS soon. But today had unexpectedly turned into her first case in two months, and she’d hadn’t built up the stamina for it.
So far, she’d only suffered a few headaches, all of the smallish variety. But physically, she was wiped out and mentally, she felt like she was getting there too. It was after 11 p.m., a time that, in recent weeks, she would normally be tucked into bed. Instead she was at the station, talking to a street prostitute who might be able to confirm or invalidate a murder suspect’s alibi.
It had taken hours to find Daisy Sunshine, the woman that Harrison Buhner claimed he’d been with last night when his wife was being murdered. Initially she and Ryan were dubious that Daisy even existed. But once they enlisted the assistance of Vice, which Parker formerly led, things moved faster.
While Buhner waited in an interrogation room, not formally under arrest but advised not to go anywhere, the Vice detectives combed through their arrest records for the greater downtown area. After nearly four hours, one of them came across a woman who went by a variety of names including: Love Johnson, Lexi Love, Sunny Love, Sunny Day, and yes, Daisy Sunshine.
According to her file, the woman’s real name was Florence Gravell, a thirty-year-old woman with over two dozen arrests for prostitution, and another half dozen for drug-related charges, though none in the last few months. Jessie and Ryan joined her in a separate interrogation room from Buhner, where they had to wait for her to blow off some steam before finally getting down to business.
“Now you’re bringing me in when I didn’t even do anything!” Gravell objected. “Is it a crime to buy some cigarettes in a corner store these days?”
“Like we already said, Ms. Gravell,” Ryan repeated, “you are not under arrest. In fact, we’re asking for your help.”
“In that case,” Gravell replied, a broad smile spreading across her face, exposing several missing teeth, “what are you gonna give me for it?”
“If you’re information is useful, we may be able to provide you with gift cards to local restaurants,” Ryan offered as if it was a pot of gold. “We would also make a note in your file referencing your assistance. The next time you get yourself in a jam, that note might be your ticket to an easier time of things.”
“Like a ‘get out of jail free’ card?” Gravell asked excitedly.
“Not literally,” he told her, “but it might grease the wheels a little.”
“What do you want to know, darlin’?” she asked, batting her eyes. Apparently that was all that was needed to win her over.
Ryan glanced over at Jessie, who made sure Gravell couldn’t see her before pretending to look jealous for half a second.
“Please look at these photos,” Ryan said with a smile, spreading them out on the table in front of her. “If any of the men in them have ever been your clients, please point them out. You won’t be charged for admitting to anything illegal that you might have done with them.”
“This guy,” Gravell said, pointing at Harrison Buhner’s picture immediately.
“What about him?” Jessie asked.
“I spend time with him,” she replied coyly. “We’ve got a regular thing. He went by Harry. He gives me some…spending money like clockwork and I make sure I’m around when he needs me.”
“When was the last time he needed you?” Ryan pressed.
“Just last night,” Gravell answered. “He called me up and said he wanted to meet up at one of our places, the Hollywood Motor Lodge, at eight. So I was waiting for him when he got there.”
“Did he say where he was coming from?” Jessie wondered.
“Yeah, he said just got in from Vegas, some work thing,” Gravell said. “He blabbed on about it, but I mostly tuned him out.”
“How long were you with him?” Ryan asked.
“All night,” she replied. “He said the missus wasn’t expecting him until today so there was no rush, and we could take our time. We did some new stuff, a little experimenting.”
