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Officer George’s phone rang.
“Not a problem,” Jessie said. “I’ll be over with the HSS folks whenever she’s ready.”
Officer George nodded hurriedly and picked up the phone. Jessie turned to head back to Susannah and Nettles when she saw Ryan walk through the bullpen door. He had the same stressed expression as George, which told Jessie that he was somehow involved in what was happening. She walked straight over to him.
"Morning, honey," she said, giving him a peck on the cheek before she began the interrogation, “what’s going on?”
“A new case just came in,” he said. “Parker called me in the middle of my session with Lemmon and asked me to come in right away. I don’t know any details other than that it’s based on the West Side and that they thought it was HSS-worthy.”
Before Jessie could question him further, Parker’s door opened, and the captain stepped out. Gaylene Parker exuded an authority that was at odds with her physical bearing. Though the forty-four-year-old mother of two wasn’t physically imposing, she had presence.
Rising up from a street officer to an undercover detective who often posed as a prostitute, she’d eventually been promoted to head of the Vice unit, a job she’d held for four years until getting the nod as captain.
“Detective Hernandez, may I have a word?” she asked before noting Jessie’s presence. “Oh, Ms. Hunt, we were supposed to talk this morning, weren’t we?”
“That’s all right,” Jessie told her, accompanying Ryan as he walked over. “It sounds like you’re dealing with a more pressing matter.”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Parker said, “we’re being asked for help with a case out of West L.A. Division. They specifically requested HSS.”
“Mind if I sit in on the update?” Jessie asked, surprising herself with her boldness. “Maybe I can offer some insight.”
Parker looked over at Ryan.
“Detective, do you have a problem with that?”
Ryan shrugged with faux ambivalence.
“Always happy to get the analysis of the department’s foremost criminal profiler,” he replied, though Jessie sensed that he didn’t love her insinuating herself into the situation when she was still on medical leave.
“Come on in then,” Parker said.
They followed her into her office. It was the first time Jessie had been there since it changed hands from Ryan. While he was captain, he’d left the place just as it had been when the former captain—now chief of police Roy Decker—had run the station.
But now it looked dramatically different. Gone were the folding metal chairs for visitors and the ratty, decades-old leather couch that once rested against the back wall for as long as Jessie could recall.
In their place were two hand-crafted wooden chairs with cushioned seats and a new couch with a welcoming gray and beige pattern. The office had also been repainted. Instead of dull white, smudge-stained walls, the color was a pleasantly inviting cream.
Jessie glanced over at Ryan, wondering how he felt about the changes, but he didn’t give any indication that he noticed or cared. They both sat in the wooden chairs while Parker closed the door and moved behind her desk, which was also new, as was her own chair. Photos of her husband and kids covered the desk. She leaned in for a moment, studying her monitor before looking up.
“I won’t waste time with preliminaries,” she said. “About forty-five minutes ago, a woman’s body was found just off an isolated road near National Veterans Park. You’ll get the particulars at the scene, Detective Hernandez, but all indications are that she was murdered. The identification on her gave her name as Ava Martell. Does that mean anything to you?”
“I’m afraid not,” Jessie conceded.
“The last name sounds familiar,” Ryan said. “Wasn’t Martell the name of the couple on that sitcom from the nineties?”
Jessie looked at him, surprised.
“What?” he said defensively. “That’s where my head went. When I was in elementary school, the television was my primary babysitter, and that show was like my Binkie. Am I right?”
“That’s correct, Detective," Parker told him. “William and Marina Martell created and starred in Bundle of Trouble. Ava was their daughter. Apparently, she appeared in a few episodes as the neighborhood friend of one of the couple’s kids on the show. But she moved into producing as an adult. She wasn’t a celebrity, but her parents were, and she had a sizable nest egg. West L.A. division thinks that once word gets out, there will be a media frenzy, so they figured they ought to hand over the case from the get-go.”
“That makes sense,” Ryan said. “I can be at Veterans Park by 8:30 if I leave now.”
“Sounds good,” Parker replied, “but who would you partner with? Detectives Bray and Goodwin are still working the bank case.”
“Neither Valentine nor Nettles are cleared for field duty,” Ryan noted, “but I can handle it solo. If need be, West L.A. can loan me one of their detectives."
Jessie saw her moment and took it before even thinking about it.
