The perfect look

He nodded but said nothing.

“You finishing your shift or starting it?” she pressed as her tone became more severe, annoyed at his lack of responsiveness.

He looked at her, then at Ryan, who stared at him coldly, and reluctantly replied.

“I started at six. We got the call from housekeeping at seven,” addressing the topic she was clearly hinting at.

“Why did housekeeping go in the room so early?” Jessie asked. “Was there a cleaning request on the doorknob?”

“She said there was a smell coming from the room.”

Jessie looked over at Ryan, who had a resigned expression.

“Sounds like a fun way to start the morning,” she said, reading his mind.

The elevator arrived and they stepped inside. The guard accompanied them to the fourteenth floor. As they shot up in the air, Jessie couldn’t help but marvel at the view. The elevator faced the Hollywood Hills, and on this fairly clear morning, the white Hollywood sign gleamed back at them, seemingly close enough to touch. Griffith Park Observatory was nestled nearby at the top of a hill in the park. Various studio soundstages peppered the expanse in between, as did thousands of vehicles on the traffic-choked streets.

A soft ding brought her back into the moment and Jessie stepped out, following the guard and Ryan to the end of the hallway. They were only halfway there when Jessie got a whiff of what must have captured the maid’s attention.

It was the smell of putrid, bacteria-laced gases in the victim’s body building up and leaking out, often with equally foul-smelling fluids. While it was always unpleasant, Jessie had gotten somewhat used to it. She doubted a housekeeper would be as familiar or as comfortable with it.

An officer waiting outside the door recognized Ryan and handed him and Jessie plastic slippers as he lifted the police tape so they could enter. To her admittedly petty satisfaction, the officer refused to allow the hotel security guard entry.

Once inside, she stood by the door and took in the scene. There were several CSU techs taking photos and fingerprinting the room. Multiple small indentations in the carpeting had been noted and marked with evidence numbers.

The body lay on the bed, naked, bloated, and uncovered. The initial description of the victim seemed accurate. He appeared to be in his forties. As Jessie got closer, it was clear that he had indeed been strangled. Blueish-purple finger marks covered his neck, though notably, there were no indentations or cuts that might suggest nails digging in.

The man was in decent shape if you ignored the bloating. He was clearly well off, with recently manicured fingernails, a hair transplant that had been painstakingly done to give him a smattering of gray amidst his black hair, and some craftsman-like Botox injections near the eyes, mouth, and forehead.

His socks, now straining at the excess fluid building up at his ankles, clung mournfully to his feet. His shoes rested by the side of the bed. His clothes—comprised of an expensive-looking suit, boxers, and a T-shirt, were folded neatly over a desk chair.

There were no other obvious personal materials in the room—no luggage bag, no extra clothes, no watch or glasses by the bedside. She glanced in the bathroom and saw the same thing there—no toiletries, no used towels, nothing to suggest that he’d spent much time in the room at all.

“Cell phone?” Ryan asked the officer standing in the corner.

“We found it in the trash can,” the CSU investigator told him. “It was smashed but the tech team thinks it’s salvageable. The SIM card was still inside. It’s being transported to the lab now.”

“Wallet?” Ryan wondered.

“It was on the floor by the bed,” the investigator said. “But it had been picked clean. Almost everything potentially identifiable was gone—no credit cards or driver’s license. There were a few photos of kids. I guess they could eventually be used to establish identity. But I suspect the cell phone will yield results quicker.”

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.