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“That’s a lot ofpotential suspects,” Ryan said, before returning his attention to Kenton.“What’s the status here?”
“As you’d expect,the hazmat team is still clearing the apartment. Neither CSU nor the coronerhas been allowed in yet. But they did find a canister like the ones at theother victims’ residences. And at my request, they did take some photos, whichI have here for you.”
He pulled out hisphone and showed them. The first image on the screen was of a woman lying onher back just inside the entryway of her apartment. Shehad curly, auburn hair and pale skin that was likely only partly a result ofspending so much time inside an office of late. She was dressed in loose, beigelinen pants, a Cal Tech t-shirt and fuzzy socks. Kenton flipped throughseveral additional photos of the body and the apartment, but nothing jumped outat Jessie.
“Was the door openwhen you arrived?” she asked.
"It was, butwe weren't the first ones here," he said. "Apparently, a fooddelivery driver named Juan Hinojosa was. He said he was bringing her an orderof In-N-Out. When he walked down the hallway, he saw the door open and herlying there like that. He said he called out to her, even tried to shake her towake her up. But he got no response. He checked her pulse but couldn't findone, so he called 911."
“Where is he now?”Ryan asked. “Can we talk to him?”
“The EMTs took himto the hospital about ten minutes ago,” Kenton said. “Even though he was onlyin the apartment for a minute or so, they wanted to get him checked out. But Iwas able to speak to him briefly before they left. I recorded part of it, figuringyou might want to check it out.”
“Sergeant Kenton,”Jessie said, impressed, “You read my mind.”
Looking slightlysheepish, he swiped to the video and hit play without replying. The interviewappeared to take place outside the building, not far from where the three ofthem now stood.
“So, what time didyou get the delivery request?” Kenton asked as the video picked upmid-conversation.
Thedelivery driver, a skinny, Latino man wearing an L.A. Dodgers cap who looked tobe barely into his twenties, looked at his phone.
"It came inat 9:02," the man recounted. "I was near the Marina del Rey In-N-Outlocation, so I got assigned the order. I collected it from the drive-thru at9:19. I arrived here just after 9:30. I texted the customer to let her know Iwas here in case she wanted to come down and meet me at the building's maindoor, but I didn't get any response. I tried again a couple of minutes later. Istill didn't hear back, but someone was coming out of her building, so I rushedin before the door locked. The unit number was in the delivery request, so Itook the elevator up. That's when I saw her."
“So to be clear,”Kenton reviewed. “You got the order request at 9:02. What time did you send thefirst text to let her know you were here?”
Hinojosa looked athis phone again.
“9:32.”
“We need to takehim in now, Sergeant,” someone off-camera said.
“That’s one of theEMTs,” Kenton explained to Jessie and Ryan. “He was getting anxious.”
On camera, thedelivery driver looked back and forth between the EMT and Kenton, apparentlyunsure what he was supposed to do next. Kenton resolved that for him.
“Okay, I’m almostdone,” he said to the EMT before focusing on Hinojosa again. “You alreadyexplained off-camera what you did when you found her. Now tell me what you didafter you called 911.”
"I knocked onthe door of the next-door neighbor," the young man explained. "Ididn't want to just be standing out in the hall near an open apartment withwhat seemed to be a dead woman. If someone saw that, they might think I didit."
“Did the neighboranswer?”
“Yeah, it was thatwoman,” he said, pointing somewhere off-camera. “I showed her the lady on thefloor, said I thought she was dead, and told her I’d called 911. She kind offreaked out, ran in the lady’s apartment and started doing CPR. But she stoppedafter a while. I think she realized it was no use.”
"Okay, that'sit," the off-camera EMT demanded again. A moment later, the video stopped.
“I managed toconfirm the details of his story with the neighbor, whose name is MarjorieAttell. Once the EMTs found out that she’d been in the apartment and even givenNaomi Hackett mouth-to-mouth, they moved fast to get her looked at, so I didn’tget any video of our conversation. But she did tell me that Hackett had onlybeen living here a few months. Apparently she runs some new tech company that’slaunching early next year, and she got this place so she could spend someweeknights here rather than go back to her home in Pacific Palisades.”
Jessie was glad tohear that the neighbor’s version of events matched Jamil’s theory and was aboutto ask a question when she and Ryan received a simultaneous text from theirhead researcher. It read: Clarissa Langley’s marketing firm was working onthe launch of Hackett Insights. She was the lead strategist. Efforting moredetails.
Jessie looked upat Ryan, who was clearly as intrigued as she was. Still, she asked Kenton thequestion she’d had before the text.
“Did MarjorieAttell offer any impression of Naomi Hackett—her personality, what kind ofneighbor she was?”
"Onlybriefly," Kenton told her. "She said that Hackett was nice, thoughshe always seemed harried. Apparently, Hackett felt guilty because she had tospend so much time away from her family, especially her daughter. She wasexcited because after tonight, she would be spending the rest of the year attheir house. That was all I was able to get out of her before she was whiskedaway."
Jessie did herbest not to reveal the deep well of anguish that suddenly washed over her. Itwas one thing to see Naomi Hackett’s dead body on the floor of her apartment.But imagining her young daughter, waiting in vain for her Mommy to return homefor Christmas? It was almost too much to bear.
“Okay,” Ryan said,more focused on the facts of the situation than the emotion of the moment, “sowe know that Naomi Hacket was alive at 9:02 to place her delivery service orderbut had died by the time that Juan Hinojosa arrived with the food at 9:32. That’sa really small window of time for this poison to take effect.”
