“Hey,” she said standing up, “something just occurred to me.”
Ryan seemed relieved that he didn’t have to say whatever was in his head.
“What?” he asked.
“What if we have this wrong?”
“What do you mean?” he asked, clearly not enthused to hear that.
“What if my theory was only half-right?”
“What theory?” he asked, confused.
“When I accused Jude Austen of killing Scott Newhouse in a jealous rage and then murdering Bridget to hide their affair, he said it wasn’t true. So I spun another theory that they were in on it together, but then she backed out and he went ahead with the plan anyway. What if I had it backwards?”
“Explain,” he said, leaning forward, interested.
“Hold on,” Jessie replied as she stood up and motioned for him to follow as she walked out to the waiting area where Kat and Hugo Cosgrove were sitting.
“Hugo, you sent all your staff location data to our researchers yesterday, right?
“Yes,” he answered perplexed.
“So it will have all the nametag geo-tags and card swipes for everyone who worked yesterday, correct?”
“It should,” he confirmed. “But why? You don’t think Austen would be dumb enough to leave his nametag on when he did this, do you?”
“Give me a second,” she said, texting Jamil furiously before looking up to see Kat staring at her with a Cheshire cat grin.
“What?” she asked.
“I see the wheels in your head spinning like crazy,” her friend replied. “Care to fill us in?”
Jessie sighed. She didn’t yet have any evidence to back up her theory but that hadn’t stopped her in the past. So she dove in.
“I’m just wondering if Bridget Newhouse is really a victim here. When we were questioning Jude Austen, I suggested that maybe the two of them had planned Scott Newhouse’s murder together but then she backed out, so he had to kill her to cover it up. But what if she was the mastermind behind all this?”
“Why do you think that?” Hugo asked.
“Bridget was the one who knew when Scott would be in the spa,” she reminded him, “because she was there with him. She could have tipped Jude off so he could sneak in. Then later, she might have insisted that security leave her casita unguarded so she could finally meet up with him to compare notes. Remember, since her husband’s death, she’s been constantly surrounded by cops, security, or her friends. This would be the first chance for her to sneak off and make sure they were still on the same page.”
“That might explain why she left her phone at the casita,” Ryan offered. “That way, if anyone ever checked, there would be no geo-location evidence that she’d gone anywhere.”
“Right,” Jessie agreed.
“But if she’s not dead or tied up somewhere, why can’t we find her?” Kat asked.
“That is an excellent question,” Jessie replied. But before she could say anything else, her phone rang. She answered immediately.
“Hey Jamil,” she said. “You’re on speaker. What have you got?”
“I did the search you requested,” he answered. “I looked at Jude Austen’s nametag geo-location and key card swipes for the windows of time you mentioned. And according to the data, he wasn’t near the spa yesterday near the time of the murder.”
Ryan’s brow furrowed at that answer.
“So if this is intended to prove that Austen didn’t kill either of the Newhouses,” he said, “don’t we have the same issue that Hugo just mentioned and that concerned us with Ronnie Nance yesterday? What if he left his nametag and his key card behind and found some other way into the spa?”
“The card info indicates that he was using it during that window of time,” Jamil explained, “specifically to get some coffee at one of the restaurants in the Grand Hall and then to enter his quarters. His nametag data matches up with that. I suppose someone else could have used both to cover for him, but wouldn’t that be introducing a third person into a murder conspiracy? That seems risky.”
“It’s definitely a stretch,” Ryan conceded.
“So if Jude didn’t kill Scott Newhouse,” Jessie said, continuing with her theory, “then that leaves one person who clearly had the motive and the opportunity to do it: Bridget Newhouse. She was having an affair with the hot, younger yoga instructor and she was in the spa at the time of death.”
“But wasn’t she always on the women’s side of the spa?” Ryan countered. “How could she have even gotten to him?”
“I don’t know,” Jessie admitted before turning to Hugo. “Can you look into that? Detective Hernandez and I have to prioritize finding Bridget. I did a cursory search of the spa yesterday and didn’t find anything. But maybe you could talk to the staff there to see if there’s some access point that only employees know about. Bridget got thirty-six massages there in the last year and a half. Perhaps someone mentioned something or she uncovered a way over on her own.”
“I’ll go over there myself and start asking questions,” Hugo promised.
“But what I wondered before is still bothering me,” Kat said. “If Bridget’s not dead or missing, where is she? Did she just leave?”
“Why would she do that?” Ryan asked. “Up until this point, we had no reason to suspect her more than anyone else. In fact, it was finding her unattended phone at her casita that partly sent us on this path in the first place.”
“I’m not sure,” Jessie answered, though she had a guess. “Maybe when she met up with Jude, she got worried that he would crack under additional questioning. Maybe she figured that it was only a matter of time so she should make a run for it while she still could, before anyone was really looking for her. Maybe she never went back for her phone because she knows it can be traced and she doesn’t want to be found.”
“That’s a lot of ‘maybes,’” Ryan observed.
“True,” Jessie allowed, before the logical conclusion tumbled out of her, “but Bridget knows Jude a whole lot better than any of us. And if she was worried that Jude might crack, maybe she was on to something. Maybe he will.”
Without even waiting for the others, she dashed back to the interrogation room where Jude was still sitting forlornly, his wrist cuffed to the table, while a bored security guard stood in the corner. The others followed.
“Jessie,” Ryan warned, “you can’t question him anymore. He’s asked for a lawyer.”
“No,” she reminded him. “You can’t question him anymore. You’re the cop. I’m still just a consultant. So if I go in alone, we should be safe. Besides, I don’t plan to question him. I just have something I have to get off my chest.”
Before he could protest any further, she had walked in and closed the door behind her. Jude looked up at her with mild curiosity. She flashed him a smile before saying anything.
“Hey, Jude.”
“I already asked for my lawyer,” he said petulantly. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“You don’t sound very centered for a yoga instructor,” she said calmly. “Anyway, I’m done with the questions. It’s just that I worked something out for myself a little while ago and wanted to run it by you. I think you’ll find it interesting. No need to say anything.”