“Sipping cocktails on your yacht all day with bikini-clad supermodels,” Jacob mused. “Sounds like I got into the wrong line of work.”
“Maybe,” Spenser agreed. “But, personally, I don’t think you can pull off the whole smarmy pig thing. I don’t think you have it in you.”
“To be fair, you don’t really know him all that well,” Amanda interjected.
Jacob threw a peanut at his sister, drawing a surprised yelp from her when it bounced off her forehead and landed on the table in front of her. She grinned then popped the peanut into her mouth. Spenser shook her head and laughed.
“How about Russell’s alibi?” Spenser asked. “Can we confirm it?”
“We can,” Jacob said. “I ran the receipts his assistant sent over. They show he was down in LA on the twelfth through the sixteenth, just as he said. And just as a kicker, I got into the security footage from the bougie-as-hell hotel he stayed at and he’s there on camera. No question about it. He wasn’t in the state when we suspect Hamill was poisoned.”
The monitor on the wall lit up as Jacob posted a black and white still shot from the footage that showed Russell at the front desk of the hotel with a tall, willowy, modelesque brunette on his arm. Like the blonde on his boat, this girl was stunning and looked like she was barely legal.
“Wow,” Jacob said. “I hope somebody checked that girl’s ID.”
“Don’t worry, Russell assured me he always checks ID at the door,” Spenser said dryly.
“For his sake, I hope so. That guy looks like he’s seriously flirting with catching a charge.”
“We’ve also photos and news footage of him and his date on the red carpet at the movie premier,” Amanda added.
The images on the monitor across the room changed, showing a tuxedo-clad Russell on the red carpet with the stunning brunette who wore a black gown that did little to hide her best physical attributes, once again making Spenser feel absolutely plain in comparison.
“I definitely got into the wrong line of work. My goodness,” Jacob said.
“See, Sheriff? He has that smarmy pig inside him.”
Spenser grinned and Jacob shrugged. “Oink, oink,” he said.
“So, Russell’s got motive but not opportunity,” Amanda mused.
“If you believe him, he’s got no motive either,” Spenser said. “He said the fifty grand Hamill screwed him out of is pocket change.”
“So, why the threatening emails? The phone call?” Jacob asked.
“He said it’s about a loss of face,” Spenser replied. “He told me Hamill swindling him was a hit to his reputation, and that’s what upset him. And he’d heard from his associates that Hamill was soliciting investments, so that must’ve stuck in his craw.”
“So, we’re back to having a motive,” Amanda said. “Hamill wouldn’t be the first person to kill somebody because they damaged their reputation.”
“But no opportunity, like you said,” Jacob noted.
“He had no opportunity. He made sure he was very visibly out of the state,” Spenser pondered as she studied the red carpet photos. “But what if he hired somebody to do it for him? Where are we at with his associations? Anybody shady turning up?”
“Not so far, but we’re still making our way through his contacts,” Amanda said.
“Boss, not for nothing, but I personally don’t think we’re going to find what we’re looking for in his social media accounts,” Jacob said. “If I was looking for somebody to take somebody out, the last place I’d be looking is Facebook.”
“Where would you look?”
“Probably the dark web,” he replied. “Find somebody completely removed from my circle that nobody knows. For a guy like Joel Russell, it’s all about plausible deniability.”
Spenser absorbed his words. “Yeah. That makes sense. Okay, poke around and see what you can find. Search specifically for mentions of tetrahydrozoline or Anadrol.”
“On it, boss.”
“I want to make sure we’re fully covered, keep combing his contacts, Amanda. Identify anybody who has anything shady in their past. If we get lucky, Russell isn’t as smart as we—and he—thinks he is and we find something connecting him to all this.”
“Sure thing, Sheriff.”
“Good. Okay,” Spenser said as she stood up and started to pace the length of the conference room. “Now, circling back a bit. Amanda, what did you find out about Sherex?”
Amanda stood up, holding onto a print-out paper. “I researched them online and found it was a sound company. They have a lot of stockholders, tons of positive reviews, including medical and consumer reports that confirm the legitimacy of the company and its products, which are produced on-site. I even called them and spoke to their PR rep, who directed me to their Quality Control Agent, who literally walked me through how their products are made, checked, and sealed for quality and consistency.”
She paused for a moment and huffed out a breath. “Sheriff, it may have been the most boring two hours of my life, but I can tell you, this company is 100% solid.”
Amanda sat down and sighed, appearing like she’d just given a research report in high school.
“Excellent work, Amanda. You get an A+. While you guys are keeping busy, I’m going to start digging into those in close proximity to our victim. Let’s start with his girlfriend. What can you tell me about her?”
Jacob pecked away at his computer, then gestured to the monitor across the room. Russell’s red carpet pictures were replaced by the DMV photo of a woman with dark hair in a short pixie-cut. She was an attractive woman with a dusky complexion, high cheek bones, a sharp, angular face, full bow-shaped lips, and wide hazel-colored doe eyes.
“This is Layla Li,” Jacob started. “She’s a personal trainer-slash-actor-slash-artist-slash-singer. She works at All Day Fitness—”
“Obviously, where she met Seth,” Spenser said.
