The Perfect Show (A Jessie Hunt Psychological Suspense Thriller—Book Thirty-Three)

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Jessie seethed quietly.

She and Ryan were waiting in a conference room at the West Los Angeles police station, where they’d taken Mitchell Vaughn. They’d agreed that it made more sense to try to interrogate him there rather than drive all the way back downtown to Central Station. After all, if they could somehow eliminate Vaughn as a suspect, at least they’d be in the right part of town to continue to investigate.

But it turned out that there was no interrogation, which is what had Jessie so furious. After Vaughn had invoked his right to a lawyer back at his office, Ryan had read him his rights. But once that formality was complete, Jessie had tried to get the guy to change his mind.

Both in the car on the way over and in the interrogation room where they’d placed him, she did her best to cajole him into cooperating. Since she wasn’t a cop, it wasn’t technically a violation for her to continue to question Vaughn, although it came close to the line.

It didn’t matter. The realtor didn’t say a word the whole drive to the station. After a few minutes in the interrogation room of Jessie trying to re-establish a connection with him in order to get him chatting, he finally stared her in the eyes.

“Two words this time,” he said slowly. “Lawyer, bitch.”

She left the interrogation room without speaking. Ryan, who had calmed down since his outburst at the office, made the call. It turned out that Vaughn had a personal criminal attorney, which made sense, as he seemed to need one often.

“The lawyer is on his way,” Ryan said, sounding somewhat chastened as he joined her in the conference room. “He reminded us not to speak to his client until he arrived.”

“Funny how that works,” Jessie grumbled. “I guess when you try to intimidate a guy who has experience with the criminal justice system, rather than take a more accommodating approach, he tends to shut down and give you nothing.”

“I know I made a mistake,” Ryan said quietly. “I let my frustration get the better of me. Between Captain Parker pressing us all the time and seeing what was done to Avery Sinclair, I guess I lost my grip a little.”

Jessie turned to face him directly when she replied.

“I get it,” she said. “I feel these losses more than anyone. Don’t forget that I lost my mother to a murderer—my own father—when I was just six. Seeing all these young kids lose theirs is gutting me. But you’re the seasoned professional here. If anyone is supposed to rein in spiraling emotions, it should be you doing that to me. Now we can’t get anything out of this guy.”

A knock on the conference room door made them both look up. A young, brown-haired female officer named Stoller poked her head in.

“The receptionist for Mitchell Vaughn is here. She said you wanted her to come in for an interview.”

“Thanks,” Ryan said, “Please send her in.”

A minute later, Officer Stoller brought Marian Voytek back. Ryan motioned for her to have a seat opposite them. She looked significantly more nervous now than she had back at the realty office.

“Thanks for coming in, Ms. Voytek,” Ryan began.

“You can call me Marian,” she told him.

“How long have you worked for Mitchell Vaughn, Marian?” Jessie asked.

“About four years now,” the woman answered.

“Are you very involved in his work?” Jessie continued. “Do you know his clients?”

“I didn’t meet any of them personally,” Marian said. “I usually stay in the office and Mitch liked to meet with clients in the field.”

“Do you recognize the names Tabitha Reynolds or Naomi Hackett?” Ryan asked.

“Sure,” Marian replied immediately. “Vaughn Realty was the selling agency on the Reynolds home and on the home that the Hacketts bought.”

“What about Clarissa Langley?” Ryan wondered.

Marian scrunched up her brow at that question, trying to recall.

“That name doesn’t immediately ring a bell,” she conceded, “which makes me think we never officially had her as a client. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t meet with Mitch at some point. I keep records of all meetings in our office files, so if there was any engagement, it would be in there.”

“We might have someone accompany you back to the office to look into that momentarily,” Ryan told her.

“Of course,” Marian said, then hesitated briefly before adding, “Can I ask what this is about?”

“Mitch is a suspect in four murders,” Jessie said flatly, watching Marian’s response closely. “Does that surprise you?”

The way the woman’s eyes widened suggested that it did.

“I mean, he’s definitely had some legal issues, but nothing like that. When you guys first came into the office earlier, I thought it was going to be related to gambling stuff.”

“What do you mean?” Ryan asked.

Marian offered a wry smile.

“Why do you think that his office is so run down?” she asked. “We used to have space in an upscale shopping plaza in Brentwood. But Mitch started paring everything down lately. The only things he spends money on now are his personal look and his car—so clients are impressed—and the games he bets on.”

“You’re saying he has a problem?” Jessie asked.

“Only if you consider being $120,000 in debt a problem,” Marian replied. “Why do you think the guy is so aggressive in targeting other realtors? Why has he had multiple harassment incidents and restraining orders? He’s under constant pressure to secure as many clients and make as many home sales as possible.”

“I’m assuming these aren’t legitimate bookmakers?” Ryan said.

“He’s never told me that specifically,” Marian, “but in the last six months, he’s ‘broken’ both pinkie fingers and ‘lost’ a tooth. So you tell me. To be honest, when you said you were a cop, I thought you might have come to arrest him for robbing a bank or something.”

Jessie sighed. Vaughn obviously had serious issues, but it wasn’t clear to her how they might be connected to Avery Sinclair’s murder.

“Do you know where he was today around noon?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Marian said, “he came into the office late. I think he might have gone on a bit of a bender last night. There was this big realty awards gala and I saw that he lost on the big award to Avery Sinclair. He considers her his nemesis, if you can believe it. When I saw that news, I knew he’d take it hard and that today would be ugly. So I wasn’t stunned when he didn’t show up until lunchtime. I didn’t bother calling him to check in. When he finally arrived, he walked straight back to his office without a word and slammed the door. I think he might have been napping when you got here. You probably woke him up.”

“What time was that?” Ryan asked.

“12:19.”

“Are you sure?” Jessie pressed. “That’s so specific.”

“Yeah, I’m positive,” Marian said.

“How?” Jessie asked.

“Because when he slammed the door, the clock on the wall fell and broke. The time read 12:19, so I have a permanent reminder of when he came in today.”

Jessie shared a look with Ryan and saw that he was making the same calculation that she was. It had taken them fifteen minutes to get from Sinclair’s Pacific Palisades mansion to Vaughn’s Santa Monica office and they weren’t driving slow. They knew that Sinclair’s 911 call occurred at 12:06 p.m. And according to Marian, Vaughn arrived at his office at 12:19.

That meant that he would have had to beat Avery Sinclair to death, go downstairs, get out of her house, into his car, and drive to his office in thirteen minutes. That was an incredibly tight window, if not technically impossible.

“We should check in with the team that impounded his car,” Ryan said. “If he did this, he wouldn’t have much time to clean up. Maybe there’s blood splatter in the vehicle.”

“Or possibly a gas mask,” Jessie added. “If he was planting a poison canister in Sinclair’s home, he would have probably wanted to take precautions. Hell, maybe there’s a canister in the trunk.”

“Wait,” Marian interrupted. “Are you saying that Avery Sinclair is dead?”

“She is,” Ryan replied.

“And you think that Mitch killed her? Using some kind of poison?”

“That’s not how it ended up playing out,” Jessie said, “but we think that was the original plan. You sound skeptical.”

Marian shook her head in disbelief.

“It’s just that poisoning someone, wearing a gas mask? That stuff’s not really in Mitch’s wheelhouse. He’s good at sales. But chemicals? Knowing him for four years now, I can say that the guy isn’t exactly a science person.”

“Well, people can be surprising,” Jessie noted, though she was inclined to trust Marian’s assessment. “In any case, we’re going to have an officer accompany you back to the realty office so you can search the files for anything related to Clarissa Langley. Thanks for your time. I’ll see you out.”

She walked the woman back to reception and assigned Officer Stoller to accompany her to the office. After giving Stoller instructions on what to do once they got there, she returned to the conference room, where she saw that Ryan’s brow was furrowed.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I checked with the vehicle impound team,” he said. “They have to get Vaughn’s car back to the station for a comprehensive review. But upon their initial search, they didn’t find any obvious signs of blood. No gas masks or poison canisters showed up either.”

“Maybe he got lucky on the blood,” Jessie suggested unenthusiastically, “and he could have tossed those other things in a dumpster on the way into the office.”

Ryan looked at her skeptically.

“Do you believe that?” he asked.

“It would make an already tight window to get back to the office even smaller,” she conceded, “and I’ve been thinking about what Marian said. Mitchell Vaughn doesn’t seem to have the meticulous personality required to pull off the first three murders, even if this last one, which was more about brute force, seems like something he could handle.”

They both sat silently at the conference room table, pondering all the permutations in front of them. The quiet was interrupted by a call on Ryan”s phone. He glanced down at it.

“Parker,” he said without enthusiasm. “Maybe I let it go to voicemail?”

Jessie shook her head.

“Answer it,” she said. “She’s our station captain and she deserves an update, even if she’s not going to like it.”

Ryan sighed heavily and hit “accept.”

”Hi, Captain,” he said, hiding his feelings well. ”How are you?”

“Impatient, Detective Hernandez,” she told him. “I understand that you made an arrest, but I haven’t heard anything from you. Everything I know of late comes from your research team. Can I impose on you to share the status of your case?”

“Sorry,” he replied convincingly. “We’ve been ‘go go go’ for the last hour. Here’s what we know so far. The suspect we have in custody is Mitchell Vaughn Jr., a real estate agent in the area—.”

“Actually,” Parker interrupted, “Jamil and Beth already updated me, so things might go faster if I tell you what I already know, and you fill in what’s missing.”

“Okay,” Ryan replied, trying to maintain his cool.

“My understanding is that you were able to connect him to two victims through home sales,” Parker said. “In addition, Avery Sinclair filed a restraining order against him. He also appears to have had a personal vendetta against Sinclair that was exacerbated by some realtor award ceremony just last night, is that correct?”

“Yes, Captain,” Ryan confirmed.

“And I’m told that the murder weapon was the very trophy that Sinclair won at his expense.”

“Also true,” Ryan said.

“That seems compelling,” she noted drily. “Any connection to Clarissa Langley yet?”

“Not yet,” he said, “but we’re checking his office files to see if we can find one.”

Jessie didn’t volunteer the tidbit that had Ryan not come on so strong with Vaughn they might already know if there was a connection.

“Well, even without that, it seems that we have more than enough for the D.A. to file charges,” Parker said. “You can understand why I’m surprised that I haven’t heard anything from you to that effect.”

“Captain, if I may,” Jessie piped in for the first time, “we feel that might be premature at this point.”

“Really?” Parker asked, sounding truly shocked. “I can’t wait to hear why, Ms. Hunt.”

“First,” Jessie said, not loving the disdain she heard, “As Detective Hernandez said, we have yet to establish a connection between Vaughn and Clarissa Langley. Without one, the rest of the case could crumble.”

“But your people investigating his files could find one at any time, yes?” Parker prodded.

“They could,” Jessie conceded, “but that hasn’t happened yet. In addition, the window of time for Vaughn to have committed this crime and returned to his office, where an eyewitness confirmed his presence, is very brief.”

“Too brief to have done it?”

“No,” Jessie said. “But it would have been especially challenging without any stops along the way. And we understand that no gas mask was found in his car, which suggests he would have had to dump that en route to his office, adding even more time to the trip.”

“What makes you so certain that he had a gas mask?”

“I can’t be certain,” Jessie acknowledged, “but this chemical is extremely volatile, and the killer knows that better than anyone. The idea that they handled it without protection seems very unlikely.”

“But not impossible,” Parker noted, unmoved. “Any other reason I shouldn’t tell Chief Decker that he can hold a news conference saying we’ve got our guy? I know he’s wanted to get that out by the 5 p.m. local news.”

“Yes, Captain,” Jessie said, feeling like a salmon swimming upstream. “We haven’t gotten prints back from the trophy that was used to kill Avery Sinclair. They might definitively identify the killer.”

Even as she said it, Jessie knew this wasn’t her strongest argument. Ryan’s wince validated her concern. And sure enough, Parker pounced.

“Ms. Hunt, are you telling me that our killer had the foresight and wherewithal to plant timer-based, motion-activated poison-filled canisters inside the homes of three woman without being captured on surveillance video or leaving any other trace of usable evidence at the scenes, including zero prints on those canisters, but in this one instance, they forgot to wear gloves? How likely does that sound?”

“Not very,” Jessie admitted, “but this murder was different than the others. I believe Sinclair surprised the killer while they were planting the canister, leading to the bludgeoning. Maybe the murderer removed their gloves at some point. Maybe Sinclair was able to pull one off in a struggle. What’s the harm in waiting a few hours for more firm results?”

”The harm is that there is a city full of scared people out there who want some sense that they are safe and secure in their own homes,” Parker told her. ”Unless you can offer something more concrete than ”maybes,” I don”t think we”ve got a strong enough reason to keep all these Angelenos so fearful.”

“There’s another thing, Captain,” Jessie said, hoping a different tactic might make the Parker re-think her position. “Whoever committed these crimes was smart and painstakingly methodical. Mitchell Vaughn is not that. He’s a hothead who appears to operate on instinct. He’s also a gambler in massive debt to…who knows? He exudes sweaty desperation. It doesn’t fit with these murders.”

She waited silently, hoping that argument would be compelling. But Parker was undeterred.

“I don’t see it, Ms. Hunt,” she said impatiently. “It sounds like he simply didn’t have as much personal antagonism to the first three victims as he did to the last one, which suggests how he could have been more calculated in prepping their murders. But in Sinclair’s case, his animosity may have gotten in the way, clouding his judgment and leading to the trophy attack.”

Jessie felt a growing sense of hopelessness. She wasn’t entirely sure why she was fighting this so hard. Parker was making powerful counterpoints to everything she brought up. But something just didn’t feel quite right about Vaughn.

“Captain,” Ryan finally said, sounding cool and collected despite the deteriorating situation, “I don’t want to speak for Jessie, but I do know that, like me, she has enormous affection for Chief Decker. He has been incredibly supportive of us both. When I was near death after Jessie’s ex-husband attacked me, he was there for me. And last spring, he used every tool at his disposal to help rescue Jessie when she was kidnapped by Andrea Robinson. We love and respect him. And we’re just uncomfortable letting him put himself out there, making broad claims on the news that might ultimately come back to bite him and undermine his authority.”

Jessie stared at her husband, her heart filled with admiration and love. He had just verbalized exactly what Jessie was feeling but couldn’t identify.

“I appreciate that, Detective Hernandez,” Parker replied, “But it’s actually Chief Decker driving the bus on this one. He wants to give that press briefing, and soon.”

“Captain Parker,” Jessie pleaded, “if Vaughn is the killer, don’t you think that it’s a little too obvious for him to have smashed Avery Sinclair’s head in with the very trophy she beat him out for the night before? Couldn’t someone be turning him into a patsy?”

“Perhaps,” Parker conceded, “but you yourself said that he’s more of a volatile personality than a meticulous one. Maybe he just lost himself in the moment.”

“Maybe,” Jessie agreed, “but doesn’t that uncertainty earn us a few hours to follow up? It’s still only 2:15. Chief Decker could hold his press conference at 4:30 and still have more than enough time to get it on the news. Hell, I bet some stations would carry it live. Please, just give us a couple of hours to follow up on these loose ends.”

There was a long pause in which Jessie assumed Parker was pondering the request. But when the silence extended to ten seconds, she thought maybe the call had dropped.

“Captain?” Ryan said.

“I’m sorry,” Parker said, her voice heavy with concern. “I was just getting an update from my assistant.”

“On the case?” Jessie asked.

“No,” Parker said. “Regarding Dr. Janice Lemmon. Officers are at her office. There’s been an incident.”

Jessie felt her heart stop.