Chapter 45
Vaughn was surprised to find Delaney still on the other side of the glass in the adjacent room.
“What are you doing here? Didn’t you hear where Perry parked his car? The gas station?”
Vaughn expected Darnell to say something too, something more aggressive.
He didn’t.
“I heard—I told Horowitz and some of the other guys to check it out.”
And I told you to do it.
As much as he wanted to, Vaughn couldn’t admonish him. If Delaney wanted to, he could go to Captain Daniels, tell him what Darnell had done. And that’d be it for Darnell.
This is all I got, man.
It was no secret that with Darnell coming in hungover, probably still drunk, and Vaughn always having to cover for him, most people thought the PPD would be better off with him gone.
They felt for him, sure, for what happened to his family, but everyone had their limits.
“Fine. You’re here. You watched. What did you think?”
“I think he’s a lying piece of shit.”
Predictable. If Joshua Perry was their man and Delaney brought him in, he’d get that promotion to detective he was vying for.
Even if Darnell kept his post.
“I don’t,” Vaughn countered.
“You don’t think he’s lying?” Delaney sounded shocked.
“No,” Vaughn said. “I don’t.”
“C’mon—this is all an act. He did it. He killed all those people.”
“Darnell?”
“I don’t know.”
Great, thanks for your help. Got another one of those hunches, Darnell?
“Did you look into Josh’s background? Education?”
“Yeah—GED. No college. Worked in construction last year.”
“I don’t think someone with no college education set up the 100 prisoners problem and the prisoner’s dilemma,” Vaughn said, shaking his head. “I mean, the construction worker thing would come into play building those rooms, but Darnell said that pretty much anybody can do that.”
“If it’s actually Josh Perry in that room,” Delaney countered. “It could be anyone. Prints didn’t ping in the system. Josh has no record.”
“Did you reach out to his ex-employer?”
“No, not yet. But I’m telling you, this is our—”
Vaughn’s phone rang and he held up a finger as he answered.
“Horowitz? You find his car?”
“Yes, sir. Perry had his keys on him—Delaney gave them to me. Found his wallet and phone inside.”
“Name on the license?”
“Joshua Perry. Sure as hell looks like the guy that Delaney brought in.”
Vaughn eyed Delaney.
“Send me photos of everything you got. Did you find an ad in there? A piece of paper?”
“I can look.”
“Do it. You have someone there with you?”
“Stanley came with me.”
“Good—you drive Josh’s car back here, have Stanley take your car.”
“Got it.”
Vaughn hung up. Delaney was staring at him expectantly, but Vaughn let him squirm.
A few seconds later, Horowitz’s photos came through. A couple of the exterior of a wallet, one of a black iPhone. The last was a photo of Joshua Perry’s driver’s license.
Vaughn frowned, turned his screen around and thrust it in Delaney’s direction.
“It’s Joshua Perry alright. And he’s not our guy.”
Even Delaney couldn’t deny the resemblance.
He shrugged.
“Could still be our guy.”
Vaughn didn’t blame the officer for sticking to his guns. He was young and eager, and if Perry had been behind this, it would have been an incredible boon for his career.
He let it go.
“Hmm. Darnell and I are going upstairs. Don’t talk to Perry. If he gets squirrelly or asks for a lawyer, let me know. And when Horowitz arrives, come get us.”
Captain Daniels had given them a forty-eight-hour window to catch this guy. Forty-eight hours . . .
Vaughn wasn’t sure they had that long before the man set up another one of his games. Usually there was an escalation with these types of crimes, these types of violent criminals.
Slow start, hesitant.
Serial killers’ first murders were sloppy. They panicked, afraid of being caught, and when they weren’t, they gradually became bolder.
The cool off period shortened.
This unsub had no cool off period.
Ten dead yesterday, one today.
And the planning . . . the flyers had to go out. The interiors of the barns had to be constructed. No, they weren’t cooling off. They were getting hotter.
Josh Perry had said it, and all evidence indicated that at least Aaron Treadman felt the same: the ad was sketchy, but the allure of money—crypto or not—was too hard to ignore.
Something occurred to Vaughn then.
The game show. This entire time, Vaughn had been thinking of the game show as a ruse.
What if it wasn’t?
It wasn’t airing on a ‘major streaming platform,’ but what if it was airing somewhere else? What if someone was broadcasting the contestants’ deaths? Possible.
Vaughn swirled his mouse, woke up his computer.
Snuff films were as old as time. It sickened him to think that people got off on watching other people die, but there was nothing he could do about it.
“Maybe this guy is—”
“Why didn’t you tell me that the math chick was there?” Darnell interrupted.
“What?”
“The math chick and her father. Why didn’t you tell me that they were there?”
“I don’t know, man.”
He knew—Vaughn didn’t want Darnell to propose Ivy as a suspect again.
“Don’t you think it’s a little odd?”
“What?”
“Dr. Reeves’s laptop was in Aaron’s possession, she shows up at one of the crime scenes. She definitely knows the games. Nobody would bat an eye if she was seen wandering around the chem building, either.”
Darnell had said all this before, and his hunch was beginning to bore Vaughn.
Don’t bite, don’t bite.
He bit.
“Why would she help us? Tell us about the games?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time that an unsub inserted themselves into an investigation—you know that.”
Vaughn did. Didn’t believe it in this case, though. He took a different approach.
“A female serial killer? Unlikely.”
“Agree in principle. But we’re not talking about a mass shooting or stabbing. This is hands-off. You know the profile.”
Female serial killers were rare—maybe ten percent. And when they killed, it was usually at a distance. Poisoning. Drowning. More ‘quiet’ methods.
Darnell saw the look on Vaughn’s face and clawed back a little.
“Look, I’m not saying she’s behind this, I’m just saying that she knows something. Something she’s not telling us. And I want you to make sure you’re not so blinded by your feelings for Dr. Ivy Reeves that you miss it.”
Vaughn had been loading up a TOR browser during his conversation with his partner, but now he glanced at Darnell.
“I’m not.”
At least, he didn’t think he was.