CHAPTER SEVEN
Alison stood with Detective Moore as she knocked on Thomas Vaughan’s door. Derek had remained at the office to continue researching connections to the victims and looking for someone with a reason to murder two professionals so violently.
When the door was opened, a woman with long black hair stood staring at them. The woman widened her eyes and shrugged a little.
"Whatever it is you’re selling, I ain’t buying."
"Detective Moore," Moore said, showing her badge. "And my associate, Dr. Payne. We’d like to speak with Thomas Vaughan. Is he in?"
The woman rolled her eyes with a professionalism that hinted she practiced in front of the mirror most mornings, then turned and screamed into the house.
"Tommy! They’re back!"
As if that explained everything to everyone involved, the woman left them at the door and wandered away, leaving Alison and Moore standing there.
A moment later, a man in his thirties, Thomas Vaughan, came to the door.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
Moore showed her badge and introduced herself again, also introducing Alison.
"A doctor?" Thomas asked. "What’s that for?"
"Can we come in?" Moore asked.
"Certainly politer than the last lot." Thomas turned from the door and waved over his shoulder, issuing a command. "Follow me!"
Alison and Moore entered the house, with Moore closing the door behind them.
They followed Thomas down the hallway lined with framed photos.
Many were of Thomas and his family, around half of them, and the other half were of his sister, or the two of them together.
They knew from the information they had compiled before coming over that Thomas had always been close with his sister, and the photographs bolstered that.
"Yeah, in here!" Thomas called as he entered a room.
When Alison walked into the room, she stopped dead.
The walls were covered in photographs, both headshots that might be downloaded from a professional website and what looked like surveillance photos.
Her eyes flashed to the camera and case of lenses laid out on the table at the back wall, making it clear who had taken the photos.
Thomas turned to face them and spread his arms out wide. "I have nothing to hide. Here it is, so spend as long as you like. Everything I’ve done is completely legal."
"What is this?" Moore asked.
Alison answered before Thomas did. From what they knew of Thomas, coupled with the surveillance photographs, the court documents, and the headshots on the wall, including those of Richard Langford and Patricia Holland, it was obvious to Alison what the room was being used for.
"These are all the people you blame for our sister’s death," she said.
"No, no, no, no," Thomas said, wagging a finger at Alison. "No, you make it sound like it’s my opinion. I don't blame them for her death; they are to blame. If it weren’t for these people, she wouldn’t be dead."
"So, what is this?" Moore asked, looking around the room with wide eyes. "What are you doing here, Thomas?"
"I haven’t done anything illegal," he maintained. "Who was it this time?"
"What does that mean?" Moore asked.
"Someone called you, right? They put pressure on you to come here." Thomas held his hands wide again. "Bring it, I say. The more they come for me, the more I know I’m on the right track. You can go back to them and tell them that it only makes me hungrier for change."
"Yeah, it would be great if you could change," his wife said sardonically as she walked past the door to the study.
"Oh, just—" he started toward his wife before ignoring her and turning back to Moore. "I won't stop what I’m doing, okay? My sister was murdered because these people didn't do their jobs. Any one of them could have stopped it, but they didn't. And do you know what’s even worse than that? I’ve spoken to most of them, and they don't feel any remorse. They don't care that an innocent woman was killed. It’s just another stat for them, and as long as most of the stats are in their favor, they can sleep easily at night. They can have a few numbers where people are murdered in cold blood, and it’s all rosy for them. So, go back to whoever it was who sent you here and tell them that I’m not stopping until there’s some real change. "
"Like Richard Langford or Patricia Holland?" Alison asked, looking for a reaction.
"Like any of them," Thomas maintained. "It was her, wasn’t it? She’s such a self-righteous bitch. Do you know what she said to me when I confronted her about it?"
He was talking directly to Alison now, and she shook her head. Detective Moore walked around the room, looking at the pictures.
"She asked me, who?" Thomas's jaw tightened, and he blinked three times.
"Can you believe that? She pretended that she didn't know who I was talking about, but I could see it in her eyes.
She knew exactly what I was talking about and how it was her fault, but she hid behind what she wanted me to think was ignorance.
And I could see in her eyes that she didn't care, not about Kate.
She cared about her reputation, but not my sister.
She would rather pretend that it didn't happen than face the truth and actually make a change. "
"No more lies, right?" Alison asked.
"What? Yeah," Thomas said dismissively. "That’s…yeah, no more lies. That’s all they do: lie, and then make excuses for their actions."
"No more lies. No more excuses," Alison said, still looking for a reaction.
"What? Yeah," Thomas agreed, his brows furrowed. "I don't understand why you’re here. Why a doctor all of a sudden? A doctor of what?"
"Forensic psychology," Alison said. "I’m a profiler. I work mainly in murder investigations."
Thomas’s eyes lit up. He stepped forward and almost reached out a hand as if to touch her and make sure she wasn’t a mirage before he stopped himself.
"Have you…?"
Detective Moore peeled a second photograph from the wall.
"No, I’m sorry," she told Thomas.
Alison had witnessed two things so far. Thomas was extremely passionate about his sister to the point that it suggested he could be the killer. On the opposite side of the coin, his reaction to the words she’d recited from the notes left at the crime scenes seemed to be genuine confusion.
Moore returned to the two of them and held up the photographs for Thomas to view.
"Dr. Richard Langford and Patricia Holland," she said.
Thomas looked at the two photos. "Yeah?" He shrugged.
Moore didn't say anything and continued to hold the photos, also looking for a reaction from Thomas.
Thomas’s brow knitted further, and he looked from Moore to Alison as if they had the answer he needed to supply.
"Both of them?" Thomas asked. "They both sent you?"
"They’re both dead," Moore said.
Alison studied Thomas completely. His brows pushed further down at the news, almost straining, then there was a faint twitch at the side of his mouth—he was happy to hear the news—then his eyes widened as the realization set in.
"Why did you come here?" Thomas asked.
"Did you kill them, Thomas?" Moore asked.
"What?" Thomas spluttered.
"Did you kill them as revenge for your sister?" Moore pushed.
"No!" Thomas blurted. "I didn't kill anyone!"
"Where were you last night, Thomas?" Moore asked.
"I was at work," he replied quickly. "I worked all night."
"You weren’t at home at any part of the night?" Moore asked.
"I got home around six this morning," he replied. "I helped get the kids ready for school, and I’ve been cleaning."
"Not sleeping?" Alison asked.
Thomas fidgeted with his hands as he spoke. "I guess I was running on adrenaline."
"Adrenaline?" Moore pushed. "Adrenaline from what?"
"Just from work," Thomas said, almost tripping over his words. "I’m on my feet all night, and we work hard and fast, and it takes me time to calm down from that. I usually nap in the afternoon. I don't need much sleep anyway."
"No?" Alison asked.
"Talk to my boss," Thomas said. "Talk to my work colleagues. I was there at ten last night, and I left at five this morning. I’ll be in the system, and there were at least four people who saw me there."
"Any breaks?" Moore asked.
"A couple of smoke breaks and one for food, but I didn’t go far.
There’s a twenty-four-hour place not far from the factory, and I ate there.
I was out of the building for maybe forty minutes.
Check—what can you check? My bank account or something.
You’ll see a transaction at the burger place.
I didn't kill anyone. I haven’t even thought about it.
Even when I was at my lowest point right after she was killed, I never thought of that.
She wouldn’t want me to do anything like that. That’s not justice, but change is."
His last words felt rehearsed as if he’d use them at protests or during an interview, but something rang true about them.
"Okay, we’ll look into your alibis," Moore said. "Until then, I don't have to tell you that you shouldn't go anywhere, right?"
"I work the next three nights again," Thomas said. "I’ll either be there or here. I won't go anywhere."
"And I’d like to take some photos of the information that you have here," Moore added.
"Of course," Thomas said. "Whatever you need. I didn't kill them, I swear."
***
"What do you have?" Alison asked Moore when she placed the phone down.
"His company confirms what Thomas Vaughan told us," she replied. "His boss reports that Thomas arrived for work last night as scheduled and worked his full shift. He has logs of him clocking in and out, and the work allocated was completed. The boss wasn’t on the floor the entire time, but he does have a worker there right now who’s pulling a double, and can confirm that Thomas worked last night.
They were side by side almost the entire night.
Except for when he left to get some food. "
Moore looked at Alison hopefully.
"That checks out, too," she said. "I spoke to the burger place, and they have a camera out front because they do get some drunks at night. I found Thomas on camera, entering the restaurant, and then exiting thirty minutes later."
"So, he’s not our guy?" Moore asked.
"He’s not our guy," Alison confirmed.
"It’s never the first one, is it?" Moore complained. "You know, I always have this hope when we go to interview the first suspect we have that it’ll be the one, and the case can be wrapped up quickly, but in this line of work, that’s rarely how it works."
"We need a patron saint," Alison suggested. "You know how there’s like patron saints of travel or orphans or lost causes or whoever else, I don't know. Well, we need a patron saint of initial suspects. Then, when we go out to interview our first suspect, we can pray to them, and maybe that helps."
"Do you think it will?" Moore raised her eyebrows.
"It’s probably why there’s not a pattern saint dedicated to that," Alison pointed out. "As you said, that’s not how it works in our line of work. Still, we rule out one suspect and move onto the next one, then the next, and the next."
"And we have a lot," Moore said with a sigh.
"Hey," Derek shouted from the door, almost out of breath.
Alison looked up. She hadn’t seen that look on his face before. He had wide eyes, as if he were terrified of something, and an open mouth, making it seem like he had a lot to say but couldn’t get the words out.
"They found him," he blurted. "They have Mills."
Alison fell back into her chair as if she had been shoved. The office spun around er for a moment before everything snapped into place, and she could hear a voice; faint at first, but it grew in volume. Derek was no longer at the door.
"Go," Moore urged. "I’ll take care of things here. Go!"
Alison hit her knee on the desk as she rose, but she didn't feel any pain. She flew from the office, spotting Derek running toward the conference room. A lump grew in her throat as she finally let the hope seep in. They had him.