Page 32 of The Perfect Deception (Jessie Hunt #40)

By 3 P.M., they had managed to confirm Tommy Golden aka Alvin Cruvelli's alibis for both nights. Jessie had already suspected that would be the case and, after telling Elise Prager that she could go home for the time being, she let the other team members wrap up the alibi stuff while she moved onto something new.

Alvin Cruvelli’s mention of the life swap that led to obsession and suicide—clearly a reference to Walter and Vanessa Winston—had her re-thinking things.

She wondered if they’d perhaps been too quick to accept Walter Winston’s alibi. They still hadn’t encountered anyone else with a more compelling motive. The swap with Craig and Miriam Spaulding had eventually led to the implosion of his life and his wife’s death. It wasn’t hard to imagine a man who’d already shown a troubling fixation on other swap partners wanting to punish those who had better experiences than him.

He'd claimed that he only knew Olivia Maplewood and Cassandra Dominik casually, through parties at their homes and a community Facebook group. And his alibi for the night of their murders had mostly held up, though it wasn’t rock solid.

He claimed to be at his apartment and his phone and car GPS data supported that. But there was always the remote possibility that he had snuck out past the nearby security cameras or paid someone to do his dirty work.

Plus, their interview yesterday with Winston had taken place before the deaths of either Robert Patel or Mark Tropper so they’d never checked his alibi for last night. Though Jessie was worried that she was going down a rabbit hole, it was the only hole she could find, so she kept at it.

“I think we should re-interview Walter Winston,”

she announced to everyone assembled in the research department.

“I also think we should dig into his marriage some more, and his finances, to see if there’s anything unusual.”

When Ryan asked why, she explained her reasoning. He didn’t object.

“I’ll tell you what,”

he said, standing up.

“Nettles is back on duty. Why don’t I take him and have another chat with Winston? That will allow you to follow up on the marriage and financial stuff.”

Jessie stared at him hard, well aware of what her husband was doing. He was concerned that if she was right, and Winston was their guy, there might be some sort of confrontation that could put her at risk. Or alternatively, that despite her two months in treatment, she might lose control and do something to Winston that couldn't be undone.

In the past, she would have balked. But the truth was that she had the same concerns. Under normal circumstances she’d want to test her resolve and see how far she’d come. But being sleep-deprived and off the job for two months, maybe this wasn’t the best time for her to test herself.

“Okay. While you’re at it, it might also be a good idea to post roving patrols in the neighborhood to look for anything out of the ordinary. We’re getting later in the afternoon. Whoever is doing this—Winston or someone else—might already be prepping to try again tonight.”

Ryan looked slightly surprised that she’d acquiesced to his request so easily, but didn’t say so. Instead, he nodded at her suggestion, gave her a quick peck on the lips, and left before she could change her mind. With him gone, it was now just the research gang in the room. Jamil and Beth were studying their monitors but Hannah was looking at her knowingly, as if she understood the real reason her sister had acceded to Ryan.

Not wanting to go there, Jessie launched in.

“So let’s dig into this. Jamil, can you review Winston’s financials? Look for anything odd in the last few months—large withdrawals or smaller, regular ones that could add up and pay for a hit. Beth, I’d like you to pull up everything you can find on Vanessa Winston’s suicide, including police interviews that Walter may have given about it after the fact. Maybe he said something back then that could suggest a motive now. Hannah, I know that Elise Prager’s files are a mess, but I’d appreciate it if you could go over them again. Perhaps there’s a swap in there we missed or another time where Winston requested one and was rebuffed. Maybe we can pin down our next victim that way. Who wants help?”

Beth, the least stubborn of the research team, raised her hand. Jessie took a seat beside her.

***

Jessie could have kicked herself.

In retrospect, the first thing that she should have looked into was the cascading nightmare that was Walter Winston’s life, which started with his obsession with Miriam Spaulding, followed soon thereafter by Vanessa’s suicide.

That she had so far only focused on the minutiae of his alibi, when her expertise was in profiling people, was near malpractice. She cut herself the tiniest bit of slack because her brain was operating almost exclusively on coffee, Hot Pockets, and adrenaline.

Initially, her review of the case file for Vanessa Winston’s death wasn’t very illuminating. Walter’s interviews afterward were pretty forthcoming. He admitted to his obsession with Miriam Spaulding and the likelihood that it had led to Vanessa’s suicide. But nothing he said suggested that he was upset with anyone other than himself.

He never mentioned any other couples that had in any way wronged him. He didn’t sound vengeful, just devastated. Of course that didn’t exonerate him. Vanessa died a year and a half ago. A lot could change in that time. His grief could have changed him in dark ways. But there was no proof of that.

She decided to move on to something else in order to clear her head and looked at the actual police report for Vanessa’s car crash. According to the investigating officers, her vehicle was driven off a cliff overlooking the ocean at such a high rate of speed that an accident seemed unlikely. There were no indications that she’d tried to hit the brakes. That jibed with the notes she’d left on people’s windshields the night before.

The car smashed into the rocks 200 feet below and exploded in a fireball before the husk of the vehicle eventually tumbled into the water, sinking into the deep darkness. Because of the craggy rocks and the giant waves that crashed against them, the police dispensed with having divers attempt to retrieve the body. It was just too dangerous. Walter Winston didn’t push them on the matter.

Jessie flipped the page and found herself looking at a photo of Vanessa Winston. She was attractive in an unassuming way, with wavy brown hair and sad gray eyes. Her eyebrows, even when smiling, were slightly furrowed. At 35, when she died, she was half a decade older than her husband. Jessie wondered if that added to her self-esteem issues after learning of her husband's obsession with Miriam.

She studied Vanessa’s background a little more, hoping for clues that might explain the possibility that her husband turned into a killer. They were partners in their company, Identity Protection Services, which had done booming business until her death. She was a regular triathlete who’d even won a few local competitions. She also, according to Walter’s interview, had a long history of depression an.

“other issues”

that he didn’t specify.

Though there was no evidence to support it, she wondered if there was a chance that Walter, after having temporarily swapped into a less challenging marital arrangement, had gotten sick of dealing with his wife’s issues, killed her, and manufactured her suicide. That might explain why, when the police didn’t try to recover her body, he didn’t object. What if he was worried that they’d found proof that she was dead before the crash?

Suddenly a tingle shot up her spine, one she hadn’t felt in months. She knew the feeling well. It was her brain alerting her that she was onto something if she could just wrap her mind around it. It was right there if she could only look at it the right way.

She flipped back to the police report and then again to the photo of sad-eyed Vanessa. Could Walter, a fairly slight fellow, have successfully attacked his triathlete wife? Vanessa was strong. And nobody was ever found. Was it possible that Jessie had been looking in the wrong place, at the wrong person?

“Are we sure that Vanessa Winston is actually d—?”

she began before Hannah cut her off.

“Check this out,”

her sister blurted out excitedly, dropping a file with a photo on the table. It was of a woman Jessie didn’t recognize.

“Who’s this?”

she asked.

“Her name is Wren Burch. She’s one of the three ‘bachelorettes’ that Elise Prager approved for life swaps with couples. Notice anything about her?”

Jessie studied the photo. The woman, in her thirties, had long blonde hair and blue eyes. She smiled broadly, but something about it didn’t feel genuine. It took a second for Jessie to get why. The woman’s brow was furrowed.

She looked up.

“This is Vanessa Winston. She’s still alive.