Page 16 of The Perfect Crime

“Maybe you decided to take matters into your own hands?”Ryan suggested.

Blackwell's eyes narrowed, and he took a small step backward.

“What exactly are you investigating?”he asked.“Did something happen to Whitaker?”

Ryan looked over at Jessie, who nodded.Now that Blackwell was riled up, they could drop the hammer, and she could observe him and hopefully get a genuine reaction.Ryan nodded back before returning his attention to Blackwell.

“Actually, something did happen,” he said.“James Whitaker was the victim of a home invasion murder last night.”

Blackwell’s eyes went wide, and his jaw dropped.Jessie couldn’t be sure whether it was a legitimate response or planned because he knew what was coming.Ryan pressed ahead.

“We’re talking to people who have expressed animosity to him, as you did in your e-mail, when you said —” at this point Ryan pulled out a sheet of paper from his pocket and read from it directly— “you need to be held responsible for your inadequate expertise and your cavalier manner.Do you recall writing that, Dr.Blackwell?”

Blackwell shook his head vigorously.

“You can’t possibly think that I would kill someone over a financial transaction?”he huffed indignantly.

“It wouldn’t be the first time someone had,” Jessie noted.

“Listen—yes, I resented the guy, maybe even hated him, but I didn’t kill him.”

“You could go a long way to convincing us of that by telling us where you were last night between 7 p.m.and midnight,” Jessie suggested.

Blackwell looked at her, then at Ryan.His expression seemed to shout, "Are you serious?"

"All right," he finally said, "I was at home with my wife.We had dinner and watched some television."

“What did you watch?”Ryan asked.

“Some action movie on one of the streaming channels,” he said.

“You don’t remember the name of it?”Ryan asked.

“Not off the top of my head,” Blackwell said.“It involved Chris Hemsworth punching and shooting people.”

“Your wife likes that kind of movie?”Jessie wondered.

“I like the punching and shooting,” he replied.“She likes Chris Hemsworth.”

“In that case, “Ryan said, “I assume you won’t mind if we ask to review the GPS location data for your phone and car from last night, as well as your streaming data.”

“Not at all,” Blackwell said with a confidence that suggested that he knew he had an alibi or had planned ahead well enough to make it seem like he did.

“Great,” Ryan said.“Our unit’s senior researcher will be reaching out to you soon to go over all that in greater detail.”

“Not a problem,” Blackwell said, his confidence bleeding over into arrogance.“May I go now?”

“For now,” Ryan said.

The man turned on his heel and stormed back through the sliding doors.Once he was gone, Ryan turned to Jessie.“What do you think?”

“I think that once Jamil reviews the GPS and streaming data, he’s going to find that Ethan Blackwell’s phone and car were at home last night.Whether the good doctor was really there too is another matter.We can question Mrs.Blackwell, but you know as well as I do that having your wife say you were home all night may be an alibi, but it’s not the best one ever.”

“Unfortunately, unless the data or the wife undermine what he told us, there’s not enough to bring him in yet,” Ryan concluded.“For now we’ll just have to keep an eye on him and hope that either he’s innocent or, if he’s guilty, that his cockiness makes him sloppy.”

Jessie was skeptical that Blackwell was the type to make a stupid mistake, which left her in an odd position.She found herself hoping that the man was innocent.Because if he was guilty, she wasn’t sure they’d be able to prove it.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

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