Page 21 of The Perfect Crime

Vega nodded silently, as if he was wrapping his head around the larger dimensions of what had been exclusively a personal tragedy for him until now.

“Okay,” he said.“What do you want to know?”

“What were you doing prior to arriving home?”Ryan asked.

“We went to an afternoon movie,” Vega explained before adding sheepishly, “I do pretty well for myself, but you can’t beat those matinee prices.”

Jessie was briefly tempted to ask him what he did for a living but decided they could get that information from Jamil and Beth later on.Right now, they needed to focus on his personal experience.

“And we understand from your neighbor that the man who did this admitted to poisoning your wife while he held you captive last night,” she said.“Was he more specific than that?”

“He said that he had put something in her soda toward the end of the movie,” Vega said.“He didn’t explain anything more than that.I don’t know if he was sitting next to her the whole time or if he snuck over when she went to the restroom or what.”

His tone got increasingly agitated as he spoke.

“Okay,” Ryan said, moving on quickly, “So after the movie, did you go straight home?”

“Yes.It was close to dinner time, and we planned to have some leftover takeout Thai food from the night before.But Ellie started feeling sick on the way home.”

“We saw on your security camera that you had to carry her inside,” Jessie said.“She was in such bad shape that she couldn’t walk on her own?”

“She threw up when she was getting out of the car,” he said.“I could tell she was really struggling and just wanted to get her inside.I think that’s how the guy got in.I just kind of kicked the door shut and didn’t even think about locking it.”

Jessie could hear the creeping guilt in his voice.It was the same feeling of responsibility that Sarah Whitaker had felt when describing helping her husband inside.It wasn’t justified in either case.But before she could tell him that, he pressed ahead.

“I didn’t even see him until I heard this loud thump.I looked over and saw that Ellie was on the floor in the living room.Thinking back on it, I wonder if she was trying to get up to help me.When I went over to her, the intruder was right there.He subdued and tied me up before I really knew what was happening.”

“Did he explain why he chose you or why he was doing this?”

"He said something about us flaunting ourselves at the movie," Vega said, "but I don't know what he was talking about.And when I pleaded with him to help Ellie, he said—and I remember this vividly—'you have to see it.You have to feel it.You have to understand.'I asked him what that meant, but that's all he said."

Jessie wanted to ask more about the 'flaunting ourselves' comment but remembering the incident seemed to be too much for Vega.His eyes got wet, and when he tried to speak, his voice cracked.He started to break down.The nurse came in a moment later.Her eyes were fixed on the monitor next to Vega.Jessie understood why.The man's blood pressure was sky high.

“We’re going to have to end this for now,” she said firmly.“Mr.Vega, I’m going to give you another sedative to calm you down, all right?”

She didn’t wait for his answer as she pushed buttons and adjusted dials.Jessie and Ryan stepped outside.It was clear that the interview was over.

They walked silently through the emergency room, passing rows of pulled curtains as they listened to the symphony of beeps that defined the place.As they walked, Jessie could feel that familiar, unwanted anger rising in her chest.

Just as she had with Sarah Whitaker, she pictured Marcus Vega sitting helplessly, forced to watch the life leech out of the body of the person he loved.Her fist clenched at the thought of the kind of person who would do this, who would make two people suffer for hours, one dying a painful death, while their partner was made to witness it.She imagined what she would do if she got her hands on the perpetrator.Would she slap cuffs on the man or give him a little of his own medicine?

“We should head back to the station,” Ryan said, pulling her back into the moment.“Maybe Jamil and Beth have uncovered new info since we last checked in.”

“Sounds good,” Jessie said.

She hoped they had found something—anything—for her to channel her energy into.If she couldn’t find some productive way to direct it, she feared she might explode.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Jessie got half her wish.

By the time that she and Ryan returned to Central Station at 7:30, the researchers had collected a fair bit of information on the Vegas.Nothing about it jumped off the screen, but at least it was something to work with.

“Elena Vega was an interior designer,” Jamil said, when they arrived in the research office, “but Marcus Vega, like James Whitaker, worked in the investment world.He was a senior vice president for a venture capital firm based out of the Bay Area called Golden Gate Capital Ventures.He was their primary L.A.representative.”

“So we’re thinking that there might be some connection between him and Whitaker?”Ryan said hopefully.

“Unfortunately, we haven’t found any overlapping clients or co-workers so far,” Beth said.“We were just about to do the same thing we did with Whitaker and see if any of Vega’s clients had filed complaints against him.I thought that if they did, maybe they’d have the same lawyer or something.”

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