Page 30 of The Perfect Deception
"Look around you."Winston waved his arm at the careworn office."My experience with those swaps is what has me here instead of the office tower on Figueroa.It's why I live in an apartment in Victoria Park instead of a mansion in Lafayette Square.It's why my business had largely dried up, along with my liver, which has probably shriveled down to a scarred raisin by now.So you're coming around and telling me I don't have a choice about discussing the most painful time in my life, doesn't really have me shaking in my boots.I'm just trying to live a quiet existence now, and if you blow that up, you should expect a lawsuit.Don't let these surroundings fool you into thinking I don't have the resources to come after you."
Jessie ignored the threat and focused on another part of his comment.“I find that odd, Mr.Winston.According to the data we’ve compiled, you’re still worth in the neighborhood of $17 million.You could have kept your mansion and your old office.It seems that you chose this lifestyle rather than having it thrust upon you.Why?”
He scoffed at the question.“If you have that level of insight into my finances and you know about the swaps, then you obviously also know that my wife killed herself out of shame over how I conducted myself.Do you really think I’d want to work in the same office where our desks were face to face?That I’d want to make breakfast in the same kitchen where we burned a turkey so bad that the smoke detector went off?Or sleep in the same bed where we made love?Too many memories.”
“I get that,” she said.He was confirming her suspicions.“Living so close to where you created those memories reminds you that you’ll never have those experiences again.And you’re punishing yourself because you believe you’re the reason she’s gone.”
“I don’t believe it.I know it.I mourn Vanessa every day, when I’m not trying to drown out her memory with booze.The last thing I need is some cops coming here and peppering me with questions about it.So either cut to the chase or leave.What does my pain have to do with two people dying?”
Jessie looked over at Ryan.He seemed reluctant to be too forthcoming but she thought that at this point, they didn’t have other options.Winston was either a suspect or a valuable resource.Either way, being frank with him would elicit some kind of response.That alone could be worthwhile.She decided to go for it.
“The two people who died were Cassandra Dominik and Olivia Maplewood.Did you know them?”
He paused for a moment as he either truly or “faux” processed the information.“Only casually.I may have followed them on social media at some point as part of a Lafayette Square Facebook group.And I think we went to parties at both of their houses.I can picture them both but couldn’t tell you a ton about them.”
“Well, they didn’t just die, Mr.Winston.”She watched him closely as she continued.“They were both murdered—in each other’s beds.”
The wide eyes returned, whether real or fake.She pressed on.
“Did you know that both of them were also involved in life swaps?”
He shook his head.When he answered his voice had lost some of its edge.“No.When Vanessa and I were a part of them, we only knew the couples we were switching places with.Elise Prager—I assume you know she runs the whole thing—made a big deal about confidentiality.”
Ryan took over.His tone was gentle but his question was sharp-edged.“Mr.Winston, I’m wondering if it was difficult for you to know that other people were having positive experiences with these life swaps when yours went so awry.Is it possible that you might have felt some animosity towards those folks?”
Winston’s mouth dropped open.For a moment, he looked like he was about to shout.But then he leaned back in his chair and offered a rueful half-smile.
“I see what this is about now.I’m a suspect.”The smile disappeared.“I suppose this is the time where I should be asking for a lawyer.But I’m not going to do that.I’m going to be real with you.Yes, this life swap network ruined my marriage.I’m sure you already know this but I became obsessed with the other wife in our swap.I really lost myself.And Vanessa was a witness to it.She suffered the shame that I should have carried alone.But I was too fixated on my own needs that I didn’t see hers at all.”
He stopped to gather himself.
“I’m sorry,” Jessie said quietly.
“You know she was an Ironman triathlete?Because she was so physically tough and strong—able to push through physical discomfort—I didn’t see that she was in emotional pain.I missed the signs that she was struggling until it was far too late.She fought depression and other issues before the swap.They were always there but I exacerbated them with my actions and then with my selfish cluelessness.It’s my fault that she killed herself.And I’ll have to live with that knowledge for as long as my liver holds out.But did I kill two women because of it?No, I didn’t.”
He sounded sincere to Jessie, but she’d encountered many killers who were equally convincing.And only being back on the job for a day, she wasn’t inclined to trust her instincts about his credibility.Ryan asked the question that was on her mind as well.
“Where were you last night, Mr.Winston?”
The man chuckled acidly.“I would say that I have to consult my appointment calendar but that would be a joke.I was at the same place I am most nights—in my apartment with a bottle of Vodka, streaming some stupid action movie that I first saw when I was a teenager, back before my life turned to crap.”
“Was there anyone else with you?”Jessie pressed.
He gave her a wry look that seemed to say: “do you really think anyone would want to hang out withme?”But all he actually said was “no.”
“You don’t mind if we confirm that using the GPS data from your phone and car, as well as the streaming service information?”Ryan asked.
“Go right ahead.”
He sounded blasé about it but the truth was that the data they wanted might not excludeorimplicate Winston.He could have left his phone and car at his apartment with a movie playing on the TV and paid cash for a cab to Lafayette Square.In fact, his place was within walking distance of the neighborhood, though it would take about half an hour.
They’d have Jamil and the research team use every tool at their disposal to verify or invalidate Winston’s alibi.But in the interim, they didn’t have enough to bring him in.That realization was unsettling.
Walter Winston might simply be a widower, pathetically drowning his guilt over his wife’s suicide in vodka and self-loathing.But if that guilt had curdled into something darker, could it have pushed him over the edge into violence?
Jessie knew all too well that it didn’t take that much to take that final leap from feeling fury to acting on it.She had taken that leap, and she’d had a whole support system that should have helped her avoid that outcome.Winston had none of that.
When they left his office, she wasn’t sure if she’d just questioned a sad sack loser or a killer.The one reassuring thing was that they had time to figure it out
