Page 56 of The Perfect People

CHAPTER THIRTY

Jessie felt herself slipping.

It was hard to stay alert, even under these intense circumstances, after hours without anything happening.

She and Susannah had been at Daphne Klein’s party since nine. It was just after 11 p.m. now and no one had made an aggressive move toward Daphne. That is, unless one counted the dancing balcony man in the gold paint and solo sock costume, who had briefly, jokingly, faux-humped her on the dance floor, before focusing his attention on a gentleman more to his liking.

But other than that one, fleeting moment when there seemed to be a potential threat, the only excitement of the evening had come from seeing which guests were most likely to lose their outfits entirely, and how many of them would do it accidentally or by design. Jessie was considering sneaking into the kitchen to brew herself a cup of coffee when she saw Officer Carrie Shaw step through the front door. The young cop looked around, made eye contact, and motioned for Jessie to meet her outside.

“Stay with Daphne,” Jessie told Susannah. “Carrie Shaw just showed up. It looks like she has news.”

The detective nodded and Jessie weaved her way through the now-less-crammed living room and out into the yard. She joined Shaw in a darkened, secluded area off to the side, where other guests wouldn’t take note of a cop talking to a tennis player.

“What’s up?” Jessie asked.

“I tried to text you, but I didn’t hear back,” Shaw said.

“Sorry,” Jessie said, pulling her phone out of the small purse she’d been holding. “There was nowhere to keep it or my gun with this outfit, so I had to carry a bag. With all the noise in there, I guess I didn’t hear any texts or calls. Want to fill me in?”

Shaw dived right in.

“Despite what Curly Duff told you, this might not be the right party,” she said. “I’ve been doing the rounds up and down the Strand and I just found out that a woman at a different party was choked earlier tonight. Apparently, it happened a few hours ago but just like with the other women, she didn’t call it in because she was worried that we’d shut the party down to do a big investigation and she didn’t want the thousands of dollars that she’d spent on catering and decorations to go to waste. It’s a Prohibition-era Roaring Twenties party.”

“Who is she?” Jessie asked.

“Her name is Maya Easton,” Shaw said. “I didn’t close the party down, but I called Timms and told him to stay in sight of her while I went looking for you. I figured you’d want to stop by.”

“You figured right,” Jessie said. “I’m going to get Detective Valentine. Contact Sergeant Breem. Then you can take us to this party. We may have finally caught a break.”

***

It could have gone worse.

Maya Easton could have freaked out or been unreasonably stubborn or difficult, but to Jessie’s surprise, she had taken their firmly worded “request” in stride. It was all the more impressive, considering that they’d told her in the guest bathroom of her own home, with people banging on the door to get in.

“It’s not the end of the world,” she had told them when they informed her that she needed to wrap up her festivities early without drawing suspicion. “I got some quality revelry in, and I can just send them all to the party next door anyway.”

She had been less enthused when they explained the rest of their plan to her, which involved using her as bait. Sergeant Breem, along with Officers Shaw, Timms, and Oldmeyer, would be outside, officially keeping tabs on the other parties in the area but available on short notice if needed.

“We want you to leave your house open and accessible,” Susannah had explained to her, “so that this guy can get inside and make his move. We don’t want him to suspect that he has anything to worry about. Ms. Hunt and I will be here, acting like passed-out party guests, but in general, we don’t want to alert him to our presence. So, after we do a search of the house, we’ll have you hang out in your bedroom and we’ll keep in constant contact with you via text, okay?”

Maya, who was divorced and hadn’t met anyone tonight that made the plan a romantic sacrifice, had reluctantly agreed. That led them to their current situation, with Susannah lying on a couch in the downstairs living room, Jessie in one of the upstairs guestrooms, and Maya nervously texting away from her main upstairs bedroom.

Jessie settled in, unsure how long they’d be waiting. The coroner had estimated that Shasta Mallory was killed between 12:30 and 2:30 a.m. Nicole Boyce was murdered between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. It was now 11:24 p.m.

They were coming up on peak killing time.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

Wade Cronin wasn’t going to make the same mistake as before. When he returned to the house, he would attack the correct woman.

Even as he parked his car a block away and got out at 11:42 p.m., he shook his head at the absurdity of the evening’s events. How could he possibly have known that the woman he intended to strangle to death, Lola Dorman, was having ajointRoaring Twenties party with her next-door neighbor and friend Maya Easton? How could he have known that they would decide to wear matching flapper costumes and do their hair the same way?

And how could he possibly have known that Maya would have been visiting Lola’s party at the same time he was there, walking down the stairs, with her back to him, so that he would assume she was Lola and grab her neck in front of multiple guests, only to discover he had the wrong woman while he was being attacked by her rescuers? What were the chances?

But everything was cleared up now. The double-party confusion was resolved. The error would be corrected. And soon, the wrongs that he suffered would be righted.

As he walked to Lola’s he was wearing a simple, button-down, short-sleeved striped shirt and a pair of matching striped drawstring shorts that were casually ’20s-era appropriate but would draw little attention. In fact, no one gave him a second look as he walked through the front door of the party, which was still hopping, and wandered back to the kitchen to grab a beer.

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