They left Perry there, went back to the adjacent room. With Darnell and Delaney peering over his shoulder, Vaughn unlocked the phone. Navigated to the man’s text messages. Again, they were just like Perry said. Same wording as the texts they’d found in Aaron’s phone.
“Fuck,” Vaughn muttered.
He hadn’t thought that Perry was their guy, but things would be so much easier if he was.
“Cut him loose,” Vaughn instructed, no longer even entertaining the idea that he was their unsub.
“But—”
“Cut him loose, Delaney. If you want, have one of your guys tail him for a bit.”
Delaney straightened.
“I’ll follow him.”
Vaughn pictured Delaney in the field again, gun drawn. The last thing they wanted was for Delaney to do something stupid.
Stupider.
“No. Have Horowitz do it.”
“But—”
“I said no, Delaney. I want you to head out to the gas station where the ad was placed under Josh’s wiper—QuikTrip on Belt Line Road. See if they have security footage.”
Delaney looked as if he was going to continue the argument, but let it go. Left in a huff.
Vaughn slowly headed upstairs to his and Darnell’s shared office.
He hated murder boards. Thought they were mainly a waste of time, just something to do when a case stalls. And that’s exactly why he decided to set one up now.
Darnell helped, but was mostly preoccupied with his phone.
Vaughn started with the ad that had been left on Josh Perry’s windshield. A copy, because for some reason, Darnell insisted on keeping the original. Moved outward from there, printing out all the text messages as well as the transcripts from the two 911 calls. These calls themselves were a bit of an oddity. Whoever was behind these killings wanted the cops to know about them.
Why?
In Vaughn’s experience, most unsubs did things like this for one purpose: notoriety. He made a mental note to follow up with Bowes later regarding his search of the dark web.
Delaney, for all his faults, had put in the most hours on this case. Had done some good work, too. Identified all but one of the first ten victims, had even let their significant others know when there was a significant other to notify, which was only in three of the cases.
If their unsub had a type, it was this: male, between twenty-five and fifty years old. Low socioeconomic status. Desperate enough to accept a budget ad and play a sketchy game in hopes of winning crypto. The issue with this ‘type’ is that it applied to nearly half of the American population.
“Darnell, you think that these victims are all chosen at random?”
Darnell’s face was still buried in his phone.
“Probably. My guess is that he just put these ads in areas where he thinks desperate people hang out.”
The QuikTrip on Belt Line Road fit the bill.
“Or sends them emails.”
This was an assumption, but a fair one. They were still working on search warrants for the laptops of the other victims. Vaughn wasn’t hopeful that this would get them anywhere. Their unsub had already proven himself perfectly capable of hiding his digital fingerprints.
Vaughn continued putting photos on the board. Added images of Dr.McGill, and the three other members in the department who had access to the gas. None of those leads had panned out. He hesitated, but then added Ivy’s image, noting that her laptop had been in Treadman’s possession.
Vaughn took a step back, cocked his head.
