As he spoke, he gathered papers and slid them neatly into an exquisite Malmo briefcase.
Cam waited until he clicked the briefcase closed and looked back at her. “Sir, what if I told you the serial killer may not have been the one who killed Deborah?”
He jerked up, stared at her, shook his head back and forth. “Well, if you’re not lying for shock value, then that settles it for me: go arrest that psycho boyfriend of hers.” He punched the buzzer. “Brandi, please show the agent and detective out.”
He gave them a dismissive smile and strode past them, out of his own office, past beautiful Brandi, whose smile was gracious and lasted until they were gone from her sight.
Cam said to Daniel as they rode the elevator to the lobby, “Mr. Markham has an excellent memory, doesn’t he?”
“For what happened at a party six months ago? I’ll say. He’s sure got some hate in him about Doc. He even tied Doc to Constance Morrissey. Why so much animosity toward a man he only met at a party six months ago?”
Cam said, “I don’t know. Did he want Deborah for himself, now that Connie is dead? As for Doc killing Deborah—I spoke to him. His wild grief was real. He was drowning in guilt because he hadn’t moved her to their new place yesterday and she’d been alone there last night. I know, out of great love can come great hate. But it wasn’t Doc. He didn’t kill Deborah.”
“Doc—Mark Richards—told you he was at the hospital all night, taking care of that boy he’d operated on?”
“Yes. Detective Loomis has probably already spoken to all his coworkers. But let me check.” Cam texted Loomis, asking him to call her.
Daniel said, “It may be impossible to prove he was there the whole time, every single minute. Hospitals can be a madhouse.”
“It wasn’t Doc,” Cam said again. She pressed down the window and stuck her head out. The wind tore through her hair, teared her eyes, salted her skin. She breathed in the ocean air and wondered why she lived in Washington. The smell of the Atlantic wasn’t at all the same—the water looked cold, opaque, hiding deadly secrets that shifted and roiled beneath the surface. As for the Pacific, ah, the water smelled oddly sweet. It was welcoming, somehow promised magic when you swam beneath those waves.
She pulled her head back in. “Hey, Daniel, isn’t Paco’s up ahead? I need brain food and that means Mrs. Luther’s chips and salsa, round two.”
41
* * *
MISSY’S COTTAGE
MALIBU
LATE WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON
When Daniel and Cam walked into Missy’s living room it was to see her and Doc sitting on the sofa, their heads together, laptops on the coffee table in front of them.
“Did you know he’d be here?” Daniel asked quietly as he set down a big cardboard box with papers from Deborah’s house in the doorway.
“No, but it’s just as well, saves us time.” Cam studied Mark Richards’s haggard face. He looked almost terminally ill, needing only a little push into the hereafter. When he took off his glasses and looked over at her, she saw something else. Intense eyes, even fierce, and she knew despite his grief he had a mission now, to find Deborah’s killer.
They stepped forward. “Hi, Missy. Dr. Richards, I’m glad you’re here. I’ve brought a box of Deborah’s papers to go over with you.”
Missy pulled a long hank of hair off her cheek and tucked it back into her ponytail. She gave Daniel a blinding smile. “Hi.”
He nodded to her, smiling. “Hi, yourself.”
Missy turned to Cam. “Doc called me to tell me about Deborah and we got to talking and I invited him over. I hope it’s all right, Cam, I told him we were concentrating on Deborah’s auditions. What’s in the box?”
“Deborah’s paper records. A lot of them. They probably include all her auditions for several years. Whatever you can tell us about these will help us, Doc.”
Missy laid her palm lightly on Doc’s shoulder, a show of support and comfort. “Good. We were just beginning to go over my own auditions and those contacts I gave you. We know a lot of the same people, which makes sense, of course. It’s too bad we don’t have her cell to help us. Doc pointed out you could get those contacts through the phone company.”
Doc finally raised his head, nodded to them. “Agent Wittier.” He looked at Daniel. “Who are you?”
Missy said, “Sorry, that’s Detective Daniel Montoya, from the Lost Hills station. He and Cam are working together. And they’re letting me help them.” She sounded like a proud mama.
Cam said, “Doc, as Missy said, we’re focusing on the idea that Deborah’s death, all the killings, might relate to professional rivalry in some way. The fact that Deborah was a record keeper will be a great help.”
“And I’ll do anything I can to help you,” Doc said, and then broke off, as if speaking more words were beyond him.
To give him time to get himself together, Cam and Daniel looked down at the list Missy was making on her tablet. Daniel said, “So these are actresses you remember Deborah beating out in auditions. I see they go back to last year. Let’s go through the box, see if we can narrow the time frame.”
Cam said, “We’ll also narrow the list by importance. For example, I don’t think an audition for a mouthwash commercial would be relevant. What we’re looking for are TV or movie roles.”
She saw that Doc had gotten himself together, and handed him a sheet of paper dated three months before, Deborah’s record of an audition for a role in a TV comedy. He looked at her neat handwriting and swallowed hard.
“Do you remember this audition, Doc? It looks like a meaty role, for Comfort Zone, a TV comedy, casting for a fall pilot. Do you know if she won that, or turned the role down for something else?”
He slowly shook his head. “I would know if she won a role like that. She’d have taken it, I’m sure. Wait, I think I remember her talking about that one, but then again, she was always talking about her auditions, worrying about them. It went on and on, there were so many.” He swallowed. “Sorry, I’m not making much sense. Please, give me more of her records, maybe one will stand out. It’s tough to think about the auditions, it seems so trivial now.” He looked at her helplessly.
“Tell us about Deborah winning the role in The Crown Prince.”