Insidious (FBI Thriller 20)

Cam leaned forward, relieving the pressure of the springs. “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Buffet. Please, tell me about Deborah.”

She gave Cam a small smile. “My sweet Deborah, she was always happy, always up, that girl, always singing. She had a great voice, a big voice, like Judy Garland, and she loved to sing. She’d come over and I’d give her lemonade and my famous sugar cookies and she’d sing me all my favorites. What’s the world coming to when someone would kill a girl like that?”

“It was a terrible thing, Mrs. Buffet, for all of us.”

“Not just terrible, no, it’s an evil thing. In all my years I’ve never found an answer to evil.” Mrs. Buffet turned her head away to blot her eyes, then looked back at Cam. “Maybe you can do something, who knows? I’ll tell you what I saw last night. It might help you catch that monster.”

Cam felt her heart kick up a beat.

“Unlike you, young lady, I’m old, so I don’t need much sleep, a good thing, since it gives me more time awake to appreciate that I’m still alive and kicking.” She nodded toward the lacy white curtains hanging still, since there was no breeze coming in through the open window. “Last night I was standing just there, looking out at the stars, once everyone’s lights were turned off for the night.

“It was around midnight, calm and quiet, and so I heard what sounded like glass breaking, but really muffled so I couldn’t be sure. I thought some of those wild teenagers from one block over had busted a car window again, but to be honest, I didn’t think much more about it.” She huffed. “Where are their parents? I’d like to know.”

Cam smoothly steered her back. “You didn’t call 911 to check it out?”

“No, not then. Everything was quiet again. It was maybe ten minutes later when I saw a shadow coming around the side of Deborah’s house, and then a man. He was carrying something in his right hand. He walked away from the house, didn’t hurry, could have been the middle of the day to him. I thought he’d come out from the house behind Deborah’s—taking a shortcut. I watched him walk away down the street, never hurrying, just walking. Do you think it was him, that monster who murdered poor Deborah?”

“It’s likely, ma’am. Can you describe him to me?”

“Young.” Mrs. Buffet laughed, but it sounded more like a grunt. “Well, anyone south of eighty is young to me. But I mean he moved easy, not like he had a stiff knee or sore joints. Smooth. He was wearing a short coat, maybe black or dark blue, I think, and a cap. He looked pretty ordinary, common.”

“Could you see if there was any lettering on the cap? The color?”

“Hmmm, maybe the cap was green, with letters, like a John Deere, but it was so dark I can’t be sure.”

“That’s good, Mrs. Buffet. Did you get an idea of how tall he was?”

“Let me think about that. Everybody’s tall compared to me. I shrink an inch every single year, that’s what my doctor says, and he laughs and pats my hand, says by the time I’m one hundred, I’ll only be three feet high!” She beamed at Cam, then shook her head. “Maybe he was about as tall as Doc, not fat, but I really can’t be sure because he was wearing that dark coat. I thought that was odd, since it was very warm last night. You think he was wearing it to hide the knife he used to kill my poor Deborah?”

And to hide her laptop and cell phone.

“It’s possible. Mrs. Buffet, could you make out his hair color?”

“He didn’t have any hair. He was bald as an eagle’s egg. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you that, but he stopped up against that big oak tree three doors up and lifted off his ball cap—and then the weirdest thing—he rubbed his hand over his head, looked at his hand, and rubbed it on his pant leg. Then he put his ball cap back on and began walking again. Maybe a little faster that time.”

Mrs. Buffet cocked her head. “I think something came off on his hand when he rubbed his head?”

Blood splatter, but Cam didn’t say it. “Is it possible he wasn’t bald, that he was wearing something on his head to cover his hair, like a skull cap?”

“Of course it’s possible, dear. This is Hollywood.”

Nothing was ever easy. “Why didn’t you call 911, Mrs. Buffet? After you saw that man?”

“I did. A man and a lady officer came around, asked me what the problem was. And I told them what I told you, and they took flashlights and walked around the neighborhood. They came back maybe ten minutes later, said everything was all right. One of them even patted my shoulder and told me to go back to bed. So I drank a dram or two of my husband’s favorite single malt, rest his soul, and slept until I heard all the commotion at Deborah’s house.”

So the officers hadn’t seen the broken window or the broken glass. Would it have mattered if Deborah had been discovered last night rather than this morning? It could have, but probably not. She’d check the officers’ log-in for the exact time they were here.

Mrs. Buffet said, “How is Doc dealing with all this?”

Cam said simply, “I believe he’s torn to pieces.”

“I would hope so. It’s not that Doc hasn’t been nice to me, because he’s always nice, and I hear he’s a good doctor. But I told Deborah more than once that she was making a mistake, moving in with him, maybe even eventually marrying him. He was always trying to push her out of acting, into something that would bring her a regular paycheck. She admitted that to me one day when she was mad at him and came over. Can you imagine? The girl was a born actress and I told her so. I know she would have made it, and soon.

“But with Doc, it was always his patients who came first, never Deborah. And would you look at him—he dresses like a bum. I told her he wouldn’t look good on her arm when she showed up for her Oscar. She laughed, said she’d clean him up herself if the day came. When the day came, I told her.” Mrs. Buffet looked back down at the afghan, began pulling on a loose thread. When she looked up again, her eyes were sheened with tears. “I always told Deborah she should have been my great-granddaughter. And she’d say maybe I needed to put another great in there. I’m ninety-one years old, she’d just turned twenty-six, barely born, and now she’s dead. I gave her a bottle of her favorite chardonnay for her birthday.” Tears ran rivulets in the deep seams on her face. Mrs. Buffet made a disgusted sound, pulled a pink handkerchief from her pocket, and gently daubed her eyes. “Gotta be careful. At my age, my eyes might pop out if I rub too hard.” She swallowed.