Insidious (FBI Thriller 20)

Then Dreyfus Murray did a double take.

“Cammie, is that you, girl?”

A smile bloomed. “Dreyfus! How lovely to see you.”

He hugged her, then set her back, shaking his head. “Of course I knew you’d gone into the FBI, but—look at you, here you are, the bigfoot Fed sticking your nose in my business. What’s it been, three years since I last saw you?”

Cam smiled. “Nah, I’m no bigfoot, my feet are princess-size. Well, maybe a nine isn’t all that small, but still, even my toes have no intention of wriggling under your tent. Yeah, about three years, it was Mom’s birthday and you brought her balloons and cupcakes. Speaking of Mom, after I told her I was coming, she laughed, said I should surprise you, and that’s why I didn’t call.”

“Lisabeth’s a real joker, always having fun, always getting such a kick out of life, even though she didn’t marry me.” He sighed. “Everything turned out for the best. I finally had to admit your dad is an okay guy. He’s never strayed, unusual for an actor, right? Even my wife likes your mom, but not enough to invite her to dinner more than once a year.”

“No, Dad and Mom are a rarity in LaLa Land—happily married for longer than I’ve been alive. Must have something to do with them staying outside Hollywood’s rarified A-list. How’s Suzanne? And the boys?” Cam asked.

Murray shook his head. “Can you believe none of them wanted to be cops? Engineers, the four of them, two of them partners in a company they started up, Murray Engineering, and they’re populating Southern California. We’re up to ten grandkids now.” He turned to his dispatcher. “Hey, Al, a couple of coffees for me and the lady Fed. Still drinking it like a girl—half milk?”

She laughed. “No coffee for me just now, thank you.”

Murray ushered her into his office, sat her down. “Now, you tell your mom to keep out of this. I know she and your dad knew Constance Morrissey, lived what—eight houses down from them in the Colony? They’re to steer clear, all right? I don’t want them dragged into this, taking any chances, and you know your mom, she wouldn’t hesitate.”

“I’m not even staying with them, Dreyfus. They’ll have their ideas about Constance Morrissey, I’m sure, but they won’t be knocking on doors and questioning people.” She paused. “Well, more than they already have. I’ll tell them again to stay away from all this.”

“Well, that’s something. Are you sure they’ll listen?”

“Not really.”

“Don’t know why I asked in the first place. Okay, Cammie, if you’re ready to meet my detective who’s lead on this case, let me take you to Daniel Montoya. He was here for a week when Constance Morrissey was murdered. May 3rd. He’s the one who figured out we had a Serial on our hands.” He sounded like a proud papa, so Cam didn’t bother to tell him she’d already found out everything there was to know about Montoya and she’d read his murder book cover to cover. He’d done all the right things, and more, put the two other murders from different sheriffs’ jurisdictions together himself, and spotted the Serial.

“I’ll be glad to meet him. We’ve got lots to do today. First thing, I want to visit the house where Connie Morrissey was murdered, maybe stop by my parents’ house. Then Detective Montoya and I will head to the new Parker Center for a meeting I’ve arranged with detectives from all four of the jurisdictions the Serial has struck. I’m hoping it will help us all get on the same page, get us working together.”

“It’s occurred to us the Serial may have killed in different jurisdictions to confuse matters, to slow us down. Not only that, three of the murders were in sheriffs’ areas, not LAPD jurisdictions.”

“Could be. Don’t know.”

“You’ll find out. It sounds like quite a big-dog meeting, a real free-for-all.” He eyed her pretty face, her short blond hair as wavy as her mom’s. “I hope you survive.”

She gave him a big grin. “Have some faith, Dreyfus. I intend to herd all those territorial egos into the same holding pen as sweetly as I can, use my branding iron only if they get too frisky. I understand Montoya’s ex–Army Intelligence. I saw from his murder book he knows his way around a computer, has a good brain. I imagine he isn’t particularly happy to have the FBI here in his face, messing with his case. I hope you told him to play nice.”

“Daniel’s not an idiot, he’ll cooperate.” He looked at a younger version of her mother, Lisabeth, the woman he almost married. Cammie had her mother’s face and her wide infectious smile, not to mention the dimple identical to her mother’s, adorable when she was seven years old. “But I’ll tell you, Cammie, when he gets a look at your face and that smile of yours, only the good Lord knows what he’ll have to say.”

Cam knew a smile got a woman FBI agent only so far. It didn’t help with perps taking her seriously, or with some male agents and law enforcement, for that matter. She could but try. “Please, Dreyfus, it’d help if you called me Cam. Not Cammie—sounds like I’m still seven and smearing birthday cake all over my face.”

“Cam. Sounds good.” Sheriff Murray led her into the bullpen, not all that large a room, with maybe twelve desks, half occupied, buzzing with low voices. The men and women detectives were on their cells or typing on their computers, one talking with a perp or a victim as he leafed through a file. She smelled bitter coffee, like every other cop shop she’d ever been in. It felt like home, down to the doughnut crumbs and the half, lone bear claw lying on the table next to the pot of coffee, probably strong enough to corrode stomach lining.

“There he is, over there, the guy with the Mac laptop, the cell crunched between his shoulder and his ear, and the bagel in his hand.”

Cam eyed Detective Montoya, then turned when Dreyfus said, “I’ll let you introduce yourself. Keep me in the loop, Cam,” and left her to it.

Cam walked over to Montoya’s ancient banged-up cop desk, stood quietly beside him as he spoke in a slow comforting voice on his cell, maybe talking to a witness or a victim. If he saw her, he didn’t acknowledge her. She watched him take a bite of his bagel, end up with some cream cheese on his upper lip. As he listened, he typed on his laptop with two fingers. He finally looked up at her, jerked his head toward the chair.