That snapped him back. He raised his face. “His name is Phoenix Taylor and we clipped that sucker right out. I think we got it all. He’ll need some radiation treatment, but he has a chance at a life now. Deborah even came by after the surgery and took a photo of Phoenix and his parents—you can see the relief on their faces, big smiles. I guess it was still on her cell phone. One of the policemen told me it was stolen. Sorry, of course you know that.
“Phoenix had a bit of a setback with his intracranial pressure that I had to manage, and that’s why I wasn’t here last night. I couldn’t, I needed to be close, just in case.
“This morning, Phoenix was fine, even gave me a little smile through his missing front tooth. So I was able to leave the hospital early this morning—this would have been our moving day.” He lowered his head to his hands but didn’t make a sound.
Cam waited. He raised his head, looked at her blindly. “She was only twenty-six. Last Sunday was her birthday. We spent the day anchored off the coast, kicking back and drinking beer, eating chips and salsa, talking about how we were going to furnish our new place.” He ran out of words and sat there, motionless and silent. He reached for his glasses with small circular lenses and put them on. “Thank you, for caring about her. Of course I’ll help, any way I can.”
Twenty minutes later, Cam met Detective Loomis in the hallway. “The M.E. estimates the Serial killed her about midnight, but that’s not definite yet. He’ll let us know if anything we don’t expect turns up at autopsy. Did you learn anything from the boyfriend?”
Cam said, “Her boyfriend is a doctor, but he seems to know a lot about her career, maybe because she spent so much time recording it all. We may have caught a break with that, actually. Deborah was a record keeper. There are piles of documents in her office that she was going through before packing for the move. They’ve got to be filled with the names of people she worked with—actors, agents, producers—probably anyone with any clout at all that she’d met. He told me practically Deborah’s whole life is on her laptop that’s missing—it’s a Toshiba Satellite—every part and audition, every personality. Maybe with all those paper records and Dr. Richards’s help, we can reconstruct a lot of it. It’s more than we had in the other cases.
“I asked him to reconstruct as much of her activities this past week. I believe too this will help him, keep him focused on something other than his grief and guilt for not spending the night with her.”
Loomis sighed. “It’s something. The Serial’s killed twice now, in under a week. He’s escalating, and that scares me spitless.”
She nodded. “The profilers don’t like it, either. It’s something they didn’t expect.”
“So even Olympus isn’t always in control of the facts?”
“Alas, no. Where’d you get the name Arturo?”
Again, the look of surprise, then he eased. “Arturo’s my second name actually, after a big flamenco dancer in the thirties in Barcelona. My wife—a DEA Fed—didn’t like it, called me Lou. Lousy name.”
“I think Arturo is cool.” Cam gave him her card, explained the FBI website to him. “I’m going to visit the lady across the street Doc told me about, Mrs. Buffet. Doc said she knew everyone in the neighborhood, said it sometimes drove him crazy, since she always seemed to know what Deborah was doing before he did. He said Deborah treated her like her grandmother, was always over there, checking on her, drinking her lemonade, just hanging out whenever she had a chance.”
Loomis nodded. “The housekeeper and Daniel still have their heads together. I hope she has something helpful to tell him.”
“If she knows anything, I bet Daniel will get it out of her. Tell your people get all chatty with the neighbors, use their shock and surprise to their advantage—”
“Thanks for the hint, they were wondering what to do.”
“Yeah, that was heavy-handed, sorry.”
Loomis’s mouth fell open.
She smiled. “Please tell Daniel I’ll hook up with him when I’m through speaking to Mrs. Buffet.”
32
* * *
MRS. BUFFET’S HOUSE
SANTA MONICA
Mrs. Buffet’s 1940s stucco bungalow was directly across the street from Deborah Connelly’s house. It was painted a blinding bright pink that fit right in with the other rainbow colors of the neighborhood. The window frames were painted white, with built-in window boxes filled with impatiens and marigolds, adding color to a yard covered with gravel and cacti. An ancient pale blue Chevy Impala sat in the driveway.
Cam breathed in the soft morning air, still too early to be hot, and knocked on the door. Oddly, there was no doorbell.
A good two minutes later, she heard shuffling, like slippers sliding over a wood floor. The door opened and she looked down at a very slight lady, at least ninety, maybe older, wearing a pink jogging suit, pink UGG slippers on her tiny feet. Her hair was all over her head, tossed around like she’d been in a stiff wind, and sprayed to within an inch of its life. Her faded blue eyes were red with crying.
Cam introduced herself, presented her creds. Mrs. Buffet waved them away. “I don’t have my glasses, but even in a blur, they look official and so do you. Come in, young lady, I know why you’re here. I’m surprised it took you so long. Come with me in here, it’s more comfortable.” She led Cam into a living room that looked as ancient as she did, the pale green sofa from the forties, at least, with springs that dug into Cam’s bottom. Yellowed doilies covered the backs of every chair, knickknacks and old hardcovers filled the shelves of a weathered bookshelf. The rugs were old and faded, but still, it was a very cozy and comfortable room. The first thing out of Mrs. Buffet’s mouth was “I hope you don’t want tea, because it would take me a long time to make it, and my feet hurt.”
“My feet hurt, too, Mrs. Buffet. And I’m fine, thank you. I’m here about Deborah.”
Mrs. Buffet’s eyes filled with tears. “I can’t believe she’s gone. Just yesterday, my Deborah was telling me how it didn’t matter she was moving, she’d come back to visit me at least three times a week and tell me everything she was doing. But now I’ll never see her again.” Mrs. Buffet picked at an old blue afghan and began smoothing her hands over the soft material, silent now, without words, her grief palpable, just like Doc’s.