21 CRANDLE AVENUE
SANTA MONICA
WEDNESDAY MORNING
Cam spotted Loomis immediately, center stage, surrounded by three other officers, two men and a woman, listening to him talk. They fell instantly silent when they saw her.
Detective Arturo Loomis was a big man, midthirties, fit, and in charge. She couldn’t see him ever taking crap from anybody. He wore aviator glasses over sharp, intelligent eyes and didn’t acknowledge her. He looked toward Daniel, nodded.
Daniel said, “Arturo, let me introduce you to the case lead, FBI Special Agent Cam Wittier. Agent Wittier, this is Detective Arturo Loomis, Santa Monica.”
She saw rage on his face. That was good, it meant he cared. Unless the rage was directed toward her.
“Agent.” A clipped, hard voice.
“Detective Loomis.” She stuck out her hand. Slowly, unwillingly, Loomis shook it.
“How long have you been on-site?”
“I was called in forty minutes ago. My lieutenant told me not to process the scene because it’s an FBI case. So we’ve all been standing around with our thumbs in our mouths waiting for the Feds to show up.”
“The Fed is here now. I understand Ms. Connelly’s boyfriend found her?”
He nodded. “The boyfriend, yes. He called 911, then the housekeeper showed up. Boyfriend’s in the kitchen. He’s a mess. So far we can’t get anything useful out of him. As of a few minutes ago, he was still Froot Loops. His name’s Mark Richards. The housekeeper, Pepita Gonzalez, is in the living room and she won’t shut up. Detective Turley”—he nodded toward a tall, no-nonsense woman in her thirties—“she speaks Spanish, almost as well as you do, Daniel. Ms. Gonzalez told her the boyfriend and the vic were moving into a new place together. Ms. Gonzalez usually comes every other week, but she came today to help pack boxes. She didn’t see any strangers, only the boyfriend’s car in the driveway.
“As I said, nobody touched the scene or the vic, order of Supervisor Elman.”
Cam knew she should let it go, but she couldn’t. “We can at least give her the dignity of using her name, Detective Loomis. She was Deborah Connelly.”
Loomis stared at her, surprised, then dismissive. “Yeah, I thought you already knew that.”
They walked together to the entrance hall, stacked high with neatly labeled boxes. Deborah Connelly had nearly finished moving out. Would she still be alive if she’d left a night earlier? No, not if the Serial was targeting her. He would have followed her.
Cam said, “I’d appreciate your calling your forensics team in, Detective Loomis, if you haven’t already. I’ll look in on the crime scene, then I’d like to speak to Mr. Richards.”
Detective Loomis shrugged. “Knock yourself out. Our forensics team is already here. I knew we’d be covering that, from my buddy in Van Nuys—”
Cam turned back. “Detective Jagger?”
He blinked, obviously surprised she knew his name, shook his head. “No, Detective Corinne Hill. Nice to know you trust us to investigate a crime.” He gave her a long look, added, “Corinne said even Frank was coming around after that bash your showbiz folks threw last night in the Colony. Too bad the vic—ah, excuse me, Deborah Connelly—didn’t buy it a day earlier, I could have rubbed elbows with the rich and famous, too.”
“That’s enough, Arturo,” Daniel said. “Cut her a break.”
If not for the fact that Daniel had told Cam Loomis’s wife had really burned him bad she’d have taken him apart. Her hand fisted, but she only nodded and left them, hoping Daniel would get him in line. She calmed as she walked down the oddly silent hallway, steeling herself for what she was about to see. She walked past the master bedroom and continued down the short hallway to the rear of the house, and into a room she saw immediately had become an office. On top of a desk were neat stacks of papers, piled high and ready to be stacked into boxes standing open nearby. Deborah Connelly had been neat, orderly. There was no laptop, no cell phone.
She stood in the center of the empty room. She smelled jasmine. Deborah had spent a lot of time in here. Cam could see her getting halfway down the pile of papers stacked in the center of her desk, wishing she could get another box or two packed before going to bed but hanging it up for the night. Was she already showered, wearing her nightgown? Cam picked a sheet of paper off the top of one of the piles. It was a notice of an audition for a part in the last Mission: Impossible. Printed in neat black ink across the bottom: Yeah! Now I can pay the rent. Tom Cruise was very nice to me.
It was dated nearly a year ago. Cam leafed through the rest of the pile. More auditions, some won, some lost, all with notations of what had succeeded, what had gone wrong. Records of a life, too short a life.
The window was open, broken glass on the floor. She looked for footprints outside the window, but the Serial had been careful to walk on grass. He hadn’t used the back door. Had he changed the pattern, or as with Molly Harbinger, had there been someone too close, possibly watching, and so he’d chosen the window?
She traced his path to Deborah’s bedroom. Down the narrow hall, and into a lovely light-filled room. Two uniformed policemen were standing over a double bed, looking down at Deborah Connelly’s body, their faces set. It felt to Cam like the air itself was thick with anger. When they saw her, they looked at each other and stepped aside. Cam nodded to each of them and looked down at a young woman who’d been beautiful in life. But not now. Her face was gray and slack, her eyes closed. She was wearing a lime-green nightgown, a sheet pulled to her waist, both soaked with blood. There was blood spray on the wall beside the bed, on the ceiling. Her neck was cut so deeply her head hung to the side, her long black hair stiff with blood. So much blood. Her mouth was open, not in terror, but in surprise. She hadn’t had time to register what he was going to do before he’d slit her throat. That at least was a blessing.
Cam felt a noxious mix of anger, sadness, and regret, saw her hands were trembling. She forced herself to focus on what was in front of her. She said quietly, “He broke the window in the other room, her office, and climbed in. He was wearing soft-soled sneakers that made no noise, probably the same ones he’s worn five times before. He came into this bedroom, stood over the bed, looked down at her. What was the monster thinking? What was he feeling? Anticipation, elation? Did he know her?”
She felt the cops staring at her, but she kept her focus on Deborah Connelly’s face. She moved a few inches to her right, closer, and leaned down. “This was exactly where he stood.” She felt a punch of cold, then a light scent of jasmine. We would have liked each other, Deborah. Or were you Deb? I’m so sorry. I promise you, we’ll catch the monster who did this to you.