HOOVER BUILDING
WASHINGTON, D.C.
FRIDAY
Savich knew he was being perverse for not wanting to crate Alexander Rasmussen up and ship him to Attica, but his gut simply wouldn’t allow it. Alexander was probably Venus’s smartest progeny. He was also too sly, too willing to torpedo ethics when it suited him, as he had when he embezzled money from his New York law firm. But if Alexander had decided on a head-on battle with his grandmother, to unseat her from her throne at Rasmussen Industries before she wanted to retire, and he’d decided on murder, he would have gotten away with it, no doubt in Savich’s mind. Nor could he see Alexander hiring Willig—he was more the type to sink into the shadows and wait until the timing was perfect. Nor would he ever leave evidence behind. That wasn’t Alexander. He was many things, but Sherlock was right, he wasn’t stupid. He hadn’t tried to murder his grandmother. And that left the big question—who was framing him?
It had to be someone close, very close, most likely another family member. But who? Glynis, as shrewd and ruthless as Alexander, but less driven? Less ruthless? Besides, she’d simply ask for more money, and probably get it, not plot her own grandmother’s murder. Hildi? Did she hate her mother for paying off her husband and getting him out of her life? A hippie artist, was Hildi capable of that? And faithful Veronica, fiercely loyal and protective of Venus, with her for fifteen years? Had Veronica been the one to fabricate evidence to bury Alexander, to cover her own guilt? She certainly had all the opportunity she could want. But why?
His cell belted out Little Big Town’s Tornado.
It was Cam, calling from Malibu. His brain happily switched gears. “Hi, Cam. Thanks for the heads-up about the actress Gloria Swanson. You’ve got something new now?”
“Not a lot, Dillon. We’re back to making sure Doc—Dr. Mark Richards, Deborah Connelly’s boyfriend—didn’t kill her. One of the LAPD detectives, Arturo Loomis, found out he couldn’t account for over forty minutes around the time of her murder. Doc claimed he was asleep in the break room.”
“What about security tapes?”
“There aren’t any in the doctors’ break room, and there’s only one security camera in the stairwell beside the room, but easily spotted, easily avoided.”
“What about the cameras in the parking lot?”
“His car never moved. But Deborah’s house is only about a half mile away from the hospital, and he’s a runner. He knows the area, so he could have avoided all the cameras. But we don’t even have a good focus on the motive yet, Dillon. The Serial could be a complete stranger, someone completely off our radar.”
“But you don’t think so. You’re looking at Markham.”
She paused, and Savich waited.
“We’ve been looking for whatever connects all the victims, for a single motive, though of course a Serial might not have anything like a motive we’d recognize. But unless something falls into our laps, it’s our best approach. And it’s turning my brain into mush. One path suggests another, and those lead to dead ends. I’m being sucked under for the third time, Dillon. Maybe you should send out another agent to lead the case. I’m clearly incompetent.”
Savich smiled. “I know the feeling well.”
“You said in a class at Quantico that when you can’t see the forest through the trees, get an ax.”
He laughed. “Yes, simplify. Seems to me your cases may not be connected in a straightforward way, Cam. It’s even possible you’re looking for more than one murderer given what our M.E. said. I sugguest you focus on Deborah Connelly’s murder. Dump everything else out of your brain, the auditions, all the obvious connections among the actresses. When you solve her case, you’ll see what connects all the murders, and everything will fall into place.”
Cam paused again. He heard her draw a deep breath. “Good advice, Dillon, all my focus is now on Deborah Connelly. Thank you.”
“Trust your gut, Cam. At the end of the day it’s all you’ve got.”
He rang off, thinking about what he’d just told Cam. Simplify. Back to basics. Time to take his own advice. Savich woke MAX out of sleep mode again. Even clever people left more trails in the Cloud than they even dreamed existed. MAX was his bloodhound in cyberspace. Maitland had told him once he didn’t ever want to know where Savich took MAX to mine all his data. He was certain Maitland wouldn’t want to know this time either.
He scrolled through his preliminary information about Veronica again, all of it expected, pedestrian, really, except for the bust for marijuana back in the day, and that was only a point of interest. A short bitter marriage to an army major, no children. He looked up when Sherlock stuck her head in the door.
“Dillon, we’ve finished studying every bit of footage from retailers’ security cameras and traffic cams near K Street. Griffin spotted a guy standing very close to Delsey at the intersection just before she was pushed into traffic. But the guy’s in a crowd, and he’s wearing a hoodie and sunglasses, showing a bit of jaw and that’s it. Griffin wants you to have a look at it.”
Savich nodded. “Let me see it.”
“The reason I came in, though—and this is a surprise—Veronica is here. She says it’s important.”
Savich glanced down at MAX’s screen, a summary of Veronica’s grades at Smith, mainly Bs and As, psychology major. He punched several keys, and MAX’s screen went black. “Let’s see what she’s got to say.”