Alexander flicked a piece of lint off his beautifully tailored sleeve. “Do you doubt I could, brother? But that is not the point. Like the rest of the family I’m worried for Grandmother. Someone is trying to kill her.” He paused a moment. “And here you are, the returned prodigal, turned up out of the blue.”
Venus said, her voice cool, “Not so out of the blue, Alexander, we’ve been in touch for six months, and that’s hardly damning. Rob is not some new card in the deck, he’s my grandson, and I won’t have you casting around suspicions on anyone in this room. We’re here to have dinner, as a family. Let me add that civility, Alexander, is a major requirement to run a company the size of Rasmussen.”
Isabel appeared in the doorway, as if on cue. “Ms. Venus, the Pied Piper has delivered your dinner. We are ready for you in the dining room. Mr. Paul has outdone himself.” She smiled warmly.
No matter the provocation, both Savich and Sherlock doubted Venus would allow any more fireworks tonight. A pity.
26
* * *
WITTIER HOUSE, THE COLONY
MALIBU
TUESDAY EVENING
Cam marveled at her parents. They’d arranged an impromptu barbecue for as many of the detectives she’d met that day as would brave the traffic, all within a matter of hours. Some of the Calabasas sheriff’s deputies they knew as friends, and the sheriff himself, Dreyfus Murray, and his wife, Suzanne, made up the group on the back deck. Some of the neighbors they knew would remember Cam had been invited as well, to leaven the pot and cut down on complaints about all the cars clogging the street. She smiled when she heard Corrine Hill laugh at something her partner, Morley Jagger, said. She suspected they’d come out of curiosity. She saw Allard Hayes of San Dimas lean close to hear something Supervisor David Elman was saying. Whatever discomfort so mixed a group felt on arriving, it was fast gone when they were chowing down ribs and burgers with all the fixings—potato salad, baked beans, bags of chips, and Joel’s famous salsa, with enough beer to float the Queen Mary. And plenty of Heinz, courtesy of Cam’s earlier trip to Ralph’s Organics.
Cam overheard her mom telling Hill and Jagger, “You may well ask why Cam never followed in our footsteps.”
Her dad chimed in. “Nah, not Cam. For Christmas we wanted to get her a toy Oscar, maybe a tiara, a script to read, but she wouldn’t have it. She wanted a toy gun. That fired.”
She heard Hill and Jagger laughing. Would that help give her a rep of a badass? She looked over to her mom, who had moved on to introduce Supervisor Elman to Dreyfus and eased back, watching the two men eye each other. Then Dreyfus laughed, told him to take a bite of his hamburger. “You’ll tell me you’ve died and gone to heaven. Best burgers north of Santa Monica. I’ve always envied Joel’s way with hamburgers cooked on a grill.”
Lisabeth and Suzanne both laughed. “This was a great idea, Lisabeth, you and Joel pulled it off so fast,” Suzanne said. “And would you look at Cam, she’s smiling, working the room like a pro. She learned it from you.”
Joel Wittier came up, kissed his wife’s neck. “Look at Detective Jagger hanging on to every word out of Betsy Gilman’s mouth. Who’d have thought he’s a fan? Everyone’s enjoying themselves, I’m pleased to say, and my Cammie is the recipient of all the goodwill.”
Toward ten o’clock, when everyone was well oiled, stuffed to the gills with Suzanne Murray’s homemade strawberry ice cream, and most of the neighbors had floated off to their homes, Cam walked out to stand on the wide wooden deck, resting her elbows on the railing. Daniel joined her. She said, not looking away from the bright half-moon sparkling the water like diamonds, “When I think of home, this is what I picture in my mind.” She breathed in, pointed at the gentle waves fanning like lace onto the sand. “It’s so perfect, always there, the water, so beautiful, no matter its mood. You feel at once blessed and grateful to be alive to see it.”
Daniel said, “I grew up in Truckee, California, deep in the Sierras. I always believed there was no more beautiful place in the world. This”—he waved his hand at the endless stretch of ocean—“still seems alien to me. But this does seem timeless, too, like the Sierras, always there at your back.” He turned to face her. He saw her clearly in the moonlight—no makeup, her hair tousled from the light breeze off the water.
He leaned back, his elbows on the wooden railing. “Cam, your parents are amazing, pulling this cookout off in what? Under six hours? You did as much as you could today to get everybody thinking on the same page, as a task force. And this cookout might just seal the deal. We’ll see what happens. Oh yeah, when I thanked your folks, your mom kissed my cheek.”
“Huzzah, I say.”
“For your mom’s kiss or for the task force?”
Cam punched his arm. “Both, of course. You weenie.”
27
* * *
GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL
WASHINGTON, D.C.
WEDNESDAY MORNING
Officer Chas Golinowski yawned, took another sip of his lukewarm coffee, checked his watch. Only five minutes had passed. It was 3:00 a.m. on the dot. He had to keep it together for another four hours until Lane Gregson relieved him. It was so quiet on this floor. He preferred the insanity of the ER, remembered the nights over the years he’d brought in people with broken bones, heart attacks, bullet wounds, you name it. He looked up and down the empty long hallway, as he did every few minutes. Nothing. He looked toward the nurses’ station twenty feet down the hall. Only two nurses were behind the desk, putting pills in those little cups when they weren’t working on the computer or answering patients’ calls. He wondered how his little girl was doing with her bad cold. He knew she was tucked in bed, her mother hovering. He wished he could be there, but he’d pulled guard duty over a guy who was about to get his butt hauled back to state prison for the rest of his miserable life. He’d heard talk about how he’d tried to kill Mrs. Venus Rasmussen herself, the stupid bozo, and that’s how he’d earned a round-the-clock crew to guard him.
Chas’s head was swimming with boredom and the urge to sleep, so he got to his feet and walked up and down the length of the hallway several times. He looked into Vincent Willig’s room, where he stood quietly a moment, listening to Willig’s even breathing. He was deeply asleep. Chas went back to his chair, stretched, tried to get some kinks out, and sat back down against the wall. He picked up the novel he’d brought with him, decided against trying to read it. He dropped it to the floor and closed his eyes. When he looked up again, he saw a tech wheeling a cart toward him. He could never figure out why they simply didn’t let the patients sleep through the night. Wasn’t sleep the great healer? The tech was dressed in a long white lab coat, a mask and a cap over his head. He didn’t recognize him.