Insidious (8 page)

Sherlock added, “We doubt Mr. Willig will want to be shipped back to prison for life. He knows that’s what will happen if he doesn’t tell us who hired him.”

Alexander said, “It’s possible this Willig has no idea who hired him. Or he could toss out any name he wanted to. Trust me, testimony from a convicted felon isn’t worth much in court.”

Thank you, lawyer Rasmussen
. Savich gave Alexander a cool look. “Is that what you think happened? He took two thousand dollars as a down payment from someone who emailed him instructions, or wrote him a note? That he has no clue who his employer is?”

Sherlock saw the pulse pounding in Alexander’s throat at Dillon’s questioning his opinion.
Are you the one trying to murder your grandmother?
She said, “He’s a career criminal, Alex, so there’s no way he wouldn’t do his due diligence—my bet is he knows exactly who hired him.
And tomorrow morning, we may very well find out.” She cracked her knuckles and smiled.

Did Alexander look alarmed? Or angry because she’d had the nerve to call him Alex and not Alexander?

Venus dropped her bombshell. “You know, Dillon, I would very much like to meet the man who tried to shoot me. It may help if he knows who he’s dealing with. And there’s a great deal I could offer him that the FBI can’t. I’d like to be there with you tomorrow.”

“Mother, no! You with this horrible criminal? No, you can’t possibly want to do that.”

Veronica said, “I agree. Venus, this isn’t a good idea.”

Venus patted Hildi’s hand, smiled at Veronica. “You know, there’s a lot that’s happened today that I’ve never done before. I never considered that I’d actually fit in that small space between the front and backseat of the Bentley, for instance, but when MacPherson yelled for me to get down, I did. Meeting Willig should be a walk in the park compared to all that.” Her tone brooked no room for argument. Savich imagined she used the same tone to shut up opposition. The Rasmussen had spoken, and that was that.

“Good.” Savich looked at each Rasmussen in turn. “Guthrie, Hildi, Glynis, Veronica, Agent Lucy Carlyle and Agent Davis Sullivan will be speaking to you individually tomorrow morning. Please make yourselves available.”

“What about me?” Alexander moved from behind the sofa to stand in front of the fireplace, his arms crossed, stiff as a soldier.

“I’ll call you when you need to come to the Hoover Building,” Savich said. “Keep your schedule open tomorrow morning.”

“As if I have nothing better to do than wait for a cop to call.”

Sherlock gave him her patented sunny smile. “I sure hope it’s important enough for you, Alex, since someone is trying to kill your
grandmother. Trust me, you’ll find the interview room quite comfortable.”

“What I want to know,” Glynis said as she walked to the sideboard to pour herself a glass of water, “is who in this family could possibly want to kill Grandmother?”

11

Guthrie poured himself a glass of gin, drank it down without pause, felt it steady him. “Savich suspects either my son Alexander or me, Glynis. And for good reason. Alexander and I were with Mother all three times before she became ill, no one else.” He turned to Savich. “You’re not really going to look anywhere else, are you? The obvious road for you
is
to try to nail one of us. Or both.”

Alexander’s voice snapped out sharp and impatient. “And that would be ridiculous, Father. Neither of us have any reason to harm Grandmother. There are, naturally, other answers, including the truth. There are hundreds of people, major companies, that might think they could benefit from attacking Grandmother, our family, like this. Multimillion-dollar contracts, mergers, share prices might be at stake.” He shot a look at Savich. “But looking at all of them would be difficult. And these two would need to have the intelligence and resources to look
in
the right place, and of course that is a big problem with law enforcement today.”

Hildi was wringing her hands. “It’s got to be an outsider, someone who hates Mother because she took over their company, fired them, or something. I know this family, and none of us would ever do anything
like this, never. Dillon, both Guthrie and I have always loved our mother, and of course Alexander and Glynis love their grandmother. This—evil plot isn’t us; it can’t be us.”

A moment of hot silence, then Glynis laughed. “Wouldn’t that be something? One of us sneaking around, putting a pinch of arsenic in Grandmother’s coffee without anyone seeing us? Without anyone even knowing we were hiding behind the curtains?”

“The first two times, the arsenic was probably in my champagne,” Venus said coolly, eyeing her granddaughter. “At a restaurant.”

“Better yet,” Glynis said. “The murderer disguised as a waiter.”

The phone rang.

Veronica, sitting nearest to the phone, rose, lifted the receiver, listened, snapped out, “No comment,” and hung up. “Another reporter. At least there are no more of their vans camped outside the house. The neighbors wouldn’t allow that. They called the police and three squad cars came and shooed them away.”

Veronica said, “I was sorry to see them go. With everyone leaving, I don’t think there’s enough protection for Venus.”

Alexander said, “I understand from the officer outside that a squad car will remain here overnight, then our own private security will arrive in the morning. Grandmother will be amply protected. The guards will stick with her around the clock.”

Venus nodded her thanks to Alexander, who stood shoulders squared against the fireplace. She looked at Hildi, her artist-hippie daughter wearing her habitual tie-dyed long skirt and peasant blouse, those ridiculous pearls, so many strands, and Birkenstocks on her long narrow feet, Venus’s own feet, she realized. Hildi’s dark hair hung long and straight down her back, mixed now with strands of white that looked like an amateur attempt at highlights. Hildi had only her art and her daughter to tether her to this earth ever since her worthless husband, Elliott DeFoe, had stepped willingly out of her life years
before. An abandonment that Venus, admittedly, had orchestrated, but she’d never expected her daughter to remain unattached for the decades following. It made her sad sometimes to think of Hildi alone. And then there was Glynis, in her designer clothes from head to toe, looking like a beauty queen next to a bag lady. She was divorced now, too, and adrift.

Venus smiled at each of them and said, her voice thoughtful, “Each of you is so different, but that’s what makes all of you so very interesting. I’ve loved all of you forever, tried to make you happy, tried to stay out of your lives. And I have to ask myself: Does one of you hate me enough to want me dead? Couldn’t that person wait until I drop over myself?” Venus swallowed, then to Savich’s surprise, she lowered her head in her hands and began to cry quietly.

Everyone but Hildi stayed frozen in place. “Mother!” Hildi pulled Venus to her, patting her back, stroking her hair, cooing like a dove in her ear.

Sherlock watched every face react to Venus’s breakdown. She saw consternation on Guthrie’s face, a bit of contempt on Alexander’s, and Glynis’s face was a study in embarrassment. Veronica had already jumped to her feet but stopped when she saw Venus pressed against Hildi. She sank back into her chair, her expression angry and worried.

Savich and Sherlock waited, watching Hildi fuss, watching Isabel silently press a fresh cup of tea into Venus’s hand. Was it all a performance?

Venus took the cup of tea and slowly raised her head. Sherlock saw her eyes were bright with the sheen of tears. Then the weeping old lady became the boardroom queen again. Venus said, “I apologize for that. Now, listen. We have to face the facts as they are, children. Someone who lives or works in this house is very likely responsible for trying to kill me, someone close enough and clever enough to poison me.
Whoever that is, whether they are in this room or not, I want them to know I will not let this family be destroyed.

“I do recognize that I’m old. But you know what? I do not want to depart this earth until I’m good and ready.” She looked at each of them in turn. “Every one of you has enough money for two lifetimes. If one of you is in trouble and you see your inheritance as your only way out, you need to come to me now, and we will work it out. I will forgive you, and I promise I will do my best to fix your problems. Please, come to me before Agent Savich shows up at your door.” Venus turned her laser-beam gaze onto Alexander. “And if any of you think you’re smarter than Dillon and Sherlock, you are dead wrong.”

Savich turned to Venus. “Have you told the family about finding Rob?”

Savich heard a quick intake of breath from Guthrie, who stared at his mother, stunned. “What? You tracked down Rob, Mother? Is he all right? Where is he?”

Venus gave Savich a long look and slowly nodded. “Of course he’s all right, Guthrie, and if you had cared, you could easily have found your son yourself. He’s been living in Peterborough, Maryland, for the past three years. He owns a construction company that, I might add, is running in the black this year. And he has a girlfriend. Her name is Marsia Gay, and believe it or not, she’s an artist, and very successful. Evidently Marsia worships your grandmother’s work, Dillon, which predisposes me to like her.

“As for finding him, I simply googled his name, but before I could contact him, Rob emailed me, wonderful coincidence. We met for lunch at
Primavera
in Chevy Chase, neutral ground.”

“How long has this been going on?” Alexander asked, his voice strained.

“About three months. Alexander, your brother is thirty-one, he’s matured, and, I might add, he is stable and has his life together. He
told me how much he’s missed all of us. He’d like to see everyone again.”

Alexander said, both his face and his voice expressionless, “Don’t you think it’s more than possible that Rob is the one trying to poison you, Grandmother? Unlike any of us, he’s actually come into contact with low-life criminals like this Willig.”

Venus arched a perfect eyebrow. “Then your brother would have to be a magician, would he not? He’d have to have slipped into two different restaurants unnoticed, and then the third time, into this house, and somehow put arsenic into my food or drink.

“Yes, I can see from your faces that you’re wondering why I wanted to contact Rob. That’s easy enough—he’s my grandson and I’m getting older, and I wanted to see what sort of man he’d become. Then his email arrived and I decided fate had taken a hand.”

Alexander shrugged. “Like fate would care about my worthless brother. I’ll bet old Rob leaped at the chance to ingratiate himself to you, didn’t he, Grandmother? He always was bad news, you know that, all of us do. People like that don’t change. Have you forgotten what he did? He should have gone to jail. I hope you won’t encourage him further. I, for one, have no interest in seeing him again. You shouldn’t either, Father.” Guthrie stared down at his Italian loafers. “He’s a criminal and a loser.” Alexander shot a look at Savich. “And he should be your top-running suspect.”

Venus’s voice was like a soothing oil. “I knew you’d hardly approve, Alexander. But as I said, Rob has made quite a transformation. You’ll be surprised.”

“I’ve actually heard of his girlfriend,” Hildi said. “Marsia Gay. She works in metals, very modern sculptures, mostly human figures. She’s considered something of a wunderkind, being so young.”

Venus said, “I haven’t met her yet, but it seems it’s serious. And I haven’t had a granddaughter-in-law since you and Belinda divorced, Alexander.”
She smiled over at Hildi. “It might be nice to have another artist in the family.”

Hildi beamed back at her. “I always liked Rob. Such a vibrant boy, so full of promise. Such a shame what happened.”

Glynis said, “I can’t wait to see Rob again. Do you know he kissed me once? We were seventeen, I remember, and even though I didn’t want to, I had to tell him to cut it out, we were first cousins, and kissing was against the law, or something. I know better now. Imagine, Rob’s not in jail or dead. That’s wonderful.”

“You can tell Rob that yourself, Glynis,” Venus said. “I’ve just decided to invite him and his girlfriend to dinner tomorrow night. I expect all of you to be here and to welcome him home.”

There was steel in her voice again. Savich had no doubt every single Rasmussen would be front and present. As for welcoming Rob home—who knew?

12

LOST HILLS SHERIFF’S STATION

CALABASAS, CALIFORNIA

TUESDAY MORNING

Sheriff Dreyfus Murray had been notified by Special Agent Richard—Duke—Morgan, Criminal Division Unit chief, that one of Morgan’s people was coming from Washington to assist in the Serial case. Assist them, now that was a joke. A Fed was coming to take over the case, more like. He hadn’t been told a name. He spotted her the second she walked through the door. He could tell from twenty feet away that she was a looker, tall and fit, striding like she owned the world, and looking like she could outrun him when he’d been twenty. She was wearing dark blue pants, a tucked-in white shirt, a red blazer to cover her Glock, and black banged-up boots with a high shine.

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.”