Solitude Creek (15 page)

Reaching for the phone to call Michael O’Neil, she was interrupted by TJ Scanlon. He was in a T-shirt that bore the name Beck (not, like you’d think, the Grateful Dead). He was in jeans too. And a sport coat, striped. It was of the Summer of Love era and might actually have come from the 1960s; TJ stocked his hippie house in Carmel Valley with counterculture artifacts from an era and way of life that had ended long before he was born.

He dropped into the chair across from her.

‘Oh-oh, boss. Oh-oh and a
half
. Something wrong?’

‘You didn’t hear? Our friend from Sacramento leaked the description of the unsub.’

‘Oh, man. Foster?’

‘Yep.’ She added, ‘And somebody spotted the perp.’

‘Good news but then, given your expression, I guess it isn’t.’

‘He spotted the spotter and vanished.’

‘Hell. So he’s left town.’

‘Or become a quick-change artist – who knows? Platform shoes. Dyed his hair. New clothes. And,’ she added grimly, ‘maybe he’s still going forward, targeting someplace else. Right now. Before we can regroup.’

She told him about the movie theater, where the unsub had apparently been planning a new attack.

The young man nodded. ‘Right up his alley. Crowded multiplex.’

Dance glanced at the folder in the agent’s hand.

TJ said, ‘Something helpful, maybe. I tracked down that girl. Trish.’

Dance had given him the job of finding the teenager she’d met at the Solitude Creek crime scene.

‘Michelle Cooper – the mother who died. Her daughter’s Trish Martin. Her father’s name.’

Like Maggie and Wes were Swenson.

‘The girl’s seventeen. Don’t have her mobile but here’s the mother’s home number.’ He added, ‘It’s on Seventeen Mile Drive.’

Dance could see the scenario. Husband cheats on wife, she catches him, he pays through the nose and foots the bill for a house in the poshest neighborhood of Pebble Beach. ‘You have the father’s address and number? Mr Friendly. She’d be staying with him now, I’d guess.’

‘Sorry, didn’t get it. Want me to check?’

‘I’ll try her mother’s first.’

As it turned out, though, there wouldn’t be any conversations of any kind.

‘Hello?’ A man’s voice. Abrupt. Hell, she knew who it was.

‘I’m calling for Trish Martin.’

‘Who is this?’

Unfortunately, you had to play the game honestly. ‘Agent Kathryn Dance, the California Bureau of Investigation. Is this Mr Martin? I—’

‘Yeah, I met you. I remember. How did you know I was here?’

Odd question.

‘I didn’t. I was calling for Trish. It’s important that I talk to her. I’m hoping—’

‘Why?’

‘There’s been a development in the investigation. The doors at Solitude Creek were blocked intentionally. Your ex-wife’s death, the others, they were homicides, not accidental.’

A pause. ‘I heard. It was on the news. Some guy they’re looking for. A workman or something.’

‘That’s right. And we’re canvassing to see if anybody might’ve seen him. Your daughter seems intelligent, perceptive. I’m hoping—’

‘She’s too upset.’

‘I understand it’s a difficult time for her, for your whole family. But it’s important that we understand exactly what happened there.’

‘Well, you’ll have do that without my daughter.’ A voice from nearby. He said, away from the phone, ‘It’s nobody. Keep at it, honey.’

That would be Trish. She’d be moving in with her father, Dance guessed. She was probably packing.

‘Mr Martin, my specialty is interviewing people. I’ve spoken to hundreds of teenagers, often in traumatic situations. I promise you, I’ll be very sensitive to Trish’s frame of mind. I—’

He growled. ‘And if you call us again, I’ll get a restraining order against you.’

Dance said, ‘Hmm, well, Mr Martin, there really isn’t a mechanism for doing that. Why don’t we just take a step back and—’

He hung up on her.

Dance wondered if one of the grounds for divorce had been mental cruelty against his ex, in addition to cheating on her.

She dropped the phone into the cradle. TJ was looking at her. ‘Scratch her off the list. Probably didn’t see anything anyway. Still—’

‘You hate itches, boss.’

True, she did.

‘Anything helpful on the canvassing?’

TJ had continued to talk to those who’d been at the club, sifting for insights, possible motives and suspects. ‘Nothing more on revenge by disgruntled employees or patrons. I thought I’d check to see if there was a motive to hurt anyone in the band, or destroy careers.’

‘Good.’ She hadn’t thought about that.

‘But I don’t think so. The music world’s fragile nowadays – the margins aren’t big enough to murder anyone to get ahead. Hey, boss, was wondering. Does “gruntled” mean you’re happy?’

She rummaged in her drawer and found an old Timex, battery-powered. She strapped it on and glanced at the time. Then lowered her voice. ‘How’s the Serrano situation?’

He said, ‘About an hour. It’s set up. I just talked to Al Stemple.’

Stemple, big and quiet and rather scary, was the closest thing the CBI had to a cowboy. Well, to a John Wayne. An investigative agent, like any other, he specialized in tactical situations. Given the unstable nature of the Serrano situation, it was thought best to have a CBI strongman involved.

He rose and left. In his wake she was sure she detected a waft of patchouli aftershave or cologne.

Far out …

A few minutes later Dance happened to be looking into the doorway as Michael O’Neil appeared. He was in a dark plaid sports coat, navy blue shirt and jeans. Dance believed his clothes were better pressed now that he was divorced than when he’d been married to Anne, who was not known as the queen of domesticity. Though this might be her imagination, she allowed.

‘Saw TJ. He was saying nothing turned up on the canvass?’

‘No. We’ve talked to probably seven-eighths of the people who were at the club. No one spotted any potential perps.’ She told him TJ had looked into jealous musicians too.

‘Good call.’

‘But nothing.’ She asked him, ‘Anything more on the theater?’

‘Nope. Full canvass, security-video review. No vehicle. Nothing further. What was that about? Releasing the descrip of our boy? Overby?’

She puffed air from her lips. ‘Came from Steve Foster. He’s with us – CBI – in Sacramento. He’s claiming it was an accident. Blaming, quote, “somebody” in his office. But
he
let it leak. Power play, I’m sure.’

‘Brother.’

‘It’s not his case. He doesn’t care.’

‘You think our boy’s rabbited?’

‘
I
’d be gone,’ she said. ‘But then I didn’t set up a stampede and kill three people. I don’t know what makes him tick. He might be in Missouri or Washington State by now. He might be planning to attack the aquarium.’

Nodding, O’Neil extracted from his briefcase a thin manila folder with a metal fixture on top. Inside were a dozen sheets of paper. ‘Crime Scene. Had them working non-stop. No surprise – our unsub’s good. He wore cloth gloves.’

Latex gloves prevent a transfer of the perp’s fingerprints to what he touches at a scene but nothing prevents a transfer of prints to the inside of those latex gloves. Careless perps often discard them, without considering that. Cloth gloves, however, neither transfer nor retain prints.

He continued, ‘Prints on the Peterbilt truck key fob but none identifiable except the manager’s and the driver’s. The drop-box was negative too. No footprints. Nothing in the oil drum, with the fire, that’s any use forensically.’

Dance said, ‘I was thinking. It’s got to be hard to drive a truck that big. Can we use that to narrow the field? Find anybody who’s taken courses lately?’

‘I thought the same thing. But checked it out online. Would take about a half-hour to learn to drive one, even if you had no experience. Probably couldn’t back up or drive with a full load without practice but he basically just had to drive straight down the hill to the roadhouse.’

The Internet … Where you could learn everything from making a fertilizer bomb to baking a cherry pie to celebrate after you’d blown up your designated target.

O’Neil consulted his file. ‘No video cameras in the area. Solitude Creek’s too shallow for serious boating but in any case I didn’t get any hits in canvassing for fishermen. And no stolen kayaks or canoes.’ He’d had the same idea as she.

Her phone dinged: a text from TJ. The Serrano case. She typed, ‘
KK
.’ That was the new text message acknowledging ‘understood and agreed’. A single K wasn’t enough. She’d learned it from her son, Wes. She mentioned this to O’Neil. He nodded. ‘My kids are saying “amen”, a lot too. You notice?’

‘I get “church”. As in: “It’s true.” And also “It’s a thing.”’

‘“Thing”?’

Dance was going to tell him that she’d first heard the expression when Maggie was talking to her friend Bethany on the phone and she’d said, ‘Yeah, Mom and Jon, it’s like a thing.’ She instead told the detective: ‘Means, I think, it’s a phenomenon. More than what it seems. Significant.’

She wondered if he sensed the stumble and the overexplanation.

O’Neil said, ‘“Thing”. Better than “phenomenon”. I’d worry that crept into my kids’ vocabulary.’

Dance laughed.

Michael O’Neil wasn’t a chatterer. This was, for him, rambling.

Dance glanced down to the crime-scene file. She said, ‘Oh, wanted to mention: Sorry we had to cancel the fishing.’

O’Neil lived for his boat, which he’d pilot out into Monterey Bay once a week at least. He often took his own children and Dance’s. She herself had been a few times but her inner ear and waves were bad co-conspirators. If the Dramamine and patch didn’t kick in, she’d end up hanging over the side, unpleasant for all involved. And the trip would be cut short. They’d talked about having a day on the water last weekend but before plans had been firmed up she and Boling had decided to take the children to San Francisco. Dance had not told O’Neil the reason they’d canceled. She suspected he’d guessed. But he didn’t ask.

They talked for a few minutes about their children, plans for spring break. Dance mentioned Maggie’s forthcoming talent show at school.

‘She playing violin?’

Maggie’s instrument. She was far more musical than her mother, who was comfortable with a guitar but didn’t have the ear for a fretless fingerboard. Dance told him, ‘No, she’s singing.’

O’Neil said, ‘She’s got a great voice. Remember, I took them to
The
Lego Movie
. That song? “Everything Is Awesome”? She sang it all the way home. I know it by heart, by the way. I’ll sing it for you some time.’

‘She’s doing that song from
Frozen
.’

‘“Let It Go”. I know that one too.’ Being a single parent with custody could take the edge off the hardest major-crimes detective. Then O’Neil, studying her: ‘What’s wrong?’

Dance realized she’d been frowning. ‘She’s uneasy about the talent show. Usually you can’t keep her offstage but, for this, she’s reluctant.’

‘She ever sung before in public?’

‘Yep. A dozen times. And her voice’s never been better. I was going to start her in lessons but all of a sudden she decided she didn’t want to. It’s funny. They whipsaw, you know, their moods. For a while Wes was depressed and Maggie was flitting around like Bella. Happy as could be. Now it’s the other way round.’ She explained that it might be a post-traumatic reaction to her husband’s death.

He said softly, ‘I know Bill died around this time of year.’

O’Neil had known Bill Swenson well; they’d worked together occasionally.

‘I’ve thought of that. But when kids want to stonewall …’

O’Neil, whose children were close in age to Maggie, said, ‘Don’t I know. But – persistence.’

Dance nodded. ‘So, Sunday, at seven? You and the kids want to come?’ She dug through her purse. ‘Hm. Have a hundred flyers in the car for her show. Thought I had one with me.’ She snapped the Coach bag shut.

‘Can I let you know? We might have plans. Bring a friend?’

‘Of course.’

Had he been dating? she wondered. It
had
been a while since they’d talked socially. Well,
personally
. Why shouldn’t he be going out with somebody? He’d been divorced for a while now. He was good-looking, in great shape, with a fine job. He was funny, kind … and had two adorable children whom his ex, in San Francisco, had little interest in.

Dance’s mother called him ‘the Catch’, because he liked to fish … and because he was.

She glanced at the Timex. ‘I’ve got to get into the field.’

‘Our case?’

‘No. The other thing.’

He sighed, glanced at her hip, where her weapon would otherwise have resided. ‘I’ll go with you.’

‘Not for this. It’s all right. I’ll have backup. I have to handle it a particular way. This one’s tricky.’ She almost said, ‘It’s a thing,’ but from O’Neil’s concerned expression she knew he wouldn’t have appreciated the levity.

Charles Overby tapped a roll of fat above his belt. He wasn’t alarmed but he knew he’d have to rein in the snacks that went down a little too easy at the Nineteenth Hole. Maybe go to red wine. He believed it had fewer calories than white.

No, a spritzer. After the martini, of course. And no artichoke dip. It was the devil.

On his desk were ordered stacks of documents – the sign of a sane mind and a productive body, he often said. The one that troubled him most was the pile that was topped with a sheet that read: ‘Incident Report: Joaquin Serrano’. The other words that jumped out from the grayish boxes were ‘Kathryn Dance’. He noted too: ‘Disciplinary recommendations’.

His phone hummed with a text, which he read, and shaking his head for no one’s benefit, he rose. He debated a jacket but decided no.

Down the hall, aware of the peculiar smell of a cleanser the staff had switched to recently. Why was he aware of that? he wondered. Because of the case. Small distractions dulled the concerns.

Serrano …

In the Guzman Connection task-force conference room, Carol Allerton sat alone, squeezing the life from a chamomile teabag. She leaned starboard, to make sure any spatter wouldn’t hit the dozens of papers in front of her. She, too, was well ordered when it came to the stacks of documents in her cases.