She didn't think it was lame at all.
Down more corridors.
"How'd you get into this line?" he asked.
Dance gave him a brief version of the story. She'd been a crime reporter for a few years--she'd met her husband while covering a criminal trial (he gave her an exclusive interview in exchange for a date). After she grew tired of reporting, she went back to school and got degrees in psychology and communications, improving her natural gift of observation and an ability to intuit what people were thinking and feeling. She became a jury consultant. But nagging dissatisfaction with that job and a sense that her talents would be more worthwhile in law enforcement had led her to the CBI.
"And your husband was like me, a feebie?"
"Been doing your homework?" Her late husband, William Swenson, had been a dependable career special agent for the FBI, but he was just like tens of thousands of others. There was no reason for a specialist like Kellogg to have heard of him, unless he'd gone to some trouble to check.
A bashful grin. "I like to know where I'm going on assignments. And who I'm going to meet when I get there. Hope you're not offended."
"Not at all. When I interview a subject I like to know everything about his terrarium." Not sharing with Kellogg that she'd had TJ scope out the agent through his friend in the Chico resident agency.
A moment passed and he asked, "Can I ask what happened to your husband? Line of duty?"
The thud in her belly generated by that question had become less pronounced over the years. "It was a traffic accident."
"I'm sorry."
"Thank you. . . . Now, welcome to Chez CBI." Dance waved him into the lunchroom.
They poured coffee and sat at one of the cheap tables.
Her cell chirped. It was TJ.
"Bad news. My bar-hopping days are over. Just as I got started. I found out where the Pemberton woman was before she was killed."
"And?"
"With some Latino guy in the bar at the Doubletree. A business meeting, some event he wanted her to handle, the waiter thinks. They left about six thirty."
"You get a credit-card receipt?"
"Yep, but she paid. Business expense. Hey, boss, I think we should start doing that."
"Anything else about him?"
"Zip. Her picture'll be on the news so he might see it and come forward."
"Susan's phone logs?"
"About forty calls yesterday. I'll check them out when I'm back in the office. Oh, and statewide real estate tax records? Nope, Pell don't own no mountaintops or anything else. I checked Utah too. Nothing there either."
"Good. I forgot about that."
"Or Oregon, Nevada, Arizona. I wasn't being diligent. I was just trying to prolong my bar time as much as I could."
After they hung up she relayed the information to Kellogg, who grimaced. "A witness, hm? Who'll see her picture on the tube and decide this is a real nice time to take that vacation to Alaska."
"And I can hardly blame him."
Then the FBI agent smiled as he looked over Dance's shoulder. She glanced back. Her mother and children were walking into the lunchroom.
"Hi, honey," she said to Maggie, then hugged her son. There'd be a day, pretty soon, when public hugs would be verboten and she was storing up for the drought. He tolerated the gesture well enough today.
Edie Dance and her daughter cast glances each other's way, acknowledging Millar's death but not specifically referring to the tragedy. Edie and Kellogg greeted each other, and exchanged a similar look.
"Mom, Carly moved Mr. Bledsoe's wastebasket!" Maggie told her breathlessly. "And every time he threw something out it went on the floor."
"Did you keep from giggling?"
"For a while. But then Brendon did and we couldn't stop."
"Say hello to Agent Kellogg."
Maggie did. But Wes only nodded. His eyes shifted away. Dance saw the aversion immediately.
"You guys want hot chocolate?" she asked.
"Yay!" Maggie cried. Wes said he would too.
Dance patted her jacket pockets. Coffee was gratis but anything fancier took cash, and she'd left all of hers in her purse in her office; Edie had no change.
"I'll treat," Kellogg said, digging into his pocket.
Wes said quickly, "Mom, I want coffee instead."
The boy had sipped coffee once or twice in his life and hated it.
Maggie said, "I want coffee too."
"No coffee. It's hot chocolate or soda." Dance supposed that Wes didn't want something that the FBI agent paid for. What was going on here? Then she remembered how his eyes had scanned Kellogg on the Deck the other night. She thought he'd been looking for his weapon; now she understood he'd been sizing up the man Mom had brought to his grandfather's party. Was Winston Kellogg the new Brian, in his eyes?
"Okay," her daughter said, "chocolate."
Wes muttered, "That's okay. I don't want anything."
"Come on, I'll loan it to your mom," Kellogg said, dispensing the coins.
The children took them, Wes reluctantly and only after his sister did.
"Thanks," Wes said.
"Thank you very much," Maggie offered.
Edie poured coffee. They sat at the unsteady table. Kellogg thanked Dance's mother again for the dinner the previous night and asked about Stuart. Then he turned to the children and wondered aloud if they liked to fish.
Maggie said sort of. She didn't.
Wes loved to but responded, "Not really. You know, it's boring."
Dance knew the agent had no motive but breaking the ice, his question probably inspired by his conversation with her father at the party about fishing in Monterey Bay. She noted some stress reactions--he was trying too hard to make a good impression, she guessed.
Wes fell silent and sipped his chocolate while Maggie inundated the adults with the morning's events at music camp, including a rerun, in detail, of the trash can caper.
The agent found herself irritated that the problem with Wes had reared its head yet again . . . and for no good reason. She wasn't even dating Kellogg.
But Dance knew the tricks of parenting and in a few minutes had Wes talking enthusiastically about his tennis match that morning. Kellogg's posture changed once or twice and the body language told Dance that he too was a tennis player and wanted to contribute. But he'd caught on that Wes was ambivalent about him and he smiled as he listened, but didn't add anything.
Finally Dance told them she needed to get back to work, she'd walk them out. Kellogg told her he was going to check in with the San Francisco field office.
"Good seeing you all." He waved.
Edie and Maggie said good-bye to him. After a moment Wes did too--only so he wouldn't be outdone by his sister, Dance sensed.
The agent wandered off up the hallway toward his temporary office.
"Are you coming to Grandma's for dinner?" Maggie asked.
"I'm going to try, Mags." Never promise if there's a chance you can't deliver.
"But if she can't," Edie said, "what're you in the mood for?"
"Pizza," Maggie said fast. "With garlic bread. And mint chocolate chip for dessert."
"And I want a pair of Ferragamos," Dance said.
"What're those?"
"Shoes. But what we want and what we get are sometimes two different things."
Her mother put another offer on the table. "How's a big salad? With blackened shrimp?"
"Sure."
Wes said, "That'll be great." The children were infinitely polite with their grandparents.
"But I think garlic bread can be arranged," Edie added, which finally pried a smile from him.
*
Outside the CBI office, one of the administrative clerks was on his way to deliver documents to the Monterey County Sheriff's Office in Salinas.
He noticed a dark car pulling into the lot. The driver, a young woman wearing sunglasses despite the fog, scanned the parking lot. She's uneasy about something, the clerk thought. But, of c
ourse, you got that a lot here: people who'd come in voluntarily as suspects or reluctant complaining witnesses. The woman looked at herself in the mirror, pulled on a cap and climbed out. She didn't go to the front door. Instead she approached him.
"Excuse me?"
"Yes, ma'am?"
"This is the California Bureau of Investigation?"
If she'd looked at the building she would've seen the large sign that repeated four of the words in her question. But, being a good public servant, he said, "That's right. Can I help you?"
"Is this the office where Agent Dance works?"
"Kathryn Dance. Yes."
"Is she in now?"
"I don't--" The clerk looked across the lot and barked a laugh. "Well, guess what, miss? That's her, right over there, the younger woman."
He saw Dance with her mother and the two kids, whom the clerk had met on a couple of occasions.
"Okay. Thank you, Officer."
The clerk didn't correct her. He liked being misidentified as a real law enforcer. He got into his car and pulled out of the driveway. He happened to glance in the rearview mirror and saw the woman standing just where he'd left her. She seemed troubled.
He could've told her she didn't need to be. Kathryn Dance, in his opinion, was one of the nicest people in the whole of the CBI.
*
Dance closed the door of her mother's Prius hybrid. It hummed out of the lot and the agent waved good-bye.
She watched the silver car negotiate the winding road toward Highway 68. She was troubled. She kept imagining Juan Millar's voice in her head.
Kill me. . . .
The poor man.
Although his brother's lashing out had nothing to do with it, Kathryn Dance did feel guilty that she'd picked him to go check on what was happening in the lockup. He was the most logical one, but she wondered if, being younger, he'd been more careless than a more experienced officer might've been. It was impossible to think that Michael O'Neil, or big Albert Stemple, or Dance herself would have let Pell get the upper hand.
Turning back toward the building, she was thinking of the first few moments of the fire and the escape. They'd had to move so quickly. But should she have waited, thought out her strategy better?
Second-guessing. It went with the territory of being a cop.
Returning to the building, humming Julieta Venegas's music. The notes were swirling through her thoughts, intoxicating--and taking her away from Juan Millar's terrible wounds and terrible words and Susan Pemberton's death . . . and her son's eyes, flipping from cheerful to stony the moment the boy had seen Dance with Winston Kellogg.
What to do about that?
Dance continued through the deserted parking lot toward the front door of CBI, glad that the rain had stopped.
She was nearing the stairs when she heard a scrape of footstep on the asphalt and turned quickly to see that a woman had come up behind her, silently until now. She was a mere six or so feet away, walking directly toward her.
Dance stopped fast.
The woman did too. She shifted her weight.
"Agent Dance . . . I . . ."
Neither spoke for a moment.
Then Samantha McCoy said, "I've changed my mind. I want to help."
Chapter 32
"I couldn't sleep after you came to see me. And when I heard he'd killed someone else, that woman, I knew I had to come."
Samantha, Dance and Kellogg were in her office. The woman sat upright, gripping the arms of the chair hard, looking from one to the other. Never more than a second's gaze at either. "You're sure it was Daniel who killed her?"
"That's right," Kellogg said.
"Why?"
"We don't know. We're looking into it now. Her name was Susan Pemberton. She worked for Eve Brock. Do the names mean anything to you?"
"No."
"It's an event-planning company. Pell took all their files and presumably destroyed them. There was something in them that he wanted to hide. Or maybe there's an event coming up that he's interested in. Do you have any thoughts about what that might be?"
"I'm sorry, no."
Dance told her, "I want to get you together with Linda and Rebecca as soon as possible."
"They're both here?"
"That's right."
Samantha nodded slowly.
Kellogg said, "I need to follow up on a few things here. I'll join you later."
Dance told Maryellen Kresbach where she'd be and the women left the CBI building. The agent had Samantha park her car in the secure garage under the building, so no one would see it. They then both got into Dance's Ford.
Samantha clicked on her seat belt and then stared straight ahead. Suddenly she blurted, "One thing, my husband, his family . . . my friends. They still don't know."
"What did you tell him about being away?"
"A publishing conference . . . And Linda and Rebecca? I'd just as soon they didn't know my new name, about my family."
"That's fine with me. I haven't given them any details they didn't already know. Now, you ready?"
A shaky smile. "No. I'm not the least ready. But, okay, let's go."
When they arrived at the inn Dance checked with the MCSO deputy outside and learned there'd been no unusual activity in or around the cabin.
She gestured Samantha out of the car. The woman hesitated and climbed from the vehicle, squinting, taking in everything around her. She'd be vigilant, of course, under the circumstances, but Dance sensed something else behind this attentiveness.
Samantha gave a faint smile. "The smells, the sound of the ocean . . . I haven't been back to the Peninsula since the trial. My husband keeps asking me to drive down for the weekend. I've come up with some doozy excuses. Allergies, carsickness, pressing manuscripts to edit." Her smile faded. She glanced at the cabin. "Pretty."
"It's only got two bedrooms. I wasn't expecting you."
"If there's a couch, I can sleep on that. I don't want to bother anybody."
Samantha the unassuming one, the shy one, Dance recalled.
Mouse.
"I hope it'll just be for one night." Kathryn Dance stepped forward and knocked on the door to the past.
*
The Toyota smelled of cigarette smoke, which Daniel Pell hated.
He himself never smoked, though he'd bartered cigarettes like a floor broker on a stock exchange when he was inside the Q or Capitola. He would've let the kids in the Family smoke--dependency in someone else is exploitable, of course--but he loathed the smell. Reminded him of growing up, his father sitting in his big armchair, reading the Bible, jotting notes for sermons nobody would ever hear and chain-smoking. (His mother nearby, smoking and drinking.) His brother, not smoking or doing much else but hauling young Daniel out from where he was hiding, his closet, the tree house, the basement bathroom. "I'm not doing all the fucking work myself."
Though his brother ended up not doing any of the work; he just handed Daniel a scrub bucket or toilet brush or dishrag and went to hang with his friends. He'd return to the house occasionally to pound on his brother if the house wasn't spic-and-span, or sometimes even if it was.
Cleanliness, son, is next to godliness. There's truth in that. Now, polish the ashtrays. I want them to sparkle.
So he and Jennie were now driving with the windows down, the scent of pine and cold salty air swirling into the car.
Jennie did that rubby-nose thing, like she was trying to massage the bump out, and was quiet. She was content now, not purring but back on track. His distance last night, after she'd balked at helping him "kill" Susan Pemberton on the beach, had worked just fine. They'd returned to the Sea View and she'd done the only thing she could to try to win back his love--and spent two strenuous hours proving it. He'd withheld at first, been sullen, and she tried even harder. She even was starting to enjoy the pain. It reminded him of the time the Family had stopped at Carmel Mission years ago. He'd learned about the monks who'd beat themselves bloody, getting a high in the name of God.
But that reminded Daniel Pell of his chunky father looking at him blankly over the Bible, through a cloud of Camel cigarette smoke, so he pushed the memory away.
Last night, after the sex, he'd grown warmer to her. But later he'd stepped outside and pretended to make a phone call.
Just to keep her on edge.
When he'd returned, she hadn't asked about the call. Pell had returned to the material he'd gotten from Susan Pemberton's office, and went online once more.
This morning, he'd told her he had to go see someone. Let that sit, watched her insecurities roll up--taps on the lumpy nose, a half-dozen "sweetheart"s--and then finally he'd said, "I'd like it if you came along."
"Really?" A thirsty dog lapping up water.
"Yep. But, I don't know. It might be too hard for you."
"No, I want to. Please."
"We'll see."
She'd pulled him back to bed and they'd continued their balance-of-power game. He let himself be tugged temporarily back into her camp.
Now, though, as they drove, he had no interest in her body whatsoever; he was firmly back in control.
"You understand about yesterday, at the beach? I was in a funny mood. I get that way when something precious to me is endangered." This was a bit of an apology--who can resist that?--along with the reminder that it might happen again.
"That's one thing I love about you, sweetie."
Not "sweetheart" now. Good.
When Pell had had the Family, tucked away all cozy in the town of Seaside, he'd used a lot of techniques for controlling the girls and Jimmy. He'd give them common goals, he'd dispense rewards evenly, he'd give them tasks but withhold the reason for doing them, he'd keep them in suspense until they were nearly eaten alive by uncertainty.
And--the best way to cement loyalty and avoid dissension--he'd create a common enemy.
He now said to her, "We have another problem, lovely."
"Oh. That's where we're going now?" Rub-a-dub on the nose. It was a wonderful barometer.
"That's right."
"I told you, honey, I don't care about the money. You don't have to pay me back."
"This doesn't have anything to do with that. It's more important. Much more. I'm not asking you to do what I did last night. I'm not asking you to hurt anybody. But I need some help. And I hope you will."
Carefully playing with the emphasis.
She'd be thinking of the fake phone call last night. Who'd he been talking to? Somebody else he could call on to step in?