"Really? He looked pretty confident."
"He did, and he'll be a good defendant on the stand--if he takes the stand. But tactically his case is hopeless."
"He was arresting an armed killer. And you're claiming that his motive is that his daughter died because of some cult thing? That's not compelling."
"I never worry too much about motive. If a man kills his wife, it doesn't really matter to the jury if it was because she served him a burned steak or he wants her insurance money. Murder's murder. It'll become a lot less soap opera when we link Kellogg to the others who've been killed."
Dance told him about the other deaths, the suspicious takedown in Chicago last week, and others, in Fort Worth and New York. The suicide in L.A. and one in Oregon. One particularly troubling case was in Florida, where Kellogg had gone to assist Dade County deputies investigating charges of kidnapping earlier in the year. A Miami man had a communal house on the outskirts of the city. The Latino certainly had a devoted following, some of them quite fanatical. Kellogg shot him when he'd apparently lunged for a weapon during a raid. But it was later discovered that the commune also ran a soup kitchen and a respected Bible study class and was raising funds for a day-care center for children of working single parents in the neighborhood. The kidnapping charges turned out to be bogus, leveled by his ex-wife.
The local papers were still questioning the circumstances of his death.
"Interesting, but I'm not sure any of that would be admissible," her boss offered. "What about forensics from the beach?"
Dance felt a pang that Michael O'Neil wasn't here to go through the technical side of the case. (Why wasn't he calling back?)
"They found the slug that Kellogg fired at Kathryn," TJ said. "It conclusively matches his SIG."
Overby grunted. "Accidental discharge . . . Relax, Kathryn, somebody's got to be the devil's advocate here."
"The shell casings from Pell's gun on the beach were found closer to Kellogg's position than Pell's. Kellogg probably fired Pell's weapon himself to make it look like self-defense. Oh, and the lab found sand in Kellogg's handcuffs. That means Kellogg--"
"Suggests," Overby corrected.
"Suggests that Kellogg disarmed Pell, got him into the open, tossed the cuffs down and, when Pell went to pick them up, killed him."
Dance said, "Look, Charles, I'm not saying it'll be a shoo-in, but Sandoval can win it. I can testify that Pell wasn't a threat when he was shot. The pose of the body's clear."
Overby's eyes scanned his desk and settled on yet another framed fish picture. "Motive?"
Hadn't he paid attention earlier? Probably not.
"Well, his daughter. He's killing anybody who's connected--"
The CBI chief looked up and his eyes were sharp and probing. "No, not Kellogg's motive for killing him. Our motive. For bringing the case."
Ah. Right. He meant, of course, her motive. Was it retribution because she'd been betrayed by Kellogg? "It'll come up, you know. We'll need a response."
Her boss was on a roll today.
But so was she. "Because Winston Kellogg murdered someone within our jurisdiction."
Overby's phone rang. He stared at it for four trills then answered.
TJ whispered, "That's a good motive. Better than he served you a lousy steak."
The CBI chief hung up, staring at the picture of the salmon. "We've got visitors." He straightened his tie. "The FBI's here."
*
"Charles, Kathryn . . ."
Amy Grabe took the coffee cup that was offered by Overby's assistant and sat. She gave a nod to TJ.
Dance chose an upright chair near the attractive but no-nonsense special agent in charge of the San Francisco field office. Dance didn't go for the more comfortable but lower couch across from the woman; sitting even an inch below someone puts you at a psychological disadvantage. Dance proceeded to tell the FBI agent the latest details about Kellogg and Nimue.
Grabe knew some, but not all, of the tale. She frowned as she listened, motionless, unlike fidgety Overby. Her right hand rested on the opposite sleeve of her stylish burgundy suit.
Dance made her case. "He's an active duty agent killing these people, Amy. He lied to us. He staged a dynamic entry when there was no need to. He nearly got a dozen people hurt. Some could've been killed."
Overby's pen bounced like a drumstick, and TJ's kinesics read: Okay, now, this is an awkward moment.
Grabe's eyes, beneath perfect brows, scanned everyone in the room as she said, "It's all very complicated and difficult. I understand that. But whatever happened, I've gotten a call. They'd like him released."
"They--Ninth Street?"
She nodded. "And higher. Kellogg's a star. Great collar record. Saved hundreds of people from these cults. And he's going to be taking on fundamentalist cases. I mean terrorists. Now, if it makes you feel any better, I talked to them, and they'll have an inquiry. Look into the takedowns, see if he used excessive force."
"The most powerful handgun known to man," TJ recited, then fell silent under his boss's withering glance.
"Look into it?" Dance asked, her voice incredulous. "We're talking questionable deaths--fake suicides, Amy. Oh, please. It's a vendetta. Pure and simple. Jesus, even Pell was above revenge. And who knows what else Kellogg's done."
"Kathryn," her boss warned.
The FBI agent said, "The fact is he's a federal agent investigating crimes in which the perps are particularly dangerous and smart. In some instances they've been killed resisting. Happens all the time."
"Pell wasn't resisting. I can testify to that--as an expert witness. He was murdered."
Overby was tapping a pencil on his immaculate blotter. The man was a knotted ball of stress.
"Kellogg has arrested--he has arrested, you know--a lot of dangerous individuals. A few have been killed."
"Fine, Amy, we can go on and on about this for hours. My concern isn't anything other than presenting a single homicide case to Sandy Sandoval, whether Washington likes it or not."
"Federalism at work," TJ said.
Tap, tap . . . The pencil bounced and Overby cleared his throat.
"It's not even a great case," the SAC pointed out. She'd apparently read all the details on the trip to the Peninsula.
"It doesn't have to be a slam dunk. Sandy can still win it."
Grabe put the coffee down. She turned her placid face to Overby and leveled hard eyes at him. "Charles, they've asked that you don't pursue it."
Dance wasn't going to let them dump the case. And, all right, some of her goddamn motive was because the man who'd asked her out, who'd won a bit of her heart, had betrayed her.
. . . afterward. How does that sound?
Overby's eyes took in more pictures and mementos on his desk. "It's a tough situation. . . . You know what Oliver Wendell Holmes said? He said that tough cases make bad law. Or maybe hard cases make bad law. I don't remember."
What does that mean? she wondered.
Grabe said in a soft tone, "Kathryn, Daniel Pell was a dangerous man. He killed law enforcers, he killed people you know and he killed innocents. You've done a great job in an impossible situation. You stopped a really bad doer. And Kellogg contributed to that. It's a gold star for everybody."
"Absolutely," Overby said. He set down the bouncing writing implement. "You know what this reminds me of, Amy? Jack Ruby killing Kennedy's assassin. Remember? I don't think anybody had a problem with what Ruby did, gunning Oswald down."
Dance's jaw closed, her teeth pressing together firmly. She flicked her thumb against her forefinger. Just as he'd "reassured" Grabe of Dance's innocence in contributing to Pell's escape, her boss was going to sell her out again. By declining to submit the case to Sandy Sandoval, Overby wasn't just covering his ass; he was as guilty of murder as Kellogg himself. Dance sat back, her shoulders slumping slightly. She saw TJ's grimace from the corner of her eye.
"Exactly," Grabe said. "So--"
Then Overby held up a hand. "But a funny
thing about that case."
"What case?" the FBI agent asked.
"The Ruby case. Texas arrested him for murder. And guess what? Jack Ruby got convicted and sent to jail." A shrug. "I'll have to say no, Amy. I'm submitting the Kellogg case to the Monterey County Prosecutor. I'm going to recommend indictment for murder. Lesser included offense'll be manslaughter. Oh, and aggravated assault on a CBI agent. Kellogg did take a shot at Kathryn, after all."
Dance felt her heart thud. Had she heard this right? TJ glanced at her with a raised eyebrow.
Overby was looking at Dance. He said, "And I think we should go for misuse of legal process too, and lying to an investigative agent. What do you think, Kathryn?"
Those hadn't occurred to her. "Excellent." She noticed TJ's thumb subtly point upward.
Grabe rubbed her cheek with a short, pink-polished nail. "Do you really think this is a good idea, Charles?"
"Oh, I do. Absolutely."
SATURDAY
Chapter 61
Tears pooling in her eyes, a woman lay on the bed of the cheap transient hotel off Del Monte, near Highway 1. Listening to the hiss of traffic, she was staring at the ceiling.
She wished she could stop crying.
But she couldn't.
Because he was dead.
Her Daniel was gone.
Jennie Marston touched her head, under the bandage, which stung furiously. She kept replaying the last few hours of their time together, Thursday. Standing on the beach south of Carmel, as he held the rock in the shape of Jasmine, her mother's cat, the one thing her mother would never hurt.
Recalling how Daniel held the rock, turning it over and over.
"That's exactly what I was thinking, lovely. It looks just like a cat." Then he'd held her tighter and whispered, "I was watching the news."
"Oh, back at the motel?"
"That's right. Lovely, the police found out about you."
"About--"
"Your name. They know who you are."
"They do?" she whispered in horror.
"Yes."
"Oh, no . . . Daniel, sweetheart, I'm sorry . . ." She'd started shaking.
"You left something in the room, right?"
Then she remembered. The email. It was in her jeans. In a weak voice she said, "It was the first one where you said you loved me. I couldn't throw it out. You told me to, but I just couldn't. I'm so sorry. I--"
"It's okay, lovely. But now we have to talk."
"Sure, sweetheart," she'd said, resigned to the worst. She caressed her bumpy nose and no silent recitations of angel songs, angel songs were going to help.
He was going to leave her. Make her go away.
But things were more complicated than that. It seemed that one of the women in the Family was working with him. Rebecca. They were going to get another Family together and go to his mountaintop, live by themselves.
"You weren't supposed to be part of it, lovely, but when I got to know you I changed my mind. I knew I couldn't live without you. I'll talk to Rebecca. It'll take a little while. She's . . . difficult. But eventually she'll do what I say. You'll become friends."
"I don't know."
"You and me, lovely, we'll be the team. She and I never had that connection. It was about something else."
If he meant they just had sex, that was okay. Jennie wasn't jealous about that, not too much. She was jealous about him loving someone else, sharing laughs and stories, someone else being his lovely.
He'd continued, "But now we have to be careful. The police know you and they'll be able to find you easily. So you've got to disappear."
"Disappear?"
"For a while. A month or two. Oh, I don't like it either. I'll miss you."
And she could see that he would.
"Don't worry. Everything'll work out. I won't let you go."
"Really?"
"We're going to pretend that I killed you. The police will stop looking for you. I'm going to have to cut you a little. We'll put some blood on that rock and purse. They'll think I hit you with the rock and threw you into the ocean. It'll hurt."
"If it means we can be together." (Though thinking: Not my hair, not again! What would she look like now?) "I'd rather cut myself, lovely. But there's no way around it."
"It's okay."
"Come on over here. Sit down. Hold my leg. Squeeze my leg tight. It'll hurt less that way."
The pain was terrible. But she bit down on her sleeve and squeezed his leg hard and managed not to scream as the knife cut and the blood flowed.
The bloody purse, the bloody statue of Jasmine . . .
They'd driven to where he'd hidden the blue Ford Focus stolen at Moss Landing, and he gave her the keys. They'd said good-bye and she'd gotten another room, in this cheap hotel. Just as she'd entered the room, and turned on the TV, lying back and cradling the agonizing wound on her head, she'd seen on the news that her Daniel had been shot dead at Point Lobos.
She'd screamed into the pillow, beaten the mattress with her bony hands. Finally she'd sobbed herself into a tortured sleep. Then she'd wakened and lain in bed, staring at the ceiling, her eyes flicking from one corner to the other. Endlessly. The compulsive gazing.
It reminded her of the endless hours lying in the bedroom when she was married, head back, waiting for the nosebleed to stop, the pain to go away.
And Tim's bedroom.
And a dozen others.
Lying on her back, waiting, waiting, waiting . . .
Jennie knew she had to get up, get moving. The police were looking for her--she'd seen her driver's license picture on TV, unsmiling, and her nose huge. Her face burned with horror at the image.
So get off your ass . . .
Yet for the past few hours, as she'd lain on the cheap bed, swayback and with coils ridging through the skimpy cover, she'd felt something curious within her.
A change, like the first frost of autumn. She wondered what the feeling was. Then she understood.
Anger.
This was an emotion rare to Jennie Marston. Oh, she was great at feeling bad, great at being afraid, great at scurrying, great at waiting for the pain to go away.
Or waiting for the pain to begin.
But now she was angry. Her hands shook and her breath came fast. And then, though the fury remained, she found herself completely calm. It was just like making candy--you cook the sugar for a long time until it reaches the hard-boil stage, bubbling and dangerous (it would stick to your skin like burning glue). And then you poured it onto a piece of marble, and it cooled into a brittle sheet.
That's what Jennie felt within her now. Cold anger within her heart. Hard . . .
Teeth set, heart pounding, she walked into the bathroom and took a shower. She sat at the cheap desk, in front of a mirror, and put on her makeup. She spent nearly a half-hour doing this, then looked at herself in the mirror. And she liked what she saw.
Angel songs . . .
She was thinking back to last Thursday, as they'd stood beside the Ford Focus, Jennie crying, hugging Daniel hard.
"I'll miss you so much, sweetie," she said.
Then his voice had lowered. "Now, lovely, I've got to go take care of something, make sure our mountaintop is safe. But there's one thing you need to do."
"What, Daniel?"
"Remember that night on the beach? When I needed you to help me? With that woman in the trunk?"
She nodded. "You . . . you want me to help you do something like that again?"
His blue eyes staring into hers. "I don't want you to help. I need you to do it yourself."
"Me?"
He'd leaned close and gazed into her eyes. "Yes. If you don't, we'll never have any peace, we'll never be together."
She slowly nodded. He'd then handed her the pistol he'd taken from the deputy guarding James Reynolds's house. He showed her how to use it. Jennie was surprised at how easy it was.
Now, feeling the anger within her, splintery as hard candy, Jennie walked to the bed of the cheap
motel and shook out the contents of the small shopping bag she was using as a purse: the gun, half of her remaining money, some personal effects and the other thing Daniel had given her: a slip of paper. Jennie now opened the note and stared at what it contained: the names Kathryn Dance, Stuart and Edie Dance, and several addresses.
She heard her lover's voice as he'd slipped the gun into the bag and handed it to her. "Be patient, lovely. Take your time. And what's the most important thing I've taught you?"
"To stay in control," she'd recited.
"You get an A-plus, lovely." And he delivered what turned out to be their last kiss.
Chapter 62
Leaving headquarters, Dance headed down to the Point Lobos Inn, to see about transferring the bill from Kellogg's credit card to the CBI's own account.
Charles Overby wasn't happy about the expenditure, of course, but there was an inherent conflict of interest in having a criminal defendant pay for expenses to help out the very institution that had arrested him. So Overby had agreed to swallow the cost of the inn. His shining moment of supporting Kellogg's prosecution didn't extend to other aspects of his personality, though. He whined mightily about the bill. ("Jordan Cabernet? Who drank the Jordan? And two bottles?")
Dance didn't tell him that she'd volunteered to let Samantha McCoy stay there for an extra few days.
As she was driving she listened to some music by Altan, the Celtic group. "Green Grow the Rushes O" was the song. The melody was haunting, which seemed appropriate under the circumstances, since she was en route to the location where people had died.
She was thinking of the trip to Southern California next weekend, the kids and dogs in tow. She was going to record a group of Mexican musicians near Ojai. They were fans of the website and had emailed Martine some samples of their music. Dance wanted to get some live recordings. The rhythms were fascinating. She was looking forward to the trip.
The roads here weren't crowded; the bad weather had returned. Dance saw only one car behind her on the entire road, a blue sedan trailing behind her a half-mile.
Dance turned off the road and headed to the Point Lobos Inn. She glanced at her phone. Still no message from O'Neil, she was troubled to learn. Dance could call him on the pretense of a case, and he'd call her back immediately. But she couldn't do that. Besides, probably better to keep some distance. It's a fine line when you're friends with a married man.