Dance and O'Neil had become friends and stayed close over the years. When she'd decided to go into law enforcement and got a job with the regional office of the CBI, she found herself working frequently with him. Stan Fishburne, then the agent in charge, was one mentor, O'Neil the other. He taught her more about the art of investigation in six months than she'd learned during her entire formal training. They complemented each other well. The quiet, deliberate man preferred traditional police techniques, like forensics, undercover work, surveillance and running confidential informants, while Dance's specialty was canvassing, interrogation and interviewing.
She knew she wouldn't be the agent she was today without O'Neil's help. Or his humor and patience (and other vital talents: like offering her Dramamine before she went out on his boat).
Though their approach to their job and their talents differed, their instincts were identical and they were closely attuned to each other. She was amused to see that, while he'd been staring at the map, in fact he'd been sensing signals from her too.
"What is it?" he asked.
"How do you mean?"
"Something's bothering you. More than just finding yourself in the driver's seat here."
"Yep." She thought for a minute. That was one thing about O'Neil; he often forced her to put her tangled ideas in order before speaking. She explained, "Bad feeling about Pell. I got this idea that the guards' deaths meant nothing to him. Juan too. And that Worldwide Express driver? He's dead, you know."
"I know. . . . You think Pell wants to kill?"
"No, not wants to. Or doesn't. What he wants is whatever serves his interest, however small. In a way, that seems scarier, and makes it harder to anticipate him. But let's hope I'm wrong."
"You're never wrong, boss." TJ appeared, carrying a laptop. He set it up on the battered conference table under a sign, MOST WANTED STATEWIDE. Below it were the ten winners of that contest, reflecting the demographics of the state: Latino, Anglo, Asian and African-American, in that order.
"You find the McCoy woman or Pell's aunt?"
"Not yet. My troops're on the case. But check this out." He adjusted the computer screen.
They hovered around the screen, on which was a high-resolution image of the photograph from Morton Nagle's camera. Now larger and clearer, it revealed a figure in a denim jacket on the driveway that led to the back of the building, where the fire had started. The shadow had morphed into a large black suitcase.
"Woman?" O'Neil asked.
They could judge the person's height by comparing it to the automobile nearby. About Dance's height, five-six. Slimmer, though, she noted. The cap and sunglasses obscured the head and face, but through the vehicle's window you could see hips slightly broader than a man's would be for that height.
"And there's a glint. See that?" TJ tapped the screen. "Earring."
Dance glanced at the hole in his lobe, where a diamond or metal stud occasionally resided.
"Statistically speaking," TJ said in defense of his observation.
"Okay. I agree."
"A blond woman, about five-six or so," O'Neil summarized.
Dance said, "Weight one-ten, give or take." She had a thought. She called Rey Carraneo in his office upstairs, asked him to join them.
He appeared a moment later. "Agent Dance."
"Go back to Salinas. Talk to the manager of the You Mail It store." The accomplice had probably recently checked out the Worldwide Express delivery schedule at the franchise. "See if anyone there remembers a woman fitting her general description. If so, get a picture on EFIS."
The Electronic Facial Identification System is a computer-based version of the old Identi-Kit, used by investigators to re-create suspects' likenesses from the recollections of witnesses.
"Sure, Agent Dance."
TJ hit some buttons and the jpeg zipped wirelessly to the color printer in his office. Carraneo would pick it up there.
TJ's phone rang. "Yo." He jotted notes during a brief conversation, which ended with, "I love you, darling." He hung up. "Vital statistics clerk in Sacramento. B-R-I-T-N-E-E. Love that name. She's very sweet. Way too sweet for me. Not to say it couldn't work out between us."
Dance lifted an eyebrow, the kinesic interpretation of which was: "Get to the point."
"I put her on the case of the missing Family member, capital F. Five years ago Samantha McCoy changed her name to Sarah Monroe. So she wouldn't have to throw out her monogrammed underwear, I'd guess. Then three years ago, somebody of that name marries Ronald Starkey. There goes the monogram ploy. Anyway, they live in San Jose."
"Sure it's the same McCoy?"
"The real McCoy, you mean. I've been waiting to say that. Yep. Good old Social Security. With a parole board backup."
Dance called Directory Assistance and got Ronald and Sarah Starkey's address and phone number.
"San Jose," O'Neil said. "That's close enough." Unlike the other two women in the Family to whom Dance had already spoken, Samantha could have planted the gas bomb this morning and been home in an hour and a half.
"Does she work?" Dance asked.
"I didn't check that out. I will, though, you want."
"We want," O'Neil said. TJ didn't report to him, and in the well-established hierarchy of law enforcement the CBI trumped MCSO. But a request from Chief Deputy Michael O'Neil was the same as a request from Dance. Or even higher.
A few minutes later TJ returned to say that the tax department revealed that Sarah Starkey was employed by a small educational publisher in San Jose.
Dance got the number. "Let's see if she was in this morning."
O'Neil asked, "How're you going to do that? We can't let her know we suspect anything."
"Oh, I'll lie," Dance said breezily. She called the publisher from a caller ID-blocked line. When a woman answered, Dance said, "Hi. This is the El Camino Boutique. We have an order for Sarah Starkey. But the driver said she wasn't there this morning. Do you know what time she'll be getting in?"
"Sarah? I'm afraid there's some mistake. She's been here since eight thirty."
"Really? Well, I'll talk to the driver again. Might be better to deliver it to her house. If you could not mention anything to Mrs. Starkey, I'd appreciate it. It's a surprise." Dance hung up. "She was there all morning."
TJ applauded. "And the Oscar for the best performance by a law enforcer deceiving the public goes to . . ."
O'Neil frowned.
"Don't approve of my subversive techniques?" Dance asked.
With his typical wry delivery O'Neil said, "No, it's just that you're going to have to send her something now. The receptionist's going to dime you out. Tell her she's got a secret admirer."
"I know, boss. Get her one of those balloon bouquets. 'Congratulations on not being a suspect.' "
Dance's administrative assistant, short, no-nonsense Maryellen Kresbach, walked into the room with coffee for all (Dance never asked; Maryellen always brought). The mother of three wore clattery high heels and favored complicated, coiffed hair and impressive fingernails.
The crew in the conference room thanked her. Dance sipped the excellent coffee. Wished Maryellen had brought some of the cookies sitting on her desk. She envied the woman's ability to be both a domestic powerhouse and the best assistant Dance had ever had.
The agent noticed that Maryellen wasn't leaving after delivering the caffeine.
"Didn't know if I should bother you. But Brian called."
"He did?"
"He said you might not have gotten his message on Friday."
"You gave it to me."
"I know I did. I didn't tell him I did. And I didn't tell him I didn't. So."
Feeling O'Neil's eyes on her, Dance said, "Okay, thanks."
"You want his number?"
"I have it."
"Okay." Her assistant continued to stand resolutely in front of her boss, nodding slowly.
Well, this is a rather spiny moment.
Dance didn't want to talk about Brian Gunderson.
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The trill of the conference-room phone saved her.
She answered, listened for a moment and said, "Have somebody bring him to my office right away."
Chapter 11
The large man, in a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation uniform, sat in front of her desk, a workaday slab of government-issue furniture on which lay random pens, some awards, a lamp and photos: of the two children, of Dance with a handsome silver-haired man, of her mother and father, and of two dogs, each paired with one of the youngsters. A dozen files also rested on the cheap laminate. They were facedown.
"This is terrible," said Tony Waters, a senior guard from Capitola Correctional Facility. "I can't tell you."
Dance detected traces of a southeastern accent in the distraught voice. The Monterey Peninsula drew people from all over the world. Dance and Waters were alone at the moment. Michael O'Neil was checking on the forensics from the scene of the escape.
"You were in charge of the wing where Pell was incarcerated?" Dance asked.
"That's right." Bulky and with stooped shoulders, Waters sat forward in the chair. He was in his midfifties, she estimated.
"Did Pell say anything to you--about where he's headed?"
"No, ma'am. I've been racking my brain since it happened. That was the first thing I did when I heard. I sat down and went through everything he'd said in the past week or more. But, no, nothing. For one thing, Daniel didn't talk a lot. Not to us, the hacks."
"Did he spend time in the library?"
"Huge amount. Read all the time."
"Can I find out what?"
"It's not logged and the cons can't check anything out."
"How about visitors?"
"Nobody in the last year."
"And telephone calls? Are they logged?"
"Yes, ma'am. But not recorded." He thought back. "He didn't have many, aside from reporters wanting to interview him. But he never called back. I think maybe he talked to his aunt once or twice. No others I remember."
"What about computers, email?"
"Not for the prisoners. We do for ourselves, of course. They're in a special area--a control zone. We're very strict about that. You know, I was thinking about it and if he communicated with anybody on the outside--"
"Which he had to do," Dance pointed out.
"Right. It had to be through a con being released. You might want to check there."
"I thought of that. I've talked to your warden. She tells me that there were only two releases in the past month and their parole officers had them accounted for this morning. They could've gotten messages to someone, though. The officers're checking that out."
Waters, she'd noted, had arrived empty-handed, and Dance now asked, "Did you get our request for the contents of his cell?"
The guard's mood darkened. He was shaking his head, looking down. "Yes, ma'am. But it was empty. Nothing inside at all. Had been empty for a couple of days actually." He looked up, his lips tight, as he seemed to be debating. Then his eyes dipped as he said, "I didn't catch it."
"Catch what?"
"The thing is, I've worked the Q and Soledad and Lompoc. Half dozen others. We learn to look for certain things. See, if something big's going down, the cons' cells change. Things'll disappear--sometimes it's evidence that they're going to make a run, or evidence of shit a con's done that he doesn't want us to know about. Or what he's going to do. Because he knows we'll look over the cell with a microscope after."
"But with Pell you didn't think about him throwing everything out."
"We never had an escape from Capitola. It can't happen. And they're watched so close, it's almost impossible for a con to move on another one--kill him, I mean." The man's face was flushed. "I should've thought better. If it'd been Lompoc, I'd've known right away something was going down." He rubbed his eyes. "I screwed up."
"That'd be a tough leap to make," Dance reassured him. "From housekeeping to escaping."
He shrugged and examined his nails. He wore no jewelry but Dance could see the indentation of a wedding band. It occurred to her that, for once, this was no badge of infidelity but a concession to the job. Probably, circulating among dangerous prisoners, it was better not to wear anything they might steal.
"Sounds like you've been in this business for a while."
"Long time. After the army I got into corrections. Been there ever since." He brushed his crew-cut, grinning. "Sometimes seems like forever. Sometimes seems like just yesterday. Two years till I retire. In a funny way, I'll miss it." He was at ease now, realizing he wouldn't be horsewhipped for not foreseeing the escape.
She asked about where he lived, his family. He was married and held up his left hand, laughing; her deduction about the ring proved correct. He and his wife had two children, both bound for college, he said proudly.
But while they chatted, a silent alarm was pulsing within Dance. She had a situation on her hands.
Tony Waters was lying.
Many falsehoods go undetected simply because the person being deceived doesn't expect to be lied to. Dance had asked Waters here only to get information about Daniel Pell, so she wasn't in interrogation mode. If Waters had been a suspect or a hostile witness, she'd have been looking for stress signs when he gave certain answers, then kept probing those topics until he admitted lying and eventually told the truth.
This process only works, though, if you determine the subject's nondeceptive baseline behavior before you start asking the sensitive questions, which Dance, of course, had had no reason to do because she'd assumed he'd be truthful.
Even without a baseline comparison, though, a perceptive kinesic interrogator can sometimes spot deception. Two clues signal lying with some consistency: One is a very slight increase in the pitch of the voice, because lying triggers an emotional response within most people, and emotion causes vocal cords to tighten. The other signal is pausing before and during answering, since lying is mentally challenging. One who's lying has to think constantly about what he and other people have said previously about the topic, then craft a fictitious response that's consistent with those prior statements and what he believes the interrogator knows.
In her conversation with the guard, Dance had become aware that at several points his voice had risen in pitch and he'd paused when there was no reason for him to. Once she caught on to this, she looked back to other behaviors and saw that they suggested deception: offering more information than necessary, digressing, engaging in negation movement--touching his head, nose and eyes particularly--and aversion, turning away from her.
As soon as there's evidence of deception, an interview turns into an interrogation, and the officer's approach changes. It was at that point in their conversation that she'd broken off the questions about Pell and had begun talking about topics he'd have no reason to lie about--his personal life, the Peninsula, and so on. This was to establish his baseline behavior.
As she was doing this, Dance performed her standard four-part analysis of the subject himself, to give her an idea of how tactically to plan the interrogation.
First, she asked, what was his role in the incident? She concluded that Tony Waters was at best an uncooperative witness; at worst, an accomplice of Pell's.
Second, did he have a motive to lie? Of course. Waters didn't want to be arrested or lose his job because intentionally or through negligence he'd helped Daniel Pell escape. He might also have a personal or financial interest in aiding the killer.
Third, what was his personality type? Interrogators need this information to adjust their own demeanor when questioning the subject--should they be aggressive or conciliatory? Some officers simply determine if the subject is an introvert or extrovert, which gives a pretty good idea of how assertive to be. Dance, though, preferred a more comprehensive approach, trying to assign code letters from the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator, which includes three other attributes in addition to introvert or extrovert: thinking or feeling, sensing or intuitive, judging or perceiv
ing.
Dance concluded that Waters was a thinking-sensing-judging-extrovert, which meant that she could be more blunt with him than with a more emotional, internalized subject, and could use various reward-punishment techniques to break down the lies.
Finally, she asked: What kind of "liar's personality" does Waters have? There are several types: Manipulators, or "High Machiavellians" (after the ruthless Italian prince), lie with impunity, seeing nothing wrong with it, using deceit as a tool to achieve their goals in love, business, politics--or crime. Other types include social liars, who lie to entertain, and adaptors, insecure people who lie to make positive impressions.
She decided that, given his career as a life-long prison guard and the ease with which he'd tried to take charge of the conversation and lead her away from the truth, Waters was in yet another category. He was an "actor," someone for whom control was an important issue. They don't lie regularly, only when necessary, and are less skilled than High Machs, but they're good deceivers.
Dance now took off her glasses--chic ones, with dark red frames--and on the pretense of cleaning them, set them aside and put on narrower lenses encased in black steel, the "predator specs" she'd worn when interrogating Pell. She rose, walked around the desk and sat in the chair beside him.
Interrogators refer to the immediate space around a human being as the "proxemic zone," ranging from "intimate," six to eighteen inches, to "public," ten feet away and beyond. Dance's preferred space for interrogation was within the intermediate "personal" zone, about two feet away.
Waters noted the move with curiosity but he said nothing about it. Nor did she.
"Now, Tony. I'd just like to go over a few things one more time."
"Sure, whatever." He lifted his ankle to his knee--a move that seemed relaxed but in fact was a glaring defense maneuver.
She returned to a topic that, she now knew, had raised significant stress indicators in Waters. "Tell me again about the computers at Capitola."
"Computers?"
Responding with a question was a classic indicator of deception; the subject is trying to buy time to decide where the interrogator is going and how to frame a response.
"Yes, what kind do you have?"
"Oh, I'm not a tech guy. I don't know." His foot tapped. "Dells, I think."