True. She took it and ate several big mouthfuls. It was nice and melty. "Good."
"Course it's good. It's ice cream. There's the statement, you want to take a look-see and let me know what you think." He slid the papers toward her and she read.
Crystal Stanning had transcribed it from Dance's tape and it was pretty accurate. She expanded on a thought or two. Then slid it back.
Even at this hour the San Joaquin Valley heat permeated the building. Hell, I'm going to Macy's, pick up a one-piece and float in the Mountain View pool until I wrinkle. Dance stretched and stood up, about to say good night to the detective when his desk phone rang and he hit SPEAKER. "Yeah?"
Dance finished the ice cream. Thought about asking for some more, but decided against it.
Course it's good. It's ice cream....
"Hey, Chief, it's Miguel. Lopez."
"You worked for me for four years. I know your voice," the man snapped, examining the volcano core of his own cup, maybe tallying up how many bites he had left. "What?"
"Something kind of funny."
"You gonna tell me what or just let that hang?"
"You listen to KDHT?"
"The radio? Sometimes. Get to the point. What's your point?"
The deputy said, "Well, okay. I was listening on my way home and there's a call-in show. 'Bevo in the Evening.'"
"Lopez!"
"Okay, so he's the DJ and they do requests. What happens about five minutes ago is some listener requests a song. I mean, part of a song. One of Kayleigh's."
Dance froze. She sat down. Madigan barked, "And?"
"The request was in an email. Signed, 'A Kayleigh fan.' It was for 'Your Shadow.' The last verse only. The DJ thought it was kind of funny, just the one verse, and played the whole song. But I got to thinking--"
"Oh, Christ," Dance whispered. "Nobody ever played the fourth verse--to announce Congressman Davis's killing!" She thought of Lincoln Rhyme's comment: And he's smart, right? He started with phones to keep you busy, then switched to other ways to play the song, like radio call-in requests? ...
"Shit." Madigan was nodding. He asked Lopez if the email had said anything else.
"No. Just that."
Madigan disconnected without saying good-bye. He immediately called the station and got put through to the studio, told Bevo it was police business and asked that the email be forwarded to him. As they waited, he muttered, "And, hell, you know, we're still looking for the connection between Simesky and Myra Babbage and the other killings--Bobby and Blanton, that file sharer, the attack on Sheri Towne. But nobody's found anything yet."
A moment later a flag popped up on his computer screen. The email request to the studio from a cryptic account, of random letters and numbers, was nothing more than what Lopez had already told them. Madigan called the Computer Crimes Division and forwarded it. A few minutes later they learned that it was an anonymous free email account and had been sent from a hotel in the Tower District.
"Let's get the list of guests staying there," Madigan said.
But Dance frowned. "Won't do us any good. He won't be a guest. He would've just picked up the wireless signal in the lobby, or even from the parking lot. Probably he's got some connection with the area. But not the hotel."
"You think that the assassination plot was just a coincidence? And there really is a stalker?"
"Well, we know it can't be Edwin. He has an alibi. And it doesn't need to be a stalker. It could be anybody, trying to frame Edwin to cover up the attacks--of Bobby, the file sharer or Sheri Towne...." She shook her head. "Or maybe those were just to establish a pattern ... and the real intended victim's next on his list."
"Shit. How'd we miss this? ... But who's the new vic? What's the fourth verse?"
Dance recited,
You can't keep down smiles; happiness floats.
But trouble can find us in the heart of our homes.
Life never seems to go quite right,
You can't watch your back from morning to night.
Madigan sighed. "Kill somebody in their home. That's like the other verse, about the road--not very fucking helpful."
"There's the reference to 'floating.' Another river, pool, some other body of water?"
"I don't have a clue. We've got a dozen lakes around here, nothing big close to town, though. Hundreds of miles of riverbanks. And must be a thousand pools. More."
"Okay, maybe there's some connection with the Tower District. But we've got to narrow it down more." Dance thought for a moment. "You know, there was some physical evidence that Charlie's people found that we never really looked at, because we had enough to figure out what Simesky and Myra were up to."
Madigan called Charlie Shean, at CSU, had a conversation with him and jotted notes. After hanging up he said, "What wasn't accounted for was gangue ... industrial by-product stuff, or whatever it is. Never heard of that before. Human bone dust too. And Marlboros. Did Simesky or Myra smoke?"
"I never saw them."
The chief glanced at his notes. "Also the boot print, with the really sharp toe. And some neatsfoot oil--leather treatment for baseball gloves. Maybe the dearly departed Peter Simesky played on a fascist softball league."
A to B to Z ...
Dance cocked her head. "That's not all it's used for."
Chapter 62
FINALLY, KAYLEIGH TOWNE was back in her own house, her sanctuary.
If only for a few hours. Alicia had texted that she wanted to see her about some matters having to do with the concert but she didn't want to meet her at Bishop's house.
I hear you there, sister. And when Alicia suggested they meet at Kayleigh's she readily agreed. Darthur Morgan had driven her back here and then he'd collected his own car and said good-bye.
"Tell you, ma'am: been real good working with you."
"Still 'ma'am,' after all we've been through?"
"That's right, Kayleigh ma'am." And he'd cracked what she believed was his first smile.
She laughed and hugged him, which he responded to stiffly but with good humor.
Then he'd driven away and Kayleigh was alone. But the relief she felt because Edwin wasn't really a dangerous stalker was fading and ill ease seeped in to replace it--which had nothing to do with the events of the past few days and those horrible people using her as an excuse to kill the congressman.
No, it was a discomfort that struck closer to home.
Hey, lookit the good news, KT. The bad guys're dead and Edwin's out of the picture. So, no more talk about canceling any concerts....
Why hadn't she said no to her father? Just insisted that they cancel? Didn't he get that danger wasn't the reason she didn't want to go ahead with the concert? It wasn't even that Bobby was dead, that Sheri'd nearly died.... She just plain and simple didn't want to get up onstage.
I'm not Superwoman, Daddy.
Your goals aren't my goals.
Why was he so oblivious to that? The whole Industry was a huge bulldozer, pushing forward, forward, and if somebody got crushed--Bobby's life, Kayleigh's joy--so what? It was unstoppable.
No, of course Bishop Towne didn't get that. All he got was that Kayleigh had to make money, had to feed her staff and family, had to feed the voracious fans, had to keep the record label and promoters happy.
And, she suspected, keep the memory of Bishop Towne alive--even among younger people who'd never heard him sing, hell, never heard of him at all.
And screw his daughter's own peace of mind.
Screw what mattered most to her, just having a simple life.
Hm, she reflected. "A Simple Life." Not a bad song title. She wrote it down, a few other phrases. Then she glanced at her watch. Alicia wasn't due for another half hour. Kayleigh walked upstairs to her bedroom.
Through her mind went a verse from the now infamous "Your Shadow."
You sit by the river, wondering what you got wrong, How many chances you've missed all along.
Like your troubles had somehow turned you to stone And
the water was whispering, why don't you come home?
Oh, what a time that had been, just sixteen, missing her mother so terribly, missing her baby, her father, just out of jail for the car accident, pressuring her to appear at some of his shows and launch her own career, which she wasn't even sure she wanted. Overwhelmed, depressed. She'd driven to Yosemite by herself, gone hiking. And suddenly everything was too much for her. She'd looked down at the clear river and walked into it, on impulse. No plans, not really intending to hurt herself--or maybe she had been. Kayleigh didn't know then and she didn't know now. A minute later another hiker had plucked her out and sped her to the hospital. She was in danger more of hypothermia than drowning but not even much threat of that.
Now Kayleigh sat on the bed and read once more the copy of Bobby's letter, which expressed his desire that most everything he had go to Mary-Gordon, a few things to Kayleigh. She didn't know if this was legal as a will but if she took it to a lawyer she supposed the news would become public about Mary-Gordon's parentage.
Bishop would explode. And the fans? Would they desert her? Kayleigh could honestly say that she didn't much care about either of those happening, not in her present frame of mind.
But there was also a chance that the girl herself would find out. She'd have to learn at some point, of course. But not now, at this age. Suellyn was her mother and Roberto her father. Kayleigh would never think about disrupting the girl's life. She slipped the envelope away in her top dresser drawer. She'd work out something to make sure the girl received what her biological father wanted her to have.
Yes, it was too late for Kayleigh when it came to Bobby and Mary-Gordon. But it wasn't too late for the life she dreamed of. Find a man, get married, have lots of other babies, play music on the front porch--a few concerts now and then.
Of course there was that little part about "finding a man."
Since Bobby, there'd been no one she felt really intense about. She'd been only sixteen then but she decided that the yardstick of love at that age was the best standard you could have, the purest, the most honest, the least complicated.
A single note in her mind's ear. A C sharp followed by five other notes, and they carried a phrase, "How I Felt at Sixteen."
She sang it.
Good meter and there was a lot that rhymed with "sixteen." That was a key consideration in writing music. What rhymed with what. "Orange," for instance, was not a word you ended lyric lines with. "Silver" was tricky too, though Kayleigh'd managed to work it into one of the songs on her recent album.
She sat down at the dressing table she used for her desk here in the bedroom. She pulled out a yellow pad and a few sheets of music staff paper. In three minutes she'd written the melody and a number of phrases and portions of the song.
I still recall how I felt at sixteen.
You were a king and I was your queen
Love was so simple, way back when,
I wish life could be like that again....
When I was sixteen ...
Oh, Bobby ...
Kayleigh cried for a full five minutes. Then grabbed some more tissues and dried her face; she'd used nearly two whole boxes this week.
Okay, enough of that....
She cranked up the Bose iPod player, tapped the Loretta Lynn playlist.
In the bathroom, she filled the bathtub, pinned her hair up and stripped, then sank into the deep water, listening to the album.
It felt wonderful.
Chapter 63
THEY HAD THEIR answer.
Dance, Dennis Harutyun and Pike Madigan were in the tiny apartment of Alicia Sessions, and they were surveying the evidence they'd just uncovered. Cowboy boots, with needle-sharp toes, like those that made the prints behind Edwin's house. And in the kitchen was neatsfoot oil for treating Alicia's equestrian tack; Dance recalled her quarter horse bumper sticker and her love of riding. They found cartons of Marlboros in her apartment. The dwelling also was in the Tower District, near the hotel from which the email request for the fourth song had been sent.
But far more incriminating were the two garbage bags full of Edwin Sharp's trash stolen from his house in Fresno, including receipts and some mail addressed to him in Seattle--to plant at Kayleigh's, to convince the police and jury that Edwin was the one behind the attacks and that he had killed Kayleigh. And hidden under Alicia's bed was Deputy Gabriel Fuentes's pistol case--without the weapon--stolen from near the theater when the cop was tailing Edwin.
"Alicia knew where Gabriel was," Dance had reminded them. "She was in the briefing at headquarters."
At first they'd been unable to come up with a motive for setting up Edwin Sharp. But a moment ago Dance had learned the answer. To Madigan and Harutyun, she was displaying two dozen sheets of paper, all pretty much the same--attempts to forge Kayleigh's handwriting on a note that read:
To who it may concern
Just want to say a few things to the people close to me if anything happens to me on the road ... Can't help but thinking about Patsy Cline in that airplane.... Well, if anything does, I'd like Alicia to take over as front for the band. She knows the songs as good as me and can hit those high notes better. And one more thing, I want you to have one hell of a party and make sure she sings "I'm in the Mood (for Rock 'n' Roll)," which she inspired me to write.
I see you in heaven, luv you all!
Kayleigh
"Jesus," Madigan muttered, "Kayleigh's the fourth victim. The last verse. 'Trouble can find us in the heart of our homes.' Alicia's going to kill her in her house."
Dance ripped her phone from the holster and punched in the singer's number.
I SHOULD WRITE a song about things like this, Kayleigh thought, thoroughly enjoying the bath, the soundtrack of Loretta Lynn, the violet scent of the candle she'd lit.
"The small pleasures," she sang. No. "The little pleasures." Scans better. The extra syllable helped.
It would be about how the tragedies in life, the things we can't control, are often diminished, if not cancelled, by the small things.
"An antidote to pain."
Nice line, she thought. Nobody'd ever used "antidote" in a song that she knew of. Good. But then ... wait. Hold on. You don't have to write a song every five minutes.
But she didn't actually write them. She never did. That was the secret. They wrote themselves.
In the other room she heard her phone ringing. Kayleigh debated. Ignore it. Four rings, then voicemail.
"I love the summer rain ... It's an antidote to pain...." Hm, she thought wryly. Awful! Just because some lines come fast doesn't mean they're any good. But part of being a pro is knowing what sucks and what doesn't. She'd work on it.
Then, hearing the mobile trill again, she thought of Mary-Gordon. Was Suellyn calling because she was sick, did she want Kayleigh to bring a special toy from the house? Concern for the little girl was what prodded Kayleigh out of the tub. She dried off and dressed fast in jeans and a blouse. Pulled on socks. And her glasses.
Maybe it was Alicia calling back. What exactly did she want to talk to her about, out of Bishop's hearing?
Could be anything, she decided. The assistant and Bishop had never really gotten along. Her father liked women who fawned. Alicia did what she was supposed to for him--he was the head of the company--but there was always some tension between them because she would not kowtow to the big man.
She picked up the phone. Ah, Kathryn's number. She hit the CALL-BACK button.
As it rang, she glanced out the window. It was dark now but she made out Alicia's blue pickup truck sitting in the drive. Kayleigh hadn't heard her arrive but she could let herself in. She had a key.
Dance's phone clicked.
Kayleigh started to say, "Hey, how're--?"
But the agent said urgently, "Kayleigh, listen to me. I don't have time to go into the details. Alicia Session's on her way there. She's going to kill you. Get out of the house. Now!"
"What?"
"Just get out!"
Dow
nstairs, the kitchen door opened and Alicia called out, "Hey, Kayleigh. It's me. You decent?"
THROUGH HER PHONE Kathryn Dance heard Kayleigh's voice catch. Then she whispered, "She's here! She's downstairs. Alicia!"
Oh, no. How to handle it?
Dance, Harutyun and Madigan were in the FMCSO cruiser speeding away from Alicia's apartment in the Tower District. Dance told the men that Alicia was already at Kayleigh's house and then said into the phone, "Is Darthur there?"
"No, he's gone. We thought it was all over with, with Simesky dead."
"Get out. Can you run into the woods?"
"I ... No. I'm upstairs. I don't think I can jump. And I'd have to go past her if I went downstairs. Can I talk to her? Why does she--"
"No, you have to hide, stay away. She has a gun. We'll have troopers there as soon as we can but it'll be twenty minutes. Are you in a room with a lock?"
"My bedroom. Yes. But it's not much."
"What about a weapon?"
"My gun's downstairs, locked up."
"Just barricade yourself in the room. And stall."
"Oh, Jesus, Kathryn. What's going on?"
"Barricade yourself as best you can. We'll be there soon."
The siren spread outward on the hot, dry air and the urgent blue and white lights ricocheted off cars and signs and windows as they raced through the evening.
"KAYLEIGH?" ALICIA CALLED again from downstairs.
Where was she? Kayleigh wondered. Still in the kitchen? The den?
"Down in a minute." She stared at the door.
Close it, girl! What's the matter with you. Buy time. Lock it, barricade it.
At the door she called, "Just out of the shower. I'll be down in five." She closed and locked the door. But the chair she tried to wedge under the knob was too low. Her dresser was too heavy to move. The vanity table wouldn't stop Mary-Gordon.
Find a weapon. Anything.
A nail file? A lamp?
Don't be an idiot, jump!
She ran to the window. Below her was not only concrete but a wrought-iron fence. If she didn't break her back she'd be impaled.
Listening at the door again, ear against the wood.
"Kayleigh?"
"Be down soon! Have a beer or make some coffee!"
Jump out the window. It's your only chance.