PRECAUTIONS

FRIDAY, APRIL 7

CHAPTER 27

‘Never rains but it pours,’ Michael O’Neil offered, walking into Dance’s office.

TJ Scanlon glanced at the solid detective, who was sitting down across from her desk. ‘I never quite got that. Does it mean, “We’re in a desert area, so it doesn’t rain but sometimes there’s a downpour and we get flooded because, you know, there’s no ground cover?”’

‘I don’t know. All I mean is, my plate’s filling up.’

‘With rain?’ TJ asked.

‘A homicide.’

‘Oh. Sorry.’ TJ often walked a fine line between jovial and flippant.

Dance asked, ‘The missing farmer? Otto Grant?’ She was thinking of the possible suicide, the man distraught about losing his land to the eminent domain action by the state. She couldn’t imagine what he had gone through, losing the farm that had been in his family for so many years. She and the children had been at Safeway recently and she’d noticed yet more 8.5-by-11 sheets of paper, attention-getting yellow, with Grant’s picture on them.

Have you seen this man? …

O’Neil shook his head. ‘No, no, I mean another case altogether.’ He handed Dance a half-dozen crime-scene photos. ‘Jane Doe. Found this morning at the Cabrillo Beach Inn.’

A dive of a place, Dance knew. North of Monterey.

‘Prints come back negative.’

The photo was of a young woman who’d been dead seven or eight hours, to guess from the lividity. She was pretty. She had been pretty.

‘COD?’

‘Asphyx. Plastic bag, rubber band.’

‘Rape?’

‘No. But maybe erotic asphyxia.’

Dance shook her head. Really? Risking death? How much better could an orgasm be?

‘I’ll get it on our internal wire,’ TJ said. This would send the picture to every one of the CBI offices, where a facial-recognition scan would be run and compared with faces in the database.

‘Thanks.’

TJ took the pictures off to scan them.

O’Neil continued, to Dance: ‘The boyfriend’s probably married. Panicked and took off with her purse. We’re checking video nearby for tags and makes. Might find something.’

‘Why wasn’t she on the bed? I don’t care how kinky I was, sex on the floor of that motel is just plain ick.’

O’Neil said, ‘That’s why I said maybe about the erotic asphyx. There were marks on her wrists. Somebody might’ve held her down while she died. Or it could have been part of their game. I’m keeping an open mind.’

‘So,’ she said slowly, ‘you still with us on the Solitude Creek unsub?’ She was afraid that the death – accidental or intentional – would derail him.

‘No. Just complaining about the rain.’

‘You still on the hate-crime case too?’

‘Yeah.’ A grimace. ‘We had another.’

‘No! What happened?’

‘Another gay couple. Two men from Pacific Grove. Not far from you, down on Lighthouse. A rock through their window.’

‘Any suspects?’

‘Nope.’ He shrugged. ‘But, rain or not, I can work Solitude Creek.’

He was then looking down at the newspaper on Dance’s chair. The front page contained a big picture of Brad Dannon. The fireman, in a suit and sporting a bright flag lapel pin, sat on the couch next to an Asian American reporter. Hero Fireman Tells the Horror Story of Solitude Creek.

‘You interview him?’ O’Neil asked.

She nodded and gave a sour laugh. ‘Yep. And his ego.’

‘Either of them helpful?’

‘Uh-uh. In fairness, he was busy helping the injured. And we didn’t know it was a crime scene at that point.’

‘You ran the Serrano thing, in Seaside?’

‘Yep.’

‘How’s that working out?’ The question seemed brittle.

‘It’s moving along.’ Then she didn’t want to talk about it any more.

Her phone rang. ‘Kathryn Dance.’

‘Uhm, Mrs Dance. This’s Trish Martin.’

The daughter of Michelle Cooper, the woman killed in Solitude Creek.

‘Yes, Trish. Hi.’ She glanced toward O’Neil. ‘How’re you doing?’

‘Not so great. You know.’

‘I’m sure it’s difficult.’ Thinking back to the days after Bill had died.

Not so great … Never so great.

‘I heard, I mean, I was watching the news and they said he tried to do it again.’

‘It’s looking that way, yes.’

There was a long silence. ‘You wanted to talk to me?’

‘Just to ask what you saw that night.’

‘Okay. I want to help. I want to help you get him. Fucker.’

‘I’d appreciate that.’

‘I can’t talk here. My father’ll be back soon. I’m at my mother’s house. He’ll be back and he doesn’t want me to talk to you. Well, to anybody.’

‘You’re in Pebble Beach, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You drive?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Meet me at the Bagel Bakery on Forest. You know it?’

‘Sure – I have to go he’s coming back bye.’ Spoken in one breath.

Click.

CHAPTER 28

She’d been crying.

Dance gave her credit for not trying to hide it. No makeup, no averted eyes. Tears and streaks present.

Trish Martin was sitting in the corner of the Bagel Bakery, toward the back, under a primitive but affecting acrylic painting of a dog carefully regarding a turtle. It was one of a dozen for sale on the walls, this batch by students, a card reported. Dance and the children came here regularly and she’d bought a few of the works from time to time. She really liked the dog and turtle.

‘Hi.’

‘Hey,’ the girl said.

‘How you doing?’

‘Okay.’

‘What do you want? I’ll get it.’ Dance was tempted to suggest cocoa but that smacked of youthening the girl, marginalizing her. She picked a compromise. ‘I’m doing cappuccino.’

‘Sure.’

‘Cinnamon?’

‘Sure.’

‘Anything to eat?’

‘No. Not hungry.’ As if she’d never be again.

Dance placed the order and returned. Sat down. Automatically reaching for the plastic holster that held her Glock, which usually needed adjusting upon sitting. Her hand went to nothing and she remembered.

Then she was concentrating on the girl. Trish wore jeans and scuffed but expensive brown boots. Dance, a lover of footwear, spotted Italian. A black, scoop-neck sweater. A stocking cap, beige, pulled down over her hair. The sleeves of the sweater met her knuckles.

‘Thanks for calling me. I appreciate it. I know what you’re going through.’

‘Totally.’ Her keen eyes stabbed at Dance’s. ‘You have any idea who it is? Who killed my mother and those other people?’

And nearly you, Dance thought. ‘Not much. It’s not like any case I’ve ever seen.’

‘He’s a fucking sadist, whoever he is.’

Not technically but that would do.

Dance opened her notebook. ‘Your father doesn’t know you’re here?’

‘He’s not so bad. This, like, freaked him out too. He’s just being protective of me. You know.’

‘I understand.’

‘But I don’t have much time. He’s packing up stuff at his house now. He’ll be back to Mom’s soon.’

‘Then let me get right to the questions.’

The drinks came, cardboard cups. They both sipped.

‘Can you tell me what you remember?’ Dance asked.

‘The band had just started. I don’t know, maybe the second or third song. And then …’ After a deep breath, she gave much the same story as the other witnesses. The smell of smoke, though not seeing much. Then, almost as if somebody had flipped a switch, everyone in the audience had risen, knocking over tables, scattering drinks, pushing others aside and rushing for the exits.

Her expression mystified, she repeated, ‘But there was no fire and still, you know, everybody went crazy. Five seconds, ten, from the first person who stood up. That was all it took.’ She sighed. ‘I think it was Mom. The first. She panicked. Then this bright light came on, pointed at the exit doors, you know, to show everybody where they were. I guess that was good but it made some of us panic more. They were so bright.’