"No. I've never heard of it. What does it mean?"

"It's a character out of the King Arthur legend."

Rebecca looked at the younger woman. "Hey, did you read us any of those stories?"

Linda didn't recall. Nor had they any recollection of an Alison-the other name Pell had searched for.

"Tell me about a typical day in the Family."

Rebecca seemed at a loss for words. "We'd get up, have breakfast…I don't know."

Shrugging, Linda said, "We were just a family. We talked about what families talk about. The weather, plans, trips we were going to take. Money problems. Who was going to be working where. Sometimes I'd stand in the kitchen after breakfast, doing dishes, and just cry-because I was so happy. I had a real family at last."

Rebecca agreed that their life hadn't been very different from anyone else's, though she clearly wasn't as sentimental as her sister-in-crime.

The discussion meandered and they revealed nothing helpful. In interviewing and interrogation, it's a well-known rule that abstractions obscure memories, while specifics trigger them. Dance now said, "Do this for me: Pick a particular day. Tell me about it. A day you'd both remember."

Neither could think of one that stood out, though.

Until Dance suggested, "Think of a holiday: Thanksgiving, Christmas."

Linda shrugged. "How about that Easter?"

"My first holiday there. My only holiday. Sure. That was fun."

Linda described making an elaborate dinner with food that Sam, Jimmy and Rebecca had "come up with." Dance spotted the euphemism instantly; it meant the trio had stolen the groceries.

"I cooked a turkey," Linda said. "I smoked it all day in the backyard. My, that was fun."

Prodding, Dance asked, "So there you are, you two and Samantha-she was the quiet one, you said."

"The Mouse."

"And the young man who was with Pell at the Croytons'," Kellogg said. "Jimmy Newberg. Tell us about him."

Rebecca said, "Right. He was a funny little puppy. He was a runaway too. From up north, I think."

"Good-looking. But he wasn't all there." Linda tapped her forehead.

A laugh from her comrade. "He'd been a stoner."

"But he was a genius with his hands. Carpentry, electronics, everything. He was totally into computers, even wrote his own programs. He'd tell us about them and none of us could understand what he was talking about. He wanted to get some website going-remember, this was before everybody had one. I think he was actually pretty creative. I felt bad for him. Daniel didn't like him that much. He'd lose patience with him. He wanted to kick him out, I think."

"Besides, Daniel was a ladies' man. He didn't do well with other men around."

Dance steered them back to the holiday.

"It was a pretty day," Linda continued. "The sun was out. It was warm. We had music going. Jimmy'd put together a real good sound system."

"Did you say grace?"

"No."

"Even though it was Easter?"

Rebecca said, "I suggested it. But Pell said no."

Linda said, "That's right. He got upset."

His father, Dance supposed.

"We played some games in the yard. Frisbee, badminton. Then I put dinner out."

Rebecca said, "I'd boosted some good Cabernet and we girls and Jimmy had wine-Pell didn't drink. Oh, I got pretty wasted. Sam did too."

"And we ate a lot." Linda gripped her belly.

Dance continued to probe. She was aware that Winston Kellogg had dropped out of the conversation. He might be the cult expert but he was deferring to her expertise now. She appreciated that.

Linda said, "After dinner we just hung out and talked. Sam and I sang. Jimmy was tinkering with his computer. Daniel was reading something."

The recollections came more frequently now, a chain reaction.

"Drinking, talking, a family holiday."

"Yeah."

"You remember what you talked about?"

"Oh, just stuff, you know…" Linda fell silent. Then she said, "Wait. That reminds me of one thing you might want to know about." She tilted her head slightly. It was a recognition response, though from the focus of her eyes-on a nearby vase filled with artificial amaryllis-the thought was not fully formed. Dance said nothing; you can often erase an elusive memory by asking someone about it directly.

The woman continued, "It wasn't Easter. It was another dinner. But thinking about Easter reminded me. Daniel and I were in the kitchen. He was watching me cook. And there was a big crash from next door. The neighbors were fighting. He said he couldn't wait to get out of Seaside. To his mountaintop."

"Mountaintop?"

"Yeah."

Kellogg asked, "His?"

"That's what he said."

"Did he own some property?"

"He never mentioned anything specific. Maybe he meant 'his' in the sense that it was something he wanted to have someday."

Rebecca knew nothing about it.

Linda said, "I remember it clearly. He wanted to get away from everybody. Just us, just the Family. Nobody else around. I don't think he said anything about it before or after that."

"But not Utah? You both said he never mentioned that."

"No," Rebecca agreed. "But, wait…you know, thinking of that…I don't know if it's helpful, but I remember something too. Along those same lines. We were in bed one night and he said, 'I need to make a big score. Come up with enough money just to get away from everybody.' I remember that. He said 'a big score.'"

"What did he mean? A robbery to buy some property?"

"Could be."

"Linda?"

She had to plead ignorance and seemed troubled that he hadn't shared everything with her.

Dance asked the obvious question: "Could the big score have been the Croyton break-in?"

"I don't know," Rebecca said. "He never told us that's where he and Jimmy were going that night."

Dance speculated: Maybe he did steal something valuable from Croyton's house, after all. When the police were closing in, he hid it. She thought of the car he'd driven to the break-in. Had it been searched thoroughly? Where was it now? Maybe destroyed, maybe owned by someone else. She made a note to try to find the vehicle. Also, to check deeds registries to see if Pell owned any property.

Mountaintop…Could that have been what he'd been looking for online in Capitola on the Visual-Earth website? Dozen of sizable peaks were within an hour's drive of the Peninsula.

There were still questions, but Dance was pleased at their progress. Finally, she felt she had some insights into the mind of Daniel Pell. She was about to ask more questions when her phone rang.

"Excuse me."

She answered it.

"Kathryn. It's me."

She pressed the phone closer to her head. "TJ, what's up?"

And steeled herself. The fact that he hadn't called her "boss" meant he was about to deliver bad news.

Kathryn Dance and Winston Kellogg walked along a road covered with a thin coat of damp sand toward TJ and Michael O'Neil, who stood at the open trunk of a late-model Lexus.

Another man was there too, one of the officers from the Coroner's Division, which in Monterey County is part of the MCSO. The balding, round deputy greeted her. "Kathryn."

Dance introduced him to Kellogg, then peered into the trunk. The victim, a woman, lay on her side. Her legs were bent and her hands and mouth were duct-taped. Her nose and face were bright red. Blood vessels had broken.

O'Neil said, "Susan Pemberton. Lived in Monterey. Single, thirty nine."

"Probable COD is suffocation?"

The coroner officer added, "We've got capillary dilation and membrane inflammation and distension. That residue there? I'm sure it's capsicum oleoresin."

"He hit her with pepper spray and then duct-taped her."

The coroner officer nodded.