Distracted, the handsome man nodded.
"I assume you lost someone last night."
"We did, yes."
"I'm sorry."
We...
A nod back to the Lexus. There was glare...and the automotive engineers were quite adept, it seemed, at tinting glass but Dance could see that the person occupying the passenger seat had long hair. A woman. His wife probably. But no ring on his finger. An ex-wife, perhaps. And she realized with a shock. My God. They'd lost a child here.
His name was Frederick Martin and he explained that, yes, his ex-wife, Michelle, had brought their daughter here last night.
She'd been right. Their child, probably a teen. How sad.
Dance's worst horror. Every mother's.
That had been the tension in the car. Ex-spouses, forced together at a time like this. Probably on the way to a funeral home to make arrangements. Dance's heart went out to them both.
"We're investigating the incident," she said, a version of the truth. "I have a few questions."
"Well, I don't know anything. I wasn't here." Martin was edgy. He wanted to leave.
"No, no. I understand. But if I could have a few words with your ex-wife."
"What?" he said, frowning broadly.
Then a voice behind them, a girl's voice. Nearly a whisper. "She's gone."
Dance turned to see a teenager. Pretty but with a face puffy from crying. Her hair had been carelessly herded into place with fingers, not brush.
"Mommy's gone."
Oh. The ex was the fatality.
"Trish, go back to the car."
Staring at the club. "She was trapped. Against the door. I saw her. I can't--we looked at each other and then I fell. This big man, he was crying like a baby, he climbed on my back and I went down. I thought I was going to die but I got picked up by somebody. Then the people I was with went through another door, not the fire exits. The crowd she was in--"
"Trish, honey, no. I told you this was a bad idea. Let's go. We've got your grandparents to meet at the airport. We've got plans to make."
Martin took his daughter's arm. She pulled away. He grimaced.
To the girl: "Trish, I'm Kathryn Dance, California Bureau of Investigation. I'd like to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind."
"We do," Martin said. "We do mind."
Crying now, softly, the girl stared at the roadhouse. "It was hell in there. They talk about hell, in movies and things. But, no, that was hell."
"Here's my card." Dance offered it to Frederick Martin.
He shook his head. "We don't want it. There's nothing she can tell you. Leave us alone."
"I'm sorry for your loss."
He got a firmer grip on his daughter and, though she stiffened, maneuvered her back to the Lexus. When they were seated inside, he reached over and clicked on her belt. Then they sped from the lot before Dance could note the license plate.
Not that it mattered, she supposed. If the girl and her mother had been inside during the panic, they wouldn't have seen what really interested Dance: the person who'd parked the truck in front of the doors and lit the fire.
Besides, she could hardly blame the man for being protective. Dance supposed that the father had now been catapulted into a tough, alien role; she imagined that the mother had had a higher percentage of custody, maybe full.
The Solitude Creek incident had changed many lives in many different ways.
A gull strafed and Dance instinctively lifted her arm. The big bird landed clumsily near a scrap of cardboard, probably thinking it was food. It seemed angry the prize held aroma only, and it catapulted off into the sky once more, heading toward the bay.
Dance returned to the club and had a second, difficult conversation with Sam Cohen, still bordering on the comatose, and then spoke with other employees. No one could come up with any patrons or former club workers who might have had gripes with Cohen or anyone there. Nor did competitors seem behind the incident--anyone who might want to drive the man out of business or get revenge for something Cohen had done professionally in the past.
Heading back outside, Dance pulled her iPhone from her pocket and phoned Jon Boling, asking if he could pick up the children at school.
"Sure," he replied. She enjoyed hearing his calm voice. "How's your Civ-Div going?"
He knew about the Serrano situation.
"Awkward," she said, eyes on Bob Holly, interviewing some of the same people she just had. "I'm at Solitude Creek."
A pause.
"Aren't you handling soda bottle deposits?"
"Supposed to be."
Boling said, "It's terrible, on the news. They're saying a truck driver parked behind the club to smoke some dope. Then he panicked when the fire started and left the truck beside the doors. Nobody could get out."
Reporters...
She looked at her iPhone for the time, now that her watch was out of commission. It was two thirty. "I'll be another three, four hours, I'd guess. Mom and Dad are coming over tonight. Martine, Steven..."
"The kids and I'll take care of dinner."
"Would you? Oh, thanks."
"See you soon."
She disconnected. Her eyes did a sweep of the club, then the jobbing company, then the parking lot.
Finally the bordering vegetation. At the eastern end of the lot was what seemed to be a tramped-down area leading through a line of scrub oak, Australian willow, pine, magnolia. She wandered that way and found herself beside Solitude Creek itself. The small dark tributary--thirty feet wide here--was framed by salt and dune grass, thistle and other sandy-soil plants whose identity she couldn't guess at.
She followed the path away from the parking lot, through a head-high tangle of brush and grass. Here, overgrown with vegetation and dusted with sand, were the remnants of old structures: concrete foundations, portions of rusting chain-link fences and a few columns. They had to be seventy-five years old, a hundred. Quite extensive. Maybe back then Solitude Creek was deeper and this was part of the seafood industry. The site was fifteen miles north of Cannery Row but back then fishing was big business all along this portion of the coast.
Or possibly developers had started to build a project here-- apartments or a hotel or restaurant. Still would be a good spot for an inn, she reflected: near the ocean, situated amid rolling, grassy hills. The creek itself was calming and the grayish water didn't necessarily mean bad fishing.
Continuing past the ruins, Dance looked around. She wondered if the killer had parked here--there were residences and surface roads nearby--and walked this same path. He or she could have gotten to the parking lot without being seen and then circled around to the jobbing company to get to the drop-box and trucks.
When she reached the pocket of homes--a half-dozen bungalows, one trailer--she realized that someone would be very visible parking here; basically the only place would be directly in front of a house. She doubted that the perp would have been that careless.
Still, you did what you could.
Three of the homes were dark and Dance left a card in the doorframes of each.
Two women, however, were home. Both white, large and toting infants, they reported they hadn't seen anyone and, as Dance had surmised, "anybody parking here, well, we would've noticed and at night, Ernie would've been out to talk to him in a hare-lick."
Dance moved on to the last place, the trailer, which was the only residence actually overlooking Solitude Creek.
Hmm. Had he used a boat to cruise up to the roadhouse and jobbing company?
She knocked on the doorframe. A curtain shifted and Dance held up her ID for the woman to peruse. Three locks or dead bolts snapped. She lives alone, Dance thought. Or the household's particularly concerned about visitors. As meth cookers often are.
Dance's hand dipped to where her gun used to be. She grimaced and tugged her jacket closed.
The woman who opened the door was slimmer than the others, about forty-five, long gray-brown hair. A thin braid, purple, ended in a feather at her shoul
der. From what she wore and what was scattered around the cluttered living area, Dance saw that the woman's fashion choices favored macrame, tie-dye and fringe. She immediately thought of her associate TJ Scanlon, at the CBI, whose one regret in life was that he wasn't living in the late sixties.
"Help you?"
Dance identified herself and extended her ID once more--for closer examination. The woman, Annette, didn't seem uneasy to be talking to a law enforcer. Dance detected only cigarette smoke and its residue, bitter and stale. Nothing illegal.
"Have you heard about the incident at Solitude Creek roadhouse?"
"Terrible. Are you here about that?"
"Just a couple of questions, you don't mind."
"Not at all. You want to come in?"
"Thanks." Dance joined her, noting thousands of CDs and vinyl records on the shelves and stacked against the walls. A lapsed musician and cofounder of a website devoted to music, Dance was impressed. "You go to the roadhouse often?"
"Sometimes. Little pricey for me. Sam's got a pretty dear cover."
"So you weren't there last night?"
"No, I'm talking once a year I go and only if it's somebody I really, really like."
"Now, Annette, I'm wondering if people boat down Solitude Creek."
"Boat? You can. I've seen a few kayakers and canoes. Some powerboats. Real small. It gets pretty shallow you go farther east." Her fingers, quite ruddy, played with her feathered rope of purple hair.
"Is there a place where anyone could park and kayak down to the club?"
A nod toward the road. "No, this is the only place anybody could leave a car and Ernie--"
"Across the street?"
"Yeah, that Ernie. He's not going to let anybody park here he doesn't know."
"Ernie's a big guy?"
"Not big. Just, you know."
Hare-lick. Whatever that meant.
Dance noticed state government envelopes, ripped open like picked-over roadkill. Welfare. The woman lit a cigarette and blew the smoke away from Dance.
"So, last night, you didn't see anybody on the creek in a boat?"
"No one. And I could've seen. See the window? It looks over the water. Right there. That one."
It did indeed, though it was so grimy with smoke residue that at dusk it would've been impossible to spot much through it.
Dance removed the small notebook she kept with her and flipped it open. Jotted a few notes. "Are you married? Anyone else live here?"
"Nope. Just me. Solo. Not even a cat." A smile. "This," Annette said, "what you're asking, makes it sound like there was something going on. I mean, like you think somebody did something at the club on purpose."
"Just routine investigation. We always do this."
"Like NCIS."
Now Dance smiled. "Just like that. You can't see the club from here but would you have by any chance taken a walk last night, ended up near there?"
"No. You gotta be careful. We've had mountain lions."
True. A woman had been killed not long ago, a jogger, banker from San Francisco.
"You were in all night?" Dance asked.
"Absolutely. Right here."
"And anyone you didn't recognize in the neighborhood recently? Not just last night."
"No, ma'am, I certainly didn't. I'd tell you if I did."
Another note.
Dance reached into her purse and exchanged her pink-framed glasses with a pair that had black metal frames.
Predator specs.
"Annette?"
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Could you tell me why you're lying?"
She expected denial, expected resistance. Expected anger.
She didn't expect the woman to drop to her knees, overcome with sobbing.
Chapter 13
Kathryn, no. You can't be Civil half the time, Criminal the rest. It doesn't work that way. We've been through this."
Charles Overby seemed just pissy. She was in his office, close to 5:00 p.m. She was surprised he was still here; there was still an hour of tennis light left.
She knew he was right but the fast dismissal--it doesn't work that way--was irritating.
She asked, "Who else is going to handle it? We're short-staffed." The CBI had been hit with budget cutbacks like every other agency in California, whose new nickname among government workers was the "Bare State," a play on the grizzly on the flag.
"TJ. Rey. I'll assign one of them."
These were two very competent agents but young. Neither they nor anyone else in the Bureau had Dance's skill at interrogation. And this case, she felt, had instances aplenty to get people into interview rooms. There were nearly a hundred victims, any one of whom might have a lead. Any one of whom might also be the perp himself. Stationed by the club door last night, where he could escape safely if it became too dangerous--maybe to enjoy his revenge for a real or imagined slight.
Or just because he wanted to watch people die.
"You shouldn't even be in the office. You should be home planting flowers or baking or something... All right, I'm just saying."
Dance forwent the grimace. She said, "How's this? Michael O'Neil."
Chief of detectives of the Monterey County Sheriff's Office.
"What about him?"
"He'll run it."
"I don't know."
"Charles. It's not a fire department matter; the burn in the oil drum was secondary. Makes sense the MCSO would handle it."
His eyes slipped away. "You'll brief O'Neil, that's all."
"Sure. I'd advise."
Advising wasn't the same as briefing. Overby didn't protest but she sensed he might not have noted her verb.
"Nothing changes, Kathryn. No weapon. You're still Civ-Div."
"Sure," Kathryn Dance said brightly. She was winning.
"You think he'll agree?" Overby said.
"We'll see. I think so."
She knew this because she'd already texted him. And he had agreed.
But now Overby was troubled once more. "Of course, if it becomes a county operation..."
Meaning he'd miss out on the credit--and press conferences--that went with closing a case.
"Tell you what. You can't do more than brief."
Advise.
"But we can still get our oar in."
She'd never understood that expression.
"How do you mean, Charles?"
"Let's involve the CBI folks we've got here, on the task force. Jimmy Gomez and Steve Foster."
"What? Charles, no. They're on Serrano and Guzman... I need them focused on that."
"No, no, this'll be good. Just to kick around some ideas with them."
"With Foster? Kick ideas around with Steve Foster? He doesn't kick around ideas. He shoots them in the head."
Overby was looking away. Perhaps her glare seared. "Now that I think about it, makes sense to run it by them. Good on all counts. We have...considerations. Under the circumstances."
"Charles, please, no."
"Let's just go talk to them, that's all. Get Foster's thoughts. Jimmy too. He's one of us."
Whatever the consequences, he'd decided his office couldn't take a complete backseat to the sheriff's.
Avoiding her eyes, he rose, slipped his jacket over his immaculate white shirt and strode out of the office. "I think it's a brilliant idea. Come along, Kathryn. Let's have a chat with our friends."
Chapter 14
The Guzman Connection task force was up to full strength.
In addition to blustery Steve Foster and staunch Carol Allerton, two others were present in the conference room dedicated to the operation.
"Kathryn, Charles." This was from Steve Lu, the chief of detectives at the Salinas Police Department. Aka, Steve Two, since another, Foster, was on the team. Lu, an excessively skinny man--Dance's opinion--was a specialist in gangs. His younger brother had been in a crew and been busted on a few minor counts--though he was now out of the system and clean. Lu was persistent and no-nonsense, maybe trying hard
er, to make up for his sibling's stumble. He was humorless, Dance had learned over several years of working with him, but he was not, as the other Steve--Foster--bluntly contrary.
The fourth task force member was Jimmy Gomez, the young CBI agent whose name had come up earlier. Dark complexioned and sporting a mustache as brown and taut as Foster's was light and elaborate, he stayed in shape by playing football--that is, soccer--every minute when he wasn't at work or attending to his family. He was assigned to this division of the CBI and his office was two doors down from Dance's. They were both coworkers and friends. (Just two weeks ago Dance and her children and Gomez, his wife and their three youngsters had done the Del Monte Cineplex thing, then gone to Lala's after, to discuss over dessert and coffee the brilliance of Pixar and which animated character they all would want to be, Dance selecting the hero from Brave, mostly because she envied the hair.) The two Steves were at one table, Jimmy Gomez at another. Carol Allerton, in the corner, waved to the newcomers and returned to a serious mobile phone conversation.
Overby announced, "Some help, s'il vous plait?"
Dance noted her own jaw tighten and she knew exactly what she was radiating kinesically. She wondered if anyone else in the room did. Her displeasure had to be obvious.
"You've probably heard about the incident at the roadhouse, Solitude Creek," Overby said. "I know you have, Jimmy."
"That fire?" Foster asked. He seemed perpetually distracted.
"No, it was more than that." Overby glanced at Dance.
She said, "The club itself didn't burn. The perp started a fire, outside, near the HVAC system, to get the smell of smoke into the club. He'd blocked the exit doors. Three dead, dozens injured. A stampede. It was pretty bad."
"Intentional? People crushed to death." Allerton whispered, "Terrible."
"Jesus," Steve Lu muttered. "So, it's homicide."
Homicide embraces everything from suicide to vehicular manslaughter to premeditated murder. It was into the last of those categories that the Solitude Creek incident probably fell.
Foster took the news less emotionally. "Can't be insurance. Otherwise the owner would've torched the place empty. Wouldn't want any fatalities. Disgruntled workers, pissed-off customers got kicked out drunk?"
"Preliminary interviews don't turn up any obvious suspects but it's a possibility," Dance said. "We'll keep looking."
Overby then said, "Now. Kathryn's got a lead."
"I was canvassing the area. I found a woman who lives about two hundred yards from the end of the club's parking lot. She told me she didn't see anything odd around the time of the incident, she wasn't near the club, but I knew she was lying."
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