Solitude Creek

by Jeffery Deaver

  His phone hummed with a text, which he read, and shaking his head for no one's benefit, he rose. He debated a jacket but decided no.

  Down the hall, noting a peculiar smell of a cleanser the staff had switched to recently. Why was he aware of that? he wondered. Because of the case. Small distractions dulled the concerns.

  Serrano...

  In the Guzman Connection task force conference room, Carol Allerton sat alone, squeezing the life from a chamomile tea bag. She leaned starboard, to make sure any spatter wouldn't hit the dozens of papers in front of her. She too was well ordered when it came to the stacks of documents in her cases.

  "Charles."

  "Where is everybody?"

  "The two Steves're in Salinas. FBI had somebody in town from one of their Oakland task forces. They're picking his brain."

  "Meetings, meetings, meetings," Overby said with the boredom of truth in his voice, though no contempt. "Jimmy?"

  Allerton explained, "He said he had another case lead, something he was working on before we put Guzman together."

  "Well, we caught a lead in Serrano." He held up his phone, on which he'd just gotten the text. She glanced at it, perhaps wondering why the show-and-tell. "We have to move fast."

  "You've got Serrano's location?"

  "Not that lucky. But TJ found this guy knows Serrano."

  "Who?"

  "Wasn't more specific, except to say he wasn't a banger. Worked with Serrano or his brother or somebody. A painter, house painter. May know where Serrano is hiding out."

  "Really?" Allerton's voice was sultry. Sexy. Overby, married to the same woman forever, noted its qualities objectively. "You should move on it. I'm going to call Sacramento and I'd love to be able to tell them that we're closer to nailing Serrano."

  She'd be thinking, Because CBI West-Central was the outfit that let him slip away in the first place.

  "Where is this guy?"

  "Seaside. Works nights, TJ says. Name of Tomas Allende."

  "Not traditionally Mexican." Allerton was speaking absently.

  "I don't know. What would it be?"

  "What? Oh, Spanish. South American."

  "Well. Here's the address. Take Al Stemple with you. No reason to think it's hostile, but no reason to think it isn't. I'll call him." Overby punched buttons.

  Allerton rose and tugged down her close-fitting gray skirt. She too had a bit of fat over the belt. Other circumstances, he might've talked to her about how hard it was to lose those last twelve pounds. She pulled her jacket over her broad shoulders.

  His phone clicked. "Yeah?"

  "Albert, s'Charles. Need you to go with Agent Allerton, follow up on a lead to Serrano... That's right... I don't know, parking lot?" He lifted an eyebrow to Allerton. She nodded. "Good. Now."

  He disconnected.

  "Good luck," Overby said and retreated to his office.

  Chapter 23

  Albert Stemple had been told he grunted a lot, though he didn't think that was the case. He never said much, didn't find it necessary most of the time and so he would respond to people with an Ah or Oh.

  Maybe people thought words like that were grunts. I look like a guy who grunts, so people hear grunts.

  The massive man, head free of hair and shaped like an egg, though shinier, stood with his arms crossed outside the rear door of CBI, looking over the parking lot. Since Stemple was the closest thing CBI had to a SWAT team, he'd been in more firefights and had more collars than any other agent in this division, which meant he had a price on that glossy head of his.

  Stemple tended to check vistas and shadows regularly.

  CBI's back door opened and Carol Allerton stepped outside, nodding to Stemple, taking in his jeans, black T-shirt and impressive Beretta .45, the only caliber a man should carry. He supposed the bump on her hip through her gray jacket was a teeny Glock. A model 26, he guessed. Not bad. If you liked peashooters.

  When she looked at his face with a bit of hesitation, Stemple knew she'd been considering the scars. You should see the other guys.

  He nodded.

  "Hi," Allerton said.

  "We're going, Seaside. A Serrano lead."

  "Right."

  "Hm." Maybe gruntlike. "I'll drive," he told her.

  "Hey," came a woman's voice behind them.

  Kathryn Dance walked up from the side of the building, where her car was parked, the gray Pathfinder. Nose art from her dogs decorated the back windows. Stemple liked her dogs; he knew them pretty well, being a regular visitor to the Deck. He was after Dance to let him borrow the flat-coated retriever, take her hunting and bring back a dressed duck or two for the family in thanks. He'd made the mistake of mentioning that in front of Dance's kids; the look in the agent's eyes in response was a hard one to describe. It meant no in a lot of different ways.

  Allerton was eyeing Dance neutrally as the CBI agent walked up. She glanced around and then moved closer yet. "Al."

  A nod.

  "Carol, there's something I want to talk to you about. Both of you, really."

  "Sure, Kathryn."

  Stemple tipped his large head once again. Maybe issued a grunt.

  "I heard you had a lead to Serrano."

  The DEA agent hesitated.

  Dance said, "Well, I know you do. TJ told me. He's my inside man. You're going to talk to this lead now?"

  Allerton held her gaze. "We are."

  Dance said, "I want to interview him."

  "Well..."

  "I know the turf, Carol. I don't know this particular subject but I know the crowd he'd hang with. That gives me a huge leg up."

  "But Charles," Allerton said. "He suspended you from criminal duty."

  Stemple watched Dance's lips tighten. "All right. The other thing?" She glanced at Stemple, then decided, it seemed, to plunge ahead. "You don't know Charles as well as I do. If I were a man and what happened with Serrano happened? He wouldn't've busted me. Hate to say it but..." Dance shook her head. "You've been through this too, Carol. You know how it is."

  Allerton's expression said: Yes, I do.

  Women in law enforcement.

  Dance added, "I'll give you full credit, for everything I find out. And that'll go all the way to Washington. I'll disappear."

  "No, that's not necessary."

  "Actually, yeah, it is. Charles can't know anything, that I'm involved. All I want is to nail Serrano."

  "Sure," Allerton said, nodding. "I get it. Completely sub-rosa."

  Whatever that meant. Though Stemple hammered out a definition.

  Now another glance his way.

  Dance said, "I may already be under the bus--"

  "Charles'd do that to you?"

  Now Stemple couldn't control the grunt.

  "Already under the bus but we get Serrano back, Sacramento won't be clamoring for my head quite so loud. It's the only chance I've got to pull something out of the fire here."

  Allerton was scanning the parking lot, thoughtful, not looking for acquiring targets, though, as Stemple was doing. "The fact is, Kathryn, I could use your help. I'm not the best interviewer in the world."

  "Deal then?"

  "Deal."

  Dance's eyes swiveled to Stemple.

  "You asking me? I'm just backup. Do whatcha want."

  They walked to the unmarked car, Stemple easing into the driver's seat. The big Dodge bobbed under the weight. The women too got in. He fired up the engine and they squealed out of the lot toward the highway.

  A half hour later Stemple turned onto surface streets in Seaside and eased the cruiser along a crumbling asphalt road, bordered by grasses, dusty brush, rusting wire fences. A hundred yards along they came to a development, probably fifty years old, bungalows and Cape-style houses, tiny, all of them.

  "That's it," Allerton said, pointing to the scabbiest house here, a lopsided one-story structure that had last been painted a long, long time ago. White originally. Now, gray. The yard was half sand, half yellowing grass. Thirsty, Stemple thought.
Everything was thirsty. This drought. Worst he could remember.

  He shut the engine off. Everyone climbed out.

  Stemple scanned the perimeter while the agents, looking around, headed toward the front door. Allerton knocked. No response. Dance pointed to the side, where there was a patio. She and Allerton disappeared that way.

  Stemple walked around the property, looked at the houses nearby, wondered why somebody had taped a massive poster of a daisy in a window. Was it a sunscreen? Wouldn't a sunflower've made more sense?

  Mostly, though, he was looking for threats.

  This wasn't a cul-de-sac but it wasn't highly traveled. He counted four cars pass by, all seeming to contain families or individuals on their way to or from school, work or errands. That didn't mean there weren't gangbangers inside, of course, with MAC-10s, Uzis or M4s. Gone were the days when crews conveniently piled into gangmobiles, pimped-out low-rider Buicks with jacked-up suspensions. Now they tooled around in Acuras, Nissans and the occasional Beemer or Cayenne, depending on how the drug and arms trade had been lately.

  But no one, driver or passenger, paid him any mind.

  He walked back to the cracked sidewalk and was looking down at some vibrant purple plant, when there was from inside the bungalow a crash of something containing glass, a lot of glass.

  Followed by a woman's scream.

  Chapter 24

  An hour later, back at CBI headquarters, Al Stemple was leaning back in a Guzman Connection task force conference room chair. It groaned under his weight.

  The others were here too, the whole crew. The two Steves--Lu and Foster--along with Jimmy Gomez. Allerton, as well, was back from the Seaside bungalow mission.

  "What happened to you?" Gomez asked her. She had a bandage on her arm.

  "That lead to Serrano? He had a big-ass Doberman in the back bedroom. Sleeping dogs, and all that. He woke up. Didn't like visitors."

  "You get bit?"

  "Just scratched getting out of the way. Knocked over a table of crappy glass and china. Serves him right."

  "Al, you didn't shoot any dogs, did you?" Gomez feigned horror.

  "Reasoned with it."

  Foster was on the phone, saying to a CHP trooper, "Those're your procedures, not my procedures, and it's my procedures you're going to be following. Are we transparent on that?... I asked you a question... Are we transparent?... Good. No more of this shit."

  He hung up with nothing more.

  What a dick, Stemple thought and wondered if he'd have an excuse to dice the man into little pieces verbally. That'd be a challenge. Foster seemed like a good dicer too. It'd be like a knife fight.

  Now that Foster had finished transparenting the Highway Patrol trooper, Allerton took the floor. "The lead didn't quite pan out, like we hoped. The Serrano Seaside connection."

  Gomez asked, "Who was it?"

  "A painter--a contractor, you know, a house painter. Not an artist. Tomas Allende. Serrano used to work with him. Uh-huh, he actually did day labor for a while before he got into turning people into skeletons."

  Foster grumbled, "Whatta you mean didn't pan out?"

  "I said didn't quite pan out. I'll tell you what we found."

  We.

  Nobody noticed. Probably thinking she meant her and Stemple.

  Surprise, surprise, surprise.

  The stocky woman rose and walked to the door, looked out, then closed it.

  Gomez frowned. The two Steves simply watched her.

  "I have to tell you, I didn't go alone. Kathryn came with me."

  "Kathryn Dance?" Gomez asked.

  "How'd she do that?" Foster seemed both perplexed and put out by this information. Not an easy combo, Stemple thought. "She's civil exclusively. Or did something change that I haven't heard about?"

  "Nothing's changed," Allerton said.

  "Then what do you mean she was there? I don't need her to fuck up another operation in this case."

  Stemple stuck his legs out and brought his boot heel down on the linoleum hard. Foster didn't notice the sound. Or maybe didn't care if he did.

  Gomez said, "Steve, come on. We don't need that."

  "Need what? I'm saying. It's because of her we're in this situation."

  Allerton: "She asked and I said yes. She knows she made a mistake and she wants to make it right. Look, she was good, though, at the house in Seaside, Steve. She was. You should've seen her."

  "I did. With Serrano. I wasn't impressed. Who was?"

  Stemple scratched a scar on his thigh, not new, but a .40 round leaves a thick streak and the humidity could really kick off the itch.

  "You can't bat a thousand every time," Gomez said. Normally soft-spoken, he sounded brittle.

  Thanks, Jimmy, Stemple thought.

  Steve Lu, the chief of detectives from Salinas, said, "Okay. She went. I don't see the harm. I've always been impressed with her. What happened?"

  Allerton continued, "The subject, our painter, used to work with Serrano? He was cooperating and telling us all kinds of things but swore he hadn't heard from Serrano for six months. He'd lost all contact. He was going legitimate. I mean, I believed him. Everything he was saying, completely credible. And Kathryn was all, sure, sure, I understand, interesting, thanks for your help. Then, bang, she pulled the rug out from underneath him. Just like that. Caught him in a dozen lies, went to work and in the end he talked."

  "What about the nonpanning lead?" Foster grumbled.

  "He didn't have Serrano's present location. Not surprising, considering Serrano's warranted and on the run. But the painter said the word is that he's still in the area. He didn't head out of state." Allerton continued, "But more important he gave up another name."

  "Who?"

  "A woman was recently a girlfriend of Serrano's. Tia Alonzo. No warrants on her but she's keeping low. TJ Scanlon's on it, getting her whereabouts."

  "You really think Picasso's telling the truth?"

  "Who?" Lu asked.

  "The painter." Foster sighed.

  "Kathryn does. I do."

  "When'll we have a location to go with Senorita Alonzo?"

  Allerton said, "Soon, TJ said. He's convinced within a day or two."

  "Convinced."

  Allerton said, "Now. With Kathryn. It was off the books."

  "Which means?" From Foster.

  Sub-rosa...

  "She didn't tell Overby."

  Foster: "She snuck in, to interview this dingo in Seaside?"

  "Pretty much."

  "Jesus."

  Allerton said, "I understand Charles is doing what he has to but she's too valuable to sit this out. What I want--"

  Foster said, impatient, "Yeah, yeah, she wants to go around Overby's back and stay on the team. On the sly."

  Sub-rosa...

  Allerton snapped, "Yes, Steve, that's exactly what she wants to do. And I say yes. She knows the area, knows these people. After all, she wasn't the only one who got taken in by Serrano. We watched the whole thing ourselves. Did anybody here suspect anything? I didn't."

  Finally the asshole fell quiet.

  "I say yes," said loyal Jimmy Gomez, nodding his crew-cut head.

  "Can't hurt," Lu agreed.

  Foster looked Stemple up and down. The urge to dice returned. Foster said, "What about you? How do you vote?"

  Stemple replied, "I'm just muscle. I don't get a vote."

  Foster turned and regarded the others. "You've thought this through, all of you?"

  "Thought it through?" From Gomez.

  "Have you? Have you really? Well. Alternative A: Dance sits on the sidelines per orders and we handle it, the Guzman Connection, the hunt for Serrano, everything. She does that and, say Serrano nails a banger or, worse, an innocent. Even then she might just survive. She can claim she didn't have the chance to fix what got broke. Or: Alternative B: She's back on the case, unofficial, and there's a screwup, hers or anybody else's, that's it. Her career is over."

  Well, that was transparent enough.

>   Silence.

  A second vote. The results were the same.

  "You?" Allerton asked.

  Foster muttered something.

  Gomez: "What?"

  "Yeah, yeah. I'm on board. I got work to do." He swung back to his keyboard and started typing.

  Chapter 25

  After the Serrano mission, which had been somewhat successful, Kathryn Dance returned to the hunt for the Solitude Creek unsub.

  She logged on to the National Crime Information Center to see if there were any similar incidents. The unsub was probably a repetitive actor. Had he done this before?

  NCIC revealed only one crime that echoed Solitude Creek, six months ago in Fort Worth, Texas. A man had wired shut the doors of the Prairie Valley Club, a small country-western venue, and set a fire just outside the back door. Two people were killed and dozens injured in the stampede. There was no connection to her case, though, since the perp, a paranoid schizophrenic homeless man, had died after accidentally setting himself alight too.

  A search of the general media sent her to similar incidents, but nothing recent. She read about the Happy Land social club fire in New York City in the nineties. Hundreds of people were packed into an illegal social club when a man who'd been ejected returned with a dollar's worth of gas and set the place on fire. Nearly ninety people died. In that case, there wasn't much of a stampede; people died so quickly in the smoke and flames that bodies were found still clutching their drinks or sitting upright on barstools.

  The classic case of a deadly stampede, she found, was the Italian Hall disaster in Calumet, Michigan, in 1913. More than seventy striking mine workers and their families were killed in a crush at a Christmas party when someone yelled "Fire," though there was none. It was believed that somebody connected with the mining company that was the target of the strike started the panic.

  She found a number of accidental stampedes. Particularly dangerous were sporting events--the Hillsborough Disaster in Sheffield, England, which her father had witnessed, for instance. Soccer seemed to be the most dangerous of organized sports. Three hundred people died in Chile, at Estadio Nacional, when an angered fan attacked a referee, prompting police action that panicked the attendees. Before the 1985 European Cup final at Heysel Stadium in Belgium had even begun, nearly forty fans died when Liverpool fans surged toward rival Juventus supporters. The tragedy led to a multiyear ban of English soccer teams playing on the Continent.