O'Neil was doing close to eighty. They could've gone faster but traffic was heavy. Portions of the road were only two lanes. And they used only lights, no sirens.
They were presently en route to where they believed Daniel Pell and his blond accomplice were, against all odds, eating a leisurely lunch.
Kathryn Dance had had her doubts about Pell's destination of Utah. Her intuition told her that, like Mexico, Utah was probably a false lead, especially after learning that Rebecca and Linda had never heard Pell mention the state, and after finding the mobile phone conveniently discarded near the Worldwide Express driver's car. And, most important, he'd left the driver alive to report to the police about the phone and that he'd heard Pell making a call. The sexual game he'd played with Billy was one excuse for keeping him alive, but it struck Dance that, however kinky, no escapee would waste time on a porn encounter like that.
But then she'd heard from the computer tech at Capitola, who'd read to her the message that the accomplice had posted on the "Manslaughter" bulletin board in the "Helter Skelter" category: Package will be there about 9:20. WWE delivery truck at San Benito at 9:50. Orange ribbon on pine tree. Will meet in front of grocery store we mentioned.
This was the first part of the message, a final confirmation of the escape plan. What had been so surprising to Dance, though, was the final sentence.
Room all set and checking on those locations around Monterey you wanted.--Your lovely.
Which suggested, to everyone's astonishment, that Pell might be staying nearby.
Dance and O'Neil could deduce no reason for this. It was madness. But if he was staying, Dance decided to make him feel confident enough to show himself. And so she'd done what she never would have otherwise. She'd used Charles Overby. She knew that once she told him about Utah, he'd run to the press immediately and announce that the search was now focused on the routes east. This would, she hoped, give Pell a false sense of security and make him more likely to appear in public.
But where might that be?
She hoped the answer to that question might be found in her conversation with Eddie Chang, getting a sense of what Daniel Pell had hinted appealed to him, his interests and urges. Sex figured prominently, Chang told her, which meant he might head for massage parlors, brothels or escort agencies, but there were few on the Peninsula. Besides, he had his female partner, who presumably would be satisfying him in that department.
"What else?" she'd asked Chang.
"Oh, hey, I remember one thing. Food."
Daniel Pell, it seemed, had a particular love of seafood, especially a tiny fish known as the sand dab. He had mentioned on several occasions that there were only four or five restaurants in the Central Coast area that knew how to cook them right. And he was opinionated about how they should be prepared. Dance got the names of the restaurants Chang could remember. Three had closed in the years since Pell had gone into prison, but one at Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey and one in Moss Landing were still open.
That was the unorthodox assignment Dance had given Rey Carraneo: calling those two restaurants--and any others up and down the Central Coast with similar menus--and telling them about the escaped prisoner, who might be in the company of a slight woman with blond hair.
It was a long shot, and Dance didn't have much hope that the idea would pay off. But Carraneo had just heard back from the manager of Jack's, the landmark restaurant at Moss Landing. A couple was in there at the moment, and he thought they were acting suspicious--sitting inside where they could see the front door, which the boyfriend kept looking at, when most patrons were outside. The man was clean-shaven and wearing sunglasses and a cap so they couldn't really tell if he was Pell. The woman appeared to be blond, though she too had a cap and shades on. But the ages of the couple were right.
Dance had called the manager of the restaurant directly and asked if someone there could find out which car the couple had come in. The manager didn't have any idea. But the lot wasn't crowded and one of the busboys had gone outside and, in Spanish, given Dance the tag numbers of all the cars parked in the small lot.
A fast DMV check revealed that one, a turquoise Thunderbird, had been stolen just last Friday--though, curiously, not in the area but in Los Angeles.
Maybe it was a false alarm. But Dance decided to move on the place; if nothing else, they'd collar a car thief. She'd alerted O'Neil, and then told the manager, "We'll be there as soon as we can. Don't do anything. Just ignore him and act normally."
"Act normal," the man said with a shaking voice. "Yeah, right."
Kathryn Dance was now anticipating her next interrogation session with Pell, when he was back in custody. The number one question she was eager to learn the answer to: Why was he staying in the area?
Cruising through Sand City, a commercial strip along Highway 1, the traffic grew lighter, and O'Neil punched the accelerator hard. They'd be at the restaurant in ten minutes.
Chapter 15
"Are those the best thing you ever tasted?"
"Oh, honey, they're good. Sandy dabs."
"Sand dabs," Pell corrected. He was thinking of having a third sandwich.
"So, that was my ex," she continued. "I never see him or hear from him. Thank God."
She'd just given him the details of the husband--an accountant and businessman and a wimpy little guy, believe it or not--who'd put her in the hospital twice with internal injuries, once with a broken arm. He screamed at her when she forgot to iron the sheets, when she didn't get pregnant after only one month of trying, when the Lakers lost. He told her that her tits were like a boy's, which is why he couldn't get it up. He told her in front of his friends that she'd "look okay" if she got her nose fixed.
A petty man, Pell thought, one controlled by everything except himself.
Then he heard the further installments of the soap opera: the boyfriends after the divorce. They seemed like him, bad boys. But Pell Lite, he thought. One was a petty thief who lived in Laguna, between L.A. and San Diego. He worked low-stakes scams. One sold drugs. One was a biker. One was just a shit.
Pell had been through his share of therapy. Most of it was pointless but sometimes a shrink came up with some good insights, which Pell filed away (not for his own mental health, of course, but because they were such helpful weapons to use against people).
So why did Jennie go for bad boys? Obvious to Pell. They were like her mother; subconsciously she kept flinging herself at them in hopes they'd change their ways and love, not ignore or use, her.
This was helpful for Pell to know but he could have told her: By the way, lovely, don't bother. We don't change. We never, ever change. Write that down and keep it close to your heart.
Of course, though, he kept these wise words to himself.
She stopped eating. "Honey?"
"Um?"
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure, lovely."
"You never said anything about those, you know, girls you were living with. When they arrested you. The Family."
"Guess I didn't."
"Did you stay in touch with them or anything? What were their names?"
He recited, "Samantha, Rebecca and Linda. Jimmy too, the one who tried to kill me."
Her eyes flicked toward him. "Would you rather I didn't ask about them?"
"No, it's okay. You can ask me anything."
Never tell someone not to talk about a subject. Keep a smile on your face and suck out every bit of information you can. Even if it hurts.
"Did they turn you in, the women?"
"Not exactly. They didn't even know we were going to the Croytons', Jimmy and me. But they didn't back me up after I got arrested. Linda, she burnt some evidence and lied to the police. But even her, she finally caved and helped them." A sour laugh. "And look at what I did for them. I gave them a home. Their own parents didn't give a shit about them. I gave them a family."
"Are you upset? I don't want to upset you."
"No." Pell smiled. "It's okay, lovely.
"
"Do you think about them much?"
Ah, so that's it. Pell had worked hard all his life to spot the subtext beneath people's comments. He now realized that Jennie was jealous. It was a petty emotion, one that was easy to put down, but it was also a central force in the universe.
"Nope. I haven't heard from them for years. I wrote for a while. Linda was the only one who answered. But then she said her lawyer told her it'd look bad for her parole and she stopped. Felt bad about that, I have to say."
"I'm sorry, honey."
"For all I know, they're dead, or maybe married and happy. I was mad at first but then I understood that I made a mistake with them. I picked wrong. Not like you. You're good for me; they weren't."
She lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed his knuckles one at a time.
Pell was studying the map again. He loved maps. When you were lost, you were helpless, out of control. He remembered how maps--well, the lack of a map--played a role in the history of this area of California, where they sat right now, in fact, Monterey Bay. In the Family, years ago, Linda had read aloud after dinner, all of them sitting in a circle. Pell had often picked works by local authors and books that were set here, and he remembered one, a history of Monterey. The bay had been discovered by the Spanish in the early 1600s. The Bahia de Monte Rey, named after a rich patron of the expedition, was considered a real plum--fertile land, a perfect port, strategic location--and the governor wanted to build a major colony there. Unfortunately after the explorers sailed away they managed to lose the bay entirely.
A number of expeditions tried unsuccessfully to locate it again. With every passing year Monterey Bay took on mythical proportions. One of the largest contingents of explorers departed from San Diego and headed north on land, determined to find the bahia. Constantly at risk from the elements and the grizzly bears, the conquistadors covered every inch of the state up to San Francisco--and still managed to miss the huge bay altogether.
Simply because they had no accurate map.
When he'd managed to get online in Capitola, he'd been thrilled with a website called Visual-Earth, where you could click on a map and an actual satellite photo of the place you wanted to see came up on screen. He was astonished at this. There were some important things to look at, so he hadn't had a chance to browse. Pell looked forward to the time when his life was more settled and he could spend hours on the site.
Now, Jennie was pointing out some locations on the map open in front of them and Pell was taking in the information. But, as always, he was also listening to everything around him.
"He's a good puppy. Just needs more training."
"It's a long drive, but if we take our time, it'll be a blast. You know?"
"I ordered ten minutes ago. Could you see what's taking so long?"
At this last comment, Pell glanced toward the counter.
"Sorry," explained a middle-aged man at the cash register to a customer. "Just a little short staffed today." The man, the owner or manager, was uneasy and looked everywhere except at Pell and Jennie.
Smart people can figure out why you changed, then use it against you.
When Pell had ordered their food, there were three or four waitresses shuttling back and forth between the kitchen and the tables. Now this man was the only one working.
He'd sent all his employees into hiding.
Pell leapt up, knocking over the table. Jennie dropped her fork and jumped to her feet.
The manager stared at them in alarm.
"You son of a bitch," Pell muttered and pulled the pistol from his waistband.
Jennie screamed.
"No, no . . . I--" The manager debated for a second and fled into the kitchen, abandoning his customers, who screamed and spilled onto the floor for cover.
"What is it, honey?" Jennie's voice was panicked.
"Let's go. The car." He grabbed the map and they fled.
Outside, in the distance, south, he could see tiny flashing lights.
Jennie froze, panicked, whispering, "Angel songs, angel songs . . ."
"Come on!"
They leapt in. He slammed the car into reverse, then shifted gears and gunned the engine, heading for Highway 1, over the narrow bridge. Jennie nearly slipped out of her seat as they hit the uneven pavement on the other side of the structure. On the highway Pell turned north, got about a hundred yards then skidded to a stop. Coming the other way was another police car.
Pell glanced to his right and floored the accelerator, heading directly for the front gate of the power plant, a massive, ugly structure, something that belonged not here on this picture-postcard seashore but in the refineries of Gary, Indiana.
*
Dance and O'Neil were no more than five minutes from Moss Landing.
Her fingers tapped the grip of the Glock high on her right hip. She'd never fired her gun in the line of duty and wasn't much of a shot--weaponry didn't come naturally to her. Also, with children in the house she was uneasy carrying the weapon (at home she kept it in a solid lockbox beside her bed, and only she knew the combination).
Michael O'Neil, on the other hand, was a fine marksman, as was TJ. She was glad she was with them.
But would it come to a fight? she wondered. Dance couldn't say, of course. But she knew she'd do whatever was necessary to stop the killer.
The Ford now squealed around the corner and then up a hill.
As they crested it O'Neil muttered, "Oh, hell . . ."
He jammed the brake pedal. "Hold on!"
Dance gasped, and grabbed the dashboard as they went into a fierce skid. The car came to a stop, halfway on the shoulder, only five feet from a semi stopped in the middle of the road. The highway was completely blocked all the way to Moss Landing. The opposite lanes were moving, but slowly. Several miles ahead Dance could see flashing lights and realized officers were turning back the traffic.
A roadblock?
O'Neil called Monterey County central dispatch on his Motorola. "It's O'Neil."
"Go ahead, sir. Over."
"We're on One, northbound, just short of Moss Landing. Traffic's stopped. What's the story?"
"Be advised. There's . . . they're evacuating Duke Power. Fire or something. It's pretty bad. They've got multiple injuries. Two fatalities."
Oh, no, Dance thought, exhaling a sigh. Not more deaths.
"Fire?" O'Neil asked.
"Just what Pell did at the courthouse." Dance squinted. She could see a column of black smoke. Emergency planners took seriously any risk of a conflagration around here. Several years ago a huge fire had raged through an abandoned oil tank at the power facility. The plant was now gas--not oil--operated and the odds of a serious fire were much lower. Still, security would have frozen Highway 1 in both directions and started to evacuate anyone nearby.
O'Neil snapped, "Tell CHP or Monterey Fire or whoever's running the scene to clear a path. We've got to get through. We're in pursuit of that escapee. Over."
"Roger, Detective . . . Hold on. . . ." Silence for a minute. Then: "Be advised. . . . Just heard from Watsonville Fire. I don't know. . . . Okay, the plant's not burning. The fire's just a car in front of the main gate. I don't know who called in the eleven-forty-one. No injuries that anybody can tell. That was a false report. . . . And we've got some calls from Jack's. The suspect pulled a gun and fled."
"Hell, he made us," O'Neil muttered.
Dance took the microphone. "Roger. Are any police on the scene?"
"Stand by. . . . Affirmative. One Watsonville officer. The rest are fire and rescue."
"One officer," Dance said, scowling, shaking her head.
"Tell him that Daniel Pell's there somewhere. And he will target innocents and officers."
"Roger. I'll relay that."
Dance wondered how the sole officer would fare; Moss Landing's worst crimes were DUIs and the thefts of cars and boats.
"You get all that, TJ?"
"Fuck" was the reply from the speaker. TJ didn't bother much with ra
dio codes.
O'Neil slammed the microphone into the cradle in frustration.
Their plea to move the traffic along wasn't having any effect.
Dance told him, "Let's try to get up there anyway. I don't care if we need bodywork."
O'Neil nodded. He hit the siren and started along the shoulder, which was sandy in parts, rocky in others, and in several places barely passable.
But slowly the motorcade made its way forward.
Chapter 16
When they arrived at Moss Landing, Pell and his girlfriend were nowhere to be seen.
Dance and O'Neil parked. A moment later TJ too pulled up, beside the burned Thunderbird, still smoldering.
"Pell's car," she pointed out. "The one stolen from L.A. on Friday." Dance told TJ to find the manager of Jack's.
The Watsonville cop, O'Neil, and the other officers spread out to search for witnesses. Many of them had left, probably scared off by the flames from the T-bird and the piercing siren from the power plant--maybe even thinking it was a nuclear reactor that was melting down.
Dance interviewed several people near the power plant. They reported that a wiry man and a blonde, driving the Thunderbird--it had been turquoise before the fire--had sped over the bridge from Jack's Seafood, then stopped abruptly in front of the power plant. They'd gotten out and a moment later the car had erupted in flames.
The couple had run across the road to the shore side, one person reported, but nobody saw what became of them after that. Apparently Pell had called 911 himself to report that the plant was burning and there were injuries and two deaths.
Dance looked around her. They'd need another car; you couldn't escape from here on foot. But then her eyes focused on the bay. With the traffic jam, it would make more sense to steal a boat. She corralled several local officers, trotted across the highway, and they spent fifteen frantic minutes talking to the people on the shoreline, to see if Pell had stolen a vessel. Nobody reported seeing the couple, nor were any boats missing.
A waste of time.
Returning to the highway, Dance noticed a store across from the power plant, a shack selling souvenirs and candy. There was a CLOSED sign on the door but inside Dance believed she could see a woman's face, looking out.
Was Pell inside with her?
Dance gestured to a deputy, told him of her concern and together they stepped to the door. She rapped on it. No response.
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