What venue wouldn’t be closed down?
Movie theaters, but they wouldn’t work. After the abortive attempt the other day, sure, cineplexes with substantial crowds would have guards, if not police.
What else would remain open?
Ah, wait. Here’s a thought: management of hotels would resist closing, certainly on a nice Sunday afternoon, everybody in for brunch or an early supper.
Hotel or inn … Yes.
Some ideas began to form. Good, a solid plan.
But he’d pursue it only after he had completed his immediate task – the errand that had been interrupted by his trip to Orange County after the Bay View incident.
The task of slowing down, if not stopping completely, his pursuers.
Well, one pursuer. Singular.
He smiled. Yes, truly singular.
What better word to describe Kathryn Dance, of whom he’d dreamed at glorious length last night?
CHAPTER 57
The Kathryn Dance Situation.
That’s how Jon Boling had come to think of it. The phrase could have a negative connotation but he didn’t mean it like that. Boling, a product of academia who made his living in the world of computers, was analytical by nature.
This drab, gray Sunday he was bicycling down Ocean Avenue in Carmel, the main shopping drag, while his partner at the college, Lily, chipped away at Stanley Prescott’s and his killer’s passcode. There was nothing more for him to do until she finished, so he’d taken a ride. Besides, he had an errand that needed attending to.
He was not paying much attention to the pretty scenery but was, instead, reflecting on the nature of the KD Situation.
Yes, he loved her. No question about that. The tug in his gut whenever he saw her. He could, always, call up the smell of her hair as they lay together. He could see the sparkle in her green eyes, hear her breezy laugh. They gave to each other, didn’t hesitate to speak about their vulnerabilities. He remembered feeling her pain when the worst – to her – happened: she’d fail to catch a perp. He’d wrap his arms around her at moments like that and she’d yield to the comfort. Not completely. But to a degree. This was love.
He continued downhill. Don’t fail me here, he thought to the brakes. It was a long, fast stretch straight down to the rocks and traffic at the beach. He eased to a stop at an intersection, then continued.
And the children, he loved them too. Wes and Maggie … He’d always wanted to be a father, but that hadn’t worked out. No dark angst there but it was a gap he was determined to fill and fill soon. Boling admitted he wasn’t a natural parent but he worked hard. And he could see that the effort had paid off. When he’d first met Kathryn, the children were moody, depressed from time to time, Wes more but Maggie too. After all, they hadn’t been without their father for all that long. They still grew morose or attitudinal at times.
But wasn’t that just life? Adolescents and adults.
So, a lyrical comfort with Kathryn, a rapport with the children … and even the formidable Edie Dance liked him – enough. Stuart, of course, and Boling had become solid friends.
But something wasn’t quite right. Hence, the ‘situation’.
Suggesting issues requiring consideration. Formulation. Adjustment. Solution.
Jon Boling hardly knew kinesics but he’d learned enough from Kathryn to be aware of tension. And when was it most in evidence? Not when she was entangled in a case. Not when one of the kids was sick. But when she and Boling and Michael O’Neil were in the same room together.
Computer code, the language Jon Boling spoke most fluently, is written according to the laws of logic. The parameters are clear and allow for not a single mis-spaced character. He wished he could write out a program on the Kathryn Dance Situation, compile it and have his answer pulsing on a monitor in front of him.
The Kathryn Dance Situation
Love her.
Love the children.
It works, many, many ways.
Jon Boling liked Michael O’Neil a great deal. He was a solid, decent man. A good father, who’d kept his path during a divorce from a faithless and frivolous wife. And to hear Kathryn tell it, he was one hell of a law enforcer. But there was another factor in the code Boling was now writing.
Michael O’Neil loves Kathryn.
A stretch of flat surface, and Boling pulled off to the sidewalk. He texted the college’s computer-science department, where Lily was hard at work on cracking Stan Prescott’s computer and the unsub’s phone.
Lily, quite a beauty she was. Smart as could be.
There was no progress. But Boling had confidence she’d find the passwords.
Back to the Situation. And the big question: did Kathryn love Michael?
He’d lain awake a number of nights wondering, tagging her words and looks and gestures with meaning, wondering, wondering … and replaying certain images and words over the past year. The radiance of her eyes, the lift of her lips when she smiled, characterized by faint, charming wrinkles.
What are Kathryn’s true feelings?
Boling recalled overhearing the fight she and O’Neil had had last night. Raw. Sharp words, back and forth. Then he pictured her returning to the house and her face changing, melting, relaxing, growing comfortable once more. Boling and Dance had laughed, had some turkey reinvented into something innovative, salad, wine. And the hard day in Orange County, the hard words fired by Michael O’Neil fell away.
Do Kathryn and Jon have a future?
He now eased to a stop outside the store he’d bicycled ten miles to come to. It was, like most stores and houses in Carmel, on the borderline between quaint and precious. The décor was Bavarian ski resort, not uncommon here, though Boling suspected the downtown saw snow once a decade at most.
He unstrapped his almond-shaped helmet and slung it over the handlebars. He leaned the bike up against a nearby fence. Didn’t bother with the lock. Nobody was going to steal a bike in daylight in downtown Carmel. That would be like trying to run a gun show in Berkeley.
Jon Boling had done some research on By the Sea Jewelry, the store he was walking toward now. It was just what he needed. Glancing at the beautiful antique engagement and wedding rings in the window, he pushed inside. The door opened with a jingle from a cowbell, both incongruous and perfectly apt.
Five minutes later he was outside once again.
Do Kathryn and Jon have a future?
Boling opened the By the Sea Jewelry bag and peered into the box inside. Good. He slipped it into his jacket pocket. He found himself smiling.
Helmet on. Time to head back to her house.
There were several ways to get there. The shorter was to go back up Ocean Avenue. But that was a steep hill, made for the thighs of a twenty-year-old. The other option, longer, was to bike downhill toward the beach, then meander along Seventeen Mile Drive back to Pacific Grove.
Pretty and, yes, far easier.
A glance at his watch. He’d be back to Dance’s in thirty minutes this way. He turned the bike down the steep hill and caught a glimpse of the ocean, beach, rocks, shrouded in mist.
What a view.
He pushed off, keeping tension on the rear brake mostly – the incline was so severe that hitting the front one alone would catapult him head over heels if he had to stop fast. It seemed to him that the rear responded slowly, wobbling with some vibration. It felt different from when he’d biked there, just minutes ago. But the sensation was simply a rough patch of asphalt, he guessed. Or maybe even his imagination. Now, no traffic in front, he let up on the brake handles. The speed increased and Boling enjoyed the wind streaming against his face, enjoyed the hum it made in his helmet. Thinking of the bag inside his pocket.
The Kathryn Dance Situation has been resolved.
CHAPTER 58
Dance and her
father were on the Deck that warm Sunday afternoon, pleasant, though under gray skies – overcast for a change, no fog. Natives knew the difference. As often on the Peninsula, the sky promised rain but deceived. The drought grew worse every year. Solitude Creek, for instance, had at one point been eight, nine feet deep, she’d learned. Now it was a quarter that. Less in some places.
She thought again about the reeds and grass, the decaying buildings behind the parking lot on the shores of the creek.
Annette, the sobbing witness.
Trish, the motherless child.
The bodies in the roadhouse, the blood. The stain in the shape of a heart.
She was talented …
Picturing Solitude Creek itself, the gray expanse of water, bordered by reeds and grasses.
It was then that she had a thought. ‘Excuse me a sec,’ she said to Stuart.
‘Sure, honey.’
She pulled out her phone and texted Rey Carreneo with yet another assignment.
He responded as crisply as his shirts were starched.
K, Kathryn. On it right now.
She put her phone away.
‘When’s brunch?’ Maggie asked, poking her head out of the door.
‘Jon’ll be home anytime.’ She looked at her Timex. He was ten minutes late. It wasn’t like him not to call.
‘K.’ The girl vanished.
Her phone hummed.
Maybe that’s him. But no.
‘TJ.’
He and several MCSO deputies had been systematically contacting venues with public performances or large social events and asking them to cancel.
‘I think we’ve got most of the big ones. Concerts, church services, plays, sports events – praise the Lord it’s not March Madness or we’d have riots on our hands. By the way, boss, I am not the most popular man on the Peninsula – in the eyes of the Chamber of Commerce and assorted wedding parties, persona non grata. The Robertsons are not inviting me to the rescheduled reception.’
Dance thanked him and they disconnected.
Stuart asked, ‘How’s it going?’
She shrugged. ‘Ruining people’s Sunday.’
‘So, Maggie’s not singing in the talent show?’
‘No, she didn’t want to. I was going to push it but …’ A shrug.
Stuart smiled. ‘Sometimes you let it go.’ He knew he’d made a pun on the song his granddaughter was going to have sung. Dance laughed, reflecting that the song title had become a theme of hers over the past few days.
‘When’s brunch?’ Wes called from the doorway, echoing his sister.
Dance glanced at her phone. Still no word from Boling. ‘We’ll get things started.’
She and Stuart walked into the kitchen. She Keuriged some coffee for them both and prowled through the fridge.
She glanced toward her son.
‘No texting at the table.’
‘We’re not eating yet.’
A look from Mom. The mobile disappeared into his back pocket.
‘So, what’s on the wish list for brunch?’
Maggie: ‘Waf—’
‘—cakes,’ her brother chimed in.
‘Wafcakes. Good.’
Maggie poured an orange juice and sipped. ‘When are you going to get married?’ she asked, like a father to a pregnant daughter.
Stuart chuckled.
Dance froze. Then: ‘I’m too busy to be thinking about getting married.’
‘Excuses, excuses, excuses … Are you marrying Jon or Michael?’
‘What? Maggie!’
Then the phone was ringing. Wes was closest and he answered. ‘Hello?’
They weren’t supposed to answer with their name or ‘Dance residence’. Security starts early in a law-enforcement household.
‘Sure.’ He looked at his sister. ‘For you. Bethany.’
Maggie took the cordless phone and wandered off. Dance checked her own cell for updates. Nothing from Jon. She called him and the line went right to voice mail.
‘Hey, it’s me. You on your way? Just checking.’
Dance disconnected and happened to glance toward her daughter on the phone. Bethany Meyer, the future secretary of state, was a precocious eleven-year-old, polite enough, though Dance thought of her as over-assembled. She believed kids that age should wear jeans or shorts and T-shirts most of the time, not dress up as if they were going for movie auditions every day. Her parents were well off, true, but they sank way too much money into the girl’s clothes. And such fastidious makeup? On a girl her age? In a word, no.
Suddenly she noticed Maggie’s body language change abruptly. Her shoulders rose and her head drooped. One knee went forward – a sign of a subconscious, if not physical, desire to flee or fight. She was getting troubling news. Her daughter continued to talk a bit more, then disconnected. She returned to the kitchen.
‘Mags, everything all right?’
‘Yeah, it’s fine. Why not?’ Jittery.
Dance looked at her sternly.
‘Everything’s, like, fine.’
‘Watch the “like”. What did Bethany have to say?’
‘Nothing. Just stuff.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Uh-uh.’
Dance gave her a probing look, which was conspicuously ignored, and began to assemble the ingredients for the meal. ‘Blueberries?’
Maggie didn’t answer.
Dance repeated the question.
‘Yeah, sure.’
Dance tried the proven tactic of diversion. ‘Hey, you all looking forward to the concert? Neil Hartman?’
The new Dylan …
‘I guess,’ Maggie said, less than enthusiastic.
A glance at Wes, who was, in turn, sneaking a look at his phone. He put it away fast. ‘Yeah, yeah … can’t wait.’ More enthusiastic but more distracted, as well. Dance at least was looking forward to seeing Hartman. She reminded herself to check the tickets to see where the seats were. She’d left Kayleigh’s envelope in the glove compartment of the Pathfinder.
A moment later, Wes: ‘Hey, Mom,’ Wes said. ‘Can I go meet Donnie?’
‘What about brunch?’
‘Can I do Starbucks instead? Please, please?’ He was cheerful, almost silly. She debated, extracted a five from her purse and handed it over.
‘Thanks.’
‘Can I go too?’ Maggie asked.
‘No,’ Wes said.
‘Mom!’
‘Come on, honey,’ Stuart said. ‘I want to have brunch with you.’
Maggie glanced at her brother darkly, then said, ‘Okay, Grandpa.’
‘Bye, Mom,’ Wes said.
‘Wait!’
He stopped and looked at her with small alarm in his face.
‘Helmet.’ She pointed.
‘Oh.’ He stared at it. ‘Well, we’re walking. I’ve still got that flat.’
‘All the way downtown?’
‘Yeah.’
‘All right.’
‘Yeah. Bye, Grandpa.’
Stuart said, ‘Don’t get a double shot of espresso. Remember what happened last time.’
Dance hadn’t heard about that incident. And didn’t want to know.
The door closed. Dance started to call Boling again when she noted that Maggie’s face was still troubled. ‘You wouldn’t’ve had any fun with them.’
‘I know.’
Dance began to say something to her, make a joke, when her cell rang again. She answered. ‘Michael.’
‘Listen. May have our Solitude Creek unsub. A PG patrolman spotted a silver Honda Accord at the Del Monte View Inn.’
Dance knew it, a big luxury non-chain hotel not far from where she lived.
‘It’s parked right behind the building. The driver was tall. Sunglasses. Hat but maybe he has a shaved head. Worker’s jacket. He’s inside now.’
‘Tag?’
‘Delaware. But how’s this? It’s registered to layers of shell corporations, including an offshore.’
‘Really? Interestin
g.’
‘I’ve got teams on the way there. Rolling up silent.’
‘You know the place? There’re two lots. Have the teams stage in the bottom one.’
‘Already ordered it,’ he said.
‘I’m ten minutes, Michael. I’m moving.’
She turned to her father and daughter, to see Stuart already on his feet, reading the recipe on the back of the Bisquick box.
She laughed. He looked as serious as an engineer about to power up a nuclear reactor. ‘Thanks, Dad. Love you both.’
CHAPTER 59
As he walked to Starbucks to meet Wes, Donnie Verso was thinking about their friendship.
The kid wasn’t like Nathan or Lann or Vince or Peter. Not that stand-up. And wasn’t quite thinking right, the way he ought to if he wanted to hang with the Defend and Respond crew. Not muting his phone and alerting the bitch cop just as Donnie was about to crack her skull open and get her gun. Your phone, dude? Seriously? (Though, afterward, he thought maybe that had worked out for the best.)
Yeah, yeah, he was good backup, a good lookout – he’d saved Donnie’s ass a couple of times, warning him that somebody was about to see him tagging a church or stealing a watch from Rite Aid.
But Donnie just couldn’t get Wes to go the extra step.
Oh, he wanted to. That was obvious. Because Wes was mad. Oh, yeah. Totally mad. Wes was as pissed off at his father for being dead as Donnie was at his for being alive. That kind of anger usually pushed you dark really fast. But the dude was hanging back.
He was sure the kid could do it, if he wanted to, even though they’d known each other only a month. Donnie had seen the twelve-year-old Wes around middle school from time to time, and hadn’t thought anything of him. A church humper? Probably. Science club? Probably. Another time, Donnie might’ve wailed on him. (Or Donnie and Nathan together, since Wes wasn’t small.) But there were other, easier, targets at school.