Solitude Creek: Kathryn Dance Book 4

by Jeffery Deaver

  ‘That’s what we’re going to find out.’

  ‘Hope that one pans out.’

  Overby said to Foster, ‘Can you and Al Stemple check out Pedro Escalanza?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The lead to Serrano. Tia Alonzo mentioned him, remember?’

  Foster’s frown said, no, he didn’t. ‘Where is this Escalanza?’

  ‘Sandy Crest Motel.’ Overby explained it was a cheap tourist spot, about five miles north of Monterey.

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘TJ ran Escalanza’s sheet. Minor stuff but he’s facing a couple in Lompac. We’ll work with him on that if he gives up any info that gets us to Serrano.’

  Foster muttered, ‘A lead to a lead to a lead.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Overby asked.

  Foster didn’t answer. He strode out of the door.

  Outside CBI, Steve Foster looked over his new partner.

  ‘Just for the record, I’m playing along with you because …’ a slight pause ‘… the rest of the task force wanted it. I didn’t.’

  Kathryn Dance said pleasantly, ‘It’s your case, Steve. I’m still Civ Div. I just want the chance to interview Escalanza, that’s all.’

  He muttered, repeating, ‘The rest of the task force.’ Then looked her over as if he were about to tell her something important. Reveal a secret. But he said nothing.

  She waved at Albert Stemple, plodding toward his pickup truck. His cowboy boots made gritty sounds on the asphalt. Stone-faced, he nodded back.

  Stemple grumbled, ‘So. That lead to Serrano?’

  ‘That’s it,’ Foster said.

  ‘I’ll follow you. Brought the truck. Was supposed to be my day off.’ Got inside, started the engine. It growled.

  Dance and Foster got into the CBI cruiser. She was behind the wheel.

  She punched the motel’s address into her iPhone GPS and started the engine. They hit the highway, headed west. Soon the silence in the car seemed louder than the slipstream.

  Foster, lost in his phone, read and sent some text messages. He didn’t seem to mind that she was driving – some men would have made an issue of piloting. And he might have, given that Dance really wasn’t a great driver. She didn’t enjoy vehicles, didn’t blend with the road the way Michael O’Neil did.

  Thinking of him now, his arms around her at the stampede in Global Adventure World. And their fight after they’d returned.

  Tapped that thought away fast. Concentrate.

  She turned music on. Foster didn’t seem to enjoy it but neither did the sound seem to bother him. She’d reflected that while everyone else in the task force had congratulated her on nailing the Solitude Creek unsub Foster had said nothing. It was as if he hadn’t even been aware of the other case.

  Twenty minutes later, she turned off the highway and made her way down a long, winding road, Stemple’s truck bouncing along behind. From time to time they could see north and south – along the coast, misting away to Santa Cruz, the sky split by the incongruous power-plant smokestacks. A shame, those. The vista was one that Ansel Adams might have recorded, using his trademark small aperture to bring the whole scene into crystal detail.

  Foster’s hand slipped out and he turned down the volume.

  So maybe he was a music-hater.

  But that wasn’t it at all. While the big man’s eyes were on the vista, Foster said, ‘I have a son.’

  ‘Do you?’ Dance asked.

  ‘He’s thirteen.’ The man’s tone was different now. A flipped switch.

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Embry.’

  ‘Unusual. Nice.’

  ‘Family name. My grandmother’s maiden name. A few years ago I was with our LA office. We were living in the Valley.’

  The nic for San Fernando. That complex, diverse region north of the Los Angeles Basin – everything from hovels to mansions.

  ‘There was a drive-by. Pacoima Flats Boyz had pissed off the Cedros Bloods, who knows why?’

  Dance could see what was coming. Oh, no. She asked, ‘What happened, Steve?’

  ‘He was hanging with some kids after school. There was crossfire.’ Foster cleared his throat. ‘Hit in the temple. Vegetative state.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I know I’m a prick,’ Foster said, his eyes on the road. ‘Something like that happens …’ He sighed.

  ‘I can’t even imagine.’

  ‘No, you can’t. And I don’t mean that half as shitty as it sounds. I know I’ve been riding you. And I shouldn’t. I just keep thinking, Serrano got away, and what if he takes out somebody else? He can fucking waste all of his own crew if he wants. But it’s the kid in between the muzzle and the target that bothers me, keeps me up all night. And it’s my fault as much as yours. I was there too, at the interview. I could’ve done something, could’ve asked some questions.’

  ‘We’ll get him,’ Dance said sincerely. ‘We’ll get Serrano.’

  Foster nodded. ‘You should’ve told me I’m a dick.’

  ‘I thought it.’

  His silver mustache rose as he gave the first smile she’d seen since the task force had been put together.

  Soon they arrived at the motel, which was in the hills about three miles east of the ocean. It was on the eastern side, so there was no view of the water. Now the place was shrouded in shade, surrounded by brush and scrub oak. The first thing that Dance thought of was the Solitude Creek roadhouse, a similar setting – some human-built structure surrounded by quiet, persistent California flora.

  The inn had a main office and about two dozen separate cabins. She found the one they sought and parked two buildings away. Stemple drove his truck into a space nearby. There was one car, an old Mazda sedan, faded blue, in front of the cabin. Dance consulted her phone, scrolled down the screen. ‘That’s his, Escalanza’s.’

  Stemple climbed out of his truck and, hand on his big gun, walked around the motel. He returned and nodded.

  ‘Let’s go talk to Señor Escalanza,’ Foster said.

  The two agents started forward, the wind tossing her hair. She heard a snap beside her. She saw a weapon in Foster’s hand. He pulled the slide back and checked to see if a round was chambered. He eased the slide forward and holstered the gun. He nodded. They continued along the sand-swept sidewalk past yellowing grass and squatting succulents to the cabin registered in the name of Pedro Escalanza. Bugs flew and Dance wiped sweat. You didn’t have to get far from the ocean for the heat to soar, even in springtime.

  At the door they looked back at Al Stemple – a hundred feet away. He glanced at them. Gave a thumbs-up.

  Dance and Foster looked at each other. She nodded. They stepped to either side of the door – procedure, not to mention common sense – and Foster knocked. ‘Pedro Escalanza? Bureau of Investigation. We’d like to talk to you.’

  No answer.

  Another rap.

  ‘Please open the door. We just want to talk. It’ll be to your advantage.’

  Nothing.

  ‘Shit. Waste of time.’

  Dance gripped the door. Locked. ‘Try the back.’

  The cottages had small decks, which were accessed by sliding doors. Lawn chairs and tables sat on the uneven brick. No barbecue grills, of course: one careless, smoldering briquette, and these hills would vanish in ten breaths. They walked around to the unit’s deck and noted that the door was open, a frosty beer, half full, on the table. Foster, his hand on his weapon’s grip, walked closer. ‘Pedro.’

  ‘Yeah?’ a man’s voice called. ‘I was in the john. Come on in.’

  They walked inside. And froze.

  On the bathroom floor they could see two legs stretched out. Streak of blood on them. Puddling on the floor too.

  Foster drew his gun and started to turn but the young man behind the curtain next to the sliding door quickly touched the agent’s skull with his own gun.

  He pulled Foster’s Glock from his hand and shoved him forward, then closed the door.


  They both turned to the lean Latino gazing at them with fierce eyes.

  ‘Serrano,’ Dance whispered.

  CHAPTER 88

  They were back.

  At last. Thank you, Lord.

  The two boys from the other night. Except there were three of them at the moment.

  Well, now that David Goldschmidt thought about it, there might’ve been three the other night. Only two bikes but, yes, there could have been another one then.

  The other night.

  The night of shame, he thought of it. His heart pounding even now, several days afterward. Palms sweating. Like Kristallnacht, the ‘Night of Broken Glass’, in 1938, when the Germans had rioted and destroyed a thousand Jewish homes and businesses throughout the country.

  Goldschmidt was watching them on the video screen, which wasn’t, as he’d told Officer Dance the other night, in the bedroom but in the den. They were moving closer now, all three. Looking around, furtive. Guilt on wheels.

  True, he hadn’t exactly gotten a look at them the other day, not their faces – that was why he’d asked Dance for more details: he didn’t want to make a mistake. But this was surely them. He’d seen their posture, their clothes, as they’d fled, after obscenely defacing his house. Besides, who else would it be?

  They’d returned for their precious bikes.

  Coming after the bait.

  Which was why he’d kept them.

  Bait …

  Now he was ready. He’d called his wife in Seattle and had her stay a few days longer with her sister. Made up some story that he himself wanted to come up for the weekend. Why didn’t she stay and he’d join her? She’d bought it.

  As the boys stole closer still, glancing around them, pausing from time to time, Goldschmidt looked up and watched them through the den window, the lace curtain.

  One, the most intense, seemed to be the ringleader. He was wearing a combat jacket. Floppy hair. A second, a handsome teenager, was holding his phone, probably to record the theft. The third, big, dangerously big.

  My God, they looked young. Younger than high school, Goldschmidt reckoned. But that didn’t mean they weren’t evil. They were probably the sons of neo-Nazis or some Aryan group. Such a shame they hadn’t formed their own opinions before their racist fathers, mothers too probably, had got a hold of their malleable brains and turned them into monsters.

  Evil …

  And deadly. Deadly as all bigots were.

  Which was why Goldschmidt was now holding his Beretta double-barrel shotgun, loaded with 00 buckshot, each pellet the diameter of a .33-caliber slug.

  He closed the weapon with a soft click.

  The law on self-defense in California is very clear …

  It certainly was, Officer Dance. Once somebody was in your home and you had a reasonable fear for your safety, you could shoot them.

  And for all Goldschmidt knew, they too were armed.

  Because this country was America. Where guns were plentiful and reluctance to use them rare.

  The boys paused on the corner. Surveilling the area. Noting that his car was gone – he’d parked it blocks away. That the lights were out. He wasn’t home. Safe to come get your Schwinns.

  The door’s open, kids. Come on in.

  Goldschmidt rose, thumbed off the safety and walked into the kitchen, where he opened the door to the garage. That location, he’d checked, was considered part of your home too. And all he had to do was convince the prosecutor he’d legitimately feared for his life.

  He’d memorized the sentence, ‘I used the minimum amount of force necessary under the circumstances to protect myself.’

  He peered through the crack.

  Come on, boys. Come on.

  CHAPTER 89

  ‘And you, Officer Dance. Your weapon too. Let’s go.’

  Without taking his eyes off them, the Latino tugged the curtain shut, a gauzy shield against passers-by.

  ‘I’m not armed. Look, Serrano. Joaquin. Let’s talk about—’

  ‘Not armed.’ A smile.

  ‘Really. I’m not.’

  ‘You say this, I say that.’

  ‘Listen—’ Foster began.

  ‘Sssh, you. Now, Agent Dance. How about you just tug up that fancy jacket of yours, turn around like my niece does, pirouette? I think that’s what it’s called. She in ballet class. She’s pretty good.’

  Dance lifted her jacket and turned. Her eyes returned defiantly to his.

  ‘Well, they don’t trust you with guns, your bosses? My woman, she can shoot. She’s good. You afraid of shooting. Too loud?’

  Foster nodded toward the bathroom, where a man’s legs were just visible. Crimson spatters covered the tiles. ‘That’s Escalanza?’

  ‘The fuck’re you to ask me questions?’ the man sneered. ‘Shut up.’ He stepped to the windows and looked outside. Dance could see through the slit in the flyblown drapes. She saw no one other than Stemple, gazing out over the highway.

  ‘Who’s that big boy out there?’

  Dance said, ‘He’s with us, the Bureau of Investigation.’

  He returned. ‘Hey, there, Officer … Or, no, it’s Agent. Have to remember that. Sí, Agent Dance. I enjoyed our conversation in the room, that interrogation room there. Always like talking to a beautiful woman. Too bad no cervezas. You get more confessions you open a bar there. Patron, Herradura, a little rum. No, I know! Hire a puta. Give somebody head, they confess fast.’

  Dance said evenly, ‘You’re in a bad situation here.’

  He smiled.

  Foster said impatiently, ‘Look, Serrano, whatever you have in mind, nothing good’s going to come from killing law.’

  ‘That’s your opinion, whoever you are. Were you one of those watching me in the goldfish bowl the other day?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fooled you pretty good, didn’t I?’ he gloated.

  Dance said, ‘Yes, you did. But my colleague’s right. It’s not going to work out how you want.’

  The young man said evenly, ‘You said nothing good comes from killing law. Well, you know what? I’m thinking a lot of good’ll come of it. You been on my ass since Wednesday. I been hiding here, hiding there. That’s a pain I don’t need. So I think a lot of good is going to come from having you both fucking dead. Okay. Enough.’

  Dance said, ‘You shoot us and you think the agent out there won’t hear? If he doesn’t nail your ass, he’ll keep you pinned down until a TAC team …’

  Fishing in his back pocket, Serrano pulled a silencer out and screwed it onto the muzzle of his weapon. ‘I like the way you say “ass”.’

  Dance glanced at Foster, whose expression remained placid.

  ‘So. Here. I’m a religious man. You take a few seconds to make your peace. Pray. You have something you want to say? Somebody up there you want to say it to?’

  Her voice ominous, Dance said defiantly, ‘You’re not thinking, Joaquin. Our boss knows we’re here, a dozen others. I could get a call any minute. I don’t pick up and there’ll be a dozen TAC officers here in ten minutes, combing the area. Lockdown on the roads. You’ll never get away.’

  ‘Yeah, I think I take my chances.’

  ‘Work with me and I can keep you alive. You walk out that door and you’re a dead man.’

  ‘Work with you?’ He laughed. ‘You got nothing. What they say in football, I mean soccer? Nil. You’ve got nil to offer.’

  The gun was already racked. He lifted it toward Foster, who said, ‘Lamont.’

  The young man frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘Lamont Howard.’

  A confused look. ‘What’re you saying?’

  ‘Don’t act stupid.’ Foster shook his head.

  ‘Fuck you saying to me, asshole?’

  Foster seemed merely inconvenienced, not the least intimidated. Or scared. ‘I’m saying to you, asshole, the name Lamont Howard.’ When there was no response he continued, ‘You know Lamont, right?’

  The Latino’s eyes scanned their faces uncertai
nly. Then: ‘Lamont, the gang-banger run the Four Seven Bloods in Oakland. What about him?’

  Dance said, ‘Steve?’

  Foster: ‘You been to his house in Village Bottoms?’

  A blink.

  ‘West Oakland.’

  ‘I know where the Bottoms is.’

  Dance snapped, ‘What’s this all about, Steve?’

  Foster waved her silent. Back to the young man. ‘Okay, Serrano, here’s the deal. You kill me, Lamont will kill you. Simple as that. And he’ll kill everybody in your family. And then he’ll go back to his steak dinner, because he likes his steak. I know that because I have been to his crib and had a steak dinner with him. A dozen of them, in fact.’

  Dance turned to Foster. She whispered, ‘What?’

  ‘Fuck you saying, man?’

  ‘Are you catching on? I’m Lamont’s inside man.’

  Dance stared at him.

  ‘No fucking way.’

  ‘Yeah, well, Serrano, I can say yes and you can say no way until you have to take a crap. But wouldn’t it make sense just to ask him? ’Cause if you don’t and you take me out, Lamont and his crew lose their one connection to CBI and points beyond. DEA, Customs and Border, Homeland. And I wonder which dry well you and your mother and sister will be sleeping out eternity in.’

  ‘Fuck. Wait. I hear something. A month ago. Some Oakland crew was getting solids from Sacramento.’

  ‘That’s me.’ Foster seemed proud.

  Dance looked out of the window. Stemple, still gazing away into the waving grass. She growled to Foster, ‘You son of a bitch.’

  He ignored her. ‘So, call him.’

  The Latino looked him over, not getting too close. Foster was much larger. ‘I no got his number. You think him and me, we asshole buddies?’

  Foster sighed. ‘Look, I’m taking my phone out of my pocket. That’s all. My phone.’ He did. ‘Ah, Kathryn, careful there.’

  Her hand had dropped toward a table on which a heavy metal lamp sat.

  ‘Serrano? Could you …’

  The young man noted that Dance had been going for the lamp. He stepped forward and roughly pushed her against the wall, away from any potential weapons.

  Foster made a call.