Roadside Crosses: A Kathryn Dance Novel

by Jeffery Deaver

  Neither parent did.

  She turned back to the pictures. She realized that she’d seen one of the girls before—in a news story about the June 9 crash. Caitlin Gardner, the girl who’d survived. The photo was more formal than the others—the pretty girl looking off to the side, smiling blandly. Dance turned the thin, glossy rectangle of paper over and noted a portion of a picture of a sports team on the other side. Travis had cut the picture out of a yearbook.

  Had he asked Caitlin for a picture and been refused? Or had he been too shy even to ask?

  The agents searched for a half hour but found no clues as to where Travis might be, no phone numbers, email addresses or friends’ names. He kept no address book or calendar.

  Dance wanted to see what was on his laptop. She opened the lid. It was in hibernate mode and booted up immediately. She wasn’t surprised when it asked for a password. Dance asked the boy’s father, “Do you have any idea what the code is?”

  “Like he’d tell us.” He gestured at the computer. “Now, that’s the problem right there, you know. That’s what went wrong, playing all those games. All the violence. They shoot people and cut them up, do all kinds of shit.”

  Sonia seemed to reach a breaking point. “Well, you played soldier when you were growing up, I know you did. All boys play games like that. It doesn’t mean they turn into killers!”

  “That was a different time,” he muttered. “It was better, healthier. We only played killing Indians and Viet Cong. Not normal people.”

  Carrying the laptop, notebooks, strongbox and hundreds of pages of printouts and notes and pictures, Dance and Carraneo walked to the door.

  “Did you ever think about one thing?” Sonia asked.

  Dance paused, turned.

  “That even if he did it, went after those girls, that maybe it wasn’t his fault. All those terrible things that they said about him just pushed him over the edge. They attacked him, with those words, those hateful words. And my Travis never said a single word against any one of them.” She controlled her tears. “He’s the victim here.”

  Chapter 16

  ON THE HIGHWAY to Salinas, not far from beautiful Laguna Seca racecourse, Kathryn Dance braked her unmarked Ford to a halt in front of a construction worker holding a portable stop sign. Two large bulldozers slowly traversed the highway in front of her, shooting ruddy dust into the air.

  She was on the phone with Deputy David Reinhold, the young officer who’d delivered Tammy Foster’s computer to her and Boling. Rey Carraneo had sped to the MCSO Crime Scene Unit in Salinas and dropped Travis’s Dell off for processing into evidence.

  “I’ve logged it in,” Reinhold told her. “And run it for prints and other trace. Oh, and it probably wasn’t necessary, Agent Dance, but I ran a nitrate swab for explosives too.”

  Computers were occasionally booby-trapped—not as IED weapons, but to destroy compromising data contained in the files.

  “Good, Deputy.”

  The officer certainly had initiative. She recalled his quick blue eyes and his smart decision to pull out the battery of Tammy’s computer.

  “Some of the prints are Travis’s,” the young deputy said. “But there are others too. I ran them. A half dozen were from Samuel Brigham.”

  “The boy’s brother.”

  “Right. And a few others. No match in AIFIS. But I can tell you they’re larger, probably male.”

  Dance wondered if the boy’s father had tried to get inside.

  Reinhold said, “I’m happy to try to crack into the system, if you want. I’ve taken some courses.”

  “Appreciate it, but I’m having Jonathan Boling—you met him in my office—handle that.”

  “Sure, Agent Dance. Whatever you’d like. Where are you?”

  “I’m out now, but you can have it delivered to the CBI. Have Agent Scanlon take custody. He’ll sign the card and receipt.”

  “I’ll do it right now, Kathryn.”

  They disconnected and she looked around impatiently, waiting for the construction flagman to allow her through. She was surprised to see the area dug up so completely—dozens of trucks and road-grading equipment were tearing apart the ground. She’d driven here just last week and the work hadn’t yet begun.

  This was the big highway project that Chilton had written about in the blog, the shortcut to Highway 101, in the thread titled “Yellow Brick Road,” suggesting gold—and wondering if somebody was profiting illegally on the project.

  She noted that the equipment belonged to Clint Avery Construction, one of the largest companies on the Peninsula. The workers here were large men, working hard, sweaty. They were mostly white, which was unusual. Much of the labor on the Peninsula was performed by Latino workers.

  One of them looked at her solemnly—recognizing her car for an unmarked law enforcement vehicle—but he made no special effort to speed her through.

  Finally, at his leisure, he waved the traffic on, his eyes looking over Dance closely, it seemed to her.

  She left the extensive roadwork behind and cruised down the highway and onto side streets until she came to Central Coast College, where summer session was under way. A student pointed out Caitlin Gardner sitting at a picnic bench with several other girls, who hovered around her protectively. Caitlin was pretty and blond and sported a ponytail. Tasteful studs and hoops decorated both ears. She resembled any one of the hundreds of coeds here.

  After leaving the Brighams, Dance had called the Gardner house and learned from Caitlin’s mother that the girl was taking some college courses here for credit at Robert Louis Stevenson High, where she’d start her senior year in a few months.

  Caitlin’s eyes, Dance noticed, were focused away and then her gaze shifted to Dance. Not knowing who she was—probably thinking she was another reporter—she began to gather her books. Two of the other girls followed their friend’s troubled eyes and rose in a phalanx to give cover so Caitlin could escape.

  But they then noticed Dance’s body armor and weapon. And grew cautious, pausing.

  “Caitlin,” Dance called.

  The girl stopped.

  Dance approached and showed her ID, introduced herself. “I’d like to talk to you.”

  “She’s pretty tired,” a friend said.

  “And upset.”

  Dance smiled. To Caitlin she said, “I’m sure you are. But it’s important that I talk to you. If you don’t mind.”

  “She shouldn’t even be in school,” another girl said. “But she’s taking classes out of respect to Trish and Vanessa.”

  “That’s good of you.” Dance wondered how attending summer school honored the dead.

  The curious icons of adolescents . . .

  The first friend said firmly, “Caitlin’s, like, really, really—”

  Dance turned to the frizzy-haired brunette, her personality brittle, lost the smile and said bluntly, “I’m speaking to Caitlin.”

  The girl fell silent.

  Caitlin mumbled, “I guess.”

  “Come on over here,” Dance said pleasantly. Caitlin followed her across the lawn and they sat at another picnic table. She clutched her book bag to her chest and was looking around the campus nervously. Her foot bobbed and she tugged at an earlobe.

  She appeared terrified, even more so than Tammy.

  Dance tried to put her at ease. “So, summer school.”

  “Yeah. My friends and me. Better than working, or sitting home.”

  The last word has been delivered in a tone that suggested a fair amount of parental hassle.

  “What’re you studying?”

  “Chemistry and biology.”

  “That’s a good way to ruin your summer.”

  She laughed. “It’s not so bad. I’m kinda good at science.”

  “Headed for med school?”

  “I’m hoping.”

  “Where?”

  “Oh, I don’t know yet. Probably Berkeley undergrad. Then I’ll see.”

  “I spent time up there. Great town.
”

  “Yeah? What’d you study?”

  Dance smiled and said, “Music.”

  In fact she hadn’t taken a single class on that campus of the University of California. She’d been a busker—a musician playing guitar and singing for money on the streets of Berkeley—very little money, in her case.

  “So, how you doing with all of this?”

  Caitlin’s eyes went flat. She muttered, “Not so great. I mean, it’s so terrible. The accident, that was one thing. But then, what happened to Tammy and Kelley . . . that was awful. How is she?”

  “Kelley? We don’t know yet. Still in a coma.”

  One of the friends had overheard and called, “Travis bought this poison gas online. Like from neo-Nazis.”

  True? Or rumor?

  Dance said, “Caitlin, he’s disappeared. He’s hiding somewhere and we have to find him before he causes more harm. How well did you know him?”

  “Not too good. We had a class or two together. I’d see him in the halls sometimes. That’s all.”

  Suddenly she started in panic and her eyes jumped to a nearby stand of bushes. A boy was pushing his way through them. He looked around, retrieved a football and then returned into the foliage for the field on the other side.

  “Travis had a crush on you, right?” Dance pressed on.

  “No!” she said. And Dance deduced that the girl did in fact think this; she could tell from the rise in the pitch of her voice, one of the few indicators of deception that can be read without the benefit of doing a prior baseline.

  “Not just a little?”

  “Maybe he did. But a lot of boys . . . You know what it’s like.” Her eyes did a sweep of Dance—meaning: boys might’ve had a crush on you too. Even if it was a long, long time ago.

  “Did you two talk?”

  “Sometimes about assignments. That’s all.”

  “Did he ever mention anyplace he liked to hang out at?”

  “Not really. Nothing, like, specific. He said there were some neat places he liked to go. Near the water, mostly. The shore reminded him of some places in this game he played.”

  This was something, that he liked the ocean. He could be hiding out in one of the shorefront parks. Maybe Point Lobos. In this land of temperate climate he could easily survive with a waterproof sleeping bag.

  “Does he have any friends he might be staying with?”

  “Really, I don’t know him real well. But he didn’t have any friends I ever saw, not like my girlfriends and me. He was, like, online all the time. He was smart and everything. But he wasn’t into school. Even at lunch or study period, he’d just sit outside with his computer and if he could hack into a signal he’d go online.”

  “Are you scared of him, Caitlin?”

  “Well, yeah.” As if it was obvious.

  “But you haven’t said anything bad about him on The Chilton Report or social networking sites, have you?”

  “No.”

  What was the girl so upset about? Dance couldn’t read her emotions, which were extreme. More than just fear. “Why haven’t you posted anything about him?”

  “Like, I don’t go there. It’s bullshit.”

  “Because you feel sorry for him.”

  “Yeah.” Caitlin frantically played with one of the four studs in her left ear. “Because . . .”

  “What?”

  The girl was very upset now. Tension bursting. Tears dotted her eyes. She whispered, “Because it’s my fault what happened.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The accident. It’s my fault.”

  “Go on, Caitlin.”

  “See, there was this guy at the party? A guy I kind of like. Mike D’Angelo.”

  “At the party?”

  “Right. And he was totally ignoring me. Hanging out with this other girl, Brianna, rubbing her back, you know. Right in front of me. I wanted to make him jealous, so I walked up to Travis and was hanging out with him. I gave him my car keys right in front of Mike and asked him to take me home. I was, like, oh, let’s drop Trish and Vanessa off and then you and me can hang out.”

  “And you thought it would make Mike feel bad?”

  She nodded tearfully. “It was so stupid! But he was acting like such a shit, flirting with Brianna.” Her shoulders were arched in tension. “I shouldn’t ’ve. But I was so hurt. If I hadn’t done that, nothing would’ve happened.”

  This explained why Travis had been driving that night.

  All to make another boy jealous.

  The girl’s explanation also suggested a whole new scenario. Maybe on the drive back Travis had realized that he was being used by Caitlin, or maybe he was angry at her for having a crush on Mike. Had he intentionally crashed the car? Murder/suicide—an impulsive gesture, not unheard of when it came to young love.

  “So he’s got to be mad at me.”

  “What I’m going to do is put an officer outside your house.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. It’s still early at summer school, right? You don’t have any tests coming up, do you?”

  “No. We just started.”

  “Well, why don’t you head home now?”

  “You think?”

  “Yeah. And stay there until we find him.” Dance took down the girl’s address. “If you can think of anything more—about where he might be—please let me know.”

  “Sure.” The girl took Dance’s card. Together they walked back to her crew.

  FLOATING THROUGH HER ears was the haunting quena flute of Jorge Cumbo, with the South American group Urubamba. The music calmed her, and it was with some regret that Dance pulled into the Monterey Bay Hospital parking lot, parked and paused the music.

  Of the protesters, only about half remained. The Reverend Fisk and his redheaded bodyguard were absent.

  Probably trying to track down her mother.

  Dance walked inside.

  Several nurses and doctors came up to express their sympathy—two nurses wept openly when they saw their coworker’s daughter.

  She walked downstairs to the office of the head of security. The room was empty. She glanced up the hall toward the intensive care unit. She headed in that direction and pushed through the door.

  Dance blinked as she turned to the room where Juan Millar had died. It was cordoned off with yellow police tape. Signs read Do Not Enter. Crime Scene. It was Harper’s doing, she reflected angrily. This was idiocy. There were only five intensive care rooms down here—three were occupied—and the prosecutor had sealed one of them? What if two more patients were admitted? And what’s more, she thought, the crime had taken place nearly a month ago, the room occupied by presumably a dozen patients since then, not to mention cleaned by fastidious crews. There couldn’t possibly be more evidence to collect.

  Grandstanding and public relations.

  She started away.

  And nearly ran right into Juan Millar’s brother, Julio, the man who had attacked her earlier in the month.

  The dark, compact man, in a dark suit, pulled up short, eyes fixed on her. He was carrying a folder of papers, which sagged in his hand, as he stared at Dance, only four or five feet away.

  Dance tensed and stepped back slightly, to give her time to get to her pepper spray or cuffs. If he came at her again she was prepared to defend herself, though she could imagine what the media would do with the story of the daughter of a suspected mercy killer Macing the brother of the euthanized victim.

  But Julio simply stared at her with a curious look—not of anger or hate, but almost amusement at the coincidence of running into her. He whispered, “Your mother . . . how could she?”

  The words sounded rehearsed, as if he’d been waiting for the chance to recite them.

  Dance began to speak, but Julio clearly expected no response. He walked slowly out of the door that led to the back exit.

  And that was it.

  No harsh words, no threats, no violence.

  How could she?

  Her heart poun
ding furiously from the bewildering confrontation, she recalled that her mother had said Julio had been here earlier. Dance wondered why he was back now.

  With a last glance at the police tape, Dance left the ICU and walked to the office of the head of security.

  “Oh, Agent Dance,” Henry Bascomb said, blinking.

  She smiled a greeting. “They’ve got the room taped off?”

  “You were back there?” he asked.

  Dance immediately noted the stress in the man’s posture and voice. He was thinking quickly and he was uneasy. What was that about? Dance wondered.

  “Sealed off?” she repeated.

  “Yeah, that’s right, ma’am.”

  Ma’am? Dance nearly laughed at the formal word. She, O’Neil, Bascomb and some of his former deputy buddies had shared beer and quesadillas down on Fisherman’s Wharf a few months ago. She decided to get to the nut of it: “I’ve only got a minute or two, Henry. It’s about my mother’s case.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  Dance was thinking: I don’t know any better than you do, Henry. She said, “Not great.”

  “Give her my best.”

  “I’ll do that. Now, I’d like to see the employee and front desk logs of who was at the hospital when Juan died.”

  “Sure.” Only he didn’t mean sure at all. He meant what he said next: “But the thing is, I can’t.”

  “Why’s that, Henry?”

  “I’ve been told I can’t let you see anything. No paperwork. We’re not even supposed to be talking to you.”

  “Whose orders?”

  “The board,” Bascomb said tentatively.

  “And?” Dance continued, prodding.

  “Well, it was Mr. Harper, that prosecutor. He talked to the board. And the chief of staff.”

  “But that’s discoverable information. The defense attorney has a right to it.”

  “Oh, I know that. But he said that’s how you’ll have to get it.”

  “I don’t want to take it. Just look through it, Henry.”

  There was absolutely nothing illegal about her looking through the material, and it wouldn’t ultimately affect the case because what was contained in the logs and sign-in sheets would come out eventually.

  Bascomb’s face revealed how torn he was. “I understand. But I can’t. Not unless there’s a subpoena.”