Roadside Crosses: A Kathryn Dance Novel

by Jeffery Deaver

  O’Neil said, “It’s animal, the Crime Scene people say. Probably beef, store-bought. My guess is the vic was jogging up the trail back there, saw the fuss and then took a look. He got spooked and ran. Travis got him halfway down the hill.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Lyndon Strickland. He’s a lawyer. Lives nearby.”

  Dance squinted. “Wait. Strickland? I think he posted something on the blog.”

  Boling opened his backpack and pulled out a dozen sheets of paper, copies of the blog pages. “Yep. But not in ‘Roadside Crosses.’ He posted a reply about the desalination plant. He’s supporting Chilton.”

  He handed her the printout:

  Reply to Chilton, posted by Lyndon Strickland.

  I have to say you’ve opened my eyes on this issue. Had no idea that somebody’s ramrodding this through. I reviewed the filed proposal at the County Planning Office and must say that, though I am an attorney familiar with environmental issues, it was one of the most obfuscatory documents I’ve ever tried to wade through. I think we need considerably more transparency in order to have meaningful debate on this matter.

  Dance asked, “How did Travis know he’d be here? It’s so deserted.”

  Boling said, “These are jogging trails. I’ll bet Strickland posted to a bulletin board or blog that he likes running here.”

  We give away too much information about ourselves online. Way too much.

  O’Neil asked, “Why would the boy kill him?”

  Boling seemed to be considering something.

  “What, Jon?” Dance asked.

  “It’s just a thought but remember that Travis is into those computer games?”

  Dance explained to O’Neil about the massively multiplayer online role-playing games that Travis played.

  The professor continued, “One aspect of the game is growth. Your character develops and grows, your conquests expand. You have to do that, otherwise you won’t succeed. Following that classic pattern, I think Travis might be expanding his pool of targets. First, it was people who directly attacked him. Now he’s included somebody who supports Chilton, even if he has nothing to do with the ‘Roadside Crosses’ thread.”

  Boling cocked his head, looking at the bits of meat and the claw marks in the sandy ground. “That’s an exponential increase in the number of possible victims. It’ll mean dozens more are at risk now. I’ll start checking out the Internet addresses of anyone who’s posted anything even faintly supportive of Chilton.”

  More discouraging news.

  “We’re going to examine the body now, Jon,” Dance said. “You should head back to the car.”

  “Sure.” Boling looked relieved that he didn’t have to participate in this part of the job.

  Dance and O’Neil hiked through the dunes to where the body had been found. “How’s the terrorist thing going? The Container Case?”

  The senior deputy gave a wan laugh. “Moving along. You get Homeland Security involved, FBI, Customs, it’s a quagmire. What’s that line, you rise to the level of your own unhappiness? Sometimes I’d like to be back in a Police Interceptor handing out tickets.”

  “It’s ‘level of incompetence.’ And, no, you’d hate being back in Patrol.”

  “True.” He paused. “How’s your mother holding up?”

  That question again. Dance was about to put on a sunny face, but then remembered to whom she was speaking. She lowered her voice. “Michael, she hasn’t called me. When they found Pfister and the second cross, I just left the courthouse. I didn’t even say anything to her. She’s hurt. I know she is.”

  “You found her a lawyer—one of the best on the Peninsula. And he got her released, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve done everything you can. Don’t worry about it. She’s probably distancing herself from you. For the sake of this case.”

  “Maybe.”

  Eyeing her, he laughed again. “But you don’t believe that. You’re convinced she’s mad at you. That she thinks you’ve let her down.”

  Dance was remembering times in her childhood when, at some affront, real or imagined, the staunch woman would turn cold and distant. It was only in partial humor that Dance’s father occasionally referred to his wife as “the staff sergeant.”

  “Mothers and daughters,” O’Neil mused out loud, as if he knew exactly what she’d been thinking.

  When they reached the body, Dance nodded at the men from the coroner’s office, who were setting a green body bag beside the corpse. The photographer had just finished up. Strickland lay on his belly, in jogging attire, now bloody. He’d been shot from behind. Once in the back, once in the head.

  “And then there’s this.” One of the medics tugged the sweatshirt up, revealing an image carved into the man’s back: a crude approximation of a face, which might’ve been the mask. Qetzal, the demon from DimensionQuest. This is probably what O’Neil was reluctant to mention in front of Boling.

  Dance shook her head. “Postmortem?”

  “Right.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “None,” an MCSO deputy said. “There’s that highway construction site about a half mile from here. They heard the shots and called it in. But nobody saw anything.”

  One of the Crime Scene officers called, “Didn’t find any significant physical evidence, sir.”

  O’Neil nodded and together he and Dance returned to their cars.

  Dance noticed Boling was standing beside his Audi, hands clasped in front of him and his shoulders seemed raised slightly. Sure signs of tension. Murder scenes will do that to you.

  She said, “Thanks for coming out here, Jon. This was above and beyond the call of duty. But it was helpful to get your thoughts.”

  “Sure.” He sounded as if he was trying to be stoic. She wondered if he’d ever been to a crime scene.

  Her phone rang. She noticed Charles Overby’s name and number on Caller ID. She’d called earlier and told him about this killing. Now she’d have to tell him that the victim hadn’t been guilty of cyberbullying, but was a true innocent bystander. This would throw the area into even more panic.

  “Charles.”

  “Kathryn, you’re at the latest scene?”

  “Right. It looks like—”

  “Did you catch the boy?”

  “No. But—”

  “Well, you can give me the details later. Something’s come up. Get here as soon as you can.”

  Chapter 20

  “SO THIS IS the Kathryn Dance.” A big ruddy hand encircled hers, holding it until the bucket of propriety had been filled and then releasing.

  Odd, she noted. He hadn’t put as much emphasis on the article as you’d expect. Not the Kathryn Dance. More like: So this is the agent.

  Or, this is the chair.

  But she ignored the curious descriptive since kinesic analysis wasn’t a priority at the moment; the man wasn’t a suspect, but was, as it turned out, connected to the CBI’s boss of bosses. Resembling a college linebacker gone into politics or business, fiftyish Hamilton Royce worked in the attorney general’s office in Sacramento. He returned to his chair—they were in Charles Overby’s office—and Dance too sat. Royce explained that he was an ombudsman.

  Dance glanced at Overby. Itchily squinting toward Royce out of deference or curiosity or probably both, he didn’t offer anything else to flesh out the visitor’s job description—or mission.

  Dance was still angry about her boss’s carelessness, if not malfeasance, in suborning Robert Harper’s covert operation in the CBI file room.

  Because she’s innocent, of course. Your mother’d never hurt anyone. You know that. . . .

  Dance kept her attention on Royce.

  “We hear good things about you in Sacramento. I understand your expertise is body language.” The broad-shouldered man, with dark swept-back hair, was wearing a slick suit, its color a blue just the regal side of navy and therefore suggestive of a uniform.

  “I’m just an investiga
tor. I tend to use kinesics more than a lot of people.”

  “Ah, there she goes, Charles, selling herself short. You said she’d do that.”

  Dance offered a cautious smile and wondered what exactly Overby had said and how cautious he’d been in offering or withholding praise of an employee. Evidence for job and raise reviews, of course. Her boss’s face remained neutral. How hard life can be when you’re unsure.

  Royce continued jovially, “So you could look me over and tell me what I’m thinking. Just because of how I cross my arms, where I look, whether I blush or not. Tip to my secrets.”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that,” she said pleasantly.

  “Ah.”

  In fact she’d already come up with a tentative personality typing. He was a thinking, sensing extravert. And probably had a Machiavellian liar’s personality. Accordingly Dance was wary.

  “Well, we do hear good things about you. That case earlier in the month, that crazy man on the Peninsula here? That was a tough one. You nailed the fellow, though.”

  “We caught some lucky breaks.”

  “No, no,” Overby interrupted quickly, “no breaks, no lucky. She outthought him.”

  And Dance realized by saying “luck,” she’d suggested a criticism of herself, the CBI’s Monterey office and Overby.

  “And what do you do exactly, Hamilton?” She wasn’t going for a status-defining “Mr.,” not in a situation like this.

  “Oh, jack of all trades. A troubleshooter. If there are problems involving state agencies, the governor’s office, the assembly, even the courts, I look into it, write a report.” A smile. “A lot of reports. I hope they get read. You never know.”

  This didn’t seem to answer her question. She looked at her watch, a gesture that Royce noticed but that Overby did not. As she’d intended.

  “Hamilton is here about the Chilton case,” Overby said, then looked at the man from Sacramento to make sure that was all right. Back to Dance: “Brief us,” he said like a ship captain.

  “Sure, Charles,” Dance replied wryly, noting both his tone and the fact Overby had said “the Chilton case.” She’d been thinking of the attacks as the Roadside Cross Case. Or the Travis Brigham Case. Now she had an inkling as to why Royce was here.

  She explained about the murder of Lyndon Strickland—the mechanics of the killing and how he figured in the Chilton blog.

  Royce frowned. “So he’s expanding his possible targets?”

  “We think so, yes.”

  “Evidence?”

  “Sure, there’s some. But nothing specific that leads to where Travis is hiding out. We’ve got a joint CHP and sheriff’s office task force running a manhunt.” She shook her head. “They’re not making much progress. He doesn’t drive—he’s on a bike—and he’s staying underground.” She looked at Royce. “Our consultant thinks he’s using evasion techniques he learned in online games to stay out of sight.”

  “Who?”

  “Jon Boling, a professor from UC–Santa Cruz. He’s very helpful.”

  “And he’s volunteering his time, no charge to us,” Overby slipped in smoothly, as if the words were oiled.

  “About this blog,” Royce said slowly. “How does that figure in, exactly?”

  Dance explained, “Some postings have set the boy off. He was cyberbullied.”

  “So, he snapped.”

  “We’re doing everything we can to find him,” Overby said. “He can’t be far. It’s a small peninsula.”

  Royce hadn’t given much away. But Dance could see from his focused eyes he was not only sizing up the Travis Brigham situation but was neatly folding it into his purpose here.

  Which he finally got down to.

  “Kathryn, there’s a concern in Sacramento about this case, I have to tell you. Everybody’s nervous. It’s got teenagers, computers, social networking. Now, a weapon’s involved. You can’t help but think Virginia Tech and Columbine. Apparently those boys from Colorado were his idols.”

  “Rumor. I don’t know if that’s true or not. It was posted on the blog by someone who might or might not have known him.”

  And from the flutter of eyebrow and twitch of lip, she realized she might have just played into his hand. With people like Hamilton Royce, you never could be sure if all was straightforward, or if you were fencing.

  “This blog . . . I was talking to the AG about it. We’re worried that as long as people are posting, it’s like gasoline on the flames. You know what I mean? Like an avalanche. Well, mixing my metaphors, but you get the idea. What we were thinking: Wouldn’t it be better for the blog to shut down?”

  “I’ve actually asked Chilton to do that.”

  “Oh, you have?” Overby asked the question.

  “And what did he say?”

  “Emphatically no. Freedom of the press.”

  Royce scoffed. “It’s just a blog. It’s not the Chronicle or Wall Street Journal.”

  “He doesn’t feel that way.” Dance then asked, “Has anybody from the AG’s office contacted him?”

  “No. If the request came from Sacramento, we’re worried that he’d post something about us bringing the subject up. And that’d spread to the newspapers and TV. Repression. Censorship. And those labels might rub off on the governor and some congressmen. No, we can’t do that.”

  “Well, he refused,” Dance repeated.

  “I was just wondering,” Royce began slowly, his gaze keenly strafing Dance, “if there was anything you’ve found about him, something to help persuade him?”

  “Stick or carrot?” she asked quickly.

  Royce couldn’t help but laugh. Savvy people apparently impressed him.

  “He doesn’t seem like the carrot sort, from what you’ve told me.”

  Meaning a bribe wouldn’t work. Which Dance knew was true, having tried one. But neither did Chilton seem susceptible to threats. In fact, he seemed like the sort who’d relish them. And post something in his blog about any that were made.

  Besides, though she didn’t like Chilton and thought he was arrogant and self-righteous, using something she’d learned in an investigation to intimidate the man into silence didn’t sit well. In any case, Dance could honestly answer, “I haven’t found a thing. James Chilton himself is a small part of the case. He didn’t even post anything about the boy—and he deleted Travis’s name. The point of the ‘Roadside Crosses’ thread was to criticize the police and highway department. It was the readers who started to attack the boy.”

  “So there’s nothing incriminating, nothing we can use.”

  Use. Odd choice of verb.

  “No.”

  “Ah, too bad.” Royce did seem disappointed. Overby noticed too and looked disappointed himself.

  Overby said, “Keep on it, Kathryn.”

  Her voice was a crawl. “We’re working full-out to find the perp, Charles.”

  “Of course. Sure. But in the whole scope of the case . . .” His sentence dwindled.

  “What?” she asked sharply. The anger about Robert Harper was resurfacing.

  Watch it, she warned herself.

  Overby smiled in a way that bore only a loose resemblance to a smile. “In the whole scope of the case it would be helpful to everybody if Chilton could be persuaded to stop the blog. Helpful to us and to Sacramento. Not to mention saving the lives of people who’ve posted comments.”

  “Exactly,” Royce said. “We’re worried about more victims.”

  Of course the AG and Royce would worry about that. But they’d also worry about the bad press against the state for not doing everything to stop the killer.

  To end the meeting and get back to work, Dance simply agreed. “If I see anything you can use, Charles, I’ll let you know.”

  Royce’s eyes flickered. Overby missed the irony completely and smiled. “Good.”

  It was then that her phone vibrated with a text message. She read the screen, and gave a faint gasp and looked up at Overby.

  Royce asked, “What
is it?”

  Dance said, “James Chilton was just attacked. I have to go.”

  Chapter 21

  DANCE HURRIED INTO Emergency Admitting at Monterey Bay Hospital.

  She found TJ looking troubled in the middle of the lobby. “Boss,” he said, exhaling hard, relieved to see her.

  “How is he?”

  “He’ll be okay.”

  “Did you get Travis?”

  “It wasn’t the boy who did it,” TJ said.

  At that moment the double doors to the emergency room swung open and James Chilton, a bandage on his cheek, strode out. “He attacked me!” Chilton was pointing at a ruddy-faced, solidly built man in a suit. He sat beside the window. A large county deputy stood over him. Without a greeting, Chilton pointed to him and snapped to Dance, “Arrest him.”

  Meanwhile the man leapt to his feet. “Him. I want him in jail!”

  The deputy muttered, “Mr. Brubaker, please sit down.” He spoke forcefully enough so that the man hesitated, delivered a glare to Chilton then dropped back into the fiberglass seat.

  The officer then joined Dance and told her what had happened. A half hour before, Arnold Brubaker had been on the grounds of his proposed desalination plant with a survey crew. He’d found Chilton taking pictures of animal habitats there. He tried to grab the blogger’s camera and shoved Chilton to the ground. The surveyors called the police.

  The injury, Dance assessed, didn’t seem serious.

  Still, Chilton seemed possessed. “That man is raping the Peninsula. He’s destroying our natural resources. Our flora and fauna. Not to mention destroying an Ohlone burial ground.”

  The Ohlone Indians were the first inhabitants of this part of California.

  “We aren’t building anywhere near the tribal land!” Brubaker yelled. “That was a rumor. And completely untrue!”

  “But the traffic in and out of the area is going to—”

  “And we’re spending millions to relocate animal populations and—”

  “Both of you,” Dance snapped. “Quiet.”

  Chilton, however, had his momentum going. “He broke my camera too. Just like the Nazis.”