“Put that down. He’s not going anywhere,” Baxter said angrily. “He’s hurt.”
“I can’t see,” Pell moaned. “Somebody help me!”
Baxter turned toward him, bent down.
“Don’t!” the escort shouted.
Then the county hack staggered backward, a bewildered expression on his face, as Pell repeatedly shoved a filleting knife into his belly and chest. Bleeding in cascades, Baxter fell to his knees, trying for the pepper spray. Pell grabbed his shoulders and spun him around as the huge escort fired the Taser. It discharged but the probes went wide.
Pell shoved Baxter aside and leapt at the escort, the useless Taser falling to the floor.
The big man froze, staring at the knife. Pell’s blue eyes studied his sweaty black face.
“Don’t do it, Daniel.”
Pell moved in.
The escort’s massive fists balled up.
No point in talking. Those who were in control didn’t need to humiliate or threaten or quip. Pell charged forward, dodging the man’s blows, and struck him hard a dozen times, the knife edge facing out and extending downward from the bottom of his clenched right hand. Punching was the most effective way to use a knife against a strong opponent willing to fight back.
His face contorting, the escort fell to his side, kicking. He gripped his chest and throat. A moment later he stopped moving. Pell grabbed the keys and undid the restraints.
Baxter was crawling away, still trying to get his Mace out of his holster with blood-slicked fingers. His eyes grew wide as Pell approached. “Please. Don’t do anything to me. I was just doing my job. We’re both good Christians! I treated you kind. I—”
Pell grabbed him by the hair. He was tempted to say, You wasted God’s time praying for your car keys?
But you never humiliated or threatened or quipped. Pell bent down and efficiently cut his throat.
When Baxter was dead, Pell stepped to the door again. He covered his eyes and grabbed the metallic fireproof bag, where he’d gotten the knife, just outside the door.
He was reaching inside again when he felt the gun muzzle at his neck.
“Don’t move.”
Pell froze.
“Drop the knife.”
A moment’s debate. The gun was steady; Pell sensed that whoever held it was ready to pull the trigger. His hissed a sigh. The knife clattered to the floor. He glanced at the man, a young Latino plainclothes officer, eyes on Pell, holding a radio.
“This’s Juan Millar. Kathryn, you there?”
“Go ahead,” the woman’s voice clattered.
Kathryn . . .
“I’m eleven-nine-nine, immediate assistance, at the fire door, ground floor, just outside the lockup. I’ve got two guards down. Hurt bad. Nine-four-five, requesting ambulance. Repeat, I’m eleven-nine—”
At that moment the gas tank of the car nearest the door exploded; a flare of orange flame shot through the doorway.
The officer ducked.
Pell didn’t. His beard flared, flames licked his cheek, but he stood his ground.
Hold fast . . .
Chapter 4
Kathryn Dance was calling on a Motorola, “Juan, where’s Pell? . . . Juan, respond. What’s going on down there?”
No answer.
An eleven-nine-nine was a Highway Patrol code—though one that all California law enforcers knew. It meant an officer needed immediate assistance.
And yet no response after his transmission.
The courthouse security chief, a grizzled, crew-cut retired cop, stuck his head into the office. “Who’s running the search? Who’s in charge?”
Sandoval glanced at Dance. “You’re senior.”
Dance had never encountered a situation like this—a firebomb and an escape by a killer like Daniel Pell—but, then, she didn’t know of anybody on the Peninsula who had. She could coordinate efforts until somebody from MCSO or the Highway Patrol took over. It was vital to move fast and decisively.
“Okay,” she said. And instructed the security chief to get other guards downstairs immediately and to the doors where people were exiting.
Screams outside. People running in the corridor. Radio messages flying back and forth.
“Look,” TJ said, nodding toward the window, where black smoke obscured the view completely. “Oh, man.”
Despite the fire, which might be raging inside now, Kathryn Dance decided to remain in Alonzo Sandoval’s office. She wouldn’t waste time by relocating or evacuating. If the building was engulfed they could jump out of the windows to the roofs of cars parked in the front lot, ten feet below. She tried Juan Millar again—there was no answer on his phone or radio—then said to the security chief, “We need a room-by-room search of the building.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He trotted off.
“And in case he gets out, I want roadblocks,” Dance said to TJ. She pulled off her jacket, tossed it over a chair. Sweat stains were blossoming under the arms. “Here, here, here . . .” Her short nails tapped loudly on the laminated map of Salinas.
Gazing at the places she was indicating, TJ made calls to the Highway Patrol—California’s state police—and the MCSO.
Sandoval, the prosecutor—grim and dazed—stared at the smoky parking lot too. Flashing lights reflected in the window. He said nothing. More reports came in. No sign of Pell in the building or outside.
None of Juan Millar either.
The courthouse security chief returned a few minutes later, his face smudged. He was coughing hard. “Fire’s under control. Limited pretty much to outside.” He added shakily, “But, Sandy . . . I’ve gotta tell you, Jim Baxter’s dead. So’s the Capitola guard. Stabbed. Pell got a knife somehow, looks like.”
“No,” Sandoval whispered. “Oh, no.”
“And Millar?” Dance asked.
“We can’t find him. Might be a hostage. We found a radio. Assume it’s his. But we can’t figure out where Pell went. Somebody opened the back fire door but there were flames everywhere until just a few minutes ago. He couldn’t’ve gotten out that way. The only other choice is through the building and he’d be spotted in a minute in his prison overalls.”
“Unless he’s dressed in Millar’s suit,” Dance said.
TJ looked at her uneasily; they both knew the implications of that scenario.
“Get word to everybody that he might be in a dark suit, white shirt.” Millar was much taller than Pell. She added, “The pants cuffs’d be rolled up.”
The chief hit transmit on his radio and sent out the message.
Looking up from his phone, TJ called, “Monterey’s getting cars in place.” He gestured toward the map. “CHP’s scrambled a half dozen cruisers and cycles. They should have the main highways sealed in fifteen minutes.”
It worked to their advantage that Salinas wasn’t a huge town—only about 150,000—and was an agricultural center (its nickname was the “Nation’s Salad Bowl”). Lettuce, berry, Brussels sprout, spinach and artichoke fields covered most of the surrounding area, which meant that there were limited highways and roads by which he could escape. And on foot, Pell would be very visible in the fields of low crops.
Dance ordered TJ to have Pell’s mug shots sent to the officers manning the roadblocks.
What else should she be doing?
She gripped her braid, which ended in the red elastic tie that energetic Maggie had twisted around her hair that morning. It was a mother-daughter tradition; every morning the child picked the color of the rubber band or scrunchie for the day. Now, the agent recalled her daughter’s sparkling brown eyes behind the wire-rimmed glasses as she told her mother about music camp that day and what kind of snacks they should have for Dance’s father’s birthday party tomorrow. (She realized that it was probably at that moment that Wes had planted the stuffed bat in her purse.)
She recalled too looking forward to interrogating a legendary criminal.
The Son of Manson . . .
The security chief’s radio crackle
d. A voice called urgently, “We’ve got an injury. Real bad. That Monterey County detective. Looks like Pell pushed him right into the fire. The EMS crew called for medevac. There’s a chopper on its way.”
No, no . . . She and TJ shared a glance. His otherwise irrepressibly mischievous face registered dismay. Dance knew that Millar would be in terrible pain but she needed to know if he had any clues as to where Pell had gone. She nodded at the radio. The chief handed it to her. “This’s Agent Dance. Is Detective Millar conscious?”
“No, ma’am. It’s . . . it’s pretty bad.” A pause.
“Is he wearing clothes?”
“Is he . . . Say again?”
“Did Pell take Millar’s clothes?”
“Oh, that’s negative. Over.”
“What about his weapon?”
“No weapon.”
Shit.
“Tell everybody that Pell’s armed.”
“Roger that.”
Dance had another thought. “I want an officer at the medevac chopper from the minute it lands. Pell might be planning to hitch a ride.”
“Roger.”
She handed the radio back, pulled out her phone, hit speed dial four.
“Cardiac Care,” Edie Dance’s low, placid voice said.
“Mom, me.”
“What’s the matter, Katie? The kids?” Dance pictured the stocky woman, with short gray hair and large, gray-framed round glasses, concern on her ageless face. She’d be leaning forward—her automatic response to tension.
“No, we’re fine. But one of Michael’s detectives is burned. Bad. There was an arson at the courthouse, part of an escape. You’ll hear about it on the news. We lost two guards.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Edie murmured.
“The detective—Juan Millar’s his name. You’ve met him a couple of times.”
“I don’t remember. He’s on his way here?”
“Will be soon. Medevac.”
“That bad?”
“You have a burn unit?”
“A small one, part of ICU. For long term we’d get him to Alta Bates, U.C.-Davis or Santa Clara as soon as we could. Maybe down to Grossman.”
“Could you check in on him from time to time? Let me know how he’s doing?”
“Of course, Katie.”
“And if there’s any way, I want to talk to him. Whatever he saw, it could be helpful.”
“Sure.”
“I’ll be tied up for the day, even if we catch him right away. Could you have Dad pick up the kids?” Stuart Dance, a retired marine biologist, worked occasionally at the famous Monterey aquarium, but was always available to chauffeur the children whenever needed.
“I’ll call right now.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
Dance disconnected and glanced up to see Prosecutor Alonzo Sandoval staring numbly at the map. “Who was helping him?” he muttered. “And where the fuck is Pell?”
Variations of these two questions were also spinning through Kathryn Dance’s mind.
Along with another: What could I have done to read him better? What could I have done to avoid this tragedy altogether?
Chapter 5
The helicopter in the parking lot directed swirls of smoke outward in elegant patterns as the blades groaned and the aircraft lifted off, bearing Juan Millar to the hospital.
Vaya con Dios . . .
Dance got a call. Glanced at the phone screen. She was surprised it had taken so long for the man to get back to her. “Charles,” she said to her boss, the agent in charge of the west-central regional office of the CBI.
“I’m on my way to the courthouse. What’ve we got, Kathryn?”
She brought him up to date, including the deaths and Millar’s condition.
“Sorry to hear that. . . . Any leads, anything we can tell them?”
“Tell who?”
“The press.”
“I don’t know, Charles. We don’t have much information. He could be anywhere. I’ve ordered roadblocks and we’re doing a room-by-room search.”
“Nothing specific? Not even a direction?”
“No.”
Overby sighed. “Okay. By the way, you’re running the operation.”
“What?”
“I want you in charge of the manhunt.”
“Me?” She was surprised. CBI certainly had jurisdiction; it was the highest-ranking law-enforcement agency in the state, and Kathryn Dance was a senior agent; she was as competent as anyone to supervise the case. Still, the CBI was an investigative operation and didn’t have a large staff. The California Highway Patrol and the Sheriff’s Office would have to provide the manpower for the search.
“Why not somebody from CHP or MCSO?”
“I think we need central coordination on this one. Absolutely makes sense. Besides, it’s a done deal. I’ve cleared it with everybody.”
Already? She wondered if that was why he hadn’t returned her call right away—he was roping down CBI’s control of a big media case.
Well, his decision was fine with her. She had a personal stake in capturing Pell.
Seeing his bared teeth, hearing his eerie words.
Yeah, it’s a tough life being a cop. The little ones spend a lot of time alone, don’t they? They’d probably love some friends to play with. . . .
“Okay, Charles. I’ll take it. But I want Michael on board too.”
Michael O’Neil was the MCSO detective Dance worked with most often. She and the soft-spoken officer, a life-long resident of Monterey, had worked together for years; in fact, he’d been a mentor when she’d joined the CBI.
“That’s fine with me.”
Good, Dance thought. Because she’d already called him.
“I’ll be there soon. I want another briefing before the press conference.” Overby disconnected.
Dance was heading toward the back of the courthouse when flashing lights caught her eye. She recognized one of the CBI’s Tauruses, the grille pulsing red and blue.
Rey Carraneo, the most recent addition to the office, pulled up nearby and joined her. The slim man, with black eyes sunk beneath thick brows, had only two months on the job. He wasn’t quite as unseasoned as he looked, though, and had been a cop in Reno for three years—a tough venue—before moving to the Peninsula so he and his wife could take care of his ill mother. There were rough edges to be worn off and experience to be tucked under his extremely narrow belt but he was a tireless, reliable law enforcer. And that counted for a lot.
Carraneo was only six or seven years younger than Dance but those were important years in the life of a cop and he couldn’t bring himself to call her Kathryn, as she frequently offered. His usual greeting was a nod. He gave her a respectful one now.
“Come with me.” Recalling the Herron evidence and the gas bomb, she added, “He’s probably got an accomplice, and we know he’s got a weapon. So, eyes open.” They continued to the back of the courthouse, where arson investigators and Monterey County crime scene officers from the Enforcement Operations Bureau were looking over the carnage. It was like a scene from a war zone. Four cars had burned to the frames, the two others were half-gutted. The back of the building was black with soot, trash cans melted. A haze of blue-gray smoke hung over the area. The place stank of burning rubber—and an odor that was far more repulsive.
She studied the parking lot. Then her eyes slipped to the open back door.
“No way he got out there,” Carraneo said, echoing Dance’s thought. From the destroyed cars and the scorch marks on the pavement, it was clear that the fire had surrounded the door; the flames were meant to be a diversion. But where had he gone?
“These cars all accounted for?” she asked a fireman.
“Yeah. They’re all employees’.”
“Hey, Kathryn, we have the device,” a man in a uniform said to her. He was the county’s chief fire marshal.
She nodded a greeting. “What was it?”
“Wheelie suitcase, big one, filled with plastic milk contain
ers of gasoline. The doer planted it under that Saab there. Slow-burning fuse.”
“A pro?”
“Probably not. We found the fuse residue. You can make ’em out of clothesline and chemicals. Got instructions from the Internet, I’d say. The sort of things kids make to blow stuff up with. Including themselves a lot of times.”
“Can you trace anything?”
“Maybe. We’ll have it sent to the MCSO lab and then we’ll see.”
“You know when it was left?”
He nodded toward the car the bomb had been planted under. “The driver got here about nine fifteen, so it’d be after that.”
“Any hope for prints?”
“Doubt it.”
Dance stood with her hands on her hips, surveying the battleground. Something felt wrong.
The dim corridor, blood on the concrete.
The open door.
Turning slowly, studying the area, Dance noticed behind the building something in a nearby pine and cypress grove: a tree from which dangled an orange ribbon—the sort used to mark shrubs and trees scheduled for cutting. Walking closer, she noticed that the mound of pine needles at the base was larger than those beneath the others. Dance dropped to her knees and dug into it. She unearthed a large scorched bag made of metallic cloth.
“Rey, need some gloves.” She coughed from the smoke.
The young agent got a pair from an MCSO crime scene deputy and brought them to her. Inside the bag were Pell’s orange prison uniform and a set of gray hooded overalls, which turned out to be some kind of fire suit. A label said the garment was made of PBI fibers and Kevlar and had an SFI rating of 3.2A/5. Dance had no idea what this meant—except that it was obviously protective enough to get Daniel Pell safely through the conflagration behind the courthouse.
Her shoulders slumped in disgust.
A fire suit? What’re we up against here?
“I don’t get it,” Rey Carraneo said.
She explained that Pell’s partner had probably set the bomb and left the fireproof bag outside the door; it had contained the fire suit and a knife. Maybe a universal cuff or shackle key too. After he’d disarmed Juan Millar, Pell had donned the garment and run through the flames to the tree marked with the orange tag, where the partner had hidden some civilian clothes. He’d changed and sprinted off.
Kathryn Dance Ebook Boxed Set : Roadside Crosses, Sleeping Doll, Cold Moon (9781451674217) Page 45