“They’re setting up new checkpoints in Gilroy. And about thirty miles south.” O’Neil stuck monarch butterfly notes in the appropriate places.
“And you’ve got the bus terminals and airport secure?” Overby asked.
“That’s right,” Dance said.
“And San Jose and Oakland PD’re in the loop?”
“Yep. And Santa Cruz, San Benito, Merced, Santa Clara, Stanislaus and San Mateo.” The nearby counties.
Overby jotted a few notes. “Good.” He glanced up and said, “Oh, I just talked to Amy.”
“Grabe?”
“That’s right.”
Amy Grabe was the SAC—the special agent in charge—of the FBI’s San Francisco field office. Dance knew the sharp, focused law enforcer well. The west-central region of the CBI extended north to the Bay area, so she’d had a number of opportunities to work with her. Dance’s late husband, an agent with the FBI’s local resident agency, had too.
Overby continued, “If we don’t get Pell soon, they’ve got a specialist I want on board.”
“A what?”
“Somebody in the bureau who handles situations like this.”
It was a jailbreak, Dance reflected. What kind of specialist? She thought of Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive.
O’Neil too was curious. “A negotiator?”
But Overby said, “No, he’s a cult expert. Deals a lot with people like Pell.”
Dance shrugged, an illustrator gesture—those that reinforce verbal content, in this case, her doubts. “Well, I’m not sure how useful that’d be.” She had worked many joint task forces. She wasn’t opposed to sharing jurisdiction with the Feds or anyone else, but involving other agencies inevitably slowed response times. Besides, she didn’t see how a cult leader would flee for his life any differently than a murderer or bank robber.
But Overby had already made up his mind; she knew it from his tone and body language. “He’s a brilliant profiler, can really get into their minds. The cult mentality is a lot different from your typical perp’s.”
Is it?
The agent in charge handed Dance a slip of paper with a name and phone number on it. “He’s in Chicago, finishing up some case, but he can be here tonight or tomorrow morning.”
“You sure about this, Charles?”
“With Pell we can use all the help we can get. Absolutely. And a big gun from Washington? More expertise, more person power.”
More places to stash the blame, Dance thought cynically, realizing now what had happened. Grabe had asked if the FBI could help out in the search for Pell, and Overby had jumped at the offer, thinking that if more innocents were injured or the escapee remained at large, there’d be two people on the podium at the press conference, not just himself alone. But she kept the smile on her face. “All right then. I hope we get him before we need to bother anybody else.”
“Oh, and Kathryn? I just wanted you to know. Amy wondered how the escape happened, and I told her your interrogation had nothing to do with it.”
“My . . . what?”
“It’s not going to be a problem. I told her there’s nothing you did that would’ve helped Pell escape.”
She felt the heat rise to her face, which undoubtedly was turning ruddy. Emotion does that; she’d spotted plenty of deception over the years because guilt and shame trigger blood flow.
So does anger.
Amy Grabe probably hadn’t even known that Dance had interrogated Pell, let alone suspected she’d done something careless that facilitated the escape.
But she—and the San Francisco office of the bureau—sure had that idea now.
Maybe CBI headquarters in Sacramento did too. She said stiffly, “He escaped from the lockup, not the interrogation room.”
“I was talking about Pell maybe getting information from you that he could use to get away.”
Dance sensed O’Neil tense. The detective had a strong streak of protectiveness when it came to those who hadn’t been in the business as long as he had. But he knew that Kathryn Dance was a woman who fought her own battles. He remained silent.
She was furious that Overby had said anything to Grabe. Now she understood: that was why he wanted CBI to run the case—if any other agency took charge, it would be an admission that the bureau was in some way responsible for the escape.
And Overby wasn’t through yet. “Now, about security . . . I’m sure it was tight. Special precautions with Pell. I told Amy you’d made sure of that.”
Since he hadn’t asked a question, she simply gazed back coolly and didn’t give him a crumb of reassurance.
He probably sensed he’d gone too far and, eyes ferreting away, said, “I’m sure things were handled well.”
Again, silence.
“Okay, I’ve got that press conference. My turn in the barrel.” He grimaced. “If you hear anything else, let me know. I’ll be on in about ten minutes.”
The man left.
TJ looked Dance over and said, in a thick southern accent, “Damn, so you’re the one forgot to lock the barn door when you were through interrogating the cows. That’s how they got away. I was wondrin’.”
O’Neil stifled a smile.
“Don’t get me started,” she muttered.
She walked to the window and looked out at the people who’d evacuated the courthouse, milling in front of the building. “I’m worried about that partner. Where is he, what’s he up to?”
“Who’d bust somebody like Daniel Pell outa the joint?” asked TJ.
Dance recalled Pell’s kinesic reaction in the interrogation when the subject of his aunt in Bakersfield arose. “I think whoever’s helping him got the hammer from his aunt. Pell’s her last name. Find her.” She had another thought. “Oh, and your buddy in the resident agency, down in Chico?”
“Yup?”
“He’s discreet, right?”
“We bar surf and ogle when we hang out. How discreet is that?”
“Can he check this guy out?” She held up the slip of paper containing the name of the FBI’s cult expert.
“He’d be game, I’ll bet. He says intrigue in the bureau’s better than intrigue in the barrio.” TJ jotted the name.
O’Neil took a call and had a brief conversation. He hung up and explained, “That was the warden at Capitola. I thought we should talk to the supervising guard on Pell’s cell block, see if he can tell us anything. He’s also bringing the contents of Pell’s cell with him.”
“Good.”
“Then there’s a fellow prisoner who claims to have some information about Pell. She’ll round him up and call us back.”
Dance’s cell phone rang, a croaking frog.
O’Neil lifted an eyebrow. “Wes or Maggie’ve been hard at work.”
It was a family joke, like stuffed animals in the purse. The children would reprogram the ringer of her phone when Dance wasn’t looking (any tones were fair game; the only rules: never silent, and no tunes from boy bands).
She hit the receive button. “Hello?”
“It’s me, Agent Dance.”
The background noise was loud and the “me” ambiguous, but the phrasing of her name told her the caller was Rey Carraneo.
“What’s up?”
“No sign of his partner or any other devices. Security wants to know if they can let everybody back inside. The fire marshal’s okayed it.”
Dance debated the matter with O’Neil. They decided to wait a little longer.
“TJ, go outside and help them search. I don’t like it that the accomplice’s unaccounted for.”
She recalled what her father had told her after he’d nearly had a run-in with a great white in the waters off northern Australia. “The shark you don’t see is always more dangerous than the one you do.”
Chapter 8
The stocky, bearded, balding man in his hard-worn fifties stood near the courthouse, looking over the chaos, his sharp eyes checking out everyone, the police, the guards, the civilians.
“Hey
, Officer, how you doing, you got a minute? Just like to ask you a few questions. . . . You mind saying a few words into the tape recorder? . . . Oh, sure, I understand. I’ll catch you later. Sure. Good luck.”
Morton Nagle had watched the helicopter swoop in low and ease to the ground to spirit away the injured cop.
He’d watched the men and women conducting the search, their strategy—and faces—making clear that they’d never run an escape.
He’d watched the uneasy crowds, thinking accidental fire, then thinking terrorists, then hearing the truth and looking even more scared than if al-Qaeda itself were behind the explosion.
As well they should, Nagle reflected.
“Excuse me, do you have a minute to talk? . . . Oh, sure. Not a problem. Sorry to bother you, Officer.”
Nagle milled through the crowds. Smoothing his wispy hair, then tugging up saggy tan slacks, he was studying the area carefully, the fire trucks, the squad cars, the flashing lights bursting with huge aureoles through the foggy haze. He lifted his digital camera and snapped some more pictures.
A middle-aged woman looked over his shabby vest—a fisherman’s garment with two dozen pockets—and battered camera bag. She snapped, “You people, you journalists, you’re like vultures. Why don’t you let the police do their job?”
He gave a chuckle. “I didn’t know I wasn’t.”
“You’re all the same.” The woman turned away and continued to stare angrily at the smoky courthouse.
A guard came up to him and asked if he’d seen anything suspicious.
Nagle thought, Now that’s a strange question. Sounds like something from an old-time TV show.
Just the facts, ma’am . . .
He answered, “Nope.”
Adding to himself, Nothing surprising to me. But maybe I’m the wrong one to ask.
Nagle caught a whiff of a terrible scent—seared flesh and hair—and, incongruously, gave another amused laugh.
Thinking about it now—Daniel Pell had put the idea in mind—he realized he chuckled at times that most people would consider inappropriate, if not tasteless. Moments like this: when looking over carnage. Over the years he’d seen plenty of violent death, images that would repel most people.
Images that often made Morton Nagle laugh.
It was a defense mechanism probably. A device to keep violence—a subject he was intimately familiar with—from eating away at his soul, though he wondered if the chuckling wasn’t an indicator that it already had.
Then an officer was making an announcement. People would soon be allowed back into the courthouse.
Nagle hitched up his pants, pulled his camera bag up higher on his shoulder and scanned the crowd. He spotted a tall, young Latino in a suit, clearly a plainclothes detective of some sort. The man was speaking to an elderly woman wearing a juror badge. They were off to the side, not many people around.
Good.
Nagle sized up the officer. Just what he wanted, young, gullible, trusting. And began slowly moving toward him.
Closing the distance.
The man moved on, oblivious to Nagle, looking for more people to interview.
When he was ten feet away, the big man slipped the camera strap around his neck, unzipped the bag, reached inside.
Five feet . . .
He stepped closer yet.
And felt a strong hand close around his arm. Nagle gasped and his heart gave a jolt.
“Just keep those hands where I can see them, how’s that?” The man was a short, fidgety officer with the California Bureau of Investigation. Nagle read the ID dangling from his neck.
“Hey, what—”
“Shhhhh,” hissed the officer, who had curly red hair. “And those hands? Remember where I want ’em? . . . Hey, Rey.”
The Latino joined them. He too had a CBI ID card. He looked Nagle up and down. Together they led him to the side of the courthouse, attracting the attention of everybody nearby.
“Look, I don’t know—”
“Shhhhh,” the wiry agent offered again.
The Latino frisked him carefully and nodded. Then he lifted Nagle’s press pass off his chest and showed it to the shorter officer.
“Hm,” he said. “This is a little out of date, wouldn’t you say?”
“Technically, but—”
“Sir, it’s four years out of date,” the Latino officer pointed out.
“That’s a big bowl of technical,” his partner said.
“I must’ve picked up the wrong one. I’ve been a reporter for—”
“So, if we called this paper, they’d say you’re a credentialed employee?”
If they called the paper they’d get a nonworking number.
“Look, I can explain.”
The short officer frowned. “You know, I sure would like an explanation. See, I was just talking to this groundskeeper, who told me that a man fitting your description was here about eight thirty this morning. There were no other reporters here then. And why would that be? Because there was no escape then. . . . Getting here before the story breaks. That’s quite a—whatta they call that, Rey?”
“Scoop?”
“Yeah, that’s quite a scoop. So, ’fore you do any explaining, turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
• • •
In the conference room on the second floor of the courthouse, TJ handed Dance what he’d found on Morton Nagle.
No weapons, no incendiary fuse, no maps of the courthouse or escape routes.
Just money, wallet, camera, tape recorder and thick notebook. Along with three true-crime books, his name on the cover and his picture on the back (appearing much younger, and hairier).
“He’s a paperback writer,” TJ sang, not doing justice to the Beatles.
Nagle was described in the author bio as “a former war correspondent and police reporter, who now writes books about crime. A resident of Scottsdale, Ariz., he is the author of thirteen works of nonfiction. He claims his other professions are gadabout, nomad and raconteur.”
“This doesn’t let you off the hook,” Dance snapped. “What’re you doing here? And why were you at the courthouse before the fire?”
“I’m not covering the escape. I got here early to get some interviews.”
O’Neil said, “With Pell? He doesn’t give them.”
“No, no, not Pell. With the family of Robert Herron. I heard they were coming to testify to the grand jury.”
“What about the fake press pass?”
“Okay, it’s been four years since I’ve been credentialed with a magazine or newspaper. I’ve been writing books full-time. But without a press pass you can’t get anywhere. Nobody ever looks at the date.”
“Almost never,” TJ corrected with a smile.
Dance flipped through one of the books. It was about the Peterson murder case in California a few years ago. It seemed well written.
TJ looked up from his laptop. “He’s clean, boss. At least no priors. DMV pic checks out too.”
“I’m writing a book. It’s all legit. You can check.”
He gave them the name of his editor in Manhattan. Dance called the large publishing company and spoke to the woman, whose attitude was, Oh, hell, what’s Morton got himself into now? But she confirmed that he’d signed a contract for a new book about Pell.
Dance said to TJ, “Uncuff him.”
O’Neil turned to the author and asked, “What’s the book about?”
“It isn’t like any true crime you’ve read before. It’s not about the murders. That’s been done. It’s about the victims of Daniel Pell. What their lives were like before the murders and, the ones who survived, what they’re like now. See, most nonfiction crime on TV or in books focuses only on the murderer himself and the crime—the gore, the gruesome aspects. The cheap stuff. I hate that. My book’s about Theresa Croyton—the girl who survived—and the family’s relatives and friends. The title’s going to be The Sleeping Doll. That’s what they called Theresa. I’m also going to
include the women who were in Pell’s quote Family, the ones he brainwashed. And all the other victims of Pell’s too. There are really hundreds of them, when you think about it. I see violent crime like dropping a stone into a pond. The ripples of consequence can spread almost forever.”
There was passion in his voice; he sounded like a preacher. “There’s so much violence in the world. We’re inundated with it and we get numb. My God, the war in Iraq? Gaza? Afghanistan? How many pictures of blown-up cars, how many scenes of wailing mothers did you see before you lost interest?
“When I was a war correspondent covering the Middle East and Africa and Bosnia, I got numb. And you don’t have to be there in person for that to happen. It’s the same thing in your own living room when you just see the news bites or watch gruesome movies—where there’re no real consequences for the violence. But if we want peace, if we want to stop violence and fighting, that’s what people need to experience, the consequences. You don’t do that by gawking at bloody bodies; you focus on lives changed forever by evil.
“Originally it was only going to be about the Croyton case. But then I find out that Pell killed someone else—this Robert Herron. I want to include everyone affected by his death too: friends, family. And now, I understand, two guards’re dead.”
The smile was still there but it was a sad smile and Kathryn Dance realized that his cause was one with which she, as a mother and Major Crimes agent who’d worked plenty of rape, assault and homicide cases, could empathize.
“This’s added another wrinkle.” He gestured around him. “It’s much harder to track down victims and family members in a cold case. Herron was killed about ten years ago. I was thinking . . .” Nagle’s voice faded and he was frowning, though inexplicably a sparkle returned to his eyes. “Wait, wait . . . Oh my God, Pell didn’t have anything to do with the Herron death, did he? He confessed to get out of Capitola so he could escape from here.”
“We don’t know about that,” Dance said judiciously. “We’re still investigating.”
Nagle didn’t believe her. “Did he fake evidence? Or get somebody to come forward and lie. I’ll bet he did.”
In a low, even tone Michael O’Neil said, “We wouldn’t want there to be any rumors that might interfere with the investigation.” When the chief deputy made suggestions in this voice people always heeded the advice.
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