“Listen to me, Pell. If you move one inch I will shoot you. Take the weapon in your left hand by the barrel and set it down. Now!”
“What? Sir, what are you talking about?”
No, no! He’d planned this so perfectly! He was breathless with rage. He gave a brief glance behind him. There was Reynolds, holding a large revolver in both hands. He knew what he was doing and didn’t seem the least bit nervous.
“Wait, wait, Prosecutor Reynolds. My name’s Hector Ramos. I’m the relief—”
He heard the click as the hammer on Reynolds’s gun cocked.
“Okay! I don’t know what this is about. But okay. Jesus.” Pell took the barrel in his left hand and crouched, lowering it to the deck.
When, with a screech, the black Toyota skidded into the driveway and braked to a stop, the horn blaring.
Pell dropped flat to his belly, swept up the gun and began firing in Reynolds’s direction. The prosecutor crouched and fired several shots himself but, panicked, missed. Pell then heard the distant keening of sirens. Torn between self-preservation and his raw lust to kill the man, he hesitated a second. But survival won out. He sprinted down the driveway, toward Jennie, who had opened the passenger door for him.
He tumbled inside and they sped away, Pell finding some bleak satisfaction in emptying his weapon toward the house, hoping for at least one mortal hit.
Chapter 35
Dance, Kellogg and James Reynolds stood in his dewy front lawn, amid pristine landscaping, lit by the pulse of colored lights.
The prosecutor’s first concern, he explained, was that no one had been hit by his, or Pell’s, slugs. He’d fired in defensive panic—he was still shaken—and even before the car had skidded away he was troubled that a bullet might have injured a neighbor. He’d run to the street to look at the car’s tags, but the vehicle was gone by then so he jogged to the houses nearby. No one had been injured by a stray shot, though. The deputy in the bushes outside the house would have some bad bruises, a concussion and very sore muscles, but nothing more serious than that, the medics reported.
When the doorbell rang and “Officer Ramos” announced his presence at the front door, Reynolds had actually been on the phone with Kathryn Dance, who was telling him urgently that Pell, possibly disguised as a Latino, knew where he lived and was planning to kill him. The prosecutor had drawn his weapon and sent his wife and son into the basement to call 911. Reynolds had slipped out a side door and come up behind the man.
He’d been seconds away from shooting to kill; only the girlfriend’s intervention had saved Pell.
The prosecutor now stepped away to see how his wife was doing, then returned a moment later. “Pell took all this risk just for revenge? I sure called that one wrong.”
“No, James, it wasn’t revenge.” Without mentioning her name—reporters were already starting to show up—Dance explained about Samantha McCoy’s insights into Pell’s psychology and told him about the incident in Seaside, where the biker had laughed at him. “You did the same thing in court. When he tried to control you, remember? That meant you were immune to him. And, even worse, you controlled him—you turned him into Manson, into somebody else, somebody he had no respect for. He was your puppet. Pell couldn’t allow that. You were too much of a danger to him.”
“That’s not revenge?”
“No, it was about his future plans,” Dance said. “He knew you wouldn’t be intimidated, and that you had some insights and information about him—maybe even something in the case notes. And he knew that you were the sort who wouldn’t rest until he was recaptured. Even if you were retired.”
She remembered the prosecutor’s determined visage in his house.
Whatever I can do . . .
“You wouldn’t be afraid to help us track him down. That made you a threat. And, like he said, threats have to be eliminated.”
“What do you mean by the ‘future’? What’s he got in mind?”
“That’s the big question. We just don’t know.”
“But how the hell did you manage to call two minutes before he showed up?”
Dance shrugged. “Susan Pemberton.”
“The woman killed yesterday.”
“She worked for Eve Brock.”
His eyes flashed in recognition. “The caterer, I mean, the event-planner who handled Julia’s wedding. He found me through her. Brilliant.”
“At first I thought Pell used Susan to get into the office and destroy some evidence. Or to get information about an upcoming event. I kept picturing her office, all the photos on the walls. Some were of local politicians, some were of weddings. Then I remembered seeing the pictures of your daughter’s wedding in your living room. The connection clicked. I called Eve Brock and she told me that, yes, you’d been a client.”
“How’d you know about the Latino disguise?”
She explained that Susan had been seen in the company of a slim Latino man not long before she’d been killed. Linda had told them about Pell’s use of disguises. “Becoming Latino seemed a bit far-fetched . . . but apparently it wasn’t.” She nodded at a cluster of bullet holes in the prosecutor’s front wall.
Finished with their canvassing, TJ and Rey Carraneo arrived to report that there’d been no sightings of the killer’s new wheels.
Michael O’Neil too joined them. He’d been with the crime scene officers as they’d worked the street and the front yard.
O’Neil nodded politely toward Kellogg, as if the recent disagreements were long forgotten. Crime scene, O’Neil reported, hadn’t discovered much at all. They’d found shell casings from a 9mm pistol, some useless tire prints (they were so worn the technicians couldn’t ID the brand) and “about a million samples of trace that’ll lead us nowhere.” The latter information was delivered with the sour hyperbole O’Neil slung out when frustrated.
And, he added, the guard gave only a groggy and inarticulate description of his attacker and the girl with him, but he couldn’t add anything to what they already knew.
Reynolds called his daughter, since Pell now knew her and her husband’s names, and told her to leave town until the killer was recaptured. Reynolds’s wife and other son would join them, but the prosecutor refused to leave. He was going to stay in the area—though at a separate hotel, under police guard—until he’d had a chance to review the Croyton murders files, which would arrive from the county court archives soon. He was more determined than ever to help them get Pell.
Most of the officers left—two stayed to guard Reynolds and his family, and two were keeping the reporters back—and soon Kellogg, O’Neil and Dance were alone, standing on the fragrant grass.
“I’m going back to Point Lobos,” Dance said to both of the men. Then to Kellogg: “You want me to drop you off at HQ, for your car?”
“I’ll go with you to the inn,” Kellogg said. “If that’s okay.”
“Sure. What about you, Michael? Want to come with us?” She could see that Millar’s death was still weighing heavily on him.
The chief deputy glanced at Kellogg and Dance, standing side by side, like a couple in front of their suburban house saying goodnight to guests after a dinner party. He said, “Think I’ll pass. I’ll make a statement to the press then stop by to see Juan’s family.” He exhaled, sending a stream of breath into the cool night. “Been a long day.”
• • •
He was exhausted.
And his round belly contained pretty much an entire bottle of Vallejo Springs’s smooth Merlot wine.
There was no way Morton Nagle was going to drive home tonight through a tangle of combat traffic in Contra Costa County, then the equally daunting roads around San Jose. He’d found a motel not far from the vineyards he’d moped around in all day and checked in. He washed his face and hands, ordered a club sandwich from room service and uncorked the wine.
Waiting for the food to arrive, he called his wife and spoke to her and the children, then got through to Kathryn Dance.
She told him
that Pell had tried to kill the prosecutor in the Croyton trial.
“Reynolds? No!”
“Everybody’s all right,” Dance said. “But he got away.”
“You think maybe that was his goal? Why he was staying in the area?”
The agent explained she didn’t think so. She believed he’d intended to kill Reynolds as a prelude to his real plan, because he was frightened of the prosecutor. But what that real plan might be continued to elude them.
Dance sounded tired, discouraged.
Apparently he did too.
“Morton,” Dance asked, “are you all right?”
“I’m just wondering how bad my headache’ll be tomorrow morning.”
She gave a sour laugh.
Room service knocked on the door. He said good-bye and hung up the phone.
Nagle ate the meal without much appetite and channel surfed, seeing virtually nothing that flickered by on the screen.
The large man lay back in bed, kicking off his shoes. As he sipped from the plastic glass of wine he was thinking of a color photo of Daniel Pell in Time magazine years ago. The killer’s head was turned partially away but the unearthly blue eyes stared straight into the camera. They seemed to follow you wherever you were, and you couldn’t shake the thought that even if you closed the magazine, Pell would continue to stare into your soul.
Nagle was angry that he’d failed in his attempt to get the aunt’s agreement, that the trip here had been a waste of time.
But then he told himself that, at least, he’d stayed true to his journalist’s ethics and protected his sources—and protected the girl. He’d been as persuasive as he could with the aunt but hadn’t stepped over the moral boundary and told Kathryn Dance the girl’s new name and location.
No, Nagle realized, he’d done everything right in a difficult situation.
Growing drowsy, he found he was feeling better. He’d go home tomorrow, back to his wife and children. He’d do the best he could with the book without Theresa. He’d heard from Rebecca Sheffield and she was game to go ahead—she’d been making a lot of notes on life in the Family—and wanted to sit down with him when he returned. She was sure she could convince Linda Whitfield to be interviewed, as well. And there were certainly no lack of victims of Daniel Pell to write about.
Finally, drunk and more or less content, Morton Nagle drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 36
They sat around the TV, leaning forward, watching the news like three reunited sisters.
Which in a way they were, thought Samantha McCoy.
“Can you believe that?” Rebecca asked in a low, angry voice.
Linda, who with Sam was cleaning up the remnants of a room-service dinner, shook her head in dismay.
James Reynolds, the prosecutor, had been the target of Daniel Pell.
Sam was very disturbed by the assault. She remembered Reynolds well. A stern but reasonable man, he’d negotiated what her lawyer had said were fair plea bargains. Sam, in fact, had thought he was quite lenient. There was no evidence that they’d had any involvement in the Croyton deaths—Sam, like the others, was stunned and horrified at the news. Still, the Family’s record of petty crimes was extensive and if he’d wanted to, James Reynolds could have gone to trial and probably gotten much longer sentences from a jury.
But he was sympathetic to what they’d been through; he realized they’d fallen under the spell of Daniel Pell. He called it the Stockholm syndrome, which Sam had looked up. It was an emotional connection that victims develop with their hostage takers or kidnappers. Sam was happy to accept Reynolds’s leniency, but she wasn’t going to let herself off the hook by blaming her actions on some psychological excuse. Every single day she felt bad about the thefts and letting Pell run her life. She hadn’t been kidnapped; she’d lived with the Family voluntarily.
A picture came on the TV: an artist’s rendering of Pell with darker skin, moustache and black hair, glasses and a vague Latino look. His disguise.
“That’s way bizarre,” Rebecca offered.
The knock on the door startled them. Kathryn Dance’s voice announced her arrival. Linda rose to let her in.
Samantha liked her—a cop with a great smile, who wore an iPod like her gun and had shoes with bold daisies embossed on the straps. She’d like a pair of shoes like that. Sam rarely bought fun or frivolous things for herself. Sometimes she’d window-shop and think, Neat, I’d like one of those. But then her conscience tweaked, and she decided, No, I don’t deserve it.
Winston Kellogg too was smiling, but his was different from Dance’s. It seemed like his badge, something to be flashed, saying: I’m really not what you think. I’m a federal agent, but I’m human too. He was appealing. Kellogg wasn’t really handsome, certainly not in a classic way. He had a bit of double chin, was a little round in the middle. But his manner and voice and eyes made him sexy.
Glancing at the TV screen, Dance asked, “You heard?”
Linda said, “I’m so happy he’s all right. His family was there too?”
“They’re all fine.”
“On the news, they mentioned a deputy was hurt?” Rebecca asked.
Kellogg said, “He’ll be all right.” He went on to explain how Pell and his partner had planned the man’s murder, killing the other woman, Susan Pemberton, yesterday solely to find out where Reynolds lived.
Sam thought of what had struck her years ago: the obsessed, unstoppable mind of Daniel Pell.
Dance said, “Well, I wanted to thank you. The information you gave us saved his life.”
“Us?” Linda asked.
“Yep.” She explained how the observations they’d offered earlier—particularly about Pell’s reaction to being laughed at and about disguises—had let her deduce what the killer might be up to.
Rebecca was shaking her head, her expressive lips tight. She said, “But he did get away from you, I noticed.”
Sam was embarrassed at Rebecca’s abrasive comment. It always amazed her how people wouldn’t hesitate to criticize or insult, even when there was no purpose to it.
“He did,” Dance said, looking the taller woman in the eyes. “We didn’t get there in time.”
“The newscaster said Reynolds tried to capture him himself,” Rebecca said.
“That’s right,” Kellogg said.
“So maybe he’s the reason Pell got away.”
Dance held her eye easily. Sam was so envious of that ability. Her husband would often say, “Hey, what’s the matter? Look at me.” It seemed that her eighteen-month-old son was the only person in the world she could look in the eye.
Dance said to Rebecca, “Possibly. But Pell was at the front door with a gun. James didn’t really have any choice.”
Rebecca shrugged. “Still. One of him, all of you.”
“Come on,” Linda snapped. “They’re doing the best they can. You know Daniel. He thinks out everything. He’s impossible to get ahead of.”
The FBI agent said, “No, you’re right, Rebecca. We have to work harder. We’re on the defensive. But we will get him, I promise.”
Samantha noticed Kellogg glance at Kathryn Dance and Sam thought: Damn, he’s sweet on her, the phrase from one of the hundreds of old-time books she’d spent her summers reading as a girl. As for the policewoman? Hm, could be. Sam couldn’t tell. But she didn’t waste much time thinking about the romantic life of two people she’d known for one day. They were part of a world she wanted to leave behind as fast as possible.
Rebecca relented. “Well, if we got you that close last time, maybe we’ll get you there five minutes earlier the next.”
Dance nodded. “Thank you for that. And everything. We really appreciate it. Now, a couple of things. Just to reassure you, I’ve added another deputy outside. There’s no reason to believe that Pell has any clue you’re here, but I thought it couldn’t hurt.”
“Won’t say no to that,” Rebecca said.
The agent glanced at the clock. It was 10:15. “I’m proposing
we call it quits for tonight. If you think of anything else about Pell or the case and want to talk about it, I can be here in twenty minutes. Otherwise, we’ll reconvene in the morning. You’ve got to be exhausted.”
Samantha said, “Reunions have a way of doing that.”
• • •
Parking in the back of the Sea View, Jennie shut off the Toyota’s engine. Daniel Pell didn’t get out. He felt numb and everything seemed surreal: the lights ghostly auras in the fog, the slow-motion sound of the waves piling up on Asilomar Beach.
An alternate world, out of some weird movie the cons would watch in Capitola and talk about for months afterward.
All because of the bizarre incident at the prosecutor’s house.
“Are you all right, sweetie?”
He said nothing.
“I don’t like it that you’re unhappy.” She rested a hand on his leg. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you.”
He was thinking of that instant eight years ago, at the Croyton trial, when he had turned his blue eyes, blue like ice, on prosecutor James Reynolds, to intimidate, to make him lose his concentration. But Reynolds had glanced his way and snickered. Then turned to the jury with a wink and a sour joke.
And they had laughed too.
All his efforts were wasted. The spell was broken. Pell had been convinced that he could will his way to an acquittal, to make the jury believe that Jimmy Newberg was the killer, that Pell was a victim too; all he’d done was act in self-defense.
Reynolds, laughing, like Pell was some kid making faces at adults.
Calling him the Son of Manson . . .
Controlling me!
That had been the unforgivable sin. Not prosecuting Pell—no, many people had done that. But controlling him. Jerking him about like a puppet to be laughed at.
And not long after that the jury foreman had read the verdict. He saw his precious mountaintop vanishing, his freedom, his independence, the Family. All gone. His whole life destroyed by a laugh.
And now Reynolds—a threat to Pell as serious as Kathryn Dance—would go underground, be far more difficult to find.
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