Solitude Creek

Chapter 19

No. Oh, no...

Having deposited the children at school and nursed a coffee in the car while having a good-morning chat with Jon Boling, Kathryn Dance was halfway to CBI headquarters when she heard the news.

‘... authorities in Sacramento are now saying that the Solitude Creek roadhouse tragedy may have been carried out intentionally. They’re searching for an unknown subject — that is, in police parlance, an unsub — who is a white male, under forty years of age, with brown hair. Medium build. Over six feet tall. He was last seen wearing a green jacket with a logo of some type.’

‘Jesus, my Lord,’ she muttered.

She grabbed her iPhone, fumbled it, lunged, but then decided against trying to retrieve the unit. This angry, she’d be endangering both her career and her life to text what she wanted to.

In ten minutes she was parking in the CBI lot — actually left skid marks, albeit modest ones, on the asphalt. A deep breath, thinking, thinking — there were a number of land mines to negotiate here — but then the anger lifted its head and she was out of the door and storming inside.

Past her own office.

‘Hi, Kathryn. Something wrong?’ This from Dance’s administrative assistant, Maryellen Kresbach. The short, bustling woman, mother of three, wore complex, precarious high-heels, black and white, on her feet and impressive coifs on her head, a mass of curly brown hair, sprayed carefully into submission.

Dance smiled, just to let the world know that nobody in this portion of the building was in danger. Then onward. She strode to Overby’s office, walked in without knocking and found him on a Skype call.

‘Charles.’

‘Ah. Well. Kathryn.’

She swallowed the planned invective and sat down.

On the screen was a swarthy, broad man in a dark suit and white shirt, striped tie, red and blue. He was looking slightly away from the webcam as he regarded his own computer screen.

Overby said, ‘Kathryn. You remember Commissioner Ramón Santos, with the Federal Police in Chihuahua?’

‘Commissioner.’

‘Agent Dance, yes, hello.’ The man was not smiling. Overby, too, was sitting stiffly in his chair. Apparently the conversation had not been felicitous thus far. The commissioner was one of the senior people in Mexico working on Operation Pipeline. Not everyone south of the border was in favor of the effort, of course: drugs and guns meant big money, even — especially — for the police down there.

‘Now, I was telling Charles. It is a most unfortunate thing that has just happened. A big shipment. A load of one hundred M-Four machine-guns, some fifty eighteen-caliber H & Ks. Two thousand rounds.’

Overby asked, ‘They were delivered through the—’

‘Yes. Through the Salinas hub. They came from Oakland.’

‘We didn’t hear,’ Overby said.

‘No. No, you didn’t. An informant down here told us. He had first-hand knowledge, obviously, to be that accurate.’ Santos sighed. ‘We found the truck but it was empty. Those weapons are on our streets now. And responsible for several deaths. This is very bad.’

She recalled that the commissioner was, of course, adamant to stop the cartels from shipping their heroin and cocaine north. But what upset him more was the flood of weapons into Mexico, a country where owning a gun was illegal under most circumstances although it had one of the highest death-by-gunshot rates in the world.

And virtually all those guns were smuggled in from the US.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Overby said.

‘I’m not convinced we’re doing all we can.’

Except that the ‘we’ was not accurate. His meaning: ‘You aren’t doing all you can.’

‘Commissioner,’ Overby said, ‘we have forty officers from five agencies working on Operation Pipeline. We’re making progress. Slow, yes, but it still is progress.’

‘Slow,’ the man said. Dance looked over the streaming video. His office was very similar to Overby’s, though without the golf and tennis trophies. The pictures on his wall were of him standing beside Mexican politicians and, perhaps, celebs. The same category of poses as her boss’s pix.

The commissioner asked, ‘Agent Dance, what is your assessment?’

‘I—’

‘Agent Dance is temporarily assigned to another case.’

‘Another case? I see.’

He had not been informed about the Serrano situation.

‘Commissioner,’ Dance pressed on, even under these circumstances not one to be shushed, ‘we’ve interdicted four shipments in the past month—’

‘And eleven got through, according to our intelligence officers. Including this particularly deadly one, the one I was mentioning.’

She said, ‘Yes, I know about the others. They were small. Very little ammo.’

‘Ah, but, Agent Dance, the size of the shipment probably is of no consequence to the family killed by a single machine-gun.’

‘Of course,’ she said. Nothing to argue about there.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Overby. ‘Well, we’ll look at the statistics, year end. See the trend.’

The commissioner stared at the webcam for a moment, perhaps wondering what on earth Overby was talking about. He said, ‘I have a meeting now. I will look into the situation. And I will look forward to hearing next month about a dozen interdictions. At least. Adios.’

The screen went blank.

‘Testy,’ she said.

‘Who can blame him? Over fifteen hundred people were murdered last year in his state alone.’

Then Dance’s anger returned. ‘You heard?’

‘About what?’

‘It was on the radio. The Solitude Creek unsub’s description went out, after all. It’s all over the press. Now he knows we’re on to him.’

Overby was looking at the blank computer screen. ‘Ah, well. Yes. I heard too.’

‘How did it happen? I mean, did you release it?’

Overby loved any chance to chat with the press. But she doubted he’d directly undermine her, especially after he’d agreed to back her position — besides, if he’d done it, the story would have featured his name prominently.

‘Me? Of course not. It was... I’m not sure but I think it was Steve Foster. It came from Sacramento. His turf.’ He did seem genuinely upset, though hardly as livid as she.

But she understood he was troubled for a different reason. She was concerned about spooking the unsub. Overby had been out-politicked. He’d brought Foster in to make sure the CBI got some credit for running the case, since Dance had been sidelined. But Foster had taken it one step further and made sure the kudos would go to Headquarters, Sacramento. Not the West Central Division of CBI.

Why didn’t that surprise her? ‘Whose case is it?’

‘Well, technically, Kathryn, it’s not ours.’

‘Oh, come on. We can play this fiction only so far. Foster’s here on the Guzman Connection thing. He has nothing to do with my case.’

‘O’Neil’s case. MCSO’s case. I—’

‘Charles! Never mind. I’ll go talk to him.’

‘Do you think that’s a good—’

But she was already walking down the hall. And into the Guzman Connection task-force room. Overby appeared a moment later.

‘Hey,’ Jimmy Gomez said.

‘Steve.’ Both men with that name turned but Dance’s eyes were squarely on Foster.

‘It was a misunderstanding,’ the bulky man said, and looked back to his computer. Not even trying to deny it.

‘We agreed we weren’t going to release the description. We weren’t even going to say it was a murder investigation.’

He grumbled, ‘I should’ve been more specific when I was talking to my people in Sacramento. Should’ve told them not to speak to the press.’

‘Who was it?’ Dance asked.

‘Oh, hard to say. I don’t know what happened. It’s a mystery. I’m sorry.’

Though he was no more perplexed by it than he was contrite.

‘What’s this all about?’ asked stolid Carol Allerton, the DEA star. Dance reminded her of the debate about releasing the description of their perp. As she spoke, she kept her eyes on Foster.

‘It made the news?’ Carol Allerton asked. ‘Ouch.’ Indicating which way she would have voted.

‘It made the news,’ Overby said, with a wrinkly mouth.

To Foster, Dance said, ‘Why would you even discuss it? With anybody in Sacramento? It’s a West Central Division investigation. Our investigation.’

He wasn’t used to being cross-examined.

‘You mean a Monterey Sheriff’s investigation.’

‘I mean not Sacramento’s.’ Her lips tautened.

‘Well, sorry about that. I told somebody, they talked to the press. I should’ve told ’em to keep the lid on. It was a fuck-up. But, bright side, I’ll bet somebody’s already spotted some could-bes. And’ll call it in. Anytime now. You may have your boy before sundown, Kathryn.’

‘This morning Michael and I had every mobile unit on the Peninsula to start making sweeps of venues that might make good locations for other attacks. All day long. Shopping mall, churches, movie theaters. I don’t know what they’re going to be looking for now. If our perp heard the same news show I did, there’s not going to be any brown-haired man in a green jacket to spot.’

Foster wouldn’t back down. ‘That presupposes your unsub’s going to try this again. Is there any evidence to that effect?’

‘Not specifically. But my assessment is it’s a strong possibility.’ And she certainly wasn’t going to take the chance that there’d be no other attack.

Foster didn’t need to reiterate his opinion of Dance’s ability to make assessment.

He said, ‘It’s probably moot. He’s a thousand miles away by now.’

Chapter 20

Antioch March had changed majors four times in three years at two schools. Distraction, boredom and, truth be told, the Get kept him jumping from department to department (and finally drove him out of both Northwestern and Chicago altogether, without any degree, despite his near-perfect academic record).

Still, he’d picked up some insights in various classes. He was thinking of one now, recalling the neo-Gothic classroom overlooking the north shore of Lake Michigan. Psychology. March had been fascinated to learn that there are only five basic fears.

For instance, take the fear of sharks, one that particularly interested him. That’s merely a sub-category of the fear of mutilation: having part of our body damaged or excised. More broadly, fear of injury.

The four other basic fears: of physical death, of ego death (embarrassment and shame), of separation (from Mommy, from the drugs we inhale so desperately, from our lover) and of loss of autonomy (claustrophobia on a physical level to being dominated by an abusive spouse).

March remembered the cold November day when he’d heard about them in a lecture. Truly mesmerizing.

And now he was about to put several to good use. Fear of physical death, of mutilation and loss of autonomy, all rolled into one. A movie theater would be his next target.

He had parked his car in a strip mall about a hundred yards from the Marina Hills Cineplex, just off Highway One in Marina. He was walking toward the theaters now.

Don’t we love the comfort of the lights going down, the trailers coming to an end, the film starting? Waiting to be exhilarated, amused, thrilled — laughing or crying. Why is a theater so much better than Netflix or cable? Because the real world is gone.

Until the real world comes crashing in.

In the form of smoke or gunshots.

And then comfort becomes constriction.

Fear of physical death, fear of mutilation and, most deliciously, fear of loss of autonomy — when the crowd takes over. You become a helpless cell in a creature whose sole goal is to survive, yet in attempting to do so it will sacrifice some of itself: those cells trampled or suffocated or changed for ever, thanks to snapped spines or piercing ribs.

He now examined the Marina Hills Cineplex, regarding the parking lot, the entrance, the service doors. This was one of the older multiplexes in the area, dating to the seventies — it featured only four theaters, ranging from three hundred seats to six hundred. It showed first-run movies, along with an occasional art film, and competed with the big boy up at Del Monte Center by discounting tickets (if you were fifty-nine, you were a senior. How ’bout that?) and offering free cheese powder with the popcorn (which was still overpriced).

March knew this because after meeting with an Indonesian tsunami-relief charity for the Hand to Heart website he’d been to see a film here: When She’s Alone, a slasher flick, which wasn’t bad — like a lot of such films nowadays, in this age of inexpensive technology, the effects were good and the acting passable. Some clever motifs (stained glass, for instance: the colored shards turned out to be the killer’s weapon of choice).

He’d also carefully examined the exits. Each theater had only two ways by which patrons could leave: the entrance, which led to a narrow hallway off the lobby, and the emergency exit in the back. The latter was a double door, wide enough to accommodate a crowd intent on escaping... if they weren’t too unruly.

But tonight the back doors would not be in play.

Six hundred people speeding through the single door to the lobby.

Perfect.

He looked over the parking lot keenly, noting trash cans, lamp-posts and, more important, the feeble landscaping — excellent camouflage.

Okay, time to get to work.

He hiked his gym bag onto his shoulder and started toward the theater. The hour was early and the place was largely deserted at this time. A few employees’ cars, parked, as ordered, in the back of the lot.

Another car happened to turn in and make its way to the back of the theater, not far from March. A tall, balding man got out and started toward the back service door, fishing keys from his pocket. He glanced at March and froze.

His eyes took in the green jacket, the utility logo, the dark slacks, the hat, sunglasses.

And those eyes explained everything.

Someone had seen him at Solitude Creek. He guessed his description had been on the news.

Hell. Antioch March had been positive that he hadn’t been seen last night, circling the parking lot, stealing the truck and maneuvering it in front of the doors. Starting the fire near the club’s HVAC system. He’d changed his clothes just afterward but there had been a twenty-minute window during which somebody could have spotted him in his worker’s garb, which he wore now.

The man was fishing a phone from his pocket.

Leave, March told himself. Instantly.

He turned. And that was when he noticed something else. Parked in the shade on the lawn nearby was an unmarked police car. It was pointed directly at the theater. If March had walked twenty feet further, the officer inside would have seen him. And if the theater employee recognized March, certainly the police would have his description.

Luck. Pure luck had saved him.

As he walked slowly toward the mall where his car was parked, a hundred yards away, he noted that the police officer didn’t look in his direction. There would be some delay, if not miscommunication, in transmitting to the officer the information that the suspect had been spotted there.

If either the employee or the officer followed he’d have to pull his Glock from the gym bag and use it. March walked a block before unzipping the bag, gripping the gun and turning.

No. No one was following.

Now March stripped off the green jacket, stuffed it into the bag and began to sprint. He leaped into the gray Honda Accord, pressing the start button before the door was closed. The gym bag, heavy with his tools of the trade, was on the passenger seat and it set off the warning ding about neglecting to put on the seatbelt. As he headed out the driveway slowly, he eased it to the floor. He had to be very careful of the contents. The dinging stopped.

He felt a wave of anger that the theater had been denied him as a perfect place for the second attack, which had been inspired by the ‘national disaster correspondent’ he’d listened to on TV after sex with Calista: What this man did was akin to the classic situation of yelling ‘Fire’ in a crowded movie theater.

Angry, yes. But as he cruised through traffic he glanced into the rear-view mirror and noticed something. He decided that there might just be a silver lining to the debacle.

He circled around and pulled into a space not far from the theater he’d just left; it was perfect for his purpose. And, it turned out, good for another as well: who doesn’t love a nice, salty Egg McMuffin and some steaming coffee this time of the morning?

Chapter 21

Kathryn Dance walked into the Gals’ Wing.

This was an area of the CBI’s West Central Division that, purely coincidentally, housed the four women who worked there: Dance, Connie Ramirez, the most decorated CBI agent in the office, Grace Yuan, the office administrator, and Maryellen Kresbach.

The name of the wing came from a male agent who, trying to impress a date on a tour of his workplace, had referred to the area as such. It probably wasn’t the recurring vandalism of his office, including feminine hygiene products, that had driven him out of the CBI but Dance liked to think that that had helped.

Though, ironically, the women had decided unanimously to keep the designation. A badge of pride.

A warning too.

She accepted the coffee Maryellen offered, thanked her and, palming one of the woman’s incredible cookies, headed into her office.

‘Nice shoes. Okay. Excellent.’ Maryellen was eyeing Dance’s Stuart Weitzman Filigree sandals, brown leather (and, Dance was proud to say, bought at less than half price). They matched her long coffee-colored linen skirt. Her sweater today was a ribbed off-white, the sports coat black. Today’s concession to color was a bright elastic tie Maggie had twined at the end of her mother’s French braid. Red.

She acknowledged the compliment — Maryellen was a woman who knew wicked shoes when she saw them.

In her office she dropped into her desk chair, thinking she’d have to tame the squeak, then, as always, forgetting about it.

She had just returned from the Marina Hills Cineplex, where there’d been a sighting of a man suspected of being the Solitude Creek unsub. The manager of the theater had spotted someone wearing the same clothes as the witness had described, about the same build. The suspect noted that he’d been recognized and fled, pretty much confirming that he was their perp.

Dance and the others had conducted a canvass but had found no other witnesses who’d seen the man. No vehicles and no further description. She’d been troubled to learn that one of the police cars on the lookout for the unsub had been stationed in front of the theater; she wondered if, because of Steve Foster’s ‘accidental’ release of the perp’s description, the manager had spooked him away before he got into view of the cop.

Sometimes, she reflected, your colleagues’ mistakes and carelessness — as well as your own — can be as much of an adversary as the perps you’re pursuing.

The miss was, of course, frustrating enough. But far more troubling was that he’d apparently been planning another attack. Not, Steve Number One, a thousand miles away at all. Perhaps, since he knew he’d been spotted, he’d now flee the area. Certainly he was going to change his appearance or at least ditch the clothes. But was he still determined to strike again? She sent out a second memo to all local law enforcers to alert managers of venues that she’d confirmed their unsub had attempted a second attack.

Reaching for the phone to call Michael O’Neil, she was interrupted by TJ Scanlon. He was in a T-shirt that bore the name Beck (not, like you’d think, the Grateful Dead). He was in jeans too. And a sport coat, striped. It was of the Summer of Love era and might actually have come from the 1960s; TJ stocked his hippie house in Carmel Valley with counterculture artifacts from an era and way of life that had ended long before he was born.

He dropped into the chair across from her.

‘Oh-oh, boss. Oh-oh and a half. Something wrong?’

‘You didn’t hear? Our friend from Sacramento leaked the description of the unsub.’

‘Oh, man. Foster?’

‘Yep.’ She added, ‘And somebody spotted the perp.’

‘Good news but then, given your expression, I guess it isn’t.’

‘He spotted the spotter and vanished.’

‘Hell. So he’s left town.’

‘Or become a quick-change artist — who knows? Platform shoes. Dyed his hair. New clothes. And,’ she added grimly, ‘maybe he’s still going forward, targeting someplace else. Right now. Before we can regroup.’

She told him about the movie theater, where the unsub had apparently been planning a new attack.

The young man nodded. ‘Right up his alley. Crowded multiplex.’

Dance glanced at the folder in the agent’s hand.

TJ said, ‘Something helpful, maybe. I tracked down that girl. Trish.’

Dance had given him the job of finding the teenager she’d met at the Solitude Creek crime scene.

‘Michelle Cooper — the mother who died. Her daughter’s Trish Martin. Her father’s name.’

Like Maggie and Wes were Swenson.

‘The girl’s seventeen. Don’t have her mobile but here’s the mother’s home number.’ He added, ‘It’s on Seventeen Mile Drive.’

Dance could see the scenario. Husband cheats on wife, she catches him, he pays through the nose and foots the bill for a house in the poshest neighborhood of Pebble Beach. ‘You have the father’s address and number? Mr Friendly. She’d be staying with him now, I’d guess.’

‘Sorry, didn’t get it. Want me to check?’

‘I’ll try her mother’s first.’

As it turned out, though, there wouldn’t be any conversations of any kind.

‘Hello?’ A man’s voice. Abrupt. Hell, she knew who it was.

‘I’m calling for Trish Martin.’

‘Who is this?’

Unfortunately, you had to play the game honestly. ‘Agent Kathryn Dance, the California Bureau of Investigation. Is this Mr Martin? I—’

‘Yeah, I met you. I remember. How did you know I was here?’

Odd question.

‘I didn’t. I was calling for Trish. It’s important that I talk to her. I’m hoping—’

‘Why?’

‘There’s been a development in the investigation. The doors at Solitude Creek were blocked intentionally. Your ex-wife’s death, the others, they were homicides, not accidental.’

A pause. ‘I heard. It was on the news. Some guy they’re looking for. A workman or something.’

‘That’s right. And we’re canvassing to see if anybody might’ve seen him. Your daughter seems intelligent, perceptive. I’m hoping—’

‘She’s too upset.’

‘I understand it’s a difficult time for her, for your whole family. But it’s important that we understand exactly what happened there.’

‘Well, you’ll have do that without my daughter.’ A voice from nearby. He said, away from the phone, ‘It’s nobody. Keep at it, honey.’

That would be Trish. She’d be moving in with her father, Dance guessed. She was probably packing.

‘Mr Martin, my specialty is interviewing people. I’ve spoken to hundreds of teenagers, often in traumatic situations. I promise you, I’ll be very sensitive to Trish’s frame of mind. I—’

He growled. ‘And if you call us again, I’ll get a restraining order against you.’

Dance said, ‘Hmm, well, Mr Martin, there really isn’t a mechanism for doing that. Why don’t we just take a step back and—’

He hung up on her.

Dance wondered if one of the grounds for divorce had been mental cruelty against his ex, in addition to cheating on her.

She dropped the phone into the cradle. TJ was looking at her. ‘Scratch her off the list. Probably didn’t see anything anyway. Still—’

‘You hate itches, boss.’

True, she did.

‘Anything helpful on the canvassing?’

TJ had continued to talk to those who’d been at the club, sifting for insights, possible motives and suspects. ‘Nothing more on revenge by disgruntled employees or patrons. I thought I’d check to see if there was a motive to hurt anyone in the band, or destroy careers.’

‘Good.’ She hadn’t thought about that.

‘But I don’t think so. The music world’s fragile nowadays — the margins aren’t big enough to murder anyone to get ahead. Hey, boss, was wondering. Does “gruntled” mean you’re happy?’

She rummaged in her drawer and found an old Timex, battery-powered. She strapped it on and glanced at the time. Then lowered her voice. ‘How’s the Serrano situation?’

He said, ‘About an hour. It’s set up. I just talked to Al Stemple.’

Stemple, big and quiet and rather scary, was the closest thing the CBI had to a cowboy. Well, to a John Wayne. An investigative agent, like any other, he specialized in tactical situations. Given the unstable nature of the Serrano situation, it was thought best to have a CBI strongman involved.

He rose and left. In his wake she was sure she detected a waft of patchouli aftershave or cologne.

Far out...

A few minutes later Dance happened to be looking into the doorway as Michael O’Neil appeared. He was in a dark plaid sports coat, navy blue shirt and jeans. Dance believed his clothes were better pressed now that he was divorced than when he’d been married to Anne, who was not known as the queen of domesticity. Though this might be her imagination, she allowed.

‘Saw TJ. He was saying nothing turned up on the canvass?’

‘No. We’ve talked to probably seven-eighths of the people who were at the club. No one spotted any potential perps.’ She told him TJ had looked into jealous musicians too.

‘Good call.’

‘But nothing.’ She asked him, ‘Anything more on the theater?’

‘Nope. Full canvass, security-video review. No vehicle. Nothing further. What was that about? Releasing the descrip of our boy? Overby?’

She puffed air from her lips. ‘Came from Steve Foster. He’s with us — CBI — in Sacramento. He’s claiming it was an accident. Blaming, quote, “somebody” in his office. But he let it leak. Power play, I’m sure.’

‘Brother.’

‘It’s not his case. He doesn’t care.’

‘You think our boy’s rabbited?’

‘I’d be gone,’ she said. ‘But then I didn’t set up a stampede and kill three people. I don’t know what makes him tick. He might be in Missouri or Washington State by now. He might be planning to attack the aquarium.’

Nodding, O’Neil extracted from his briefcase a thin manila folder with a metal fixture on top. Inside were a dozen sheets of paper. ‘Crime Scene. Had them working non-stop. No surprise — our unsub’s good. He wore cloth gloves.’

Latex gloves prevent a transfer of the perp’s fingerprints to what he touches at a scene but nothing prevents a transfer of prints to the inside of those latex gloves. Careless perps often discard them, without considering that. Cloth gloves, however, neither transfer nor retain prints.

He continued, ‘Prints on the Peterbilt truck key fob but none identifiable except the manager’s and the driver’s. The drop-box was negative too. No footprints. Nothing in the oil drum, with the fire, that’s any use forensically.’

Dance said, ‘I was thinking. It’s got to be hard to drive a truck that big. Can we use that to narrow the field? Find anybody who’s taken courses lately?’

‘I thought the same thing. But checked it out online. Would take about a half-hour to learn to drive one, even if you had no experience. Probably couldn’t back up or drive with a full load without practice but he basically just had to drive straight down the hill to the roadhouse.’

The Internet... Where you could learn everything from making a fertilizer bomb to baking a cherry pie to celebrate after you’d blown up your designated target.

O’Neil consulted his file. ‘No video cameras in the area. Solitude Creek’s too shallow for serious boating but in any case I didn’t get any hits in canvassing for fishermen. And no stolen kayaks or canoes.’ He’d had the same idea as she.

Her phone dinged: a text from TJ. The Serrano case. She typed, ‘KK.’ That was the new text message acknowledging ‘understood and agreed’. A single K wasn’t enough. She’d learned it from her son, Wes. She mentioned this to O’Neil. He nodded. ‘My kids are saying “amen”, a lot too. You notice?’

‘I get “church”. As in: “It’s true.” And also “It’s a thing.”’

‘“Thing”?’

Dance was going to tell him that she’d first heard the expression when Maggie was talking to her friend Bethany on the phone and she’d said, ‘Yeah, Mom and Jon, it’s like a thing.’ She instead told the detective: ‘Means, I think, it’s a phenomenon. More than what it seems. Significant.’

She wondered if he sensed the stumble and the overexplanation.

O’Neil said, ‘“Thing”. Better than “phenomenon”. I’d worry that crept into my kids’ vocabulary.’

Dance laughed.

Michael O’Neil wasn’t a chatterer. This was, for him, rambling.

Dance glanced down to the crime-scene file. She said, ‘Oh, wanted to mention: Sorry we had to cancel the fishing.’

O’Neil lived for his boat, which he’d pilot out into Monterey Bay once a week at least. He often took his own children and Dance’s. She herself had been a few times but her inner ear and waves were bad co-conspirators. If the Dramamine and patch didn’t kick in, she’d end up hanging over the side, unpleasant for all involved. And the trip would be cut short. They’d talked about having a day on the water last weekend but before plans had been firmed up she and Boling had decided to take the children to San Francisco. Dance had not told O’Neil the reason they’d canceled. She suspected he’d guessed. But he didn’t ask.

They talked for a few minutes about their children, plans for spring break. Dance mentioned Maggie’s forthcoming talent show at school.

‘She playing violin?’

Maggie’s instrument. She was far more musical than her mother, who was comfortable with a guitar but didn’t have the ear for a fretless fingerboard. Dance told him, ‘No, she’s singing.’

O’Neil said, ‘She’s got a great voice. Remember, I took them to The Lego Movie. That song? “Everything Is Awesome”? She sang it all the way home. I know it by heart, by the way. I’ll sing it for you some time.’

‘She’s doing that song from Frozen.’

‘“Let It Go”. I know that one too.’ Being a single parent with custody could take the edge off the hardest major-crimes detective. Then O’Neil, studying her: ‘What’s wrong?’

Dance realized she’d been frowning. ‘She’s uneasy about the talent show. Usually you can’t keep her offstage but, for this, she’s reluctant.’

‘She ever sung before in public?’

‘Yep. A dozen times. And her voice’s never been better. I was going to start her in lessons but all of a sudden she decided she didn’t want to. It’s funny. They whipsaw, you know, their moods. For a while Wes was depressed and Maggie was flitting around like Bella. Happy as could be. Now it’s the other way round.’ She explained that it might be a post-traumatic reaction to her husband’s death.

He said softly, ‘I know Bill died around this time of year.’

O’Neil had known Bill Swenson well; they’d worked together occasionally.

‘I’ve thought of that. But when kids want to stonewall...’

O’Neil, whose children were close in age to Maggie, said, ‘Don’t I know. But — persistence.’

Dance nodded. ‘So, Sunday, at seven? You and the kids want to come?’ She dug through her purse. ‘Hm. Have a hundred flyers in the car for her show. Thought I had one with me.’ She snapped the Coach bag shut.

‘Can I let you know? We might have plans. Bring a friend?’

‘Of course.’

Had he been dating? she wondered. It had been a while since they’d talked socially. Well, personally. Why shouldn’t he be going out with somebody? He’d been divorced for a while now. He was good-looking, in great shape, with a fine job. He was funny, kind... and had two adorable children whom his ex, in San Francisco, had little interest in.

Dance’s mother called him ‘the Catch’, because he liked to fish... and because he was.

She glanced at the Timex. ‘I’ve got to get into the field.’

‘Our case?’

‘No. The other thing.’

He sighed, glanced at her hip, where her weapon would otherwise have resided. ‘I’ll go with you.’

‘Not for this. It’s all right. I’ll have backup. I have to handle it a particular way. This one’s tricky.’ She almost said, ‘It’s a thing,’ but from O’Neil’s concerned expression she knew he wouldn’t have appreciated the levity.

Chapter 22

Charles Overby tapped a roll of fat above his belt. He wasn’t alarmed but he knew he’d have to rein in the snacks that went down a little too easy at the Nineteenth Hole. Maybe go to red wine. He believed it had fewer calories than white.

No, a spritzer. After the martini, of course. And no artichoke dip. It was the devil.

On his desk were ordered stacks of documents — the sign of a sane mind and a productive body, he often said. The one that troubled him most was the pile that was topped with a sheet that read: ‘Incident Report: Joaquin Serrano’. The other words that jumped out from the grayish boxes were ‘Kathryn Dance’. He noted too: ‘Disciplinary recommendations’.

His phone hummed with a text, which he read, and shaking his head for no one’s benefit, he rose. He debated a jacket but decided no.

Down the hall, aware of the peculiar smell of a cleanser the staff had switched to recently. Why was he aware of that? he wondered. Because of the case. Small distractions dulled the concerns.

Serrano...

In the Guzman Connection task-force conference room, Carol Allerton sat alone, squeezing the life from a chamomile teabag. She leaned starboard, to make sure any spatter wouldn’t hit the dozens of papers in front of her. She, too, was well ordered when it came to the stacks of documents in her cases.

‘Charles.’

‘Where is everybody?’

‘The two Steves’re in Salinas. FBI had somebody in town from one of their Oakland task forces. They’re picking his brain.’

‘Meetings, meetings, meetings,’ Overby said, with the boredom of truth in his voice, though no contempt. ‘Jimmy?’

‘He said he had another case lead, something he was working on before we put Guzman together.’

‘Well, we caught a lead in Serrano.’ He held up his phone, on which he’d just gotten the text. She glanced at it, perhaps wondering why the show-and-tell. ‘We have to move fast.’

‘You’ve got Serrano’s location?’

‘Not that lucky. But TJ found this guy knows Serrano.’

‘Who?’

‘Wasn’t more specific, except to say he wasn’t a banger. Worked with Serrano or his brother or somebody. A painter, house painter. May know where Serrano’s hiding out.’

‘Really?’ The woman’s voice was throaty and sensual. Overby, married to the same woman for ever, noted her tone objectively. ‘You should move on it. I’m going to call Sacramento and I’d love to be able to tell them that we’re closer to nailing Serrano.’

She’d be thinking: Because CBI West Central was the outfit that let him slip away in the first place.

‘Where is this guy?’

‘Seaside. Works nights, TJ says. Name of Tomas Allende.’

‘Not traditionally Mexican.’ Allerton was speaking absently.

‘I don’t know. What would that be?’

‘What? Oh, Spanish.’

‘Well. Here’s the address. Take Al Stemple with you. No reason to think it’s hostile, but no reason to think it isn’t. I’ll call him.’ Overby punched buttons.

Allerton rose and tugged down her close-fitting gray skirt. She, too, had a bit of fat over the belt. Other circumstances, he might’ve talked to her about how hard it was to lose those last twelve pounds. She pulled her jacket over her broad shoulders.

His phone clicked. ‘Yeah?’

‘Albert, ’s Charles. Need you to go with Agent Allerton, follow up on a lead to Serrano... That’s right... I don’t know, parking lot?’ He lifted an eyebrow to Allerton. She nodded. ‘Good. Now.’ He disconnected. ‘Good luck,’ Overby said and retreated to his office.

Chapter 23

Albert Stemple had been told he grunted a lot, though he didn’t think that was the case. He never said much, didn’t find it necessary most of the time, so he would respond to people with an Ah or Oh.

Maybe people thought words like that were grunts. I look like a guy who grunts, so people hear grunts.

The massive man, head free of hair and shaped like an egg, though shinier, stood with his arms crossed outside the rear door of CBI, looking over the parking lot. Since Stemple was the closest thing CBI had to a SWAT team, he’d been in more firefights and had more collars than any other agent in the division, which meant he had a price on that glossy head of his.

Stemple tended to check vistas and shadows regularly.

CBI’s back door opened and Carol Allerton stepped outside, nodding to Stemple, taking in his jeans, black T-shirt and impressive Beretta .45, the only caliber a man should carry. He supposed the bump on her hip through her gray jacket was a teeny Glock. A 26, he guessed. Not bad. If you liked peashooters.

When she looked at his face with a bit of hesitation, Stemple knew she’d been considering the scars. You should see the other guys.

He nodded.

‘Hi,’ Allerton said.

‘We’re going to Seaside. A Serrano lead.’

‘Right.’

‘Hm.’ Maybe grunt-like. ‘I’ll drive,’ he told her.

‘Hey,’ came a woman’s voice behind them.

Kathryn Dance walked up from the side of the building, where her car was parked, the gray Pathfinder. Nose art from her dogs decorated the back windows. Stemple liked her dogs; he knew them pretty well, being a regular visitor to the Deck. He was after Dance to let him borrow the flat-coated retriever, take her hunting and bring back a dressed duck or two for the family. He’d made the mistake of mentioning that in front of Dance’s kids; the look in her eyes, the response, was a hard one to describe. It meant no in a lot of different ways.

Allerton was eyeing Dance neutrally as the CBI agent walked up. She looked around, then moved closer yet. ‘Al.’

A nod.

‘Carol, there’s something I want to talk to you about. Both of you, really.’

‘Sure, Kathryn.’

Stemple gave a second nod. Maybe a grunt.

‘I heard you had a lead to Serrano.’

The DEA agent hesitated.

Dance said, ‘Well, I know you do. TJ told me. He’s my inside man. You’re going to talk to this lead now?’

Allerton held her gaze. ‘We are.’

Dance said, ‘I want to interview him.’

‘Well...’

‘I know the turf, Carol. I don’t know this particular subject but I know the crowd he’d hang with. That gives me a huge leg up.’

‘But Charles,’ Allerton said. ‘He suspended you.’

Stemple watched Dance’s lips tighten. ‘All right. The other thing?’ She glanced at Stemple, then decided, it seemed, to plunge ahead. ‘You don’t know Charles as well as I do. If I were a man and what happened with Serrano happened? He wouldn’t’ve busted me. Hate to say it but...’ Dance shook her head. ‘You’ve been through this too, Carol. You know how it is.’

Her expression said: Women in law enforcement. Yes, I do.

Dance added, ‘I’ll give you full credit for everything I find out. And that’ll go all the way to Washington. I’ll disappear.’

‘No, that’s not necessary.’

‘Actually, yeah, it is. Charles can’t know anything, that I’m involved. All I want is to nail Serrano.’

‘Sure,’ Allerton said, nodding. ‘I get it. Completely sub-rosa.’

Whatever that meant. Though Stemple hammered out a definition.

Now another glance his way.

Dance said, ‘I may already be under the bus—’

‘Charles’d do that to you?’ Now Stemple couldn’t control the grunt.

‘—already under the bus, but we get Serrano back, Sacramento won’t be clamoring for my head quite so loud. It’s the only chance I’ve got to pull something out of the fire here.’

Allerton was scanning the parking lot, thoughtful, not looking for acquiring targets, though, as Stemple was doing. ‘The fact is, Kathryn, I could use your help. I’m not the best interviewer in the world.’

‘Deal, then?’

‘Deal.’

Dance’s eyes swiveled to Stemple.

‘You asking me? I’m just backup. Do whatcha want.’

They walked to the car, Stemple easing into the driver’s seat. The big Dodge bobbed under the weight. The women, too, got in. He fired up the growly engine and they squealed out of the lot toward the highway.

A half-hour later Stemple turned onto surface streets in Seaside and eased the cruiser along a crumbling asphalt road, bordered by grasses, dusty brush, rusting wire fences. A hundred yards along they came to a development, probably fifty years old, bungalows and Cape-style houses, tiny, all of them.

‘That’s it,’ Allerton said, pointing to the scabbiest house there, a lopsided one-story structure that had last been painted a long, long time ago. White originally. Now, gray. The yard was half sand, half yellowing grass. Thirsty, Stemple thought. Everything was thirsty. This drought. Worst he could remember.

He shut the engine off. Everyone climbed out.

Stemple scanned the perimeter while the agents, looking around, headed toward the front door. Allerton knocked. No response. Dance pointed to the side, where there was a patio. They disappeared that way.

Stemple walked around the property, looked at the houses nearby, wondered why somebody had taped a massive poster of a daisy in a window. Was it a sunscreen? Wouldn’t a sunflower’ve made more sense?

Mostly, though, he was looking for threats.

This wasn’t a cul-de-sac but it wasn’t highly traveled. He counted four cars pass by, all seeming to contain families or individuals on their way to or from school, work or errands. That didn’t mean there weren’t gang-bangers inside, of course, with MAC-10s, Uzis or M4s. Gone were the days when crews conveniently piled into gang-mobiles, pimped-out low-rider Buicks with jacked-up suspensions. Now they tooled around in Acuras, Nissans and the occasional Beemer or Cayenne, depending on how the drug and arms trade had been lately.

But no one in any vehicle paid him any mind.

He walked back to the cracked sidewalk and was looking down at some vibrant purple plant, when there was from inside the bungalow a crash of something containing glass, a lot of glass.

Followed by a woman’s scream.

Chapter 24

An hour later, back at CBI headquarters, Al Stemple was leaning back in a Guzman Connection task-force conference-room chair. It groaned under his weight.

The others were here too, the whole crew. The two Steves — Lu and Foster — along with Jimmy Gomez. Allerton, as well, was back from the Seaside bungalow mission.

‘What happened to you?’ Gomez asked her. She had a bandage on her arm.

‘That lead to Serrano? He had a big-ass Doberman in the back bedroom. Sleeping dog, and all that. He woke up. Didn’t like visitors.’

‘You get bit?’

‘Just scratched getting out of the way. Knocked over a table of crappy glass and china. Serves him right.’

‘Al, you didn’t shoot any dogs, did you?’ Gomez feigned horror.

‘Reasoned with it.’

Foster was on the phone, saying to a CHP trooper, ‘Those’re your procedures, not my procedures, and it’s my procedures you’re going to be following. Are we transparent on that?... I asked you a question... Are we transparent?... Good. No more of this shit.’

He hung up with nothing more.

What a dick, Stemple thought, and wondered if he’d have an excuse to dice the man verbally into little pieces. That’d be a challenge. Foster seemed like a good dicer too. It’d be fun.

Now that Foster had finished transparenting the Highway Patrol trooper, Allerton took the floor. ‘The lead didn’t quite pan out like we hoped. The Serrano Seaside connection.’

Gomez asked, ‘Who was it?’

‘A painter — a contractor, you know, a house painter. Not an artist. Tomas Allende. Serrano used to work with him. Uh-huh, he actually did day labor for a while before he got into turning people into skeletons.’

Foster grumbled, ‘Whatta you mean didn’t pan out?’

‘I said didn’t quite pan out. I’ll tell you what we found.’

We.

Nobody noticed. Probably thinking she meant her and Stemple.

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

The stocky woman rose and walked to the door, looked out, then closed it.

Gomez frowned. The two Steves simply watched her.

‘I have to tell you, I didn’t go alone. Kathryn came with me.’

‘Kathryn Dance?’ Gomez asked.

‘How’d she do that?’ Foster seemed both perplexed and put out by this information. Not an easy combo, Stemple thought. ‘She’s suspended. Or did something change that I haven’t heard about?’

‘Nothing’s changed,’ Allerton said.

‘Then what do you mean she was there? I don’t need her to fuck up another operation in this case.’

Stemple stuck his legs out and brought his boot heel down on the linoleum hard. Foster didn’t notice the sound. Or didn’t care if he did.

Gomez said, ‘Steve, come on. We don’t need that.’

‘Need what? I’m saying it’s because of her we’re in this situation.’

Allerton: ‘She asked and I said yes. She knows she made a mistake and she wants to make it right. Look, she was good, though, at the house in Seaside, Steve. She was. You should’ve seen her.’

‘I did. With Serrano. I wasn’t impressed. Who was?’

Stemple scratched a scar on his thigh, not new, but a .40 round leaves a thick streak and humidity could really kick off the itch.

‘You can’t bat a thousand every time,’ Gomez said. Normally soft-spoken, he sounded brittle.

Thanks, Jimmy, Stemple thought.

Steve Lu, the chief of detectives from Salinas, said, ‘Okay. She went. I don’t see the harm. What happened?’

Allerton continued, ‘The subject, our painter, used to work with Serrano? He was cooperating and telling us all kinds of things but swore he hadn’t heard from Serrano for six months. He’d lost all contact. He was going legitimate. I mean, I believed him. Everything he was saying, completely credible. And Kathryn was all, “Sure, sure, I understand, interesting, thanks for your help.” Then, bang, she pulled the rug out from underneath him. Just like that. Caught him in a dozen lies, went to work and in the end he talked.’

‘What about the non-panning lead?’ Foster grumbled.

‘He didn’t have Serrano’s present location. Not surprising, considering Serrano’s warranted and on the run. But the painter said the word is that he’s still in the area. He didn’t head out of state.’ Allerton continued, ‘But more important he gave up another name.’

‘Who?’

‘A woman was recently a girlfriend of Serrano’s. Tia Alonzo. No warrants on her but she’s keeping low. TJ Scanlon’s on it, getting her whereabouts.’

‘You really think Picasso’s telling the truth?’

‘Who?’ Lu asked.

‘The painter.’ Foster sighed.

‘Kathryn does. I do.’

‘When’ll we have a location to go with Señorita Alonzo?’

Allerton said, ‘Soon, TJ said. He’s convinced within a day or two.’

‘Convinced.’

Allerton said, ‘Now. With Kathryn. It was off the books.’

‘Which means?’ From Foster.

Sub-rosa...

‘She didn’t tell Overby.’

Foster: ‘She snuck in to interview this dingo in Seaside?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Jesus.’

Allerton said, ‘I understand Charles is doing what he has to but she’s too valuable to sit this out. What I want—’

Foster said, impatient, ‘Yeah, yeah, she wants to go around Overby’s back and stay on the team. On the sly.’

Sub-rosa...

Allerton snapped, ‘Yes, Steve, that’s exactly what she wants to do. And I say yes. She knows the area, knows these people. After all, she wasn’t the only one who got taken in by Serrano. We watched the whole thing ourselves. Did anybody here suspect anything? I didn’t.’

Finally the asshole fell quiet.

‘I say yes,’ said loyal Jimmy Gomez, nodding his crew-cut head.

‘Can’t hurt,’ Lu agreed.

Foster looked Stemple up and down. The urge to dice returned. Foster said, ‘What about you? How do you vote?’

Stemple replied, ‘I’m just muscle. I don’t get a vote.’

Foster turned and regarded the others. ‘You’ve thought this through, all of you?’

‘Thought it through?’ From Gomez.

‘Have you? Have you really? Well. Alternative A: Dance sits on the sidelines per orders and we handle it, the Guzman Connection, the hunt for Serrano, everything. She does that and, say Serrano nails a banger or, worse, an innocent. Even then she might just survive. She can claim she didn’t have the chance to fix what got broke. Or Alternative B: she’s back on the case, unofficial, and there’s a screw-up, hers or anybody else’s, that’s it. Her career is over.’

Well, that was transparent enough.

Silence.

A second vote. The result was the same.

‘You?’ Allerton asked.

Foster muttered something.

Gomez: ‘What?’

‘Yeah, yeah. I’m on board. I got work to do.’ He swung back to his keyboard and started typing.

Chapter 25

After the Serrano mission, which had been somewhat successful, Kathryn Dance returned to the hunt for the Solitude Creek unsub.

She logged on to the National Crime Information Center to look for any similar incidents. The unsub was clearly a repetitive actor. Had he done this before?

NCIC revealed only one crime that echoed Solitude Creek, six months ago in Fort Worth, Texas. A man had wired shut the doors of the Prairie Valley Club, a small country-western venue, and set a fire just outside the back door. Two people were killed and dozens injured in the stampede. There was no connection to her case, though, since the perp, a paranoid schizophrenic homeless man, had died after accidentally setting himself alight too.

A search of the general media sent her to similar incidents, but nothing recent. She read about the Happy Land social-club fire in New York City in the eighties. Hundreds of people were packed into an illegal social club when a man who’d been ejected returned with a dollar’s worth of gas and set the place on fire. Nearly ninety people died. In that case, there wasn’t much of a stampede: people died so quickly in the smoke and flames that bodies were found still clutching their drinks or sitting upright on barstools.

The classic case of a deadly stampede, she found, was the Italian Hall disaster in Calumet, Michigan, in 1913. More than seventy striking mine workers and their families were killed in a crush at a Christmas party when someone yelled, ‘Fire,’ though there was none. It was believed that a thug connected with the mining company subject to the strike started the panic.

She found a number of accidental stampedes. Particularly dangerous were sporting events — the Hillsborough disaster in Sheffield, England, which her father had witnessed, for instance. Soccer seemed to be the most dangerous of organized sports. Three hundred people had died in Chile, at Estadio Nacional, when an angered fan attacked a referee, resulting in police action that panicked the attendees. Before the 1985 European Cup final at Heysel Stadium in Belgium had begun, nearly forty people had died when Liverpool fans surged toward rival Juventus supporters. The tragedy led to a multi-year ban of English soccer teams playing on the Continent.

Even more deadly were stampedes during religious events.

During the Hajj, the Islamic religious pilgrimage, thousands had died over the years when crowds panicked and surged from one event to the next. Stoning the Devil, a station of the Hajj, had taken the most lives. Hundreds of similar occurrences.

Dance flipped through the documents cluttering her desk. Reports had come in of scores of tall, brown-haired men seen lurking suspiciously in the area. None of these sightings panned out. And the continued canvass of people who’d been at Solitude Creek Tuesday night had yielded nothing.

By six that evening she realized she was reading the same reports over and over.

She grabbed her purse and walked to the parking lot to head home. She was there in a half-hour. Jon Boling met her at the door, kissed her and handed her a glass of Chardonnay. ‘You need it.’

‘Oh, you bet I do.’

Dance went into the bedroom to de-cop herself. There was no gun to lockbox away tonight but she needed a shower and a change of clothes. She set the case files on her desk, stripped off the suit and stepped into steaming water. She’d been to no crime scenes other than the theater that day — at which there’d been no actual crime, no bodies, nothing graphic to witness; still, something about the Solitude Creek unsub made her feel unclean.

Then a fluffy towel to dry off. A fast collapse on the bed, eyes shut for three minutes. Then bounding up again. Dressing in jeans and a black T, a Kelly green sweater. Shoes? Hm. She needed something fun. Aldo’s, in loud stripes. Silly. Good.

Downstairs, heading into the kitchen. ‘Hey, hons,’ Dance called.

Maggie, in jeans with Phineas and Ferb T-shirt, gave a nod. She seemed subdued again.

‘All okay?’

‘Yep.’

‘What did you do today?’

‘Stuff.’ She disappeared into the den.

What was going on? Was it really nerves about the talent show? ‘Let It Go’ was a challenging tune, yes, but within Maggie’s range. Lord knew she’d rehearsed plenty despite the deception the other night about not knowing the lyrics.

Was it something else? It was approaching that time in her life when hormones would soon be working their difficult changes in her body. Maybe they already were.

Adolescence. Wes was already going through it.

Heaven help us...

Or was it what she’d discussed with O’Neil? Her father’s death.

But Maggie had seemed uninterested in talking about the subject. Dance had noted no unusual emotional affect patterns or kinesic messages when the subject of Bill came up. Still, kinesics is an imperfect science and, while Dance was talented when conversing with those she didn’t know, witnesses and suspects, her skills sometimes failed her when it came to family and friends.

She now trailed her daughter into the den and sat down on the couch. ‘Hey, babes. How’s it going?’

‘Yeah. Okay.’ Maggie was instantly suspicious.

‘You’ve been kind of moody lately. Anything you want to talk about?’

‘I’m not moody.’ She flipped through one of the Harry Potter books.

‘How’s “distracted”?’ Dance smiled.

‘Everything’s fine.’

Thinking of the other children’s movie song, ‘Everything Is Awesome’, which Michael O’Neil had threatened playfully to sing. Just like in that movie, where everything wasn’t so awesome, Maggie wasn’t fine.

She tried once or twice more to get her daughter to engage but she’d learned that it was impossible to do so if the children refused. The best solution was to wait for a different time.

Dance concluded with the standard, ‘If there’s anything you want to talk about, anything at all, let me know. Or I’ll turn into a monster. You know what kind of monster I can be. Mom Monster. And how scary is that?’

Her smile was not reciprocated but Maggie tolerated the kiss on the head. Then Dance rose and stepped out onto the Deck, where Boling sat beneath the propane heater.

They spoke about the case — to the extent she felt comfortable — then about some of his projects, new code he was writing, the reasons why his college-level students hadn’t finished their assignments.

‘I wish I could give them a grade for the best excuse. I mean, there were A-pluses there.’

Dance glanced down at the end of the Deck, where Wes and two friends were intensely involved in a game. She recognized Donnie. She’d seen the other boy but couldn’t come up with the name.

She whispered to Boling, ‘And that’s...’

‘Nathan.’

‘Right.’

He was taller than the others, stocky. The first time he’d been there he’d walked in with a stocking cap. Dance had started to say something, when Donnie noticed and, eyes wide, said, ‘Dude? Seriously? Respect.’

‘Oh, sorry.’ The hat had vanished and he’d never worn it again.

The boys were now on the back deck playing the game they’d made up themselves. Its name was, she believed, Defend and Respond Expedition Service, or something similar. She supposed there was some shoot-’em side to it but that didn’t bother her. Since it was played with paper and pen, a variation of a board game, she didn’t mind a little military action. Dance kept her eye on video games and movies. TV shows now too. Cable opened the door to anything-goes. Wes had asked if he and Donnie could watch Breaking Bad. Dance had screened it first and loved the show but after the acid-dissolved body fell through a ceiling, she’d decided: No. Not for a few years.

But a game you played with paper and pen? How harmful could that be?

‘You boys want to stay for dinner? Call your parents?’

Donnie said, ‘Thanks, Mrs Dance, but I have to go home.’

‘Yeah, me too,’ Nathan said, looking embarrassed and guilty at the same time — the essential expressions of adolescence.

‘Start packing up. We’re going to eat soon.’

‘Okay,’ Donnie said.

She looked at her son and, when she spoke, she quashed ‘honey’, given that his peers were present. ‘Wes, Jon and I were talking. You ever see Rashiv any more?’

Silence for a moment. ‘Rashiv?’

‘He was nice. I haven’t seen him for a while.’

‘I don’t know. He’s kind of... He’s got a different bunch he hangs with.’

Dance thought this was too bad. The Indian American was, as Jon Boling had observed, funny and smart and polite. Which meant not only was he good company but he was a good influence too. Her son was getting to the point where, in the middle school he attended, there would be increasing temptations to steer toward the dark side. ‘Well, if you see him, say hi for me.’

‘Sure.’

After Wes’s friends had left, Dance herded Maggie from the den and the two ladies prepared dinner. Whole Foods had been instrumental — sushi, a roast chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans and a complicated salad, which included cranberries, some kind of mystery seed, bits of cheese and impressive croûtons.

Boling set the table.

As she watched him her thoughts segued to the two of them, Dance and Boling.

The hours he spent with her and the children were pure comfort. The times she and he got away alone for a rare night at an inn were so very fine too. (He never stayed the night when the children were here.) All was good.

But Kathryn Dance wasn’t long a widow. She monitored the pulse of her figurative heart, on the lookout for subconscious blips that might sabotage the relationship — the first since Bill’s death. She was not going to make fast decisions, for her own peace of mind, and the children: they were the north star by which she and Boling navigated their relationship. And it was Dance’s job to be in control. To keep the speed brakes on.

Then her hand, holding a large spoon, paused as it scooped mashed potatoes from carton to bowl. And she asked herself: Or is there another reason I’m keeping things with Jon Boling slow?

He looked up from the table and caught her eye. He smiled. She sent one his way too.

‘Dinner’s ready!’ she called.

Wes joined them, pulling a juice from the fridge.

‘Put the phone away. No texting.’

‘Mom, just—’

‘Now. And how can you text and open a Tropicana?’

He mumbled but his eyes grew wide when he saw the potatoes. ‘Awesome.’

As they sat down, Maggie said, ‘Are we going to say grace?’

This was new. The Dance household was not particularly religious.

‘We can if you’d like to. What do you want to say thanks for?’

‘Thanks?’

‘Grace is where you say thanks to God for something.’

‘Oh,’ Maggie said. ‘I thought it was where you asked for something.’

‘Not grace,’ Boling explained. ‘You can pray for things but grace is where you thank somebody else.’

‘What did you want to ask for?’ Dance looked at her daughter’s face, which revealed no emotion.

‘Nothing. I was just wondering. Can have I the butter, please?’

Chapter 26

Antioch March walked into a restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf and got a table near the window.

Tourism on steroids. Nothing like the days of Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, he guessed.

He ordered a pineapple juice and looked at his prepaid once again. Nothing on the information he was expecting.

March ordered a calamari steak with steamed vegetables.

‘Sorry, they’re only sautéed. I don’t think the chef—’

‘That’s okay. I’ll take them that way.’

Another sip of juice. He opened his gym bag and began looking over maps and notes — what was planned for tomorrow. The theater had been denied him, set him back a day, but this would be just as good. Even better, he now reflected.

He glanced around the restaurant. He wasn’t worried about being recognized. His appearance was very different from what had been reported. What a stroke of luck that the police had released his description to the public and not kept it to themselves. If the theater employee hadn’t given that away, he might be in jail now.

Or dead.

He was studying a family nearby. Parents and two teenagers, all looking like they should be enjoying the pier more. In fact, it was a little anemic. Shopping mostly. No rides, except fifty cents bought little kids a turn on a space ship, up and down, in front of a shell shop.

Family...

Antioch March’s father had been a salesman — yes, a real, honest-to-God traveling salesman. Industrial parts, American made (though maybe some components, tiny ones, had been teamed together in China. Dad, politically conservative, had been less than forthcoming about that).

The food came and he ate. He was hungry. It had been a long time since McBreakfast.

March’s father was never home, his mother either, though she hadn’t traveled much. She worked a lot, though young Andy could do the math. Shift over at five but not home till seven thirty or eight, for a shower, then downstairs to ask about her boy’s day as she made him supper.

Not every day. But often enough. Andy didn’t care. Mom could do what she wanted. He had what he needed. He had his video games.

‘How’s your calamari, sir?’ the young waitress asked, as if she really, really cared.

‘Good.’

She tipped him with a smile.

March used to think that was the reason he was drawn to, well, less healthy interests than his classmates: Dad never around, Mom tackling her own Get in her own special way. Plenty of free time as a boy. The solitary games.

Come on, Serena.

A little closer, Serena.

Look what I have for you, Serena...

Was he angry at their absence? March honestly couldn’t say if he would have turned out different if he’d spent his evenings curled up in jammies as Mom or Dad read Lord of the Rings to him.

No, not much anger. Sure, Markiatikakis became March but that just made sense. He kept Antioch, didn’t he?

Though I prefer Andy.

And he’d followed in his father’s shoes. Life on the road. Life in business. And he was a salesman in a way.

In the employ of the website.

And working for his main boss.

The Get.

He could recall the exact moment of coining the term. In college. Hyde Park, U of C, the week of exams. He’d aced a few of them already and was prepared, completely prepared, for the rest. But he’d lain in bed, sweating and chewing on the inside of his cheek with compulsive molars. He’d tried video games, TV to calm down. No go. He’d finally given up and picked up a textbook for his Myths in the Classical World as Bases for Psychological Archetypes. He’d read the book several times and was prepared for the test but, as he flipped through the pages, he came across something he hadn’t paid attention to. In the Oedipus story, where a son kills his father and sleeps with his mother, there was this line that referred to Oedipus as ‘the get of Jocasta and Laius’.

The get...

What did that mean?

He’d looked it up. The word, as a noun, meant ‘offspring’.

Despite his anxiety that night he’d laughed. Because in this context the word was perfect. Something within him, a creation in his own body, something he’d given birth to was turning on him. The way Oedipus would destroy father and mother both.

And — he couldn’t help but think of the pun — whatever this feeling was, it forced young Antioch March to do whatever he could to ‘get’ peace of mind, comfort.

And so the hunger, the lack, the edge was named.

The Get.

He’d felt it all his life, sometimes quiescent, sometimes voracious. But he knew it would never go away. The Get could unspool within you anytime it wanted.

It wanted, not you. You didn’t have a say.

And if you didn’t satisfy the Get, well, there were consequences.

Somebody wasn’t happy...

He’d talked to doctors about it, of course — well, shrinks. They understood; they called it something else but it was the same. They wanted him to talk about his issues, which meant he’d have to be open about Serena, the Intersection, about Todd. Which wasn’t going to happen. Or they wanted to give him meds (and that made the Get mad, which was something you never, ever wanted to happen).

March tried to be temperate on his jobs. But the Asian family’s death had been denied him, the theater disaster too.

What the hell?

‘Miss? A Johnnie Walker Black. Neat.’

‘Sure. Are you finished?’

‘I am, yes.’

‘A box?’

‘What?’

‘To take home with you?’

‘No.’ The Get made you rude sometimes. He smiled. ‘It was very good. I’m just full. Thanks.’

The drink came. He sipped. He looked around him. A businesswoman eating dinner accompanied by an iPad and a glass of grapefruit-yellow wine glanced his way. She was around thirty-five, round but pretty. Sensuous enough, probably Calista-level sexy, to judge from her approach to eating the artichoke on her plate (food and sex, forever linked).

But his gaze angled away, avoiding her eyes.

No, not tonight.

Would he have a family some day with someone like her? He wondered what her name might be. Sandra. Joanne. Yes, she would be Joanne. Would he settle down with a Joanne after he got tired of the nights of Calistas and Tiffs?

March — yeah, yeah, so fucking handsome — could have asked Joanne, sitting over there with her artichoke and wine, a bit of butter on her cheek, to dinner tomorrow, and, in a month, a weekend getaway, and in a year to marry him. It would work. He could get it to work.

Except for one thing.

The Get wouldn’t approve.

The Get didn’t want him to have a social life, romantic life, family life.

He thought of the attack, at Solitude Creek.

How was that for a sign? Though Antioch March thought this in a droll way: he didn’t believe in signs.

Solitude...

The family was preparing to leave, collecting phones, bags of chocolate sea otters, leftovers to be discarded in the morning. The father had the keys of his car out. Keys didn’t jangle any more. They were quiet plastic fobs.

And, in this damn reflective mood, he couldn’t help but think about the intersection. Well, upper case: the Intersection.

Serena had changed his life in one way but the Intersection had changed it most of all. Everything that came after was explained by what had happened where Route 36 met Mockingbird Road. Reeking of Midwest America.

After Uncle Jim’s funeral, driving back.

‘Nearer My God To Thee’.

‘In Christ There Is No East Or West’.

The insipid, noncommittal Protestant hymns. They had no passion. Give me Bach or Mozart any day for gut-piercing Christian guilt. March had thought this even then, a boy.

It had been quiet in the Ford, the company car. His father, home for a change. His mother, being a wife for a change. Driving on the bleak November highway, winding, winding, pine turned gray by the mist, everything still.

Then around a bend, rocks and pines with stark black trunks.

Then: his mother gasping a brief inhaled scream.

The skid flinging him against the door, the brakes locking, then—

‘Sir?’

March blinked.

‘Here you go, sir.’ The waitress set the bill in front of him. ‘And at the bottom you can take a brief survey and maybe win a free dinner for the family.’

March laughed to himself.

For the family.

He doled out bills and didn’t tell her that after his business was concluded here he wouldn’t be coming back to the area again for quite a long time, if ever.

When March looked up, the couple and their children were gone.

It would be a busy day tomorrow. Time to get back to the inn.

His phone hummed with an email.

At last.

It was from a commercial service that ran DMV checks. The answer he’d been waiting for.

That morning as he’d enjoyed the Egg McMuffin and coffee, parked near the multiplex that would have been his next target, March had noted an assortment of police cars and — this was curious — a gray Nissan Pathfinder.

He couldn’t learn anything from the other vehicles or the uniformed or sport-coated men who climbed out of them. But the occupant of the Pathfinder, that was a different story. It wasn’t an official car. Not a government plate. And no bumper stickers bragging about children, no Jesus fish. A private car.

But the driver was official. He could tell that from the way she strode up to the officers. The way they answered her questions, sometimes looking away. March was at a distance but he supposed she had a fierce gaze. Intense, at least.

Her posture, upright. March had sensed instinctively that this woman was one of the main investigators against him.

The search had revealed that the Pathfinder belonged to one Kathryn Dance.

A lovely name. Compelling.

He pictured her again and felt a stirring low in his belly. The Get was unspooling. It, too, was growing interested in Ms Dance. They both wanted to know more about her. They wanted to know all about her.