Roadside Crosses: A Kathryn Dance Novel (45 page)

Woman to woman.

“I washed it thinking I could give it to him.”

“Mrs. Brigham, there are some things you should know. Travis wasn’t driving the car on June 9. He took the blame.”

“What?”
She stopped fussing with her laundry.

“He had a crush on the girl who was driving. She’d been drinking. He tried to get her to pull over and let him drive. She crashed before that happened.”

“Oh, heavens!” Sonia lifted the shirt to her face, as if it could ward off the impending tears.

“And he wasn’t the killer, leaving the crosses. Someone set it up to make it seem like he’d left them and caused those deaths. A man with a grudge against James Chilton. We stopped him.”

“And Travis?” Sonia asked desperately, fingers white as they gripped the shirt.

“We don’t know where he is. We’re looking everywhere, but we haven’t found any leads yet.” Dance explained briefly about Greg Schaeffer and his plan for revenge.

Sonia wiped her round cheeks. There was prettiness still in her face, though obscured. The remnants of the prettiness evident in the picture of her in the state fair stall taken years earlier. Sonia whispered, “I knew Travis wouldn’t hurt those people. I told you that.”

Yes, you did, Dance thought. And your body language told me that you were telling the truth. I didn’t listen to you. I listened to logic when I should have listened to intuition. Long ago Dance had done a Myers-Briggs analysis of herself. She got into trouble when she strayed too far from her nature.

She replaced the shirt, smoothed the cotton again. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“We have no evidence he is. Absolutely none.”

“But you think so.”

“It’d be logical for Schaeffer to keep him alive. I’m doing everything we can to save him. That’s one of the reasons I’m here.” She displayed a picture of Greg Schaeffer, a copy from his DMV picture. “Have you ever seen him? Maybe following you? Talking to neighbors?”

Sonia pulled on battered glasses and looked at the face for a long time. “No. I can’t say I have. So he’s him. The one done it, took my boy?”

“Yes.”

“I told you no good would come of that blog.”

Her eyes slipped toward the side yard, where Sammy was disappearing into the ramshackle shed. She sighed. “If Travis
is
gone, telling Sammy . . . oh, that’ll destroy him. I’ll be losing two sons at once. Now, I’ve got to put the laundry away. Please go now.”

DANCE AND O’NEIL
stood next to each other on the pier, leaning against the railing. The fog was gone, but the wind was steady. Around Monterey Bay you always had one or the other.

“Travis’s mother,” O’Neil said, speaking loudly. “That was tough, I’ll bet.”

“Hardest part of it all,” she said, her hair flying. Then asked him, “How was the interview?” Thinking of the Indonesian investigation.

The Other Case.

“Good.”

She was glad O’Neil was running the case, regretted
her jealousy. Terrorism kept all law enforcers up nights. “If you need anything from me let me know.”

His eyes on the bay, he said, “I think we’ll wrap it in the next twenty-four hours.”

Below them were their children, the four of them, on the sand at water’s edge. Maggie and Wes led the expedition; being grandchildren of a marine biologist, they had some authority.

Pelicans flew solemnly nearby, gulls were everywhere, and not far offshore, a brown curl of sea otter floated easily on its back, inverted elegance. It happily smashed open mollusks against a rock balanced on its chest. Dinner. O’Neil’s daughter, Amanda, and Maggie stared at it gleefully, as if trying to figure out how to get it home as a pet.

Dance touched O’Neil’s arm and pointed at ten-year-old Tyler, who was crouching beside a long whip of kelp and poking it cautiously, ready to flee if the alien creature came to life. Wes stood protectively near in case it did.

O’Neil smiled but she sensed from his stance and the tension in his arm that something was bothering him.

Only a moment later he explained, calling over the blast of wind, “I heard from Los Angeles. The defense is trying to move the immunity hearing back again. Two weeks.”

“Oh, no,” Dance muttered. “Two weeks? The grand jury’s scheduled for then.”

“Seybold’s going all-out to fight it. He didn’t sound optimistic.”

“Hell.” Dance grimaced. “War of attrition? Keep stalling and hope it all goes away?”

“Probably.”

“We won’t,” she said firmly. “You and me, we won’t go away. But will Seybold and the others?”

O’Neil considered this. “If it takes much more time, maybe. It’s an important case. But they have a lot of important cases.”

Dance sighed. She shivered.

“You cold?”

Her forearm was docked against his.

She shook her head. The involuntary ripple had come from thinking of Travis. As she’d been looking over the water, she’d wondered if she was also gazing at his grave.

A gull hovered directly in front of them. The angle of attack of his wings adjusted perfectly for the velocity of the wind. He was immobile, twenty feet above the beach.

Dance said, “All along, you know, even when we thought he was the killer, I felt sorry for Travis. His home life, the fact he’s a misfit. Getting cyberbullied like that. And Jon was telling me the blog was just the tip of the iceberg. People were attacking him in instant messages, emails, on other bulletin boards. It’s just so sad it’s turned out this way. He was innocent. Completely innocent.”

O’Neil said nothing for a moment. Then: “He seems sharp. Boling, I mean.”

“He is. Getting the names of the victims. And tracking down Travis’s avatar.”

O’Neil laughed. “Sorry, but I keep picturing you going to Overby about a warrant for a character in a computer game.”

“Oh, he’d do the paperwork in a minute if he
thought there was a press conference and a good photo op involved. I could’ve beaned Jon, though, for going to that arcade alone.”

“Playing hero?”

“Yep. Save us from amateurs.”

“He married, have a family?”

“Jon? No.” She laughed. “He’s a bachelor.”

Now there’s a word you haven’t heard for . . . about a century.

They fell silent, watching the children, who were totally lost in their seaside exploration. Maggie was holding her hand out and pointing to something, probably explaining to O’Neil’s children the name of a shell she’d found.

Wes, Dance noted, was by himself, standing on a damp flat, the water easing up close to his feet in foamy lines.

And as she often did, Dance wondered if her children would be better off if she had a husband, and they had a home with a father. Well, of course they would.

Depending on the man, of course.

There was always that.

A woman’s voice behind them. “Excuse me. Are those your children?”

They turned to see a tourist, to judge by the bag she held from a nearby souvenir shop.

“That’s right,” Dance said.

“I just wanted to say that it’s so nice to see a happily married couple with such lovely children. How long have you been married?”

A millisecond pause. Dance answered, “Oh, for some time.”

“Well, bless you. Stay happy.” The woman joined an elderly man leaving a gift shop. She took his arm and they headed toward a large tour bus, parked nearby.

Dance and O’Neil laughed. Then she noticed a silver Lexus pull up in a nearby parking lot. As the door opened, she was aware that O’Neil had eased away from her slightly, so that their arms no longer touched.

The deputy smiled and waved to his wife as she climbed from the Lexus.

Tall, blond Anne O’Neil, wearing a leather jacket, peasant blouse, long skirt and belt of dangly metal, smiled as she approached. “Hello, honey,” she said to O’Neil and hugged him, kissed his cheek. Her eyes lit on Dance. “Kathryn.”

“Hi, Anne. Welcome home.”

“The flight was awful. I got tied up at the gallery and didn’t make it in time to check my bag. I was right on the borderline.”

“I was in an interview,” O’Neil told her. “Kathryn picked up Tyler and Ammie.”

“Oh, thanks. Mike said you’ve closed the case. That one about the roadside crosses.”

“A few hours ago. Lot of paperwork, but, yeah, it’s done.” Not wanting to talk about it any longer, Dance said, “How’s the photo exhibition going?”

“Getting ready,” said Anne O’Neil, whose hair brought to mind the word “lioness.” “Curating’s more work than taking the pictures.”

“Which gallery?”

“Oh, just Gerry Mitchell’s. South of Market.” The tone was dismissive, but Dance guessed the gallery was well known. Whatever else, Anne never flaunted ego.

“Congratulations.”

“We’ll see what happens at the opening. Then there are the reviews afterward.” Her sleek face grew solemn. In a low voice: “I’m sorry about your mother, Kathryn. It’s all crazy. How’s she holding up?”

“Pretty upset.”

“It’s like a circus. The newspaper stories. It made the news up there.”

A hundred and thirty miles away? Well, Dance shouldn’t ’ve been surprised. Not with the prosecutor Robert Harper playing the media game.

“We’ve got a good attorney.”

“If there’s anything I can do . . .” The ends of Anne’s metal belt tinkled like a wind chime in the breeze.

O’Neil called down to the beach, “Hey, guys, your mother’s here. Come on!”

“Can’t we stay, Dad?” Tyler pleaded.

“Nope. Time to get home. Come on.”

Reluctantly the children trudged toward the adults. Maggie was dispensing shells. Dance was sure she’d be giving the good ones to the O’Neil children and her brother.

Wes and Maggie piled into Dance’s Pathfinder for the short ride to the inn where her parents were staying. Once again, they’d spend the night with Edie and Stuart. The perp was dead, so the threat to her personally was gone, but Dance was adamant about finding Travis alive. She’d possibly be working late into the night.

They were halfway to the inn when Dance noticed that Wes had grown quiet.

“Hey, young man, what’s up?”

“Just wondering.”

Dance knew how to reel in details from reluctant children. The trick was patience. “About what?”

She was sure it had to do with his grandmother.

But it didn’t.

“Is Mr. Boling coming over again?”

“Jon? Why?”

“Just,
The Matrix
’s on TNT tomorrow. Maybe he hasn’t seen it.”

“I’ll bet he has.” Dance was always amused by the way children assumed that they’re the first to experience something and that prior generations lived in sorrowful ignorance and deprivation. Mostly, though, she was surprised that the boy had even asked the question. “You like Mr. Boling?” she ventured.

“No . . . I mean, he’s okay.”

Maggie contradicted, “You said you liked him! You said he was neat. As neat as Michael.”

“I did not.”

“Yes, you did!”

“Maggie, you are so wrong!”

“All right,” Dance commanded. But her tone was amused. In fact, there was something about the sibling bickering that she found comforting, a bit of normalcy in this turbulent time.

They arrived at the inn, and Dance was relieved to see that the protesters still had not found the location where her parents were hiding out. She walked Wes and Maggie to the front door. Her father greeted her. She hugged him hard and looked inside. Her mother was on the phone, focusing on what was apparently a serious conversation.

Dance wondered if she was talking to her sister, Betsey.

“Any word from Sheedy, Dad?”

“Nothing more, no. The arraignment’s tomorrow afternoon.” He brushed absently at his thick hair. “I heard you got the fellow, that killer. And the boy was innocent?”

“We’re looking for him right now.” Her voice lowered so the children couldn’t hear. “Frankly, the odds are he’s dead, but I’m hoping for the best.” She hugged the man. “I’ve got to get back to the search now.”

“Good luck, honey.”

As she turned to leave she waved once more to her mother. Edie reciprocated with a distant smile and nod, then, still on the phone, gestured her grandchildren to her and gave them big hugs.

TEN MINUTES LATER
Dance walked into her office, where a message awaited her.

A curt note from Charles Overby:

Could you send me the report on disposition of the Chilton blog case. All the details, sufficient for a meaningful announcement to the press. Will need within the hour. Thank you.

And you’re welcome for a case solved, a perp dead and no more victims.

Overby was pissy, she supposed, because she’d refused to kowtow to Hamilton Royce, the fixer.

Who was about as far from George Clooney as one could be.

Meaningful announcement . . .

Dance composed a lengthy memo, giving the details of Greg Schaeffer’s plan, how they’d learned of his identity and his death. She included information about the murder of Miguel Herrera, the deputy
with the MCSO guarding the Chilton house, and the update on the all-out search for Travis.

She sent the memo off via email, hitting the mouse harder than usual.

TJ stuck his head in the door of her office. “You hear, boss?”

“About what in particular?”

“Kelley Morgan’s regained consciousness. She’ll live.”

“Oh, that’s so good to hear.”

“Be a week or so in therapy, the deputy over there said. That stuff screwed up her lungs pretty bad, but she’ll be okay, eventually. Looks like there won’t be any brain damage.”

“And what’d she say about ID’ing Travis?”

“He got her from behind, half strangled her. He whispered something about why’d she posted things about him? And then she passed out, woke up in the basement. Assumed it was Travis.”

“So Schaeffer didn’t want her to die. He set it up to make her think it was Travis but never let her see him.”

“Makes sense, boss.”

“And Crime Scene—at Schaeffer’s and Chilton’s? Any leads to where the boy might be?”

“Nothing yet. And no witnesses around the Cyprus Grove.”

She sighed. “Keep at it.”

The time was now after 6:00 p.m. She realized she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She rose and made for the lunchroom. She needed coffee and wanted something indulgent: homemade cookies or doughnuts. Maryellen’s well in the Gals’ Wing had run dry. At
the least she could enter a negotiation with the temperamental vending machine: a rumpled dollar in exchange for a packet of toasted peanut butter crackers or Oreos.