Roadside Crosses: A Kathryn Dance Novel (6 page)

“I mean, Brianna Crenshaw was pissed when I beat her for cheerleader. But she started going out with Davey Wilcox. Who I had a crush on. So it kind of evened out.” A choked laugh.

Dance smiled too.

“No, it was this gang guy. I’m sure of it.” Her eyes grew wide. “Wait, I remember now. He made a call. Probably to the gang leader. I could hear him open his phone and he said,
‘Ella esta en el coche.’
 ”

She’s in the car,
Dance translated to herself. She asked Tammy, “You know what that means?”

“Something like ‘I’ve got her in the car.’ ”

“You’re studying Spanish?”

“Yeah.” This was all very breathless and told in a voice with a higher pitch than normal. Her eyes locked onto Dance’s but her hand flicked her hair away and paused to scratch her lip.

The Spanish quotation was a complete lie.

“What I’m thinking,” Dance began reasonably, “is that he was just
pretending
to be a gangbanger. To cover up his identity. That means there was another reason to attack you.”

“Like, why?”

“That’s what I’m hoping you can help me with. You get any look at him at all?”

“Not really. He was behind me the whole time. And it was really, really dark in the parking lot. They ought to put lights in. I think I’m going to sue the club. My father’s a lawyer in San Mateo.”

The angry posturing was meant to deflect Dance’s questioning; Tammy had seen something.

“Maybe as he came up toward you, you saw a reflection in the windows.”

The girl was shaking her head no. But Dance persisted. “Just a glimpse. Think back. It’s always cold at night here. He wouldn’t-’ve been in shirtsleeves. Was he wearing a jacket? A leather one, cloth? A sweater? Maybe a sweatshirt. A hoodie?”

Tammy said no to all of them, but some no’s were different from others.

Dance then noticed the girl’s eyes zip to a bouquet of flowers on the table. Beside it the get-well card read:
Yo, girl, get your a** out of there soon! Love J, P, and the Beasty Girl.

Kathryn Dance looked at herself as a journeyman law enforcer who succeeded largely because of doing her homework and not taking no for an answer. Occasionally, though, her mind did a curious jump. She’d pack in the facts and impressions and suddenly there’d be an unexpected leap—a deduction or conclusion that seemed to arise as if by magic.

A to B to X . . .

This happened now, seeing Tammy look at the flowers, eyes troubled.

The agent took a chance.

“See, Tammy, we know that whoever attacked you also left a roadside cross—as a message of some sort.”

The girl’s eyes grew wide.

Gotcha, Dance thought. She
does
know about the cross.

She continued her improvised script, “And messages like that are always sent by people who know the victims.”

“I . . . I
heard
him speaking Spanish.”

Dance knew this was a lie, but she’d learned that with subjects who had a personality type like Tammy’s, she needed to leave them an escape route, or they’d shut down completely. She said agreeably, “Oh, I’m sure you did. But I think he was trying to cover up his identity. He wanted to fool you.”

Tammy was miserable, the poor thing.

Who terrified her so much?

“First of all, Tammy, let me reassure you that we’ll protect you. Whoever did this won’t get near you again. I’m going to have a policeman stay outside your door here. And we’ll have one at your house too until we catch the person who did this.”

Relief in her eyes.

“Here’s a thought: What about a stalker? You’re very beautiful. I’ll bet you have to be pretty careful.”

A smile—very cautious, but pleased nonetheless at the compliment.

“Anybody been hassling you?”

The young patient hesitated.

We’re close. We’re really close.

But Tammy backed away. “No.”

Dance did too. “Have you had any problems with people in your family?” This was a possibility. She’d checked. Her parents were divorced—after a tough courtroom battle—and her older brother lived away from home. An uncle had a domestic abuse charge.

But Tammy’s eyes made it clear that relatives probably weren’t behind the attack.

Dance continued to fish. “You have any trouble with anybody you’ve been e-mailing? Maybe somebody you know online, through Facebook or MySpace? That happens a lot nowadays.”

“No, really. I’m not online that much.” She was flicking fingernail against fingernail, the equivalent of wringing hands.

“I’m sorry to push, Tammy. It’s just so important to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Then Dance saw something that struck her like a slap. In the girl’s eyes was a recognition response—a faint lifting of the brows and lids. It meant that Tammy
was
afraid that this would happen again—but, since she’d have her police guard, the implication was that the attacker was a threat to others too.

The girl swallowed. She was clearly in the denial phase of stress reaction, which meant she was hunkered down, defenses raised high.

“It was somebody I didn’t know. I swear to God.”

A deception flag: “I swear.” The deity reference too. It was as if she were shouting, I’m lying! I want to tell the truth but I’m afraid.

Dance said, “Okay, Tammy. I believe you.”

“Look, I’m really, really tired. I think maybe I don’t want to say anything else until my mom gets here.”

Dance smiled. “Of course, Tammy.” She rose and handed the girl one of her business cards. “If you could think about it a bit more and let us know anything that occurs to you.”

“I’m sorry I’m, like, not all that helpful.” Eyes down. Contrite. Dance could see that the girl had
used pouting and insincere self-deprecation in the past. The technique, mixed with a bit of flirt, would work with boys and her father; women wouldn’t let her get away with it.

Still, Dance played to her. “No, no, you’ve been very helpful. Gosh, honey, look at all you’ve been through. Get some rest. And put on some sitcoms.” A nod at the TV. “They’re good for the soul.”

Walking out the door, Dance reflected: another few hours and she might have gotten the girl to tell the truth, though she wasn’t sure; Tammy was clearly terrified. Besides, however talented the interrogator, sometimes subjects simply would not tell what they knew.

Not that it mattered. Kathryn Dance believed she’d learned all the information she needed.

A to B to X . . .

IN THE LOBBY
of the hospital Dance used a pay phone—no mobiles allowed—and called in a deputy to guard Tammy Foster’s room. She then went to reception and had her mother paged.

Three minutes later Edie Dance surprised her daughter by approaching not from her station at Cardiac Care but from the intensive care wing.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Katie,” said the stocky woman with short gray hair and round glasses. Around her neck was an abalone and jade pendant that she’d made herself. “I heard about the attack—that girl in the car. She’s upstairs.”

“I know. I just interviewed her.”

“She’ll be okay, I think. That’s the word. How did your meeting go this morning?”

Dance grimaced. “A setback, it looks like. The defense is trying to get the case dismissed on immunity.”

“Doesn’t surprise me” was the cold response. Edie Dance was never hesitant to state her opinions. She had met the suspect, and when she learned what he’d done, she’d grown furious—an emotion evident to Dance in the woman’s calm visage
and faint smile. Never raising her voice. But eyes of steel.

If looks could kill, Dance remembered thinking about her mother when she was young.

“But Ernie Seybold’s a bulldog.”

“How’s Michael?” Edie Dance had always liked O’Neil.

“Fine. We’re running this case together.” She explained about the roadside cross.

“No, Katie! Leaving a cross
before
somebody dies? As a message?”

Dance nodded. But she noted that her mother’s attention continued to be drawn outside. Her face was troubled.

“You’d think they’d have more important things to do. That reverend gave a speech the other day. Fire and brimstone. And the hatred in their faces. It’s vile.”

“Have you seen Juan’s parents?”

Edie Dance had spent some time comforting the burned officer’s family, his mother in particular. She had known that Juan Millar probably wouldn’t survive, but she’d done everything she could to make the shocked and bewildered couple understand that he was getting the best care possible. Edie had told her daughter that the woman’s emotional pain was as great as her son’s physical agony.

“No, they haven’t been back. Julio has. He was here this morning.”

“He was? Why?”

“Maybe collecting his brother’s personal effects. I don’t know. . . .” Her voice faded. “He was just staring at the room where Juan died.”

“Has there been an inquiry?”

“Our board of ethics was looking into it. And a few policemen have been here. Some county deputies. But when they look at the report—and see the pictures of his injuries—nobody’s actually that upset that he died. It really
was
merciful.”

“Did Julio say anything to you when he was here today?”

“No, he didn’t talk to anybody. You ask me, he’s a bit scary. And I couldn’t help but remember what he did to you.”

“He was temporarily insane,” Dance said.

“Well, that’s no excuse for attacking my daughter,” Edie said with a staunch smile. Then her eyes slipped out the glass doors and examined the protesters once more. A dark look. She said, “I better get back to my station.”

“If it’s okay, could Dad bring Wes and Maggie over here later? He’s got a meeting at the aquarium. I’ll pick them up.”

“Of course, honey. I’ll park ’em in the kids’ play area.”

Edie Dance headed off once more, glancing outside. Her visage was angry and troubled. It seemed to say: You’ve got no business being here, disrupting our work.

Dance left the hospital with a glance toward Reverend R. Samuel Fisk and his bodyguard or whoever the big man was. They’d joined several other protesters, clasped hands and lowered their heads in prayer.

“TAMMY’S COMPUTER,” DANCE
said to Michael O’Neil.

He lifted an eyebrow.

“It’s got the answer. Well, maybe not
the
answer. But
an
answer. To who attacked her.”

They were sipping coffee as they sat outside at Whole Foods in Del Monte Center, an outdoor plaza anchored by Macy’s. She once calculated that she’d bought at least fifty pairs of shoes here—footwear, her tranquilizer. In fairness, though, that otherwise embarrassing number of purchases had taken place over a few years. Often, but not always, on sale.

“Online stalker?” O’Neil asked. The food they ate wasn’t poached eggs with delicate hollandaise sauce and parsley garnish, but a shared raisin bagel with low-fat cream cheese in a little foil envelope.

“Maybe. Or a former boyfriend who threatened her, or somebody she met on a social networking site. But I’m sure she knows his identity, if not him personally. I’m leaning toward somebody from her school. Stevenson.”

“She wouldn’t say, though?”

“Nope, claimed it was a Latino gangbanger.”

O’Neil laughed. A lot of fake insurance claims started with, “A Hispanic in a mask broke into my jewelry store.” Or “Two African-Americans wearing masks pulled guns and stole my Rolex.”

“No description, but I think he was wearing a sweatshirt, a hoodie. She gave a different negation response when I mentioned that.”

“Her computer,” O’Neil mused, hefting his heavy briefcase onto the table and opening it. He consulted a printout. “The good news: We’ve got it in evidence. A laptop. It was in the backseat of her car.”

“And the bad news is it went for a swim in the Pacific Ocean?”

“ ‘Significant seawater damage,’ ” he quoted.

Dance was discouraged. “We’ll have to send it to Sacramento or the FBI up in San Jose. It’ll take weeks to get back.”

They watched a hummingbird brave the crowds to hover for breakfast at a red hanging plant. O’Neil said, “Here’s a thought. I was talking to a friend of mine in the Bureau up there. He’d just been to a presentation on computer crime. One of the speakers was local—a professor in Santa Cruz.”

“UC?”

“Right.”

One of Dance’s alma maters.

“He said the guy was pretty sharp. And he volunteered to help if they ever needed him.”

“What’s his background?”

“All I know is he got out of Silicon Valley and started to teach.”

“At least there’re no bursting bubbles in education.”

“You want me to see if I can get his name?”

“Sure.”

O’Neil lifted a stack of business cards from his attaché case, which was as neatly organized as his boat. He found one and made a call. In three minutes he’d tracked down his friend and had a brief conversation. The attack had already attracted the FBI’s attention, Dance deduced. O’Neil jotted down a name and thanked the agent. Hanging up, he handed the slip to Dance.
Dr. Jonathan Boling.
Below it was a number.

“What can it hurt? . . . Who’s got the laptop itself?”

“In our evidence locker. I’ll call and tell them to release it.”

Dance unholstered her cell phone and called Boling, got his voice mail and left a message.

She continued to tell O’Neil about Tammy, mentioning that much of the girl’s emotional response was from her fear that the attacker would strike again—and maybe target others.

“Just what we were worried about,” O’Neil said, running a thick hand through his salt-and-pepper hair.

“She also was giving off signals of guilt,” Dance said.

“Because she might’ve been partly responsible for what happened?”

“That’s what I’m thinking. In any case, I really want to get inside that computer.” A glance at her watch. Unreasonably, she was irritated that this Jonathan Boling hadn’t returned her call of three minutes before.

She asked O’Neil, “Any more leads on the evidence?”

“Nope.” He told her what Peter Bennington had reported about the crime scene: that the wood in the cross was from oak trees, of which there were about a million or two on the Peninsula. The green florist wire binding the two branches was common and untraceable. The cardboard was cut from the back of a pad of cheap notebook paper sold in thousands of stores. The ink couldn’t be sourced either. The roses couldn’t be traced to a particular store or other location.