The Sleeping Doll (19 page)

Jennie offered a purr and whispered, “Come on back to bed, baby. Fuck me.”

Pell switched screens so she wouldn’t see what he was searching for and slipped his arm around her narrow waist.

Men and women exercise power over each other every day. Men have a harder time at first. They have to work their way inside a woman’s defenses, build subtle connections, find her likes and dislikes and fears, all of which she tries to keep hidden. It could take weeks or months to get the leash on. But once you had her, you were in charge for as long as you wanted.

Oh, we’re like, you know, soul mates …

A woman, on the other hand, had tits and a pussy and all she had to do was get them close to a man — and sometimes not even — and she could get him to do virtually anything. The woman’s problem came later. When the sex was over, her control dropped off the radar screen.

Jennie Marston had been in charge a few times since the escape, no question about it: in the front seat of the T–bird, in bed with her trussed up by the stockings, and — more leisurely and much better — on the floor with some accessories that greatly appealed to Daniel Pell. (Jennie, of course, didn’t care for that particular brand of sex but her reluctant acquiescence was a lot more exciting than if she’d really been turned on.)

The spell she’d woven was now subdued, though. But a teacher never lets his student know he’s inattentive. Pell grinned and looked over her body as if he were sorely tempted. He sighed. “I wish I could, lovely. But you tired me out. Anyway, I need you to run an errand for me.”

“Me?”

“Yep. Now that they know I’m here, I need you to do it by yourself.” The news stories were reporting that he was probably still in the vicinity. He had to be much more careful.

“Oh, all right. But I’d rather fuck you.” A little pout. She was probably one of those women who thought the expression worked with men. It didn’t, and he’d teach her so at some point. But there were more important lessons to be learned at the moment.

He said, “Now, go cut your hair.”

“My hair.”

“Yeah. And dye it. The people at the restaurant saw you. I bought some brown dye for you. At the Mexican store.” He pulled a box out of the bag.

“Oh. I thought that was for you.”

She smiled awkwardly, gripping a dozen strands, fingers twining them.

Daniel Pell had no agenda with the haircut other than making it more difficult to recognize her. He understood, though, that there was something more, another issue. Jennie’s hair was like the precious pink blouse, and he was instantly intrigued. He remembered her sitting in the T–bird when he’d first seen her in the Whole Foods parking lot, proudly brushing away.

Ah, the information we give away …

She didn’t want to cut it. In fact, she
really
didn’t want to. Long hair meant something to her. He supposed she’d let it grow at some point as protection from her vicious self–image. Some emblem of pathetic triumph over her flat chest and bumpy nose.

Jennie remained on the bed. After a moment she said, “Sweetheart, I mean, I’ll cut it, sure. Whatever you want.” Another pause. “Of course, I was thinking: Wouldn’t it be better if we left now? After what happened at the restaurant? I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you … Let’s just get another car and go to Anaheim! We’ll have a nice life. I promise. I’ll make you happy. I’ll support us. You can stay home until they forget about you.”

“That sounds wonderful, lovely. But we can’t leave yet.”

“Oh.”

She wanted an explanation. Pell said only, “Now go cut it.” He added in a whisper, “Cut it short. Real short.”

He handed her scissors. Her hands trembled as she took them.

“Okay.” Jennie walked into the small bathroom, clicked on all the lights. From her training at the Hair Cuttery she used to work in, or because she was stalling, she spent some moments pinning the strands up before cutting them. She stared into the mirror, fondling the scissors uneasily. She closed the door partway.

Pell moved to a spot on the bed where he could see her clearly. Despite his protests earlier, he found his face growing flushed, and the bubble starting to build inside him.

Go ahead, lovely, do it!

Tears streaking down her cheeks, she lifted a clump of hair and began to cut. Breathing deeply, then cutting. She wiped her face, then cut again.

Pell was leaning forward, staring.

He tugged his pants down, then his underwear. He gripped himself hard, and every time a handful of blond hair cascaded to the floor, he stroked.

Jennie wasn’t proceeding very quickly. She was trying to get it right. And she had to pause often to catch her breath from the crying, and wipe the tears.

Pell was wholly focused on her.

His breathing came faster and faster. Cut it, lovely. Cut it!

Once or twice he came close to finishing but he managed to slow down just in time.

He was, after all, the king of control.

Kathryn Dance knew the hospital well. She’d delivered her son and daughter here. She’d held her father’s hand after the bypass surgery in the cardiac ward and she’d sat beside a fellow CBI agent as he struggled to survive three gunshot wounds in the chest.

She’d identified her husband’s body in the MBH morgue.

The facility was in the piney hills approaching Pacific Grove. The low, rambling buildings were landscaped with gardens, and a forest surrounded the grounds; patients might awaken from surgery to find, outside their windows, hummingbirds hovering or deer gazing at them in narrow–eyed curiosity.

The portion of the Critical Care Unit, where Juan Millar was presently being tended to, however, had no view. Nor was there any patient–pleasing decor, just matter–of–fact posters of phone numbers and procedures incomprehensible to lay people, and stacks of functional medical equipment. He was in a small glass–walled room, sealed off to minimize the risk of infection.

Dance now joined Michael O’Neil outside the room. Her shoulder brushed his. She felt an urge to take his arm. Didn’t.

She stared at the injured detective, recalling his shy smile in Sandy Sandoval’s office.

Crime scene boys love their toys … I heard that somewhere.

“He say anything since you’ve been here?” she asked.

“No. Been out the whole time.”

Looking at the injuries, the bandages, Dance decided out was better. Much better.

They returned to the CCU waiting area, where some of Millar’s family sat — his parents and an aunt and two uncles, if she’d gotten the introductions right. She doled out her heartfelt sympathy to the grim–faced family.

“Katie.”

Dance turned to see a solid woman with short gray hair and large glasses. She wore a colorful overblouse, from which dangled one badge identifying her as E. Dance, RN, and another indicating that she was attached to the cardiac care unit.

“Hey, Mom.”

O’Neil and Edie Dance smiled at each other.

“No change?” Dance asked.

“Not really.”

“Has he said anything?”

“Nothing intelligible. Did you see our burn specialist, Dr. Olson?”

“No,” her daughter replied. “Just got here. What’s the word?”

“He’s been awake a few more times. He moved a little, which surprised us. But he’s on a morphine drip, so doped up he didn’t make any sense when the nurse asked him some questions.” Her eyes strayed to the patient in the glass–enclosed room. “I haven’t seen an official prognosis, but there’s hardly any skin under those bandages. I’ve never seen a burn case like that.”

“It’s that bad?”

“I’m afraid so. What’s the situation with Pell?”

“Not many leads. He’s in the area. We don’t know why.”

“You still want to have Dad’s party tonight?” Edie asked.

“Sure. The kids’re looking forward to it. I might have to do a hit–and–run, depending. But I still want to have it.”

“You’ll be there, Michael?”

“Plan to. Depending.”

“I understand. Hope it works out, though.”

Edie Dance’s pager beeped. She glanced at it. “I’ve got to get to Cardiac. If I see Dr. Olson I’ll ask him to stop by and brief you.”

Her mother left. Dance glanced at O’Neil, who nodded. He showed a badge to the Critical Care nurse and she helped them both into gowns and masks. The two officers stepped inside. O’Neil stood while Dance pulled up a chair and scooted forward. “Juan, it’s Kathryn. Can you hear me? Michael’s here too.”

“Hey, partner.”

“Juan?”

Though the right eye, the uncovered one, didn’t open, it seemed to Dance that the lid fluttered slightly.

“Can you hear me?”

Another flutter.

O’Neil said in a low comforting voice, “Juan, I know you’re hurting. We’re going to make sure you have the best treatment in the country.”

Dance said, “We want this guy. We want him bad. He’s in the area. He’s still here.”

The man’s head moved.

“We need to know if you saw or heard anything that’ll help us. We don’t know what he’s up to.”

Another gesture of the head. It was subtle but Dance saw the swaddled chin move slightly.

“Did you see something? Nod if you saw or heard something.”

Now, no motion.

“Juan,” she began, “did you —”

“Hey!” a male voice shouted from the doorway. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Her first thought was that the man was a doctor and that her mother would be in trouble for letting Dance into the room unsupervised. But the speaker was a young, sturdy Latino man in a business suit. Juan’s brother.

“Julio,” O’Neil said.

The nurse ran up. “No, no, please close the door! You can’t be inside without a mask.”

He waved a stiff arm at her and continued speaking to Dance. “He’s in that condition and you’re
questioning
him?”

“I’m Kathryn Dance with the CBI. Your brother might know something helpful about the man who caused this.”

“Well, he’s not going to be very fucking helpful if you kill him.”

“I’ll call security if you don’t close the door this minute,” the nurse snapped.

Julio held his ground. Dance and O’Neil stepped out of the room and into the hallway, closing the door behind them. They took off the gowns and masks.

In the corridor the brother got right into her face. “I can’t believe it. You have no respect —”

“Julio,” Millar’s father said, stepping toward his son. His stocky wife, her jet black hair disheveled, joined him.

Julio ignored everyone but Dance. “That’s all you care about, right? He tells you what you want to know and then he can die?”

She remained calm, recognizing a young man out of control. She didn’t take his anger personally. “We’re very anxious to catch the man who did this to him.”

“Son, please! You’re embarrassing us.” His mother touched his arm.

“Embarrassing you?” he mocked. Then turned to Dance again. “I asked around. I talked to some people. Oh, I know what happened. You sent him down into the fire.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You sent him downstairs at the courthouse to the fire.”

She felt O’Neil stiffening but he restrained himself. He knew Dance wouldn’t let other people fight her battles. She leaned closer to Julio. “You’re upset, we’re all upset. Why don’t we —”

“You picked
him.
Not Mikey here. Not one of your CBI people. The one Chicano cop — and you sent him.”

“Julio,” his father said sternly. “Don’t say that.”

“You want to know something about my brother? Hm? Do you know he wanted to get into CBI? But they didn’t let him in. Because of who he was.”

This was absurd. There was a high percentage of Latinos in all California law enforcement agencies, including the CBI. Her best friend in the bureau, Major Crimes agent Connie Ramirez, had more decorations than any agent in the history of the west–central office.

But his anger wasn’t about ethnic representation in state government, of course. It was about fear for his brother’s life. Dance had a lot of experience with anger; like denial and depression, it was one of the stress response states exhibited by deceitful subjects. When somebody’s throwing a tantrum, the best approach is simply to let him tire himself out. Intense rage can be sustained only for a short period.

“He wasn’t good enough to get a job with you, but he was good enough to send to get burned up.”

“Julio, please,” his mother implored. “He’s just upset. Don’t listen to him.”

“Don’t do that, Mama! You let them get away with shit every time you say things like that.”

Tears slipped down the woman’s powdered cheeks, leaving fleshy trails.

The young man turned back to Dance. “It was Latino Boy you sent, it was the
chulo.
”

“That’s enough,” his father barked, taking his son’s arm.

The young man pulled away. “I’m calling the papers. I’m going to call KHSP. They’ll get a reporter here and they’ll find out what you did. It’ll be on all the news.”

“Julio —” O’Neil began.

“No, you be quiet, you Judas. You two worked together. And you let her sacrifice him.” He pulled out his mobile phone. “I’m calling them. Now. You’re going to be so fucked.”

Dance said, “Can I talk to you for a moment, just us?”

“Oh, now you’re scared.”

The agent stepped aside.

Ready for battle, Julio faced her, holding the phone like a knife, and leaned into Dance’s personal proxemic zone.

Fine with her. She didn’t move an inch, looked into his eyes. “I’m very sorry for your brother, and I know how upsetting this is to you. But I won’t be threatened.”

The man gave a bitter laugh. “You’re just like —”

“Listen to me,” she said calmly. “We don’t know for sure what happened but we
do
know that a prisoner disarmed your brother. He had the suspect at gunpoint, then he lost control of his weapon and of the situation.”

“You’re saying it was his fault?” Julio asked, eyes wide.

“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. Not my fault, not Michael’s fault. Your brother’s. It didn’t make him a bad cop. But he
was
at fault. And if you turn this into a public issue, that fact is going to come out in the press.”

“You threatening me?”

“I’m telling you that I won’t have this investigation jeopardized.”

“Oh, you don’t know what you’re doing, lady.” He turned and stormed down the corridor.

Dance watched him, trying to calm down. She breathed deeply. Then joined the others.

“I’m so sorry about that,” Mr. Millar said, his arm around his wife’s shoulders.

“He’s upset,” Dance said.

“Please, don’t listen to him. He says things first and regrets them later.”

Dance didn’t think that the young man would be regretting a single word. But she also knew he wasn’t going to be calling reporters anytime soon.

The mother said to O’Neil, “And Juan’s always saying such nice things about you. He doesn’t blame you or anybody. I know he doesn’t.”

“Julio loves his brother,” O’Neil reassured them. “He’s just concerned about him.”

Dr. Olson arrived. The slight, placid man briefed the officers and the Millars. The news was pretty much the same. They were still trying to stabilize the patient. As soon as the dangers from shock and sepsis were under control he’d be sent to a major burn and rehab center. It was very serious, the doctor admitted. He couldn’t say one way or the other if he’d survive but they were doing everything they could.

“Has he said anything about the attack?” O’Neil asked.

The doctor looked over the monitor with still eyes. “He’s said a few words but nothing coherent.”

The parents continued their effusive apologies for their younger son’s behavior. Dance spent a few minutes reassuring them, then she and O’Neil said good–bye and headed outside.

The detective was jiggling his car keys.

A kinesics expert knows that it’s impossible to keep strong feelings hidden. Charles Darwin wrote, “Repressed emotion almost always comes to the surface in some form of body motion.” Usually it’s revealed as hand or finger gestures or tapping feet — we may easily control our words, glances and facial expressions but we exercise far less conscious mastery over our extremities.

Michael O’Neil was wholly unaware that he was playing with his keys.