The Sleeping Doll (7 page)

The CBI head turned to O’Neil. “This’s a tough one, Michael. Lots of angles. Sure glad you’re available to help us out.”

“Glad to do what I can.”

This was Charles Overby at his best. Using the words “help us” to make clear who was running the show, while also tacitly explaining that O’Neil and the MCSO were on the line too.

Stash the blame …

Overby announced he was headed back to the CBI office and left the conference room.

Dance now turned to Morton Nagle. “Do you have any research about Pell I could look at?”

“Well, I suppose. But why?”

“Maybe help us get some idea of where he’s going,” O’Neil said.

“Copies,” the writer said. “Not the originals.”

“That’s fine,” Dance told him. “One of us’ll come by later and pick them up. Where’s your office?”

Nagle worked out of a house he was renting in Monterey. He gave Dance the address and phone number, then began packing up his camera bag.

Dance glanced down at it. “Hold on.”

Nagle noticed her eyes on the contents. He smiled. “I’d be happy to.”

“I’m sorry?”

He picked up a copy of one of his true–crime books,
Blind Trust,
and with a flourish autographed it for her.

“Thanks.” She set it down and pointed at what she’d actually been looking at. “Your camera. Did you take any pictures this morning? Before the fire?”

“Oh.” He smiled wryly at the misunderstanding. “Yes, I did.”

“It’s digital?”

“That’s right.”

“Can we see them?”

Nagle picked up the Canon and began to push buttons. She and O’Neil hunched close over the tiny screen on the back. Dance detected a new aftershave. She felt comfort in his proximity.

The writer scrolled through the pictures. Most of them were of people walking into the courthouse, a few artistic shots of the front of the building in the fog.

Then the detective and the agent simultaneously said, “Wait.” The image they were looking at depicted the driveway that led to where the fire had occurred. They could make out someone behind a car, just the back visible, wearing a blue jacket, a baseball cap and sunglasses.

“Look at the arm.”

Dance nodded. It seemed the person’s arm trailed behind, as if wheeling a suitcase.

“Is that time stamped?”

Nagle called up the readout. “Nine twenty–two.”

“That’d work out just right,” Dance said, recalling the fire marshal’s estimate of the time the gas bomb had been planted. “Can you blow up the image?”

“Not in the camera.”

TJ said he could on his computer, though, no problem. Nagle gave the memory card to him, and Dance sent TJ back to CBI headquarters, reminding him, “And Samantha McCoy. Track her down. The aunt too. Bakersfield.”

“You bet, boss.”

Rey Carraneo was still outside, canvassing for witnesses. But Dance believed that the accomplice had fled too; now that Pell had probably eluded the roadblocks there was no reason for the partner to stay around. She sent him back to headquarters as well.

Nagle said, “I’ll get started on the copies … Oh, don’t forget.” He handed her the autographed paperback. “I know you’ll like it.”

When he was gone Dance held it up. “In all my free time.” And gave it to O’Neil for his collection.

A disk of sun was slowly emerging as the blanket of fog melted.

She heard a siren in the distance, a dove cooing, a horn, a child crying, then a child laughing.

Jennie Marston thought, Angel songs.

The scent of pine filled the cool air. No breeze. Dull light. A typical California day on the coast, but everything about it was intensified.

Which is what happens when you’re in love and about to meet your boyfriend.

Anticipation …

Some old pop song, Jennie thought. Her mother sang it from time to time, her smoker’s voice harsh and off–key, often slurred.

Blond,
authentic
California blond, Jennie sipped her coffee. It was expensive but good. This wasn’t her kind of store (the twenty–four–year–old part–time caterer was an Albertsons girl, a Safeway girl) but Whole Foods was a good meeting place.

She was wearing close–fitting jeans, a light pink blouse and, underneath, a red Victoria’s Secret bra and panties. Like the coffee, the lingerie was a luxury she couldn’t afford. But some things you had to splurge on. (Besides, Jennie reflected, the garments were really a gift in a way: for her boyfriend.)

Which made her think of other indulgences. Rubbing her nose,
flick, flick,
on the bump.

Stop it, she told herself.

But she didn’t. Another two flicks.

Angel songs …

Why couldn’t she have met him a year later? She’d’ve had the cosmetic work done by then and be beautiful. At least she could do
something
about the nose and boobs. She only wished she could fix the toothpick shoulders and boyish hips but fixing those was beyond the talents of talented Dr. Ginsberg.

Skinny, skinny, skinny … And the way you eat! Twice what I do and look at me. God gave me a daughter like you to test me.

Watching the unsmiling women wheeling their grocery carts to their mommy vans, Jennie wondered, Do
they
love their husbands? They couldn’t possibly be as much in love as she was with her boyfriend. She felt sorry for them.

Jennie finished her coffee and returned to the store, looking at massive pineapples and bins of grain and heads of funny–shaped lettuce and perfectly lined up steaks and chops. Mostly she studied the pastries — the way one painter examines another’s canvas. Good … Not so good. She didn’t want to buy anything — it was way expensive. She was just too squirrelly to stay in one place.

That’s what I should’ve named you. Stay Still Jennie. For fuck’s sake, girl. Sit down.

Looking at the produce, looking at the rows of meat.

Looking at the women with boring husbands.

She wondered if the intensity she felt for her boyfriend was simply because it was all so new. Would it fade after a while? But one thing in their favor was that they were older; this wasn’t that stupid passion of your teenage years. They were mature people. And most important was their souls’ connection, which comes along so rarely. Each knew exactly how the other felt.

“Your favorite color’s green,” he’d shared with her the first time they’d spoken. “I’ll bet you sleep under a green comforter. It soothes you at night.”

Oh my God, he was
so
right. It was a blanket, not a comforter. But it was green as grass. What kind of man had
that
intuition?

Suddenly she paused, aware of a conversation nearby. Two of the bored housewives weren’t so bored at the moment.

“Somebody’s dead. In Salinas. It just happened.”

Salinas? Jennie thought.

“Oh, the escape from that prison or whatever? Yeah, I just heard about it.”

“David Pell, no, Daniel. That’s it.”

“Isn’t he, like, Charles Manson’s kid or something?”

“I don’t know. But I heard some people got killed.”

“He’s not Manson’s kid. No, he just called himself that.”

“Who’s Charles Manson?”

“Are you kidding me? Remember Sharon Tate?”

“Who?”

“Like, when were you born?”

Jennie approached the women. “Excuse me, what’s that you’re talking about? An escape or something?”

“Yeah, from this jail in Salinas. Didn’t you hear?” one of the short–haired housewives asked, glancing at Jennie’s nose.

She didn’t care. “Somebody was killed, you said?”

“Some guards and then somebody was kidnapped and killed, I think.”

They didn’t seem to know anything more.

Her palms damp, heart uneasy, Jennie turned and walked away. She checked her phone. Her boyfriend had called a while ago but nothing since then. No messages. She tried the number. He didn’t answer.

Jennie returned to the turquoise Thunderbird. She put the radio on the news, then twisted the rearview mirror toward her. She pulled her makeup and brush from her purse.

Some people got killed …

Don’t worry about it, she told herself. Working on her face, concentrating the way her mother had taught her. It was one of the nice things the woman had done for her. “Put the light here, the dark here — we’ve got to do something with that nose of yours. Smooth it in … blend it. Good.”

Though her mother often took away the nice as fast as shattering a glass.

Well, it looked fine until you messed it up. Honestly, what’s wrong with you? Do it again. You look like a whore.

He’d had to abandon Billy’s Honda Civic earlier than he’d planned. He’d heard on the news that the police had found the Worldwide Express truck, which meant they would probably assume he was in the Civic. He’d apparently evaded the roadblocks just in time.

How ‘bout
that,
Kathryn?

Now he continued along the sidewalk, with his head down. He wasn’t concerned about being out in public, not yet. Nobody would expect him here. Besides, he looked different. In addition to the civilian clothes he was smooth–shaven. After dumping Billy’s car he’d slipped into the back parking lot of a motel, where he’d gone through the trash. He’d found a discarded razor and a tiny bottle of the motel’s giveaway body lotion. Crouching by the Dumpster, he’d used them to shave off the beard.

He now felt the breeze on his face, smelled something in the air: ocean and seaweed. First time in years. He loved the scent. In Capitola prison the air you smelled was the air they decided to send to you through the air conditioner or heating system and it didn’t smell like anything.

A squad car went past.

Hold fast …

Pell was careful to maintain his pace, not looking around, not deviating from his route. Changing your behavior draws attention. And that puts you at a disadvantage, gives people information about you. They can figure out
why
you changed, then use it against you.

That’s what had happened at the courthouse.

Kathryn …

Pell had had the interrogation all planned out: If he could do so without arousing suspicion, he was going to get information from whoever was interviewing him, learn how many guards were in the courthouse and where they were, for instance.

But then to his astonishment she’d learned exactly what he was doing.

Where else could somebody find a hammer of yours? … Now let’s think about the wallet. Where could that’ve come from? …

So he’d been forced to change his plans. And fast. He’d done the best he could but the braying alarm told him she’d anticipated him. If she’d done that just five minutes earlier, he would’ve been back in the Capitola prison van. The escape plan would’ve turned to dust.

Kathryn Dance …

Another squad car drove quickly past.

Still no glances his way and Pell kept on course. But he knew it was time to get out of Monterey. He slipped into the crowded open–air shopping center. He noted the stores, Macy’s, Mervyns and the smaller ones selling Mrs. See’s Candy, books (Pell loved and devoured them — the more you knew, the more control you had), video games, sports equipment, cheap clothes and cheaper jewelry. The place was packed. It was June; many schools were out of session.

One girl, college age, came out of a store, a bag over her shoulder. Beneath her jacket was a tight red tank top. One glance at it, and the swelling began inside him. The bubble, expanding. (The last time he’d intimidated a con, and bribed a guard, to swing a conjugal visit with the con’s wife in Capitola was a year ago. A long, long year … )

He stared at her, following only a few feet behind, enjoying the sight of the hair and her tight jeans, trying to smell her, trying to get close enough to brush against her as he walked past, which is an assault just as surely as being dragged into an alley and stripped at knifepoint.

Rape is in the eye of the beholder …

Ah, but then she turned into another store and vanished from his life.

My loss, dear, he thought.

But not yours, of course.

In the parking lot, Pell saw a turquoise Ford Thunderbird. Inside he could just make out a woman, brushing her long blond hair.

Ah …

Walking closer. Her nose was bumpy and she was a skinny little thing, not much in the chest department. But that didn’t stop the balloon within him growing, ten times, a hundred. It was going to burst soon.

Daniel Pell looked around. Nobody else nearby.

He walked forward through the rows of cars, closing the distance.