The Sleeping Doll (8 page)

This particular aspect of her body she loved. It was shiny and thick and when she spun her head it flowed like a shampoo model’s in a slo–mo TV commercial. She twisted the Thunderbird’s rearview mirror back into position. Shut the radio off. Touched her nose, the bump.

Stop it!

As she was reaching for the door handle she gave a gasp. It was opening on its own.

Jennie froze, staring up at the wiry man, who was leaning down.

Neither of them moved for a moment. Then he pulled the door open. “You’re the picture of delight, Jennie Marston,” he said. “Prettier than I imagined.”

“Oh, Daniel.” Overwhelmed with emotion — fear, relief, guilt, a big burning sun of feeling — Jennie Marston could think of nothing else to say. Breathless, she slipped out of the car and flew into her boyfriend’s arms, shivering and holding him so tightly that she squeezed a soft, steady hiss from his narrow chest.

Jennie was thinking how difficult the past month had been, forging a relationship through email, rare phone calls and fantasy, never seeing her lover in person.

Still, she knew that it was so much better to build love this way — from a distance. It was like the women on the home front during a war, the way her mother would talk about her father in Vietnam. That was all a lie, of course, she’d later learned, but it didn’t take away the larger truth: that love should be first about two souls and only later about sex. What she felt for Daniel Pell was unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

Exhilarating.

Frightening too.

She felt the tears start. No, no, stop it. Don’t cry. He won’t like it if you cry. Men get mad when that happens.

But he asked gently, “What’s the matter, lovely?”

“I’m just so happy.”

“Come on, tell me.”

Well, he didn’t sound mad. She debated, then said, “Well, I was wondering. There were some women. At the grocery store. Then I put the news on. I heard … somebody got burned real bad. A policeman. And then two people were killed, stabbed.” Daniel had said he just wanted the knife to threaten the guards. He wasn’t going to hurt anybody.

“What?” he snapped. His blue eyes grew hard.

No, no, what’re you doing? Jennie asked herself. You made him mad! Why did you ask him that? Now you’ve fucked everything up! Her heart fluttered.

“They did it again. They always do it! When I left, nobody was hurt. I was so careful! I got out the fire door just like we’d planned and slammed it shut … ” Then he nodded. “I know … sure. There were other prisoners in a cell near mine. They wanted me to let them out too, but I wouldn’t. I’ll bet they started to riot and when the guards went to stop them, that’s when those two got killed. Some of them had shivs, I’ll bet. You know what that is?”

“A knife, right?”

“Homemade knife. That’s what happened. And if somebody got burned, it was because he was careless. I looked carefully — there was no one else out there when I got through the fire. And how could I attack three people all by myself? Ridiculous. But the police and the news’re blaming me for it, like they always do.” His lean face was red. “I’m the easy target.”

“Just like that family eight years ago,” she said timidly, trying to calm him. Nothing takes away the danger faster than agreeing with a man.

Daniel had told her how he and his friend had gone to the Croytons’ house to pitch a business idea to the computer genius. But when they got there his friend, it seemed, had a whole different idea — he was going to rob the couple. He knocked Daniel out and started killing the family. Daniel had come to and tried to stop him. Finally he’d had to kill his friend in self–defense.

“They blamed me for that — because you know how we
hate
it when the killer dies. Somebody goes into a school and shoots students and kills himself. We want the bad guy alive. We need somebody to blame. It’s human nature.”

He was right, Jennie reflected. She was relieved, but also terrified that she’d upset him. “I’m sorry, honey. I shouldn’t’ve mentioned anything.”

She expected him to tell her to shut up, maybe even get out of the car and walk away. But to her shock he smiled and stroked her hair. “You can ask me anything.”

She hugged him again. Felt more tears on her cheek and touched them away. The makeup had clotted. She backed away, staring at her fingers. Oh, no. Look at this! She wanted to be pretty for him.

The fears coming back, digging away.

Oh, Jennie, you’re going to be wearing your hair like that? You sure you want to? … You don’t want bangs? They’d cover up that high forehead of yours.

What if she didn’t live up to his expectations?

Daniel Pell took her face in his strong hands. “Lovely, you’re the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth. You don’t even need makeup.”

Like he could see right into her thoughts.

Crying again. “I’ve been worried you wouldn’t like me.”

“Wouldn’t
like
you. Baby, I love you. What I emailed you, remember?”

Jennie remembered every word he’d written. She looked into his eyes. “Oh, you’re such a beautiful person.” She pressed her lips against his. Though they made love in her imagination at least once a day, this was their first kiss. She felt his teeth against her lips, his tongue. They stayed locked together in this fierce embrace for what seemed like forever, though it could have been a mere second. Jennie had no sense of time. She wanted him inside her, pressing hard, his chest pulsing against hers.

Souls are where love should start, but you’ve got to get the bodies involved pretty damn soon.

She slipped her hand along his bare, muscular leg.

He gave a laugh. “Tell you what, lovely, maybe we’d better get out of here.”

“Sure, whatever you want.”

He asked, “You have the phone I called you on?” Daniel had told her to buy three prepaid cell phones with cash. She handed him the one she’d answered when he’d called just after he’d escaped. He took it apart and pulled the battery and SIM card out. He threw them into a trash can and returned to the car.

“The others?”

She produced them. He handed her one and put the other in his pocket.

He said, “We ought to —”

A siren sounded nearby — close. They froze.

Angel songs, Jennie thought, then recited this good–luck mantra a dozen times.

The sirens faded into the distance.

She turned back. “They might come back.” Nodding after the sirens.

Daniel smiled. “I’m not worried about that. I just want to be alone with you.”

Jennie felt a shiver of happiness down her spine. It almost hurt.

A United Express regional jet banked sharply and low, then leveled off, vanishing over the trees for the touchdown at nearby Monterey Peninsula Airport.

Kathryn Dance and Michael O’Neil were in the CBI’s ground–floor conference room, directly beneath her office. They stood side by side, staring at a large map on which the roadblocks were indicated — this time with push–pins, not entomological Post–it notes. There had been no sightings of the Worldwide Express driver’s Honda, and the net had been pushed farther back, now eighty miles away.

Kathryn Dance glanced at O’Neil’s square face and read in it a complicated amalgam of determination and concern. She knew him well. They’d met years ago when she was a jury consultant, studying the demeanor and responses of prospective jurors during voir dire and advising lawyers which to choose and which to reject. She’d been hired by federal prosecutors to help them select jurors in a RICO trial in which O’Neil was a chief witness. (Curiously, she’d met her late husband under parallel circumstances: when she was a reporter covering a trial in Salinas and he was a prosecution witness.)

Dance and O’Neil had become friends and stayed close over the years. When she’d decided to go into law enforcement and got a job with the regional office of the CBI, she found herself working frequently with him. Stan Fishburne, then the agent in charge, was one mentor, O’Neil the other. He taught her more about the art of investigation in six months than she’d learned during her entire formal training. They complemented each other well. The quiet, deliberate man preferred traditional police techniques, like forensics, undercover work, surveillance and running confidential informants, while Dance’s specialty was canvassing, interrogation and interviewing.

She knew she wouldn’t be the agent she was today without O’Neil’s help. Or his humor and patience (and other vital talents: like offering her Dramamine
before
she went out on his boat).

Though their approach to their job and their talents differed, their instincts were identical and they were closely attuned to each other. She was amused to see that, while he’d been staring at the map, in fact he’d been sensing signals from her too.

“What is it?” he asked.

“How do you mean?”

“Something’s bothering you. More than just finding yourself in the driver’s seat here.”

“Yep.” She thought for a minute. That was one thing about O’Neil; he often forced her to put her tangled ideas in order before speaking. She explained, “Bad feeling about Pell. I got this idea that the guards’ deaths meant nothing to him. Juan too. And that Worldwide Express driver? He’s dead, you know.”

“I know … You think Pell
wants
to kill?”

“No, not wants to. Or doesn’t. What he wants is whatever serves his interest, however small. In a way, that seems scarier, and makes it harder to anticipate him. But let’s hope I’m wrong.”

“You’re never wrong, boss.” TJ appeared, carrying a laptop. He set it up on the battered conference table under a sign, MOST WANTED STATEWIDE. Below it were the ten winners of that contest, reflecting the demographics of the state: Latino, Anglo, Asian and African–American, in that order.

“You find the McCoy woman or Pell’s aunt?”

“Not yet. My troops’re on the case. But check this out.” He adjusted the computer screen.

They hovered around the screen, on which was a high–resolution image of the photograph from Morton Nagle’s camera. Now larger and clearer, it revealed a figure in a denim jacket on the driveway that led to the back of the building, where the fire had started. The shadow had morphed into a large black suitcase.

“Woman?” O’Neil asked.

They could judge the person’s height by comparing it to the automobile nearby. About Dance’s height, five–six. Slimmer, though, she noted. The cap and sunglasses obscured the head and face, but through the vehicle’s window you could see hips slightly broader than a man’s would be for that height.

“And there’s a glint. See that?” TJ tapped the screen. “Earring.”

Dance glanced at the hole in his lobe, where a diamond or metal stud occasionally resided.

“Statistically speaking,” TJ said in defense of his observation.

“Okay. I agree.”

“A blond woman, about five–six or so,” O’Neil summarized.

Dance said, “Weight one–ten, give or take.” She had a thought. She called Rey Carraneo in his office upstairs, asked him to join them.

He appeared a moment later. “Agent Dance.”

“Go back to Salinas. Talk to the manager of the You Mail It store.” The accomplice had probably recently checked out the Worldwide Express delivery schedule at the franchise. “See if anyone there remembers a woman fitting her general description. If so, get a picture on EFIS.”

The Electronic Facial Identification System is a computer–based version of the old Identi–Kit, used by investigators to re–create suspects’ likenesses from the recollections of witnesses.

“Sure, Agent Dance.”

TJ hit some buttons and the jpeg zipped wirelessly to the color printer in his office. Carraneo would pick it up there.

TJ’s phone rang. “Yo.” He jotted notes during a brief conversation, which ended with, “I love you, darling.” He hung up. “Vital statistics clerk in Sacramento.
B–R–I–T–N–E–E.
Love that name. She’s very sweet. Way too sweet for me. Not to say it couldn’t work out between us.”

Dance lifted an eyebrow, the kinesic interpretation of which was: “Get to the point.”

“I put her on the case of the missing Family member, capital
F.
Five years ago Samantha McCoy changed her name to Sarah Monroe. So she wouldn’t have to throw out her monogrammed underwear, I’d guess. Then
three
years ago, somebody of that name marries Ronald Starkey. There goes the monogram ploy. Anyway, they live in San Jose.”

“Sure it’s the same McCoy?”

“The real McCoy, you mean. I’ve been waiting to say that. Yep. Good old Social Security. With a parole board backup.”

Dance called Directory Assistance and got Ronald and Sarah Starkey’s address and phone number.

“San Jose,” O’Neil said. “That’s close enough.” Unlike the other two women in the Family to whom Dance had already spoken, Samantha could have planted the gas bomb this morning and been home in an hour and a half.

“Does she work?” Dance asked.

“I didn’t check that out. I will, though, you want.”

“We want,” O’Neil said. TJ didn’t report to him, and in the well–established hierarchy of law enforcement the CBI trumped MCSO. But a request from Chief Deputy Michael O’Neil was the same as a request from Dance. Or even higher.

A few minutes later TJ returned to say that the tax department revealed that Sarah Starkey was employed by a small educational publisher in San Jose.

Dance got the number. “Let’s see if she was in this morning.”

O’Neil asked, “How’re you going to do that? We can’t let her know we suspect anything.”

“Oh, I’ll lie,” Dance said breezily. She called the publisher from a caller ID–blocked line. When a woman answered, Dance said, “Hi. This is the El Camino Boutique. We have an order for Sarah Starkey. But the driver said she wasn’t there this morning. Do you know what time she’ll be getting in?”

“Sarah? I’m afraid there’s some mistake. She’s been here since eight thirty.”

“Really? Well, I’ll talk to the driver again. Might be better to deliver it to her house. If you could not mention anything to Mrs. Starkey, I’d appreciate it. It’s a surprise.” Dance hung up. “She was there all morning.”

TJ applauded. “And the Oscar for the best performance by a law enforcer deceiving the public goes to … ”

O’Neil frowned.

“Don’t approve of my subversive techniques?” Dance asked.

With his typical wry delivery O’Neil said, “No, it’s just that you’re going to have to send her
something
now. The receptionist’s going to dime you out. Tell her she’s got a secret admirer.”

“I know, boss. Get her one of those balloon bouquets. ‘Congratulations on not being a suspect.’ ”

Dance’s administrative assistant, short, no–nonsense Maryellen Kresbach, walked into the room with coffee for all (Dance never asked; Maryellen always brought). The mother of three wore clattery high heels and favored complicated, coiffed hair and impressive fingernails.

The crew in the conference room thanked her. Dance sipped the excellent coffee. Wished Maryellen had brought some of the cookies sitting on her desk. She envied the woman’s ability to be both a domestic powerhouse and the best assistant Dance had ever had.

The agent noticed that Maryellen wasn’t leaving after delivering the caffeine.

“Didn’t know if I should bother you. But Brian called.”

“He did?”

“He said you might not have gotten his message on Friday.”

“You gave it to me.”

“I know I did. I didn’t tell him I did. And I didn’t tell him I didn’t. So.”

Feeling O’Neil’s eyes on her, Dance said, “Okay, thanks.”

“You want his number?”

“I have it.”

“Okay.” Her assistant continued to stand resolutely in front of her boss, nodding slowly.

Well, this is a rather spiny moment.

Dance didn’t want to talk about Brian Gunderson.

The trill of the conference–room phone saved her.

She answered, listened for a moment and said, “Have somebody bring him to my office right away.”