XO (9 page)

So the scent of burned flesh and hair was unexpected; it hit like a fist in her belly.

She didn’t hesitate but she did steel herself and pushed past the assault, somehow keeping the nausea under control. She walked into the massive arena, which would hold thirty thousand, she guessed. All the overheads were on, revealing the tired and shabby décor. It was as if a play or concert had ended and the promoters were eager to prod the audience into the lobby to buy CDs and souvenirs.

On the stage and main floor were a dozen people in the varied uniforms of law enforcement, fire and EMS.

Climbing to the stage, she joined a cluster at the edge, looking down into the orchestra pit. It was from there that a faint trail of fetid smoke rose. Slowing, she struggled not to gag, then continued on.

What had happened? she wondered. She recalled the falling light from yesterday.

Dance noted immediately, from their posture and the sweep of their eyes, that two of the law officers, who all wore tan uniforms, were senior to the others. One was a woman hovering in her fifties with long hair and a pocked face. With Latina features, she was stocky and stood in a pose that suggested she disliked the uniform—the tight slacks and the close-fitting blouse, which blossomed outward at the waist, painted on rolls of fat.

The man she was speaking to was Caucasian, though sporting a dark tan. He also was stocky but his was targeted weight, situated in his gut, which rode above thin hips and legs. A large, round face crisscrossed with sun wrinkles. His posture—leaning forward, shoulders up—and still, squinting gray eyes suggested an arrogant and difficult man. His head hair was black and thick. He wore a revolver, a long-barreled Colt, while on the hips of everyone else here were the semi-auto Glocks that were de rigueur among law enforcers in California.

Ah, yes, she was right in her guess; he was P. K. Madigan, the head of detectives.

Conversation slowed as they turned to see the slim woman in jeans and sport coat stride toward them.

Madigan asked brusquely, “And you are …?” in a way that didn’t mean what the words said at all. He looked over her shoulder darkly toward who might have let her breach his outer perimeter.

Dance noted the woman was named Gonzalez, the sheriff, and so she addressed her and displayed her ID, which both of the in-charge duo examined carefully.

“I’m Sheriff Gonzalez. This is Chief Detective Madigan.” The decision not to offer first names in an introduction is often an attempt to assert power. Dance merely noted the choice now. She wasn’t here to flex muscles.

“My office called me about a homicide. I happened to be in the area on another matter.”

Could be official, might not be. Let the sheriff and chief detective guess.

Dance added, “I’m also a friend of Kayleigh Towne’s. When I heard the vic was in her crew I came right over here.”

“Well, thanks, Kathryn,” Madigan said.

And the
use
of first names is an attempt to disempower.

The flicker in Gonzalez’s eyes at this faint affront—but absence of any look Madigan’s way—told Dance reams about the chief detective. He’d carved out a major fiefdom at the FMCSO.

The detective continued, “But we don’t need any CBI involvement at this point. Wouldn’t you say, Sheriff?”

“I’d think not,” Gonzalez said, staring Dance in the eyes. It was a magnetic look and based not—as in the case of Madigan—on gender or jurisdictional power but on the woman’s determination not to glance at a figure perhaps four sizes smaller than hers. Whatever our rank or profession, we’re frail human beings first.

Madigan continued, “You said you were here on another matter? I look over the interagencies pretty good every morning. Didn’t see any Bureau activity here. They—you—don’t always tell us, of course.”

He’d called her bluff. “A personal matter.” Dance steamed ahead. “The victim was Bobby Prescott, the head of the road crew?”

“That’s right.”

“Anyone else hurt?”

Madigan wasn’t inclined to answer and used a nearby deputy as an excuse to turn away and have a very quiet conversation with him, leaving his boss to respond to the interloper as she liked.

Sheriff Gonzalez offered, “Only Bobby.”

“And what happened?”

Madigan rejoined the conversation. “We’re in the preliminary stage. Not sure at this point.” He definitely didn’t want her here but since she was with a senior agency he had at least to act deferential. Dance was a large dog wandering into a picnic—unwanted but possibly too dangerous to shoo away.

“COD?”

A pause then Gonzalez said, “He was doing some work on the stage last night. It seems he slipped and fell, a spotlight landed on him. It was on. He caught fire. Cause was blood loss and the burns.”

Lord, what a terrible way to die.

“Must’ve burned for a while. The alarms didn’t go off?”

“The smoke detectors down there, in the pit, weren’t working. We don’t know why.”

The first thing in her mind was the image of Edwin Sharp, glancing toward Bobby Prescott, with that fake smile and with eyes that could easily reflect a desire to turn the roadie into a bag of dust.

“You ought to be aware—”

“’Bout Mr. Sharp, our stalker?” Madigan asked.

“Well, yes.”

“One of the boys with the crew, Tye Slocum, told me that there was an incident yesterday at the Cowboy Saloon.”

Dance described what she had seen and heard. “Bobby confronted him a couple of times. And Edwin probably overheard Bobby say he was going to come back here later last night and check out some equipment malfunction. It would be late because he had to go to Bakersfield to pick something up.”

Madigan added absently, “Edwin’s on our radar. We know he’s renting a house near Woodward Park, north part of town. For a month.”

Dance recalled that Edwin had been quite forthcoming about his residence. She was still curious why he’d rented for that time length.

Dance noted too that both Madigan and she herself tended to refer to the stalker by his first name; this often happened when dealing with suspects who were potentially ED, emotionally disturbed. Dance reminded herself that whatever name they used, not to sell the young man short.

The chief detective took a phone call. Then he was back with Dance, though only for the briefest of times. And with the briefest of smiles—just as phony as Edwin’s, she reflected. “Appreciate you stopping by. We’ll give CBI a call if there’s anything we need.”

Dance looked over the stage, the misty air above the pit.

Gonzalez offered, “So long now.”

Despite the double-barreled good-bye, Dance didn’t feel like leaving just yet. “How did the light fall on him?”

The sheriff said, “Maybe tugged it after him when he fell. The cord, you know.”

“Was it a strip light?” Dance asked.

Madigan muttered, “Dunno what that is. Take a look.” The last sentence was delivered with a bit of challenge.

Dance did. It was indeed a hard thing to see: the scorched body. And, yes, the unit was a four-lamp strip.

“That might’ve been the one that fell yesterday.”

“Tye mentioned that,” Madigan said. “We’re looking into it.” He was clearly growing weary of her. “Well, all righty then.” He began to turn away.

“How did it come undone?”

“Wing nuts worked loose?” He nodded up to the scaffolding.

Dance said, “And I wonder why Bobby
fell.
Not like it isn’t marked.” Yellow warning tape clearly indicated the edge of the stage.

Over his shoulder Madigan offered a dismissive, “Lot of questions, you betcha.”

Then a woman’s loud, haunting voice from the back of the hall: “No … no,
no
!” The last time that word was repeated it became a scream. Despite the hot, dank atmosphere of the hall Dance felt a stinging chill slither down her back.

Kayleigh Towne sprinted down the aisle to the stage where her friend had so horribly died.

DANCE HAD SEEN
the young singer a half dozen times and she’d always been carefully, if not perfectly, assembled.

But today she was the most disheveled Dance had ever seen. No makeup, long hair askew, eyes puffy from crying, not lack of sleep (there’s a difference, Dance knew). Instead of her ubiquitous contact lenses, she wore thin black-framed glasses. She was breathless.

Detective P. K. Madigan instantly became a different person. His fake smile of irritation at Dance became a frown of genuine sympathy for Kayleigh. He stepped down the stairs and intercepted the young woman on the floor before she could get to the stage. “Kayleigh, dear. No, no, you shouldn’t be here. There’s no reason for you to be.”

“Bobby?”

“I’m afraid it is.”

“They told me … but I was praying it was a mistake.”

Then Sheriff Gonzalez joined them on the main floor and put her arm around the girl’s shoulders. Dance wondered if all friends and next of kin got this treatment, or only celebrities, and then decided the cynical thought was unkind. Kayleigh Towne was the city’s star, yes, but she was at the moment a woman in terrible distress.

“I’m sorry, Kayleigh,” Gonzalez said. “I’m so sorry.”

“It was him! Edwin. I know it! Go arrest him. He’s parked in front of my house. Right now!”

“He’s
what
?” Madigan asked.

“He’s parked in the lot of the nature preserve across the street. He’s just sitting there in that goddamn red car of his.”

Frowning, Madigan made a call and told a deputy to check it out.

“Arrest him!”

“We’ll have to see, Kayleigh. May not be as easy as that.”

Dance noticed Darthur Morgan standing, arms crossed, in the back of the theater, looking around carefully.

“The hell’s that?” Madigan grumbled, catching sight of the man.

“My bodyguard,” Kayleigh said, gasping from the crying.

“Oh.”

Dance returned to the edge of the stage and looked down. The nausea rose again from the smell, here concentrated, but she ignored it and studied the scene carefully: the strip light, six feet long or so, lay atop the scorched remains of Bobby Prescott. Dance knew the messages the body gave off—in life and in death. She now assessed the broken bones, the claw shape of the hands, partly due to the typical fire victim’s contractions, the pugilistic attitude, but also because he’d been trying to drag his broken body out from underneath the edge of the stage. He was headed away from the stairs—not the logical direction one would crawl if he was just seeking help.

“He fell first,” Dance said to the deputy standing next to her, softly, so Kayleigh would not hear. “A few minutes
before
the lamp hit him.”

“What’s that, ma’am?” The man, in his midthirties, of rectangular build, with a luxurious black mustache, stepped closer. He too was tanned, like Madigan, though perhaps he also had a naturally dark complexion. His tag said
DET. D. HARUTYUN.

She nodded down into the hole as the crime scene men, or women, in jumpsuits, moved the light away and began processing the body. She said, “His legs, the way they’re angled, his hands. He fell first. He tried to get out of the way. Then the light fell.”

The deputy examined the scene silently. Then: “The light teetered and fell. He knew it was coming ’cause he tugged on the cord.”

But the wire was plugged into an outlet on the stage, not in the pit. Both she and the detective noticed this simultaneously. Bobby couldn’t have pulled it down on himself. She asked, “And why’s it plugged into the wall there? A light like that’s mounted on the rigging
above
the stage. That’s where the power is…. And why’s it plugged in at all? That’d be worth mentioning too.”

“I’ll do that.”

Which he now did, walking down the stairs, offering some words to Kayleigh and then pulling Madigan aside, whispering to him. The detective nodded. His face folded into a frown. “Okay,” he called, “we’re treating
the stage as a crime scene. And the scaffolding where the light fell from yesterday. Clear everybody off. And get Charlie’s folks searching there. Hell, we’ve already contaminated the damn place bad enough.”

Dance wondered if Harutyun had taken credit for the observations. Probably had. But that didn’t matter to her. As long as they got all the helpful evidence they could, that’s what was important.

Gonzalez was fielding calls on her iPhone, concentrating. Dance now joined Kayleigh, standing alone, in a frantic state. Looking in many different directions, she began talking rapidly, gesturing. Dance was reminded of her own unhinged behavior in the few hours after she learned of the death of her husband, an FBI agent—not a victim of criminal activity but of a careless driver on Highway 1.

Dance hugged her hard and asked how she could help, phone calls to be made, rides to be arranged. Kayleigh thanked her and said no, she’d make the calls herself. “Oh, Kathryn, can you believe it? I … I can’t believe it. Bobby.” Her eyes strayed to the orchestra pit and Dance prepared to stop her physically from looking at the body if she needed to. But the singer turned instead to Madigan and Gonzalez and said that she thought somebody had been watching her yesterday here. No, been
sure
of it.