Why? Why did I say that?
I was all, Leave Tammy alone. Don’t flame people online. And then I went and said something about Travis.
Shit. Now he’s going to get me too! Is that what I’d heard outside earlier? Maybe he really was outside and, when my brother showed up, that scared him off.
Kelley thought of the bicyclist she’d seen. Hell, Travis rode a bike all the time; a lot of kids at school made fun of him because he couldn’t afford a car.
Dismayed, angry, scared . . .
Kelley was staring at the posts on the screen of the computer, when she heard a noise behind her.
A snap, like earlier.
Another.
She turned.
A wrenching scream poured from Kelley Morgan’s lips.
A face—the most frightening face she’d ever seen—was staring at her from the window. Kelley’s rational thinking stopped cold. She dropped to her knees, feeling the warm liquid gush between her legs as she lost control of her bladder. A pain spurted in her chest, spread to her jaw, her nose, eyes. She nearly stopped breathing.
The face, motionless, staring with its huge black eyes, scarred skin, slits for the nose, the mouth sewn shut and bloody.
The pure horror from her childhood fears flooded through her.
“No, no, no!” Sobbing like a baby, Kelley was scrabbling away as fast as she could and as far as she could. She slammed into the wall and sprawled, stunned, on the carpet.
Eyes staring, black eyes.
Staring right at her.
“No . . .”
Jeans drenched with pee, stomach churning, Kelley crawled desperately toward the door.
The eyes, the mouth with the bloody stitching in it. The yeti, the Abominable Snowman. Somewhere in that portion of her mind that still worked she knew it was only a mask, tied to the crape myrtle tree outside the window.
But that didn’t lessen the fear it ignited within her—the rawest of her childhood fears.
And she knew too what it meant.
Travis Brigham was here. He’d come to kill her, just like he’d tried to kill Tammy Foster.
Kelley finally managed to climb to her feet and stumbled to her door. Run. Get the fuck out.
In the hall she turned toward the front door.
Shit! It was open! Her brother hadn’t locked it at all.
Travis was here, in the house!
Should she just sprint through the living room?
As she stood frozen in fear, he got her from behind, his arm snaking around her throat.
She struggled—until he jammed a gun against her temple.
Sobbing. “Please, no, Travis.”
“Perv?” he whispered. “Luser?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it!”
As he dragged her backward, toward the basement door, she felt his arm flex harder until her pleas and the choking grew softer and softer and the glare from the spotless living room window turned gray and then went black.
KATHRYN DANCE WAS no stranger to the American justice system. She had been in magistrates’ offices and courtrooms as a crime journalist, a jury consultant, a law enforcement officer.
But she’d never been the relative of the accused.
After leaving the hospital, she’d dropped the children off at Martine’s and called her sister, Betsey, who lived with her husband down in Santa Barbara.
“Bet, there’s a problem with Mom.”
“What? Tell me what happened.” There’d been a rare edge in the voice of the otherwise flighty woman, younger than Dance by several years. Betsey had curly angelic hair and flitted from career to career like a butterfly testing out flowers.
Dance had run through the details she knew.
“I’ll call her now,” Betsey had announced.
“She’s in detention. They’ve got her phone. There’ll be a bail hearing soon. We’ll know more then.”
“I’m coming up.”
“It might be better later.”
“Sure, of course. Oh, Katie, how serious is this?”
Dance had hesitated. She recalled Harper’s still, determined eyes, missionary’s eyes. Finally she’d said, “It could be bad.”
After they’d disconnected, Dance had continued here, to the magistrate’s office at the courthouse, where she now sat with her father. The lean, white-haired man was even paler than usual (he’d learned the hard way of the dangers a marine biologist faces in the ocean sun and was now a sunscreen and hat addict). His arm was around her shoulders.
Edie had spent an hour in the holding cell—the intake area in which many of Dance’s collars had been booked. Dance knew the procedures well: All personal effects were confiscated. You went through the warrant check and the inputting of information, and you sat in a cell, surrounded by other arrestees. And then you waited and waited.
Finally you were brought here, into the magistrate’s chilly impersonal room for a bail hearing. Dance and her father were surrounded by dozens of family members of arrestees. Most of the accused here, some in street clothes, some in red Monterey County jumpsuits, were young Latino men. Dance recognized plenty of gang tats. Some were sullen whites, scruffier than the Latinos, with worse teeth and hair. In the back sat the public defenders. The bail bondsmen, too, waiting to pick up their 10 percent from the carcasses.
Dance lifted her eyes to her mother as she was brought in. It broke her heart to see the woman in handcuffs. She wasn’t in a jumpsuit. But her hair, normally perfectly done, was in a shambles. Her homemade necklace had been taken from her upon processing. Her wedding and engagement rings too. Her eyes were red.
Lawyers milled about, some not much spiffier than their clients; only Edie Dance’s attorney was in a suit that had been shaped by a tailor after purchase. George Sheedy had been practicing criminal law on the Central Coast for two decades. He had abundant gray hair, a trapezoidal figure with broad shoulders and a bass voice that would have done a stunning version of “Old Man River.”
After the brief phone conversation with Sheedy from the car, Dance had immediately called Michael O’Neil, who’d been shocked at the news. She then called the Monterey County prosecutor, Alonzo “Sandy” Sandoval.
“I just heard about it, Kathryn,” Sandoval muttered angrily. “I’m being straight with you: We’ve had MCSO looking into the Millar death, sure, but I had no idea that’s what Harper was in town for. And a public arrest.” He was bitter. “That was inexcusable. If the AG insisted on a prosecution, I would’ve had her surrender with you bringing her in.”
Dance believed him. She and Sandy had worked together for years and had put a lot of bad people in jail, thanks in part to mutual trust.
“But I’m sorry, Kathryn. Monterey has nothing to do with the case. It’s in Harper’s and Sacramento’s hands now.”
She’d thanked him and hung up. But at least she had been able to get her mother’s bail hearing handled quickly. Under California law the time of the hearing is at the magistrate’s discretion. In some places, like Riverside and Los Angeles, prisoners are often in a cell for twelve hours before they appear in front of the magistrate. Since the case was murder it was possible the magistrate might not set bail at all, leaving that to the discretion of the judge at the arraignment, which in California would have to occur within a few days.
The door to the outer hallway kept opening and Dance noticed that many of the recent arrivals were wearing media identification cards around their necks. No cameras were allowed, but there were plenty of pads of paper.
A circus . . .
The clerk called out, “Edith Barbara Dance,” and, somber and red-eyed and still cuffed, her mother rose. Sheedy joined her. A jailor was beside them. This session was devoted exclusively to the bail; pleas were entered later, at the arraignment. Harper asked that Edie be held without bail, which didn’t surprise Dance. Her father stiffened at the prosecutor’s harsh words, which made Edie out to be a dangerous Jack Kevorkian, who, if released on bail, would targ
et other patients for death and then flee to Canada.
Stuart gasped, hearing his wife spoken about in this way.
“It’s okay, Dad,” his daughter whispered. “That’s just the way they talk.” Though the words broke her heart too.
George Sheedy argued articulately for an OR release—on Edie’s own recognizance, pointing to her lack of a criminal record and to her roots in the community.
The magistrate, a quick-eyed Latino who had met Kathryn Dance, exuded considerable stress, which she could easily read in his posture and facial expressions. He wouldn’t want this case at all; he’d have loyalty to Dance, who was a reasonable law officer, cooperative. But he would also be aware that Harper was a big name from the big city. And the magistrate would be very aware of the media too.
The arguments continued.
Dance the law enforcer found herself looking back to earlier that month, reliving the circumstances of the officer’s death. Trying to match facts with facts. Whom had she seen in the hospital around the time Juan Millar died? What exactly were the means of death? Where had her mother been?
She now glanced up and found Edie staring at her. Dance gave a pale smile. Edie’s face was expressionless. The woman turned back to Sheedy.
In the end the magistrate compromised. He set the bail at a half million dollars, which wasn’t atypical for a murder, but also wasn’t overly burdensome. Edie and Stuart weren’t wealthy but they owned their house outright; since it was in Carmel, not far from the beach, it had to be worth two million. They could put it up as security.
Harper took the news stoically—his face unsmiling, his posture upright but relaxed. Dance’s reading was that he was completely stress free, despite the setback. He reminded her of the killer in Los Angeles, J. Doe. One of the reasons she’d had such a hard time spotting that perp’s deception was that a highly driven, focused person reveals, and feels, little distress when lying in the name of his cause. This certainly defined Robert Harper.
Edie was hustled back to the cell and Stuart rose and went to see the clerk to arrange for the bail.
As Harper buttoned his jacket and walked toward the door, his face a mask, Dance intercepted him. “Why are you doing this?”
He regarded her coolly, said nothing.
She continued, “You could’ve let Monterey County handle the case. Why’d you come down from San Francisco? What’s your agenda?” She was speaking loudly enough for the reporters nearby to hear.
Harper said evenly, “I can’t discuss this with you.”
“Why my mother?”
“I have nothing to say.” And he pushed through the door and onto the steps of the courthouse, where he paused to address the press—to whom he apparently had plenty to say.
Dance returned to a hard bench to await her father and mother.
Ten minutes later, George Sheedy and Stuart Dance joined her.
She asked her father, “It went okay?”
“Yes,” he answered in a hollow voice.
“How soon will she be out?”
Stuart looked at Sheedy, who said, “Ten minutes, maybe less.”
“Thank you.” He shook the lawyer’s hand. Dance nodded her gratitude to Sheedy, who told them he was returning to the office and would get started on the defense immediately.
After he’d gone, Dance asked her father, “What did they take from the house, Dad?”
“I don’t know. The neighbor said they seemed most interested in the garage. Let’s get out of here. I hate this place.”
They walked out into the hallway. Several reporters saw Dance and approached. “Agent Dance,” one woman asked, “is it troubling to know your mother’s been arrested for murder?”
Well, there’s some cutting-edge interviewing. She wanted to fire back with something sarcastic, but she remembered the number-one rule in media relations: Assume everything you say in a reporter’s presence will appear on the six o’clock news or on tomorrow’s front page. She smiled. “There’s no doubt in my mind that this is a terrible misunderstanding. My mother has been a nurse for years. She’s devoted herself to saving lives, not taking them.”
“Did you know that she signed a petition supporting Jack Kevorkian and assisted suicide?”
No, Dance didn’t know that. And, she wondered, how had the press come by the information so fast? Her reply: “You’ll have to ask her about that. But petitioning to change the law isn’t the same as breaking it.”
It was then that her phone sounded. It was O’Neil. She stepped away to take the call. “Michael, she’s getting out on bail,” she told him.
There was a moment’s pause. “Good. Thank God.”
Dance realized he was calling about something else, and something that was serious. “What is it, Michael?”
“They’ve found another cross.”
“A real memorial, or with a future date?”
“Today. And it’s identical to the first one. Branches and florist wire.”
Her eyes closed in despair. Not again.
Then O’Neil said, “But, listen. We’ve got a witness. A guy who saw Travis leave it. He might’ve seen where he went or saw something about him that’ll tell us where he’s hiding. Can you interview him?”
Another pause. Then: “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
O’Neil gave her the address. They disconnected.
Dance turned to her father. “Dad, I can’t stay. I’m so sorry.”
He turned his handsome, distraught face toward his daughter. “What?”
“They found another cross. The boy’s going after somebody else, it looks like. Today. But there’s a witness. I have to interview them.”
“Of course you do.” Yet he sounded uncertain. He was going through a nightmare at the moment—nearly as bad as her mother’s—and he’d want his daughter, with her expertise and her connections, nearby.
But she couldn’t get images of Tammy Foster out of her mind, lying in the trunk, the water rising higher.
Images of Travis Brigham’s eyes too, cold and dark beneath their abundant brows, as he gazed at his father, as if his character in a game, armed with knife or sword, was debating stepping out of the synth world and into the real, to slaughter the man.
She had to go. And now. “I’m sorry.” She hugged her father.
“Your mother will understand.”
Dance ran to her car and started the engine. As she was pulling out of the parking lot she glanced in the rearview mirror and saw her mother emerge from the door to the lockup. Edie stared at her daughter’s departure. The woman’s eyes were still, her face revealing no emotion.
Dance’s foot slipped to the brake. But then she pressed down once more on the accelerator and hit the grille flashers.
Your mother will understand. . . .
No, she won’t, Dance thought. She absolutely won’t.
Chapter 14
AFTER ALL THESE years in the area Kathryn Dance had never quite grown used to the Peninsula fog. It was like a shape-shifter—a character out of the fantasy books that Wes liked. Sometimes it was wisps that hugged the ground and swept past you like ghosts. Other times it was smoke squatting in depressions of land and highway, obscuring everything.
Most often it was a thick cotton bedspread floating several hundred feet in the air, mimicking cloud and ominously darkening everything below it.
This was the breed of fog today.
The gloom thickened as Dance, listening to Raquy and the Cavemen, a North African group known for their percussion, drove along a quiet road running through state land between Carmel and Pacific Grove. The landscape was mostly woods, untended, filled with pine, scrub oak, eucalyptus and maple, joined by tangles of brush. She drove through the police line, ignoring the reporters and camera crews. Were they here for the crime, or because of her mother? Dance wondered cynically.
She parked, greeted the deputies nearby and joined Michael O’Neil. They began walking toward the cordoned-off shoulder, where the second cross had been f
ound.
“How’s your mother doing?” O’Neil asked.
“Not good.”
Dance was so glad he was here. Emotion swelled like a balloon within her, and she couldn’t speak for a moment, as the image of her mother in handcuffs, and the run-in with the social worker about her children, surfaced.
The senior deputy couldn’t help but give a faint smile. “Saw you on TV.”
“TV?”
“Who was the woman, the one who looked like Oprah? You were about to arrest her.”
Dance sighed. “They got that on camera?”
“You looked”—he searched for a word—“imposing.”
“She was taking the kids to Social Services.”
O’Neil looked shocked. “It was Harper. Tactics. He nearly got his flunky collared, though. Oh, I would’ve pushed the button on that one.” She added, “I’ve got Sheedy on the case.”
“George? Good. Tough. You need tough.”
“Oh, and then Overby let Harper into CBI. To go through my files.”
“No!”
“I think he was looking to see if I suppressed evidence or tinkered with the files about the Juan Millar case. Overby said he went through your office’s files too.”
“MCSO?” he asked. Dance could read his anger like a red highway flare. “Did Overby know Harper was making a case against Edie?”
“I don’t know. At the least he should’ve thought: What the hell is this guy from San Francisco prowling around in our files for? ‘Caseload evaluations.’ Ridiculous.” Her own fury swelled again and, with effort, she finally managed to bank it.
They approached the spot where the cross was planted, on the shoulder of the road. The memorial was like the earlier one: broken-off branches bound with wire, and a cardboard disk with today’s date on it.
At the base was another bouquet of red roses.
She couldn’t help but think: Whose murder would this one represent?
And ten more waiting.
Roadside Crosses: A Kathryn Dance Novel Page 14
