“I liked the first answer better, boss. Oh, by the way, remember ‘Nimue’?”
The mystery word . . .
“What about it?”
“I just found another reference to it. You want me to follow up?”
“Think we better. Leave no t undotted. So to speak.”
“Is tomorrow okay? It’s not much of a date tonight, but Lucretia might be the woman of my dreams.”
“You’re going out with somebody named Lucretia? You may have to concentrate. . . . Tell you what. Bring me all the wax. And the Nimue ‘stuff.’ I’ll get started on it.”
“Boss, you’re the best. You’re invited to the wedding.”
FRIDAY
Chapter 58
Kathryn Dance, in a black suit and burgundy blouse—not the warmest of outfits, all things considered—was sitting outside at the Bay View Restaurant near Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey.
The place lived up to its name, usually offering a postcard image of the coast all the way up to Santa Cruz, which was, however, invisible at the moment. The early morning was a perfect example of June Gloom on the Peninsula. Fog like smoke from a damp fire surrounded the wharf. The temperature was fifty-five degrees.
Last night she’d been in an elated mood. Daniel Pell had been stopped, Linda Whitfield would be all right, Nagle and his family had survived. She and Winston Kellogg had made their plans for “afterward.”
Today, though, things were different. A darkness hung over her; she couldn’t shake it, and the mood had nothing to do with the weather. Many things were contributing to it, not the least of which was planning the memorial services and funerals for the guards killed at the courthouse, the deputies at the Point Lobos Inn yesterday and Juan Millar too.
She sipped her coffee. Then blinked in surprise as a hummingbird appeared from nowhere and dipped its beak into the feeder hanging on the side of the restaurant, near a spill of gardenias. Another bird strafed in and drove the first away. They were pretty creatures, jewels, but could be mean as scrap-yard dogs.
Then she heard, “Hello.”
Winston Kellogg came up behind her, slipped his arm around her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. Not too close to the mouth, not too far away. She smiled and hugged him.
He sat down.
Dance waved to the waitress, who refilled her cup and poured one for Kellogg.
“So I was doing some research about the area,” Kellogg said. “I thought we could go down to Big Sur tonight. Some place called Ventana.”
“It’s beautiful. I haven’t been for years. The restaurant’s wonderful. It’s a bit of a drive.”
“I’m game. Highway One, right?”
Which would take them right past Point Lobos. She flashed back to the gunshots, the blood, Daniel Pell lying on his back, dull blue eyes staring unseeing at a dark blue sky.
“Thanks for getting up so early,” Dance said.
“Breakfast and dinner with you. The pleasure’s mine.”
She gave him another smile. “Here’s the situation. TJ finally found the answer to ‘Nimue,’ I think.”
Kellogg nodded. “What Pell was searching for in Capitola.”
“At first I thought it was a screen name, then I was thinking it might have to do with this computer game, ‘Nimue’ with an X, the popular one.”
The agent shook his head.
“Apparently it’s hot. I should have consulted the experts—my kids. Anyway, I was toying with the idea that Pell and Jimmy went to the Croytons’ to steal some valuable software, and I remembered Reynolds told me that Croyton gave away all this computer research and software to Cal State-Monterey Bay. I thought maybe there was something in the college archives that Pell planned to steal. But, no, it turns out that Nimue’s something else.”
“What?”
“We’re not exactly sure. That’s what I need your help on. TJ found a folder on Jennie Marston’s computer. The name was—” Dance found a slip of paper and read, “Quote ‘Nimue—cult suicide in L.A.’ ”
“What was inside?”
“That’s the problem. He tried to open it. But it’s password-protected. We’ll have to send it to CBI headquarters in Sacramento to crack, but frankly, that’ll take weeks. It might not be important but I’d like to find out what it’s all about. I was hoping you’d have somebody in the bureau who could decrypt it faster.”
Kellogg told her he knew of a computer wiz in the FBI’s San Jose field office—in the heart of Silicon Valley. “If anybody can break it they can. I’ll get it to him today.”
She thanked him and handed over the Dell, in a plastic bag and with a chain-of-custody tag attached. He signed the card and set the bag beside him.
Dance waved for the waitress. Toast was about all she could manage this morning, but Kellogg ordered a full breakfast.
He said, “Now, tell me about Big Sur. It’s supposed to be pretty.”
“Breathtaking,” she said. “One of the most romantic places you’ll ever see.”
• • •
Kathryn Dance was in her office when Winston Kellogg came to collect her at five thirty for their date. He was in formal casual. He and Dance came close to matching—brown jackets, light shirts and jeans. His blue, hers black. Ventana was an upscale inn, restaurant and winery but this was, after all, California. You needed a suit and tie only in San Francisco, L.A. and Sacramento.
For funerals too, of course, Dance couldn’t help but think.
“First, let’s get work out of the way.” He opened his attaché case and handed her the plastic evidence bag containing the computer found in the Butterfly Inn.
“Oh, you’ve got it already?” she asked. “The mystery of Nimue is about to be solved.”
He grimaced. “Afraid not, sorry.”
“Nothing?” she asked.
“The file was either intentionally written as gibberish or it had a wipe bomb on it, the bureau tech guys said.”
“Wipe bomb?”
“Like a digital booby trap. When TJ tried to open it, it got turned to mush. That was their term too, by the way.”
“Mush.”
“Just random characters.”
“No way to reconstruct it?”
“Nope. And, believe me, they’re the best in the business.”
“Not that it matters that much, I suppose,” Dance said, shrugging. “It was just a loose end.”
He smiled. “I’m the same way. Hate it when there are danglers. That’s what I call them.”
“Danglers. I like that.”
“So are you ready to go?”
“Just a second or two.” She rose and walked to the door. Albert Stemple was standing in the hallway. TJ too.
She glanced at them, sighed and nodded.
The massive, shaved-head agent stepped into the office, with TJ right behind him.
Both men drew their weapons—Dance just didn’t have the heart—and in a few seconds Winston Kellogg was disarmed, cuffs on his hands.
“What the hell’s going on?” he raged.
Dance provided the answer, surprised at how serene her voice sounded as she said, “Winston Kellogg, you’re under arrest for the murder of Daniel Pell.”
Chapter 59
They were in room 3, one of the interrogation rooms in CBI’s Monterey office, and it was Dance’s favorite. This was a little bigger than the other (which was room 1, there being no number 2). And the one-way mirror was a little shinier. It also had a small window and, if the curtains were open, you could see a tree outside. Sometimes, during her interrogations, she’d use the view to distract or draw out the interviewees. Today the curtain was closed.
Dance and Kellogg were alone. Behind the sparkling mirror the video camera was set up and running. TJ was there, along with Charles Overby, both unseen, though the mirror, of course, implied observers.
Winston Kellogg had declined an attorney and was willing to talk. Which he did in an eerily calm voice (very much the same tone as Daniel Pell’s in his interr
ogation, she reflected, unsettled at the thought). “Kathryn, let’s just step back here, can we? Is that all right? I don’t know what you think is going on but this isn’t the way to handle it. Believe me.”
The subtext of these words was arrogance—and the corollary, betrayal. She tried to push the pain away as she replied simply, “Let’s get started.” She slipped her black-framed glasses on, her predator specs.
“Maybe you’ve gotten some bad information. Why don’t you tell me what you think the problem is and we’ll see what’s really going on?”
As if he were talking to a child.
She looked Winston Kellogg over closely. It’s an interrogation just like any other, Dance told herself. Though it wasn’t, of course. Here was a man she’d felt romantic toward and who had lied to her. Someone who had used her, like Daniel Pell had used . . . well, everyone.
Then she forced aside her own emotion, hard though that was, and concentrated on the task in front of her. She was going to break him. Nothing would stop her.
Because she knew him well by now, the analysis unfolded quickly in her mind.
First, how should he be categorized in the context of the crime? A suspect in a homicide.
Second, does he have a motive to lie? Yes.
Third, what’s his personality type? Extroverted, thinking, judging. She could be as tough with him as she needed to be.
Fourth, what is his liar’s personality? A High Machiavellian. He’s intelligent, has a good memory, is adept at the techniques of deception and will use all those skills to create lies that work to his advantage. He’ll give up lying if he’s caught, and use other weapons to shift the blame, threaten or attack. He’ll demean and patronize, trying to unnerve her and exploit her own emotional responses, a dark mirror image of her own mission as an interrogator. He’ll try to get information to use against me later, she reminded herself.
You had to be very careful with High Machs.
The next step in her kinesic analysis would be to determine what stress response state he fell into when lying—anger, denial, depression or bargaining—and to probe his story when she recognized one.
But here was the problem. She was one of the best kinesics analysts in the country, yet she hadn’t spotted Kellogg’s lies, which he’d dished up right in front of, and to, her. Largely his behavior was not outright lying but evasion—withholding information is the hardest type of deception to detect. Still, Dance was skilled at spotting evasion. More significant, Kellogg was, she decided, in that rare class of individuals virtually immune to kinesic analysts and polygraph operators: excluded subjects, like the mentally ill and serial killers.
The category also includes zealots.
Which was what she now believed Winston Kellogg was. Not the leader of a cult, but someone just as fanatical and just as dangerous, a man convinced of his own righteousness.
Still, she needed to break him. She needed to get to the truth, and to do that, Dance had to spot stress flags within him to know where to probe.
So she attacked. Hard, fast.
From her purse, Dance took a digital audiotape recorder and set it on the table between them. She hit play.
The sounds of a phone ringing, then:
“Tech Resource. Rick Adams speaking.”
“My name’s Kellogg from Ninth Street. MVCC.”
“Sure, Agent Kellogg. What can I do for you?”
“I’m in the area and have a problem on my computer. I’ve got a protected file and the guy who sent it to me can’t remember the password. It’s a Windows XP operating system.”
“Sure. That’s a piece of cake. I can handle it.”
“Rather not use you guys for a personal job. They’re cracking down on that back at HQ.”
“Well, there’s a good outfit in Cupertino we farm stuff out to. They’re not cheap.”
“Are they fast?”
“Oh, for that? Sure.”
“Great. Give me their number.”
She shut the recorder off. “You lied to me. You said the ‘bureau tech guys’ cracked it. They didn’t.”
“I—”
“Winston, Pell didn’t write anything about Nimue or suicides. I created that file last night.”
He could only stare at her.
She said, “Nimue was a red herring. There was nothing on Jennie’s computer until I put it there. TJ did find a reference to Nimue but it was a newspaper story about a woman named Alison Sharpe, an interview in a local paper in Montana—’My Month with Daniel Pell,’ something like that. They met in San Francisco about twelve years ago, when she was living in a group like the Family and going by the name Nimue. The leader named everyone after Arthurian characters. She and Pell hitchhiked around the state but she left him after he was picked up in Redding on that murder charge. Pell probably didn’t know her surname and searched the only two names he knew—Alison and Nimue—to find her and kill her because she knew where his mountaintop was.”
“So you faked this file and asked me to help you crack it. Why the masquerade, Kathryn?”
“I’ll tell you why. Body language isn’t limited to the living, you know. You can read a lot into a corpse’s posture too. Last night TJ brought me all the files in the case for the final disposition report. I was looking over the crime-scene pictures from Point Lobos. Something didn’t seem right. Pell wasn’t hiding behind the rocks. He was out in the open, on his back. His legs were bent and there were water and sand stains on his knees. Both knees, not just one. That was curious. People crouch when they’re fighting, or at least keep one foot planted on the ground. I saw exactly the same posture in a case involving a man who’d been killed in a gang hit, forced on his knees to beg before he was shot. Why would Pell leave cover, get down on both knees and shoot at you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” No emotion whatsoever.
“And the coroner’s report said that from the downward angle of the bullets through his body you were standing full height, not crouching. If it was a real firefight you would’ve been in a defensive stance, crouching yourself. . . . And I remembered the sequence of the sounds. The flash-bang went off and then I heard the shots, after a delay. No, I think that you saw where he was, tossed the flash-bang and moved in fast, disarmed him. Then had him kneel and you tossed your cuffs on the ground for him to put on. When he was reaching for them, you shot him.”
“Ridiculous.”
She continued, unfazed. “And the flash-bang? After the assault at the Sea View you were supposed to check all the ordnance back in. That’s standard procedure. Why keep it? Because you were waiting for a chance to move in and kill him. And I checked the timing of your call for backup. You didn’t make it from the inn, like you pretended. You made it later, to give you a chance to get Pell alone.” She held up a hand, silencing another protest. “But whether my theory was ridiculous or not, his death raised questions. I thought I should check further. I wanted to know more about you. I got your file from a friend of my husband’s on Ninth Street. I found some interesting facts. You’d been involved in the shooting deaths of several suspected cult leaders during attempts to apprehend. And two cult leaders died of suicides under suspicious circumstances when you were consulting with local law enforcement agencies in their investigations.
“The suicide in L.A. was the most troubling. A woman who ran a cult committed suicide by jumping out of her sixth-story window, two days after you arrived to help out the LAPD. But it was curious—no one had ever heard her talk about suicide before that. There was no note, and, yes, she was being investigated but only for civil tax fraud. No reason to kill herself.
“So, I had to test you, Winston. I wrote the document in that file.”
It was a fake email that suggested a girl with the name of Nimue was in the suicide victim’s cult and had information that the woman’s death was suspicious.
“I got a tap warrant on your phone, put a simple Windows password on the file and handed over the computer to see what you
’d do. If you’d told me you’d read the file and what it contained, that would’ve been the end of the matter. You and I’d be on our way to Big Sur right now.
“But, no, you made your phone call to the tech, had the private company crack the code and you read the file. There was no wipe bomb. No mush. You destroyed it yourself. You had to, of course. You were afraid we’d catch on to the fact that your life for the past six years has been traveling around the country and murdering people like Daniel Pell.”
Kellogg gave a laugh. Now, faint kinesic deviation; the tone was different. An excluded subject, yes, but he was feeling the stress. She’d touched close to home.
“Please, Kathryn. Why on earth would I do that?”
“Because of your daughter.” She said this not without some sympathy.
And the fact that he gave no response, merely held her eye as if he were in great pain, was an indication—though a tiny one—that she was narrowing in on the truth.
“It takes a lot to fool me, Winston. And you’re very, very good. The only variation from your baseline behavior I ever noticed was when it came to children and family. But I didn’t think much of it. At first I supposed that was because of the connection between us, and you weren’t comfortable with children and were wrestling with the idea of having them in your life.
“Then, I think you saw that I was curious, or suspicious, and you confessed that you’d lied, that you had had a daughter. You told me about her death. Of course, that’s a common trick—confession to one lie to cover up another, related one. And what was the lie? Your daughter did die in a car accident, yes, but it wasn’t exactly how you described it. You apparently destroyed the police report in Seattle—nobody could find it—but TJ and I made some calls and pieced together the story.
“When she was sixteen your daughter ran away from home because you and your wife were getting divorced. She ended up with a group in Seattle—very much like the Family. She was there for about six months. Then she and three other members of the cult died in a suicide pact because the leader told them to leave, they hadn’t been loyal enough. They drove their car into Puget Sound.”
Kathryn Dance Ebook Boxed Set : Roadside Crosses, Sleeping Doll, Cold Moon (9781451674217) Page 85
