Текст книги "Solitude Creek"

Автор книги: Jeffery Daeaver

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Текущая страница: 27 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

CHAPTER 88

They were back.

At last. Thank you, Lord.

The two boys from the other night. Except there were three of them at the moment.

Well, now that David Goldschmidt thought about it, there might’ve been three the other night. Only two bikes but, yes, there could have been another one then.

The other night.

The night of shame, he thought of it. His heart pounding even now, several days afterward. Palms sweating. Like Kristallnacht, the ‘Night of Broken Glass’, in 1938, when the Germans had rioted and destroyed a thousand Jewish homes and businesses throughout the country.

Goldschmidt was watching them on the video screen, which wasn’t, as he’d told Officer Dance the other night, in the bedroom but in the den. They were moving closer now, all three. Looking around, furtive. Guilt on wheels.

True, he hadn’t exactly gotten a look at them the other day, not their faces – that was why he’d asked Dance for more details: he didn’t want to make a mistake. But this was surely them. He’d seen their posture, their clothes, as they’d fled, after obscenely defacing his house. Besides, who else would it be?

They’d returned for their precious bikes.

Coming after the bait.

Which was why he’d kept them.

Bait …

Now he was ready. He’d called his wife in Seattle and had her stay a few days longer with her sister. Made up some story that he himself wanted to come up for the weekend. Why didn’t she stay and he’d join her? She’d bought it.

As the boys stole closer still, glancing around them, pausing from time to time, Goldschmidt looked up and watched them through the den window, the lace curtain.

One, the most intense, seemed to be the ringleader. He was wearing a combat jacket. Floppy hair. A second, a handsome teenager, was holding his phone, probably to record the theft. The third, big, dangerously big.

My God, they looked young. Younger than high school, Goldschmidt reckoned. But that didn’t mean they weren’t evil. They were probably the sons of neo-Nazis or some Aryan group. Such a shame they hadn’t formed their own opinions before their racist fathers, mothers too probably, had got a hold of their malleable brains and turned them into monsters.

Evil …

And deadly. Deadly as all bigots were.

Which was why Goldschmidt was now holding his Beretta double-barrel shotgun, loaded with 00 buckshot, each pellet the diameter of a .33-caliber slug.

He closed the weapon with a soft click.

The law on self-defense in California is very clear …

It certainly was, Officer Dance. Once somebody was in your home and you had a reasonable fear for your safety, you could shoot them.

And for all Goldschmidt knew, they too were armed.

Because this country was America. Where guns were plentiful and reluctance to use them rare.

The boys paused on the corner. Surveilling the area. Noting that his car was gone – he’d parked it blocks away. That the lights were out. He wasn’t home. Safe to come get your Schwinns.

The door’s open, kids. Come on in.

Goldschmidt rose, thumbed off the safety and walked into the kitchen, where he opened the door to the garage. That location, he’d checked, was considered part of your home too. And all he had to do was convince the prosecutor he’d legitimately feared for his life.

He’d memorized the sentence, ‘I used the minimum amount of force necessary under the circumstances to protect myself.’

He peered through the crack.

Come on, boys. Come on.

CHAPTER 89

‘And you, Officer Dance. Your weapon too. Let’s go.’

Without taking his eyes off them, the Latino tugged the curtain shut, a gauzy shield against passers-by.

‘I’m not armed. Look, Serrano. Joaquin. Let’s talk about—’

‘Not armed.’ A smile.

‘Really. I’m not.’

‘You say this, I say that.’

‘Listen—’ Foster began.

‘Sssh, you. Now, Agent Dance. How about you just tug up that fancy jacket of yours, turn around like my niece does, pirouette? I think that’s what it’s called. She in ballet class. She’s pretty good.’

Dance lifted her jacket and turned. Her eyes returned defiantly to his.

‘Well, they don’t trust you with guns, your bosses? My woman, she can shoot. She’s good. You afraid of shooting. Too loud?’

Foster nodded toward the bathroom, where a man’s legs were just visible. Crimson spatters covered the tiles. ‘That’s Escalanza?’

‘The fuck’re you to ask me questions?’ the man sneered. ‘Shut up.’ He stepped to the windows and looked outside. Dance could see through the slit in the flyblown drapes. She saw no one other than Stemple, gazing out over the highway.

‘Who’s that big boy out there?’

Dance said, ‘He’s with us, the Bureau of Investigation.’

He returned. ‘Hey, there, Officer … Or, no, it’s Agent. Have to remember that. Sí, Agent Dance. I enjoyed our conversation in the room, that interrogation room there. Always like talking to a beautiful woman. Too bad no cervezas. You get more confessions you open a bar there. Patron, Herradura, a little rum. No, I know! Hire a puta. Give somebody head, they confess fast.’

Dance said evenly, ‘You’re in a bad situation here.’

He smiled.

Foster said impatiently, ‘Look, Serrano, whatever you have in mind, nothing good’s going to come from killing law.’

‘That’s your opinion, whoever you are. Were you one of those watching me in the goldfish bowl the other day?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fooled you pretty good, didn’t I?’ he gloated.

Dance said, ‘Yes, you did. But my colleague’s right. It’s not going to work out how you want.’

The young man said evenly, ‘You said nothing good comes from killing law. Well, you know what? I’m thinking a lot of good’ll come of it. You been on my ass since Wednesday. I been hiding here, hiding there. That’s a pain I don’t need. So I think a lot of good is going to come from having you both fucking dead. Okay. Enough.’

Dance said, ‘You shoot us and you think the agent out there won’t hear? If he doesn’t nail your ass, he’ll keep you pinned down until a TAC team …’

Fishing in his back pocket, Serrano pulled a silencer out and screwed it onto the muzzle of his weapon. ‘I like the way you say “ass”.’

Dance glanced at Foster, whose expression remained placid.

‘So. Here. I’m a religious man. You take a few seconds to make your peace. Pray. You have something you want to say? Somebody up there you want to say it to?’

Her voice ominous, Dance said defiantly, ‘You’re not thinking, Joaquin. Our boss knows we’re here, a dozen others. I could get a call any minute. I don’t pick up and there’ll be a dozen TAC officers here in ten minutes, combing the area. Lockdown on the roads. You’ll never get away.’

‘Yeah, I think I take my chances.’

‘Work with me and I can keep you alive. You walk out that door and you’re a dead man.’

‘Work with you?’ He laughed. ‘You got nothing. What they say in football, I mean soccer? Nil. You’ve got nil to offer.’

The gun was already racked. He lifted it toward Foster, who said, ‘Lamont.’

The young man frowned. ‘What?’

‘Lamont Howard.’

A confused look. ‘What’re you saying?’

‘Don’t act stupid.’ Foster shook his head.

‘Fuck you saying to me, asshole?’

Foster seemed merely inconvenienced, not the least intimidated. Or scared. ‘I’m saying to you, asshole, the name Lamont Howard.’ When there was no response he continued, ‘You know Lamont, right?’

The Latino’s eyes scanned their faces uncertainly. Then: ‘Lamont, the gang-banger run the Four Seven Bloods in Oakland. What about him?’

Dance said, ‘Steve?’

Foster: ‘You been to his house in Village Bottoms?’

A blink.

‘West Oakland.’

‘I know where the Bottoms is.’

Dance snapped, ‘What’s this all about, Steve?’

Foster waved her silent. Back to the young man. ‘Okay, Serrano, here’s the deal. You kill me, Lamont will kill you. Simple as that. And he’ll kill everybody in your family. And then he’ll go back to his steak dinner, because he likes his steak. I know that because I have been to his crib and had a steak dinner with him. A dozen of them, in fact.’

Dance turned to Foster. She whispered, ‘What?’

‘Fuck you saying, man?’

‘Are you catching on? I’m Lamont’s inside man.’

Dance stared at him.

‘No fucking way.’

‘Yeah, well, Serrano, I can say yes and you can say no way until you have to take a crap. But wouldn’t it make sense just to ask him? ’Cause if you don’t and you take me out, Lamont and his crew lose their one connection to CBI and points beyond. DEA, Customs and Border, Homeland. And I wonder which dry well you and your mother and sister will be sleeping out eternity in.’

‘Fuck. Wait. I hear something. A month ago. Some Oakland crew was getting solids from Sacramento.’

‘That’s me.’ Foster seemed proud.

Dance looked out of the window. Stemple, still gazing away into the waving grass. She growled to Foster, ‘You son of a bitch.’

He ignored her. ‘So, call him.’

The Latino looked him over, not getting too close. Foster was much larger. ‘I no got his number. You think him and me, we asshole buddies?’

Foster sighed. ‘Look, I’m taking my phone out of my pocket. That’s all. My phone.’ He did. ‘Ah, Kathryn, careful there.’

Her hand had dropped toward a table on which a heavy metal lamp sat.

‘Serrano? Could you …’

The young man noted that Dance had been going for the lamp. He stepped forward and roughly pushed her against the wall, away from any potential weapons.

Foster made a call.

‘Lamont, it’s Steve.’ He hit the speaker.

‘Foster?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What you calling for?’ The voice was wary.

‘Got a situation here. Sorry, man. There’s a hothead, from one of the Salinas crews, with a piece on me. He’s out of the …’ Foster lifted an eyebrow.

‘Barrio Majados.’

‘You hear that?’

Howard’s voice: ‘Yo, I know ’em, I work with ’em. What’s this about? Who is he?’

‘Serrano.’

‘Joaquin? I know Serrano. He disappeared. There was heat on him.’

‘He’s surfaced. He doesn’t know who I am. Just tell him we work together. Or he’s going to park a slug in my head.’

‘Fuck you doing, Serrano? Leave my boy Foster alone. You got that?’

‘He with you?’

‘The fuck I say?’

The gun didn’t lower. ‘Okay, only … any chance he undercover?’

‘Well, he is, then he’s the only undercover took out a Oakland cop.’

‘No shit.’

Howard said, ‘Asshole show up at my place unexpected. Foster, pop pop, took him down.’

‘Steve, no!’ Dance whispered, dismay in her voice.

Howard called, ‘The fuck’s that?’

‘Another cop, works with Foster.’

‘That’s just fucking great.’ The banger in Oakland sighed. ‘You two take care of her. I got shit to do here.’

The call ended.

‘Serrano,’ Dance began, ‘what I was saying before. You need to be smart. You—’

The Latino snapped, ‘Shut up, Kathryn.’

With a cold smile, she said to Foster, ‘The story you told me before. You don’t have a son, do you? That was a lie.’

He turned to her, offering a nonchalant shrug. ‘I didn’t know what was going down. Needed you on my side.’

Dance sneered, ‘You can’t be running a network on your own. You’re not that smart.’

Foster was indignant. ‘Fuck you. I don’t need anybody else.’

‘How many people’ve died because of what you’ve done?’

‘Oh, come on,’ the man said gruffly. Then: ‘Serrano, let’s get this done. Do her, I’ll get the asshole outside in here. We take him out. I’ll tell the response team I got out the back and hid in the hills. I’ll say it was somebody else here, not you. One of the crews from Tijuana.’

‘Okay with me,’ was the matter-of-fact response.

Then Foster was squinting. ‘Wait.’

‘What?’

‘You … you said, “Kathryn”. You called her “Kathryn”.’

A shrug. ‘I don’t know. So?’

‘I never used her first name here. And I was at the interview last week between you and her. She never said it either.’

I’m Agent Dance …

A grimace. The Latino accent was gone as the young man said, ‘Yep, I screwed up on that. Sorry.’ He was speaking to Kathryn Dance.

‘No worries, José,’ she said, smiling. ‘We got everything we needed. You did great.’

Foster stared from one to the other. ‘Oh, Jesus Christ.’

‘Serrano’ who was actually a Bakersfield detective named José Felipe-Santoval, aimed his weapon center-mass on Foster’s chest, while Dance, relieved of her weapon but not her cuffs, ratcheted the bracelets on.

Adding to Foster’s shock, the agent who’d been pretending to be the deceased Pedro Escalanza hopped to and dusted off his jeans, drawing his own weapon. He’d been lying face down, head hidden from the trio in the hotel room.

‘Hey, TJ.’

‘Boss. Good takedown. How’s the blood?’ He glanced at his legs, spattered red. ‘I tried a new formula. Hershey’s syrup and food coloring.’

‘Big improvement,’ she said, nodding at the tiles.

Foster gasped, ‘A sting. The whole thing.’

Dance pulled out her cell phone. Hit speed-dial five as she glanced down and noticed her Aldo pumps had a scuff. Have to fix that. They were her favorite shoes for field work.

She heard, from the phone, Charles Overby’s voice: ‘Kathryn? And the verdict is?’

‘Foster’s our boy. It’s all on tape. He’s the only one.’

‘Ah.’

‘We’ll be back in a half-hour. You want to be there, at the interrogation?’

‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

CHAPTER 90

Disgust overflowed in Foster’s face as he looked from Al Stemple to Dance to Overby. They were in the same CBI interrogation rooms where Dance had held the phony interview of the phony Serrano last week.

TJ was elsewhere; the faux blood was good, yes, but it stained far more than he’d thought it would. He was presently scrubbing hands and ankles in one of the nearby men’s rooms.

Foster snapped, ‘Jesus, you wanted Kathryn unarmed and demoted to Civ Div but still talking her way onto the interviews with the suspect to track down Serrano. So I wouldn’t feel threatened by her.’

Yep. Exactly.

Overby added, ‘So you’d be free to cut a deal with Serrano when he pulled a gun on you.’

Dance told him: ‘We made the case against the real Serrano ten days ago. Handed it over to the FBI, Amy Grabe in San Francisco. So you wouldn’t get wind of it. She busted him. He rolled over on Guzman. They’re both in isolation. The “Serrano” you saw was Bakersfield PD. José works undercover. He’s good, don’t you think?’

Not acting very professional. But she was in a mood.

‘We got him because he looks like the real Serrano.’

Anger joined Foster’s revulsion: ‘Jesus. We were all suspects. And you faked the “leads” to Serrano – with Carol, the bungalow in Seaside. With Gomez, the houseboat. At the motel just now. You ran the same set, the same play at every one of them. TJ played the dead snitch. All I saw was the legs and torso. Not his face.’

Overby filled in, ‘Except at the houseboat. That was Connie Ramirez, playing … What was her name again?’

Dance answered, ‘Tia Alonzo.’ She continued, ‘It was a test we put together. The real traitor’d save himself. Those on the task force who were innocent? Well, I’m afraid they had a few bad moments when José turned his gun on them. But it had to be done. We needed to find who’d sold us out.’

In the first set, Carol Allerton had suicidally lunged at the fake Serrano, knocking a table of ceramic keepsakes to the floor. Gomez had sighed, resigned himself to death and said a prayer.

And Foster had played the OG card, invoking the name of Lamont Howard to save himself.

‘If you’d passed the test, it would have meant Steve Lu was the one. Since you said you’d told Kathryn you were the only connection, he’s clean.’

‘You fucking set me up.’

Finally, quiet Al Stemple spoke: ‘I think “set up” means more wrongly implicating an innocent person, ’stead of trapping a guilty asshole. Am I being transparent enough, Steve?’ He gave a loud grunt, then sat back and crossed his arms, wide as tree trunks.

The Guzman Connection sting had been Dance’s idea and she’d fought hard for it. All the way up to Sacramento.

She’d decided to put together the operation after a horrific drive-by shooting in Seaside, a mother killed and a child wounded. The woman had been a witness to one of the Pipeline hubs. But no one could have known about her – except for a leak inside the operation itself.

‘I went through the files a hundred times and looked for any other instance of operations that could’ve been compromised. TJ and I spent weeks correlating the personnel. We narrowed it down to four people involved in all of them – and who knew that Maria Ioaconna was a witness. You, Carol, Steve Lu and Jimmy. We brought you here. And set up the operation.’

There’d been risks, of course. That the guilty party might wonder why Dance was apparently working on the Solitude Creek case but was officially barred from the Serrano pursuit.

(Overby had said, ‘Can’t you forget about Solitude Creek, stay home and, I don’t know, plant flowers? You can still show up at the Serrano sets.’

‘I’m working Solitude,’ she’d answered bluntly.)

Risks to her physically too – as O’Neil had pointed out so vehemently: it was possible that their traitor would call someone like Lamont Howard, who’d show up at one of the sets with his crew and waste everybody present.

But there was nothing else to do: Dance was determined to find their betrayer.

Foster stared at the room’s ugly gray floors, and the muscles in his face flickered.

Dance added, ‘We never hoped for him directly. But getting Howard on the tape, ordering my hit?’

‘Ah, that’s righteous.’ Overby beamed.

A word she didn’t believe she’d ever heard Overby say. He seemed to mull the line over and was embarrassed.

But Dance smiled his way. He was right. It was righteous. And a lot more.

Overby looked at his watch. Golf? Or maybe he was considering with some dismay the call to Sacramento, the CBI chief, to tell them the traitor came from the hallowed halls of their own agency. ‘Keep going, Kathryn. Convince him of the futility of his silence. Convince him of the shining path of confession. Whatever he says or doesn’t, the media’ll be here soon. You’ll be at the podium with me, I hope?’

Charles Overby sharing a press conference?

‘You’ve earned the limelight, Kathryn.’

‘Think I’d rather pass, Charles. It’s been a long day.’ She nodded toward Foster. ‘And this may take a while.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I am. Yes.’ Dance turned to her prey.

CHAPTER 91

A shadow in her office doorway.

Michael O’Neil stood there. Somber. His dark eyes locked on hers. Brown, green. Then he looked away.

‘Hey,’ she said.

He nodded and sat down.

‘You heard?’

‘Foster. Yeah. Complete confession. Good job.’

‘Gave up a dozen names. People we never would’ve found. Bangers in LA and Oakland. Bakersfield, Fresno too.’ Dance looked away from her computer, on which she was typing notes from the Antioch March case. The promise of paperwork stretched out, long as the Golden Gate Bridge.

Documenting the Guzman Connection sting, part of Operation Pipeline, would be next, the arrest of Steve Foster.

She’d actually thought he was the least likely suspect, given his obnoxious nature. Kathryn Dance was accustomed to the apparent being the opposite of the real. Dance had suspected mostly Carol Allerton. What state cop didn’t love bashing a fed? But now she felt guilty about that. The DEA agent had been a good ally after the first sting operation. And she was very pleased too that Jimmy Gomez, a friend, had not been the betrayer.

She now told Michael O’Neil about the finale of the sting. She, of course, didn’t add that she believed she’d been right – that had she gone in armed, had she not maintained the sham of her suspension, Foster wouldn’t have bought the scam.

Then she noted: O’Neil was listening but not listening. He regarded the photographs on her desk – the one of her with the children and the dog. The eight-by-ten of her with her husband, Bill. Whatever happened in her personal life, she was never going to put those pictures in an attic box. Displayed, always.

She fell silent for a moment, then asked, ‘All right. What is it?’

‘Something happened today. I have to tell you.’ Then he turned his head, rose again and shut the door. As if he’d meant to do that when he walked in but had been so focused on what he wanted to say that any other thoughts had scattered, like dropped marbles.

Something happened …

‘The hate crime I’ve been working?’

‘Sure.’ Had there been another defacing? Was it an actual attack this time? Hate crimes often escalated from words to blood. Dragging to death gays, shootings of blacks or Jews.

‘Goldschmidt’s house again.’

‘The perps came back?’

‘They did. But it seems Goldschmidt wasn’t completely honest with us. Apparently he found their bikes and kept them. He wanted them to come back. He was using the bikes as bait.’

‘So, they were bikers.’

‘No, bicycles.’

‘Kids were doing it?’

‘That’s right.’

She looked at him levelly. ‘And what happened, Michael?’

‘Goldschmidt had a shotgun. Didn’t listen to you the other night.’

‘Goddamnit! Did he shoot anybody?’

‘He was going to,’ O’Neil said. ‘He denies it but – why else keep a loaded Beretta by the garage door?’

‘“Going to”?’

‘While they were on the street, getting closer, I got a call. It was from one of the perps, calling. He was warning me that something bad was going down. He was worried about weapons. I should get TAC and backup there immediately. He said TAC.’

‘One of the kids? Called you? And said that?’

‘Yep.’ He took a breath. ‘I called PG police and they had cars there in a minute or two. They secured everything. Kathryn, the one who called me was Wes.’

‘Who?’ Curious for a moment. And then the name settled. ‘But you said one of the perps!’

‘Wes, that’s right. The others were Donnie, his friend, and another boy. Nathan.’

She whispered. ‘A mistake. It has to be a mistake.’

He continued: ‘It was Donnie tagging the houses. Wes was with him. Nathan and another friend were doing other things. Stealing traffic signs, shoplifting.’

‘Impossible.’

O’Neil said, ‘That game they were playing?’

‘Defend and … I don’t know.’ Her mind was a whitewater rapid, swirling, out of control.

‘Defend and Respond Expedition Service.’

‘That’s it. What about it?’

‘It’s an acronym. D-A-R-E-S. There were teams. Each one dared the other side to do things that could land them in jail.’

Dance gave a cold laugh. She’d been so pleased that the boys were playing a game with paper and pen and avoiding the violence of the computer world, which had seduced Antioch March and helped turn him into a killer. And now the analog life had proven just as destructive.

A game you played with paper and pen? How harmful could that be? …

‘And Wes’s team was dared to commit the hate crimes?’

‘That’s right. Donnie has some juvie time under his belt. Troubled kid. And tonight? He had a weapon. His father’s gun. A thirty-eight.’

‘My God.’

‘He said at first he just brought it for protection but then he admitted he was going to rob Goldschmidt. Some dream of moving out of his home. I’ve spoken to his father. Frankly, hardly blame the boy. Whatever happens, he’ll be better off out of that household. I think he confessed so he didn’t have to go back home.’

Well, I’m not sure what to call you.

Mrs Dance …

‘Wes actually wrote those horrible things on the buildings and houses?’

‘No. He was just a lookout for Donnie.’

Still, that didn’t absolve him. Even if he hadn’t tagged the house himself he was a co-conspirator. An accessory. And with the gun? It could be conspiracy to commit armed robbery. And what if someone had been killed because of a stolen stop sign? Homicide.

‘I’m just setting the stage, Kathryn. There’s more.’

Seriously? How the hell much more bad can there be?

A cramp spidered through her right hand: she’d been gripping a pen furiously. She set it down. ‘I was concentrating on Maggie, who was upset about singing a damn song, and here was Wes committing felonies! I didn’t pay him any attention. His life could be over—’

‘Kathryn. Here.’ He set a mobile phone on her desk. And dug into his pocket and placed an envelope beside it.

She recognized the Samsung as Wes’s. She looked up, frowning.

‘There’re videos on the phone. And this’s a police report that Wes created.’ He pushed the envelope toward her.

‘A police report? What do you mean?’

‘Unofficial.’ O’Neil offered a rare smile. ‘He’s been working undercover for a month. That’s how he put it.’

She picked up the envelope, opened it. Pages of computer printouts, a diary, detailing times and dates.

28 April, 6.45 p.m. in the evening, I personally observed subject Donald, a.k.a. Donnie, Verso paint on the south-west wall of the Latino Immigration Rights Center, at 1884 Alvarado Drive, with a Krylon spray can the words: ‘Go back to Mexico you wetbacks.’ The color of the paint was dark red.

O’Neil took the boy’s phone and ran the camera app. He scrolled through until he found a video. It was shaking but it clearly showed Donnie tagging a building.

‘And the other dares? The ones Donnie challenged the other team with? Wes documented those too. And the stolen street signs? Wes followed Nathan and some friend Vincent when they dug up the stop sign. He called nine one one right away to report it. And stayed at the intersection to make sure nobody was hurt.’

She stared at the video. In a quiet voiceover: ‘I Wes Swenson am personally observing Donald Verso place graffiti on the Baptist New World Church …’

O’Neil continued, ‘A month or so ago a friend of Wes – I think his name was Rashiv – had a run-in with Donnie and Nathan and another one of Donnie’s crew.’

Dance told him, ‘That’s right. Rashiv and Wes were friends. Then Wes just stopped seeing him. I don’t know what happened.’

‘Donnie and the others were bullying him, extorting money, beating him up. They stole a games console. Rashiv told Wes about it. There wasn’t anything they could do themselves – you’ve seen Nathan?’

‘Yes. Big.’

‘He was the muscle in the crew. He’d do anything Donnie told him. Including hurting people badly. Wes’d heard that Donnie and his friends were into some illegal things – the DARES game was being talked about in school, though nobody knew exactly what it was. Wes decided to find out and – these were his words – “collar the bastard”. He talked his way into the clique and finally got Donnie to trust him enough to let him play.

‘He even set it up with Rashiv to meet “accidentally” and Wes’d pretend to steal a comic or something from him, threaten to hurt him. Donnie bought it all.’

‘And today? At Goldschmidt’s?’

‘Wes’d noticed Donnie acting strange lately. More erratic. The night Donnie tagged Goldschmidt’s house? Wes saw him pick up a rock. He was going to attack somebody who was approaching where they were hiding. Near Junipero Manor.’

Dance whispered, ‘Me. That was me.’

O’Neil said only, ‘I know.’ He continued, ‘Wes couldn’t give himself away to Donnie that night but he turned his phone volume up and scrolled to ringtones. It played a sample, like he was getting a call. Donnie got spooked and took off.’

Dance closed her eyes and her head dipped. ‘He saved me. Maybe saved my life.’

‘Then tonight he caught a glimpse of something in Donnie’s pocket and thought it might be a gun. So he decided, whatever evidence he had, enough was enough. It was time to call in the cavalry.’

‘Why didn’t he just report it in the first place? A month ago? Why play undercover?’

O’Neil’s eyes swept her desk. ‘I don’t know. Maybe to make you proud of him.’

‘I am.’

But even as Kathryn Dance said those words she wondered, Does he know it? Really know it?

Or, Dance suddenly thought of O’Neil, to make you proud of him.

Silence filled the room. Dance was thinking of the conversation she would have to have with the boy. Whatever the good motives, there were some minefields here. Dance had amassed capital in Monterey County with the prosecutor’s office; she’d have to see how much, and how negotiable it was. And, she thought too, Donnie’ll need help. Not just jail time. At that age, nobody was irredeemable. Kathryn Dance believed this. She’d do what she could to get him into treatment, whatever facility he was sent to.

Then she looked at O’Neil, to see that his expression and posture had changed dramatically. No kinesic subtlety here.

And everything she saw set off alarms within Kathryn Dance. She thought: As if what Michael just told me about Wes weren’t enough. What was coming next?

He said, ‘Look, as if what I just told you wasn’t enough …’

Any other time she might have smiled; now her heart was racing.

‘There’s something else.’ He glanced back to her door. Still shut.

‘I can see that. What’s it about?’

‘Okay, it’s about … I guess you could say, us.’

Dance’s head rose and dipped slightly, a nod being one of the most ambiguous of gestures. It was often a defensive move, meaning: I need to buy some time and toughen up the heart.

Because she knew what was coming next. Michael and Anne were getting back together. It happened more than one might think, reconciliation. Once the divorce papers had been signed, a little cooling off, the ex-wife’s lover turned into a creep or was duller than dull. Old hubby doesn’t seem so bad after all. They’d decided to clean house, roll up their sleeves and try again.

Why else would Anne have been there the other day, at CBI, with the kids? Dressed like the perfect mom from Central Casting. O’Neil’s comments: the sort-of babysitter, the plural pronoun about having plans the night of Maggie’s show.

‘So, here’s the thing.’

Michael O’Neil’s eyes were fixed on a thoroughly ugly yellow ceramic cat that Maggie had squeezed together in first grade.

Dance’s eyes were unwaveringly on his.