Текст книги "Solitude Creek"

Автор книги: Jeffery Daeaver

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

CHAPTER 12

The politicos had started to arrive at Solitude Creek.

Always happened at incidents like this. The bigwigs appearing, those in office or those aspiring, or those, like her boss, Charles Overby, who simply wanted a few minutes in the limelight because they enjoyed a few minutes in the limelight. They’d show up and talk to the press and be seen by the mourners or the spectators.

That is, by the voters and the public.

And, yes, occasionally they really would step up and help out. Occasionally. Sometimes. Possibly. (A state government employee, Kathryn Dance struggled constantly against cynicism.)

There were more news crews than grandstanders here at the moment, so the biggest networks were targeting the most newsworthy subjects, like sportsmen on a party boat in Monterey Bay going for the fattest salmon.

Networks. Nets. Fish. Dance liked the metaphor.

The US Congressman representing the district Solitude Creek fell within was Daniel Nashima, a thirdor fourth-generation Japanese American who’d held office for several terms. In his mid-forties, he was accompanied by an aide, a tall, vigilant young man, resembling the actor Josh Brolin, in an unimpeachable if anachronistic three-piece suit.

Nashima was wealthy, family business, but he usually dressed down. Today, typical: chino slacks and a blue dress shirt, sleeves rolled up – an outfit you’d wear to a Kiwanis fundraiser pancake breakfast. Nashima, a handsome man with tempered Asian features – his mother was white – looked over the exterior of the Solitude Creek club with dismay. Dance wasn’t surprised. He had a reputation for being responsive to natural disasters, like the earthquake that had struck Santa Cruz not long ago. He’d arrived at that one at three a.m. and helped lift rubble off survivors and search for the dead.

The anchor from CNN, a striking blonde, was on Nashima in a San Francisco instant. The Congressman said, ‘My heart goes out to the victims of this terrible tragedy.’ He promised that he would work with his colleague to make sure a full investigation got to the root of it. If there had been any negligence at all on the part of the club and its owner he would make sure that criminal charges were brought.

The mayor of Monterey happened to arrive a few moments later. No limo. The tall Latino stepped from his personal vehicle – a nice one, a Range Rover – and made it ten steps toward the spectators/mourners/victims before he, too, was approached by the media. Only a few local reporters, though. He glanced toward Nashima and managed, just, to keep a don’t-care visage, downplaying that he’d been upstaged by the Congressman; the folks from Atlanta – and a woman with such perfect hair – knew their priorities.

Dance heard that the California state representative for this area – and a rumored competitor for the US Senate seat Nashima was considering next year – was out of town and not making the trip back from Vegas for a sympathy call. This would be an oops for his career.

Nashima politely but firmly ended the interview he was giving and walked away, refusing other media requests. He was studying the scene and walking up to people who were leaving flowers or praying or simply standing in mournful poses. He spoke to them with head down, embraced them. Dance believed once or twice he wiped tears from his cheek. That wasn’t for the camera. He was pointedly turned away from the media.

About thirty such grievers and spectators were present. With Bob Holly’s blessing, Dance made the rounds of them now, flashed her badge, as shiny and official in its Civ-Div mode as when she was a criminal investigator, and asked questions about the truck, about the fire in the oil drum, about anyone skulking about outside the club last night.

Negatives, all around.

She tried to identify anyone who’d been in the mob that morning but couldn’t. True, most had probably vanished. Still, she knew from her work that at harrowing times our powers of observation and retention fail us completely.

She noticed a car pulling into the lot and easing slowly to the police line, near where the impromptu memorial of flowers and stuffed animals was growing. The car was a fancy one, a new-model two-door Lexus, sleek, black.

There were two occupants, and, though Dance couldn’t see them clearly, they were having a serious discussion. Even in silhouette, the body radiates intent and mood. The driver, a man in his forties, climbed out, bent down, said a few more words through the car’s open door, then flipped the seat forward and extracted a bouquet from the back. He said something else to the other occupant, in the front passenger seat, whose response must have been negative because the man shrugged and continued on his own to the memorial.

Dance walked up to him, showed her ID. ‘I’m Kathryn Dance. CBI.’

Distracted, the handsome man nodded.

‘I assume you lost someone last night.’

‘We did, yes.’

‘I’m sorry.’

We …

A nod back to the Lexus. There was a glare … and the Japanese engineers were quite adept, it seemed, at tinting glass but Dance could see that the person occupying the passenger seat had long hair. A woman. His wife, probably. But no ring on his finger. An ex-wife, perhaps. And she realized with a shock. My God. They’d lost a child here.

His name was Frederick Martin and he explained that, yes, his ex-wife, Michelle, had brought their daughter here last night.

She’d been right. Their child, probably a teen. How sad. And, given the flowers resting on the memorial, she hadn’t been merely injured. She’d died.

Dance’s worst horror. Every mother’s.

That had been the tension in the car. Ex-spouses, forced together at a time like this. Probably on the way to a funeral home to make arrangements. Dance’s heart went out to them both.

‘We’re investigating the incident,’ she said, a version of the truth. ‘I have a few questions.’

‘Well, I don’t know anything. I wasn’t here.’ Martin was edgy. He wanted to leave.

‘No, no. I understand. But if I could have a few words with your ex-wife.’

‘What?’ he said, frowning broadly.

Then a voice behind them, a girl’s voice. Nearly a whisper. ‘She’s gone.’

Dance turned to see a teenager. Pretty, but with a face distorted and puffy from crying. Her hair had been carelessly herded into place with fingers, not a brush.

‘Mommy’s gone.’

Oh. The ex was the fatality.

‘Trish, go back to the car.’

Staring at the club. ‘She was trapped. Against the door. I saw her. I can’t – we looked at each other and then I fell. This big man, he was crying like a baby, he climbed on my back and I went down. I thought I was going to die but I got picked up by somebody. Then the people I was with went through another door, not the fire exits. The crowd she was in—’

‘Trish, honey, no. I told you this was a bad idea. Let’s go. We’ve got your grandparents to meet at the airport. We’ve got plans to make.’

Martin took his daughter’s arm. She pulled away. He grimaced.

To the girl: ‘Trish, I’m Kathryn Dance, California Bureau of Investigation. I’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.’

‘We do,’ Martin said. ‘We do mind.’

Crying now, softly, the girl stared at the roadhouse. ‘It was hell in there. They talk about hell, in movies and things, but, no, that was hell.’

‘Here’s my card.’ Dance offered it to Frederick Martin.

He shook his head. ‘We don’t want it. There’s nothing she can tell you. Leave us alone.’

‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

He got a firmer grip on his daughter and, though she stiffened, maneuvered her back to the Lexus. When they were seated inside, he reached over and clicked on her belt. Then they sped from the lot before Dance could note the license plate.

Not that it mattered, she supposed. If the girl and her mother had been inside during the panic, they wouldn’t have seen what really interested Dance: the person who’d parked the truck in front of the doors and lit the fire.

Besides, she could hardly blame the man for being protective. Dance supposed that the father had now been catapulted into a tough, alien role; she imagined that the mother had had a higher percentage of custody, maybe full.

The Solitude Creek incident had changed many lives in many different ways.

A gull strafed and Dance instinctively lifted her arm. The big bird landed clumsily near a scrap of cardboard, thinking it was food. It seemed angry the prize held aroma only and catapulted off into the sky once more, heading toward the bay.

Dance returned to the club and had a second difficult conversation with Sam Cohen, still bordering on comatose, then spoke with other employees. No one could come up with any patrons or former club workers who might have had gripes with Cohen or anyone there. Nor did competitors seem behind the incident – anyone who might want to drive the man out of business or get revenge for something Cohen had done professionally in the past.

Heading back outside, Dance pulled her iPhone from her pocket and phoned Jon Boling, asking if he could pick up the children at school.

‘Sure,’ he replied. She enjoyed hearing his calm voice. ‘How’s your Civ Div going?’

He knew about the Serrano situation.

‘Awkward,’ she said, eyes on Bob Holly, interviewing some of the same people she just had. ‘I’m at Solitude Creek.’

A pause.

‘Aren’t you handling soda-bottle deposits?’

‘Supposed to be.’

Boling said, ‘It’s terrible, on the news. They’re saying a truck driver parked behind the club to smoke some dope. Then he panicked when the fire started and left the truck beside the doors. Nobody could get out.’

Reporters …

She looked at her iPhone for the time, now that her watch was out of commission. It was two thirty. ‘I’ll be another three, four hours, I’d guess. Mom and Dad are coming over tonight. Martine, Stephen …’

‘The kids and I’ll take care of dinner.’

‘Would you? Oh, thanks.’

‘See you soon.’

She disconnected. Her eyes did a sweep of the club, the jobbing company, then the parking lot.

Finally the bordering vegetation. At the eastern end of the lot was what seemed to be a tramped-down area leading through a line of scrub oak, Australian willow, pine, magnolia. She wandered that way and found herself beside Solitude Creek itself. The small dark tributary – thirty feet wide there – was framed by salt and dune grass, thistle and other sandy-soil plants whose identity she couldn’t guess at.

She followed the path away from the parking lot, through a head-high tangle of brush and grass. Here, overgrown with vegetation and dusted with sand, were the remnants of old structures: concrete foundations, portions of rusting chain-link fences and a few columns. They had to be seventy-five years old, a hundred. Quite extensive. Maybe back then Solitude Creek was deeper and this was part of the seafood industry. The site was fifteen miles north of Cannery Row but back then fishing was big business all along this area of the coast.

Or possibly developers had started to build a project here – apartments or a hotel or restaurant. Still would be a good spot for an inn, she reflected: near the ocean, situated amid rolling, grassy hills. The creek itself was calming and the grayish water didn’t necessarily mean bad fishing.

Continuing past the ruins, Dance looked around. She wondered if the killer had parked his car here – there were residences and surfaced roads nearby – and walked this same path. He could have gotten to the parking lot without being seen, then circled around to the jobbing company to get to the drop-box and trucks.

When she got to the pocket of homes – a half-dozen bungalows, one trailer – she realized that someone would be very visible parking there: basically the only place would be directly in front of a house. She doubted that the perp would have been that careless.

Still, you did what you could.

Three of the homes were dark and Dance left a card in the doorframes of each.

Two women, however, were home. Both white, large and toting infants, they reported they hadn’t seen anyone and, as Dance had surmised, ‘Anybody parking here, well, we would’ve noticed, and at night, Ernie would’ve been out to talk to him in a hare-lick.’

Dance moved on to the last place, the trailer, which was the only residence actually overlooking Solitude Creek.

Hmm. Had he used a boat to cruise up to the roadhouse and jobbing company?

She knocked on the door frame. A curtain shifted and Dance held up her ID for the woman to peruse. Three locks or deadbolts got snapped. A chain too. The person lives alone, Dance thought. Or she’s a meth cooker.

Dance’s hand dipped to where her gun used to be. She grimaced and tugged her jacket closed.

The woman who opened the door was slimmer than the others, about forty-five, long gray-brown hair. A thin braid, purple, ended in a feather at her shoulder. From what she wore and what was scattered around the cluttered living area, Dance saw that the woman’s fashion choices favored macramé, tie-dye and fringe. She immediately thought of her associate TJ Scanlon, at the CBI, whose one regret in life was that he wasn’t living in the late sixties.

‘Help you?’

Dance identified herself and flashed her ID once more for a closer examination The woman, Annette, didn’t seem uneasy to be talking to a law enforcer. Dance detected only cigarette smoke and its residue, bitter and stale. Nothing illegal.

‘Have you heard about the incident at Solitude Creek roadhouse?’

‘Terrible. Are you here about that?’

‘Just a couple of questions, you don’t mind.’

‘Not at all. You want to come in?’

‘Thanks.’ Dance joined her. Thousands of CDs and vinyl records sat on the shelves and were stacked against the walls. A lapsed musician and co-founder of a website devoted to music, Dance was impressed. ‘You go to the roadhouse often?’

‘Sometimes. Little pricey for me. Sam’s got a pretty dear cover charge.’

‘So you weren’t there last night?’

‘No, I’m talking once a year I go and only if it’s somebody I really, really like.’

‘Now, Annette, I’m wondering if people boat down Solitude Creek.’

‘Boat? You can. I’ve seen a few kayakers and canoes. Some powerboats. Real small. It gets pretty shallow you go further east.’ Her fingers, quite ruddy, played with her feathered rope of purple hair.

‘Is there a place where anyone could park and kayak down to the club?’

A nod toward the road. ‘No, this is the only place anybody could leave a car and Ernie—’

‘Across the street?’

‘Yeah, that Ernie. He’s not going to let anybody park here he doesn’t know.’

‘Ernie’s a big guy?’

‘Not big. Just, you know.’

Hare-lick. Whatever that meant.

Dance noticed state-government envelopes, ripped open like picked-over road kill. Welfare. The woman lit a cigarette and blew the smoke away from Dance.

‘So, last night, you didn’t see anybody on the creek in a boat?’

‘No one. And I could’ve seen. Look at the window. It looks over the water. Right there. That one.’

It did indeed, though it was so grimy with smoke residue that at dusk it would’ve been impossible to spot much through it.

Dance removed the small notebook she kept with her and flipped it open. Jotted a few notes. ‘Are you married? Anyone else live here?’

‘Nope. Just me. Solo. Not even a cat.’ A smile. ‘This,’ Annette said, ‘what you’re asking, makes it sound like there was something going on. I mean, like you think somebody did something at the club on purpose.’

‘Just routine investigation. We always do this.’

‘Like NCIS.’

Now Dance smiled. ‘Just like that. You can’t see the club from here but would you have by any chance taken a walk last night, ended up near there?’

‘No. You gotta be careful. We’ve had mountain lions.’

True. A woman had been killed not long ago, a jogger, banker from San Francisco.

‘You were in all night?’ Dance asked.

‘Absolutely. Right here.’

‘And anyone you didn’t recognize in the neighborhood recently? Not just last night.’

‘No, ma’am. I’d tell you if I did.’

Another note.

Dance reached into her purse and exchanged her pink-framed glasses for a pair that had black-metal frames.

Predator specs.

‘Annette?’

‘Yes, ma’am?’

‘Could you tell me why you’re lying?’

She expected denial, expected resistance. Expected anger.

She didn’t expect the woman to drop to her knees, overcome with sobbing.

CHAPTER 13

‘Kathryn, no. You can’t be Civil half the time, Criminal the rest. It doesn’t work that way. We’ve been through this.’

Charles Overby seemed just pissy. She was in his office, close to five p.m. She was surprised he was still there: there was still an hour of tennis light left.

She knew he was right but the fast dismissal – It doesn’t work that way – was irritating. She asked, ‘Who else is going to handle it? We’re short-staffed.’ The CBI had been hit with budget cutbacks, like every other agency in California, whose new nickname among government workers was the ‘Bare State’, a play on the grizzly on the flag.

‘TJ. Rey. I’ll assign one of them.’

They were two very competent agents but young. Neither they nor anyone else in the Bureau had Dance’s skill at interrogation. And this case, she felt, had instances aplenty to get people into interview rooms. There were nearly a hundred victims, any one of whom might have a lead. Any one of whom might also be the perp. Stationed by the club door last night, where he could escape safely if it became too dangerous – maybe to enjoy his revenge for a real or imagined slight.

Or just because he wanted to watch people die.

‘You shouldn’t even be in the office. You should be home planting flowers or baking or something … All right, I’m just saying.’

Dance forwent the grimace. She said, ‘How’s this? Michael O’Neil.’

Chief of detectives of the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office.

‘What about him?’

‘He’ll run it.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Charles. It’s not a Fire Department matter. The burn in the oil drum was secondary. Makes sense the MCSO would handle it.’

His eyes slipped away. ‘You’ll brief O’Neil, that’s all.’

‘Sure. I’d advise.’

Advising wasn’t the same as briefing. Overby didn’t protest but she sensed he might not have noted her verb.

‘Nothing changes, Kathryn. No weapon. You’re still Civ Div.’

‘Sure,’ Kathryn Dance said brightly. She was winning.

‘You think he’ll agree?’ Overby said.

‘We’ll see. I think so.’

She knew this because she’d already texted him. And he had agreed.

But now Overby was troubled once more. ‘Of course, if it becomes a county operation …’

Meaning he’d miss out on the credit – and press conferences – that went with closing a case.

‘Tell you what. You can’t do more than brief.’

Advise.

‘But we can still get our oar in.’

She’d never understood that expression. ‘How do you mean, Charles?’

‘Let’s involve the CBI folks we’ve got here, on the task force. Jimmy Gomez and Steve Foster.’

‘What? Charles, no. They’re on Serrano and Guzman … I need them focused on that.’

‘No, no, this’ll be good. Just to kick around some ideas with them.’

‘With Foster? Kick ideas around with Steve Foster? He doesn’t kick around ideas. He shoots them in the head.’

Overby was looking away. Perhaps her glare seared. ‘Now that I think about it, makes sense to run it by them. Good on all counts. We have … considerations. Under the circumstances.’

‘Charles, please, no.’

‘Let’s just go talk to them, that’s all. Get Foster’s thoughts. Jimmy’s too. He’s one of us.’

Whatever the consequences, he’d decided his office couldn’t take a complete back seat to the Sheriff’s.

Avoiding her eyes, he rose, slipped his jacket over his immaculate white shirt and strode out of the office. ‘I think it’s a brilliant idea. Come along, Kathryn. Let’s have a chat with our friends.’

CHAPTER 14

The Guzman Connection task force was up to full strength.

In addition to blustery Steve Foster and staunch Carol Allerton, two others were present in the conference room dedicated to the operation.

‘Kathryn, Charles.’ This was from Steve Lu, the chief of detectives at the Salinas Police Department, a.k.a. Steve Two, since another, Foster, was on the team. Lu, an excessively skinny man – Dance’s opinion – was a specialist in gangs. His younger brother had been in a crew and been busted on a few minor counts – though he was now out of the system and clean. Lu was persistent and no-nonsense, maybe trying harder to make up for his sibling’s stumble. He was humorless, Dance had learned over several years of working with him, but he was not, as the other Steve was, bluntly contrary.

The fourth task-force member was Jimmy Gomez, the young CBI agent whose name had come up earlier. Dark-complexioned and sporting a moustache as brown as Foster’s was light and elaborate, he stayed in shape by playing football – that is, soccer – every minute when he wasn’t at work or attending to his family. He was assigned to this division of the CBI and his office was two doors down from Dance’s. They were both co-workers and friends. (Just two weeks ago Dance, her children, Gomez, his wife and their three youngsters had done the Del Monte Cineplex thing, then gone to Lala’s after, to discuss over dessert and coffee the brilliance of Pixar and which animated character they each would want to be; Dance had selected the hero from Brave, mostly because she envied the hair.)

The two Steves were at one table, Jimmy Gomez at another. Carol Allerton, in the corner, waved to the newcomers and returned to a serious mobile-phone conversation.

Overby announced, ‘Some help, s’il vous plaît?’

Dance felt her jaw tighten and knew exactly what she was radiating kinesically. She wondered if anyone else in the room did. Her displeasure had to be obvious.

‘You’ve probably heard about the incident at the roadhouse, Solitude Creek,’ Overby said. ‘I know you have, Jimmy.’

‘That fire?’ Foster asked. He seemed perpetually distracted.

‘No, it was more than that.’ Overby glanced at Dance.

She said, ‘The club itself didn’t burn. The perp started a fire outside near the HVAC system to get the smell of smoke into the club. He’d blocked the exit doors. Three dead, dozens injured. A stampede. It was pretty bad.’

‘Intentional? People crushed to death,’ Allerton whispered. ‘Terrible.’

‘Jesus,’ Steve Lu muttered. ‘So it’s homicide.’

Homicide embraces everything from suicide to vehicular manslaughter to premeditated murder. It was into the last of those categories that the Solitude Creek incident probably fell.

Foster took the news less emotionally. ‘Can’t be insurance. Otherwise the owner would’ve torched the place empty. Wouldn’t want any fatalities. Disgruntled workers, pissed-off customers got kicked out drunk?’

‘Preliminary interviews don’t turn up any obvious suspects but it’s a possibility,’ Dance said. ‘We’ll keep looking.’

Overby then said, ‘Now. Kathryn’s got a lead.’

‘I was canvassing the area. I found a woman who lives about two hundred yards from the end of the club’s parking lot. She told me she didn’t see anything odd around the time of the incident, she wasn’t near the club, but I knew she was lying.’

Foster continued to gaze at her, his eyes neutral but still managing to radiate criticism for her missing the clues during the interview earlier.

‘How?’ Steve Lu asked.

‘I had a feeling she had a connection with the club. She’s on welfare and poor but she loves music. I suspected she’d hike to the club and listen to the shows from the outside. I asked if she was there last night. She said no. But she was clearly lying.’

Foster looked over a pad containing his precise notes.

Dance continued, ‘Generally, it’s hard to tell if somebody’s being deceptive without establishing their baseline behavior.’

‘Charles was telling us,’ Allerton said.

‘But there’re a few things that signal deception on their own. One is beginning to speak more slowly, since your mind is trying to craft the lie and make sure it’ll be consistent with everything you’ve said before. The second is a slight increase in pitch – deception creates stress and stress tightens muscles, including the vocal cords. Those both registered deception when she was talking to me. I called her on it. She broke down and confessed she’d lied and she had been outside the club, from about seven thirty until the incident.’

‘What’d she see?’ Lu asked.

‘White male, over six feet, in a dark green jacket with a logo, like a construction or other worker, black cap, yellow aviator sunglasses. Medium build. Brown hair. Probably under forty. Nobody at Henderson Jobbing wears that kind of outfit. This guy parked the truck beside the club, started a fire in the oil drum and walked back to the warehouse – to drop the keys off. That was it. She stayed until the stampede happened and she took off.’

‘Afraid to come forward.’

‘She said anybody who’d do that, if he found out about her, would come back and kill her in a minute.’

‘Bring her in, grill her,’ Foster said, still looking over his notes.

‘She’s told us everything she knows.’

His look said, Has she? He said, ‘If she’s afraid, maybe she was withholding.’

‘She got unafraid when I told her we’d relocate her temporarily, get her into one of our safe houses.’

She saw Overby stiffen. She hadn’t shared this with him. Keeping witnesses alive was expensive.

Budget issues …

Foster shrugged. ‘Get the descrip out on the wire. ASAP.’

‘It is,’ Dance said. Every cop and government official on the Peninsula and in neighboring counties had the information the witness, Annette, had relayed. ‘She had no facial description – the light was too dim and she was too far away.’

‘Get it to the news too,’ Foster said.

‘No,’ Dance said.

He looked up from beneath impressive brows.

Carol Allerton lifted an eyebrow, inquiring about the topic of conversation. Dance briefed her.

Foster reiterated, ‘On the news. Go broad.’

Overby said, ‘We were debating that.’

‘What’s to debate?’ Foster asked.

Allerton said, ‘He hears, he vanishes.’

Gomez offered, ‘Yeah, what I’d do. He rabbits. He dyes his hair. Tosses the jacket, switches to pink Ray-Bans.’

Foster to Dance: ‘Did the witness think he tipped to her?’

‘No. The wit’s positive he didn’t see her.’

‘So he’s still walking around and probably still wearing the same clothes. The green jacket and all that. A thousand people could’ve seen him. Maybe the clerk in his hotel, or his dry cleaner, if he’s local. It’s standard operating procedure in my cases.’

Overby trod the tightrope. ‘Pluses and minuses on both sides.’

‘I’d vote no,’ Gomez said. Allerton nodded her agreement.

Dance turned to Overby. Her gaze lasered him briefly.

After a moment, eyes on the well-examined linoleum floor, he said, ‘We’ll keep it private for the time being. No releasing the details to the media.’

Well, score one for us, Dance thought, and made an effort not to reveal her surprise.