“Your face, in the courtroom at the bail hearing. Just looking at your face, I knew you were considering it. I knew you were.”
“I’m so sorry,” Dance whispered.
Then Edie Dance did something completely uncharacteristic. She took her daughter by the shoulders, firmly, more firmly than Dance believed she’d ever been held by the woman, even as a child. “Don’t you dare say that.” Her words were harsh.
Dance blinked and began to speak.
“Shhhhh, Katie. Listen. I was up all night after the bail hearing. Thinking about what I’d seen in your eyes, what you suspected about me, let me finish. I was up all night, hurt, furious. But then, finally I understood something. And I felt so proud.”
A warm smile softened the round contours of the woman’s face. “So proud.”
Dance was confused.
Her mother continued, “You know, Katie, a parent never knows if they get it right. I’m sure you’ve wrestled with that.”
“Oh, only about ten times a day.”
“You always hope, you pray, that you give your children the resources they need, the attitude, the courage. That’s what it’s all about, after all. Not fighting their battles, but getting them prepared to fight on their own. Teaching them to make judgments, to think for themselves.”
The tears were streaming down Dance’s cheeks.
“And when I saw you questioning what I might’ve done, looking at what had happened, I knew that I’d got it one hundred percent right. I raised you not to be blind. You know, prejudice blinds people, hate blinds people. But loyalty and love blind people too. You looked past everything, for the truth.” Her mother laughed. “Of course, you got it wrong. But I can’t fault you for that.”
The women embraced and Edie Dance said, “Now, you’re still on duty. Go on back to the office. I’m still mad at you. But I’ll get over it in a day or two. We’ll go shopping and then have dinner at Casanova. Oh, and Katie, you’re picking up the check.”
Chapter 46
KATHRYN DANCE RETURNED to her office at CBI and wrote up the final disposition on the case.
She sipped the coffee that Maryellen Kresbach had brought her and looked over the pink phone message slips that the assistant had stacked beside a plate containing a very thick cookie.
She considered the messages at length and returned none of the calls but ate 100 percent of the cookie.
Her phone beeped. A text from Michael O’Neil:
K — judge has ruled in L.A. Will release decision in next few hours. Keep your fingers crossed. Lot going on today, but will talk to you soon. — M.
Please, please, please…
A final sip of coffee and Dance printed out the report for Overby and took it down to his office. “Here’s the disposition, Charles.”
“Ah. Good.” The man added, “That was a surprise, the direction the case took.” He read the report fast. She noticed a gym bag, tennis racket and small suitcase behind his desk. It was late afternoon on a summer Friday, and he was probably leaving directly from the office for his weekend place.
She detected a certain chilliness in his posture, attributable undoubtedly to her flying off the handle with Hamilton Royce.
And so she was looking forward to what was coming next. Sitting opposite her boss, she said, “There’s one final thing, Charles. It’s about Royce.”
“What’s that?” He looked up, began smoothing her memo, as if wiping off dust.
She explained what TJ had uncovered about Royce’s mission — to stop the blog not to save victims, but to derail Chilton’s exposé about the state representative’s being wined and dined by the nuclear plant developer. “He used us, Charles.”
“Ah.” Overby continued to fiddle with some papers.
“He bills his time to the Nuclear Facilities Planning Committee — which is headed by the representative Chilton was writing about in the ‘Power to the People’ thread of the blog.”
“I see. Royce, hmm.”
“I want to send a memo to the AG. It’s probably not a crime, what Royce did, but it’s definitely unethical — using me, using us. It’ll cost him his job.”
More fiddling. Overby was considering this.
“Are you okay with my doing that?” She asked this because it was clear he wasn’t.
“I’m not sure.”
She laughed. “Why not? He went through my desk. Maryellen saw him. He used state police for his own agenda.”
Overby’s eyes dipped to the papers on his desk. They were as ordered as could be. “Well, it’ll take up our time and resources. And it could be… awkward for us.”
“Awkward?”
“Bring us into that interagency crap. I hate that.”
This was hardly an argument. Life in state government is all about interagency crap.
At the end of a chewy silence, Overby seemed to come up with a thought. His eyebrow lifted a bit. “Besides, I think you might not have time to pursue it.”
“I’ll fit it in, Charles.”
“Well, the thing is, there’s this… .” He found a file on his credenza and extracted a stapled document several pages long.
“What’s that?”
“Matter of fact” — the second eyebrow joined in — “it’s from the AG’s office.” He pushed the papers forward across the desk. “It seems there was a complaint made against you.”
“Me?”
“Apparently you made racist remarks to a county employee.”
“Charles, that’s crazy.”
“Ah, well, it went all the way to Sacramento.”
“Who complained?”
“Sharanda Evans. County Social Services.”
“I’ve never met her. It’s a mistake.”
“She was at Monterey Bay Hospital when your mother was arrested. She was looking after your children.”
Oh, the woman who’d collected Wes and Maggie from the hospital play area.
“Charles, she wasn’t ‘looking after’ them. She was taking them into custody. She didn’t even try to call me.”
“She claims you uttered racist comments.”