“Know the name—a mesmerizer—but nothing else.”
“Interesting. The story’s about a failed musician, Svengali, who meets a young and beautiful singer—her first name’s Trilby. But she wasn’t very successful. Svengali falls in love with her but she won’t have anything to do with him, so he hypnotizes her. Her career’s successful, but she becomes his mental slave.
In the end, Svengali dies and—because du Maurier believed a robot can’t survive without its master—she dies too.”
“Guess there was no sequel.” O’Neil flipped through a stack of notes. “Nagle have any thoughts about what he’s up to?”
“Not really. He’s writing us a bio. Maybe there’ll be something in it.”
For the next hour they sifted through the photocopies, looking for references to any place or person in the area that Pell might’ve had an interest in, some reason for him to stay on the Peninsula. There was no reference to Alison or Nimue, from the killer’s Google search.
Nothing.
Most of the videotapes were feature TV magazine reports about Pell, the Croyton murders or about Croyton himself, the flamboyant, larger-than-life Silicon Valley entrepreneur.
“Sensationalist crap,” O’Neil announced.
“Superficialsensationalist crap.” Exactly what Morton Nagle objected to in the coverage of crime and conflict.
But there were two others, police interview tapes that Dance found more illuminating. One was for a burglary bust, thirteen years ago.
“Who are your next of kin, Daniel?”
“I don’t have any. No family.”
“Your parents?”
“Gone. Long gone. I’m an orphan, you could say.”
“When did they die?”
“When I was seventeen. But my dad’d left before that.”
“You and your father get along?”
“My father…That’s a hard story.”
Pell gave the officer an account of his abusive father, who had forced young Daniel to pay rent from the age of thirteen. He’d beat the boy if he didn’t come up with the money—and beat the mother as well if she defended her son. This, he explained, was why he’d taken to stealing. Finally the father had abandoned them. Coincidentally, his separated parents had died the same year—his mother of cancer, his father in a drunk-driving accident. At seventeen Pell was on his own.
“And no siblings, hm?”
“No, sir…I always thought that if I had somebody to share that burden with, I would’ve turned out differently…. And I don’t have any children myself, either. That’s a regret, I must say…. But I’m a young man. I’ve got time, right?”
“Oh, if you get your act together, Daniel, there’s no reason in the world you couldn’t have a family of your own.”
“Thank you for saying that, Officer. I mean that. Thank you. And what about you, Officer? You a family man? I see you’re wearing a wedding ring.”
The second police tape was from a small town in the Central Valley twelve years ago, where he’d been arrested for petty larceny.
“Daniel, listen here, I’m gonna be askin’ you a few questions. Don’t go and lie to us now, okay? That’ll go bad for you.”
“No, sir, Sheriff. I’m here to be honest. Tell God’s truth.”
“You do that and you and me’ll get along just fine. Now, how come was it you was found with Jake Peabody’s TV set and VCR in the back of your car?”
“I bought ’em, Sheriff. I swear to you. On the street. This Mexican fellow? We was talking, and he said he needed some money. Him and his wife had a sick kid, he told me.”
“See what he’s doing?” Dance asked.
O’Neil shook his head.
“The first interviewer’s intelligent. He speaks well, uses proper grammar, syntax. Pell responded exactly
the same way. The second officer? Not as well educated as the first, makes grammatical mistakes. Pell picks up on that and echoes him. ‘We was talking,’ ‘Him and his wife.’ It’s a trick High Machiavellians use.” A nod at the set. “Pell is in total control of both interrogations.”
“I don’t know, I’d give him a B-minus for the sob stories,” O’Neil judged. “Didn’t buy any sympathy from me.”
“Let’s see.” Dance found the disposition reports that Nagle had included with the copies of the tapes.
“Sorry, Professor.They gave him A’s. Reduced the first charge from Burglary One to a Receiving Stolen, suspended. The second? He was released.”
“I stand corrected.”
They looked through the material for another half-hour. Nothing else was useful.
O’Neil looked at his watch. “Got to go.” Wearily he rose and she walked him outside. He scratched the dogs’ heads.
“Hope you can make it to Dad’s party tomorrow.”
“Let’s hope it’ll be over with by then.” He climbed into his Volvo and headed down the misty street.
Her phone croaked.
“’Lo?”
“Hey, boss.”
She could hardly hear; loud music crashed in the background. “Could you turn that down?”
“I’d have to ask the band. Anything new about Juan?”
“No change.”
“I’ll go see him tomorrow…. Listen—”
“I’m trying.”
“Ha. First, Pell’s aunt? Her name’s Barbara Pell. But she’s brain-fried. Bakersfield PD say she’s got Alzheimer’s or something. Doesn’t know the time of day but there’s a work shed or garage behind the house with some tools in it and some other things of Pell’s. Anybody could’ve just strolled in and walked out with the hammer. Neighbors didn’t see anything. Surprise, surprise, surprise.”
“Was that Andy Griffith?”
“Same show. Gomer Pyle.”
“Bakersfield’s going to keep an eye on the woman’s house?”
“That’s affirmative…. Now, boss, I got the skinny for you. On Winston.”
“Who?”
“Winston Kellogg, the FBI guy. The one Overby’s bringing in to babysit you.”
Babysit…
“Could you pick a different word?”
“To oversee you. To ride herd. Subjugate.”
“TJ.”