“To pollen, yes. Dogs? No.”
Kellogg had changed again. The sports coat was the same but he wore a polo shirt and jeans, Topsiders and yellow socks.
He noted her glance. “I know. For a Fed I look surprisingly like a soccer dad.”
She directed him through the kitchen and introduced him to Edie. Then they continued on to the Deck, where he was inundated with more introductions. She remained circumspect about his role here, and Kellogg said merely that he was in town from Washington and was “working with Kathryn on a few projects.”
Then she took him to the stairs leading down to the backyard and introduced him to the children. Dance caught Wes and Tyler looking at him closely, undoubtedly for armament, and whispering to each other.
O’Neil joined the two agents.
Wes waved enthusiastically to the deputy and, with another glance at Kellogg, returned to their game, which he was apparently making up on the run. He was laying out the rules. It seemed to involve outer space and invisible dragons. The dogs were aliens. The twins were royalty of some kind and a pine cone was either a magic orb or a hand grenade, perhaps both.
“Did you tell Michael about Nagle?” Kellogg asked.
She gave a brief synopsis of what they’d learned about Pell’s history and added that the writer was going to see if Theresa Croyton would talk to them.
“So, you think Pell’s here because of the murders back then?” O’Neil asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But I need all the information I can get.”
The placid detective gave a smile and said to Kellogg, “No stone left un-turned. That’s how I describe her policing style.”
“Which I learned from him,” Dance said, laughing, and nodding at O’Neil.
Then the detective said, “Oh, I was thinking about something. Remember? One of Pell’s phone conversations from Capitola was about money.”
“Ninety-two hundred dollars,” Kellogg said.
Dance was impressed at his retention.
“Well, here’s what I thought: We know the Thunderbird was stolen in Los Angeles. It’s logical to assume that’s where Pell’s girlfriend’s from. How ’bout we contact banks in L.A. County and see if any women customers’ve withdrawn that amount in the past, say, month or two?”
Dance liked the idea, though it would mean a lot of work.
O’Neil said to Kellogg, “That’d have to come from you folks: FBI, Treasury, IRS or Homeland Security, I’d guess.”
“It’s a good idea. Just thinking out loud, though, I’d say we’d have a manpower problem.” He echoed Dance’s concern. “We’re talking millions of customers. I know the L.A. bureau couldn’t handle it, and Homeland’d laugh. And if she was smart she’d make small withdrawals over a period of time. Or cash third-party checks and stash the money.”
“Oh, sure. Possibly. But it’d be great to ID his girlfriend. You know, ‘A second suspect—’”
“—‘logarithmically increases the chances for detection and arrest,’” Kellogg finished the quotation from an old textbook on law enforcement. Dance and O’Neil quoted it often.
Smiling, Kellogg held O’Neil’s eye. “We Feds don’t have quite the resources people think we do. I’m sure we couldn’t come up with the bodies to man the phones. Be a huge job.”
“I wonder. You’d think it’d be pretty easy to check databases, at least with the big chain banks.”
Michael O’Neil could be quite tenacious.
Dance asked, “Would you need a warrant?”
O’Neil said, “Probably to release the name you would. But if a bank wanted to cooperate they could run the numbers and tell us if there was a match. We could get a warrant for the name and address in a half-hour.”
Kellogg sipped his wine. “The fact is, there’s another problem. I’m worried if we go to the SAC or Homeland with something like that—too tenuous—we might lose support we’d need later for something more solid.”
“Crying wolf, hm?” O’Neil nodded. “Guess you have to play more politics at that level than we do here.”
“But let’s think about it. I’ll make some calls.”
O’Neil looked past Dance’s shoulder. “Hey, happy birthday, young man.”
Stuart Dance, wearing a badge that said “Birthday Boy,” handmade by Maggie and Wes, shook hands, refilled O’Neil’s and Dance’s wineglasses and said to Kellogg, “You’re talking shop. Not allowed. I’m stealing you away from these children, come play with the adults.”
Kellogg gave a shy laugh and followed the man to the candlelit table, where Martine had her battered Gibson guitar out of the case and was organizing a sing-along. Dance and O’Neil stood alone. She saw Wes looking up. He’d apparently been studying the adults. He turned away, back to theStar Wars improvisation.
“He seems good,” O’Neil said, tilting his head toward Kellogg.
“Winston? Yes.”
Typically, O’Neil carried no grudge about the rejection of his suggestions. He was the antithesis of pettiness.
“He take a hit recently?” O’Neil tapped his neck.
“How’d you know?” The bandage wasn’t visible tonight.
“He was touching it the way you touch a wound.”
She laughed. “Good kinesic analysis. Yeah, just happened. He was in Chicago. The perp got a round off first, I guess, and Win took him out. He didn’t go into the details.”
They fell silent, looking over the backyard, the children, the dogs, the lights glowing brighter in the encroaching dusk. “We’ll get him.”
“Will we?” she asked.
“Yep. He’ll make a mistake. They always do.”
“I don’t know. He’s something different. Don’t you feel that?”