“Back then I was bumming around the West Coast, making money doing sketches of people at street fairs and on the beach, you know. I had my easel set up and Pell stopped by. He wanted his portrait done.”
Linda gave a coy smile. “I seem to remember you didn’t do much sketching. You two ended up in the back of the van. And were there for a long, long time.”
Rebecca’s smile was of embarrassment. “Well, Daniel hadthat side to him, sure…. In any case, wedid spend time talking too. And he asked me if I wanted to hang out with them in Seaside. I wasn’t sure at first—I mean, we all knew about Pell’s reputation and the shoplifting and things like that. But I just said to myself, hell, I’m a bohemian, I’m a rebel and artist. Screw my lily white suburban upbringing…go for it. And I did. It worked out well. There were good people around me, like Linda and Sam. I didn’t have to work nine to five and could paint as much as I wanted. Who could ask for anything more in life? Of course, it turned out I’d also joined up with Bonnie and Clyde, a band of thieves. Thatwasn’t so good.”
Dance noticed Linda’s placid face darken at the comment.
After release from jail, Rebecca explained, she became involved in the women’s movement.
“I figured me kowtowing to Pell—treating him like the king of the roost—set the feminist cause back a few years and I wanted to make it up to them.”
Finally, after a lot of counseling, she’d started a consulting service to help women open and finance small businesses. She’d been at it ever since. She must do well for herself, Dance thought, to judge from the jewelry, clothes and Italian shoes, which if the agent’s estimate was right (Dance could be an expert footwear witness) cost the same as her best two pairs put together.
Another knock on the door. Winston Kellogg arrived. Dance was happy to see him—professionally and personally. She’d enjoyed getting to know him on the Deck last night. He’d been surprisingly social, for a hard-traveling Fed. Dance had attended a number of functions with her husband’s federal coworkers and found most of them quiet and focused, reluctant to talk. But Win Kellogg, along with her parents, had been the last to leave the party.
He now greeted the two women and, in keeping with protocol, showed them his ID. He poured himself some coffee. Up until now Dance had been asking background information but with Kellogg here it was time to get to the crux of the interview.
“All right, here’s the situation. Pell is probably still in the area. We can’t figure out where or why. It doesn’t make any sense; most escapees get as far away as they can from the site of the jail break.”
She told them in detail of how the plan at the courthouse had unfolded and the developments to date.
The women listened with interest—and shock or revulsion—to the specifics.
“First, let me ask you about his accomplice.”
“That woman I read about?” Linda asked. “Who is she?”
“We don’t know. Apparently blond and young. Age is roughly midtwenties.”
“So he’s got a new girlfriend,” Rebecca said. “That’s our Daniel. Never without one.”
Kellogg said, “We don’t exactly know the relationship. She was probably a fan of his. Apparently prisoners, even the worst, get plenty of women throwing themselves at their feet.”
Rebecca laughed and glanced at Linda. “Youget any love letters when you were inside? I didn’t.”
Linda gave a polite smile.
“There’s a chance,” Dance said, “that she isn’t a stranger. She’d’ve been very young at the time the Family was together but I was wondering if she could be somebody you know.”
Linda frowned. “Midtwenties now…she’d’ve been a teenager then. I don’t remember anyone like that.”
Rebecca added, “When I was in the Family, it was only the five of us.”
Dance jotted a note. “Now, I want to talk about what your life was like then. What Pell said and did, what interested him, what his plans were. I’m hoping something you remember will give us a clue as to what he’s up to.”
“Step one, define the problem. Step two, get the facts.” Rebecca’s eyes were on Dance.
Both Linda and Kellogg looked blank. Dance, of course, knew what she was talking about. (And was thankful that the woman wasn’t in the mood to deliver another lecture, like yesterday.)
“Jump in with whatever you want. If you have an idea that sounds bizarre, go ahead and tell us. We’ll take whatever we can get.”
“I’m game,” Linda said.
Rebecca offered, “Shoot.”
Dance asked about the structure of life in the Family.
“It was sort of a commune,” Rebecca said, “which was weird for me, growing up in capitalistic, sitcom suburbia, you know.”
As they described it, the arrangement was a little different, though, from what a communist cadre might expect. The rule seemed to be: From each according to what Daniel Pell demanded of them; to each according to what Daniel Pell decided.
Still, the Family worked pretty well, at least on a practical level. Linda had made sure the household ran smoothly and the others contributed. They ate well and kept the bungalow clean and in good repair. Both Samantha and Jimmy Newberg were talented with tools and home improvement. For obvious
reasons—stolen property stored in a bedroom—Pell didn’t want the owner to paint or fix broken appliances, so they had to be completely self-sufficient.
Linda said, “That was one of Daniel’s philosophies of life. ‘Self-Reliance’—the essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson. I read it out loud a dozen times. He loved to hear it.”
Rebecca was smiling. “Remember reading at night?”
Linda explained that Pell believed in books. “He loved them. He made a ceremony out of throwing out the TV. Almost every night I’d read something aloud, with everyone else gathered in a circle on the floor.
Those were nice nights.”
“Were there any neighbors or other friends in Seaside he had a particular connection with?”