‘Sixty-year-old farmer, Salinas Valley. The state took a big chunk of his property, eminent domain. The farm had been in his family for years and he had to sell off the rest for taxes. He was furious about it. He’s gone missing.’
‘That’s right.’ Dance recalled the ‘Have You Seen This Man?’ posters around town. There were two images. One of a man, smiling at the camera, sitting beside his Labrador retriever. The other showed him with hair askew, looking a bit of a crank. He resembled the great actor Bruce Dern in Nebraska. ‘It’s sad,’ she said.
‘Is, yes. He was writing these blogs trashing the state for what it did. But they stopped a few days ago and he’s disappeared. His family thinks he’s killed himself. I suppose that’s it. No point in kidnapping a man who doesn’t have any money. I’ve got a team out trying to find him. Or his body.’
O’Neil offered another grimace. ‘Then there’re the hate crimes. That’s on my plate too.’
Dance knew this story. Everybody in town did. Over the past few weeks, vandals had defaced buildings associated with minorities. They’d tagged an African-American church with graffiti of the KKK and a burning cross. Then a gay couple’s house had been tagged with ‘Get Aids and Die’. Latinos had been targeted too.
‘Who do you think? Neo-Nazis?’
Such groups were rare in the Monterey area. But not unheard of.
‘Closest are some biker and redneck white social clubs in Salinas and Seaside. Fits their worldview but graffiti’s not their MO. They tend to bust heads in bars. I’ve talked to a few of them. They were actually insulted I was accusing them.’
‘Guess there are degrees of bigotry.’
‘Amy Grabe’s considering sending a team down. But for now it’s mine.’
FBI. Sure. The crimes he was referring to would probably fall into the category of civil-rights violations, which meant the feds would be involved.
He continued, ‘But no physical violence so it’s not a top priority. I can work Solitude Creek okay.’
‘I’m glad,’ Dance said.
O’Neil let out a sigh and stretched. She was standing close enough to smell his aftershave or soap. A pleasant, complicated scent. Spicy. She eased away.
He explained, ‘Crime Scene should have their report tomorrow from around the roadhouse and the jobbing company.’
She told him in detail exactly what had happened that day from the moment of her arrival at Solitude Creek. He took notes. Then she handed him the printouts of the interviews she’d conducted. He flipped through them.
‘I’ll read these tonight.’
She summarized: ‘You might find something I didn’t see. But there’re no employees, former ones, or patrons who might have been motivated to organize the attack. No competitor wanting to take Sam out of commission.’
‘Was wondering. Any pissed-off husband wanted to get even with somebody on a date at the club that night?’
‘Or wife,’ Dance pointed out. The second-most-popular motive for arson – after insurance fraud – was a woman burning down the house, apartment or hotel room with a cheating lover inside. ‘That was in the battery of questions. No hints, though.’
He riffled the many pages. ‘Been busy.’
‘Wish I’d been productive.’ She shook her head.
O’Neil finished his beer. Looked through the pictures again. ‘One thing I don’t get, though.’
‘Why didn’t he just burn the place?’
He gave a smile. ‘Yep.’
‘That’s the key.’
O’Neil’s phone hummed once. He looked at the text. ‘Better be getting home.’
‘Sure.’
They walked to the door.
‘Night.’
Then he was going down the front steps of the porch, which creaked under his weight. He turned back and waved.
Dance checked the house, securing it, as always. She’d made enemies in her job over the years, and now, in particular, she could be in the sights of any of the gangs being targeted by Operation Pipeline. From Oakland to LA.
And by the Solitude Creek unsub too. A man who had used panic as a weapon to murder in a horrific way.
Then into and out of the bathroom quickly, change to PJs, then lugging her gun safe from floor to bedside table. A true Civ-Div officer, she couldn’t pack on the job but in her own home nothing was going to stop her triple-tapping an intruder with her Glock 26.
She lay back in bed, lights out. Refusing to let the images of the crime scene affect her, though that was difficult. They returned on their own. The bloodstain in the shape of a heart. The brown pool outside the exit door where, perhaps, the girl had lost her arm.
Really talented …
Tough images reeling through her mind. Dance called this ‘assault by memory’.
She listened to the wind and could just hear a whisper of the ocean.
Alone, tonight, Dance was thinking of the name of the rivulet near the roadhouse. Solitude Creek. She wondered why the name. Did it have a meaning other than the obvious, that the stream ran through an out-of-the-way part of the county, edged with secluding weeds and rushes and hidden by hills?
Solitude …
The word, its sound and meaning, spoke to her now. And yet how absurd was that? Solitude was not an aspect of her life. Hardly. She had the children, she had her parents, her friends, the Deck.
She had Jon Boling.
How could she be experiencing solitude?
Maybe, she thought wryly, because …
Because …
But then she told herself: Enough. Your mood’s just churned up by these terrible deaths and injuries. That’s all. Nothing more.
Solitude, solitude …
Finally, strength of will, she managed to fling the word away, just as the children would do with snowballs on those rare, rare occasions when the hills of Carmel Valley were blanketed white.
THE GET
THURSDAY, APRIL 6
CHAPTER 19
No. Oh, no. …