She accepted the coffee Maryellen offered, thanked her and, palming one of the woman’s incredible cookies, headed into her office.
‘Nice shoes. Okay. Excellent.’ Maryellen was eyeing Dance’s Stuart Weitzman Filigree sandals, brown leather (and, Dance was proud to say, bought at less than half price). They matched her long coffee-colored linen skirt. Her sweater today was a ribbed off-white, the sports coat black. Today’s concession to color was a bright elastic tie Maggie had twined at the end of her mother’s French braid. Red.
She acknowledged the compliment – Maryellen was a woman who knew wicked shoes when she saw them.
In her office she dropped into her desk chair, thinking she’d have to tame the squeak, then, as always, forgetting about it.
She had just returned from the Marina Hills Cineplex, where there’d been a sighting of a man suspected of being the Solitude Creek unsub. The manager of the theater had spotted someone wearing the same clothes as the witness had described, about the same build. The suspect noted that he’d been recognized and fled, pretty much confirming that he was their perp.
Dance and the others had conducted a canvass but had found no other witnesses who’d seen the man. No vehicles and no further description. She’d been troubled to learn that one of the police cars on the lookout for the unsub had been stationed in front of the theater; she wondered if, because of Steve Foster’s ‘accidental’ release of the perp’s description, the manager had spooked him away before he got into view of the cop.
Sometimes, she reflected, your colleagues’ mistakes and carelessness – as well as your own – can be as much of an adversary as the perps you’re pursuing.
The miss was, of course, frustrating enough. But far more troubling was that he’d apparently been planning another attack. Not, Steve Number One, a thousand miles away at all. Perhaps, since he knew he’d been spotted, he’d now flee the area. Certainly he was going to change his appearance or at least ditch the clothes. But was he still determined to strike again? She sent out a second memo to all local law enforcers to alert managers of venues that she’d confirmed their unsub had attempted a second attack.
Reaching for the phone to call Michael O’Neil, she was interrupted by TJ Scanlon. He was in a T-shirt that bore the name Beck (not, like you’d think, the Grateful Dead). He was in jeans too. And a sport coat, striped. It was of the Summer of Love era and might actually have come from the 1960s; TJ stocked his hippie house in Carmel Valley with counterculture artifacts from an era and way of life that had ended long before he was born.
He dropped into the chair across from her.
‘Oh-oh, boss. Oh-oh and a half. Something wrong?’
‘You didn’t hear? Our friend from Sacramento leaked the description of the unsub.’
‘Oh, man. Foster?’
‘Yep.’ She added, ‘And somebody spotted the perp.’
‘Good news but then, given your expression, I guess it isn’t.’
‘He spotted the spotter and vanished.’
‘Hell. So he’s left town.’
‘Or become a quick-change artist – who knows? Platform shoes. Dyed his hair. New clothes. And,’ she added grimly, ‘maybe he’s still going forward, targeting someplace else. Right now. Before we can regroup.’
She told him about the movie theater, where the unsub had apparently been planning a new attack.
The young man nodded. ‘Right up his alley. Crowded multiplex.’
Dance glanced at the folder in the agent’s hand.
TJ said, ‘Something helpful, maybe. I tracked down that girl. Trish.’
Dance had given him the job of finding the teenager she’d met at the Solitude Creek crime scene.
‘Michelle Cooper – the mother who died. Her daughter’s Trish Martin. Her father’s name.’
Like Maggie and Wes were Swenson.
‘The girl’s seventeen. Don’t have her mobile but here’s the mother’s home number.’ He added, ‘It’s on Seventeen Mile Drive.’
Dance could see the scenario. Husband cheats on wife, she catches him, he pays through the nose and foots the bill for a house in the poshest neighborhood of Pebble Beach. ‘You have the father’s address and number? Mr Friendly. She’d be staying with him now, I’d guess.’
‘Sorry, didn’t get it. Want me to check?’
‘I’ll try her mother’s first.’
As it turned out, though, there wouldn’t be any conversations of any kind.
‘Hello?’ A man’s voice. Abrupt. Hell, she knew who it was.
‘I’m calling for Trish Martin.’
‘Who is this?’
Unfortunately, you had to play the game honestly. ‘Agent Kathryn Dance, the California Bureau of Investigation. Is this Mr Martin? I—’
‘Yeah, I met you. I remember. How did you know I was here?’
Odd question.
‘I didn’t. I was calling for Trish. It’s important that I talk to her. I’m hoping—’
‘Why?’
‘There’s been a development in the investigation. The doors at Solitude Creek were blocked intentionally. Your ex-wife’s death, the others, they were homicides, not accidental.’
A pause. ‘I heard. It was on the news. Some guy they’re looking for. A workman or something.’
‘That’s right. And we’re canvassing to see if anybody might’ve seen him. Your daughter seems intelligent, perceptive. I’m hoping—’
‘She’s too upset.’
‘I understand it’s a difficult time for her, for your whole family. But it’s important that we understand exactly what happened there.’
‘Well, you’ll have do that without my daughter.’ A voice from nearby. He said, away from the phone, ‘It’s nobody. Keep at it, honey.’
That would be Trish. She’d be moving in with her father, Dance guessed. She was probably packing.
‘Mr Martin, my specialty is interviewing people. I’ve spoken to hundreds of teenagers, often in traumatic situations. I promise you, I’ll be very sensitive to Trish’s frame of mind. I—’