Dance placed the order and returned. Sat down. Automatically reaching for the plastic holster that held her Glock, which usually needed adjusting upon sitting. Her hand went to nothing and she remembered.
Then she was concentrating on the girl. Trish wore jeans and scuffed but expensive brown boots. Dance, a lover of footwear, spotted Italian. A black, scoop-neck sweater. A stocking cap, beige, pulled down over her hair. The sleeves of the sweater met her knuckles.
‘Thanks for calling me. I appreciate it. I know what you’re going through.’
‘Totally.’ Her keen eyes stabbed at Dance’s. ‘You have any idea who it is? Who killed my mother and those other people?’
And nearly you, Dance thought. ‘Not much. It’s not like any case I’ve ever seen.’
‘He’s a fucking sadist, whoever he is.’
Not technically but that would do.
Dance opened her notebook. ‘Your father doesn’t know you’re here?’
‘He’s not so bad. This, like, freaked him out too. He’s just being protective of me. You know.’
‘I understand.’
‘But I don’t have much time. He’s packing up stuff at his house now. He’ll be back to Mom’s soon.’
‘Then let me get right to the questions.’
The drinks came, cardboard cups. They both sipped.
‘Can you tell me what you remember?’ Dance asked.
‘The band had just started. I don’t know, maybe the second or third song. And then …’ After a deep breath, she gave much the same story as the other witnesses. The smell of smoke, though not seeing much. Then, almost as if somebody had flipped a switch, everyone in the audience had risen, knocking over tables, scattering drinks, pushing others aside and rushing for the exits.
Her expression mystified, she repeated, ‘But there was no fire and still, you know, everybody went crazy. Five seconds, ten, from the first person who stood up. That was all it took.’ She sighed. ‘I think it was Mom. The first. She panicked. Then this bright light came on, pointed at the exit doors, you know, to show everybody where they were. I guess that was good but it made some of us panic more. They were so bright.’
She sipped a little from her cup, stared at the foam. Then: ‘I got surrounded by this one bunch of people and my mother by another. She was screaming for me and I was screaming for her but we were going in different directions. There was no way to stop.’ Her voice went low. ‘I’ve never seen anything like that. It was like I was totally … I don’t know, not even me. I was part of this thing. Nobody was listening to anybody else. We were just out of control.’
‘And your mother?’
‘She was going toward the fire doors. I could see her fight, trying to get back to me. I was going the opposite way – toward the kitchen, the group I was in. There wasn’t an exit sign there but somebody said there was a door we could get out of.’
‘And you escaped that way?’
‘Eventually. But not at first. That’s why it was so bad.’ She teared, then wiped her eyes.
‘What, Trish?’
‘Somebody on the PA system said, “The fire’s in the kitchen.” Or something like that.’
Dance remembered Cohen had made the announcement.
‘But somebody nearby saw that the kitchen was okay. No fire at all. We went in that direction. We tried to tell everybody else but nobody could hear us. You couldn’t hear anything.’
Dance jotted down the girl’s recollections. ‘What’s most important for us to find out is anything about him, this man. We have some description but it’s not very much. We don’t think he was in the club. He was outside. When did you and your mother get there?’
‘I don’t know, maybe seven fifteen.’
‘I want you to think back. Now this guy—’
‘The perp.’
Dance gave her a grin. ‘We say “unsub”. Unknown subject.’
‘I say asshole.’
‘Now, this asshole drove a truck from the warehouse to the club around eight. He had to’ve been there before. Did you see anybody hanging around, maybe near the warehouse? Checking out the club? Near the oil drum where he set the fire?’
Trish seemed to find more comfort in cupping the beverage between her fingers, her nails tipped with chipped black polish, than from drinking it.
A sigh. ‘No. I can’t remember anyone. You know, you go to a place, there’s going to be a show, and you’re just talking and thinking about what you’re going to see and have for dinner, and you don’t pay much attention.’
Much of Kathryn Dance’s job had nothing to do with spotting deception on the part of unsubs: it was about helping witnesses unearth useful recollections.
Teenagers were among the worst when it came to remembering details. Their minds danced around so much, they were so distracted, that they observed little and recalled less – unless the topic interested them. Still, the images were often there. One task of an interviewer is to guide witnesses back to the time and place when they might have noted a tiny kernel that was nonetheless vital in nailing the suspect. As she considered how she might do this, she noted the girl’s keyless fob sitting on the table beside her purse.
A Toyota logo from a local dealer.
‘Prius?’ Dance asked.
She nodded. ‘My mom got it for me. How’d you know?’
‘Guess.’
A sensible car. And an expensive one. Dance remembered, too, that the girl’s father had driven a new Lexus.
‘You like to drive?’
‘Love it! When I’m upset I just drive up and down One. Big Sur and back.’
‘Trish, I want you to think back to the parking lot that night.’
‘I didn’t see anybody in particular.’
‘I understand. But what I’m wondering about is cars. We know this guy’s pretty smart. There’s no indication he’s working with anyone so he’d have to drive to Solitude Creek but he wouldn’t have parked too close to the club. He’d’ve been worried about video cameras or getting spotted climbing out of the truck, after he parked it, and getting into his own car.’
Trish frowned. ‘A silver Honda.’