‘Hey, boss.’
The caller was a thirtyish CBI agent in the West Central Division. He was Dance’s junior associate, though that was not an official job description. TJ Scanlon, a dependable, hardworking agent and, best put, atypical for the conservative CBI.
TJ said, ‘He’s here. Ready to go.’
‘Okay, bring him up.’ Dance dropped the phone into the cradle and said to the room. ‘Serrano’s coming in now.’
Through the mirror window, they watched the door to the interview room open. In walked TJ, slim, his curly hair more unruly than usual. He was in a plaid sports coat and red pants, which approached bell-bottoms. His T-shirt was tie-dyed, yellow and orange.
Atypical …
Following him was a tall Latino with thick, short-cut dark hair. He walked in and looked around. His jeans were slim-cut and dark blue. New. He wore a gray hoodie with ‘UCSC’ on the front.
‘Yeah,’ Foster grumbled. ‘He graduated from Santa Cruz. Right.’
Dance said stiffly, ‘Not graduated. Took courses.’
‘Hmm.’
The Latino’s right hand was inked, though it didn’t seem to be a gang sign, and on his left forearm, near the sweat jacket, you could just make out the start of a tat. His face was untroubled.
Over the speaker, they heard the young agent say, ‘There you go. There. Take a seat. You want some water?’
The somber man said, ‘No.’
‘Somebody’ll be in in a minute.’
The man nodded. He sat down in a chair facing the one-way mirror. He glanced at it once, then pulled out his cell phone and read the screen.
Foster shifted slightly. Dance didn’t need any body-language skills to understand his thoughts. She said, ‘He’s just a witness, remember. We don’t have a warrant to intercept. He hasn’t done anything wrong.’
‘Oh, he’s done something wrong,’ Foster said. ‘We just don’t know what yet.’
She glanced at him.
‘I can smell it.’
Dance rose, slipped her Glock out of its holster and set it on the table. She picked up her pen and a pad of yellow paper.
Time to go to work and uncover the truth.
CHAPTER 4
‘She works miracles, does she?’ Foster asked. ‘This kinesics stuff?’
‘Kathryn’s good, yes.’ Overby had taken a dislike to Foster, who was the sort to snatch credit and press time away from those who’d done much of the legwork. He had to be careful, though. Foster was roughly on Overby’s level, pay-grade wise, but higher up, in the sense that he was based in Sacramento and had an office no more than thirty feet from the head of the CBI. He was also within lobbing distance of the legislature.
Allerton adjusted her notebook, empty at the moment. She drew ‘1’.
Overby continued, ‘Funny. When you know what she does – that body-language stuff – then go out to lunch with her, you watch what you’re doing, where you’re looking. Like you’re waiting for her to say, “So, you had a fight with your wife this morning, hmm? Over bills, I’d think.”’
‘Sherlock Holmes,’ Allerton said. She added, ‘I like that British one. With the guy with the funny name. Like “cummerbund”.’
Overby, staring into the interrogation room, said absently, ‘That’s not how kinesics works.’
‘No?’ Foster.
Overby said nothing more. As the others turned to the glass, he in turn examined the two members of the Guzman Connection task force present at the moment. Foster, Allerton. Then Dance walked into the interview room. And Overby’s attention, too, turned that way.
‘Mr Serrano. I’m Agent Dance.’ Her voice crackled through the overhead speaker in the observation room.
‘“Mister”,’ Foster muttered.
The Latino’s eyes narrowed as he looked her over carefully. ‘Good to meet you.’ There was nothing nervous about his expression or posture, Overby noted.
She sat across from him. ‘Appreciate your coming in.’
A nod. Agreeable.
‘Now, please understand, you’re not under investigation. I want to make that clear. We’re talking to dozens of people, maybe hundreds. We’re looking into gang-related crimes here on the Peninsula. And hope you can help us.’
‘So, I no need a lawyer.’
She smiled. ‘No, no. And you can leave anytime you want. Or choose not to answer.’
‘But then I look kind of suspicious, don’t I?’
‘I could ask how you liked your wife’s roast last night. You might not want to answer that one.’
Allerton laughed. Foster looked impatient.
‘I couldn’t answer that anyway.’
‘You don’t have a wife?’
‘No, but even if I did I’d do the cooking. I pretty good in the kitchen.’ Then a frown. ‘But I want to help. Terrible, some of the things that happen, the gangs.’ He closed his eyes momentarily. ‘Disgusting.’
‘You’ve lived in the area for a while?’
‘Ten years.’
‘You’re not married. But you have family here?’
‘No, they in Bakersfield.’
Foster: ‘Shouldn’t she have looked all this up?’
Overby said, ‘Oh, she knows it. She knows everything about him. Well, what she could learn in the past eight hours since she got his name.’
He’d observed plenty of Dance’s interrogations and listened to her lecture on the topic; he was able to give the task force a brief overview. ‘Kinesics is all about looking for stress indicators. When people lie they feel stress, can’t help it. Some suspects can cover it up well so it’s really hard to see. But most of us give away indications that we’re stressed. What Kathryn’s doing is talking to Serrano for a while, nothing about gang activity, nothing about crime – the weather, growing up, restaurants, life on the Peninsula. She gets his baseline body language.’