Roadside Crosses: A Kathryn Dance Novel (20 page)

Dance lifted her eyes to her mother as she was brought in. It broke her heart to see the woman in handcuffs. She wasn’t in a jumpsuit. But her hair, normally perfectly done, was in a shambles. Her homemade necklace had been taken from her upon processing. Her wedding and engagement rings too. Her eyes were red.

Lawyers milled about, some not much spiffier
than their clients; only Edie Dance’s attorney was in a suit that had been shaped by a tailor after purchase. George Sheedy had been practicing criminal law on the Central Coast for two decades. He had abundant gray hair, a trapezoidal figure with broad shoulders and a bass voice that would have done a stunning version of “Old Man River.”

After the brief phone conversation with Sheedy from the car, Dance had immediately called Michael O’Neil, who’d been shocked at the news. She then called the Monterey County prosecutor, Alonzo “Sandy” Sandoval.

“I just heard about it, Kathryn,” Sandoval muttered angrily. “I’m being straight with you: We’ve had MCSO looking into the Millar death, sure, but I had no idea that’s what Harper was in town for. And a public arrest.” He was bitter. “That was inexcusable. If the AG insisted on a prosecution, I would’ve had her surrender with you bringing her in.”

Dance believed him. She and Sandy had worked together for years and had put a lot of bad people in jail, thanks in part to mutual trust.

“But I’m sorry, Kathryn. Monterey has nothing to do with the case. It’s in Harper’s and Sacramento’s hands now.”

She’d thanked him and hung up. But at least she had been able to get her mother’s bail hearing handled quickly. Under California law the time of the hearing is at the magistrate’s discretion. In some places, like Riverside and Los Angeles, prisoners are often in a cell for twelve hours before they appear in front of the magistrate. Since the case was murder it was possible the magistrate might not set bail at all, leaving that to
the discretion of the judge at the arraignment, which in California would have to occur within a few days.

The door to the outer hallway kept opening and Dance noticed that many of the recent arrivals were wearing media identification cards around their necks. No cameras were allowed, but there were plenty of pads of paper.

A circus . . .

The clerk called out, “Edith Barbara Dance,” and, somber and red-eyed and still cuffed, her mother rose. Sheedy joined her. A jailor was beside them. This session was devoted exclusively to the bail; pleas were entered later, at the arraignment. Harper asked that Edie be held without bail, which didn’t surprise Dance. Her father stiffened at the prosecutor’s harsh words, which made Edie out to be a dangerous Jack Kevorkian, who, if released on bail, would target other patients for death and then flee to Canada.

Stuart gasped, hearing his wife spoken about in this way.

“It’s okay, Dad,” his daughter whispered. “That’s just the way they talk.” Though the words broke her heart too.

George Sheedy argued articulately for an OR release—on Edie’s own recognizance, pointing to her lack of a criminal record and to her roots in the community.

The magistrate, a quick-eyed Latino who had met Kathryn Dance, exuded considerable stress, which she could easily read in his posture and facial expressions. He wouldn’t want this case at all; he’d have loyalty to Dance, who was a reasonable law officer, cooperative. But he would also be aware that Harper
was a big name from the big city. And the magistrate would be very aware of the media too.

The arguments continued.

Dance the law enforcer found herself looking back to earlier that month, reliving the circumstances of the officer’s death. Trying to match facts with facts. Whom had she seen in the hospital around the time Juan Millar died? What exactly were the means of death? Where had her mother been?

She now glanced up and found Edie staring at her. Dance gave a pale smile. Edie’s face was expressionless. The woman turned back to Sheedy.

In the end the magistrate compromised. He set the bail at a half million dollars, which wasn’t atypical for a murder, but also wasn’t overly burdensome. Edie and Stuart weren’t wealthy but they owned their house outright; since it was in Carmel, not far from the beach, it had to be worth two million. They could put it up as security.

Harper took the news stoically—his face unsmiling, his posture upright but relaxed. Dance’s reading was that he was completely stress free, despite the setback. He reminded her of the killer in Los Angeles, J. Doe. One of the reasons she’d had such a hard time spotting that perp’s deception was that a highly driven, focused person reveals, and feels, little distress when lying in the name of his cause. This certainly defined Robert Harper.

Edie was hustled back to the cell and Stuart rose and went to see the clerk to arrange for the bail.

As Harper buttoned his jacket and walked toward the door, his face a mask, Dance intercepted him. “Why are you doing this?”

He regarded her coolly, said nothing.

She continued, “You could’ve let Monterey County handle the case. Why’d you come down from San Francisco? What’s your agenda?” She was speaking loudly enough for the reporters nearby to hear.

Harper said evenly, “I can’t discuss this with you.”

“Why my mother?”

“I have nothing to say.” And he pushed through the door and onto the steps of the courthouse, where he paused to address the press—to whom he apparently had
plenty
to say.

Dance returned to a hard bench to await her father and mother.

Ten minutes later, George Sheedy and Stuart Dance joined her.

She asked her father, “It went okay?”

“Yes,” he answered in a hollow voice.

“How soon will she be out?”

Stuart looked at Sheedy, who said, “Ten minutes, maybe less.”

“Thank you.” He shook the lawyer’s hand. Dance nodded her gratitude to Sheedy, who told them he was returning to the office and would get started on the defense immediately.

After he’d gone, Dance asked her father, “What did they take from the house, Dad?”

“I don’t know. The neighbor said they seemed most interested in the garage. Let’s get out of here. I hate this place.”

They walked out into the hallway. Several reporters saw Dance and approached. “Agent Dance,” one woman asked, “is it troubling to know your mother’s been arrested for murder?”

Well,
there’s
some cutting-edge interviewing. She wanted to fire back with something sarcastic, but she remembered the number-one rule in media relations: Assume everything you say in a reporter’s presence will appear on the six o’clock news or on tomorrow’s front page. She smiled. “There’s no doubt in my mind that this is a terrible misunderstanding. My mother has been a nurse for years. She’s devoted herself to saving lives, not taking them.”

“Did you know that she signed a petition supporting Jack Kevorkian and assisted suicide?”

No, Dance didn’t know that. And, she wondered, how had the press come by the information so fast? Her reply: “You’ll have to ask her about that. But petitioning to change the law isn’t the same as breaking it.”

It was then that her phone sounded. It was O’Neil. She stepped away to take the call. “Michael, she’s getting out on bail,” she told him.

There was a moment’s pause. “Good. Thank God.”

Dance realized he was calling about something else, and something that was serious. “What is it, Michael?”

“They’ve found another cross.”

“A real memorial, or with a future date?”

“Today. And it’s identical to the first one. Branches and florist wire.”

Her eyes closed in despair. Not again.

Then O’Neil said, “But, listen. We’ve got a witness. A guy who saw Travis leave it. He might’ve seen where he went or saw something about him that’ll tell us where he’s hiding. Can you interview him?”

Another pause. Then: “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

O’Neil gave her the address. They disconnected.

Dance turned to her father. “Dad, I can’t stay. I’m so sorry.”

He turned his handsome, distraught face toward his daughter. “What?”

“They found another cross. The boy’s going after somebody else, it looks like. Today. But there’s a witness. I have to interview them.”

“Of course you do.” Yet he sounded uncertain. He was going through a nightmare at the moment—nearly as bad as her mother’s—and he’d want his daughter, with her expertise and her connections, nearby.

But she couldn’t get images of Tammy Foster out of her mind, lying in the trunk, the water rising higher.

Images of Travis Brigham’s eyes too, cold and dark beneath their abundant brows, as he gazed at his father, as if his character in a game, armed with knife or sword, was debating stepping out of the synth world and into the real, to slaughter the man.

She had to go. And now. “I’m sorry.” She hugged her father.

“Your mother will understand.”

Dance ran to her car and started the engine. As she was pulling out of the parking lot she glanced in the rearview mirror and saw her mother emerge from the door to the lockup. Edie stared at her daughter’s departure. The woman’s eyes were still, her face revealing no emotion.

Dance’s foot slipped to the brake. But then she pressed down once more on the accelerator and hit the grille flashers.

Your mother will understand. . . .

No, she won’t, Dance thought. She absolutely won’t.

AFTER ALL THESE
years in the area Kathryn Dance had never quite grown used to the Peninsula fog. It was like a shape-shifter—a character out of the fantasy books that Wes liked. Sometimes it was wisps that hugged the ground and swept past you like ghosts. Other times it was smoke squatting in depressions of land and highway, obscuring everything.

Most often it was a thick cotton bedspread floating several hundred feet in the air, mimicking cloud and ominously darkening everything below it.

This was the breed of fog today.

The gloom thickened as Dance, listening to Raquy and the Cavemen, a North African group known for their percussion, drove along a quiet road running through state land between Carmel and Pacific Grove. The landscape was mostly woods, untended, filled with pine, scrub oak, eucalyptus and maple, joined by tangles of brush. She drove through the police line, ignoring the reporters and camera crews. Were they here for the crime, or because of her mother? Dance wondered cynically.

She parked, greeted the deputies nearby and joined Michael O’Neil. They began walking toward
the cordoned-off shoulder, where the second cross had been found.

“How’s your mother doing?” O’Neil asked.

“Not good.”

Dance was so glad he was here. Emotion swelled like a balloon within her, and she couldn’t speak for a moment, as the image of her mother in handcuffs, and the run-in with the social worker about her children, surfaced.

The senior deputy couldn’t help but give a faint smile. “Saw you on TV.”

“TV?”

“Who was the woman, the one who looked like Oprah? You were about to arrest her.”

Dance sighed. “They got that on camera?”

“You looked”—he searched for a word—“imposing.”

“She was taking the kids to Social Services.”

O’Neil looked shocked. “It was Harper. Tactics. He nearly got his flunky collared, though. Oh, I would’ve pushed the button on that one.” She added, “I’ve got Sheedy on the case.”

“George? Good. Tough. You need tough.”

“Oh, and then Overby let Harper into CBI. To go through my files.”

“No!”

“I think he was looking to see if I suppressed evidence or tinkered with the files about the Juan Millar case. Overby said he went through your office’s files too.”

“MCSO?” he asked. Dance could read his anger like a red highway flare. “Did Overby know Harper was making a case against Edie?”

“I don’t know. At the least he should’ve thought: What the hell is this guy from San Francisco prowling around in our files for? ‘Caseload evaluations.’ Ridiculous.” Her own fury swelled again and, with effort, she finally managed to bank it.

They approached the spot where the cross was planted, on the shoulder of the road. The memorial was like the earlier one: broken-off branches bound with wire, and a cardboard disk with today’s date on it.

At the base was another bouquet of red roses.

She couldn’t help but think: Whose murder would this one represent?

And ten more waiting.

This cross had been left on a deserted stretch of barely paved road about a mile from the water. Not highly traveled, this route was a little-known shortcut to Highway 68. Ironically, this was one of the roads that would lead to that new highway that Chilton had written about in his blog.

Standing on a side road near the cross was the witness, a businessman in his forties, to look at him, into real estate or insurance, Dance guessed. He was round, his belly carrying his blue dress shirt well over a tired belt. His hair had receded and she saw sun freckles on his round forehead and balding crown. He stood beside a Honda Accord that had seen better days.

They approached and O’Neil said to her, “This is Ken Pfister.”

She shook his hand. The deputy said he was going to supervise the crime scene search and headed across the street.

“Tell me what you saw, Mr. Pfister.”

“Travis. Travis Brigham.”

“Did you know it was him?”

A nod. “I saw his picture online when I was at lunch about a half hour ago. That’s how I recognized him.”

“Could you tell me exactly what you saw?” she asked. “And when?”

“Okay, it was around eleven this morning. I had a meeting in Carmel. I run an Allstate agency.” He said this proudly.

Got that one right, she thought.

“I left about ten-forty and was driving back to Monterey. Took this shortcut. It’ll be nice when that new highway’s open, won’t it?”

She smiled noncommittally, not a smile really.

“And I pulled off onto that side road”—he gestured—“to make some phone calls.” He gave a broad smile. “Never drive and talk. That’s my rule.”

Dance’s lifted eyebrow prodded him to continue.

“I looked out my windshield and I saw him walking along the shoulder. From that direction. He didn’t see me. He was kind of shuffling his feet. It seemed like he was talking to himself.”