The Sleeping Doll (25 page)

Rebecca shook Dance’s hand firmly but she immediately turned her attention to Linda, who was rising and gazing at her with a steady smile.

“Well, look who it is.” Rebecca stepped forward and hugged Linda.

“After all these years.” Linda’s voice choked. “My, I think I’m going to cry.” And she did.

They dropped the embrace but Rebecca continued to hold the other woman’s hands tightly. “It’s good to see you, Linda.”

“Oh, Rebecca … I’ve prayed for you a lot.”

“You’re into that now? You didn’t used to know a cross from a Star of David. Well, thanks for the prayers. Not sure they took.”

“No, no, you’re doing such good things. Really! The church office has a computer. I saw your website. Women starting their own businesses. It’s wonderful. I’m sure it does a lot of good.”

Rebecca seemed surprised that Linda had kept up with her.

Dance pointed out the available bedroom and Rebecca carried her backpack into it, and used the restroom.

“You need me, boss, just holler.” TJ left and Dance locked the door behind him.

Linda picked up her teacup, fiddled with it, not taking a sip. How people love their props in stressful situations, Dance reflected. She’d interrogated suspects who clutched pens, ashtrays, food wrappers and even their shoes to dull the stress.

Rebecca returned and Dance offered her some coffee.

“You bet.”

Dance poured her some and set out milk and sugar. “There’s no public restaurant here, but they have room service. Order whatever you’d like.”

Sipping the coffee, Rebecca said, “I’ve got to say, Linda, you’re looking good.”

A blush. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m not in the shape I’d like. You’re glamorous. And thin! I love your hair.”

Rebecca laughed. “Hey, nothing like a couple years in prison to turn you gray, hm? Hey, no ring. You’re not married?”

“Nope.”

“Me either.”

“You’re kidding. You were going to marry some hunky Italian sculptor. I thought for sure you’d be hooked up now.”

“Not easy to find Mr. Right when men hear your boyfriend was Daniel Pell. I read about your father in
BusinessWeek.
Something about his bank expanding.”

“Really? I wouldn’t know.”

“You’re still not talking?”

Linda shook her head. “My brother doesn’t talk to them either. We’re two poor church mice. But it’s for the best, believe me. You still paint?”

“Some. Not professionally.”

“No? Really?” Linda turned to Dance, her eyes shining. “Oh, Rebecca was so good! You should see her work. I mean, she’s the best.”

“Just sketch for fun now.”

They spent a few minutes catching up. Dance was surprised that though they both lived on the West Coast they hadn’t communicated since the trial.

Rebecca glanced at Dance. “Samantha joining our coffee klatch? Or whatever her name is now?”

“No, just the two of you.”

“Sam was always the timid one.”

“‘Mouse,’ remember?” Linda said.

“That’s right. That’s what Pell called her. ‘My Mouse.’ ”

They refilled their cups and Dance got down to work, asking Rebecca the same basic questions she’d asked Linda.

“I was the last one to get suckered in by Mr. Pell,” the thin woman said sourly. “It was only … when?” A glance at Linda, who said, “January. Just four months before the Croyton situation.”

Situation.
Not
murders.

“How did you meet Pell?” Dance asked.

“Back then I was bumming around the West Coast, making money doing sketches of people at street fairs and on the beach, you know. I had my easel set up and Pell stopped by. He wanted his portrait done.”

Linda gave a coy smile. “I seem to remember you didn’t do much sketching. You two ended up in the back of the van. And were there for a long, long time.”

Rebecca’s smile was of embarrassment. “Well, Daniel had
that
side to him, sure … In any case, we
did
spend time talking too. And he asked me if I wanted to hang out with them in Seaside. I wasn’t sure at first — I mean, we all knew about Pell’s reputation and the shoplifting and things like that. But I just said to myself, hell, I’m a bohemian, I’m a rebel and artist. Screw my lily white suburban upbringing … go for it. And I did. It worked out well. There were good people around me, like Linda and Sam. I didn’t have to work nine to five and could paint as much as I wanted. Who could ask for anything more in life? Of course, it turned out I’d also joined up with Bonnie and Clyde, a band of thieves. That
wasn’t
so good.”

Dance noticed Linda’s placid face darken at the comment.

After release from jail, Rebecca explained, she became involved in the women’s movement.

“I figured me kowtowing to Pell — treating him like the king of the roost — set the feminist cause back a few years and I wanted to make it up to them.”

Finally, after a lot of counseling, she’d started a consulting service to help women open and finance small businesses. She’d been at it ever since. She must do well for herself, Dance thought, to judge from the jewelry, clothes and Italian shoes, which if the agent’s estimate was right (Dance could be an expert footwear witness) cost the same as her best two pairs put together.

Another knock on the door. Winston Kellogg arrived. Dance was happy to see him — professionally and personally. She’d enjoyed getting to know him on the Deck last night. He’d been surprisingly social, for a hard–traveling Fed. Dance had attended a number of functions with her husband’s federal coworkers and found most of them quiet and focused, reluctant to talk. But Win Kellogg, along with her parents, had been the last to leave the party.

He now greeted the two women and, in keeping with protocol, showed them his ID. He poured himself some coffee. Up until now Dance had been asking background information but with Kellogg here it was time to get to the crux of the interview.

“All right, here’s the situation. Pell is probably still in the area. We can’t figure out where or why. It doesn’t make any sense; most escapees get as far away as they can from the site of the jail break.”

She told them in detail of how the plan at the courthouse had unfolded and the developments to date. The women listened with interest — and shock or revulsion — to the specifics.

“First, let me ask you about his accomplice.”

“That woman I read about?” Linda asked. “Who is she?”

“We don’t know. Apparently blond and young. Age is roughly midtwenties.”

“So he’s got a new girlfriend,” Rebecca said. “That’s our Daniel. Never without one.”

Kellogg said, “We don’t exactly know the relationship. She was probably a fan of his. Apparently prisoners, even the worst, get plenty of women throwing themselves at their feet.”

Rebecca laughed and glanced at Linda. “
You
get any love letters when you were inside? I didn’t.”

Linda gave a polite smile.

“There’s a chance,” Dance said, “that she isn’t a stranger. She’d’ve been very young at the time the Family was together but I was wondering if she could be somebody you know.”

Linda frowned. “Midtwenties now … she’d’ve been a teenager then. I don’t remember anyone like that.”

Rebecca added, “When I was in the Family, it was only the five of us.”

Dance jotted a note. “Now, I want to talk about what your life was like then. What Pell said and did, what interested him, what his plans were. I’m hoping something you remember will give us a clue as to what he’s up to.”

“Step one, define the problem. Step two, get the facts.” Rebecca’s eyes were on Dance.

Both Linda and Kellogg looked blank. Dance, of course, knew what she was talking about. (And was thankful that the woman wasn’t in the mood to deliver another lecture, like yesterday.)

“Jump in with whatever you want. If you have an idea that sounds bizarre, go ahead and tell us. We’ll take whatever we can get.”

“I’m game,” Linda said.

Rebecca offered, “Shoot.”

Dance asked about the structure of life in the Family.

“It was sort of a commune,” Rebecca said, “which was weird for me, growing up in capitalistic, sitcom suburbia, you know.”

As they described it, the arrangement was a little different, though, from what a communist cadre might expect. The rule seemed to be: From each according to what Daniel Pell demanded of them; to each according to what Daniel Pell decided.

Still, the Family worked pretty well, at least on a practical level. Linda had made sure the household ran smoothly and the others contributed. They ate well and kept the bungalow clean and in good repair. Both Samantha and Jimmy Newberg were talented with tools and home improvement. For obvious reasons — stolen property stored in a bedroom — Pell didn’t want the owner to paint or fix broken appliances, so they had to be completely self–sufficient.

Linda said, “That was one of Daniel’s philosophies of life. ‘Self–Reliance’ — the essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson. I read it out loud a dozen times. He loved to hear it.”

Rebecca was smiling. “Remember reading at night?”

Linda explained that Pell believed in books. “He loved them. He made a ceremony out of throwing out the TV. Almost every night I’d read something aloud, with everyone else gathered in a circle on the floor. Those were nice nights.”

“Were there any neighbors or other friends in Seaside he had a particular connection with?”

“We didn’t have friends,” Rebecca said. “Pell wasn’t like that.”

“But some people he’d met would come by, stay for a while, then leave. He was always picking up people.”

“Losers like us.”

Linda stiffened slightly. Then said, “Well, I’d say people down on their luck. Daniel was generous. Gave them food, money sometimes.”

You give a hungry man food, he’ll do what you want, Dance reflected, recalling Kellogg’s profile of a cult leader and his subjects.

They continued reminiscing but the conversation didn’t trigger any recollections of who the houseguests might’ve been. Dance moved on.

“There are some things he searched for online recently. I was wondering if they mean anything to you. One was ‘Nimue.’ I was thinking it might be a name. A nickname or computer screen name maybe.”

“No. I’ve never heard of it. What does it mean?”

“It’s a character out of the King Arthur legend.”

Rebecca looked at the younger woman. “Hey, did you read us any of those stories?”

Linda didn’t recall. Nor had they any recollection of an Alison — the other name Pell had searched for.

“Tell me about a typical day in the Family.”

Rebecca seemed at a loss for words. “We’d get up, have breakfast … I don’t know.”

Shrugging, Linda said, “We were just a
family.
We talked about what families talk about. The weather, plans, trips we were going to take. Money problems. Who was going to be working where. Sometimes I’d stand in the kitchen after breakfast, doing dishes, and just cry — because I was so happy. I had a real family at last.”

Rebecca agreed that their life hadn’t been very different from anyone else’s, though she clearly wasn’t as sentimental as her sister–in–crime.

The discussion meandered and they revealed nothing helpful. In interviewing and interrogation, it’s a well–known rule that abstractions obscure memories, while specifics trigger them. Dance now said, “Do this for me: Pick a particular day. Tell me about it. A day you’d both remember.”

Neither could think of one that stood out, though.

Until Dance suggested, “Think of a holiday: Thanksgiving, Christmas.”