The Sleeping Doll (50 page)

A very faint shift of Kellogg’s foot. Almost invisible, but it telegraphed stress. So, he wasn’t completely immune to her interrogation.

His response was a lie.

“We’ll know more after reviewing the files. And we’re checking with other jurisdictions too, Winston. Apparently you insisted on helping local police all over the country whenever there was a crime involving a cult.”

Charles Overby had implied that it was his own idea to bring in a federal specialist on cults. Last night, though, she’d begun to suspect that this probably wasn’t what happened and she’d asked her boss point–blank how the FBI agent had come to work the Pell case. Overby hemmed and hawed but ultimately admitted that
Kellogg
had told the bureau’s Amy Grabe he was coming to the Peninsula to consult on the manhunt for Pell; it wasn’t up for debate. He’d been here as soon as the paperwork in Chicago was cleaned up.

“I looked back at the Pell case. Michael O’Neil was upset that you wanted a takedown at the Sea View, rather than surveillance. And
I
wondered why you wanted to be first through the door. The answer is so that you’d have a clear shot at Pell. And yesterday, at the beach at Point Lobos, you got him on his knees. And then you killed him.”

“That’s your evidence that I murdered him? His posture? Really, Kathryn.”

“And MCSO crime scene found the bullet of the slug you fired at me on the ridge.”

He fell silent at this.

“Oh, you weren’t shooting to hit me, I understand. You just wanted to keep me where I was, with Samantha and Linda, so that I wouldn’t interfere with your chance to kill Pell.”

“It was an accidental discharge,” he said matter–of–factly. “Careless of me. I should’ve owned up to it but it was embarrassing. Here I am, a professional.”

Lie …

Under her gaze, his shoulders dipped slightly. His lips tightened. Dance knew there’d be no confession — she wasn’t even after that — but he did shift into a different stress state. He wasn’t a completely emotionless machine, it seemed. She’d hit him hard, and it hurt.

“I don’t talk about my past and what happened with my daughter. I should’ve shared more with you, maybe, but you don’t talk about your husband much either, I notice.” He fell silent for a moment. “Look around us, Kathryn. Look at the world. We’re so fragmented, so shattered. The family’s a dying breed, and yet we’re starving for the comfort of one. Starving … And what happens? Along come people like Daniel Pell. And they suck the vulnerable, needy ones right in. The women in Pell’s Family — Samantha and Linda. They were good kids, never did anything wrong, not really. And they got seduced by a killer. Why? Because he dangled in front of them the one thing they didn’t have: a family.”

“It was only a matter of time before they, or Jennie Marston, or somebody else under his spell started killing. Or maybe kidnapping children. Abusing them. Even in prison, Pell had his followers. How many of them went on to do the same thing he’d done, after they were released? … These people have to be stopped. I’m aggressive about it, I get results. But I don’t cross the line.”

“You don’t cross
your
line, Winston. But it’s not your own standards you have to apply. That’s not how the system works. Daniel Pell never thought he was doing anything wrong either.”

He gave her a smile and a shrug, the emblem gesture, which she took to mean, You see it your way, I see it mine. And we’ll never agree on this.

To Dance it was as clear as saying, “I’m guilty.”

Then the smile faded, as it had at the beach yesterday. “One thing. Us? That was real. Whatever else you think about me, that was real.”

Kathryn Dance recalled walking down the hall with him at CBI when he’d made the wistful comment on the Family, implying gaps in his own life: solitude, a job substituting for a failed marriage, his daughter’s unspeakably terrible death. Dance didn’t doubt that, though he had deceived her about his mission, this lonely man had been trying, genuinely, to make a connection with her.

And as a kinesic analyst she could see that his comment — “That was real” — was absolutely honest.

But it was also irrelevant to the interrogation and not worth the breath to respond to.

Then a faint V formed between his brows and the faux smile was back. “Really, Kathryn. This is isn’t a good idea. It’ll be a nightmare running a case like this. For the CBI … for you personally too.”

“Me?”

Kellogg pursed his lips for a moment. “I seem to recall some questions were raised about your conduct in the handling of the interrogation at the courthouse in Salinas. Maybe something was said or done that helped Pell escape. I don’t know the details. Maybe it was nothing. But I
did
hear Amy Grabe has a note or two on it.” He shrugged, lifting his palms. The cuffs jingled.

Overby’s ass–covering comment to the FBI, coming back to haunt. Dance was seething at Kellogg’s threat but she offered no affect displays whatsoever. Her shrug was even more dismissive than his. “If that issue comes up, I guess we’ll just have to look at the facts.”

“I suppose so. I just hope it doesn’t affect your career, long term.”

Taking off her glasses, she eased forward into a more personal proxemic zone. “Winston, I’m curious. Tell me: What did Daniel say to you before you killed him? He’d dropped the gun and he was on his knees, reaching for the cuffs. Then he looked up. And he knew, didn’t he? He wasn’t a stupid man. He knew he was dead. Did he say anything?”

Kellogg gave an involuntary recognition response, though he said nothing.

Her outburst was inappropriate, of course, and she knew it marked the end of the interrogation. But that didn’t matter. She had her answers, she had the truth — or at least an approximation of it. Which, according to the elusive science of kinesic analysis and interrogation, is usually enough.

“I saw the whole interview. You got some good stuff. Absolutely. But he was pretty slick. Didn’t really admit anything. Hardly a confession.”

“He’s a High Mach with an antisocial personality, Charles. He’s not the sort to confess. I was just probing to see what his defenses would be and how he’d structure the denials. He destroyed computer files when he thought they implicated him in a suspicious suicide in L.A.? He used unauthorized ordnance? His gun went off ‘accidentally’ in my direction? A jury’d laugh all the way to a guilty verdict. For him, the interrogation was a disaster.”

“Really? He looked pretty confident.”

“He did, and he’ll be a good defendant on the stand —
if
he takes the stand. But tactically his case is hopeless.”

“He was arresting an armed killer. And you’re claiming that his motive is that his daughter died because of some cult thing? That’s not compelling.”

“I never worry too much about motive. If a man kills his wife, it doesn’t really matter to the jury if it was because she served him a burned steak or he wants her insurance money. Murder’s murder. It’ll become a lot less soap opera when we link Kellogg to the others who’ve been killed.”

Dance told him about the other deaths, the suspicious takedown in Chicago last week, and others, in Fort Worth and New York. The suicide in L.A. and one in Oregon. One particularly troubling case was in Florida, where Kellogg had gone to assist Dade County deputies investigating charges of kidnapping earlier in the year. A Miami man had a communal house on the outskirts of the city. The Latino certainly had a devoted following, some of them quite fanatical. Kellogg shot him when he’d apparently lunged for a weapon during a raid. But it was later discovered that the commune also ran a soup kitchen and a respected Bible study class and was raising funds for a day–care center for children of working single parents in the neighborhood. The kidnapping charges turned out to be bogus, leveled by his ex–wife.

The local papers were still questioning the circumstances of his death.

“Interesting, but I’m not sure any of that would be admissible,” her boss offered. “What about forensics from the beach?”

Dance felt a pang that Michael O’Neil wasn’t here to go through the technical side of the case. (Why wasn’t he calling back?)

“They found the slug that Kellogg fired at Kathryn,” TJ said. “It conclusively matches his SIG.”

Overby grunted. “Accidental discharge … Relax, Kathryn, somebody’s got to be the devil’s advocate here.”

“The shell casings from Pell’s gun on the beach were found closer to Kellogg’s position than Pell’s. Kellogg probably fired Pell’s weapon himself to make it look like self–defense. Oh, and the lab found sand in Kellogg’s handcuffs. That means Kellogg —”

“Suggests,” Overby corrected.

“
Suggests
that Kellogg disarmed Pell, got him into the open, tossed the cuffs down and, when Pell went to pick them up, killed him.”

Dance said, “Look, Charles, I’m not saying it’ll be a shoo–in, but Sandoval can win it. I can testify that Pell wasn’t a threat when he was shot. The pose of the body’s clear.”

Overby’s eyes scanned his desk and settled on yet another framed fish picture. “Motive?”

Hadn’t he paid attention earlier? Probably not.

“Well, his daughter. He’s killing anybody who’s connected —”

The CBI chief looked up and his eyes were sharp and probing. “No, not Kellogg’s motive for killing him. Our motive. For bringing the case.”

Ah. Right. He meant, of course,
her
motive. Was it retribution because she’d been betrayed by Kellogg? “It’ll come up, you know. We’ll need a response.”

Her boss was on a roll today.

But so was she. “Because Winston Kellogg murdered someone within our jurisdiction.”

Overby’s phone rang. He stared at it for four trills then answered.

TJ whispered, “That’s a good motive. Better than he served you a lousy steak.”

The CBI chief hung up, staring at the picture of the salmon. “We’ve got visitors.” He straightened his tie. “The FBI’s here.”

Amy Grabe took the coffee cup that was offered by Overby’s assistant and sat. She gave a nod to TJ.

Dance chose an upright chair near the attractive but no–nonsense special agent in charge of the San Francisco field office. Dance didn’t go for the more comfortable but lower couch across from the woman; sitting even an inch below someone puts you at a psychological disadvantage. Dance proceeded to tell the FBI agent the latest details about Kellogg and Nimue.

Grabe knew some, but not all, of the tale. She frowned as she listened, motionless, unlike fidgety Overby. Her right hand rested on the opposite sleeve of her stylish burgundy suit.

Dance made her case. “He’s an active duty agent killing these people, Amy. He lied to us. He staged a dynamic entry when there was no need to. He nearly got a dozen people hurt. Some could’ve been killed.”

Overby’s pen bounced like a drumstick, and TJ’s kinesics read: Okay, now,
this
is an awkward moment.

Grabe’s eyes, beneath perfect brows, scanned everyone in the room as she said, “It’s all very complicated and difficult. I understand that. But whatever happened, I’ve gotten a call. They’d like him released.”

“They — Ninth Street?”

She nodded. “And higher. Kellogg’s a star. Great collar record. Saved hundreds of people from these cults. And he’s going to be taking on fundamentalist cases. I mean terrorists. Now, if it makes you feel any better, I talked to them, and they’ll have an inquiry. Look into the takedowns, see if he used excessive force.”

“The most powerful handgun known to man,” TJ recited, then fell silent under his boss’s withering glance.

“Look into it?” Dance asked, her voice incredulous. “We’re talking questionable deaths — fake suicides, Amy. Oh, please. It’s a vendetta. Pure and simple. Jesus, even Pell was above revenge. And who knows what else Kellogg’s done.”

“Kathryn,” her boss warned.

The FBI agent said, “The fact is he’s a federal agent investigating crimes in which the perps are particularly dangerous and smart. In some instances they’ve been killed resisting. Happens all the time.”

“Pell
wasn’t
resisting. I can testify to that — as an expert witness. He was murdered.”

Overby was tapping a pencil on his immaculate blotter. The man was a knotted ball of stress.

“Kellogg has arrested — he
has
arrested, you know — a lot of dangerous individuals. A few have been killed.”

“Fine, Amy, we can go on and on about this for hours. My concern isn’t anything other than presenting a single homicide case to Sandy Sandoval, whether Washington likes it or not.”

“Federalism at work,” TJ said.

Tap, tap …
The pencil bounced and Overby cleared his throat.

“It’s not even a great case,” the SAC pointed out. She’d apparently read all the details on the trip to the Peninsula.

“It doesn’t have to be a slam dunk. Sandy can still win it.”

Grabe put the coffee down. She turned her placid face to Overby and leveled hard eyes at him. “Charles, they’ve asked that you don’t pursue it.”

Dance wasn’t going to let them dump the case. And, all right, some of her goddamn motive
was
because the man who’d asked her out, who’d won a bit of her heart, had betrayed her.

… afterward. How does that sound?

Overby’s eyes took in more pictures and mementos on his desk. “It’s a tough situation … You know what Oliver Wendell Holmes said? He said that tough cases make bad law. Or maybe
hard
cases make bad law. I don’t remember.”

What does that mean? she wondered.

Grabe said in a soft tone, “Kathryn, Daniel Pell was a dangerous man. He killed law enforcers, he killed people you know and he killed innocents. You’ve done a great job in an impossible situation. You stopped a really bad doer. And Kellogg contributed to that. It’s a gold star for everybody.”

“Absolutely,” Overby said. He set down the bouncing writing implement. “You know what this reminds me of, Amy? Jack Ruby killing Kennedy’s assassin. Remember? I don’t think anybody had a problem with what Ruby did, gunning Oswald down.”

Dance’s jaw closed, her teeth pressing together firmly. She flicked her thumb against her forefinger. Just as he’d “reassured” Grabe of Dance’s innocence in contributing to Pell’s escape, her boss was going to sell her out again. By declining to submit the case to Sandy Sandoval, Overby wasn’t just covering his ass; he was as guilty of murder as Kellogg himself. Dance sat back, her shoulders slumping slightly. She saw TJ’s grimace from the corner of her eye.

“Exactly,” Grabe said. “So —”

Then Overby held up a hand. “But a funny thing about that case.”

“What case?” the FBI agent asked.

“The Ruby case. Texas
arrested
him for murder. And guess what? Jack Ruby got convicted and sent to jail.” A shrug. “I’ll have to say no, Amy. I’m submitting the Kellogg case to the Monterey County Prosecutor. I’m going to recommend indictment for murder. Lesser included offense’ll be manslaughter. Oh, and aggravated assault on a CBI agent. Kellogg
did
take a shot at Kathryn, after all.”

Dance felt her heart thud. Had she heard this right? TJ glanced at her with a raised eyebrow.

Overby was looking at Dance. He said, “And I think we should go for misuse of legal process too, and lying to an investigative agent. What do you think, Kathryn?”

Those hadn’t occurred to her. “Excellent.” She noticed TJ’s thumb subtly point upward.

Grabe rubbed her cheek with a short, pink–polished nail. “Do you really think this is a good idea, Charles?”

“Oh, I do. Absolutely.”