XO (11 page)

Another Fresno-Madera Consolidated cruiser arrived—Crystal Stanning was at the wheel. She parked behind Dance’s Nissan, climbed out and joined the others. She too looked around uneasily.

That’s the thing about a crime like this. You never quite know where the stalker is. Maybe miles away. Maybe outside your window.

Stanning, it seemed, wanted to report to her boss about whatever her mission had been but would say nothing until Dance was elsewhere or she had the okay. The sweating Madigan was impatient. He snapped, “The phone?”

“Service Plus Drugs in Burlingame. Cash. They don’t have any videos. Maybe that’s why he went there.”

Dance had told them all of this information.

But then Stanning continued, “And you were right, Chief, he bought three other phones at the same time.”

A question Dance had
not
thought to have TJ Scanlon ask.

Madigan sighed. “So this boy
may
have more on his plate.”

Which was, she guessed, a backhanded acknowledgment of her “farfetched” concern.

Four verses in “Your Shadow,” Dance reflected. Four victims? And that song might not be the only template for murder; Kayleigh had written lots of tunes.

“I got the numbers and the ESNs.”

You needed both the phone number and the electronic serial number of a mobile in order to trace it.

“We should get ’em shut off,” Madigan said. “So Edwin’ll have to buy one here. Easier to trace.”

We don’t know it’s Edwin, Dance observed, but said nothing.

“Sure.” Detective Stanning had three studs in one ear and a single silver dangling spiral in the other lobe. A dot in her nose too, marking where a ball might perch on off hours.

But Dance said, “I’d keep them active, like we haven’t figured out what he’s up to. And then put a locator notice on them. If the perp calls again we can triangulate.”

Madigan paused, then glanced at Crystal Stanning. “Do that.”

“Who should I—?”

“Call Redman in Communications. He can do it.”

Motion from across the street, where a more modest trailer squatted in sad grass. A round woman stood on the concrete stoop, smoking a cigarette. Sunburned shoulders, freckles. She wore a tight white strapless
sundress with purple and red stains at toddler level. She eyed everyone cautiously.

Madigan told Stanning to help Harutyun canvass. He walked to the shoulder and after two pickups had passed he crossed the road, making for the heavyset woman, Dance following.

The detective glanced back at her but she didn’t slow down.

The neighbor walked forward uncertainly to greet them. They met halfway from her mailbox. In a rasping voice she said, “I heard the news. I mean, about Bobby. I couldn’t believe it.” She repeated fast, “It was on the news. That’s how I heard.” She took a drag.

The innocent usually act as guilty as the guilty.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m Deputy Madigan, this is Officer Dancer.”

She didn’t correct him.

“Your name?”

“Tabby Nysmith. Tabatha. Bobby never caused any trouble. No drugs or drinking. He was just into music. Only complaint was a party one time. Kinda loud. Can’t believe he’s dead. What happened? The news didn’t say.”

“We aren’t sure what happened, ma’am. Not yet.”

“Was it gangs?”

“Like I say, we aren’t sure.”

“The nicest guy, really. He’d show Tony, he’s my oldest, these fancy guitars he had. He had one that Mick Jagger played years ago, he said. Bobby’s daddy worked with them and the Beatles too. Or that’s what he said. We didn’t know, how would you know? But Tony was in heaven.”

“Did you see anybody here recent you never saw before?”

“No, sir.”

“Anybody he had a fight with, loud voices, drug activity?”

“Nope. Didn’t see anybody here last night or this morning. Didn’t see anything.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yessir.” She pressed out her cigarette and lit another one. Dance noted from the butts by the door that she at least had the decency to step outside to smoke, to keep from infecting the children. She continued, “It’s hard for me to see his place.” She gestured at the windows in the front of her trailer, obscured by bushes. “I’m after Tony Senior to trim the bushes but he never gets around to it.”

A look toward Dance, a smile.

Men …

“Would your
husband
have seen anything?”

“He’s on the road. Truck driver. Been away for three days. No, four.”

“All right then, ma’am. Thank you for your time.”

“Sure, Officer. Will there be a funeral or anything?”

“Couldn’t say. Good day to you.” Madigan was loping back toward the trailer but Dance turned the other way, followed the woman back to her trailer and her brood.

“Excuse me.”

“Uh-huh?”

“If I could ask a few more things?”

“I’m sorry. I really have to get back to the kids.”

“How many?”

“What?”

“Children?”

“Oh. Four.”

“I have two.”

Tabatha smiled. “I heard this, like, expression. Diminishing returns. I don’t exactly know what it means but I think of it having two kids sets the stage, you know? You can have ten more and it’s not a whole lot worser.”

“Diminishing returns” probably wasn’t what the woman meant but Dance grinned understandingly. “Two is fine for me.”

“But you work.”

The tiny sentence carried a lot. Then Tabatha said, “I really don’t know much else than what I told that man.” She looked at Dance’s trim figure, pressed jeans and her sunglasses, whose frames were the color of canned cranberry sauce.

A whole different world.

And I work.

“I left Sheryl and Annette watching the little one.”

The woman kept walking, fast for her bulky frame. She drew hard on the cigarette, then paused to crush it out carefully. Smokers did that in California, the land of brushfires.

“Just one or two questions.”

“If the baby starts crying—”

“I’ll help you change him.”

“Her.”

“What’s her name?”

“Caitlyn.”

“Pretty. Mine’s Maggie.”

Then they were at the screen door of her trailer. Tabatha peered through the dusty, rusted mesh. Dance couldn’t see much other than toys: plastic tricycles, castles, doll houses, pirate chests. The house was dim inside but exuded still heat. The TV was on. One of the last remaining soap operas.

Tabatha lifted an eyebrow.

“Just a few more details about Bobby.”

Dance was continuing the discussion with Tabatha because of an important rule in kinesic analysis: the volunteering principle. When someone answers a question, then immediately offers what he or she anticipates will be the next question, that person is often trying to deflect or diffuse a line of inquiry.

Dance had noted that Tabatha said she hadn’t seen anybody here last night—or
this morning.

Why had she felt it important to mention that? It made no sense unless she was covering up something.

Dance removed her sunglasses.

“I really need to get in to the children.”

“Tabatha, what did you see this morning at Bobby’s trailer?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly.

Effective kinesic analysis of witnesses and suspects involves conversing with the individual for a long period of time—days or, ideally, weeks. Initially nothing is said about the crime at all; the interviewer asks questions and makes comments that relate to the subject’s life, all topics about which the truth is known. This establishes the suspect’s baseline behavior—how he or she speaks and acts when responding honestly. It’s then that the interviewer segues into inquiries about the crime and compares the subject’s behavior when answering
those
questions to the baseline. Any variation suggests stress and therefore possible deception.

However, even without establishing a baseline, there are a few mannerisms that suggest lying, at least to an experienced investigator like
Kathryn Dance. Tabatha’s voice was now slightly higher in pitch than earlier—a sign of stress.

A glance toward Bobby’s trailer, in front of which Madigan and his deputies were staring back at Dance. She ignored them and said calmly, “It would be good for everybody if you could give us a little more information.”

Everybody …

You too.

At least she wasn’t a crier. Often at this stage, when Dance tipped witnesses or suspects into admitting they’d been lying, many women, and a surprising number of men, began to cry. It could take upward of an hour to convince them that they were not subhuman for being deceptive; they were simply scared or concerned about their families or had other reasons. Tabatha gave no reaction, other than a thoughtful furrowing of her thick eyebrows as she probably considered the risk to her children if she was honest.

Dance assessed she was on the borderline.

“We’ll make sure you’re looked out for. But this is pretty serious.”

A low voice, woman to woman, adult to adult. “You can say that. It’s easy to say that.”

“I give you my word.”

One mother to another.

A very long ten seconds passed. “There
was
somebody in the trailer this morning.”

“Could you describe them?”

“I couldn’t see the face. ’Causa the angle, you know. Just the body, chest and shoulders, through the window. Like a, you know, silhouette. Not even clothes. That’s all I could see. I swear.”

Often a deceptive flag, that last sentence can also mean exactly what it says, as Dance now believed. “Which window?”

“That one there, in the front?” She pointed. It was horizontal, two feet high, three wide.

“You came out for a smoke and saw this person?”

“I’m aiming to quit. I will. Worried about the weight, you know. That always happens when you quit smoking. I try. Don’t really want to gain any more pounds. Tony Senior’s commented on it. And he should talk. Mr. Budweiser.”

“What time?”

“Eleven, eleven-thirty.”

“Did you see a car? Or when the person left?”

“No.”

Then she noticed to her alarm that Madigan had given up shooting hate rays at her, had turned and was nearly to the front door of Bobby’s trailer.

“Thank you, Tabatha. Go be with your children.”

“Will I have to testify?”

As Dance sprinted toward the trailer she called over her shoulder, “We’ll look after you, promise!” Then shouting: “Detective! Stop!”

P. K. MADIGAN’S
hand was nearly to the doorknob.

His eyes slid Dance’s way and she saw his face cloud with the irritation he mustered so well.

But he also seemed to understand instantly that she had a point about not wanting him to go inside.

Or, she deduced from his hand dipping toward his pistol, maybe some risk awaited.

He stepped back. So did Dennis Harutyun.

Dance hurried across the street and joined them.

“Anybody inside?” the chief detective asked sharply.

Dance steadied her breathing. “Don’t think so. But I don’t know. The thing is the perp—or somebody—was here this morning. Eleven, eleven-thirty. You don’t want to contaminate anything.”

“In
here
?”

“I think we should assume it was the killer.”

“She know that for sure? The time?” A glance toward Tabatha’s trailer.

“Probably. The TV was on and it would’ve been all morning. Her husband’s away a lot and she’d keep it on for comfort. She’d know the time according to the show she was watching.”

“Who’d she see? Can she ID ’em?”

“No. And I believe her. She didn’t see a face or vehicle.”

A deep sigh. He muttered to Harutyun, “Get CSU over here. And tape off the property. As much as you can. All of the trailer.”

The careful deputy made a call.

Madigan and Dance both stepped away from the trailer and stood on the crumbling walk.

“What’d Edwin, or whoever, be doing here? Afterward?”

“I don’t know.”

“Could’ve been a friend, one of the crew.”

“A friend maybe. I talked to the crew. They would’ve said something about being here or acted deceptive. And none of them did.”

Silence for a moment as he stared at the door, wanting to go in. He rocked on his feet. He asked her suddenly, “You like to fish?”

“No.”

“Hm.” He studied the crisp, jaundiced grass. “You don’t fish? Or you don’t like to?”