Solitude Creek (43 page)

‘Where’s the body?’ O’Neil asked one of the officers.

‘In there, sir.’

They walked into the back bedroom, which was barren of furniture. Otto Grant, disheveled and dusty, lay on his back in front of an open window. He’d hanged himself from a ceiling beam. The medical team had untied the nylon rope and lowered him to the floor, presumably to try to save him, though the lividity of the face and the extended neck told her that Grant had died well before they had arrived.

The window, wide open. She supposed he’d chosen this as the site of his death so he could look out over the pleasant hills in the distance, some magnolia and oak nearby, a field of budding vegetables. Better to gaze at as your vision went to black and your heart shut down than a wall of scuffed, stained sheetrock.

‘Michael? Kathryn?’

With a last look at the man who’d caused so much pain to so many, O’Neil and Dance stepped back into the living room to meet the head of the CSU examination team, dressed in overalls and a hood.

‘Hey, Carlos,’ Dance said.

The lean Latino CSU officer, Carlos Batillo, nodded a greeting. He walked to the card table that Grant had been using for his desk. The man’s computer and a portable router sat on it. It was open to his blog, the entry that Dance had read to O’Neil on the drive there.

‘Find anything else on it?’ O’Neil asked.

‘Bare bones. News stories about the stampedes. Some articles on eminent domain.’

Dance nodded at a Nokia mobile. ‘We know he hired somebody to handle the attacks. He’s the one we want now – the “soldier of fortune” he referred to. Our unsub. Any text or call-log data that could be helpful? Or is it pass coded?’

‘No code.’ Batillo picked it up with a gloved hand. ‘It’s a California exchange, prepaid.’

When he told her the number Dance nodded. ‘The unsub called it from his burner, the one he dropped in Orange County. Can I see the log?’

She and O’Neil moved closer together and looked down, as the CSU officer scrolled.

‘Hold it,’ Dance said. ‘Okay, that’s the number of the phone the unsub dropped. And the others are the ones he bought at the same time, in Chicago.’

Batillo gave a brief laugh. Perhaps that she’d memorized the numbers. He continued, ‘No voice mail. Fair number of texts back and forth.’ He scrolled through them. ‘Here’s one. Grant says he has, quote, “the last of your” money. “I know you wanted more and I wish I could have paid you more.”’ The officer read on. ‘“I know the risks you took. I’m For Ever in your debt.” “For Ever” capitalized. He does that a lot. Then, going back … Grant tells him the targets were perfect: the roadhouse, the Bay View Center, the Monterey Bay Hospital, “probably better the church didn’t work out”.’

‘He was going to attack a church?’ Dance asked, shaking her head.

Batillo read one more. ‘“Thanks for the ammo.”’

Soldier of fortune …

The officer slipped the phone into a bag with a chain-of-custody card attached. He signed it and put the sealed bag into a large plastic container resembling a laundry basket.

She glanced down at a treatise on the law of eminent domain.

‘How’d he meet the doer?’ Dance wondered aloud. ‘He said a few years ago.’

Batillo said, ‘I saw some texts about “the gun show”. “Enjoyed talking weapons with you.”’

‘And I found the ammo I think he was talking about. Brick of twelve gauge and two twenty-three. “Arlington Heights Guns and Sporting Goods” on the label.’

‘Chicago,’ Dance said.

O’Neil said wryly, ‘Tough manhunt. Six million people.’

‘We’ve got the gun-show reference. The ammo. The phones.’ She shrugged and offered a smile. ‘Needle in a haystack, I know. Right up there with “When it rains it pours.” But that doesn’t mean the needle isn’t there.’

Forty minutes later she was back in her office, scrolling through the crime-scene pictures of the Otto Grant suicide – the rest of the report wouldn’t be ready for a day or two – and considering how to narrow down the task of finding their unsub in the Windy City, or wherever he might be. Page after page … Dance found herself staring at the pictures of Prescott and the woman he’d killed, positioned under the lights to get pictures for proof of death. If only she could let her eyes be theirs for a brief moment before they had glazed over, and darkness embraced them.

To catch a fleeting glimpse of the man who’d done this.

Who are you? Are you headed back to your home in Chicago, or somewhere else?

And are you working for someone else now, a new job? Nearby? Or in a different part of the world?

Questions she would answer, whether it took a week, a month, a year.

Maggie’s eyes were wide and even Dance’s adolescent, seen-it-all son was impressed.

They were backstage at the Monterey Performing Arts Center with Neil Hartman himself. The lanky man in his early thirties, dark curly hair and a lean face, looked every inch the country-western star, though that genre was only part of his repertoire. His songs and performance style were very similar to Kayleigh Towne’s – she was Dance’s performer friend, based in Fresno.

When Dance and the kids had been ushered into the green room, the musician had smiled and introduced everyone to the band members present. ‘Kayleigh sends her best,’ he told her.

‘Where’s her show tonight?’

‘Denver. Big house, five thousand plus.’

Dance said, ‘She’s doing well.’

‘I’ll head out there after tomorrow’s show. Maybe we’ll get to Aspen.’ He was grinning shyly.

That answered one of Dance’s questions. The beautiful singer-songwriter hadn’t been dating anyone seriously for a time. There were worse romantic options than a Portland troubadour with dreamy eyes and a lifestyle that seemed more mom-and-pop than Rolling Stones.

‘Uhm …’ Maggie began.

‘Yes, young lady?’ Hartman asked, smiling.

‘Ask him, Mags.’

‘Can I have your autograph?’

He laughed. ‘Do you one better.’ He walked to a box, found a T-shirt in Maggie’s size. It featured a photo from one of his recent CDs – Hartman and his golden retriever sitting on a front porch. He signed it to her with a glittery marker.

‘Oh, wow.’

‘Mags?’

‘Thank you!’

For Wes, the gift was age-appropriate: a black T-shirt with ‘NHB’.

‘Cool. Thanks.’

‘Hey, you guys want to noodle around on a git-fiddle or keyboard?’

‘Yeah? Can we?’ Wes asked.

‘Sure.’

‘Wooee!’ Maggie sat down at the keyboard – Dance cranked the volume down – and Hartman handed Wes an old Martin. You couldn’t live in the Dance household without knowing something about musical instruments, and though Maggie was the real talent, Wes could chord and play a few flat-pick licks.

When he started ‘Stairway To Heaven’, Hartman and Dance glanced at each other and laughed. The song that will never die.

They talked about the show tonight. Hartman was growing in popularity but not at the Kayleigh Towne level yet, though his Grammy win had guaranteed a sold-out house at the performing arts center – nearly a thousand people were coming to see him.

With the children occupied in the corner, the adults spoke in low voices.

‘I heard you got him. The guy behind the attacks.’

‘Well, the one who hired him.’

‘Grant, right? He lost his farm.’

‘That’s him. But we still don’t have the hit man he hired. But we will. We’ll get him.’

‘Kayleigh said something about you being … persistent.’

Dance laughed. ‘That’s what she said, hm?’ Her kinesic skills told her that Hartman was translating. Maybe ‘obstinate’ or ‘pig-headed’ had been the young woman’s choice. She and Kayleigh were a lot alike in that regard.

‘I thought we were going to have to cancel the show.’

Dance had been fully prepared to do just that – if they hadn’t closed the case before the concert.

‘You hear about Sam Cohen?’

‘No, what?’

‘He’s going to rebuild the roadhouse. A dozen or so of us are doing some benefit concerts, donating the money to him. He’s going to tear down the old building and put up a new one. He didn’t want to at first but we were …’ he laughed ‘… persistent.’

‘Great news. I’m really happy.’

Maybe you
can
recover from some things, Sam. Maybe you can.

Hartman’s drummer appeared in the doorway, smiled at the kids, then said, ‘Let’s play.’

Hartman gave the children a thumbs-up. ‘You got your chops down, both of you. Next time I’m in town, we’ll work up some tunes, I’ll get you out on stage with me.’

‘No way!’ Wes said.

‘Sure.’

‘Excellent!’

Maggie frowned, considering something. ‘Can I cover a Patsy Cline song?’

Dance said, ‘Mags, why don’t you sing a Neil Hartman?’

Hartman laughed. ‘I think Ms Cline would be honored. We’ll make it happen.’

‘Hey, gang, let’s head to our seats.’

‘Bye, Mr Hartman. Thanks.’

Wes handed over the guitar and, looking at his phone, headed toward the door.

‘Young man.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Say hi to Kayleigh for us.’ Dance gave him a smile.

They left the green room and walked into the theater, which was filling up. There were about eight hundred people, Dance estimated.

Year ago, she had dreamed of being a musician, appearing in halls like this. She had tried and tried, but however hard she worked, there came the point when her skill just didn’t make the final bump into the professional world. There came advanced degrees, a stint as a jury consultant, offering her kinesic skills commercially, then law enforcement. A wonderful job, a challenging job … And yet, what she wouldn’t have given to have the talent to make places like this her home.

But then the nostalgia faded as the cop within her resurfaced. Dance was, of course, aware that she was in a crowded venue that would be a perfect target for their unsub at-large. He was surely a hundred miles away by now. But just because Otto Grant had said he’d gotten sufficient revenge didn’t mean he hadn’t had his man set up a whopper of a finale. On the way back from Grant’s shack, she’d arranged for a full sweep of the concert hall and for police to be stationed at each exit door.

Even now she remained vigilant. She noted the location of the exits, fire hoses and extinguishers. She could see no potential sniper nests. And checked that the red lights on the security cameras glowed healthily and, because those models didn’t sport lights, unlike the one in the hospital elevator, she checked for emergency lighting: there were a dozen halogens that would turn the place to bright noon in the event of trouble.

Finally, confident of their security, Kathryn Dance sat back, crossed her legs and enjoyed the exhilaration that always accompanies dimming lights in a concert hall.

Antioch March was enjoying another pineapple juice and studying the TV screen in the Cedar Hills Inn.

The hotel was so posh that it featured a very special television – one with 4K resolution. This was known as ultra-high-definition video. It was nearly double the current standard: 1920 wide by 1080 high.

It was ethereal, the depth of the imagery.

He was presently watching an underwater video, shot in 4K, flowing from his computer, via HDMI cable, onto the fifty-four-inch screen.

Astonishing. The kelp was real. The sunfish. The eels. The coral. All real. The sharks especially, with their supple gray skin, their singular eyes, their choreography of motion, like elegant fencers.

So beautiful. So rich. You were there, you were part of the ocean. Part of the chain of nature.

There was not, as yet, much content in 4K – you needed special cameras to shoot it – but it was coming. If only the family on the rocks at Asilomar had lingered but a minute longer he might have given the Get their ultra-high-definition deaths: his Samsung Galaxy featured such a camera.

Somebody’s not happy …

The landline phone rang and he snagged it, eyes still on the waving kelp, so real it might have been floating in the room around him.

The receptionist announced that a Fred Johnson had arrived.

‘Thank you. Send him over.’ Wondering why that pseudonym.

A few minutes later Christopher Jenkins was at the door.

March let his boss into the entryway. A handshake and then into the luxurious suite. Once the door was closed, a hug too.

Mildly reciprocated.

Jenkins, who, yes, resembled March somewhat, was in his fifties, broad-shouldered, compact – a good foot shorter than his employee – and tanned. His hair was blond, close-cropped and flat against his skull. A military bearing because he had been military. He glanced up at March’s shaved head.

‘Hmm.’

‘Had to.’

‘Looks good.’

Jenkins didn’t really think so, March could see, but he’d never say a word against his favorite employee’s appearance. To March, Jenkins seemed no older than when the two men had met six years ago. He was a bit heavier, more solid. Jenkins had his own Get, but it wasn’t March’s. Amassing money was what numbed Jenkins’s demon. Whether buying a Ferrari for himself or taking a boy out for a thousand-dollar dinner or finding a Cartier bauble … that was what kept Jenkins’s Get at bay.

Odd, how their respective compulsions worked. Symbiotic.

‘Carole says hello.’

‘And to her too.’

One of the girls Jenkins had dated on and off. March wasn’t sure why he kept the façade. Who cared nowadays? Besides, you can’t cheat the Get, which knows what you want and when you want it, so why complicate things? Life’s too short.

‘Your drive good?’

‘Fine.’ Jenkins had a faint Bostonian drawl. He’d lived in a suburb of Bean Town before the army.

March had ordered the best – well, the most expensive – wine on the list, a Château Who Knew from France. A 1995. Had to be good: it was six hundred dollars. It was already open. He’d had a taste. It was okay. Not as good as Dole.

‘Well. Excellent!’ Jenkins said, looking over the label – all Greek to him, a private joke, considering March’s heritage.