XO

The younger agent continued, “The vic died at the convention center.”

Where the concert was going to be held on Friday.

“Go on.”

“It’s being handled by the Fresno-Madera Consolidated Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff is Anita Gonzalez. The head detective is P. K. Madigan. Been on the force a long time, forever. Don’t know anything else about him.”

“I’ll get over there now. You have anything on Sharp yet? The stalker?”

“No warrants or court orders came up here. Nothing in California at all. Still waiting for the locals from Washington and Oregon. The phone number you gave me? That somebody called Kayleigh on? It was a prepaid, bought with cash, from a drugstore in Burlingame.”

South of San Francisco, where the airport was located.

“No video and no other record of the transaction. The clerks have no idea who it was. It was three days ago. No other details yet.”

“Keep on it. Email Sharp’s full bio. Anything you can get.”

“Your command is what I wish for, Boss.”

They disconnected.

What time was it? The room was still dark but light showed behind the drapes.

Glasses on. Oh, eight-thirty. The crack of midmorning.

She walked into the bathroom for a brief, hot shower. In twenty minutes she was dressed in black jeans, a black T-shirt and a silk business jacket, navy blue, conservative, matter-of-fact. The heat would be challenging with these clothes but the possibility of duty loomed. She’d learned long ago that a woman officer had to be a length ahead of men when it came to appearing professional. Sad but the way of the world.

She took her laptop with her, just in case the intruder returned, if in fact she had been intruded upon yesterday.

Then she was out the door, slipping the DO NOT DISTURB sign onto the L-shaped knob of the hotel room.

Wondering briefly if the prohibition would have any effect.

Outside, under an uncompromising sun, her temples, face and armpits bristled as sweat flowed. Dance fished for the Pathfinder key in her Coach purse and absently slapped her hip, where her Glock normally resided.

A weapon that was, today, conspicuously absent.

Chapter 9

HAD THERE REALLY been just one victim?

Pulling into the convention center lot, aiming for the stage door, Dance noted more emergency and public safety personnel than seemed necessary. Two dozen, easily, walking slowly, speaking on phones or radios, carrying battered equipment, green and red and yellow-the colors of stoplights, colors of children’s toys.

Four fire trucks, two ambulances, eight police cruisers and several unmarked.

She wondered again if TJ’s information was flawed. Had others died?

She drove forward to a Dodge, unmarked but obvious, parked and climbed out. A woman in a deputy’s uniform glanced Dance’s way, C. STANNING stamped on a plate above her taut breast. Her hair was equally tight and it ended in pert, incongruous pigtails, tipped in blue rubber bands.

“Help you?”

Dance displayed her CBI card and the woman didn’t seem to know what to make of it. “You… is Sacramento involved?”

Dance nearly said she was just here on vacation and believed she knew the victim. But law enforcement is a world in which instinct counts-when dealing both with suspects and with allies. She said, “Not yet. I happened to be nearby.”

Stanning juggled these words, perhaps factoring in her own instructions from on high, and said, “Okay.”

Dance continued on toward the bland concrete convention center. A slash of glaring light hit her in the face brutally as she approached. She slipped into the shade but this route was just as unpleasant; the air between two tall walls leading to the front doors was dead and stifling.

She stepped inside and in a half second the relief of the air-conditioning was utterly negated by the stench.

Kathryn Dance had been a law enforcer for some years and had attended hundreds of crime scenes. Being an investigator with CBI, she was rarely a first responder and didn’t do forensics; much of the horror had been tamed by the time she arrived. Blood staunched, bodies covered with washable tarps, body parts recovered and cataloged.

So the scent of burned flesh and hair was unexpected; it hit like a fist in her belly.

She didn’t hesitate but she did steel herself and pushed past the assault, somehow keeping the nausea under control. She walked into the massive arena, which would hold thirty thousand, she guessed. All the overheads were on, revealing the tired and shabby decor. It was as if a play or concert had ended and the promoters were eager to prod the audience into the lobby to buy CDs and souvenirs.

On the stage and main floor were a dozen people in the varied uniforms of law enforcement, fire and EMS.

Climbing to the stage, she joined a cluster at the edge, looking down into the orchestra pit. It was from there that a faint trail of fetid smoke rose. Slowing, she struggled not to gag, then continued on.

What had happened? she wondered. She recalled the falling light from yesterday.

Dance noted immediately, from their posture and the sweep of their eyes, that two of the law officers, who all wore tan uniforms, were senior to the others. One was a woman hovering in her fifties with long hair and a pocked face. With Latina features, she was stocky and stood in a pose that suggested she disliked the uniform-the tight slacks and the close-fitting blouse, which blossomed outward at the waist, painted on rolls of fat.

The man she was speaking to was Caucasian, though sporting a dark tan. He also was stocky but his was targeted weight, situated in his gut, which rode above thin hips and legs. A large, round face crisscrossed with sun wrinkles. His posture-leaning forward, shoulders up-and still, squinting gray eyes suggested an arrogant and difficult man. His head hair was black and thick. He wore a revolver, a long-barreled Colt, while on the hips of everyone else here were the semi-auto Glocks that were de rigueur among law enforcers in California.

Ah, yes, she was right in her guess; he was P. K. Madigan, the head of detectives.

Conversation slowed as they turned to see the slim woman in jeans and sport coat stride toward them.

Madigan asked brusquely, “And you are…?” in a way that didn’t mean what the words said at all. He looked over her shoulder darkly toward who might have let her breach his outer perimeter.

Dance noted the woman was named Gonzalez, the sheriff, and so she addressed her and displayed her ID, which both of the in-charge duo examined carefully.

“I’m Sheriff Gonzalez. This is Chief Detective Madigan.” The decision not to offer first names in an introduction is often an attempt to assert power. Dance merely noted the choice now. She wasn’t here to flex muscles.

“My office called me about a homicide. I happened to be in the area on another matter.”

Could be official, might not be. Let the sheriff and chief detective guess.

Dance added, “I’m also a friend of Kayleigh Towne’s. When I heard the vic was in her crew I came right over here.”

“Well, thanks, Kathryn,” Madigan said.

And the use of first names is an attempt to disempower.

The flicker in Gonzalez’s eyes at this faint affront-but absence of any look Madigan’s way-told Dance reams about the chief detective. He’d carved out a major fiefdom at the FMCSO.

The detective continued, “But we don’t need any CBI involvement at this point. Wouldn’t you say, Sheriff?”

“I’d think not,” Gonzalez said, staring Dance in the eyes. It was a magnetic look and based not-as in the case of Madigan-on gender or jurisdictional power but on the woman’s determination not to glance at a figure perhaps four sizes smaller than hers. Whatever our rank or profession, we’re frail human beings first.

Madigan continued, “You said you were here on another matter? I look over the interagencies pretty good every morning. Didn’t see any Bureau activity here. They-you-don’t always tell us, of course.”

He’d called her bluff. “A personal matter.” Dance steamed ahead. “The victim was Bobby Prescott, the head of