XO

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