The Sleeping Doll (11 page)

Followed the instructions perfectly. Getting the hammer from his aunt’s garage in Bakersfield (how had Kathryn Dance figured
that
one out?). Embossing the wallet with Robert Herron’s initials. Then planting them in the well in Salinas. Making the fuse for the gas bomb (she’d said it was as easy as following a recipe for a cake). Planting the bag containing the fire suit and knife. Hiding clothes under the pine tree.

Pell, though, hadn’t been sure of her ability to look people in the eye and lie to them. So he hadn’t used her as a getaway driver from the courthouse. In fact, he’d made sure that she wasn’t anywhere near the place when he escaped. He didn’t want her stopped at a roadblock and giving everything away because she stammered and flushed with guilt.

Now, shoes off as she drove (he found that kinky), a happy smile on her face, Jennie Marston was chattering away in her sultry voice. Pell had wondered if she’d believe the story about his innocence in the deaths at the courthouse. But one thing that had astonished Daniel Pell in all his years of getting people to do what he wanted was how often they unwittingly leapt at the chance to be victims, how often they flung logic and caution to the wind and believed what they wanted to — that is, what
he
wanted them to.

Still, that didn’t mean Jennie would buy everything he told her, and in light of what he had planned for the next few days, he’d have to monitor her closely, see where she’d support him and where she’d balk.

They drove through a complicated route of surface streets, avoiding the highways with their potential roadblocks.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, voice tentative as she rested a hand on his knee with ambivalent desperation. He knew what she was feeling: torn between pouring out her love for him and scaring him off. The gushing would win out. Always did with women like her. Oh, Daniel Pell knew all about the Jennie Marstons of the world, the women breathlessly seduced by bad boys. He’d learned about them years ago, being a habitual con. You’re in a bar and you drop the news that you’ve done time, most women’ll blink and never come back from their next restroom visit. But there’re some who’ll get wet when you whisper about the crime you’d done and the time you’d served. They’d smile in a certain way, lean close and want to hear more.

That included murder — depending on how you couched it.

And Daniel Pell knew how to couch things.

Yes, Jennie was your classic bad–boy lover. You wouldn’t guess it to look at her, the skinny caterer with straight blond hair, a pretty face marred by a bumpy nose, dressing like a suburban mom at a Mary Chapin Carpenter concert.

Hardly the sort to write to lifers in places like Capitola.

Dear Daniel Pell:
You don’t know me but I saw a special about you, it was on A&E, and I don’t think it told the whole truth. I have also bought all the books I could find on you and read them and you are a fascinating man. And even if you did what they say I’m sure there were extreme circumstances about it. I could see it in your eyes. You were looking at the camera but it was like you were looking right at me. I have a background that is similar to yours, I mean your childhood (or absence of childhood (!) and I can understand where you are coming from. I mean totally. If you would like to, you can write me.
Very sincerely,
Jennie Marston

She wasn’t the only one, of course. Daniel Pell got a lot of mail. Some praising him for killing a capitalist, some condemning him for killing a family, some offering advice, some seeking it. Plenty of romantic overtures too. Most of the ladies, and men, would tend to lose steam after a few weeks, as reason set in. But Jennie had persisted, her letters growing more and more passionate.

My Dearest Daniel:
Today I was driving in the desert. Out near Palomar Observatory, where they have the big telescope. The sky was so big, it was dusk and there were stars just coming out. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. About how you said no one understands you and blames you for bad things you didn’t do, how hard that’s got to be. They don’t see into you, they don’t see the truth. Not like I do. You would never say it because your modest but they don’t see what a perfect human being you are.
I stopped the car, I couldn’t help myself, I was touching myself all over, you know doing what (I’ll bet you do, you dirty boy!) We made love there, you and me, watching the stars, I say “we” because you were there with me in spirit. I’d do anything for you,
Daniel …

It was such letters — reflecting her total lack of self–control and extraordinary gullibility — that had made Pell decide on her for the escape.

He now asked, “You were careful about everything, weren’t you? Nobody can trace the T–bird?”

“No. I stole it from a restaurant. There was this guy I went out with a couple years ago. I mean, we didn’t sleep together or anything.” She added this too fast, and he supposed they’d spent plenty of time humping like clueless little bunnies. Not that he cared. She continued, “He worked there and when I’d hang out I saw that nobody paid any attention to the valet–parking key box. So Friday I took the bus over there and waited across the street. When the valets were busy I got the keys. I picked the Thunderbird because this couple had just went inside so they’d be there for a while. I was on the One–oh–one in, like, ten minutes.”

“You drive straight through?”

“No, I spent the night in San Luis Obispo — but I paid cash, like you said.”

“And you burned all the emails, right? Before you left?”

“Uh–huh.”

“Good. You have the maps?”

“Yep, I do.” She patted her purse.

He looked over her body. The small swell of her chest, the thin legs and butt. Her long blond hair. Women let you know right up front the kind of license you have, and Pell knew he could touch her whenever and wherever he wanted. He put his hand on the nape of her neck; how thin, fragile. She made a sound that was actually purring.

The swelling within him continued to grow.

The purring too.

He waited as long as he could.

But the bubble won.

“Pull over there, baby.” He pointed toward a road under a grove of oak trees. It seemed to be a driveway to an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of an overgrown field.

She hit the brakes and turned down the road. Pell looked around. Not a soul he could see.

“Here?”

“This’s good.”

His hand slid from her neck down the front of her pink blouse. It looked new. She’d bought it just for him, he understood.

Pell lifted her face and pressed his lips against hers softly, not opening his mouth. He kissed her lightly, then backed away, making her come to him. She grew more and more frantic, the more he teased.

“I want you in me,” she whispered, reaching into the back, where he heard the crinkle of a bag. A Trojan appeared in her hand.

“We don’t have much time, baby. They’re looking for us.”

She got the message.

However innocent they look, girls who love bad boys know what they’re doing (and Jennie Marston didn’t look all that innocent). She unbuttoned her blouse and leaned over to the passenger seat, rubbing the padded bra against his crotch. “Lie back, sweetie. Close your eyes.”

“No.”

She hesitated.

“I want to watch you,” he whispered. Never give them more power than you have to.

More purring.

She unzipped his shorts and bent down.

Only a few minutes later he was finished. She was as talented as he’d expected — Jennie didn’t have many resources but she exploited the ones she had — and the event was fine, though when they got into the privacy of a motel room he’d up the ante considerably. But for now, this would do. And as for her, Pell knew his explosive, voluminous completion was satisfaction enough.

He turned his eyes to hers. “You’re wonderful, lovely. That was so special.”

She was so drunk on emotion that even this trite porn–movie dialogue would have sounded to her like a declaration of love out of an old–time novel.

“Oh, Daniel.”

He sat back and reassembled his clothes.

Jennie buttoned the blouse. Pell looked at the pink cloth, the embroidery, the metal tips on the collar.

She noticed him. “You like?”

“It’s nice.” He glanced out the window and studied the fields around them. Not worried about police, more intent on her. Aware she was studying the blouse.

Hesitantly Jennie said, “It’s awfully pink. Maybe too much. I just saw it and thought I’d get it.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s interesting.”

As she fastened the buttons she glanced at the pearl dots, then the embroidery, the cuffs. She’d probably had to work a whole week to afford it.

“I’ll change later if you want.”

“No, if you like it, that’s fine,” he said, getting his tone just right, like a singer hitting a difficult note. He glanced at the garment once more, then he leaned forward and kissed her — the forehead, not the mouth, of course. He scanned the field again. “We should get back on the road.”

“Sure.” She wanted him to tell her more about the blouse. What was wrong with it? Did he hate pink? Did an ex–girlfriend have a shirt like it? Did it make her boobs look small?

But, of course, he said nothing.

Jennie smiled when he touched her leg and she put the car in gear. She returned to the road, glancing down one last time at the blouse, which, Pell knew, she would never wear again. His goal had been for her to throw it out; he had a pretty good idea that she would.

And the irony was that the blouse looked really good on her, and he liked it quite a bit.

But offering his subtle disapproval and watching her reaction gave him a nice picture of exactly where she was. How controllable, how loyal.

A good teacher always knows the exact state of his student’s progress.

(Kinesically Dance put the habit down to nervous energy — and a few other issues, which, because she was so close to him, she chose not to analyze in more depth.)

He, TJ Scanlon and Dance were gazing at her phone, from whose speaker a computer tech from Capitola prison was explaining, “Pell
did
get online yesterday, but apparently he didn’t send any emails — at least not then. I couldn’t tell about earlier. Yesterday he only browsed the Web. He erased the sites he visited but he forgot about erasing search requests. I found what he was looking up.”

“Go ahead.”

“He did a Google search for ‘Alison’ and ‘Nimue.’ He searched those together, as limiting terms.”

Dance asked for spellings.

“Then he did another. ‘Helter Skelter.’ ”

O’Neil and Dance shared a troubled glance. The phrase was the title of a Beatles song, which Charles Manson was obsessed with. He had used the term to refer to an impending race war in America. It was also the title of the award–winning book about the cult leader and the murders by the man who prosecuted him.

“Then he went to Visual–Earth dot com. Like Google Earth. You can see satellite pictures of practically everywhere on the planet.”

Great, Dance thought. Though it turned out not to be. There was no way to narrow down what he’d looked for.

“It could’ve been highways in California, it could’ve been Paris or Key West or Moscow.”

“And what’s ‘Nimue’?”

“No idea.”

“Does it mean anything in Capitola?”

“No.”

“Any employees there named Alison?”

The disembodied voice of the techie said, “Nope. But I was going to say I might be able to find out what sites he logged onto. It depends on whether he just erased or shredded them. If they’re shredded, forget it. But if they’re just dumped I might be able to find them floating around in the free space somewhere on the hard drive.”

“Anything you can do would be appreciated,” Dance said.

“I’ll get right on it.”

She thanked him and they disconnected.

“TJ, check out ‘Nimue.’ ”

His fingers flew over the keyboard. The results came up and he scrolled through them. After a few minutes he said, “Hundreds of thousands of hits. Looks like a lot of people use it as a screen name.”

O’Neil said, “Somebody he knew online. Or a nickname. Or somebody’s real last name.”

Staring at the screen, TJ continued, “Trademarks too: cosmetics, electronic equipment — hm, sex products … Never seen one of
those
before.”

“TJ,” Dance snapped.

“Sorry.” He scrolled again. “Interesting. Most references are to King Arthur.”

“As in
Camelot?
”

“I guess.” He continued to read. “Nimue was the Lady of the Lake. This wizard, Merlin, fell in love with her — he was like a hundred or something and she was sixteen. Now
that
’ll guarantee you twenty minutes on
Dr. Phil.
” He read some more. “Merlin taught her how to be a sorceress. Oh, and she gave King Arthur this magic sword.”

“Excalibur,” O’Neil said.

“What?” TJ asked.

“The sword. Excalibur. Haven’t you heard any of this before?” the detective asked.

“Naw, I didn’t take Boring Made–up Stuff in college.”

“I like the idea that it’s somebody he was trying to find. Cross–check ‘Nimue’ with ‘Pell,’ ‘Alison,’ ‘California,’ ‘Carmel,’ ‘Croyton’ … Anything else?”

O’Neil suggested, “The women: Sheffield, McCoy, Whitfield.”

“Good.”

After several minutes of frantic typing the agent looked over at Dance. “Sorry, boss. Zip.”

“Check the search terms out with VICAP, NCIC and the other main criminal databases.”

“Will do.”

Dance stared at the words she’d written. What did they mean? Why had he risked going online to check them out?

Helter Skelter, Nimue, Alison …

And what had he been looking at on Visual–Earth? A place he intended to flee to, a place he intended to burglarize?

She asked O’Neil, “What about the forensics at the courthouse?”

The detective consulted his notes. “No red flags. Almost everything was burned or melted. The gas was in plastic milk jugs inside a cheap roller suitcase. Sold in a dozen places — Wal–Mart, Target, stores like that. The fireproof bag and fire suit were made by Protection Equipment, Inc., New Jersey. Available all over the world but most are sold in Southern California.”

“Brushfires?”

“Movies. For stuntmen. A dozen outlets. Not much to follow up on, though. There’re no serial numbers. They couldn’t lift any prints off the bag or the suit. Now, the additives in the gas mean it was BP but we can’t narrow it down to a particular station. The fuse was homemade. Rope soaked in slow–burning chemicals. None of them’re traceable either.”

“TJ, what’s the word on the aunt?”

“Zip so far. I’m expecting a breakthrough any moment.”

Her phone rang. It was another call from Capitola. The warden was with the prisoner who claimed he had some information about Daniel Pell. Did Dance want to talk to him now?

“Sure.” She hit the speakerphone button. “This is Agent Dance. I’m here with Detective O’Neil.”

“Hey. I’m Eddie Chang.”

“Eddie,” the warden added, “is doing a five–to–eight for bank robbery. He’s in Capitola because he can be a bit … slippery.”

“How well did you know Daniel Pell?” Dance asked.

“Not really good. Nobody did. But I was somebody who, you know, wasn’t no threat to him. So he kind of opened up to me.”

“And you’ve got some information on him?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Why’re you helping us?” O’Neil asked.

“Up for parole in six months. I help you, it’ll go good for me. Provided you catch him, of course. If you don’t, I think I’ll stay in the Big C here until you do, now that I’m rolling over on him.”

O’Neil asked, “Did Pell talk about girlfriends or anyone on the outside? Particularly a woman?”

“He bragged about the women he’d had. He’d give us these great stories. It was like watching a porn film. Oh, man, we loved those stories.”

“You remember any names? Someone named Alison?”

“He never mentioned anybody.”

After what Tony Waters had told her, Dance suspected that Pell was making up the sex stories — using them as incentives to get the cons to do things for him.

She asked, “So, what do you want to tell us?”

“I have this idea where he might be headed.” Dance and O’Neil shared a glance. “Outside of Acapulco. There’s a town there, Santa Rosario, in the mountains.”

“Why there?”

“Okay, what it was, maybe a week ago we were sitting around bullshitting and there was a new con, Felipe Rivera, doing a back–to–back ‘cause he got trigger–happy during a GTA. We were talking and Pell finds out he was from Mexico. So Pell’s asking him about this Santa Rosario. Rivera’d never heard of it, but Pell’s pretty anxious to find out more, so he describes it, like trying to jog his memory. It’s got a hot spring and it’s not near any big highways and there’s this steep mountain nearby … But Rivera couldn’t remember anything. Then Pell shut up about it and changed the subject. So I was figuring that’s what he might’ve had in mind.”

Dance asked, “Before that, had he ever mentioned Mexico?”

“Maybe. Can’t say as I recall.”

“Think back, Eddie. Say, six months, a year. Did Pell ever talk about someplace
else
he’d like to go?”

Another pause. “No. Sorry. I mean, no place he thought was, man, I’ve gotta go there because it’s kick–ass, or whatever.”

“How about somewhere he was just interested in? Or curious about?”

“Oh, hey, a couple times he mentioned that Mormon place.”

“Salt Lake City.”

“No. The state. Utah. What he liked was that you could have a lot of wives.”

The Family …

“He said in Utah the police don’t give you any shit because it’s the Mormons who run the state and they don’t like the FBI or the state police snooping around. You can do whatever you want in Utah.”

“When did he tell you that?”

“I don’t know. A while ago. Last year. Then maybe a month ago.”

Dance glanced at O’Neil and he nodded.

“Let me call you back. Can you wait there for a minute?”

A laugh from Chang. “And where would I go?”

She disconnected, then called Linda Whitfield and, after her, Rebecca Sheffield. Neither woman knew of any interest Pell had ever expressed in either Mexico or Utah. As for the attraction of Mormon polygamy, Linda said he’d never mentioned it. Rebecca laughed. “Pell liked
sleeping
with several women. That’s different from being
married
to several women. Real different.”

Dance and O’Neil walked upstairs to Charles Overby’s office and briefed him about the possible destinations, as well as the three references they’d found in the Google search, and the crime–scene results.

“Acapulco?”

“No. It was a plant, I’m sure. He asked about it just last week and in front of other cons. It’s too obvious. Utah’s more likely. But I’ve got to find out more.”

“Well, front burner it, Kathryn,” Overby said. “I just got a call from
The New York Times.
” His phone rang.

“It’s Sacramento on two, Charles,” his assistant said. He sighed and grabbed the handset.

Dance and O’Neil left and just as they got into the hallway, his phone rang too. As they walked, she glanced at him several times. Michael O’Neil’s affect displays — signals of emotion — were virtually invisible most of the time, but they were obvious to her. She deduced the call was about Juan Millar. She could see clearly how upset he was about his fellow officer’s injury. She didn’t know the last time he’d been so troubled.

O’Neil hung up and gave her a summary of the detective’s condition: It was the same as earlier but he’d been awake once or twice.

“Go see him,” Dance said.

“You sure?”

“I’ll follow up here.”

Dance returned to her office, pausing to pour another coffee from the pot near Maryellen Kresbach, who said nothing more about phone messages, though Dance sensed she wanted to.

Brian called …

This time she grabbed the chocolate chip cookie she’d been fantasizing about. At her desk she called Chang and the warden back.

“Eddie, I want to keep going. I want you to tell me more about Pell. Anything about him you can remember. Things he said, things he did. What made him laugh, what made him mad.”

A pause. “I don’t know what to tell you, really.” He sounded confused.

“Hey, how’s this for an idea? Pretend somebody was going to set me up on a date with Pell. What would you tell me about him before we went out?”

“A date with Daniel Pell. Whoa, that’s one fucking scary thought.”

“Do your best, Cupid.”