The fourth task force member was Jimmy Gomez, the young CBI agent whose name had come up earlier. Dark complexioned and sporting a mustache as brown and taut as Foster’s was light and elaborate, he stayed in shape by playing football—that is, soccer—every minute when he wasn’t at work or attending to his family. He was assigned to this division of the CBI and his office was two doors down from Dance’s. They were both coworkers and friends. (Just two weeks ago Dance and her children and Gomez, his wife and their three youngsters had done the Del Monte Cineplex thing, then gone to Lala’s after, to discuss over dessert and coffee the brilliance of Pixar and which animated character they all would want to be, Dance selecting the hero from Brave, mostly because she envied the hair.)

The two Steves were at one table, Jimmy Gomez at another. Carol Allerton, in the corner, waved to the newcomers and returned to a serious mobile phone conversation.

Overby announced, “Some help, s’il vous plaît?”

Dance noted her own jaw tighten and she knew exactly what she was radiating kinesically. She wondered if anyone else in the room did. Her displeasure had to be obvious.

“You’ve probably heard about the incident at the roadhouse, Solitude Creek,” Overby said. “I know you have, Jimmy.”

“That fire?” Foster asked. He seemed perpetually distracted.

“No, it was more than that.” Overby glanced at Dance.

She said, “The club itself didn’t burn. The perp started a fire, outside, near the HVAC system, to get the smell of smoke into the club. He’d blocked the exit doors. Three dead, dozens injured. A stampede. It was pretty bad.”

“Intentional? People crushed to death.” Allerton whispered, “Terrible.”

“Jesus,” Steve Lu muttered. “So, it’s homicide.”

Homicide embraces everything from suicide to vehicular manslaughter to premeditated murder. It was into the last of those categories that the Solitude Creek incident probably fell.

Foster took the news less emotionally. “Can’t be insurance. Otherwise the owner would’ve torched the place empty. Wouldn’t want any fatalities. Disgruntled workers, pissed-off customers got kicked out drunk?”

“Preliminary interviews don’t turn up any obvious suspects but it’s a possibility,” Dance said. “We’ll keep looking.”

Overby then said, “Now. Kathryn’s got a lead.”

“I was canvassing the area. I found a woman who lives about two hundred yards from the end of the club’s parking lot. She told me she didn’t see anything odd around the time of the incident, she wasn’t near the club, but I knew she was lying.”

Foster continued to gaze at her, his eyes neutral but still managing to radiate criticism for her missing the clues with the interview earlier.

“How?” Steve Lu asked.

“I had a feeling she had a connection with the club. She’s on welfare and poor but she loves music. I suspected she’d hike to the club and listen to the shows from the outside. I asked if she was there last night. She said no. But she was clearly lying.”