“You’re still not talking?”

Linda shook her head. “My brother doesn’t talk to them either. We’re two poor church mice. But it’s for the best, believe me. You still paint?”

“Some. Not professionally.”

“No? Really?” Linda turned to Dance, her eyes shining. “Oh, Rebecca was so good! You should see her work. I mean, she’s the best.”

“Just sketch for fun now.”

They spent a few minutes catching up. Dance was surprised that though they both lived on the West Coast they hadn’t communicated since the trial.

Rebecca glanced at Dance. “Samantha joining our coffee klatch? Or whatever her name is now?”

“No, just the two of you.”

“Sam was always the timid one.”

“‘Mouse,’ remember?” Linda said.

“That’s right. That’s what Pell called her. ‘My Mouse.’”

They refilled their cups and Dance got down to work, asking Rebecca the same basic questions she’d asked Linda.

“I was the last one to get suckered in by Mr. Pell,” the thin woman said sourly. “It was only…when?” A glance at Linda, who said, “January. Just four months before the Croyton situation.”

Situation. Not murders.

“How did you meet Pell?” Dance asked.

“Back then I was bumming around the West Coast, making money doing sketches of people at street fairs and on the beach, you know. I had my easel set up and Pell stopped by. He wanted his portrait done.”

Linda gave a coy smile. “I seem to remember you didn’t do much sketching. You two ended up in the back of the van. And were there for a long, long time.”

Rebecca’s smile was of embarrassment. “Well, Daniel had that side to him, sure…. In any case, we did spend time talking too. And he asked me if I wanted to hang out with them in Seaside. I wasn’t sure at first—I mean, we all knew about Pell’s reputation and the shoplifting and things like that. But I just said to myself, hell, I’m a bohemian, I’m a rebel and artist. Screw my lily white suburban upbringing…go for it. And I did. It worked out well. There were good people around me, like Linda and Sam. I didn’t have to work nine to five and could paint as much as I wanted. Who could ask for anything more in life? Of course, it turned out I’d also joined up with Bonnie and Clyde, a band of thieves. That wasn’t so good.”

Dance noticed Linda’s placid face darken at the comment.

After release from jail, Rebecca explained, she became involved in the women’s movement.

“I figured me kowtowing to Pell—treating him like the king of the roost—set the feminist cause back a few years and I wanted to make it up to them.”