“At first I thought Pell used Susan to get into the office and destroy some evidence. Or to get information about an upcoming event. I kept picturing her office, all the photos on the walls. Some were of local politicians, some were of weddings. Then I remembered seeing the pictures of your daughter’s wedding in your living room. The connection clicked. I called Eve Brock and she told me that, yes, you’d been a client.”
“How’d you know about the Latino disguise?”
She explained that Susan had been seen in the company of a slim Latino man not long before she’d been killed. Linda had told them about Pell’s use of disguises. “Becoming Latino seemed a bit far-fetched…but apparently it wasn’t.” She nodded at a cluster of bullet holes in the prosecutor’s front wall.
Finished with their canvassing, TJ and Rey Carraneo arrived to report that there’d been no sightings of the killer’s new wheels.
Michael O’Neil too joined them. He’d been with the crime scene officers as they’d worked the street and the front yard.
O’Neil nodded politely toward Kellogg, as if the recent disagreements were long forgotten. Crime scene, O’Neil reported, hadn’t discovered much at all. They’d found shell casings from a 9mm pistol, some useless tire prints (they were so worn the technicians couldn’t ID the brand) and “about a million samples of trace that’ll lead us nowhere.” The latter information was delivered with the sour hyperbole O’Neil slung out when frustrated.
And, he added, the guard gave only a groggy and inarticulate description of his attacker and the girl with him, but he couldn’t add anything to what they already knew.
Reynolds called his daughter, since Pell now knew her and her husband’s names, and told her to leave town until the killer was recaptured. Reynolds’s wife and other son would join them, but the prosecutor refused to leave. He was going to stay in the area—though at a separate hotel, under police guard—until he’d had a chance to review the Croyton murders files, which would arrive from the county court archives soon. He was more determined than ever to help them get Pell.
Most of the officers left—two stayed to guard Reynolds and his family, and two were keeping the reporters back—and soon Kellogg, O’Neil and Dance were alone, standing on the fragrant grass.
“I’m going back to Point Lobos,” Dance said to both of the men. Then to Kellogg: “You want me to drop you off at HQ, for your car?”
“I’ll go with you to the inn,” Kellogg said. “If that’s okay.”
“Sure. What about you, Michael? Want to come with us?” She could see that Millar’s death was still weighing heavily on him.
The chief deputy glanced at Kellogg and Dance, standing side by side, like a couple in front of their suburban house saying goodnight to guests after a dinner party. He said, “Think I’ll pass. I’ll make a statement to the press then stop by to see Juan’s family.” He exhaled, sending a stream of breath into the cool night. “Been a long day.”