“I’ve got friends on the outside, you know. They owe me. They’d love to come visit you. Or hang with your husband and children. Yeah, it’s a tough life being a cop. The little ones spend a lot of time alone, don’t they? They’d probably love some friends to play with.”

Dance returned his gaze, never flinching. She asked, “Could you tell me about your relationship with that prisoner in Capitola?”

“Yes, I could. But I won’t.” His emotionless words mocked her, suggesting that, for a professional interrogator, she’d phrased her question carelessly. In a soft voice he added, “I think it’s time to go back to my cell.”

Chapter 2

Alonzo “Sandy” Sandoval, the Monterey County prosecutor, was a handsome, round man with a thick head of black hair and an ample mustache. He sat in his office, two flights above the lockup, behind a desk littered with files. “Hi, Kathryn. So, our boy…Did he beat his breast and cry, ‘Mea culpa’?”

“Not exactly.” Dance sat down, peered into the coffee cup she’d left on the desk forty-five minutes ago. Nondairy creamer scummed the surface. “I rate it as, oh, one of the least successful interrogations of all time.”

“You look shook, boss,” said a short, wiry young man, with freckles and curly red hair, wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a plaid sports coat. TJ’s outfit was unconventional for an investigative agent with the CBI—the most conservative law-enforcement agency in the Great Bear State—but so was pretty much everything else about him. Around thirty and single, TJ Scanlon lived in the hills of Carmel Valley, his house a ramshackle place that could have been a diorama in a counterculture museum depicting California life in the 1960s. TJ tended to work solo much of the time, surveillance and undercover, rather than pairing up with another CBI agent, which was the bureau’s standard procedure. But Dance’s regular partner was in Mexico on an extradition and TJ had jumped at the chance to help out and see the Son of Manson.

“Not shook. Just curious.” She explained how the interview had been going fine when, suddenly, Pell turned on her. Under TJ’s skeptical gaze, she conceded, “Okay, I’m a little shook. I’ve been threatened before. But his were the worst kinds of threats.”

“Worst?” asked Juan Millar, a tall, dark-complexioned young detective with the Investigations Division of the MCSO—the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, which was headquartered not far from the courthouse.

“Calm threats,” Dance said.

TJ filled in, “Cheerful threats. You know you’re in trouble when they stop screaming and start whispering.”

The little ones spend a lot of time alone….

“What happened?” Sandoval asked, seemingly more concerned about the state of his case than threats against Dance.