Solitude Creek

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 felt her jaw tighten and 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 during 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.’

Foster looked over a pad containing his precise notes.

Dance continued, ‘Generally, it’s hard to tell if somebody’s being deceptive without establishing their baseline behavior.’

‘Charles was telling us,’ Allerton said.

‘But there’re a few things that signal deception on their own. One is beginning to speak more slowly, since your mind is trying to craft the lie and make sure it’ll be consistent with everything you’ve said before. The second is a slight increase in pitch — deception creates stress and stress tightens muscles, including the vocal cords. Those both registered deception when she was talking to me. I called her on it. She broke down and confessed she’d lied and she had been outside the club, from about seven thirty until the incident.’

‘What’d she see?’ Lu asked.

‘White male, over six feet, in a dark green jacket with a logo, like a construction or other worker, black cap, yellow aviator sunglasses. Medium build. Brown hair. Probably under forty. Nobody at Henderson Jobbing wears that kind of outfit. This guy parked the truck beside the club, started a fire in the oil drum and walked back to the warehouse — to drop the keys off. That was it. She stayed until the stampede happened and she took off.’

‘Afraid to come forward.’

‘She said anybody who’d do that, if he found out about her, would come back and kill her in a minute.’

‘Bring her in, grill her,’ Foster said, still looking over his notes.

‘She’s told us everything she knows.’

His look said, Has she? He said, ‘If she’s afraid, maybe she was withholding.’

‘She got unafraid when I told her we’d relocate her temporarily, get her into one of our safe houses.’

She saw Overby stiffen. She hadn’t shared this with him. Keeping witnesses alive was expensive.

Budget issues …

Foster shrugged. ‘Get the descrip out on the wire. ASAP.’

‘It is,’ Dance said. Every cop and government official on the Peninsula and in neighboring counties had the information the witness, Annette, had relayed. ‘She had no facial description — the light was too dim and she was too far away.’

‘Get it to the news too,’ Foster said.

‘No,’ Dance said.

He looked up from beneath impressive brows.

Carol Allerton lifted an eyebrow, inquiring about the topic of conversation. Dance briefed her.

Foster reiterated, ‘On the news. Go broad.’

Overby said, ‘We were debating that.’

‘What’s to debate?’ Foster asked.

Allerton said, ‘He hears, he vanishes.’

Gomez offered, ‘Yeah, what I’d do. He rabbits. He dyes his hair. Tosses the jacket, switches to pink Ray-Bans.’

Foster to Dance: ‘Did the witness think he tipped to her?’

‘No. The wit’s positive he didn’t see her.’