"Maybe, makes sense," Kellogg conceded. He looked around, squinting in the mist. "But I'm leaning toward something else. I think he was drawn here not because of the pier but because it's deserted and it's a beach. He's not a ritualistic killer but most cult leaders have a mystical bent, and water often figures in that. Something happened here, almost ceremonial, I'd say. It might've involved that woman with him. Maybe sex after the kill. Or maybe something else."
"What?"
"I can't say. My guess is she met him here. For whatever he had in mind."
"But," O'Neil pointed out, "there's no evidence of another car, no evidence that he turned around and walked back to the road. You'd think there'd be some prints."
Kellogg said, "He could've covered his tracks." Pointing to a portion of the sand-covered road. "Those marks don't look natural. He could've swept over them with brush or leaves. Maybe even a broom. I'd excavate that whole area."
O'Neil went on, "I'm thinking it can't hurt to check on stolen vessels. And I'd rather crime scene ran the pier now."
The tennis volley continued, the FBI agent offering, "With this wind and rain . . . I really think the road should be first."
"You know, Win, I think we'll go with the pier."
Kellogg tipped his head, meaning: It's your crime scene team; I'm backing down. "Fine with me. I'll search it myself if you don't mind."
"Sure. Go right ahead."
Without a look at Dance--he had no desire to test loyalties--the FBI agent returned to the area with the dubious markings.
Dance turned and walked along a clean zone back to her car, glad to leave the crime scene behind. Forensic evidence wasn't her expertise.
Neither were strong-willed rams butting horns.
*
The visage of grief.
Kathryn Dance knew it well. From her days as a journalist, interviewing survivors of crimes and accidents. And from her days as a jury consultant, watching the faces of the witnesses and victims recounting injustices and personal injury mishaps.
From her own life too. As a cop.
And as a widow: looking in the mirror, staring eye-to-eye with a very different Kathryn Dance, the lipstick hovering before easing away from the mask of a face.
Why bother, why bother?
Now, she was seeing the same look as she sat in Susan Pember
ton's office, across from the dead woman's boss, Eve Brock.
"It's not real to me."
No, it never is.
The crying was over but only temporarily, Dance sensed. The stocky middle-aged woman held herself in tight rein. Sitting forward, legs tucked under the chair, shoulders rigid, jaw set. The kinesics of grief matched the face.
"I don't understand the computer and the files. Why?"
"I assume there was something he wanted to keep secret. Maybe he was at an event years ago and he didn't want anybody to know about it." Dance's first question to the woman had been: Was the company in business before Pell went to prison? Yes, it was.
The crying began again. "One thing I want to know. Did he . . .?"
Dance recognized a certain tone and answered the incomplete question: "There was no sexual assault." She asked the woman about the client Susan was going to meet, but she knew no details.
"Would you excuse me for a moment?" Eve Brock was about to surrender to her tears.
"Of course."