"Afraid so. Deputy Bennington said he did the best he could to process it." Peter Bennington--the skilled, diligent head of the Monterey County Crime Scene Lab. "But didn't find anything. Not according to the preliminary. No prints, except the trooper's. No trace other than sand and dirt. The cross was made out of tree branches and florist wire. The disk with the date on it was cut out of cardboard, looked like. The pen, he said, was generic. And the writing was block printing. Only helpful if we get a sample from a suspect. Now, here's a picture of the cross. It's pretty creepy. Kind of like Blair Witch Project, you know."
"Good movie," TJ said, and Dance didn't know if he was being facetious or not.
They looked at the photo. It was creepy, the branches like twisted, black bones.
Forensics couldn't tell them anything? Dance had a friend she'd worked with not long ago, Lincoln Rhyme, a private forensic consultant in New York City. Despite the fact he was a quadriplegic, he was one of the best crime scene specialists in the country. She wondered, if he'd been running the scene, would he have found something helpful? She suspected he would have. But perhaps the most universal rule in police work was this: You go with what you've got.
She noticed something in the picture. "The roses."
O'Neil got her meaning. "The stems are cut the same length."
"Right. So they probably came from a store, not clipped from somebody's yard."
TJ said, "But, boss, you can buy roses about a thousand places on the Peninsula."
"I'm not saying it's leading us to his doorstep," Dance said. "I'm saying it's a fact we might be able to use. And don't jump to conclusions. They might've been stolen." She felt grumpy, hoped it didn't come off that way.
"Gotcha, boss."
"Where exactly was the cross?"
"Highway One. Just south of Marina." He touched a location on Dance's wall map.
"Any witnesses to leaving the cross?" Dance now asked the deputy.
"No, ma
'am, not according to the CHP. And there are no cameras along that stretch of highway. We're still looking."
"Any stores?" O'Neil asked, just as Dance took a breath to ask the identical question.
"Stores?"
O'Neil was looking at the map. "On the east side of the highway. In those strip malls. Some of them have to have security cameras. Maybe one was pointed toward the spot. At least we could get a make and model of the car--if he was in one."
"TJ," Dance said, "check that out."
"You got it, boss. There's a good Java House there. One of my favorites."
"I'm so pleased."
A shadow appeared in her doorway. "Ah. Didn't know we were convening here."
Charles Overby, the recently appointed agent in charge of this CBI branch, walked into her office. In his midfifties, tanned; the pear-shaped man was athletic enough to get out on the golf or tennis courts several times a week but not so spry to keep up a long volley without losing his breath.
"I've been in my office for . . . well, quite some time."
Dance ignored TJ's subtle glance at his wristwatch. She suspected that Overby had rolled in a few minutes ago.
"Charles," she said. "Morning. Maybe I forgot to mention where we'd be meeting. Sorry."
"Hello, Michael." A nod toward TJ too, whom Overby sometimes gazed at curiously as if he'd never met the junior agent--though that might have just been disapproval of TJ's fashion choices.
Dance had in fact informed Overby of the meeting. On the drive here from the Peninsula Garden Hotel, she'd left a message on his voice mail, giving him the troubling news of the immunity hearing in L.A. and telling him of the plan to get together here, in her office. Maryellen had told him about the meeting too. But the CBI chief hadn't responded. Dance hadn't bothered to call back, since Overby usually didn't care much for the tactical side of running cases. She wouldn't have been surprised if he'd declined attending this meeting altogether. He wanted the "big picture," a recent favorite phrase. (TJ had once referred to him as Charles Overview; Dance had hurt her belly laughing.) "Well. This girl-in-the-trunk thing . . . the reporters are calling already. I've been stalling. They hate that. Brief me."
Ah, reporters. That explained the man's interest.
Dance told him what they knew at this point, and what their plans were.