Roadside Crosses (Kathryn Dance 2)

No one knew the identity of the person who had combined the drugs in the IV drip to end Juan's life. The death was now officially a criminal investigation--being handled by the Monterey County Sheriff's Office. But it wasn't being investigated very hard; doctors reported that it would have been highly unlikely for the deputy to live for more than a month or two. The death was clearly a humane act, even if criminal.

But the case had become a cause celebre for pro-lifers. The protesters that Dance was now watching in the parking lot held posters emblazoned with crosses and pictures of Jesus and of Terry Schiavo, the comatose woman in Florida, whose right-to-die case the U.S. Congress itself became entwined in.

The placards being waved about in front of Monterey Bay Hospital decried the horrors of euthanasia and, apparently because everyone was already assembled and in a protesting mood, abortion. They were mostly members of Life First, based in Phoenix. They'd arrived within days of the young officer's death.

Dance wondered if any of them caught on to the irony of protesting death outside a hospital. Probably not. They didn't seem like folks with a sense of humor.

Dance greeted the head of security, a tall African-American, standing outside the main entrance. "Morning, Henry. They keep coming, it looks like."

"Morning, Agent Dance." A former cop, Henry Bascomb liked using departmental titles. He gave a smirk, nodding their way. "Like rabbits."

"Who's the ringleader?" In the center of the crowd was a scrawny balding man with wattles beneath his pointy chin. He was in clerical garb.

"That's the head, the minister," Bascomb told her. "Reverend R. Samuel Fisk. He's pretty famous. Came all the way from Arizona."

"R. Samuel Fisk. Very ministerial-sounding name," she commented.

Beside the reverend stood a burly man with curly red hair and a buttoned dark suit. A bodyguard, Dance guessed.

"Life is sacred!" somebody called, aiming the comment to one of the news trucks nearby.

"Sacred!" the crowd took up.

"Killers," Fisk shouted, his voice surprisingly resonant for such a scarecrow.

Though it wasn't directed at her, Dance felt a chill and flashed back to the incident in the ICU, when enraged Julio Millar had grabbed her from behind as Michael O'Neil and another companion intervened.

"Killers!"

The protesters took up the chant. "Killers. Killers!" Dance guessed they'd be hoarse later in the day.

"Good luck," she told the security chief, who rolled his eyes uncertainly.

Inside, Dance glanced around, half expecting to see her mother. Then she got directions from reception and hurried down a corridor to the room where she'd find the witness in the Roadside Cross Case.

When she stepped into the open doorway, the blond teenage girl inside, lying in the elaborate hospital bed, looked up.

"Hi, Tammy. I'm Kathryn Dance." Smiling at the girl. "You mind if I come in?"

Chapter 5

ALTHOUGH TAMMY FOSTER had been left to drown in the trunk, the attacker had made a miscalculation.

Had he parked farther from shore the tide would have been high enough to engulf the entire car, dooming the poor girl to a terrible death. But, as it happened, the car had gotten bogged down in loose sand not far out, and the flowing tide had filled the Camry's trunk with only six inches of water.

At about 4:00 a.m. an airline employee on his way to work saw the glint from the car. Rescue workers got to the girl, half conscious from exposure, bordering on hypothermia, and raced her to the hospital.

"So," Dance now asked, "how you feeling?"

"Okay, I guess."

She was athletic and pretty but pale. Tammy had an equine face, straight, perfectly tinted blond hair and a pert nose that Dance guessed had started life with a somewhat different slope. Her quick glance at a small cosmetic bag suggested to Dance that she rarely went out in public without makeup.

Dance's badge appeared.

Tammy glanced at it.

"You're looking pretty good, all things considered."