Solitude Creek (Kathryn Dance 4)

"Okay, sure. I guess."

She said. "Go back to that night. At the Solitude Creek club. After you and your mother got separated."

A nod.

O'Neil, who'd read the account, said, "If I understand, you were being swept toward the kitchen and she was in the crowd going for the exit doors."

"That's right."

Dance asked, "But before you got into the kitchen, you could see your mother, right?"

Eyes hollow, she nodded. "With the emergency lights I could see her good."

"Trish, this is a hard question but I have to know. Did it look to you like somebody hurt your mother intentionally? Pushed her out of the way? Maybe to the floor? To save themselves?" She was hardly going to suggest to the girl that her father had hired someone to kill Michelle Cooper, his ex-wife.

The girl said, "Oh, are you thinking of arresting some of the people in the crowd?"

"Whenever somebody dies, it's important to get the exact details."

"For the reports," O'Neil added.

Trish was shaking her head. "I don't know. The last time I saw her"--she choked, then continued--"the last time I saw her, she was waving at me and then she disappeared behind the pillar, near the last exit door."

"Did you see anybody beside her, grabbing her?"

"No. I mean, it was just a big knot of people. But nobody in particular. The next thing I knew I was in the kitchen and then we were falling out onto the gravel and grass, and everybody was screaming and crying."

Tears streaked her cheeks. Dance dug into her purse and found a pack of Kleenex. "Here you go."

Trish opened the pack and pulled a few out, wiped and blew.

Dance was disappointed the girl hadn't provided anything concrete. But Dance and O'Neil had other facts to uncover--though slowly and with finesse.

"Thanks, Trish, this's been helpful."

"Sure." She sniffed.

O'Neil delivered his line, according to their script: "I don't think we have anything else."

Dance looked around the room. "When we had coffee you told me your father was moving back here. Is that right?"

"Yeah. He lives in a place in Carmel Valley now."

"Nice."

"Not really. Not his place. It's a total dive. And with me in school--Carmel High's a mile away--it made sense for him to move here. Like..." She glanced around her. "Not too shabby, huh?"

O'Neil asked, "Was this your house when your folks were married?"

Finesse...

"That's right."

Dance offered another glance to O'Neil. The cheating husband had lost it in the property settlement. Now he was back in. He couldn't take title--it would be part of the bequest to Trish from her mother. But when she came of age Martin would work on her to get it transferred back to him. Motive one for Frederick Martin to be the killer. She suspected there was another too.

"Was it a tough divorce?" O'Neil asked. Good delivery, Dance thought; they'd rehearsed the line on the drive here.

"Oh, yeah, totally. It was awful. They said really bad things about each other."