He jotted something down.
"We'll check it out on the way." He disconnected. He looked at her with an expression she rarely saw on his face.
Dance lifted her eyebrows. "We?"
"The case I was working on, about the man who went missing, Otto Grant."
She recalled: the farmer who went bankrupt after his property was taken by the state.
"You thought he might be a suicide?"
"That's what happened, right. Hanged himself. A shack out in Salinas Valley." He rose. "Let's go."
She asked, "Me? It's your case. You want me along?"
"Actually, turns out, it's our case now."
Chapter 78
Michael O'Neil piloted his unmarked Dodge into the countryside east of Salinas, a huge swath of farm country, flat and, thanks to the precious water, green with young plants. Dance skimmed the blog entry Otto Grant had posted just before he took his life, several hours ago. "Explains a lot," she said. "Explains everything."
The reason the Otto Grant case was now both of theirs was simple: Grant was the man who'd hired the Solitude Creek unsub to wreak havoc on Monterey County.
In revenge for the eminent domain action that had led to his bankruptcy.
"As much of an oddball as we thought?"
She scanned more. Didn't answer.
"Read it to me."
"Over the past few months readers of this BLOG have followed the chronicle of the Destruction of my life by the state of California. For those of you just 'tuning in' I owned a farm off San Juan Grade Road, 239 acres of very fine land which I inherited from my Father, who inherited it from his Father.
"Last year the state decided to steal two-thirds of that property--the most valuable--under the totalitarian 'law' known as eminent domain. And WHY did they want to take it from me? Because a nearby landfill, filled with garbage and trash, was nearly full to capacity and so they turned their sights on my land to turn it into a dump.
"The Founding Fathers approved laws that let the government take citizens' land provided they give 'JUST COMPENSATION' for it. I'm an American and a patriot and this is the best country on earth but do you think Thomas Jefferson would allow taking all this property and then arguing about the value? Of course he wouldn't. Because HE was a gentleman and a scholar.
"I was given compensation equal to land used for grazing not farming. Even though it was a working vegetable farm and there are no livestock for miles around. I had to sell the remaining land because there wasn't enough to cover expenses.
"After paying off the mortgages I was left with $150,000. Which may seem like a princely sum except I then got a tax bill for $70,000!! It was only a matter of time until I ended up homeless.
"Well, by now you know what I did. I did NOT pay the taxes. I took every last penny and gave it to a man I had met a few years ago. A soldier of fortune, you could say. If you wonder who's at fault for what happened at Solitude Creek and Bay View Center and the hospital, look into a mirror. YOU! Maybe next time you'll think twice about stealing a man's soul, his heart, his livelihood, his immortality and discover within you a conscience."
Dance said, "That's it."
"Phew. That's enough."
"One hundred fifty thousand for the job. No wonder our unsub can afford Vuitton shoes."
They drove in silence for a few moments.
"You can't sympathize but you almost want to," O'Neil said.
This was true, Dance reflected. Bizarre though it was, the letter revealed how the man had been so sadly derailed.
In fifteen minutes, O'Neil pulled onto a dirt road, where an MCSO cruiser was parked. The officer gestured them on. About a hundred yards farther on they came to an abandoned house. Two more cruisers were here, along with the medical examiner's bus. The officers waved to O'Neil and Dance as they climbed out of the car and made their way to the front door of the shack.
"Door was unlocked when we got here, Detective, but he had quite a fortress inside; he was ready for battle if we came for him before his hired gun finished with the revenge."