Solitude Creek (Kathryn Dance 4)

Finally, quiet Al Stemple spoke. "I think 'set up' means more wrongly implicating an innocent person, 'stead of trapping a guilty asshole. Am I being transparent enough, Steve?" He gave a loud grunt, then sat back and crossed his arms, wide as tree trunks.

The Guzman Connection sting had been Dance's idea and she'd fought hard for it. All the way up to Sacramento.

She'd decided to put together the operation after a horrific drive-by shooting in Seaside, a mother killed and a child wounded. The woman had been a witness to one of the Pipeline hubs. But no one could have known about her--except for a leak inside the operation itself.

"I went through the files a hundred times and looked for any other instance of operations that could've been compromised. TJ and I spent weeks correlating the personnel. We narrowed it down to four people involved in all of them--and who knew that Maria Ioaconna was a witness. You, Carol, Steve Lu and Jimmy. We brought you here. And set up the operation."

There'd been risks of course. That the guilty party might wonder why Dance was apparently working on the Solitude Creek case but was officially barred from the Serrano pursuit. (Overby had said, "Can't you forget about Solitude Creek, stay home and, I don't know, plant flowers? You can still show up at the Serrano sets." "I'm working Solitude," she'd answered bluntly.)

Risks to her physically too--as O'Neil had pointed out so vehemently: it was possible that their traitor would call someone like Lamont Howard, who would show up at one of the sets with his crew and waste everybody present.

But there was nothing else to do; Dance was determined to find their betrayer.

Foster stared at the room's ugly gray floors, and the muscles in his face flickered.

Dance added, "We never hoped for him directly. But getting Lamont Howard on the tape, ordering my hit?"

"Ah, that's righteous." Overby beamed.

A word she didn't believe she'd ever heard Overby say. He seemed to mull the line over and was embarrassed.

But Dance smiled his way. He was right. It was righteous. And a lot more.

Overby looked at his watch. Golf? Or maybe he was considering with some dismay the call to Sacramento, the CBI chief, to tell them the traitor came from the hallowed halls of their own agency. "Keep going, Kathryn. Convince him of the futility of his silence. Convince him of the shining path of confession. Whatever he says or doesn't, the media'll be here soon. You'll be at the podium with me, I hope?"

Charles Overby sharing a press conference?

"You've earned the limelight, Kathryn."

"Think I'd rather pass, Charles. It's been a long day." She nodded toward Foster. "And this may take a while."

"You're sure?"

"I am. Yes." Dance turned to her prey.

Chapter 91

A shadow in her office doorway.

Michael O'Neil stood there. Somber. His dark eyes locked on hers. Brown, green. Then he looked away.

"Hey," she said.

He nodded and sat down.

"You heard?"

"Foster. Yeah. Complete confession. Good job."

"Gave up a dozen names. People we never would've found. Bangers in L.A. and Oakland. Bakersfield, Fresno too." Dance looked away from her computer, on which she was typing notes from the Antioch March case. The promise of paperwork stretched out, long as the Golden Gate Bridge.

Documenting the Guzman Connection sting, part of Operation Pipeline, would be next, the arrest of Steve Foster.

She'd actually thought that he was the least likely suspect, given his obnoxious nature. She was so used to the apparent being different from the real that his guilt had not seemed likely. Dance had suspected mostly Carol Allerton. (What state cop didn't love bashing a fed?) But now she felt guilty about the suspicion. The DEA agent had been a good ally after the first sting operation. She was very pleased too that Jimmy Gomez, a friend, had not been the betrayer.

She now told Michael O'Neil about the finale of the sting. She, of course, didn't add that she believed she'd been right--that had she gone in armed, had she not maintained the sham of her suspension, Foster probably wouldn't have believed the scam.

Then she noted: O'Neil was listening but not listening. He regarded the photographs on her desk--the one of her with the children and dog. The eight-by-tens of her with her husband, Bill. Whatever happened in her personal life, she was never going to put their pictures away in an attic box. Displayed, always.