The Cold Moon (Lincoln Rhyme 7)

"How'd that happen?"

Dance debated. Normally reluctant to talk about herself (listen first, talk last), she nonetheless felt a connection to Rhyme. They were rivals, in a way--forensics versus kinesics--yet ones who shared a common purpose. Also, his drive and his stubbornness reminded her of herself. His clear love of the hunt, as well.

So she said, "Jonny Ray Hanson . . . Jonny without an h."

"A perp?"

She nodded and told him the story. Six years ago Dance had been hired by prosecutors as a consultant to help pick jurors in the case of the State of California v. Hanson.

A thirty-five-year-old insurance agent, Hanson lived in Contra Costa County, north of Oakland, a half hour from the home of his ex-wife, who had a restraining order against him. One night someone had tried to break into her house. The woman wasn't home and some county sheriff's deputies, who regularly patrolled past her house, spotted and chased him, though the perp got away.

"Doesn't seem all that serious . . . but there was more to it. The sheriff's department was concerned because Hanson kept up the threats and had assaulted her twice. So they picked him up and talked to him for a while. He denied it and they let him go. But finally they thought they could make a case and arrested him."

Because of the prior offenses, Dance explained, a B-and-E charge would put him away for at least five years--and give his ex-wife and college-age daughter a respite from his harassment.

"I spent some time with them at the prosecutor's office. I felt so bad for them. They'd been living in absolute terror. Hanson would mail them blank sheets of paper, he'd leave weird messages on their phone. He'd stand exactly one block away--that was okay under the restraining order--and stare at them. He'd have food delivered to their house. Nothing illegal but the message was clear: I'll always be watching you."

To go shopping, mother and daughter had been forced to sneak out of their neighborhood in disguise and go to malls ten or fifteen miles from where they lived.

Dance had picked what she thought was a good jury, stacking it with single women and professional men (liberal but not too liberal), who'd be sympathetic to the victims' situation. As she often did, Dance stayed through trial to give the prosecution team advice--and to critique her choices, as well.

"I watched Hanson in court carefully and I was convinced he was guilty."

"But something went wrong?"

Dance nodded. "Witnesses couldn't be located or their testimony fell apart, physical evidence either disappeared or was contaminated, Hanson had a series of alibis that the prosecution couldn't shake: Every key point in the DA's case was countered by the defense; it was as if they'd bugged the prosecutor's office. He was acquitted."

"That's tough." Rhyme looked her over. "But there's more to the story, I sense."

"I'm afraid there is. Two days after the trial, Hanson tracked down his wife and daughter in a shopping center parking garage and knifed them to death. The daughter's boyfriend was with them. Hanson killed him too. He fled the area and was finally caught--a year later."

Dance sipped her coffee. "After the murders, the prosecutor was trying to figure out what we

nt wrong at trial. He asked me to look over the transcript of the initial interview at the sheriff's office." She gave a bitter laugh. "When I reviewed it I was floored. Hanson was brilliant--and the sheriff's department deputy who interviewed him was either totally inexperienced or lazy. Hanson played him like a fish. He ended up learning enough about the prosecution's case to completely undermine it--which witnesses to intimidate, what evidence he should dispose of, what kind of alibis he should come up with."

"And I'm assuming he got one other bit of information," Rhyme said, shaking his head.

"Oh, yes. The deputy asked if he'd ever been to Mill Valley. And later he asked if he ever frequented shopping centers in Marin County. That gave Hanson enough information to know where his ex and their daughter sometimes shopped. He basically just camped out around the Mill Valley mall until they showed up. That's where he killed them--and they didn't have any police protection there since it was a different county.

"That night I drove back home along Route One--the Pacific Coast Highway--instead of taking the One Oh One, the big freeway. I was thinking, Here I am being paid a hundred and fifty bucks an hour to anybody who needs a jury consultant. That's all fine, nothing immoral about that--it's the way the system works. But I couldn't help but think that if I'd conducted that interview myself, Hanson would've gone to jail and three people wouldn't have died.

"Two days later I signed up for the academy, and the rest, as they say, is history. Now, what's the scoop with you?"

"How'd I decide to become a cop?" He shrugged. "Nothing quite so dramatic. Boring, actually . . . just kind of fell into it."

"Really?"

Rhyme laughed.

Dance frowned.

"You don't believe me."

"Sorry, was I studying you? I try not to. My daughter says I look at her like she's a lab rat sometimes."

Rhyme sipped more scotch and said with a coy smile, "So?"

She lifted an eyebrow. "So?"