Xo (Kathryn Dance 3)

She certainly didn't expect the laugh of disbelief and what he then said: "I can hardly do that, now, can I?"

"No?"

"You know that song of hers, 'Your Shadow'?"

There wasn't a single clue in his face that this song was a calling card for murder. She said casually, "Sure. Her big hit. You thought it was the best song she ever wrote."

Edwin's grin for once took on a patina of the genuine. "She told you that, did she?" He glowed; his lover had remembered something about him. "Well, it's about her, you know."

"About her, Kayleigh?"

"That's right. The first verse is about how people take advantage of her as a musician. And then there's a verse about that car crash--when her mother died. Kayleigh was fifteen. You know Bishop was driving, drunk."

No, Dance had not been aware of that.

"He spent eight months in jail. Never drove a car after that. Then that other verse, about the riverside?" At last the smile faded. "I think, I don't know, but I think something pretty bad happened to her when she was about sixteen. She disappeared for a while. I think she had a breakdown, tried to kill herself. Drowning, you know. That's the lyrics in the song."

Was that true? Dance had never heard of this either.

Now the uncomfortable smile faded. "How sad is that? Writing a song to comfort yourself, because nobody else is there for you? Awful...." Eyes focused intently on his interviewer. "Kayleigh sent me a dozen emails and a few real letters, and you know what I read between the lines in every single one? She needs me, Agent Dance. She needs me bad. If I left, who else would look out for her?"

Chapter 47

DEPUTY CRYSTAL STANNING, Michael O'Neil and Kathryn Dance were in the briefing room of the FMCSO. Acting Chief Detective Dennis Harutyun too.

Dance was reporting about the interview with Edwin. "I'll have to be honest. He's very hard to read kinesically. He's coming off as completely nondeceptive, which either means he's telling the whole truth or he's completely delusional."

"The son of a bitch did it," Stanning grumbled.

It seemed the woman had grown more self-confident and edgier as the case had progressed. Or maybe it was just Madigan's absence.

A call to the Joint County Emergency Communications headquarters revealed that Edwin had in fact called 911 to report a Peeping Tom. It was Saturday night, 7:00 P.M. He was complaining about somebody watching him from the backyard. No details. The dispatcher said to call back if the perp actually trespassed or threatened him.

Charlie Shean's crime scene team had just gone out to the place and conducted a search for where the intruder might have been. He was due any moment with the results.

O'Neil asked, "Saturday--the night before Bobby was killed. Who could've been watching him, who knew he was in town?"

Harutyun said, "We got the notice about a week ago--from Kayleigh's lawyers--that he might be in Fresno and could be a problem."

But Dance pointed out, "Anybody could've found out where he was."

"How's that?" Harutyun asked.

The Monterey detective added that on the fan websites, Sharp had posted that he was going to Fresno "for a while."

Harutyun took a call, spoke for a few minutes and then disconnected. "Patrol's canvassing the area around Bulldog Stadium. Cal State. Lotta people. It's slow going."

This was to find the woman who'd given Edwin directions at the time of Sheri's attack. Dance was calling her Alibi Woman.

A moment later Charlie Shean walked into the office. He greeted them all and briefed them about the scene.

In his thick Boston accent, rare in these parts, he said, "We went through his house and collected some trace but it was clean. I wonder if he scrubbed it down, after he gave you permission to search." A glance toward Dance.

She recalled the faint hesitation before Edwin gave his okay.

"Cigarettes?" Dance had asked them to check.

"No. No lighters or matches or ashtrays. No odor of cigarettes either.... Now, I know from before that the latex gloves in Edwin's kitchen probably aren't the same as at the Bobby Prescott homicide. The wrinkle patterns are different. Outside, where the alleged perp was spying on him? Well, we found some shoe prints in the dust, cowboy boots, it looks like, not the sort that garbage men or workers back there would wear. They were distorted because of the wind but at least it hadn't rained and washed the damn prints away. Can't tell size, male, female or age. And we collected about thirty samples of trace but the preliminaries are pretty useless. Sorry, Dennis--if there's anything there, I don't know how it can help.