Jeffery Deaver - Solitude Creek

A moment later the other youngsters arrived, accompanied by the dogs, ever optimistic at the possibility a klutzy human would drop a bit of dinner.

As Dance, Maggie and Boling set the table, she told those assembled that her friend, country crossover singer, Kayleigh Towne, who lived in Fresno, had sent her and the children tickets to the Neil Hartman concert taking place next weekend.

‘No!’ Martine hit her playfully on the arm. ‘The new Dylan? It’s been sold out for months.’

Probably not the new Dylan but a brilliant singer-songwriter, and ace musician too, with a talented backup band. The gig here in town had been scheduled before the young man’s Grammy nomination. The small Monterey Performing Arts Center had sold out instantly after that.

Dance and Martine had a long history and music informed it. They’d met at a concert that was a direct descendant of the famed Monterey Folk Festival, where the ‘original Dylan’ — Bob — had made his west coast debut in ’65. The women had become friends and formed a non-profit website to promote indigenous musical talent. Dance, a folklorist by hobby — song-catcher — would travel around the state, occasionally farther afield, with an expensive portable recorder, collect songs and tunes, sell them on the site, keeping only enough money to maintain the server and pay expenses, and remitting the profits to the performers.

The site was called American Tunes, a homage to the great Paul Simon song from the seventies.

Boling brought the food out, opened more wine. The kids sat at a table of their own, though right next to the adults’ picnic bench. None of them asked to watch TV during the meal, which pleased Dance. Donnie was a natural comedian. He told joke after joke — all appropriate — keeping the younger kids in stitches.

Conversation reeled throughout dinner. When the meal wound down and Boling was serving Keurig coffee, decaf and cocoa, Martine cracked open her guitar and took out the beautiful old Martin 00–18. She and Dance sang a few songs — Richard Thompson, Kayleigh Towne, Rosanne Cash, Pete Seeger, Mary Chapin Carpenter and, of course, Dylan.

Martine called, ‘Hey, Maggie, your mom told me you’re singing “Let It Go” at your talent show.’

‘Yeah.’

‘You liked Frozen ?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘The twins loved it. Actually, we loved it too. Come on, sing it. I’ll back you up.’

‘Oh. No, that’s okay.’

‘Love to hear it, honey,’ Stuart Dance encouraged his granddaughter.

Martine told everyone, ‘She has a beautiful voice.’

But Maggie said, ‘Yeah, it’s that I don’t remember the words yet.’

Boling said, ‘Mags, you sang it all the way through today. A dozen times. I heard you in your room. And the lyric book was in the living room with me.’

A hesitation. ‘Oh, I remember. The DVD was on and they had the, you know, the words at the bottom of the screen.’

She was lying, Dance could easily see. If she knew anything, it was her own children’s kinesic baseline. What was this about? Dance recalled that Maggie had seemed more shy and moody in the past day or two. That morning, as she’d tipped her mother’s braid with the colorful elastic tie, Dance had tried to draw her out. Her husband’s death had seemed to hit Wes hardest at first but he seemed better, much better, about the loss; perhaps now Maggie was feeling the impact. But her daughter had denied it — denied, in fact, that anything was bothering her.

‘Well, that’s okay,’ Martine said. ‘Next time.’ And she sang a few more folk tunes, then packed up the guitar.

Martine and Steven took some leftovers that Boling had bagged up for them. Everyone said goodbye, hugs and kisses, and headed out of the door, leaving Boling alone with Dance and the older boys. Wes and Donnie were now texting friends as they sat around their complicated board game, gazing at it intensely. At their phone screens too.

Ah, the enthusiasm of youth...

‘Thanks for the food, everything,’ Dance told him.

‘You look tired,’ Boling said. He was infinitely supportive but he lived in a very different world from hers and she was reluctant to share too much about her impossible line of work. Still, she owed him honesty. ‘I am. It’s a mess. Not Serrano so much as Solitude Creek. That somebody’d do that on purpose. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s not like any case I’ve ever worked. It’s already exhausting.’

She hadn’t told him about the run-in with the mob outside Henderson Jobbing. And chose not to now. She was still spooked — and sore — from the encounter. And, to be honest to herself, she just didn’t want to relive it. She could still hear the rock shattering Billy Culp’s jaw. And still see the animal eyes of the mob as it bore down on them.

Fuck you, bitch...

The doorbell rang.

Boling frowned.

Dance hesitated. Then: ‘Oh, that’d be Michael. He’s running Solitude Creek with me. Didn’t I tell you he was coming over?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Been a crazy day, sorry.’

‘No worries.’

She opened the door and Michael O’Neil walked in.

‘Hey, Michael.’

‘Jon.’ The men shook hands.

‘Have some food. Greek. Got plenty left.’

‘No, thanks.’

‘Come on,’ Boling persisted. ‘Kathryn can’t eat moussaka for a week.’

She noted that he didn’t say, ‘ We can’t eat moussaka,’ though he might have. But Boling wasn’t a chest-thumping territory-staker.

O’Neil said, ‘Sure, it’s not too much trouble.’

‘Wine?’

‘Beer.’

‘Done.’

Boling prepared a plate and passed him a Corona. O’Neil lifted the bottle in thanks, then hung his sports jacket on a hook. He rarely wore a uniform and tonight was in khaki slacks and a light gray shirt. He sat on a kitchen chair, adjusting his Glock.

Dance had known and worked with O’Neil for years. The chief deputy and senior detective for the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office had been a mentor when Dance had joined the Bureau. Her background wasn’t law enforcement: she’d been a for-hire kinesics expert, helping attorneys and prosecutors pick juries and providing expert testimony. After her husband’s death — Bill Swenson had been an FBI agent — she’d decided to become a cop.

O’Neil had been with the MCSO for years and, with his intelligence and dogged nature (not to mention enviable arrest and conviction record), he could have gone anywhere but had chosen to stay local. O’Neil’s home was the Monterey Peninsula and he had no desire to be anywhere else. Family kept him close and so did the Bay. He loved boats and fishing. He could easily have been a protagonist in a John Steinbeck novel: quiet, solid of build, strong arms, brown eyes beneath dipping lids. His hair was thick and cut short, brown with abundant gray.

He waved to Wes.

‘Hey, Michael!’

Donnie, too, turned. The boy exhibited the fascination youngsters always did with the armament on the hip of a law officer. He whispered something to Wes, who nodded with a smile, and they turned their attention to the game.

O’Neil took the plate, ate some. ‘Thanks. Okay, this is excellent.’

They tapped bottle and glasses. Dance wasn’t hungry but gave in to a few bits of pita with tzatziki.

She said, ‘I didn’t know if you could make it tonight. With the kids.’ O’Neil had two children from a prior marriage, Amanda and Tyler, nine and ten. They were good friends with Dance’s youngsters — though Maggie more, because of the age proximity.

‘Somebody’s watching them,’ he said.

‘New sitter?’

‘Sort of.’

Footsteps approached. It was Donnie. He nodded to O’Neil and said to Dance, ‘Um, I really better be getting home. I didn’t know it was this late.’