Roadside Crosses

arrested. . . .”
    “What?”
    “That mercy killing. Juan Millar.”
    “Oh, Katie.”
    “I’m taking the kids to Martine’s, then meet me at the courthouse in Salinas. She’s going to be booked and there’ll be a bond hearing.”
    “Sure. I . . . I don’t know what to do, honey.” His voice broke.
    It cut her deeply to hear her own father—normally unflappable and in control—sounding so helpless.
    “We’ll get it worked out,” she said, trying to sound confident but feeling just as uncertain and confusedas he would be. “I’ll call later, Dad.” They disconnected.
    “Mom,” she called through the car window, looking down at her mother’s grim face. “It’ll be all right. I’ll see you at the courthouse.”
    The prosecutor said sternly, “Agent Dance, I don’t want to remind you again. No talking to the prisoner.”
    She ignored Harper. “And don’t say a word to anyone,” she warned her mother.
    “I hope we’re not going to have a security problem here,” the prosecutor said stiffly.
    Dance glared back, silently defying him to make good on his threat, whatever it might be. Then she glanced at the CHP troopers nearby, one of whom she’d worked with. His eyes avoided hers. Everybody was in Harper’s pocket on this one.
    She turned and strode back toward her car, but diverted to the woman social worker.
    Dance stood close. “Those children have cell phones. I’m number two on speed dial, right after nine-one-one. And I guarantee they told you I’m a law enforcement officer. Why the fuck didn’t you call me?”
    The woman blinked and reared back. “You can’t talk to me that way.”
    “Why the fuck didn’t you call?”
    “I was following procedures.”
    “Procedures are the welfare of the child comes first. You contact the parent or guardian in circumstances like this.”
    “Well, I was doing what I was told.”
    “How long’ve you had this job?”
    “That’s none of your business.”
    “Well, I’ll tell you, miss. There’re two answers: either not long enough, or way too long.”
    “You can’t—”
    But Dance was gone by then and climbing back into her car, grinding the starter; she’d never shut the engine off when she’d arrived.
    “Mom,” Maggie asked, weeping with heartbreaking whimpers. “What’s going to happen to Grandma?”
    Dance wasn’t going to put on a false facade for the children; she’d learned as a parent that in the end it was better to confront pain and fear, rather than to deny or defer them. But she had to struggle to keep panic from her voice. “Your grandmother’s going to see a judge and I hope she’ll be home soon. Then we’re going to find out what’s happened. We just don’t know yet.”
    She’d take the children to the home of her best friend, Martine Christensen, with whom she operated her music website.
    “I don’t like that man,” Wes said.
    “Who?”
    “Mr. Harper.”
    “I don’t like him either,” Dance said.
    “I want to go to the courthouse with you,” Maggie said.
    “No, Mags. I don’t know how long I’m going to be there.”
    Dance glanced back and gave a reassuring smile to the children.
    Seeing their wan, forlorn faces, she grew all the angrier at Robert Harper.
    Dance plugged in her phone’s hands-free mike, thought for a moment and called the best defense lawyer she could think of. George Sheedy had once spent four hours trying to discredit Dance on the witness stand. He’d come close to winning a verdict of not guilty for a Salinas gang leader who clearly was. But the good guys had won and the punk got life. After the trial, Sheedy had come up to Dance and shaken her hand, complimenting her on the solid job she’d done testifying. She’d told him too that she’d been impressed by his skill.
    As her call was being transferred to Sheedy, she noticed that the cameramen continued to record the excitement, every one of them focused on the car in which her mother sat, handcuffed. They looked like insurgents firing rocket launchers at shell-shocked troops.
    CALM NOW, AFTER the intruder in the backyard turned out not to be the Abominable Snowman, Kelley Morgan was concentrating on her hair.
    The teenager was never far from her curlers.
    Her hair was the most frustrating thing in the world. A little humidity and it went all frizzy. Pissed her off sooo much.
    She had to meet Juanita and Trey and Toni on Alvarado in forty minutes, and they were such great friends that if she was more than ten