Roadside Crosses

too.
    The arguments continued.
    Dance the law enforcer found herself looking back to earlier that month, reliving the circumstances of the officer’s death. Trying to match facts with facts. Whom had she seen in the hospital around the time Juan Millar died? What exactly were the means of death? Where had her mother been?
    She now glanced up and found Edie staring at her. Dance gave a pale smile. Edie’s face was expressionless. The woman turned back to Sheedy.
    In the end the magistrate compromised. He set the bail at a half million dollars, which wasn’t atypical for a murder, but also wasn’t overly burdensome. Edie and Stuart weren’t wealthy but they owned their house outright; since it was in Carmel, not far from the beach, it had to be worth two million. They could put it up as security.
    Harper took the news stoically—his face unsmiling, his posture upright but relaxed. Dance’s reading was that he was completely stress free, despite the setback. He reminded her of the killer in Los Angeles, J. Doe. One of the reasons she’d had such a hard time spotting that perp’s deception was that a highly driven, focused person reveals, and feels, little distress when lying in the name of his cause. This certainly defined Robert Harper.
    Edie was hustled back to the cell and Stuart rose and went to see the clerk to arrange for the bail.
    As Harper buttoned his jacket and walked toward the door, his face a mask, Dance intercepted him. “Why are you doing this?”
    He regarded her coolly, said nothing.
    She continued, “You could’ve let Monterey County handle the case. Why’d you come down from San Francisco? What’s your agenda?” She was speaking loudly enough for the reporters nearby to hear.
    Harper said evenly, “I can’t discuss this with you.”
    “Why my mother?”
    “I have nothing to say.” And he pushed through the door and onto the steps of the courthouse, where he paused to address the press—to whom he apparently had plenty to say.
    Dance returned to a hard bench to await her father and mother.
    Ten minutes later, George Sheedy and Stuart Dance joined her.
    She asked her father, “It went okay?”
    “Yes,” he answered in a hollow voice.
    “How soon will she be out?”
    Stuart looked at Sheedy, who said, “Ten minutes, maybe less.”
    “Thank you.” He shook the lawyer’s hand. Dance nodded her gratitude to Sheedy, who told them he was returning to the office and would get started on the defense immediately.
    After he’d gone, Dance asked her father, “What did they take from the house, Dad?”
    “I don’t know. The neighbor said they seemed most interested in the garage. Let’s get out of here. I hate this place.”
    They walked out into the hallway. Several reporters saw Dance and approached. “Agent Dance,” one woman asked, “is it troubling to know your mother’s been arrested for murder?”
    Well, there’s some cutting-edge interviewing. She wanted to fire back with something sarcastic, but she remembered the number-one rule in media relations: Assume everything you say in a reporter’s presence will appear on the six o’clock news or on tomorrow’s front page. She smiled. “There’s no doubt in my mind that this is a terrible misunderstanding. My mother has been a nurse for years. She’s devoted herself to saving lives, not taking them.”
    “Did you know that she signed a petition supporting Jack Kevorkian and assisted suicide?”
    No, Dance didn’t know that. And, she wondered, how had the press come by the information so fast? Her reply: “You’ll have to ask her about that. But petitioning to change the law isn’t the same as breaking it.”
    It was then that her phone sounded. It was O’Neil. She stepped away to take the call. “Michael, she’s getting out on bail,” she told him.
    There was a moment’s pause. “Good. Thank God.”
    Dance realized he was calling about something else, and something that was serious. “What is it, Michael?”
    “They’ve found another cross.”
    “A real memorial, or with a future date?”
    “Today. And it’s identical to the first one. Branches and florist wire.”
    Her eyes closed in despair. Not again.
    Then O’Neil said, “But, listen. We’ve got a witness. A guy who saw Travis leave it. He might’ve seen where he went or saw something about him that’ll tell us where he’s hiding. Can you interview him?”
    Another pause. Then: “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
    O’Neil gave her the