Roadside Crosses

smelled subtle aftershave. Pleasant.
    “Okay. Good. Of course, you know those are the raw computer addresses. We’ve got to contact all the providers and find out names and physical addresses. I’ll get right on it.”
    She printed out the list—it contained about thirty individuals’ names—and handed it to him. He disappeared back into his corner of the lair and hunkered down in front of his computer.
    “May have something, boss.” TJ had been posting pictures of the mask on the Web and in blogs and asking if anybody knew its source. He ran his hand through his curly red hair. “Pat me on the back.”
    “What’s the story?”
    “The mask is of some character in a computer game.” A glance at the mask. “Qetzal.”
    “What?”
    “That’s his name. Or its name. A demon who kills people with these beams from its eyes. And it can only moan because somebody laced up the lips.”
    Dance asked, “So it’s getting even with people who have the ability to communicate.”
    “Didn’t really run a Dr. Phil on him, boss,” TJ said.
    “Fair enough.” She smiled.
    “The game,” TJ continued, “is DimensionQuest. ”
    “It’s a Morpeg,” Boling announced, without looking up from his own computer.
    “What’s that?”
    “ DimensionQuest is an M-M-O-R-P-G—massively multiplayer online role-playing game. I call them ‘Morpegs.’ And DQ is one of the most popular.”
    “Helpful to us?”
    “I don’t know yet. We’ll see when we get into Travis’s computer.”
    Dance liked the professor’s confidence. “When,” not “if.” She sat back, pulled out her cell phone and called her mother. Still no answer.
    Finally she tried her father.
    “Hey, Katie.”
    “Dad. How’s Mom? She never called me.”
    “Oh.” A hesitation. “She’s upset, of course. I think she’s just not in the mood to talk to anybody.”
    Dance wondered how long her mother’s conversation had been with Dance’s sister, Betsey, last night.
    “Has Sheedy said anything else?”
    “No. He’s doing some research, he said.”
    “Dad, Mom didn’t say anything, did she? When she was arrested?”
    “To the police?”
    “Or to Harper, the prosecutor?”
    “No.”
    “Good.”
    She felt an urge to ask him to put her mother on the phone. But she didn’t want the rejection if she said no. Dance said brightly, “You are coming over for dinner tonight? Right?”
    He assured her they would, though his tone really meant that they’d try.
    “I love you, Dad. Tell Mom too.”
    “Bye, Katie.”
    They hung up. Dance stared at the phone for a few minutes. Then she strode up the hall and into her boss’s office, entering without knocking.
    Overby was just hanging up. He nodded at the phone. “Kathryn, any leads in the Morgan girl’s attack? Something about biochemicals? News Nine called.”
    She closed the door. Overby eyed her uneasily.
    “No biological weapons, Charles. It was just rumors.”
    Dance ran through the leads: the mask, the state vehicle, Caitlin Gardner’s report that Travis liked the seashore, the household chemicals. “And Chilton’s cooperating. He gave the Internet addresses of the posters.”
    “That’s good.” Overby’s phone rang. He glanced at it but let his assistant pick up.
    “Charles, did you know my mother was going to be arrested?”
    He blinked. “I . . . no, of course not.”
    “What’d Harper tell you?”
    “That he was checking the caseloads.” Starch in his words. Defensive. “What I said yesterday.”
    She couldn’t tell if he was lying. And she understood why: Dance was breaking the oldest rule in kinesic interrogation. She was being emotional. When that happened, all her skills fell by the wayside. She had no idea if her boss had betrayed her or not.
    “He was looking through our files to see if I’d altered anything about the Millar situation.”
    “Oh, I doubt that.”
    The tension in the room hummed.
    Then it vanished, as Overby gave a reassuring smile. “Ah, you’re worrying too much, Kathryn. There’ll be an investigation, and the case will all go away. You don’t have a thing to worry about.”
    Did he know something? Eagerly, she asked, “Why do you say that, Charles?”
    He looked surprised. “Because she’s innocent, ofcourse. Your mother’d never hurt anyone. You know that.”
    DANCE RETURNED TO the Gals’ Wing, to the office of her fellow agent Connie Ramirez. The short, voluptuous Latina, with black, black hair always sprayed meticulously in place,