The Sleeping Doll

interesting. So I thought I’d specialize in that. I know it sounds lame but I just didn’t like the idea of bullies preying on vulnerable people.”
    She didn’t think it was lame at all.
    Down more corridors.
    “How’d you get into this line?” he asked.
    Dance gave him a brief version of the story. She’d been a crime reporter for a few years—she’d met her husband while covering a criminal trial (he gave her an exclusive interview in exchange for a date). After she grew tired of reporting, she went back to school and got degrees in psychology and communications, improving her natural gift of observation and an ability to intuit what people were thinking and feeling. She became a jury consultant. But nagging dissatisfaction with that job and a sense that her talents would be more worthwhile in law enforcement had led her to the CBI.
    “And your husband was like me, a feebie?”
    “Been doing your homework?” Her late husband, William Swenson, had been a dependable career special agent for the FBI, but he was just like tens of thousands of others. There was no reason for a specialist like Kellogg to have heard of him, unless he’d gone to some trouble to check.
    A bashful grin. “I like to know where I’m going on assignments. And who I’m going to meet when I get there. Hope you’re not offended.”
    “Not at all. When I interview a subject I like to know everything about his terrarium.” Not sharing with Kellogg that she’d had TJ scope out the agent through his friend in the Chico resident agency.
    A moment passed and he asked, “Can I ask what happened to your husband? Line of duty?”
    The thud in her belly generated by that question had become less pronounced over the years. “It was a traffic accident.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Thank you. . . . Now, welcome to Chez CBI.” Dance waved him into the lunchroom.
    They poured coffee and sat at one of the cheap tables.
    Her cell chirped. It was TJ.
    “Bad news. My bar-hopping days are over. Just as I got started. I found out where the Pemberton woman was before she was killed.”
    “And?”
    “With some Latino guy in the bar at the Doubletree. A business meeting, some event he wanted her to handle, the waiter thinks. They left about six thirty.”
    “You get a credit-card receipt?”
    “Yep, but she paid. Business expense. Hey, boss, I think we should start doing that.”
    “Anything else about him?”
    “Zip. Her picture’ll be on the news so he might see it and come forward.”
    “Susan’s phone logs?”
    “About forty calls yesterday. I’ll check them out when I’m back in the office. Oh, and statewide real estate tax records? Nope, Pell don’t own no mountaintops or anything else. I checked Utah too. Nothing there either.”
    “Good. I forgot about that.”
    “Or Oregon, Nevada, Arizona. I wasn’t being diligent. I was just trying to prolong my bar time as much as I could.”
    After they hung up she relayed the information to Kellogg, who grimaced. “A witness, hm? Who’ll see her picture on the tube and decide this is a real nice time to take that vacation to Alaska.”
    “And I can hardly blame him.”
    Then the FBI agent smiled as he looked over Dance’s shoulder. She glanced back. Her mother and children were walking into the lunchroom.
    “Hi, honey,” she said to Maggie, then hugged her son. There’d be a day, pretty soon, when public hugs would be verboten and she was storing up for the drought. He tolerated the gesture well enough today.
    Edie Dance and her daughter cast glances each other’s way, acknowledging Millar’s death but not specifically referring to the tragedy. Edie and Kellogg greeted each other, and exchanged a similar look.
    “Mom, Carly moved Mr. Bledsoe’s wastebasket!” Maggie told her breathlessly. “And every time he threw something out it went on the floor.”
    “Did you keep from giggling?”
    “For a while. But then Brendon did and we couldn’t stop.”
    “Say hello to Agent Kellogg.”
    Maggie did. But Wes only nodded. His eyes shifted away. Dance saw the aversion immediately.
    “You guys want hot chocolate?” she asked.
    “Yay!” Maggie cried. Wes said he would too.
    Dance patted her jacket pockets. Coffee was gratis but anything fancier took cash, and she’d left all of hers in her purse in her office; Edie had no change.
    “I’ll treat,” Kellogg said, digging into his pocket.
    Wes said quickly, “Mom, I want coffee instead.”
    The boy had sipped coffee