The Sleeping Doll

recently?”
    “Yesterday.”
    “Okay, Tony. Now tell me about the telephones.” Dance recalled seeing a stress reaction when he’d told her Pell had made no calls other than to his aunt; Waters had touched his lips, a blocking gesture.
    If a subject confesses to one crime, it’s often easier to get him to confess to another.
    Waters said, “The other thing about Pell, everybody’ll tell you, he was into sex, way into sex. He wanted to make some phone-sex calls and I let him.”
    But Dance immediately noticed deviation from the baseline and concluded that although he was confessing, it was to a small crime, which usually means that there’s a bigger one lurking.
    “Did he now?” she asked bluntly, leaning close once again. “And how did he pay for it? Credit card? Nine-hundred number?”
    A pause. Waters hadn’t thought out the lie; he’d forgotten you had to pay for phone sex. “I don’t mean like you’d call up one of those numbers in the backs of newspapers. I guess it sounded like that’s what I meant. Danielcalled some woman he knew. I think it was somebody who’d written him. He got a lot of mail.” A weak smile. “Fans. Imagine that. A man like him.”
    Dance leaned a bit closer. “But when you listened there wasn’t any sex, was there?”
    “No, I—” He must’ve realized he hadn’t said anything about listening in. But by then it was too late. “No. They were just talking.”
    “You heard both of them?”
    “Yeah, I was on a third line.”
    “When was it?”
    “About a month ago, the first time. Then a couple more times. Yesterday. When he was in the office.”
    “Are calls there logged?”
    “No. Not local ones.”
    “If it was long distance it would be.”
    Eyes on the floor. Waters was miserable.
    “What, Tony?”
    “I got him a phone card. You call an eight hundred number and punch in a code, then the number you want.”
    Dance knew them. Untraceable.
    “Really, you have to believe me. I wouldn’t’ve done it, except the information he gave me . . . it was good. It saved—”
    “What were they talking about?” she asked in a friendly voice. You’re never rough with a confessing subject; they’re your new best friend.
    “Just stuff. You know. Money, I remember.”
    “What about it?”
    “Pell asked how much she’d put together and she said ninety-two hundred bucks. And he said, ‘That’s all?’ ”
    Pretty expensive phone sex, Dance reflected wryly.
    “Then she asked about visiting hours and he said it wouldn’t be a good idea.”
    So he didn’t want her to visit. No record of them together.
    “Any idea of where she was?”
    “He mentioned Bakersfield. He said specifically, ‘To Bakersfield.’ ”
    Telling her to go to his aunt’s place and pick up the hammer to plant in the well.
    “And, okay, it’s coming back to me now. She was telling him about wrens and hummingbirds in the backyard. And then Mexican food. ‘Mexican is comfort food.’ That’s what she said.”
    “Did her voice have an ethnic or regional accent?”
    “Not that I could tell.”
    “Was it low or high, her voice?”
    “Low, I guess. Kind of sexy.”
    “Did she sound smart or stupid?”
    “Jeez, I couldn’t tell.” He sounded exhausted.
    “Is there anything else that’s helpful, Tony? Come on, we really need to get this guy.”
    “Not that I can think of. I’m sorry.”
    She looked him over and believed that, no, he didn’t know anything more.
    “Okay. I think that’ll do it for the time being.”
    He started out. At the door, he paused and looked back. “Sorry I was kind of confused. It’s been a tough day.”
    “Not a good day at all,” she agreed. He remained motionless in the doorway, a dejected pet. When he didn’t get the reassurance he sought, he slumped away.
    Dance called Carraneo, currently en route to the You Mail It store, and gave him the information she’d pried from the guard: that his partner didn’t seem to have any accent and that she had a low voice. That might help the manager remember the woman more clearly.
    She then called the warden of Capitola and told her what happened. The woman was silent for a moment then offered a soft, “Oh.”
    Dance asked if the prison had a computer specialist. It did, and she’d have him search the computers in the administrative office for online activity and emails yesterday. It should be easy since the staff didn’t work on Sunday and Pell presumably had been the only one online—if he had