The Sleeping Doll

played the part. He’d sit in court and stare at the jurors, trying to intimidate, scare them. He tried it with me too. I laughed at him and said I didn’t think psychic powers had any effect on lawyers. The jury laughed too. It broke the spell.” He shook his head. “Not enough to get him the needle, but I was happy with consecutive life sentences.”
    “You also prosecuted the three women in the Family?”
    “I pled them out. It was pretty much minor stuff. They didn’t have anything to do with the Croyton thing. I’m positive of that. Before they ran into Pell, none of them’d ever been picked up for anything worse than drinking in public or a little pot, I think. Pell brainwashed them. . . . Jimmy Newberg was different. He had a history of violence—some aggravateds and felony drug charges.”
    In the spacious kitchen, decorated entirely in yellow and beige, Reynolds put on an apron. He’d apparently slipped it off to answer the door. “I took up cooking after I retired. Interesting contrast. Nobody likes a prosecutor.But”—he nodded at a large orange skillet filled with cooking seafood—“my cioppino . . . everybody loves that.”
    “So,” Dance said, looking around with an exaggerated frown. “This is what a kitchen looks like.”
    “Ah, a take-out queen. Like me when I was a working bachelor.”
    “My poor kids. The good news is that they’re learning defensive cooking. For last Mother’s Day? They made me strawberry crepes.”
    “And all you had to do was clean up. Here, try a bowl.”
    She couldn’t resist. “Okay, just a sample.”
    He dished up a portion. “It needs red wine to accompany.”
    “That I’ll pass on.” She tried the stew. “Excellent!”
    Reynolds had been in touch with Sandoval and the Monterey County sheriff and learned the latest details of the manhunt, including the information that Pell was staying in the area. (Dance noted that, regarding the CBI, he’d called her and not Charles Overby.)
    “I’ll do whatever I can to help you nail this bastard.” The former prosecutor meticulously sliced a tomato. “Just name it. I’ve already called the county storage company. They’re bringing me all my notes from the case. Probably ninety-nine percent of them won’t be helpful, but there could be a nugget or two. And I’ll go through every damn page, if I have to.” Dance glanced at his eyes, which were dark coals of determination, very different from, say, Morton Nagle’s sparkle. She had never worked any cases with Reynolds, but knew he’d be a fierce and uncompromising prosecutor.
    “That’d be very helpful, James. Appreciate it.” Dance finished the stew and rinsed the bowl, placing it in. “I didn’t even know you were in the area. I’d heard you retired to Santa Barbara.”
    “We have a little place there. But we’re here most of the year.”
    “Well, when you called, I got in touch with MCSO. I’d like to have a deputy stationed outside.”
    Reynolds dismissed the idea. “I’ve got a good alarm system. I’m virtually untraceable. When I became lead prosecutor I started getting threats—those Salinas gang prosecutions. I had my phone unlisted and transferred title to the house to a trust. There’s no way he could find me. And I’ve got a carry permit for my six-gun.”
    Dance wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “He’s already killed several times today.”
    A shrug. “Sure, what the hell. I’ll take a babysitter. Can’t hurt—my younger son’s here visiting. Why take chances?”
    Dance scooted onto a stool. She rested her maroon wedge Aldos on the supports. The straps on the shoes were inlaid with bright daisies. Even ten-year-old Maggie had more conservative taste than she did when it came to shoes, which were one of Dance’s passions.
    “For now, could you tell me something about the murders eight years ago? It might give me an idea of what he’s up to.”
    Reynolds sat on an adjoining stool, sipping wine. He ran through the facts of the case: How Pell and Jimmy Newberg had broken into the house of William Croyton in Carmel, killed the businessman, his wife and two of their three children. They were all stabbed to death.
    “Newberg too. My theory was that he balked about killing the kids and got into a fight with Pell, who killed him .”
    “Any history between Pell and Croyton?”
    “Not that we could establish. But Silicon Valley was at its peak then, and Croyton was one of the big boys. He was in the