The Sleeping Doll

to, as well.
    On her infrequent vacations or on long weekends, she’d head off in search of homemade music, often with the children and dogs in tow. A “folklorist” was the name of the avocation or, more popularly, “song catcher.” Alan Lomax was perhaps the most famous, collecting music from Louisiana to the Appalachians for the Library of Congress throughout the midtwentieth century. While his taste ran to black blues and mountain music, Dance’s scavenger hunt took her farther afield, to places reflecting the changing sociology of North America: music grounded in Latino, Caribbean, Nova Scotian, Canadian, urban African-American and Native American cultures.
    She and Martine helped the musicians copyright their original material, posted the taped songs and distributed to them the money that listeners paid for downloads.
    When the day came when Dance was no longer willing or able to track down criminals, she knew music would be a good way to spend retirement.
    Her phone rang. She looked at the caller ID number.
    “Well, hello.”
    “Hey there.” Michael O’Neil asked, “How’d it go with Reynolds?”
    “Nothing particularly helpful. But he’s checking his old files from the Croyton case.” She added that she’d picked up Morton Nagle’s material too, but hadn’t had a chance to look through it yet.
    O’Neil told her that the Focus stolen from Moss Landing hadn’t been located, and they’d discovered nothing else helpful at Jack’s Seafood. The techs had lifted fingerprints from the T-bird and the utensils: Pell’s and others that were common to both locations, presumably the woman’s. A search through state and federal databases revealed she had no record.
    “We did find one thing we’re a little troubled about. Peter Bennington—”
    “Your crime lab guy.”
    “Right. He said there was acid on the floorboard of the T-bird, driver’sseat side, the part that didn’t burn. It was recent. Peter said it was a corrosive acid—pretty diluted but Watsonville Fire soaked the car to cool it, so it could’ve been pretty strong when Pell left it there.”
    “You know me and evidence, Michael.”
    “Okay, the bottom line is that it was mixed with the same substance found in apples, grapes and candy.”
    “You think Pell was . . . what? Poisoning something?”
    Food was the raison d’etre of Central California. There were thousands of acres of fields and orchards, a dozen big wineries and other food processors all within a half-hour drive.
    “It’s a possibility. Or maybe he’s hiding out in an orchard or vineyard. We scared him at Moss Landing and he gave up on staying in a motel or boardinghouse. Think about the Pastures. . . . We ought to get some people searching.”
    “Have you got anybody available?” she asked.
    “I can shift some troops. Get CHP too. Hate to pull them off the search downtown and along One, but I don’t think we have any choice.”
    Dance agreed. She relayed to him Carraneo’s information about the T-bird.
    “Not racing forward at the speed of light, are we?”
    “Nup,” she agreed.
    “What’re you up to?”
    “Schoolwork.”
    “I thought the kids were out for the summer.”
    “ My schoolwork. On the manhunt.”
    “I’m headed your way right now. Want some help sharpening your pencils and cleaning the blackboard?”
    “Bring an apple for the teacher, and you’re on.”

Chapter 20
    “Hi, Michael,” Wes said, slapping him five.
    “Hey there.”
    They talked about the boy’s tennis camp—O’Neil played too—and about restringing rackets. Her lean, muscular son was skillful at most sports he tried, though he was now concentrating on tennis and soccer. He wanted to try karate or aikido, but Dance deflected him from martial arts. Sometimes the boy boiled over with anger—its source his father’s death—and she didn’t like encouraging fighting as a sport.
    O’Neil had undertaken a mission to keep the boy’s mind occupied with healthy diversions. He’d introduced him to two activities that were polar opposites: collecting books and spending time on O’Neil’s favorite spot on earth, Monterey Bay. (Dance sometimes thought the detective had been born in the wrong era and could easily picture him as the captain of an old-time sailing ship, or a fishing vessel in the 1930s.) Sometimes, while Dance had a mother/daughter outing with Maggie, Wes would spend the afternoon on O’Neil’s boat fishing or whale watching. Dance was violently