The Sleeping Doll

in the T-bird when he’d first seen her in the Whole Foods parking lot, proudly brushing away.
    Ah, the information we give away  . . .
    She didn’t want to cut it. In fact, she really didn’t want to. Long hair meant something to her. He supposed she’d let it grow at some point as protection from her vicious self-image. Some emblem of pathetic triumph over her flat chest and bumpy nose.
    Jennie remained on the bed. After a moment she said, “Sweetheart, I mean, I’ll cut it, sure. Whatever you want.” Another pause. “Of course, I was thinking: Wouldn’t it be better if we left now? After what happened at the restaurant? I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you. . . . Let’s just get another car and go to Anaheim! We’ll have a nice life. I promise. I’ll make you happy. I’ll support us. You can stay home until they forget about you.”
    “That sounds wonderful, lovely. But we can’t leave yet.”
    “Oh.”
    She wanted an explanation. Pell said only, “Now go cut it.” He added in a whisper, “Cut it short. Real short.”
    He handed her scissors. Her hands trembled as she took them.
    “Okay.” Jennie walked into the small bathroom, clicked on all the lights. From her training at the Hair Cuttery she used to work in, or because she was stalling, she spent some moments pinning the strands up before cuttingthem. She stared into the mirror, fondling the scissors uneasily. She closed the door partway.
    Pell moved to a spot on the bed where he could see her clearly. Despite his protests earlier, he found his face growing flushed, and the bubble starting to build inside him.
    Go ahead, lovely, do it!
    Tears streaking down her cheeks, she lifted a clump of hair and began to cut. Breathing deeply, then cutting. She wiped her face, then cut again.
    Pell was leaning forward, staring.
    He tugged his pants down, then his underwear. He gripped himself hard, and every time a handful of blond hair cascaded to the floor, he stroked.
    Jennie wasn’t proceeding very quickly. She was trying to get it right. And she had to pause often to catch her breath from the crying, and wipe the tears.
    Pell was wholly focused on her.
    His breathing came faster and faster. Cut it, lovely. Cut it!
    Once or twice he came close to finishing but he managed to slow down just in time.
    He was, after all, the king of control.
    •    •    •
    Monterey Bay Hospital is a beautiful place, located off a winding stretch of Highway 68—a multiple-personality route that piggybacks on expressways and commercial roads and even village streets, from Pacific Grove through Monterey and on to Salinas. The road is one of the main arteries of John Steinbeck country.
    Kathryn Dance knew the hospital well. She’d delivered her son and daughter here. She’d held her father’s hand after the bypass surgery in the cardiac ward and she’d sat beside a fellow CBI agent as he struggled to survive three gunshot wounds in the chest.
    She’d identified her husband’s body in the MBH morgue.
    The facility was in the piney hills approaching Pacific Grove. The low, rambling buildings were landscaped with gardens, and a forest surrounded the grounds; patients might awaken from surgery to find, outside their windows, hummingbirds hovering or deer gazing at them in narrow-eyed curiosity.
    The portion of the Critical Care Unit, where Juan Millar was presently being tended to, however, had no view. Nor was there any patient-pleasingdecor, just matter-of-fact posters of phone numbers and procedures incomprehensible to lay people, and stacks of functional medical equipment. He was in a small glass-walled room, sealed off to minimize the risk of infection.
    Dance now joined Michael O’Neil outside the room. Her shoulder brushed his. She felt an urge to take his arm. Didn’t.
    She stared at the injured detective, recalling his shy smile in Sandy Sandoval’s office.
    Crime scene boys love their toys. . . . I heard that somewhere .
    “He say anything since you’ve been here?” she asked.
    “No. Been out the whole time.”
    Looking at the injuries, the bandages, Dance decided out was better. Much better.
    They returned to the CCU waiting area, where some of Millar’s family sat—his parents and an aunt and two uncles, if she’d gotten the introductions right. She doled out her heartfelt sympathy to the grim-faced family.
    “Katie.”
    Dance turned to see a solid woman with short gray hair and large glasses. She wore a