Roadside Crosses

"Mr. Brigham, we're not here about the accident," O'Neil reminded him. "We're investigating the assault last night."

"Doesn't matter, does it? Things get written down and go into the record."

He seemed more concerned about responsibility for the accident than that his son might get arrested for attempted murder.

Ignoring them completely, he said to his wife, "Why'd you let 'em in? This ain't Nazi Germany, not yet. You can tell 'em to shove it."

"I thought-"

"No, you didn't. You didn't think at all." To O'Neil: "Now, I'll ask you to leave. And if you come back it better be with a warrant."

"Dad!" Sammy cried, racing from his bedroom, startling Dance. "It's working! I wanta show you!" He was holding up a circuit board, from which wires sprouted.

Brigham's gruffness vanished instantly. He hugged the younger son and said kindly, "We'll look at it later, after supper."

Dance was watching Travis's eyes, which grew still at the display of affection toward his younger brother.

"Okay." Sammy hesitated, then went out the back door and clomped down the porch and headed toward the shed.

"Stay close," Sonia called.

Dance noted that she hadn't told her husband about the vandalism that had just occurred. She'd be afraid of delivering bad news. She did, however, say of Sammy, "Maybe he should be on his pills." Eyes everywhere but at her husband.

"They're a rip-off, what they cost. Weren't you listening to me? And what's the point, if he stays home all day?"

"But he doesn't stay home all day. That's-"

"Because Travis don't watch him like he should."

The boy listened passively, apparently unmoved by the criticism.

O'Neil said to Bob Brigham, "A serious crime was committed. We need to talk to everyone who might be involved. And your son is involved. Can you confirm he was at the Game Shed last night?"

"I was out. But that's none of your business. And listen up, my boy didn't have nothing to do with any attacks. You staying's trespassing, isn't it?" He lifted a bushy eyebrow as he lit a cigarette, waved the match out and dropped it accurately into the ashtray. "And you," he snapped to Travis. "You're going to be late for work."

The boy went into his bedroom.

Dance was frustrated. He was their prime suspect, but she simply couldn't tell what was going on in Travis's mind.

The boy returned, carrying a brown-and-beige-striped uniform jacket on a hanger. He rolled it up and stuffed it into his backpack.

"No," Brigham barked. "Your mother ironed it. Put it on. Don't crumple it up like that."

"I don't want to wear it now."

"Show some respect to your mother, after all her work."

"It's a bagel shop. Who cares?"

"That's not the point. Put it on. Do what I'm telling you."

The boy stiffened. Dance gave an audible gasp seeing Travis's face. Eyes widening, shoulders rising. His lips drew back like those of a snarling animal. Travis raged to his father, "It's a stupid fucking uniform. I wear it on the street and they laugh at me!"

The father leaned forward. "You do not ever talk to me that way, and never in front of other people!"

"I get laughed at enough. I'm not going to wear it! You don't have any fucking idea!" Dance saw the boy's frantic eyes flicker around the room and settle on the ashtray, a possible weapon. O'Neil noticed this too and tensed, in case a fight was about to break out.

Travis had become somebody else entirely, possessed with anger.

The tendency to violence in young people almost always comes from rage, not watching movies or TV…

"I didn't do anything wrong!" Travis growled, wheeled around and pushed through the screen door, letting it snap back loudly. He hurried into the side yard, grabbed his bike, which was leaning against a broken fence, and walked it down a path through the woods bordering the backyard.

"You two, thanks for fucking up our day. Now get out."

With neutral-toned good-byes, Dance and O'Neil headed for the door, Sonia offering a timid glance of apology. Travis's father strode into the kitchen. Dance heard the refrigerator door open; a bottle fizzed open.

Outside, she asked, "How'd you do?"

"Not bad, I think," O'Neil offered and held up a tiny tuft of gray. He'd tugged it off the sweatshirt in the laundry basket when he'd stepped away to let Dance take over the questioning.

They sat in the front seat of O'Neil's cruiser. The doors slammed simultaneously. "I'll drop the fiber off with Peter Be

It wouldn't be admissible-they had no warrant-but it would at least tell them that Travis was the likely suspect.

"If it matches, put him under surveillance?" she asked.

A nod. "I'll stop by the bagel shop. If his bike's outside, I can get a soil sample from the treads. I think a magistrate'd go with a warrant if the dirt matches the beach scene." He looked Dance's way. "Gut feeling? You think he did it?"

Dance debated. "All I can say is that I only got clear deception signals twice."

"When?"

"First when he said he was at the Game Shed last night."

"And the second time?"

"When he said he didn't do anything wrong."

Chapter 11

Dance returned to her office at the CBI. She smiled at Jon Boling. He reciprocated, but then his face grew grim. He nodded at his computer. "More postings about Travis on The Chilton Report. Attacking him. And then other posts, attacking the attackers. It's an all-out flame war. And I know you wanted to keep the co

"How on earth?" Dance asked angrily.

Boling shrugged. He nodded to a recent posting.

Reply to Chilton, posted by BrittanyM.

Is anybody watching the news???? Somebody left a cross and then went out and attacked that girl. What's that all about? OMG, I'll bet it's [the driver]!

Subsequent postings suggested Tammy was attacked by Travis because she'd posted a critical comment in The Chilton Report. And he had become the "Roadside Cross Killer," even though Tammy had survived.

"Great. We try to keep it secret and we get outed by a teenage girl named Brittany."

"Did you see him?" Boling asked.

"Yes."

"You think he's the one?"

"I wish I could say. I'm leaning toward it." She explained her theory that it was hard to read Travis because he was living more in the synth world than the real, and he was masking his kinesic responses. "I will say there's a huge amount of anger there. How 'bout we take a walk, Jon? There's somebody I want you to meet."

A few minutes later they arrived at Charles Overby's office. On the phone, as he often was, her boss gestured Dance and Boling in, with a glance of curiosity at the professor.

The agent-in-charge hung up. "They made the co

BrittanyM…

Dance said, "Charles, this is Professor Jonathan Boling. He's been helping us."

A hearty handshake. "Have you now? What area?"

"Computers."

"That's your profession? Consultant?" Overby let this hang like a balsa-wood glider over the trio for a moment. Dance spotted her cue and was about to say that Boling was volunteering his time when the professor said, "I teach mostly, but, yes, I do some consulting, Agent Overby. It's really how I make most of my money. You know, academia pays next to nothing. But as a consultant I can charge up to three hundred an hour."

"Ah." Overby looked stricken. "Per hour. Really?"

Boling held a straight face for exactly the right length of time before adding, "But I get a real kick out of volunteering for free to help organizations like yours. So I'm tearing up my bill in your case."

Dance nearly had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Boling, she decided, could have been a good psychologist; he'd deduced Overby's prissy frugality in ten seconds flat, defused it-and slipped in a joke. For her benefit, Dance noted-since she was the only member of the audience.