Solitude Creek Read Online Free PDF Page B

did.’
    Going to bat for her …
    Foster now regarded Overby with a neutral gaze that Dance, however, read as contempt for her boss’s backpedaling.
    ‘I told him body language isn’t an exact science. You did
the best you could with Serrano. I saw you. We all did. It looked to me like he was telling the truth. Right, Steve? Who could
tell?’
    Dance could see that Foster was thinking, But it’s not
our
area of expertise to sit across from a perp and pick apart the entrails of his words, poses and gestures to get to the truth.
    Overby continued, ‘But no one was hurt. Not badly. No weapons were discharged.’
    The redhead in the parking lot had not been run over after all. She’d rolled out of the way, under an SUV, as the Altima had sped out of the parking space. Her Dell computer and her lunch had not survived; their loss was what the horrific-sounding crunch had signaled.
    ‘Charles, Serrano is High Mach. I missed it, I admit. But you see those one in every hundred cases.’
    ‘What’s that? High what?’ Foster asked.
    ‘A category of liars’ personalities. The most ruthless and, yeah, slick –’ she threw the word back at Foster ‘– are the “High Machiavellians”. High Machs love to lie. They lie with impunity. They see nothing wrong with it. They use deceit like a smartphone or search engine, a tool to get what they want. Whether it’s in love, business, politics – or crime.’ She added that there were other types, which included social liars, who lied to entertain, and adaptors, who were insecure people lying to make a positive impression. Another common type was the ‘actor’, someone for whom control was an important issue. ‘They don’t lie regularly, only when necessary. But Serrano, he just didn’t present like any of them. Sure not a High Mach. All I picked up was what I said, some small evasions. Social lies.’
    ‘Social?’
    ‘Everybody lies.’ The statistics were that every human being lied at least once or twice a day. Dance shot a glance to Foster. ‘When did you lie last?’
    He rolled his eyes. She thought, Maybe when he said, ‘Good to see you,’ this morning.
    She continued, ‘But I was getting to know him. I’m the only one here, or in any other agency, who’s spent time with him. And now we know he could be a key to the whole operation. I don’t need to lead it. Just don’t take me off the case.’
    Overby ran a hand through his thinning hair. ‘Kathryn, you want to make it right. I understand. Sure you do. But I don’t know what to tell you. It’s been decided. Peter’s already signed off on the reassignment.’
    ‘Already.’
    Foster: ‘More efficient, when you think about it. We didn’t really need two agents from this office. Jimmy Gomez is good. Don’t you agree, Kathryn?’
    A junior agent at the CBI, one of the two others on the Guzman Connection task force. Yes, he was good. That wasn’t the point. She ignored Foster. She stood and, to Overby, said, ‘So?’
    He looked at her with one raised eyebrow.
    Her shoulders rose and fell impatiently. ‘I’m not suspended. I’m Civ Div. So, what’s on my roster?’
    He looked blank for a moment. Then scoured his desk. He noted a Post-it, bright yellow, glaring as a rectangle of sun fell on it. ‘Here’s something. Got a memo on the wire from MCFD a little while ago. About that Solitude Creek incident?’
    ‘The fire at the roadhouse.’
    ‘That’s right. The county’s investigating but somebody from the state is supposed to make sure the club’s tax and insurance certificates’re up to date.’
    ‘Tax? Insurance?’
    ‘CHP didn’t want to handle it.’
    Who would? Dance thought.
    Foster’s absence of gloat was the biggest gloat she had ever seen.
    ‘Take care of that. Then I’ll see what else needs doing.’
    With Dance ‘tasked’ to take on the fine print of California insurance regulations and tacitly dismissed, Overby turned to Steve Foster to discuss the manhunt for Joaquin