Samantha was typically reluctant to disagree, but she was clearly certain about this. "He thought Manson was an example of what not to do."
But Linda shook her head. "No, no, he had all those books and articles about him."
Dance recalled that she'd gotten a longer prison sentence because she'd destroyed some of the incriminating material about Manson the night of the Croyton murders. She seemed troubled now that her heroic act might have been pointless.
"The only parallels were that he lived with several women and had us doing crimes for him. Manson wasn't in control of himself, Daniel said. He claimed he was Jesus, he tattooed a swastika on his forehead, he thought he had psychic powers, he ranted about politics and race. That was another example of emotions controlling you. Just like tattoos and body piercings or weird haircuts. They give people information about you. And information is control. No, he thought Manson did everything wrong. Daniel's heroes were Hitler--"
"Hitler?" Dance asked her.
"Yep. Except he faulted him because of that 'Jewish thing.' It was a weakness. Pell said that if Hitler could suck it up and live with Jews, even include them in the government, he'd have been the most powerful man in history. But he couldn't control himself, so he deserved to lose the war. He admired Rasputin too."
"The Russian monk?"
"Right. He worked his way into Nicholas and Alexandra's household. Pell liked Rasputin's use of sex to control people." Drawing a laugh from Rebecca and a blush from Linda. "Svengali too."
"The Trilby book?" Dance asked.
"Oh," Samantha said. "You know about that? He loved that story. Linda read it a dozen times."
"And frankly," Rebecca said, "it was pretty bad."
Glancing at her notebook, the agent asked the newcomer about the keywords Pell had searched in prison.
" 'Nimue'?" Samantha repeated. "No. But he had a girlfriend named Alison once."
"Who?" Linda asked.
"When he was in San Francisco. Before the Family. She was in this group, sort of like the Family."
"What're you talking about?" Linda asked.
Samantha nodded. She looked uneasily at Linda. "But it wasn't his group. He just was bumming around and met Alison and got to know some of the people in that cult, or whatever it was. Daniel wasn't a member--he didn't take orders from anybody--but he was fascinated with it, and hung out with them. He learned a lot about how to control people. But they got suspicious of him--he wouldn't really commit. So he and Alison left. They hitchhiked around the state. Then he got arrested or picked up by the police for something, and she went back to San Francisco. He tried to find her but he never could. I don't know why he'd want to try now."
"What was her last name?"
"I don't know."
Dance wondered aloud if Pell was looking for this Alison--or someone named Nimue--for revenge. "After all, he'd need a pretty good reason to risk going online in Capitola to find somebody."
"Oh," Samantha said, "Daniel didn't believe in revenge."
Rebecca said, "I don't know, Sam. What about that biker? That punk up the street? Daniel almost killed him."
Dance remembered Nagle telling them about a neighbor in Seaside whom Pell had assaulted.
"First of all," Linda said, "Daniel didn't do it. That was somebody else."
"Well, no, he beat the crap out of him. Nearly killed him."
"But the police let him go."
Curious proof of innocence, Dance reflected.
"Only because the guy didn't have the balls to press charges." Rebecca looked at Samantha. "Was it our boy?"
Samantha shrugged, avoiding their gaze. "I think so. I mean, yeah, Daniel beat him up."
Linda looked unconvinced.