"No."
"Any employees there named Alison?"
The disembodied voice of the techie said, "Nope. But I was going to say I might be able to find out what sites he logged onto. It depends on whether he just erased or shredded them. If they're shredded, forget it. But if they're just dumped I might be able to find them floating around in the free space somewhere on the hard drive."
"Anything you can do would be appreciated," Dance said.
"I'll get right on it."
She thanked him and they disconnected.
"TJ, check out 'Nimue.' "
His fingers flew over the keyboard. The results came up and he scrolled through them. After a few minutes he said, "Hundreds of thousands of hits. Looks like a lot of people use it as a screen name."
O'Neil said, "Somebody he knew online. Or a nickname. Or somebody's real last name."
Staring at the screen, TJ continued, "Trademarks too: cosmetics, electronic equipment--hm, sex products . . . Never seen one of those before."
"TJ," Dance snapped.
"Sorry." He scrolled again. "Interesting. Most references are to King Arthur."
"As in Camelot?"
"I guess." He continued to read. "Nimue was the Lady of the Lake. This wizard, Merlin, fell in love with her--he was like a hundred or something and she was sixteen. Now that'll guarantee you twenty minutes on Dr. Phil." He read some more. "Merlin taught her how to be a sorceress. Oh, and she gave King Arthur this magic sword."
"Excalibur," O'Neil said.
"What?" TJ asked.
"The sword. Excalibur. Haven't you heard any of this before?" the detective asked.
"Naw, I didn't take Boring Made-up Stuff in college."
"I like the idea that it's somebody he was trying to find. Cross-check 'Nimue' with 'Pell,' 'Alison,' 'Ca
lifornia,' 'Carmel,' 'Croyton' . . . Anything else?"
O'Neil suggested, "The women: Sheffield, McCoy, Whitfield."
"Good."
After several minutes of frantic typing the agent looked over at Dance. "Sorry, boss. Zip."
"Check the search terms out with VICAP, NCIC and the other main criminal databases."
"Will do."
Dance stared at the words she'd written. What did they mean? Why had he risked going online to check them out?
Helter Skelter, Nimue, Alison . . .
And what had he been looking at on Visual-Earth? A place he intended to flee to, a place he intended to burglarize?
She asked O'Neil, "What about the forensics at the courthouse?"
The detective consulted his notes. "No red flags. Almost everything was burned or melted. The gas was in plastic milk jugs inside a cheap roller suitcase. Sold in a dozen places--Wal-Mart, Target, stores like that. The fireproof bag and fire suit were made by Protection Equipment, Inc., New Jersey. Available all over the world but most are sold in Southern California."