by Lisa Jackson
But she’d been wrong before.
“I don’t think he was here,” she said, wondering about the killer, what was his motive, how he knew the judge. “I think he waited for her on the ridge.”
“For how long? Unless he knew her routine, he might be sitting up there for hours, maybe days. Did she go skiing every day? Did he just get lucky?” Squinting at the surrounding forest, she nodded, as if agreeing with herself. “I’ll bet the guy knows her, knows her routine, or else knows someone who told him about the fact she comes up here and goes skiing every year.”
“Maybe they overheard her talking.”
“Could be, but no one’s going to camp out on the ridge in this cold without knowing he’s got a chance to take her down.”
“So he knows her.”
“Or she . . . could be a woman,” Alvarez corrected, still deep in thought.
“Or a hired hit man.”
They heard the rumble of an engine, and within seconds another van from the crime scene pulled into view only to stop by the Jeep.
Pescoli recognized Mikhail Slatkin at the wheel and felt a little better. Slatkin was one of the best techs in the business. If there was evidence of any kind to find, Slatkin would locate it.
They spoke to the techs for a few minutes, then walked back to the Jeep.
Next up, after a quick stop at the station to catch up on e-mail, tips, and reports that had come in, she and Alvarez would check the judge’s place in town and start tearing through Judge Samuels-Piquard’s private and public lives, hoping they’d find some clue as to who would want her dead so badly as to actually put a bullet in her brain.
Chapter 16
When Pescoli returned to the station, she didn’t expect to see her son, but there he was, big as life, washing out the coffeepot—a job he would never deign do at home—in the lunchroom that smelled of burned coffee and chili peppers and cilantro.
“What’s this?” she asked, walking up to him. He’d shaved, combed his hair, and was wearing a pair of jeans that didn’t hang so low on his buttocks they were in danger of falling off. He was even wearing one of his two dress shirts and a damned tie, the one she’d bought him for his high-school graduation.
“I told you, I’m . . . like a deputy now.”
“I just don’t get it.”
“Only because you don’t want to.” He was rubbing the glass pot so hard, she thought he might break it. Soapy water splashed onto his shirtsleeves. “I told you before, I want to be a cop. Like Dad. Like you.”
“Oh, Jer—”
“Don’t, Mom. Okay?” he said, turning fast and glaring down at her. Then in a lower voice, he whispered, “Not here.”
When the hell had he gotten so tall? In those seconds, when anger flashed in his eyes and determination set his jaw, he looked so much like Joe she was flung back in time to one of the many arguments in their marriage. Again. This déjà vu thing was beginning to become a habit. And not a good one.
His face had flushed and belatedly she realized she was embarrassing him. Oh, for the love of God, as if anyone cared. But Jeremy slid his eyes to one side where a grouping of tables was strewn with empty cups and pages of the newspaper. A few other cops were taking a break, though none was showing the least amount of interest in their discussion.
Brett Gage, glasses set on the end of his nose, was working a Sudoku in the newspaper while eating what looked like a tuna sandwich, and two road deputies were just pushing back their chairs, their break over. Rhonda Cafferty was finishing a Diet Coke, draining the can, while Shanna from Dispatch carried the remains of her lunch, a Lean Cuisine lasagne, and tossed the scraps and box into the trash.
“Come on, Mom,” Jeremy said softly. “Give me a break, would ya?” He looked over her shoulder as the sharp staccato sound of high heels clipped against the old tile floor. It didn’t take all of her detection skills to realize that Joelle had arrived.
“Oh, let me do that!” the receptionist insisted, and before Jeremy could refill the coffeepot with fresh water, she’d nudged him with her hips away from the sink. Her pre-Christmas holiday colors had been replaced with a blue suit and snowflake earrings. The glitter in her hair was missing and some of the sparkle had left her eyes, but she managed a small smile for Jeremy. “Look at you,” she said, sizing him up and down as he stood, still holding the coffeepot. “All grown up!” With a glance in Pescoli’s direction, she said, “Aren’t you proud?”
Jeremy arched a dark brow, silently urging her to argue.
“Always,” Pescoli lied . . . it was really just a half-truth. Of course she was proud of her children, yes, but frustrated as hell with each of them at times. The pride thing . . . it wavered with the situation. She thought about last night, how relieved she’d been that he’d checked on her, how disappointed she’d been to know that he’d been out doing God knows what with Heidi Brewster.
“You should be!” Joelle was taking control of the kitchen area. Locating a premeasured package of coffee in the drawer, she eyed it and discarded it. “Decaf? I don’t think so. Not today with all that’s going on. Everyone needs to be on their toes!” Slapping a caffeinated packet into the basket of another pot she found in the cupboard, she sent a sharp look at Pescoli’s son. “And you. Why don’t you help me out front with the phones? The undersheriff is going to hold a press conference, and no doubt Vera and I will get swamped. Also, you can take over Vera’s job of pointing people in the right direction. If anyone walks into the department, you’ll be who they talk to, and don’t worry, we have maps up front at the desk.” She motioned toward the glass pot still in his hand. “Put that carafe away and come along, I’ll show you where we keep the maps and give you a crash course on reception.”
“Sure . . . fine,” he agreed.
“Just give me a sec.” Filling the new pot with water, she added, “And we’ll make it official. Find you a shirt and hat from the department. Trust me, you’ll be all set!” Joelle pushed the appropriate button on one of the coffeemakers, then swiped the counter with a towel. “There we go!” Smiling in satisfaction, she snapped the towel, then hung it on a rack near the sink. “All done.” Kitchen to her standards again, the coffeepot already gurgling, hissing, and dripping, she headed toward the hall.
“Don’t you, like, have some work to do or something?” Jeremy whispered to Pescoli as Joelle in the archway wiggled her manicured fingers in a “come along” gesture, then clicked her way out of sight.
“More than ‘or something.’ And lots of it.”
“Then shouldn’t you be doing it?”
She almost told him to shove his attitude but decided to back off. For now. “Okay, but this isn’t over,” she warned. “We’ll talk about it tonight,” she said.
“Whatever.” Gone was his earnest expression, replaced by sullen rebellion as he slammed the coffeepot back into the brewer hard enough that she was certain the glass would shatter. Gratefully, it didn’t.
“Jeremy, c’mon. This is my workplace.”
“Mine, too, Mom.” Turning away from her, he followed after Joelle and Pescoli sent up a rare, silent prayer, just as she thought she heard a barely audible, “I just don’t know what the fuck you expect from me.”
Realizing that her fists had clenched and that Brett Gage had looked up from his puzzle, Pescoli tried to think of something to say—and failed.
“Teenagers,” he said into the silence, his smile knowing. “Can’t live with ’em, can’t shoot ’em.”
“But you can ground them, if they still live with you,” she said, and silently added, Even when they’re in their twenties.
“Yeah, well, the carrot or the stick, that’s the age-old question.” He picked up his newspaper and snapped it before turning the page. “Personally, the stick, it never helped me when I was growing up. Just made me want to beat the crap out of my old man.” Looking over the top of the sports page, he smiled, his lips twisting wryly. “I was smart enough to never try as he was an all-state fullback and would
have whipped my ass.”
“Is that advice? Because you don’t have any children that I know of.”
“Just sayin’.” He snapped his paper loudly.
“I’m handling this.”
“Didn’t seem that way much to me. But, hey, he’s your kid. I was just trying to give you the teen-male perspective.”
“Which is?”
“If it moves, screw it.”
“That’s not what was happening here, and this has nothing to do with a girl or—”
“Doesn’t he date Brewster’s daughter?”
“No . . . well, sometimes.” Why was she even engaging in this conversation?
“And Brewster hired him? Your son wouldn’t be the first boy trying to score Brownie points with a girl by buddying up to her old man.”
The very thought was appalling. Jeremy would never stoop so low. But he did go to Brewster behind my back, didn’t he?
As if Gage could read her mind, he smirked, then stuck his large nose into his paper again and, gratefully, out of her business. Remembering that she’d come into the lunchroom for a reason, she reached into the refrigerator for the can of Diet Coke she’d left earlier, only to find that it was missing. Someone had decided to help himself to the unmarked can.
“You’d think you could trust people not to steal in the damned sheriff’s department! Aren’t we supposed to uphold the law, not break it?” Slamming the refrigerator door shut, Pescoli let her breath out slowly. She was on edge, no doubt about it, and overreacting. Hadn’t she herself “borrowed” a can of soda now and again, never quite replacing it?
“Payback’s a bitch,” Gage muttered as he folded his paper.
Irritated by the chief criminal detective’s remarks, probably because of lack of sleep and the fact that Gage’s sentiments echoed Santana’s, she strode out of the lunchroom in a dark mood.
Only last week, while lying naked in Santana’s bed, she’d vented her frustrations with her son to him. Santana had listened, his arms tightening around her, holding her close, and then he, like every man she’d come into contact with lately, had offered his own thoughts. “Let him grow up, Regan. Quit fighting the inevitable. For Christ’s sake, Jeremy’s nearly a man.”
“Haven’t you heard? Twenty’s the new twelve.”
“Only from overprotective, control-freak mothers.”
“Nice,” she said, trying to roll away. Santana, damn him, had chuckled, pulled her close, and kissed her. With his hands caressing her body, she’d let the argument drop and concentrated on the tingles he’d elicited with his warm, wet tongue on her skin.
Now, though, she was pissed. It was just so much like a man to use sex to end an argument.
Oh, and you haven’t done that too? Along with taking a can of Diet Coke or Pepsi now and again? Face it, Pescoli, you’re no saint.
Self-doubts assailed her as she walked into her office. For the first time in a long while, she wondered if, as a mother, she was more a hindrance rather than a help. What she did know was that having Jeremy working and doing something—anything—was positive. However, having him work in her space wasn’t all that great. She just couldn’t afford not to have full concentration on her job; her focus had to be razor sharp so that she could find Judge Samuels-Piquard’s killer and Grayson’s assailant.
Time was going by and being distracted by her son’s presence wasn’t conducive to keeping her attention razor sharp, but she couldn’t see what she could do about it.
“So you’re okay?” Hattie asked, her Bluetooth microphone and receiver strapped to her ear as she drove into the heart of Grizzly Falls. She’d finally caught up with her sister. With the girls in the backseat of her Toyota, she was headed to Wild Wills, a restaurant situated in the lower level of the town, the older section built on the banks of the Grizzly River.
“I’m fine. We’re all fine,” Cara replied from the other end of the wireless connection. “I don’t know what the big deal is, why everyone is so concerned. Dan and I have been divorced, like forever. I know that sounds so cold and heartless, and that’s not how I feel.”
Hattie wondered but didn’t say it as she drove down the steep slope of Boxer Bluff.
“Of course I’m worried sick about him,” Cara said. “And I feel awful, just awful that someone took a shot at him.”
Not just “took a shot.” Whoever it was actually hit and wounded him. Big time. Hattie slowed for the railroad tracks at the bottom of the hill, waiting for the empty flatbed truck in front of her to roll under the open arm of the gate.
“And now someone’s killed that judge, which is frightening,” Cara added with a little shiver.
“First Dan and then Judge Samuels-Piquard,” Hattie murmured.
“You think it’s the same killer?”
“I don’t know,” Hattie said, but had been troubled ever since she’d heard the news on the television earlier in the day. “It’s a pretty big coincidence if it’s not, considering the timing.” The assassination of the judge, so like the attack on Dan, was causing her to rethink her position that whoever had shot the sheriff had previously killed Bart. Was it possible that her ex-husband, depressed over their divorce and life in general, really had hanged himself? All these years she’d convinced herself someone had actually killed him and staged the scene to appear as if he’d taken his own life, and with the attempt on Dan’s life, it had felt like a replay.
But now, she wasn’t certain of anything.
“I don’t understand why everyone is calling me,” Cara was saying as McKenzie, from the advantage of her booster seat, spied a mother holding the door open for her son who was carrying a double-dip cone from the ice-cream parlor situated less than a block from the railroad tracks. She began pointing frantically, her finger tapping against the glass. “Can we get ice cream? Mommy, please?”
“Please, please, please!” Mallory chimed in.
“Today? It’s freezing outside,” Hattie said automatically, which wasn’t a lie, and the clouds rolling over the mountains were threatening snow.
“But I want ice cream,” McKenzie argued.
“After dinner, maybe,” Hattie said, then added, “Shh, girls! I’m on the phone with your aunt.” To Cara, she said, “I’m sorry, minor distraction here. You were saying?”
“Just that the police showed up here and started asking me and Nolan all kinds of questions. Like I would know anything about Dan’s life these days. It was just so weird, and even Alli was pulled into the interview.” Cara sounded distraught. “Thank God the boys weren’t around.”
The boys, Hattie knew, were Nolan’s sons from his first marriage. “They’re in town?”
“This year. Judith had them at Thanksgiving,” she said, the last phrase with just a trace of a sneer in her voice. It was no secret that Cara and Nolan’s ex had never gotten along, probably due to the fact that Cara was involved with Nolan long before he and Judith had divorced. “And if you ask me, it’s all kind of moot anyway. Ezekiel’s twenty-two and Isaiah is only a couple of years younger. They only show up to appease Nolan. They’d much rather be snowboarding or drinking or God-only-knows what.” Cara’s relationship with her stepsons had always been rocky; partially because of Judith’s hatred of her ex’s second wife and partially because Cara had always treated them as if the “step” was more important than the “son” in her relationship with her husband’s boys. “So,” she said, more than ready to change the topic, “how’s Mom?”
“Good, I guess. Still wanting to run my life and still sneaking cigarettes.”
“While she’s being treated for cancer?” Cara’s tone was disbelieving. “She’s nuts. Does her doctor know?”
“What do you think?” She slowed for a light and waited as a woman crossing the street stopped dead center to check her cell phone. “She doesn’t know that I know.”
“Have you called her on it?” Cara accused.
“Oh, yeah. A couple of times. But she denies it, and since she doesn’t light up in front
of my face, she thinks she’s pulling a fast one. As she says, repeatedly, it’s her life.”
“I know how hard it is to quit, but it is possible.” She sighed loudly. “I suppose I should call her.”
Hattie could envision her half sister gnawing at her lip in indecision. The light changed and the driver of a pickup heading the opposite direction honked, causing the woman in the crosswalk to visibly start and scurry for the curb.
Hattie eased through the intersection and started searching for somewhere to park. Downtown was clogged today, traffic stalling near the brick courthouse where a gigantic tree still festooned in holiday lights rose over the small patch of grass on which it had been planted over a century earlier.
Cara, earlier reticent to talk, was now on a roll. “With Mom it’s just so damned complicated.”
“Yeah, I know,” Hattie agreed. Then feeling closer to her half sister than she had in years, suggested, “Why don’t you come over to the house soon? Maybe before New Year’s sometime? The girls would love to see you. Bring Alli and Nolan and the boys.”
“Oh, God . . . no! I mean, maybe just me and okay, Alli, if I can pry her away from her phone, but trust me, Isaiah and Ezekiel wouldn’t be interested. They’re barely ever at the house as it is, only here now because of winter break. As I said earlier, they’re far from being ‘boys.’ And Nolan’s always busy, like twenty-four/seven busy.”
Hattie got really lucky. Despite the throng of people who were bustling along the sidewalks where shops boasting after-Christmas sales were doing a banner business and cars were jamming up the side streets, a parking spot was actually opening up. There is a God! Hattie turned on her blinker and waited as an elderly woman at the wheel of an older Buick the size of Manhattan backed up slowly. “Okay, then it’ll be just us girls.”
“Yeah . . .” Cara didn’t sound very convincing. “I, uh, have gifts I didn’t get over before Christmas for Mallory and McKenzie. Just let me check with Nolan and look over the calendar, okay?”
