The Alvarez & Pescoli Series

by Lisa Jackson

  Van Droz, hearing them approach, looked up and yelled, “She’s alive. I’ve already called for an ambulance.”

  “Alive,” Pescoli repeated, as overhead, marring the clear blue sky, a news-crew helicopter hovered, a cameraman hanging out a window while filming the scene.

  “Damned fool idiots,” Grayson said, waving them off. “Someone call KBIT and tell them to clear the airspace in case a rescue copter has to land.”

  Brewster was on his walkie-talkie, calling back to the department offices, relaying orders.

  “At least they found her,” Alvarez said. “I’ll be in charge of the crime scene sheet.” The area had to be roped off and protected. Everyone who showed up here had to sign in.

  Grayson scribbled his name. “Is she conscious?” he yelled.

  “No. But I found a pulse and she’s breathing.” Van Droz was performing first aid, trying to keep the victim warm, just as the sound of a siren cut through the still mountain air.

  Pescoli signed into the crime scene and, trying not to disturb any of the evidence, hurried to the victim’s side, where she knelt in the snow and tried to help. “Is she Jillian Rivers?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “No,” Watershed said from somewhere over her right shoulder. He was standing back, eyeing the message nailed to the gnarled bark of the pine. “The letters aren’t right.”

  Pescoli glanced up and caught a glimpse of the weird message.

  Sure enough, Jillian Rivers’s initials weren’t written down. There was the R from the last note but no J.

  Now the note read:

  WAR T HE SC I N

  “What the hell does that mean?” Watershed whispered.

  Trilby Van Droz was still on her knees at the victim’s side, Pescoli beside her. The sheriff ordered Brett Gage, the chief criminal deputy, to follow the trail broken in the snow. He, along with a deputy in charge of the dogs, took off toward the east end of the clearing.

  “How the hell would someone get in here?” Grayson asked as the ambulance’s siren screamed louder.

  Pescoli rubbed the woman’s wrist. “Can you hear me?” she asked. From the corner of her eyes, she saw the ambulance slide to a stop in the old, snow-covered parking lot of the dilapidated lodge. “What’s your name? Who did this to you?”

  “She’s unresponsive,” Deputy Van Droz said. “I haven’t been able to get a word out of her.”

  Two EMTs, carrying their equipment, hurried toward the woman lying in the snow. With one quick examination the shorter of the two rescue workers, a black woman with a no-nonsense look on her face, whipped out a two-way and called for a chopper. “We need to get her out of here,” she said, giving the helicopter directions, then hanging up. “It’ll take too long to drive her back to the hospital.” Her dark eyes moved back to the victim as she told the detectives, “Chopper on its way. Should be here in five. So all of you just back the hell up and let us work!”

  The detectives and FBI agents took a few steps backward, while the woman and her partner, a tall man still in his twenties, worked quickly, monitoring the victim’s vital signs, administering oxygen, covering her and tending to her. In the distance, the sound of a helicopter’s rotors sliced through the air.

  “The scene’s been destroyed,” Chandler said, frowning, her gaze traveling over the mashed snow and solitary tree.

  “It’s like the others,” Pescoli said.

  “But there may be evidence buried here.” Chandler’s gaze scanned the trodden-down snow and the poor woman who lay motionless on the gurney.

  “The crime scene investigators will figure that out,” Pescoli said as the rescue helicopter came into view and the news chopper flew to a spot higher in the sky, never quite giving up its vantage point.

  “War to the scientists,” Watershed said.

  “What?” Pescoli frowned.

  “The note.”

  “We can figure that out later,” she snapped, uninterested in the stupid clues the killer had left behind. Now they had a victim who was alive, one they could save, one who could potentially name her attacker.

  To hell with the damned note.

  “Did that copter happen to find the car?” Chandler asked as a basket was lowered. “We’re still missing two cars, assuming this person isn’t Jillian Rivers.”

  “She’s not,” Pescoli said as she noted the victim’s tiny nose and wide mouth. Her hair was short and streaked with shades of blond, a widow’s peak was evident, and her eyes were a brown so intense they were nearly black. She was tall and thin, probably five nine or ten, so gaunt her ribs showed, her feet at least a size nine. Pescoli remembered the pictures she’d seen of Jillian Rivers. Even if Rivers lost weight, cut and dyed her hair and wore dark contacts, she wouldn’t resemble either woman they’d found today.

  “So where the hell is she? Why do we have her car and not this woman’s or the Jane Doe we found up at Cougar Pass?” Agent Chandler asked, her eyebrows knit in frustration, her breath fogging in the cold air.

  “We’ll find her,” Halden, her partner, said. He was the calmer of the two, though he, too, was irritated, his mouth set and grim, his eyes scanning the surrounding area, where the dilapidated, graying buildings of what had once been a profitable hunting lodge were partially hidden by snow-laden trees and rocky hills. It was desolate up here, the whole area looking decrepit and forgotten, a testament to death.

  The victim was transferred to the rescue basket and winched skyward as the helicopter started moving, heading back to Grizzly Falls, just as the crime scene team arrived.

  “How the hell did he get them to two different places, miles apart?” Chandler muttered angrily.

  “One at a time. First the victim at Cougar Pass and now this Jane Doe.”

  “Her initials being HE or EH, if the pattern remains the same.”

  “It is,” Chandler said. “He’s just escalating.”

  “Not just escalating,” Pescoli said. “So far he’s duplicating. He’s not killing closer together; it’s like he’s doing a two-for-the-price-of-one thing. Two women in one day.” She was worried as she stared at the note and the tree to which the victim had been lashed. Traces of blood were visible on the bark, and drops of red dotted the snow. Whoever this woman was, she had struggled and fought.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Grayson asked.

  “I don’t know.” Stephanie Chandler was shaking her head. “We need to find out who these women are.”

  “I’ve already called in both sets of initials to Missing Persons on the walkie,” Alvarez said. She was still standing near the entrance to the crime scene, making certain everyone was signing in as she waited for the crime scene team to arrive. “They’re checking.”

  “Call dispatch. Have them bring in every available detective,” Sheriff Grayson said. “And I don’t want to hear any complaints about it being Sunday or a few days before Christmas or even that their kid has the flu. I want every available road deputy at the department when we get back into town. Overtime’s no problem. Screw the damned budget. Are the cell phone towers working again?”

  “Not all of them, not yet,” Watershed said. “Just like the electricity. It’s spotty.”

  A muscle worked in the sheriff’s jaw and his lips were flat beneath his moustache. He lifted his hat from his head, and staring at the pine tree, the would-be death scene, he raked stiff, gloved fingers through his hair. “I hate this son of a bitch,” he muttered under his breath.

  Pescoli silently agreed. She prayed that they had found this victim in time. That EH or HE or whoever she was would live. And not just survive. Oh no. Pescoli hoped that the woman would be able to name her attacker and testify against him at the prick’s trial.

  Yeah, that’s what she wanted, Pescoli thought as she shaded her eyes against the lowering sun and watched the helicopter disappear over the craggy summit of the mountain.

  It would serve the bastard right.

  Detective Gage returned with the dogs and the bad news
that the trail had gone cold, ending up at a lower parking lot for the old lodge where tire tracks led away. The crime scene team would take tire and footprint casts, which were tricky but not impossible in the snow. With Snow Print Wax sprayed onto the tracks several times and followed by the dental stone impression material, clear casts could be created. Once the impression material hardened, experts would make duplicate prints and study them, trying to figure out the make and imperfections in the tire tread and boot prints. Methodically, experts would go through the painstaking process of finding out who had bought those particular tires in a hundred-mile radius of the area and start comparing the tread, vehicle by vehicle.

  It could take weeks. Or longer. Assuming they were able to get a good, clear print.

  At that moment, the sheriff’s cell phone beeped. “Looks like we got service up here again,” he said, and answered, his expression darkening as he listened. “Yeah…right…good. Send the chopper up. Use one from the state police if you have to, but check out the area. See if there’s any sign of activity. Tracks. Smoke from a chimney. Noise or exhaust from a generator. Any damned thing! Yeah…yeah…I know. Get back to me.”

  He hung up and said, “It looks like we might have caught a break. Jillian Rivers’s cell phone company called. They got a ping off her phone and pinpointed it to a tower up on Star Ridge.”

  “That’s wicked country up there,” Watershed said.

  “Yeah, well, what else is new?” Grayson was already headed back to his Suburban. “The crime scene team can handle this. Let’s go.”

  Pescoli didn’t waste a second. Finally, it seemed, they’d caught a break. She felt a surge of satisfaction. We’re going to get you, you bastard.

  Look at them!

  Police officers crawling over the “crime scene” like ants on an anthill. Hurrying this way, scurrying that. Not having a clue that I’m here, in the warmth of the bar, sipping a drink of fine Kentucky whiskey as I blend in with the rest of the patrons, the men and women who have stopped in for a drink after work to share conversation, even laughter, and shake off the bitter cold of winter, here in the lower part of the town, in a century-old building overlooking the river.

  As one, we stare at the old television mounted over the colored bottles glistening in front of the mirror.

  The bar is glossy wood, reflecting the lights overhead, holding up a half dozen sets of elbows of men who’ve come inside after a day’s labor. There are women, too, but most of them are seated at the tables near the fire, where real logs are blazing in a massive stone fireplace that was built over a hundred years earlier, when miners and loggers in cork boots trod on these old plank floors. From the kitchen, the scents of grilled onions and burgers seep through the open doorway, accompanied by the sizzle of the deep-fat fryer.

  I, like the other customers, am shaking my head at the senseless horror playing out on the screen.

  “I can’t believe it could happen here. Right outside Grizzly Falls,” one sawmill worker says. While he stares up at the images on the flickering television screen, some faint Christmas carol can be heard over the buzz of the patrons. What is it? Oh yeah. “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”

  As if that’s possible in Grizzly Falls tonight.

  The guy next to me isn’t small. In fact, his belly is so big it swings up to the bar, seemingly independent of him, as he settles onto a stool. Grease shows around his fingernails, bits of sawdust cling to the long hairs that grow from the back of his neck, hairs that should have been shaved away from his unruly beard.

  “The world’s changed,” I say, frowning as if I, too, am aghast at the horror being shown to us via the airwaves. The simpleton thinks I’m agreeing.

  “This used to be a safe place.”

  “Didn’t it?”

  “No more, I guess. Hey!” Crooking one fat finger, he signals to Nadine, the barkeep.

  “The usual, Dell?” she asks, sliding a coaster to him and pretending that his ordering her around doesn’t bother her. But she slides me a glance. We both know Dell Blight’s a pig.

  “Yeah. A Bud.”

  She’s already got a chilled glass under the spigot of a hidden keg. “This is just so horrible. What kind of monster would leave those women out in the forest?” Nadine asks, and looks at my near-empty shot glass. “Another?” She lifts her gaze a bit and our eyes hold for the briefest of seconds.

  I nod, return her smile, pretend I don’t really understand what she’s offering.

  “You’d think the sheriff could nail this fucker,” Big Belly Blight says with a knowing nod. He believes if he were the sheriff, he’d have “the fucker” behind bars already. “What the hell do we elect him for?”

  “Grayson’s doing a good job. And they might just catch the guy.” Nadine obviously isn’t in the mood to take any crap from the likes of Dell Blight. “This woman”—she hooks her thumb toward the television—“she didn’t die.”

  What? Every muscle in my body freezes. “Is that so?” I ask, as if I’m really concerned. Nadine must have her information wrong. The woman is dead. Hannah is dead. She has to be!

  “That’s what they’re sayin’,” Nadine assures both me and Dell. “I’d turn up the sound, but, you know, Farley, he likes the volume down so we can enjoy the music.” She makes a sour face. “It’s Christmas, y’know.”

  I nod, grinning, but deep down I feel not only fear but a little spark of anger. Nadine has to be wrong. Dead wrong. Calm down. Take control. I lift my glass to my lips, as if to sip, but instead take a deep breath, tamp down my fear.

  “I heard about the latest victim surviving. A bit ago, when I was out back on my break. It was all over the radio,” Nadine assures us with the eager anticipation of one imparting fresh gossip. “They found two women today. One’s dead, but this one, the one the news crew located, she’s alive. In some kind of coma, but alive.”

  “Will she make it?” I ask, feigning concern for the stupid bitch who was supposed to expire. What the hell was wrong with her? I left her to succumb to the elements, but, obviously Hannah is stronger than she looks. Fool. Damned superior fool. You let your ego get the better of your good sense.

  “Who knows if she’ll survive?” Nadine touches my hand then. A caress, where her thumb trails down the back of mine.

  “Two women? They found two? Holy cripes!” Beer Belly Dell shakes his balding head and the scent of fresh sawdust wafts my way. “I don’t get how this guy gets off. They say the women haven’t been raped. No sexual activity whatsoever. The guy’s probably a queer.”

  I smile, as if I agree, but the man’s an idiot. Of course an imbecile like Dell Blight can’t understand. His brain is probably the size of a walnut.

  But still I’m bothered. Is it possible? Is Hannah alive? Her living would make things difficult.

  “Nah,” Ole Olson, the round little guy in the dirty baseball cap sitting next to Dell, pipes up. “He ain’t no queer. If he was, he’d be haulin’ men up there and tyin’ ’em up and doin’ weird shit to ’em. More’n likely he got no balls at all.”

  “What do y’mean, no balls? Like a woman?”

  “Like no balls. He’s been neutered, he’s…he’s one of them…them…” Ole snaps his thick fingers. “One of them U-nuts.”

  “U-nuts?” Dell repeats with a snort, then takes a long drink. “You mean like U-bolts?”

  “I think he means eunuch,” I say, then wish I hadn’t even opened my mouth. What would these cretins know?

  “What the hell is a fuckin’ U-nick?” Dell’s face is screwed up like he’d just smelled week-old dead fish.

  “That’s just it, they can’t fuck cuz they got no balls,” Ole says.

  “Enough!” Nadine shakes her head as she scoops up a couple of empty glasses and drops them into a sink. Quick as a rattler striking, she slides the tips across the bar with her polished fingernails and stuffs the bills into the pocket of her apron. She glances up at the television screen, where a reporter is standing in front of the local hospital.<
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  “I hope she survives,” she whispers.

  “Who?” Ole, true to character, missed a vital part of the earlier conversation.

  “The woman they found in the forest, the one who didn’t die.” Nadine is starting to get pissed.

  “She’s seen that psycho,” Ole says, catching on.

  I feel an unlikely chill. My face was exposed. She knows my touch, can recognize me.

  “Yep. She’ll nail his ass in court.” Nadine nods, stiff red-blond hair unmoving.

  Dell snorts before draining his glass and wiggling the empty as a signal for another. “He’s got to be caught first, and my money says that Sheriff Numb-Nuts won’t come close.”

  I take a drink to hide my smile.

  “Oh, Grayson will catch him all right.” Coming to Grayson’s defense, Nadine looks to me for support.

  I lift a noncommittal shoulder that says Maybe, though I think Don’t count on it.

  “He will!” Nadine is certain as she snaps a clean towel from a stack under the counter. “You just wait and see.” She swabs the bar with a vengeance.

  “Humph. Not by countin’ on the likes of crazy Ivor Hicks. Shit, that nutcase found a body and claimed the aliens sent him there,” Ole says.

  “That Crypton, he’s one smart sergeant,” Dell corrects.

  “It’s Crytor, moron. And he’s a fuckin’ general. Get it right. An orange reptile and a fuckin’ general.”

  They both laugh uproariously.

  “The old man hallucinates,” Nadine says quickly, and looks at me, embarrassed. She doesn’t like the way the conversation has turned. The crazy old man’s a regular, too, when he’s not on the wagon. “Give Ivor a break, will ya? And for God’s sake, have some faith in Sheriff Grayson. He’s doing a great job.”