Expecting to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

“Probably not. As I said, we’ve been having this discussion for months.” She stretched out her back and heard it pop.

“Maybe you should just give in.”

Pescoli shot her a look. “I’ll think about it. Maybe.” She paused. “Then again, maybe not. So, why don’t you bring me up to speed on the Montclaire case?”

“It’s the reason I’m here.” While Alvarez explained about meeting the grieving parents as they’d ID’d their daughter’s body, then compiling a list of possible suspects and evidence while waiting for the autopsy results, Pescoli listened and sipped the so-called coffee. With zero kick, the decaf blend didn’t have the desired effect that caffeine would have supplied to her bloodstream. She really shouldn’t have bothered except that the scone she’d devoured on the ten-minute drive had temporarily quieted the rumble in her belly.

Alvarez finished with, “Then the mayor called. Right after eight this morning.”

“Did she?” Not much of a surprise. Pescoli was definitely not a fan, but, for once, she tried not to show her distaste of the new mayor of Grizzly Falls.

Carolina Justison had once been a stockbroker in New York. About fifteen years ago, after a scandal at the brokerage both she and her husband had worked for, she’d divorced the “lying bastard,” packed up her son, who just happened to be her ex’s namesake, and headed west. She’d landed in Grizzly Falls. Though she had insisted she was in search of a simpler life, she’d fallen back on her old ways and opened her own investment firm before eventually running for mayor. She’d squeaked by in an election that had been so close a recount had been initiated.

So much for her supposed dream of the simple life.

“She talked to Blackwater and he relayed her message.” As a fax machine screeched and burped in a nearby office, Alvarez balanced on the arm of one of the visitor’s chairs. It was damned amazing how irritatingly thin and agile the woman was. “Then, she called again. This time to speak directly with me.”

“Fabulous.”

“She wants to let us know that—”

Pescoli held up a hand. “Let me guess. This has something to do with her son being caught and cited up at Reservoir Point.”

“Bingo.”

“Another stab in the dark: she’s not happy.”

That scared up a smile on Alvarez’s lips. Pescoli already knew her partner had been up all night, but looked fresh and ready to take on the world. How was that even possible? The room was hot and stuffy, the air conditioner rattling but unable to compete with the heat from a glaring Montana sun.

“She’s not just unhappy, she’s ‘absolutely mortified’ and I quote, that her son could be considered a part of this ‘difficult situation.’ And yeah, she called it that. The ‘difficult situation up at Reservoir Point.’ I guess she heard herself, though, because she did acknowledge that it was a tragedy, of course, but that her Donny had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with what happened to the ‘poor girl,’ even though Donald Junior dated Destiny Rose for nearly a year before he broke up with her. Destiny was a little brokenhearted, but ‘you know how that is with teenagers.’”

“She wasn’t exactly empathetic.”

“No.”

“Trying to cover her son’s ass.” Pescoli leaned back in her chair. “You think he’s involved some way?”

“Too early to tell. But Glenn Montclaire, Destiny’s father, mentioned Donny. And he said the break-up was the other way around, that Destiny cut Donny loose and he didn’t much like it, even started stalking her.”

“So Donny said he was the dumper, rather than the dumpee, but Glenn Montclaire says otherwise.”

“And Helene Montclaire as well.”

“The Montclaires actually pointed at Justison?”

Alvarez nodded. “Said if there was any evidence of foul play we should take a long, hard look at Donald Justison Junior.”

“Then I guess we will.”

“Already on the top of the list.”

The case was morphing into a true mess. The mayor’s son and a dead girl?

“And Carolina Justison was only the first parent to call.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“It started early.” Alvarez had made notes and checked a memo-taking app on her cell phone. “Besides Mayor Justison, I had a pretty lengthy conversation with Billie O’Hara. She’s actually a twofer.”