“Yeah?” He snatched the retreating ball and tucked it under his arm before turning to face her and the badge she was holding up. He actually rolled his eyes. “I know who you are, Mrs. Pescoli. Bianca’s mom.”
“Today I’m Detective Pescoli,” she said without the hint of a smile. “Just so we understand each other. This is my partner, Detective Alvarez.”
He nodded. “We met.”
“Last night at Reservoir Point,” Alvarez clarified.
Pescoli said, “Good. We just need to ask you a few questions.”
“My mom said I wasn’t to talk to anyone without a lawyer present.” He headed for the shade cast by the overhang of another huge porch. Its ceiling was extended to cover part of a patio where lounge chairs were arranged near side tables. Holding the ball between his knees, he snagged a T-shirt that had seen better days and yanked the worn cotton over his head.
“Do you need a lawyer?” Pescoli asked.
“’Course not.” He jabbed first one arm, then the other, through holes where once there had been sleeves.
Alvarez said, “We just need to clarify things.”
“I said, I need—I mean—I should have a lawyer here, okay? I heard that the girl you found is Destiny. And yeah, we were a couple. But we broke up weeks ago. I can’t help it if she was still hung up on me. Still hanging around.” He swiped his sweaty face with the hem of his shirt. “She thought we were gonna get married or some such shit. Couldn’t take no for an answer.” He stopped himself and smiled humorlessly. “Didn’t I just say I can’t talk to you?”
“We can wait,” Alvarez said.
“Wait?”
“For the attorney you don’t need,” Pescoli helped out.
“Shit, no . . . I mean . . . oh, hell.” He flopped into a lounge chair positioned near a glass-topped table, where a water bottle was perched by a cell phone, a pack of cigarettes, and a lighter. With a hungry glance at the Winstons, he uncapped the bottle and took a big gulp. “What do you want to know?” he asked, checking his phone just as it beeped, indicating a text had come in.
Alvarez was taking notes and didn’t bother hiding the recorder.
“You’re taping this?” he asked.
“Unless your attorney won’t allow it.”
“I don’t give a . . . I’ve got nothing to hide. So, go right ahead,” he added expansively.
“When was the last time you saw Destiny?”
“Uh, God, when? I don’t know. Sometime last week. No . . . Friday. A week ago Friday.” He squinted into the sun, sweat rolling into his eyes. “I remember because it was the weekend, y’know, the start of it
. She called and came by here.”
“You remember the time?” Alvarez asked.
A lift of a massive shoulder. “Maybe four . . . or no, had to be after five, cuz she was off work.” His gaze slid away from hers and Pescoli guessed he was lying or working on one, testing it in his mind to see if it would hold water. “Oh, no, wait,” he said, holding up a finger. “It was later than that. More like eight. After dinner.” He nodded, satisfied. “Yeah, that’s right. Getting dark.” A bounce of the basketball. “She worked that day—she did volunteer stuff at the hospital, in the kids’ ward, I think—and she went home and had dinner with her family and then she came over.”
“So she works at the hospital,” Pescoli interjected. “What about you?”
“What do I do?” Then, at the slight tilt of Pescoli’s face, he answered his own question. “I work construction. Well, in the summer, when I’m not in school. Mostly cleanup around the sites, y’know, but I’m learnin’ to frame. So I get off earlier than Des does—uh, than she did, I mean. At my job, we start early, real early, like sometimes before seven, y’know, if my boss can get away with it, like there are no noise restrictions or whatever. It’s a killer getting up that early, but then we knock off around four, sometimes four-thirty.”
“What did you do after work that Friday?” Pescoli figured this was where the real lying would start.
“Came home,” Donny said. He was frowning, as if trying to remember. “I, um, showered, then got pizza at Dino’s with a couple of friends.”
“Who?” Pescoli asked.
“Uh, there were four of us. Alex and Teej and Tophman. And me.”
“The O’Hara brothers and Bryant Tophman were with you?” Pescoli knew them all.