Willing to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

“She invited herself.”

“You should have said no from the get-go,” Tanaka pointed out as they idled behind a silver Prius with a “Coexist” bumper sticker. The interviews during the day hadn’t gone all that well and she’d even tried to trip Macon up by bringing up the beer cans found in his room even though they already knew there weren’t any prints on them. He hadn’t been rattled.

Nothing was coming together.

Yet.

But Tanaka was damned sure including Pescoli wouldn’t help. The plain fact of the matter was that she didn’t like Pescoli nosing into the case. It was out of line. She knew it, Paterno knew it, and most important of all, Pescoli knew it. She was just used to bullying her way onto a case. Tanaka could smell it on her.

As soon as one of her sisters had brought up that one of Brindel Latham’s siblings was a cop, Tanaka had immediately suspected the detective from Montana would be trouble. The oldest sister, Collette Foucher, was tough and cold, and Sarina Marsh, the younger one, was shorter and rounder and an emotional mess, and could barely stop crying to breathe.

And the cop. Pescoli was more together but Tanaka wasn’t about to trust the detective with her messy bun of reddish blond hair, suspicious green eyes, and no-nonsense set of her jaw. Cool on the outside, there was something more to her, a fire and impatience that Tanaka recognized in herself.

Nope. Tanaka couldn’t trust her. Not as far as she could throw her. And she was the sister of the victim, so that should disqualify her straight out.

What the hell was wrong with Paterno? He should never have allowed Pescoli within a hundred yards of the case. All his talk of “another set of eyes” and Pescoli being a “well-respected” cop was just a load of BS. Allowing a victim’s relative into the investigation was a huge breach of protocol, at least as far as Tanaka was concerned.

The light turned green, but the Prius didn’t move.

“What the—?” She laid on the horn and the driver, who had been looking down, visibly started.

“Texting,” Paterno guessed as the Prius leapt forward.

“Or surfing the damned Net.” Tanaka was right on the Prius’s tail. “We should ticket the idiot.” But she wouldn’t. They were already pushing it. She wanted to find Troy Boxer and get some kind of a statement.

They pulled into the lot for the company and, as they were walking inside, from the corner of her eye, Tanaka caught a glimpse of Pescoli parking her rental nearby, then pulling the hood of her jacket over her hair. At least Paterno had nixed her joining them at the divorce lawyer’s office.

The Montana cop caught up with them at the counter where a slim man in horn-rimmed glasses, clipped hair, and a bored expression offered to help them while glancing pointedly at the clock that read four fifty-three. They displayed badges and Tanaka noticed his spine visibly stiffen and his Adam’s apple move up and down. Nervous. When they asked about Troy Boxer, he loosened up a little.

“He just got in,” he said, looking up at a monitor mounted over the counter. “Truck seventeen. Do you want me to call him in . . . ?”

“No, just show us how to get to him.”

“Through this door.” The clerk jabbed a finger toward a red door, then hustled around the end of the counter and, using a keypad, punched a code into a locked door. “This way,” he said over his shoulder as he half ran down a wide hallway and through another door to open bays of the warehouse. The entire parking area in front of the building was surrounded by a high fence topped with razor wire. Cameras were mounted on the corners of the warehouse. “Loading dock three,” the clerk said. “I have to get back to my station. I could be fired for leaving the office.”

Tanaka spied Troy Boxer. “We’ve got it.”

The manager didn’t wait for a response, but peeled off and jogged back to the hallway and disappeared inside.

Tanaka, Paterno, and Pescoli walked to the third bay where a burly-looking man in his early twenties was unloading the driver’s area of a yellow delivery van painted with the logo of A-Bay-C Delivery. His brown hair was clipped so short that his skin showed through and the hint of a tattoo was visible over the collar of his shirt, another one peeking out from beneath the sleeve of his yellow A-Bay-C Delivery jacket.

“Troy Boxer?” Paterno asked as they approached the van.

Boxer looked up sharply, his bushy eyebrows drawing together. “Who wants to know?”

Paterno said, “San Francisco Police Department.”

Again they displayed their badges and introduced themselves, including that they were with the homicide department.

Before they could explain further, he cut in.

“Homicide? I don’t . . . oh, fuck!” His pale blue eyes widened as the light dawned. “This is about Ivy’s parents! Son of a—is that why you’re here? Because of the Lath—wait a sec! Did something happen to Ivy?”

Paterno said, “She’s missing.”

“I know . . . I mean, I heard.” He was nodding, rubbing the scruff of a three-day beard shadow. “I saw it on the news. But you said ‘homicide.’ Don’t tell me Ivy’s dead.” He was shaking his head and Tanaka tensed as he reached into the pocket of his baggy jeans.

“Hold it!”