Ready to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

And Pescoli had always thought he was a prime suspect; she was pissed that, so far, he was nowhere to be found.

Pescoli had mentioned talking to Eric Ingles, Allison Banks’s delinquent of a boyfriend, but he’d given up no info on the Banks family, and anyway, Cara Grayson Banks didn’t really seem the type to set up the killing of her ex. No, Alvarez thought, as Pescoli parked in a roped-off area near the beginning of a snowy hiking trail, the Banks family wasn’t likely to be involved, especially now with the discovery of Samuels-Piquard’s body. She believed that the two attacks were linked and couldn’t imagine why anyone in the Banks family would want the judge dead.

Still, Pescoli was keeping the Banks family in the mix, so Alvarez wasn’t going to rule them out yet either.

At the end of the road, they found another county SUV, parked at an angle, the tracks in the snow ending at its rear tires. Pescoli cut the engine and they climbed outside.

The wind had died and the surrounding forest was silent, eerily serene, towering hemlock and fir trees flocked in white, the sky above blue, sunlight sparkling on the blanket of snow.

As if she could read her partner’s mind, Pescoli said, “Doesn’t really feel like a crime scene, does it?”

“What does?”

Pescoli shrugged.

They both strapped on snowshoes, then hiked the remaining quarter mile to where the judge’s body had been found, the sound of their boots crunching through the snow the only noise disturbing the tranquility. As they emerged from a thicket, they crested the ridge and, looking downward, saw the spot where the judge had fallen. A deputy, Beau Darville, dressed in uniform and relatively new to the department, stood over the half-frozen body. Sunglasses shaded his eyes and his jaw was set, his mouth a grimace. A second officer, Deputy Patrice Ferrier, was twenty yards away and talking to a couple, both of whom were in their twenties. Alvarez guessed they were the unlucky duo who had found the body.

“Clear shot from up here,” Pescoli said before they made their way the final fifty yards to the killing ground.

“Yeah,” Alvarez agreed. From the top of the rise, it would have been far too easy for anyone who was capable with a rifle to hit the judge, who, it appeared from the skis strapped to her feet, had been out for some exercise.

As they made their way down the short hill, Darville motioned them over to the body. The judge’s body was lying faceup; though, from the disturbances on the snow-covered ground, it was evident that her frozen corpse had been moved.

“Sweet Jesus,” Pescoli breathed. For the first time that Alvarez could remember, Pescoli looked away from the corpse before pulling herself together.

“Looks like a single bullet to the brain. Clean shot,” Darville explained, pointing to a hole above the judge’s right eye. “Probably lodged inside. Not through and through.” Bloodstains on the ground confirmed what he’d already concluded.

“Those are the hikers who found her?” Alvarez asked, with a look to the couple who were standing just outside the clearing with Deputy Ferrier.

“Yeah, snowshoeing. Liam Maxwell, twenty-one, and his girlfriend, Raney Gorski. She’s twenty. Both home from Seattle, where they go to school at the University of Washington, for the holiday break. They’re both pretty shaken up. Ferrier and I caught the 911.” Darville sent the couple a sympathetic look. “They stayed up here with the corpse until we arrived.”

Blood had caked, then frozen around the area of the wound. Alvarez knelt down to get a better look, noting that the judge’s hat was still partially on her head, red curls iced into position, eyes open as if she were staring upward.

“They’d thought there might be some chance to revive her, but . . .” Darville shook his head. “No use. She’s been dead awhile.”

Pescoli was eyeing the tracks from the judge’s skis, partially covered in snow. “She was coming from the direction of the cabin,” she said aloud, then scanned the surrounding woods. “He could have been anywhere up on the ridge. We saw several spots on the trail as we came over the hill.”

“Haven’t looked yet,” he admitted. “Waiting for backup.”

“We’re it.” Sheltering her eyes with a hand, she stared upward, along the crest, back to the trail on which they had just walked, searching for the exact spot where the assailant could have hidden. “Crime lab and coroner on their way?”

Darville said, “Should be here anytime now.”

“No other tracks?” Alvarez asked. “We only saw yours.”

“None that we’ve seen, not a vehicle or a footprint or a ski track.”

“They’ve got to be here somewhere unless someone helicoptered him in and out,” Pescoli said, her breath fogging in the icy air. “We got dogs? A K-9 unit on its way?”

“Not yet.”

“We might need them.” Still studying the area, her gaze scraping the frigid terrain, she squinted toward the forested crest.

“You think dogs would help?” he asked.

“Sure as hell won’t hurt.” Staring up the hillside again, her eyes scanning the ground, Pescoli said, “I’m going up to take a look.” Then to her partner, “Don’t worry, I won’t mess up the crime scene.”

Alvarez was more interested in the witnesses. Gesturing to them, she asked, “They were the ones who moved her, right?”