Ready to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

ng. “It went about how you’d expect.”

“That bad, eh?”

“Worse,” Hattie admitted, remembering the fury in Cade’s eyes, the anger at her, the guilt at his own participation. Hearing the pipes groan as the girls turned off the water, she said, “I’ll fill you in later.”

“And I’ll give you all the motherly advice I can muster!”

“Perfect,” Hattie said as McKenzie and Mallory reappeared, their faces red from scrubbing, their hands still moist from splashing water. “Come on, let’s set the table. Grandma made us soup.”

The girls helped serve and Hattie wondered how they’d react once they knew the truth; it was bound to come out now, and she hated to think how that would play out. They were eight now, though sometimes they each acted as if they were three, and kids in school could be rough. If parents talked and their children found out, there could be round after merciless round of teasing. She imagined she’d be the subject of small-town gossip and the butt of many nasty jokes, but she could handle it; she doubted her business would suffer, only her personal reputation, but she could handle it.

Not so much her girls. They were at a tender age, too young to really understand, too old not to get some of it. Would she tell them? Of course. Eventually. She just wasn’t sure when. A lot of her timing would probably depend on what Cade might want, what he would do.

So far, judging by his reaction this afternoon, it wasn’t looking all that good.

Chapter 24

Brewster went ballistic when he saw the picture of the judge. Completely and utterly ballistic! He demanded more information than Pescoli could give him, then phoned

Manny Douglas at the Mountain Reporter as well and had a few words with Douglas’s editor.

Of course he’d learned nothing more, but he’d called a meeting, and so, after five o’clock, aside from a skeleton crew left to man the desks, the detectives and some of the road deputies had been called into a meeting in the room usually assigned for a task force, which, it seemed, might be happening.

Alvarez caught up with Pescoli as they walked into the wide room and took a spot at the table. “Brewster wants us to bring everyone else up to speed.”

“Perfect.”

Pescoli had spent the last two hours going over the suspect lists again, separating out those who had rock-solid alibis, or those with flimsy motives. This guy, whoever the hell he was, was a whack job, demanding attention, sending a picture of the judge to the newspaper to keep attention to his crime and also taunt and bait the police.

The killer obviously had his own list as he’d indicated he wasn’t finished with his business.

No matter which angle Pescoli took, she always came back to Maurice Verdago, the one ex-con who wasn’t anywhere to be found. He’d never returned to his job as a janitor in a Helena apartment complex, nor returned to his home, which, according to Sage Zoller and a detective from the Helena Police Department, held nothing of interest.

So why was he in the wind?

She double-checked his résumé. Not only had he been in the army, it seemed, but he was in the special ops, a sharpshooter. He had to be the guy. Right? He had a temper. It was all there in the report and extremely suspicious that he’d gone to ground.

There was something wrong there. Very wrong.

If she could just figure it out.

“Okay, everyone listen up,” Brewster ordered as chairs were scooted into the table and conversation died. The room was cold, and Rebecca O’Day, a corporal deputy, took the initiative and fiddled with a radiating space heater.

Brewster sat in the middle of the long cafeteria-type table, directly across from Pescoli, who was wedged between Alvarez and Kayan Rule in the room built of concrete blocks painted a dull industrial gray. The floor was linoleum circa 1970 and shone bright under the overhead fluorescents. A copy of the picture, note, and envelope they’d received were posted on a large whiteboard in one corner of the room. Brewster cleared his throat and got everyone’s attention.

“We’ve got a situation here. Well, I guess we’ve had it since Christmas morning or even before as it seems the judge was actually killed before the unknown took a shot at Sheriff Grayson. Now, he’s sending notes and pictures to the media, taunting us, indicating that he has more victims in his sight, so we have to double up security on Grayson, just in case the killer thinks he can finish what he started, and then we need to find this guy. Before he targets and hits someone else.

“Detectives Alvarez and Pescoli have been leading the investigation and they’ll tell us all where we are.” He spied Jeremy, who was entering the room with a coffeepot and tray of empty cups. Brewster flicked his fingers rapidly in a come-in-quickly gesture and Jeremy, with a sideways look at his mother, set the cups and packets of creamer and sugar onto the table. He positioned the pot in front of Brewster, who pointed to one of the empty cups. As if he’d done it a hundred times, Jeremy poured the coffee for the undersheriff.

Pescoli felt a little hot under the collar and told herself that she was being ridiculous, that Jeremy asked for and wanted this, that Brewster was not being condescending to her son.

Still, it bothered her. Jeremy had signed on with the department to help, yes, but to learn about the responsibilities of being a cop, and today he’d been reduced to waiting tables. Maybe that was a good thing; he certainly didn’t have any training to do much more. But still, it seemed demeaning somehow and she couldn’t help but wonder if this was all part of Brewster’s plan to humiliate her son.

“Thanks,” Brewster said as he picked up his cup and other cops poured their own brew.

Get over it. Jeremy needs this lesson. He has to start at the bottom, learn what it really takes to be a cop. For now, he’s little more than a “go for” volunteer.

“You go ahead,” she said to Alvarez as they stood to fill everyone in.