Ready to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

“We will,” he promised.

“Oh, I have faith,” Bess said, sliding her arms into the sleeves of her long, black coat trimmed in a silvery fur that was most likely mink. Make that a dead mink. Into PETA, Mrs. Brewster obviously was not. She’d grabbed her purse and was heading for the door before Cort could scoot his chair out, round the desk, and assist her. “Even if you don’t find him,” she was saying as she paused to pull on a pair of long, black gloves, “God will punish that man. Make no mistake. Judgment Day will come.”

With her final declaration of divine wrath, Bess marched out of Grayson’s old office, her pumps slapping against the tile floor in rapid, staccato steps as Brewster followed, hurrying to catch up to her.

Alvarez was left with a weird feeling, as if she’d missed something important, though she wasn’t sure why. It was probably due to the odd, out-of-sync vibe between Brewster and his wife, and Alvarez guessed it wasn’t anything good. It didn’t help that conducting an interview in Grayson’s office, while he was still unresponsive in a hospital bed, felt more than a little strange as well, as if she were already walking on his grave.

“Hi, Mrs. Brewster!” Jeremy’s voice rang out and Alvarez quickly walked into the hallway.

“Jeremy,” Bess responded, her voice as icy as the day outside, her footsteps never once breaking stride. A cold fish was Bess Brewster, and one who obviously had no use for her daughter’s boyfriend.

The acting sheriff didn’t respond, but within a second or two, Jeremy looking back over his shoulder, nearly ran into Alvarez. “Oh, sorry. I was just going into this office.”

“You have clean-up duties?” she guessed.

“They’re putting the sheriff’s stuff in storage.” He walked in and picked up two boxes, then returned to the hallway, catching up with Alvarez as she headed to her own office. When she peeled off, he went on past her.

Alvarez exhaled heavily as she sat down at her desk. She’d received a text from Rule, who’d been unable to drive up to the cabin and see if Vincent Samuels resided there. Too much new snow and a ton of traffic problems that the deputy had needed to attend to first. Maybe it was just as well. She and Pescoli could drive up there later.

So far, the day had been a bust. Brewster’s wife hadn’t given her any more information than she’d retrieved from her interview with Donna Goodwin. This morning Donna had just been finishing cleaning the Millers’ house when Alvarez had caught up with her, but everything she said was just a confirmation of what they already knew. Pushing fifty, Donna was short, compact, and wiry. Her hair had been clipped into a close-cut buzz that made her appear mannish, and though the temperature was in the teens, she was wearing cargo shorts and a tight-fitting thermal shirt.

The problem was that she only cleaned the judge’s house once every two weeks and rarely spoke to the woman who’d hired her. She knew of no family problems or boyfriends, and agreed the judge had kept a calendar, though Donna had never paid much attention to it. She thought it was for doctor’s appointments and the like. As for the fireplace in the den, “It was spotless when I left it, the week before Christmas. Fact is, I’ve never seen any ashes in there. She doesn’t use it.” She’d seemed genuinely sad as she’d loaded her cleaning supplies and canister vacuum into her hatchback and driven away.

Alvarez had hoped Velma Miller could fill in the blanks, but the judge’s little round neighbor hadn’t been much help either. The interview in the Millers’ parlor off the foyer lasted all of half an hour. Velma wanted to help, but she, like so many others of the judge’s friends, knew very little about her personal life.

Alvarez asked if Velma had seen anything suspicious or odd in the neighborhood, and the little round woman had shaken her head slowly. “Not really. Every once in a while I would see a car over at Kathy’s that I couldn’t place, but she was a judge, you know, had a lot of friends . . . I didn’t think anything of it.”

“What kind of car?”

“Oh, I don’t know. A smaller one, sedan . . . kind of a goldish beige color. I think they call it champagne or something just as highbrow and silly, but like I said, it was probably someone from her work or the church.”

“Have you ever seen anyone just hanging out? Watching the judge’s house?”

She actually laughed. “You’ve been talking to Claudia Dubois, haven’t you? Claudia’s imagination is wild at times. I mean wild. I’ve heard about the stalker, but as many times as I look out upon the park, and it’s often, as I knit right here in this room, by the window, I’ve never seen the man she described or anyone remotely suspicious.”

Alvarez had walked to the window to stand near a well-worn rocker with a basket of yarn beside it. Peering through the glass, she said, “Mrs. Dubois said he stood under that tree. Maybe you couldn’t see him from your angle. The tree could block it?”

“Well, maybe, but you do know that Claudia isn’t always . . . clear.”

“We talked to her husband.”

“Oh, the doctor.” She sobered a little. “It’s sad, you know. At one time Claudia Dubois was the smartest woman I knew.”

Now, as she paused in the doorway to her office, Alvarez dragged her mind from the interviews and responded to a text on her cell phone from O’Keefe, firming up plans to meet later.

Joelle came hurrying along the hallway, stopping momentarily to peek into the sheriff’s office. “Oh, I don’t like this at all,” she said with a shake of her blond bouffant. She shook a long-nailed finger at Alvarez, as if she were to blame for the recent departmental changes. “Sheriff Grayson is coming back, you mark my words. It’s just going to take time. Some people around here just jump the gun, if you know what I mean!” And then she was off, her heels clicking on the tile floor, her expression as perturbed as Alvarez had ever seen it. For the first time since joining the department, she was on the same wavelength as the receptionist.

Sage Zoller was practically beaming when she dropped into Pescoli’s office two hours later. “Who said persistence never pays off?”

“What have you got?” Pescoli asked, frustrated as ever. Her stomach growled loudly and her neck ached from bending over the computer, searching reports and maps of the county for hours. A jumble of files was strewn across her desk: papers in

disarray in her in-basket; various pictures of her kids; a half-full coffee cup placed an inch from a supersized cup of soda with a straw that was flattened by chew marks. She’d learned that Rule hadn’t made it to the cabin where they assumed Vincent Samuels was, and she was ready to yank Alvarez out of the station and get out there.

“I struck out with the dating service, matchmadein-heaven. com. Those people take their privacy very seriously, let me tell you. I finally got some information on the judge, though. She used the site but hadn’t logged on in over a year. If she connected with someone there, they’ve moved off the site. It looks like a bust to me.”

Pescoli glanced at the clock on the wall. “What was that about persistence?”

“Look what I just got from Nettie in Traffic.” She slapped a grainy photograph onto the desk, stacking it on an uneven pile of papers.