Born To Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

The window slid open, and the barista, a girl of about eighteen who was wearing braids and a pilgrim bonnet, called out, “What can I get for you? We’ve got pumpkin lattes, a dollar off, just this week.” She offered a wide, toothy smile.

“Just a coffee, black,” Pescoli said.

“Skinny latte, no foam,” Alvarez said, angling her face so that she could meet the barista’s gaze. “Plain.”

“But the pumpkin is on sale.”

“Plain,” Alvarez repeated and dug into her wallet for a five-dollar bill.

The barista looked disappointed, as if she got brownie points for selling the special of the week. Pescoli rolled up her window as the espresso machine started whistling shrilly.

Digging into the Jeep’s console, Pescoli pulled out enough quarters to pay for her drink. “So tell me,” she said, turning to her partner before Alvarez could make another call. “Why are you so hell-bent to prove that Jocelyn Wallis was murdered?”

Alvarez readjusted the small hoop in her left ear. “Just a feeling I have. Something’s off about it.”

“Maybe.”

“Worth checking out.”

A red Dodge Dart, circa somewhere in the mid-seventies, rolled in behind her Jeep just as there was a sharp tap on the driver’s window. The pilgrim barista was holding two paper cups with plastic lids.

Pescoli rolled down the window, collected the two cups and, after snagging Alvarez’s fiver, paid for the drinks and left a bit of a tip.

“Wow, that’s hot,” Alvarez whispered after taking an experimental sip.

“Just what you need on this cold day.”

Alvarez settled deeper into the seat as she cradled her cup. “What I need are answers. Lots of answers.”

“About life’s most important questions.”

One side of her mouth lifted. “I’d be satisfied for the answer to why Jocelyn Wallis, a young woman, experienced jogger, and, from all reports, athletically fit and sane, ended up on a ledge jutting over a river.” Her eyes narrowed as Pescoli braked for a red light. “Seems as if she might just have been helped over that rail.”

“Maybe.”

Alvarez was nodding as she lifted the lid from her latte and blew across the hot surface.

“And maybe not.”

She took a long sip. “I guess we’ll find out. Maybe the answer’s at her place.”

“We should be so lucky,” Pescoli said but was already driving to Jocelyn Wallis’s apartment complex.

They found the key where O’Halleran said it would be, unlocked the door, and stepped into the one-bedroom unit the schoolteacher had called home.

To Pescoli, nothing in the dead woman’s apartment seemed out of place. Jocelyn Wallis had no home phone, but Alvarez found her cell on a table near her recliner; her house key and car key had been left in a dish on a table in the foyer, by the front door. They discovered her purse on the counter and schoolbag on the seat of one of two bar stools, near a small desk where her laptop was plugged into the wall. Over-the-counter flu medication and a few tissues in the trash near her bed indicated she hadn’t been feeling well, yet she’d still gone out jogging. That was a little odd, but then the flu felt like it had settled in for winter, and sometimes serious joggers and exercise enthusiasts got tired of waiting to get completely well.

Her ten-year-old Jetta was parked in its spot in the long carport that housed the vehicles for this building, one of four in the complex. But an animal was missing—a cat, if the tins of food in the pantry didn’t lie. Pet bowls half filled with water and food were on the floor, and a litter box had been tucked near the toilet in the bathroom. It was clean, no evidence of the feline.

“Where’s the cat?” Pescoli asked.

“Apparently missing,” Alvarez answered, looking around. “Nothing here indicates anyone broke in or that there was a struggle of any kind. It looks like Jocelyn just decided to get some exercise. If someone jumped her, it wasn’t here. Probably on the trail.”

Pescoli followed Alvarez’s gaze. The apartment appeared to be just as someone going out for a jog would leave it.

Still, Alvarez wasn’t satisfied that Jocelyn Wallis had just taken a fateful misstep that had ultimately ended her life. “It just doesn’t feel right,” she said again as they stood in the living room, where the scent of some plug-in air freshener was nearly overpowering.

“Since when did you start paying attention to feelings and hunches?” Pescoli asked. In all their years as partners, Pescoli had known Alvarez to be single-minded and scientific, one who never relied on anything other than cold, hard facts.