Ready to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

“I had to go to the bathroom and it was one of those connecting ones. You could access it from the hall or the den, but I didn’t know that when I went into it. So there I was on the toilet, just on the other side of the door, and I heard her . . . oh, this is weird, but it sounded like she was kind of talking dirty. Like she was flirting. Sexually, you know?”

“What did you hear?” Alvarez asked, her pulse jumping a little.

“As I said, the door was closed. Kathy didn’t know I could hear her, but I could and she said, ‘You know what I like . . .’ and then there was a pause as if she was listening to someone on the other end and then she chuckled and said, ‘Well, that, too, but not on top. I like to be under the sheriff.’ ”

“You’re sure about that?”

“That’s what it sounded like, and then she giggled, you know, low and throaty, and then said, ‘I’ll see you later,’ and it was already nearly midnight. I mean, I thought she went to bed around nine with nothing more than a good book, but it shows you how wrong you can be about someone.”

“Who do you think she was talking about?” Alvarez asked, thinking about all the implications. Just now, when they were thinking that Maurice Verdago was the culprit, was this a new love triangle wrinkle?

“Obviously she was talking about the sheriff, of course. Sheriff Grayson. The guy who’s in the hospital. If you ask me, someone didn’t like him messing around with Kathy.”

Alvarez’s hands clenched around the phone. Could this be right? “Or maybe it was the other way around?”

“Like someone didn’t want her messing around with Dan Grayson?” she said. “Yeah, sure. It could be, I suppose.”

But who would care? One of his ex-wives? Hattie Grayson, his sister-in-law? Hattie seemed interested in him, but she didn’t seem the type . . . neither did Cara nor Akina. And why try to take out the sheriff too?

“Oh! I gotta go. I hear the garage door going up. Win’s back. Please, please, please don’t tell him I called you. He would be so ticked off!”

Before Alvarez could say another word, Cee-Cee hung up.

She lowered the phone from her ear, trying to wrap her mind around Sheriff Grayson and the judge. Really? She felt more than a little disappointment and she didn’t want to analyze that too carefully.

“What the hell was that all about?” Pescoli asked, speeding up again.

“Cee-Cee Piquard thinks she overheard the judge setting up a lover’s rendezvous with Dan Grayson.”

“Oh, come on. I thought we’d ruled out the whole love triangle thing.”

“We had,” Alvarez said, then repeated the conversation, finishing with, “. . . so Cee-Cee assumes that the judge and the sheriff were having an affair.”

“If it’s true, someone knows about it,” Pescoli said.

“There’ll be phone messages or love letters or texts or more overheard conversations. One of them would have told someone something. Tomorrow, we’ll start with Bess Brewster and talk to Samuels-Piquard’s maid. Then, if that doesn’t work, we’ll try the sheriff’s brothers.”

“And hopefully Rule will have learned if Vincent’s in that cabin, and we can go talk to him,” Alvarez said.

Pescoli nodded as she stared into the night and the distant glare of oncoming headlights from the eastbound lanes.

“You think the ashes we found were old letters?” Alvarez asked.

“It’s possible,” she said, “but who the hell knows?”

“Why is it with this case that just when we think we’re getting somewhere, like with Verdago, we learn about a possible love connection?”

“Just because Kathryn Samuels-Piquard had a private love life, even if it was with Grayson, doesn’t mean it pissed someone off,” Pescoli said.

“But it could be the motive.”

“Maybe.” Pescoli was cautious.

“I thought you were the one who was thinking the case might have a personal angle to it.”

Snow was starting to fall again, so she hit the wipers. “I just have a feeling about Verdago. What was it he said to the judge when he was sentenced?”

“ ‘You’ll get yours’ accompanied by a nice finger gesture.”