Ready to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

About to light her cigarette, Pescoli had second thoughts and tossed both her filter tip and lighter onto the passenger seat. No reason to take up the habit tonight. Maybe tomorrow. “Any others?” Turning the wheel and edging her Jeep off the county road, she eased onto the long lane leading through the trees to her house. The lane hadn’t been plowed, and a fresh layer of snow covered the packed tire tracks.

“Oh, yeah, we’ve got more. These are just the most obvious. So, let’s see . . . here we go. How about Edie Gardener?”

“Geez, I’d forgotten about her.”

“Well, she’s back. Got out last spring, married a man who corresponded with her while she was in the pen.”

“For killing her boyfriend, if memory serves.” And it did. Edie was the daughter of antigovernment extremists who lived in a compound near Cougar Ridge. Deceptively small, Edie had sat in court expressionless, dark hair pinned away from her face, her hands folded in her lap. Pretty, petite, and self-possessed, she’d won the hearts of the jury without uttering so much as one word in her own defense. She’d let her lawyer and other witnesses do her talking.

“Self-defense,” Alvarez reminded her.

“Yeah, with a bullet to his back.”

“I’m reading the report. She claimed he was abusing her, and her sister-in-law backed her up.”

“I know.” Edie had always claimed her innocence and blamed Grayson for putting her away. She’d said as much in court. “She got an alibi?”

“I’m still looking into it. Currently, she’s MIA, but I’ve got a call in to her parole officer and her brother. No one’s answering. It is Christmas, you know.”

“Yeah, but she’s a dead-eye when it comes to rifles and with her family armed to the teeth, she would have access.”

“Maybe. So far she hasn’t surfaced.”

“Let’s find her.” Pescoli drove over the small bridge that spanned the creek on her property and saw her house, lit with Christmas lights, one strand dark while the rest of the colored bulbs outlined the gutters. “Who else?” She hit the garage door opener and the light came on as the door started its slow, noisy ascent into the tracks mounted on the ceiling.

“Carlos Mendoza.” She hesitated. “He was released just ten days ago and has disappeared. The thought was that he headed south, back to Guadalajara, but that’s not been con

firmed.”

“Remind me.”

“Armed robbery with an assault rifle. No one other than one of his gang was hurt. He was arrested and his brother-in-law died in a shootout eleven years ago. A cop was injured but survived.”

“Lonnie Milton.” Pescoli remembered now that her memory was jogged. “He retired a few months later.” Braking, she rolled into the garage and hit the garage door switch.

“That’s the short list. I’m going to visit Grayson before heading home. You get anywhere with Dan’s brothers?”

“Nothing significant, but it’s weird, you know, about Hattie, Bart’s widow. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she’d had something going with Cade once upon a time.”

“You mean Dan,” Alvarez said as the garage door cranked slowly downward. “The sheriff.”

“Nope, I’m talking about his younger brother, the hothead. Man, he was pissed, not only at whoever had done this to his brother, but at Hattie too. And she wasn’t much better. You could cut the tension between them with a knife.”

For a second Alvarez didn’t say a word and the garage door settled onto the concrete floor with a thud. “You think she was involved with Cade as well as Bart, and . . . maybe even Dan?”

“Maybe.” Pescoli cut the engine, then tossed her cigarette and lighter back into the glove box before grabbing her computer case. “Just a vibe I got.”

“Worth looking into.”

“Everything is. I’ll see ya tomorrow.” She hung up and walked from the garage to the house where, with a sharp excited yip, Cisco hopped off the living room couch. Jeremy was sprawled on the cushions, playing one of his video games. “Hey. Merry Christmas.”

He actually paused the game and rolled over to look at her, his controller still in his hands. “How’s the sheriff?”

“Hanging in there, I guess. It’s probably going to be touch and go for a while.”

“Grayson’s tough, he’ll make it,” Jeremy predicted with the faith and invincibility of youth. “You catch the fuck—um, the bastard who shot him?”

“Not yet.”