Deserves to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

“Something I ate, probably.” She sensed the blood returning to her face. “I feel better now.”

“But”—he motioned to the garbage pail—“God, it stinks.”

“Maybe you should clean it up. Isn’t that part of your job description?”

“Are you kidding?”

“You think you can look at dead bodies, blood spatter, go to an accident with people barely alive, mangled in their smashed cars, but you can’t clean up a little puke?” She was shaking her head. “Better get used to it, Jer. Sometimes deputies have drunks throw up all over them, or do worse in their squad cars, defecating and all.”

“I know, Mom, but, this is my mother’s vomit!”

She did laugh at his obvious disgust. “Not in your job description?”

“No!”

“Okay, okay. I’ll handle it. This time.”

“Anytime.”

Her grin stretched wider. “I was just yanking your chain.”

“Geez, Mom, not funny!” Swiftly, before she could change her mind, he opened the door and nearly sprang through.

She eyed the mess in her trash can. He was right. The sour odor of vomit reeked, causing her stomach to roil again. She had no choice but to haul the trash to the women’s restroom and clean up the mess as best she could.

She spent most of the rest of the afternoon on the phone, calling the local pawn shops and faxing or e-mailing photos of the missing ring, hoping to get a hit. She was only partway through the list that Doug Pollard had provided of people who knew Sheree, when the calls from Utah started coming in. A torrent of them. She spoke with Sheree’s distraught parents and three of her five sisters, even a cousin. The family itself was immense and the upshot was no one had left the Salt Lake City-Provo area, nor spoken to Sheree, in the last week before her disappearance. Of course, they all told Pescoli the same thing—Sheree had no enemies, no one even the least disgruntled with her as far as anyone knew. Sheree, it seemed, was an “angel,” which was usually the case when someone came to a violent and unexpected end. Less usual were the remarks about Doug and how great he was. Theirs was a perfect match, except, of course, for the parents wishing they’d gotten married before they started living together, but even that ultimate sin was forgiven as Doug was so devoted, such a “good guy.”

“Nobody’s that great,” Pescoli said under her breath before pushing back her chair and checking her e-mail again. Two of the four pawn shops within a sixty mile radius had responded. Neither one had Sheree Cantnor’s missing engagement ring.

Maybe it had been fenced. Or kept for a trophy by the killer. Or was still in Sheree’s attacker’s pocket a thousand miles from Grizzly Falls. It’s early yet, she told herself. If the maniac who’d done this had his wits about him, he’d wait, but if he needed money fast, for instance in order to score drugs, then he might try to get cash for the ring ASAP.

Then why leave the earrings? Did he know they weren’t’t valuable? And why hack off her finger instead of just yanking the ring off ?

Because robbery isn’t the motive.

Alvarez was right. It was personal somehow. Cutting off the finger was making a statement to the victim or someone else.

Pescoli glanced down at her own engagement ring and twisted it a little, thinking hard. The earrings bothered her, but she told herself that they were just lucky the sicko hadn’t sliced off the woman’s ears and stolen them along with the fake diamond studs. Would he have known they were of little value? How? Not unless he was an expert or Sheree, or someone else, had told him so.

Despite the fact that Sheree was “beloved by all,” Pescoli wondered who might hate her so much that they wanted to torture her before killing her. Or, had the severing of the digit been postmortem? The case was troubling, that was for sure.

From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of the case file Jeremy had hauled down on Bart Grayson. “Later,” she said to the box of notes and evidence reports. Hattie’s wild theories about some connection between the Grayson brothers’ deaths would just have to wait.

Pescoli had enough on her plate, personally and professionally, to last a couple lifetimes.

Chapter 13

Ryder sat in his truck, not running the heater, staring through the windshield and falling snow at the Midway Diner across the street. He’d parked in the shadows, avoiding the pools of light from the street lamps, and every once in a while he turned on the engine long enough to clear the snow from the glass.

It had taken him a few days to find her, but he’d done his homework, whittled down his options by focusing on job opportunities that didn’t require too much of a background check, and rooms for rent around the area. He’d also checked out Cade Grayson, who was already involved with another woman, one who had been married to his brother Bart, a victim of a suicide. Ryder wasn’t really surprised. Cade Grayson was a love ’em and leave ’em kind of guy, though taking up with his dead brother’s wife seemed low, even for the likes of him. So far, it seemed Anne-Marie wasn’t in the picture.

Yet.

After learning that this particular restaurant had advertised for a waitress about a week earlier and the job had been filled, Ryder started watching the place. Just today, he’d caught a glimpse of the new hire through the windows. The pudgy waitress with the blond hair and full lips didn’t look much like the woman he’d known in New Orleans.

His jaw slid to the side and he had to give her mental kudos for the transformation. The new woman appeared matronly, at least ten, maybe fifteen years older than Anne-Marie Calderone.

Then again she was a mistress of disguise, something he’d learned the hard way. It had been a slow realization on his part that the woman he was with was more fantasy than reality, but by then, he’d been caught in the pure heat of her, willing to let inaccuracies slide, uncaring that the facts didn’t add up.