Expecting to Die

  She didn’t turn on a light, didn’t want anything outside to see her silhouette, because deep in her heart, she knew that something or someone was watching. Why, she didn’t understand, but intuitively she knew that whatever was skulking in the darkness was, without a doubt, the embodiment of evil.

  * * *

  For Pescoli, the next few days flew by. Most of the kids from the party were questioned again, but offered up nothing new. All that came of it was that Pescoli decided she didn’t much like Madison Averill, who, at seventeen, seemed already able to use all her feminine charms to her advantage and did it willingly, even eagerly. A pretty girl who was smart enough, she wasn’t looking beyond trying to gain TJ O’Hara’s interest, which, as Bianca had told her, seemed to be zeroed in on Lara Haas. As popular as TJ apparently was, he might find himself having to stand in line, as a number of college boys had returned this summer to sniff around her.

  Lara radiated innocence, but it was an act, Pescoli thought, after interviewing her—something she purposely played up. However, she had admitted to knowing Destiny a little, more than the rest of the kids had allowed. She’d sworn she couldn’t shed further light on what had happened to her though.

  “I hadn’t talked to her for a few days. It’s summer and so, with everyone’s jobs and vacations, we don’t see each other like when we’re in school.” Chewing gum, she had been seated in Pescoli’s office, having opted to give her statement at the department rather than at home. Her sun-streaked hair had been pulled into a messy bun, big hoop earrings swung from her lobes, and though she’d been wearing makeup, it wasn’t overdone. Didn’t have to be. She’d been blessed with thick, sooty lashes, high cheekbones, and pouty rosebud lips to go along with a killer figure. In skinny, holey jeans and a cropped tee, Lara elicited more than her share of sidelong glances from the male deputies and clerks who happened by. If she noticed, she didn’t react, just held Pescoli’s gaze and snapped a wad of green gum she was working on.

  Pescoli had brought up the pregnancy.

  Lara pulled a face as she chewed. “I wondered.”

  “You did?”

  “Well, no. Not if she was knocked up. Not like that. I just sensed something was wrong. She was off, y’know. I thought it was because she broke up with Donny, but maybe . . .” Lara gave an exaggerated shrug. “Maybe it was the baby. Geez . . .” She’d bit her lip then, forgetting about the gum for a second.

  “Do you have any idea who the father could be, who she was seeing?”

  “After Donny?”

  “Or . . . during?”

  “Oh. I don’t know.” She shook her head, wispy tendrils of pale hair shaking about her face, earrings flashing under the fluorescent lights strung high overhead. “All of the guys thought she was okay, but if she was hooking up with someone, I didn’t know about it.”

  She began chewing again. Thoughtfully.

  Pescoli guessed that she was lying, that Lara had a few ideas. She pushed, but got nowhere.

  “I suppose it could have been anyone,” Lara finally admitted when Pescoli pressed her on Destiny’s possible sexual partners. “Maybe one of the guys—they’re always interested—or maybe someone else.”

  Pescoli had thought about that, but her social circle seemed to radiate from the same group of kids that Bianca knew, that Lara was a part of. She tried another tack, for now. “You said she broke up with Donny. Thought it was the other way around.”

  “Oh, no. She kicked him to the curb. And I don’t blame her. He was screwin’ around with some girl from college and she found out. Really pissed her off that he thought he could be with that girl in Missoula, then come back here and expect Destiny to . . .”

  “Have sex with him?”

  “Uh-huh. It just doesn’t work out that way, y’know?”

  “What about her seeing someone else? How would Donny feel about that?”

  “Bad. Really bad. He freaked out when she talked to any guy, if he wasn’t around. Real controlling, y’know. We were at a party once, and she was in a different part of the house from where the keg was, where Donny was hanging out, and she was just like talking to this guy, and Donny went crazy, started swearing at the guy, then punched him in the face.”

  “Who was the guy?”

  “Bryant Tophman, I think. He was at the party with Austin, but for some reason he was alone with Destiny and Donny saw them and went off, mad as hell. He punched Bryant in the nose, then tackled him, had to be pulled off him. There was blood everywhere. Bryant’s nose gushed and gushed. Anyway, I think Kywin Bell actually broke up the fight—he was always kind of Destiny’s protector because Donny has a temper. Especially when he drinks. A sweet guy who gets kind of mean when he’s had too much.”

  It was on the tip of Pescoli’s tongue to remind her that the whole group had acted as if they barely knew Destiny, when they’d been asked. She decided bringing it up would be counterproductive, and said instead, “So Donny was drinking that night.”

  “We all were. Everyone was pretty wasted, y’know.”

  “Where did this happen? And when?”

  “I dunno . . . oh, wait. Spring break, cuz Donny was back from college. So the end of March. We were all at Reece’s cabin, but after the fight, Austin made everyone leave. He was really pissed, I mean like really pissed. He kept screaming about the blood and beer all over his parents’ carpet. One of the guys actually had peed in the corner of the room, then the fight and Austin went ballistic, said he was going to sue everyone who was there, but he couldn’t, could he? Without getting into major trouble.”

  “And Bryant didn’t press charges?”

  She was shaking her head. “It wasn’t all that big of a deal.”

  Maybe. Maybe not.

  “I think he was hoping his dad wouldn’t find out. Reverend Tophman doesn’t like it when Bryant gets into trouble. Bryant wanted to keep it all quiet. And he and Donny helped pay to clean up the mess. If Austin’s parents ever found out, I never heard about it.”

  “So who did Destiny leave with?”

  “That night?” She thought. Worked the gum. “I dunno . . . oh, wait. I think she got a ride with Alex and Teej. They said they’d drop her off.”

  “And did they?”

  She paused. Thinking. No longer chewing. “I . . . I guess.” She lifted her shoulders.

  “Wouldn’t Donny have been upset about her leaving with some other guys?”

  “Yeah, but it was just Alex and Teej, y’know. Buddies of his.” She chewed again. “I, you know . . . I don’t know . . . I was a little wasted myself,” she said with a sheepish smile.

  Pescoli changed the course of the conversation. “Donny claims he was the one who broke up with Destiny.”

  She rolled her eyes, then looked more thoughtful. “Okay, I wasn’t there, but I don’t think so. She was the one who started it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She worked the gum to one side of her mouth. “I heard that she texted him first, to tell him it was over. Then they met up later in the day. She coulda texted him to break up, but then they maybe hooked up later to talk. Not a hook-up, hook-up. Just talk.”

  “No sex.”

  “Yeah.” She chewed harder. “Maybe when they got together, they got in a big fight or something, and then he tells her he ’s breaking up with her. A pride thing, y’know.” She blinked. “Does it matter?”

  Maybe . . . if it went to motive.

  Pescoli asked her a few more questions but got nowhere. When she said, “I think that’s it,” Lara straightened from her chair. But then she lingered a moment, one pink-tipped finger resting on the corner of Pescoli’s desk.

  “So is Bianca going to that meeting? The Big Foot thing?”

  “I don’t know.” That was an out-and-out lie. Bianca had made it very clear that she was meeting with the Big Foot Believers tonight. Pescoli had argued against it; Santana had backed her up. But as of eight o’clock this morning, Bianca had claimed she was attending.

  ??
?I heard that Barclay Sphinx was going to be there.”

  “That’s the rumor.”

  “That’s so awesome.” Lara actually beamed.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. He’s like a big deal in TV. Reality TV. Does all these celebrity things. And he makes celebrities, too. Y’know, people get famous on his reality shows and then they do more and are on cable TV and suddenly you see them everywhere.”

  “Wow.” Pescoli stood, indicating the interview was over, and Lara skated a glance down Pescoli’s body.

  “Are you like due right away?” she asked, eyeing Pescoli’s baby bump.

  “Pretty soon.”

  “Wow. A lot of people pregnant, huh?” Lara said. “Destiny, I guess, and you, and Emmett’s stepmom.”

  “Marjory Tufts?” Pescoli clarified, surprised. Marjory was about Jeremy’s age. They’d gone to school together, but the name Marjory sounded wrong. Ah. Marjory had gone by Madge as a kid. Madge Vadala. She’d changed her name somewhere along the line, but Pescoli didn’t know when or why. Not that it mattered. What was odd was the fact that Marjory/Madge was only a few years older than her stepsons, Emmett and Preston Tufts. If Pescoli remembered correctly, Marjory had married their father, Richtor, shortly after he’d divorced their mother, Terri. Richtor owned the Ford dealership in town and after over twenty years of marriage, he’d dumped Terri unceremoniously, then married Marjory, a woman half his age, in a huge wedding not two months after his divorce was final.

  Lara said, “It’s kinda weirded Emmett out, to think he’s gonna have a little brother or sister like seventeen or eighteen years younger than him.”

  “Hmmm.” Pescoli knew the feeling. Bianca and Jeremy, when first told that they were going to have a new half-sibling, had been mortified. It had been bad enough to think their mother was sexually active, but to get pregnant...

  Lara was still staring at Pescoli’s belly as she slid her phone into the back pocket of her pants and picked up her keys. “You can still work? They let you?”

  “Yep, they still let me,” she said dryly. Of course, there were some people in the department who thought she should already be on maternity leave. “Last I heard, pregnancy wasn’t classified as a disability.”

  “Maybe it should be,” Lara remarked before gathering her iPhone and keys and leaving Pescoli’s office.

  Pescoli shifted uncomfortably in her desk chair and had to admit, the sooner she birthed this baby, the better. The trouble was, she just had too much to do before a new little life took over hers.

  * * *

  “I’m scared,” Lindsay whispered into her smartphone. She’d heard that the police were still conducting interviews, even going so far as to talk to some of her friends more than once. It had been almost a week since Destiny’s body had been found, and in that time Lindsay thought she’d go crazy with worry.

  Now, she was outside, near the old garage that had been converted into her father’s “man cave.” Inside, Roy Cronin was no doubt seated on one end of the couch that was really a series of recliners with a built-in table, cup holders, and even a mini-fridge. From there, he could smoke, drink beer, and have the volume on the fifty-odd-inch flat screen cranked as high as he wanted and didn’t have to hear his wife’s nagging.

  So he wouldn’t hear his daughter’s conversation as she huddled in the bushes near the back of the building, the night closing in around her.

  “Hey. Don’t be scared. Just . . . hang tough. And don’t say anything.”

  “But the cops are going to find out,” she whined, nearly breaking down.

  “They don’t know anything.”

  “Yet, but they will. You know Bianca’s mom, right? Or know about her? How she’s like a great detective and has solved all of these murder cases, her and her partner, that Hispanic chick. They’ve been in the papers and in the news.”

  “She’s just a cop. How smart do you really think she is? If she was all that great, she’d be working for the FBI or CIA or some big-ass police department. Don’t worry.”

  “How can you say that? When they find out that we knew about Destiny, that—”

  “Shhh!”

  “But what if they find out?”

  “They won’t. Just be cool.”

  “I can’t!”

  A beat. “Fine.” Another beat, and then he said, as if he’d just made up his mind, “Let’s meet. I’ll talk you off the ledge.”

  She bit her lip, glanced out across the backyard to the hedgerow of arborvitae, saw something—a rat? Squirrel? Small cat? She couldn’t tell in the darkness. The shadowy creature skittered away, sliding deep into the undergrowth.

  Goose pimples marched up the back of her arms and she shivered.

  “Linds? You still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t lose it. I’ll meet you. Later. Midnight. You know where.”

  “Not at the Reservoir—”

  “Of course not. The other place!”

  And then he was gone and she was left with the muted sounds of a crowd roaring its approval from her dad’s TV, and the smell of cigarette smoke curling through the cracked caulking surrounding the old garage’s only window.

  For the first time in her life, she envied her parents with their drab, boring lives. He worked for the railroad, had for as long as she could remember. His thrills were double cheeseburgers at Shorty’s, the all-night diner, playing pool with his buddies, or just hanging out in his man cave.

  Lindsay’s mother still worked part-time at that preschool Lindsay had attended years ago, volunteered at the local animal shelter, played Bunco with a group of friends one Monday night a month, and sang in the church choir. Their lives were planned out, no worries, no damned drama.

  She felt a tear start to well in the corner of her eye, but she willed it backward. No time for that. She had to meet him in a little while.

  Hopefully he had a plan.

  CHAPTER 14

  Since Pescoli couldn’t beat ’em, she decided to join ’em and attend the meeting of the Big Foot Believers with her daughter. They parked in the courthouse lot as it was after hours, then hiked the two blocks to the building that had originally been built by the Sons of Grizzly Falls, a fraternal organization with secret meetings where, it had been rumored, men had met, drank, played cards, and brought in prostitutes all under the guise of working for the betterment of the community. The organization slowly dissolved and the building had been sold to the city. Since World War II, the Sons Building, as it was called, had been city hall, the police department, and the town library, but over the years each of those entities had moved on, and now the building was used to house meetings, art festivals, adult education classes, and the like. The latest rumor was the city was ready to sell the building to a developer who wanted to turn it into a mall of some sort. As far as Pescoli knew, negotiations on the sale were stalled and specific groups such as the Big Foot Believers were still able to rent out space.

  Bianca tried not to limp on her way into the building, but she winced a little as she headed through the massive double doors and into a wide hallway with soaring ceilings, complete with stained-glass skylights. The architect who had designed the edifice had spent three years in Europe and had been greatly influenced by medieval architecture. While most of the buildings in Grizzly Falls were constructed with wooden western facades, even, in some cases, adorned by hitching posts, or were long and low, built in the style of mid-century strip malls, not so this enormous structure. The Sons of Grizzly Falls building was thick and square, like a fortress. Built of concrete and stone with huge, exposed cross timbers and high ceilings reminiscent of a cathedral, it had withstood two fires and over a hundred and fifty Montana winters.

  Wide stone steps led to huge doors, through which they entered into a grand hall with thick columns and a marble floor inlaid with tile. People were milling around the center area, some climbing the steps, voices muted but echoing slightly.

  Smaller rooms branched off the cavern
ous hallway. One door was shut firmly, a handwritten sign posted over the carved panels:

  BIG FOOT BELIEVERS MEETING

  MOVED TO ROOM 211

  Come and meet Hollywood Producer

  Barclay Sphinx

  Visitors Welcome!

  Please: No cell phones

  No firearms

  Up the stairs they trudged and followed the signs to room 211, where a door stood open. Just as they walked inside, they were met with an obstacle, a long folding table manned by a heavyset woman in jeans, a T-shirt, and a vest. Her face was square and tanned, blue eyes a shade bordering on green and covered by cat’s-eye glasses. Over one ample breast was a button that read I BELIEVE in red letters over the silhouette of a black Sasquatch. Upon the table was a stack of brochures about Big Foot, a cash drawer flipped open, and a stamp resting on a pad oozing green ink. “Are you two together?” she asked, peering upward through her glasses while motioning in an arc between Pescoli and her daughter Bianca.

  “Yes,” Pescoli said.

  “That’ll be fifty dollars. No student discounts tonight.”

  “Fifty bucks?” Pescoli was outraged. “We were invited by Carlton Jeffe.”

  The woman squinting behind her glasses said, “And I was told to charge for everyone who wants in. We’ve got serious entertainment tonight and,” she said, on eye level with Pescoli’s belly, “you’re lucky I’m not charging you for a third. You look like you could pop and have that baby any minute.”

  Pescoli was getting real tired of being reminded of her condition.

  “So that’ll be fifty. Cash only.”

  “Wait a second.” Pescoli was seriously thinking about reaching for her badge while Bianca died a thousand teenage deaths of embarrassment beside her. “I didn’t want my daughter to come down here in the first place but—”

  “I’m Bianca Pescoli,” Bianca cut in. “I was asked to speak by Mr. Jeffe.”