Born To Die

  As his footsteps stomped off, Alvarez said, “You didn’t have the words, because Jeremy and Bianca were in a lip-lock?”

  “There was one of her bent forward in one of those poses where she’s looking at the camera and sucking the hell out of a lollipop. A few other similar ones, too.”

  “Maybe you can frame one and give it to Brewster for your Secret Santa gift,” Alvarez suggested.

  “There’s an idea. So, what’s kept you here all night? I’m trying to get out of here early so I can referee at my house.”

  “I’ve been thinking about the case.”

  “Okay.”

  “We haven’t pushed O’Halleran enough. We just accepted his assurances that he and Jocelyn weren’t really dating, but maybe he wasn’t giving us the whole truth.”

  Pescoli rolled that over in her mind. “The guy works pretty much by himself, doesn’t have to clock in anywhere.”

  “Not only was he involved with one victim, but his missing wife looks a lot like the other victims.”

  “So, you want to call him in?” Pescoli asked.

  “I think it’s definitely time for another interview.”

  Pescoli glanced at the clock. “It’s barely seven thirty. What time did you get here?”

  “Couple hours ago. Is that Joelle . . . ?”

  From down the hall they heard a woman’s voice, Joelle’s, singing: “Here comes Suzy Snowflake, dressed in a snow-white gown. Tap, tap, tappin’ at your windowpane, to tell you she’s in town.”

  “Did she make that up, or is it really a Christmas carol?” Pescoli asked.

  “I think it’s a Christmas carol.” Alvarez reached for her phone, but it suddenly rang beneath her hand. She threw Pescoli a look, then hit the speaker button and said, “Alvarez.”

  “Detective Alvarez.” A woman’s voice came through. “This is Dr. Kacey Lambert.”

  Alvarez gave Pescoli a “what’s this” look, and Pescoli shook her head. “Yes?”

  “There are microphones, listening devices, planted in my home. I’m not sure why, but it may have something to do with these ... recent accidents.”

  “Microphones?” Alvarez picked out the word that jumped out at her.

  “Tiny ones. Secretive.”

  “You think someone’s bugging you?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “You have an idea who?”

  “No . . .” Her voice grew uncertain, and Pescoli could tell she was already having serious second thoughts about calling them.

  “Can you come by the station?” Alvarez asked. “I’d like some more information.”

  “Maybe later. I’m at St. Bart’s, checking on a patient. I have to go to my clinic. I’ll call later and think about this. I just wanted to let you know.”

  She clicked off and Pescoli repeated, “Microphones?”

  “She sounds pretty rattled.” Alvarez went very still, then motioned to the computer screen where images of the recent victims were displayed. “She kind of looks like them.”

  “Doesn’t everybody,” Pescoli said on a groan.

  “No. But there’s a connection.”

  Joelle’s voice rang out: “If you want to make a snowman, I’ll help you make it, one, two, three. If you want to take a sleigh ride, whee! The ride’s on me.”

  Pescoli covered her eyes with her hands and groaned, and Joelle’s voice said suddenly, “Would you look at that snow!”

  Both Pescoli and Alvarez glanced out the window and watched the flakes fall relentlessly from the sky. Then Alvarez picked up the receiver and put a call in to Trace O’Halleran’s cell phone.

  Kacey tucked her cell phone back in her purse. Now that she’d started that ball rolling, she felt half embarrassed, second-guessing herself. She wasn’t planning on telling the police everything; she didn’t want them getting in the way of her own personal discoveries.

  But the microphones . . . She wanted them out of her house as soon as possible, and she wanted the police to do it.

  Shaking off another frisson down her back, she headed to Eli’s room. Sticking her head inside, she saw that he was sound asleep. She quietly walked in and pulled his chart from the folder at the foot of his bed, then watched his even breathing a moment. Tiptoeing out, she went in search of the floor nurse, who nodded when Kacey said, “Eli O’Halleran’s temperature’s down, and he’s breathing easier.”

  “He’s feeling much better,” the nurse agreed.

  Kacey was relieved. “Good. His father will be here soon, and we’ll get him released.”

  “This flu gets bad fast. We’ve got a few other cases that haven’t turned around as quickly.”

  Kacey commiserated with her for a moment while she wondered if she should stick around and wait for Trace. But with Eli on the mend and her worries about him abated, Kacey decided to head to the clinic. She had a plan formulating inside her head, and she was determined to leave work early today if she possibly could to put it into play. Everything just depended on her afternoon appointment schedule, which had been light the last she’d checked. She hoped that was still the case.

  She called Trace on his cell phone and was sent straight to voice mail; he was probably still doing his chores. Quickly, she gave him Eli’s update and then said she had called the police and told them about the microphones.

  That done, she drove to the clinic, whose parking lot was thick with new snow. Stepping outside, she heard the scrunch, scrunch, scrunch of her boots as she stomped through the thick white powder to the front door. Inside, she met up with Heather, who was brushing snow off the shoulders of her jacket.

  “It’s snowing like a son of a gun out there,” Heather said, wrinkling her nose.

  “I’m going to try to leave early,” Kacey said. “Would you check the afternoon schedule? I don’t think I have much, and maybe I can move some people around.”

  “Because it’s snowing?” Heather asked as she sat down at the reception desk and turned on her computer. “It’s supposed to quit before the afternoon.”

  Not even close, Kacey thought, but said only, “I’ve got some issues to take care of.”

  “Well, you’ve got Herbert Long with a possible sinus infection. His wife said he’d leave work early to come by. Around four, maybe. He didn’t want to come at all.”

  Kacey inwardly groaned. “Maybe Martin can take him.”

  “Maybe. That’s the only appointment holding you up.”

  “Let me know when Martin gets in.”

  Kacey headed into her office. She wanted to confront Gerald Johnson as soon as possible, and that meant a trip to Missoula, which was a quick trip in good weather, a little longer with the white stuff accumulating outside.

  Her mind jumped to the vision of Trace returning to her house from his foray with Bonzi, snow melting in his hair. She recognized something was happening between them, something that could lead to something more.... The idea both thrilled and alarmed her. The man was up to his eyeballs with the look-alikes. Was she an idiot to trust him? Was that what the other victims had done?

  She didn’t believe it. Not for a minute. She trusted her instincts enough to trust Trace, but even so, as she settled into work, she kept running Trace’s involvement with several of the victims through her mind on an endless loop.

  “So you don’t know where your wife is?” the taller detective asked Trace, her eyes never leaving his face. An imposing woman with reddish hair clipped away from her face, she sat on the opposite side of the small, battered table in the small interrogation room at the sheriff’s department. Her expression gave nothing away, but her gaze kept traveling to her watch.

  “Ex-wife, and no,” Trace said emphatically. “I’ve lost touch with Leanna.”

  Trace had driven to the offices at the top of Boxer Bluff to “answer a few questions” after Pescoli’s partner, Alvarez, the shorter Latino woman with the intense dark eyes, had left him a message on his cell phone, asking him to come in.

  He’d gotten that message and one f
rom Kacey in short succession. Kacey’s had been welcome; she’d told him the antibiotics had taken hold and Eli was on the mend, something he’d seen for himself when he’d dropped by the hospital after he’d fed and watered the stock and taken Sarge for a walk outside in the falling snow.

  He’d spent some time with his boy, who did seem much more animated, before speaking with the doctor, who had informed him that Eli would be released in the afternoon, as soon as all the paperwork was finished. It just relieved him to no end, and so he’d made his next stop the police station.

  Upon his arrival, Detective Alvarez had escorted him to this windowless room with its concrete walls, small table, and three molded plastic chairs. After telling him she was recording the session, she’d left, saying she as going to bring them all a cup of coffee, which he assumed was intended to make this seem more like an informal “chat” than a serious interrogation. Fine. He wanted all his cards on the table. And the police to get to the truth. Kacey’s theory that the victims were genetically linked, possibly to her, scared him. It scared him to death.

  Still, he was anxious to get this interview over. He didn’t want Eli staying alone in the hospital any longer than absolutely necessary. He already had some abandonment issues because of Leanna; Trace wasn’t about to compound them by not showing up when he’d promised.

  Alvarez returned with half-filled paper cups and set them on the table. As she sat down, she pulled a slim manila file from a briefcase positioned near her chair and slid it onto the beat-up table. Trace ignored the steaming coffee but was grateful that its aroma blocked out the stench of sweat and cleaning solvent, as if this room had been scrubbed recently, but it couldn’t quite mask the scent of fear, desperation, and guilt.

  With no holds barred, he told them the story of his brief marriage, losing touch with Leanna, and raising Eli alone. “The marriage was over before it began,” he admitted. “I’m still not even sure she was pregnant. I never saw the test kit results or went to the one appointment with the doctor she’d sworn she’d visited. No bill for the exam ever came through, so maybe I was played.”

  “Why?” Alvarez asked.

  “I suspect she was tired of the responsibility of a kid.” Trace’s insides curdled with the admission, but it was his version of the truth. “Leanna wasn’t the kind of woman cut out to be a mother.”

  “What kind was she?” the taller detective, Pescoli, asked.

  “Beautiful and self-centered. Friendly smile. Cold, though.”

  “Huh,” Pescoli observed before picking up a paper cup and taking a long swallow of the coffee. “You’re her ex.”

  “You asked,” he reminded the detective. “I’m just saying what I think.”

  Alvarez asked, “So about Eli. He’s not your biological son, but she just left him with you? What about the real father?”

  Feeling warm in his coat, Trace unbuttoned it. “It’s my understanding that he was never in the picture. He might not even know about Eli. But the adoption’s legal. He’s my son.”

  Pescoli asked, “What about your ex-wife’s family?”

  “I didn’t meet any of them. We were together less than six months. So, why all the questions about Leanna?”

  But he knew. And it came as no surprise when Pescoli opened the file on the small desk and showed him pictures of Jocelyn Wallis and one of Leanna O’Halleran, the picture she’d had taken for her Montana driver’s license.

  “Since you were the last person Jocelyn Wallis was involved with, and she with you,” Pescoli said, “we just would like to know more about her, as well as your missing wife.”

  He didn’t bother correcting her this time, understood that she was baiting him a bit, trying to get a rise. If she kept wanting to call Leanna his wife, fine. “Fire away,” he told them, and as both detectives tossed questions at him, he answered clearly and concisely. When they got to a question about Elle Alexander, he said truthfully, “I’ve never met her. Look, can I sign a statement or something? I’ve been here over an hour. I’ve got things to do, and I’m picking my son up from the hospital.” There was a hesitation, and a look passed between them. “Are you charging me with something? Do I need a lawyer? I’ve told you everything I know.”

  Pescoli looked at her watch again, and Alvarez regarded him soberly, as if she were trying to see into his soul.

  Even though it wasn’t really his call, Trace added, “Actually, there’s something more you need to know. I’ve been ... seeing Acacia Lambert, the doctor who works at the clinic downtown. You met her at the hospital. She said she called you and told you about the hidden microphones.”

  Alvarez reacted, and Pescoli’s interest sharpened as well. “That’s correct,” Alvarez said.

  “You might notice that she looks like these women.” He pointed at the small table, where the pictures of Leanna and Jocelyn were still lying faceup. “And also, Shelly Bonaventure, that actress who died recently, as well as Elle Alexander. Kacey had noticed it, and so had I. When I was over at her place last night, we discovered the bugs. There was a little microphone hidden in her den, in her bathroom, and in her bedroom. I didn’t see any in the kitchen and living room, but I could have missed them, I suppose. She was shocked. Someone is listening in on her. She thinks it has to do with this investigation.” He swept a hand over the photos.

  Alvarez and Pescoli shared a look; then Pescoli said, “She said she would call us later, after she’d thought it through.”

  No wonder they’d called, Trace realized. “The place needs to be swept of those microphones. Either you or me. But as soon as we do that, somebody’s going to know it.”

  “You brought up Shelly Bonaventure,” Pescoli said. “She was in L.A.”

  “But she’s from around here. Born in Helena. Kacey has a theory that there might be more victims and they all could be related.”

  “Related,” Alvarez repeated.

  Trace found himself growing impatient. Kicking back his chair, he stood. “I really do have to go. Let Kacey tell you more herself when she calls back.”

  “You think she’s off on some wild tangent?” Pescoli asked, and Alvarez’s lips tightened.

  “I don’t know about that,” he said truthfully. “But something’s really wrong here, and I’m worried about Kacey.”

  “And what about your ex-wife? Are you worried about her?” Alvarez asked.

  He made a sound of disgust. “Hell, no. One thing I know about Leanna—she can take care of herself.”

  CHAPTER 27

  “ O’Halleran’s not our guy,” Pescoli said as she shrugged into her coat and met her partner in the hallway.

  “I know.” Alvarez nodded. “It couldn’t be that easy.”

  “Never is.”

  Together they stepped around a shackled man being shepherded by Trilby Van Droz, one of the road deputies.

  “I ain’t got nothin’ to say!” the man with stringy hair and half a week’s growth of beard insisted. “I didn’t steal no goddamned truck, and that was my shotgun. I don’t know how that pipe got into the backseat, but it wasn’t mine! I don’t know what the fuck you’re trying to pull here!”

  “Keep movin’ it,” Trilby said, her voice world-weary.

  “Give me a fuckin’ break, will ya?” the guy wheedled. “It’s the holidays.”

  “In here!” She opened a door to one of the interrogation rooms. “Merry Christmas!”

  Pescoli smothered a smile, which faded as they passed the reception area, where winking lights were strewn around Joelle’s desk and a fir tree, complete with tinsel, lights, and presents tucked beneath its fragrant boughs, actually spun slowly in one corner. “There’s fruitcake in the lunchroom,” Joelle called as they reached the front door. Today an elf was tucked slyly into the platinum strands of her hair. “My great-great-great-grandmother’s recipe!” She offered them a bright smile just as two teenagers swept inside, a gust of arctic wind swirling behind them, along with a wet smack of snow.

  “A maniac tried to run m
e down!” The girl, in braids and huge glasses, was obviously shaken. “Near the Safeway store. He had to be drunk! He just sprayed snow everywhere!”

  “He was drivin’ a green Honda. Sweet lowrider, and he came around the corner too fast and slid all over the place,” her companion, a boy in a frayed stocking cap, said. “Everyone saw it.”

  “I was in the damned crosswalk! He just took off!”

  “Fishtailing,” the boy said, moving his hand from side to side.

  “If Lanny hadn’t pulled me out of the way, I’d be dead now!” the girl cried. She was about to hyperventilate, and Pescoli would have stepped in to help, but Joelle was already pushing a tissue box in the girl’s direction and picking up the phone. She made little scooting motions with her fingers, indicating Pescoli and Alvarez could move along.

  “Calm down, honey,” Joelle said with a motherly smile as the girl dissolved into tears. “It’ll be okay. Let me get someone to help you.”

  Since the situation was under control, Pescoli pushed the door open, felt the sting of the cold air against her face, and walked outside. Alvarez zipped her jacket a little higher and bent her head against the wind and snow as she took a call on her cell.

  “Alvarez,” she said, keeping up with Pescoli’s longer strides and blinking away snowflakes.

  Pescoli slid on her gloves, then jabbed her hands deep into the pockets of her coat as they walked the three blocks to a small deli to grab sandwiches.

  Only a few pedestrians had braved the weather, and traffic was moving slowly along, the chink, chink, chink of chains a different kind of holiday music.

  “Okay. Yeah. E-mail would be fine. Thanks!” Alvarez hung up and slid Pescoli a glance. “Shelly Bonaventure’s DNA report. Hayes managed to pull some strings and get it rushed. He’s sending it over.”

  “If it means anything.”

  “We’ll find out.”

  They needed a break, Pescoli thought as they crossed the parking lot of the strip mall where the deli was located. None of the evidence in this case was hanging together. “You think that there’s anything to the talk of Acacia Lambert’s place being bugged?” Pescoli asked.