Born to Die - Lisa Jackson [42]
O’Halleran’s lips pinched at the corners a bit. He shook Pescoli’s hand. “I just think it’s an odd coincidence that a woman I know is missing about the same time. She jogs, too, and I dropped by her house yesterday because I heard she hadn’t shown up for work.”
As Alvarez waved him back into his chair, she listened to O’Halleran while he explained that he and Jocelyn Wallis, a schoolteacher whom he’d met through his kid at Evergreen Elementary, had dated a few times and that the relationship had stopped before really getting started. Then, yesterday, he had gotten a call from a friend who worked at the school and was informed that the Wallis woman hadn’t shown up for work. He’d noticed she had phoned him but hadn’t left a message, so he’d gone to her apartment, investigated on his own by letting himself in with a hidden key he knew where to find, and subsequently discovered her missing. Her purse and car had still been at her home. As had been her phone. He’d found it odd, as it was out of character for her; to his knowledge Jocelyn Wallis had never missed a day of work.
“Then I saw this morning’s news,” he said, wrapping up. “That woman was pulled from an area of the park ... one of the trails Jocelyn runs. So, I came to you.”
Pescoli watched him closely all through the recitation. He seemed earnest, intense, and worried. His hands were clasped between his knees, the thumb of his right hand working nervously. He hadn’t called her family, hadn’t wanted to worry them, thought maybe the school would start contacting friends and relatives, and hoped that she would show up.
He was emphatic that he and she weren’t dating. There had been no big blowup; they’d just quit seeing each other. It had been O’Halleran who had cut things off.
Pescoli wanted to trust the rancher. Handsome in that rugged way she’d always found sexy, he was used to working outside and had the winter tan to prove it. His thick hair brushed the collar of his fleece jacket, and his hands were big, calloused, and had a few tiny white scars. A single father whose wife, he’d admitted, had left him, O’Halleran seemed sincere, and he had come in of his own accord, but that didn’t mean a whole helluva lot.
She’d seen the most pious, timid of men turn out to be cold-blooded killers.
“So, is this Jocelyn Wallis?” Alvarez asked as she slid a couple of pictures of the battered woman to him.
O’Halleran swept in a breath. “God, I hope not,” he said fervently but studied each of the two shots. “I—I don’t know. Maybe. Jesus.”
“I’ve got a few pictures of Jocelyn Wallis,” Alvarez said.
“From the school’s Web site?” Pescoli guessed.
“Motor vehicle division.” Alvarez clicked on her keyboard, and a driver’s license appeared on the screen. The woman in the picture was somewhere in her early thirties with a bright smile and long reddish brown hair.
“Could be.” Pescoli looked at O’Halleran. “Any identifying marks? Tattoos? Scars? Birthmarks?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Don’t know.”
“You didn’t see her naked?” Pescoli questioned. “She didn’t talk about any surgeries or injuries as a kid? Or getting a tattoo?”
“We didn’t get that far.”
“You didn’t sleep with her?” Pescoli asked.
He hesitated and looked down at his hands before meeting her eyes again. “Once. At her place. I didn’t see anything. She didn’t tell me about anything like that, but she did wear earrings. Three in one ear, I think, and two in the other.”
“That’s something,” Pescoli said. “So why don’t you come down and see if you know her?”
“The hospital will allow it?” he asked.
“We’ve got friends in high places.”
He was already climbing to his full six feet two inches, and Alvarez was reaching for her jacket, purse, and sidearm. “I’ll drive,” Pescoli said. She wanted to see his reaction to the injured woman, and then she’d double-check his story.
And if the woman turned out to be someone other than Jocelyn Wallis, there was still the problem that the schoolteacher was missing.
If what O’Halleran had told them was true.
“Oh,