Born to Die - Lisa Jackson [50]
Pescoli rolled down the window, collected the two cups and, after snagging Alvarez’s fiver, paid for the drinks and left a bit of a tip.
“Wow, that’s hot,” Alvarez whispered after taking an experimental sip.
“Just what you need on this cold day.”
Alvarez settled deeper into the seat as she cradled her cup. “What I need are answers. Lots of answers.”
“About life’s most important questions.”
One side of her mouth lifted. “I’d be satisfied for the answer to why Jocelyn Wallis, a young woman, experienced jogger, and, from all reports, athletically fit and sane, ended up on a ledge jutting over a river.” Her eyes narrowed as Pescoli braked for a red light. “Seems as if she might just have been helped over that rail.”
“Maybe.”
Alvarez was nodding as she lifted the lid from her latte and blew across the hot surface.
“And maybe not.”
She took a long sip. “I guess we’ll find out. Maybe the answer’s at her place.”
“We should be so lucky,” Pescoli said but was already driving to Jocelyn Wallis’s apartment complex.
They found the key where O’Halleran said it would be, unlocked the door, and stepped into the one-bedroom unit the schoolteacher had called home.
To Pescoli, nothing in the dead woman’s apartment seemed out of place. Jocelyn Wallis had no home phone, but Alvarez found her cell on a table near her recliner; her house key and car key had been left in a dish on a table in the foyer, by the front door. They discovered her purse on the counter and schoolbag on the seat of one of two bar stools, near a small desk where her laptop was plugged into the wall. Over-the-counter flu medication and a few tissues in the trash near her bed indicated she hadn’t been feeling well, yet she’d still gone out jogging. That was a little odd, but then the flu felt like it had settled in for winter, and sometimes serious joggers and exercise enthusiasts got tired of waiting to get completely well.
Her ten-year-old Jetta was parked in its spot in the long carport that housed the vehicles for this building, one of four in the complex. But an animal was missing—a cat, if the tins of food in the pantry didn’t lie. Pet bowls half filled with water and food were on the floor, and a litter box had been tucked near the toilet in the bathroom. It was clean, no evidence of the feline.
“Where’s the cat?” Pescoli asked.
“Apparently missing,” Alvarez answered, looking around. “Nothing here indicates anyone broke in or that there was a struggle of any kind. It looks like Jocelyn just decided to get some exercise. If someone jumped her, it wasn’t here. Probably on the trail.”
Pescoli followed Alvarez’s gaze. The apartment appeared to be just as someone going out for a jog would leave it.
Still, Alvarez wasn’t satisfied that Jocelyn Wallis had just taken a fateful misstep that had ultimately ended her life. “It just doesn’t feel right,” she said again as they stood in the living room, where the scent of some plug-in air freshener was nearly overpowering.
“Since when did you start paying attention to feelings and hunches?” Pescoli asked. In all their years as partners, Pescoli had known Alvarez to be single-minded and scientific, one who never relied on anything other than cold, hard facts.
“Since Jocelyn Wallis’s death doesn’t add up,” her partner said. Alvarez was already gathering the dead woman’s laptop, cell phone, and bills from the desk. “Let’s just take a little time and check it out. Don’t you think it might be interesting to find out just who would benefit if she died?”
“Actually, that might be real interesting.”
“Good,” Alvarez said. “Let’s do it.”
CHAPTER 10
For Pescoli, Thanksgiving was the usual nightmare. This year the kids were supposed to spend the day with Luke and his Barbie doll of a wife, Michelle. Not quite thirty, the woman wore her long blond hair straight so that it brushed the middle of her back, and she preferred clothes that accentuated her hourglass figure. Michelle was as “girlie” as they came and pretended to be