Born to Die - Lisa Jackson [96]
So much for chasing down ghosts of ex-wives.
Sipping from his cup, he snapped on the small television he’d set on the butcher-block cart his mother had used as a baking station.
Hoping to hear the weather report, he pulled a carton of milk from the fridge and a box of Cheerios from the cupboard. While rattling around in the flatware drawer he heard about a local tree-lighting contest before the woman anchor said, “And on a more serious note, a woman lost her life in a one-car accident when her car plunged into the Grizzly River near the North Fork Bridge. Elle Alexander, a mother of two, was rushed to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.”
Terrible, he thought. More and more bad news.
He poured the last of the cereal into a bowl and set it on the table for his son, then crushed the box and put it on the back porch with the rest of his recycling. When he returned to the kitchen, a different reporter was speaking, a woman standing at the crest of Boxer Bluff. Behind her, lit by bright lights, was the short stone guardrail, and around it had been placed bouquets of flowers, candles, and balloons, even stuffed animals all frozen solid, an icy memorial to Jocelyn Wallis.
Trace stared at the screen as the woman reporter gestured toward the display as her short near-black hair blew in the wind and she clutched her microphone in her gloved hands. Looking into the camera’s eye, she said, “The Pinewood County Sheriff’s Department has released a statement saying that the death of Jocelyn Wallis, a schoolteacher at Evergreen Elementary School in Grizzly Falls, may have been foul play. The authorities are not ruling Jocelyn Wallis’s death a homicide at this time, but they are continuing their investigation.”
Trace, stunned, stood rooted to the kitchen floor as he saw Jocelyn Wallis’s face appear on the screen. His guts twisted as he watched images of Jocelyn smiling into the camera, then a shot of the long brick building of his kid’s school.
Once again the camera was on the reporter standing on the crest of Boxer Bluff, near the park. The camera’s focus moved from her to pan over the raging falls and the snow-crusted ledge above the river, where Jocelyn’s fate had been decided.
“The Pinewood County Sheriff’s Department is asking for anyone who may have seen Jocelyn Wallis jogging in the park or anything the least bit suspicious on the day of her death to contact them. That number will be posted on our Web site.” The screen split suddenly. The reporter out in the elements on one side, the two anchors sitting side by side behind a desk in the studio. “This is Nia Del Ray with KMJC News,” the reporter said. “Back to you, Drake.”
“Jesus,” Trace whispered, disbelieving, as he stared at his small TV. What had the reporter said?
The authorities are not ruling Jocelyn Wallis’s death a homicide at this time.
Homicide?
For the love of God, who would want to kill Jocelyn? And why?
The split screen returned to one image of the news set, and the story was quickly segued into another about a fire in a small town to the south.
Trace thought of his son and how he’d been close to Jocelyn. It had been bad enough to tell him that she’d died, but now to try and explain murder to a seven-year-old when he didn’t understand it himself . . .
The weather report forgotten, he poured some milk over the Cheerios, then left the kitchen to climb the stairs to Eli’s room.
Another thought struck him as he reached the top of the stairs. If Jocelyn had truly been murdered, Trace’s name would come up as a potential suspect. There was no way around that. He’d dated her. The damned school had called him when she hadn