Ready to Die

by Lisa Jackson

  “If I did, I’d shoot them both. Oh, damn, though I’d have to get me a new gun as he took the rifle with him.”

  “He had a rifle?” Pescoli put in.

  “Oh, yeah, just a couple of weeks, like he’d bought hisself an early Christmas present or somethin’.”

  “You know where he bought it?” she pressed.

  “Nah, but it had to be from some guy off the street, right? A private owner and untraceable weapon, cuz I’m pretty sure it wasn’t legal for him to have it.”

  “You know what kind it was?” Pescoli tried again.

  “No.” She held out her fleshy palms as if she’d been offered poison. “I don’t know much about guns and I don’t wanta know. Trouble. That’s what they are.”

  Pescoli kept the questions coming. “Does Maurice have any enemies?”

  Wanda looked at her as if she’d grown horns. “Only about a million.” She snorted. “He had tons of people who didn’t like him or who he didn’t like, and I remember him talkin’ about the ‘Dirty Half Dozen.’ Yeah, that’s the name he gave for people who really screwed him over.”

  “Did he ever say who they were?”

  “No, but you can bet that judge was on the list. He hated her. And the sheriff.” She eyed Pescoli critically. “Wasn’t all that fond of you, either, but don’t take it personal, it was a pretty big club.”

  “I won’t,” Pescoli said. “So who are his friends, who does he hang out with?”

  “Nobody. Shit, most of his ‘friends,’ if you’d call them that, are up at the big house. Still in prison. Oh, I guess Elders got out, not that it’s a big deal.”

  “Elders?”

  “Cameron Elders. From the first time he was in prison, you know, for trying to hack me the hell up. But he hasn’t talked to Cam in years. Every time Maurice was out, Cam was in, or that’s the way it seemed. Besides, he wasn’t interested in any of his old buddies.” Her eyes narrowed with renewed fire. “The only person, and I use the term loosely, he hung out with was that piece of ass Carnie Tibalt! Man, it really pisses me off to think how he screwed me over for that little cunt with her perky little fake titties! Twenty-nine, that’s how old she’s supposed to be, but I’m bettin’ she’s at least five years older.” She sniffed loudly as if she’d encountered a bad odor. “Younger’n me, though, you can bet on that. When I think of them together . . . son of a goddamned bitch, it makes my blood boil.”

  And she wasn’t kidding. Her normally pallid complexion had turned beet red during the conversation.

  “He must’ve had some other friends,” Pescoli said.

  “No time for ’em. Too busy humpin’ Carnie. God, I hope he fucks himself to death. Both of ’em!”

  “What about Vincent Samuels?” Pescoli ventured.

  Her head snapped up. “Vinny? He did know someone he called Vinny. But I never caught his last name.”

  Bingo.

  “Did they get together recently?”

  “Dunno. Maybe. He did mention the guy. Probably another prick who screws around on his wife.”

  “Vincent Samuels isn’t married,” Alvarez said.

  “Smart guy.” As if she’d just thought of something, she curled the fist of her left hand and shot it out so that they could see her knuckles. “See this,” she said, pointing to the ring sparkling on her fleshy finger. “My damned engagement ring. Big-ass rock, yeah? Maurice swore it was real, that he lifted if off some old broad and then had the stone reset and I bought his story, hook, line, and sinker. Turns out it’s cubic Z. I’m thinkin’ he never had the ring he swiped, or he hocked it and replaced it with this, or maybe he was so damned stupid he stole a cheap knockoff. Oh, crap, what does it matter.”

  With all her effort she tugged on the ring in question, finally getting it over her knuckle and hurling it across the room to the area where a small table sat off the kitchen. “That’s what I think of that bastard. If I ever see his face again, I swear, I’ll rip off his lying lips, then gouge out his eyes! And that’s before I pull a Loretta Bobber and cut off his damned dick.”

  “Lorena Bobbitt,” Alvarez said automatically.

  “Yeah, that’s the one!” Wanda growled. “You know he’s got a temper, Maurice does. Threatened me with a chainsaw once . . . can you imagine? A fuckin’ chainsaw? Good thing he didn’t have a gun then or one of us would be dead now.” She let out a long, world-weary sigh. “That Bobber chick? She’s a goddamned hero in my book.” Wanda glanced down longingly at the remote for the TV but decided to let it lie and folded her arms under her large breasts. “Damned fucker.”

  She seemed to be calming a little and Alvarez decided to try and get Wanda back on track. “Do you have any idea where Vinny might live or hang out?”

  “ ’Course not. I don’t even know the man.”

  “And you don’t know anything about Maurice, where he might go?”

  “Not a clue,” Wanda replied. “But then why would I know anything about him, huh?” A tear slid from the corner of her eye and as mascara ran down her cheek, she added, “I’m just the dumb bitch who was stupid enough to believe it when her cocksucker of a husband told her he loved her.”

  Chapter 25

  “Gee, I can’t imagine why Maurice would cheat on a sweetheart like that,” Pescoli said sarcastically as she drove out of the parking lot of the Aspen Grove Apartments and headed for the highway.

  “He’s not exactly a gem in my book,” Alvarez said, and while she’d originally thought driving all the way to Helena might prove to be a wild goose chase, they had learned a few things about Maurice Verdago, his violent temper and his relationship with Vincent Samuels. “Rule hasn’t gotten back to me,” she added, texting some more.

  “What are you telling him?”

  “Just to check out if the cabin is occupied. I’d like us to do the Samuels interview.”

  “Good.” Pescoli clicked on her blinker, then eased into a sluggish line of traffic on the main road. “Wonder where Maurice got the rifle.”

  “Wonder what its make and model is.” Alvarez finished her text and sent it.

  “It would have been nice if Wanda had any clue about firearms,” Pescoli said. “I want to talk to both Vince Samuels and Cam Elders.” Her mind was already spinning the possibility that Maurice might have connected with the missing Vincent or his ex-cell mate.

  “Let’s hope he’s not in the wind too.”

  “Has to check in with his parole officer.”

  “Make that supposed to check in.”

  “Right.” Spying her opportunity, Pescoli gunned it around a pickup hauling a fifth wheel trailer as Alvarez’s cell phone rang.

  “Selena Alvarez,” she said, studying the taillights in the distance.

  “Oh, Detective, hi.” The voice on the other end was soft, barely audible over the hum of the Jeep’s tires and the rumble of the engine. “This is Cecilia. Cecilia Piquard.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Piquard.”

  Pescoli glanced her way for a split second, then slowed, cutting the road noise.

  “You, uh, you told me to call you if I thought of anything else?”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, there was something, but I didn’t want to say anything with Winston in the room. He’s out now, ran to the store for diapers and milk, just to the mini-mart on the corner, and Lily finally fell asleep, so I have to make this quick. Winston won’t be gone long.”

  “What is it?” Alvarez asked.

  “Win told you Kathryn didn’t have a love life, but that just isn’t true. She was pretty discreet, you know, never talked about dating, but we both knew she used one of those matchmaking services a while back.”

  “Did she ever mention any of the men? Or did you meet any of them?”

  “Oh, no, no . . . nothing like that, but a friend of mine, a guy, was on the same service and came across her profile. It was kind of a fluke cuz it’s a double-blind deal, no real e-mails or phone numbers, but he recognized her picture and it said she was a lawyer, not a jud
ge, so he showed me on my computer. Sure enough, there she was even though her picture had to be at least from ten years earlier, before she started coloring her hair, y’know? Anyway, it was really surreal and I shouldn’t have, but I told Win about it, kinda thinking it was funny. Win, not so much. In fact, he hit the roof. First with me, accused me of being a snoop, and then with his mother. He really flipped out and told her she was a professional woman and what was she thinking and who knew what kind of creeps were lurking there, ready to prey on her and blah, blah, blah. Really hit her with both barrels. Like, oh, yeah, right, anyone would prey on Judge Samuels-Piquard.” She hesitated and then said more softly, “I guess someone did, didn’t they?”

  Alvarez was listening hard, trying to digest the information and put it into her mental image of the judge. It seemed off, somehow, but she didn’t doubt that Cee-Cee was serious. “Do you know the name of the service she used?”

  “I did. But now, I’m not sure. It was something like matchmadeinheaven.com, or something similar. Anyway, like I said, she gave up her subscription or membership or whatever it is, or so we thought, but then, maybe three months later, last summer, just after the Fourth of July, I think, we were all at a party at the Jamisons’, friends of the family, and she took a phone call and stepped into the den.

  “I had to go to the bathroom and it was one of those connecting ones. You could access it from the hall or the den, but I didn’t know that when I went into it. So there I was on the toilet, just on the other side of the door, and I heard her . . . oh, this is weird, but it sounded like she was kind of talking dirty. Like she was flirting. Sexually, you know?”

  “What did you hear?” Alvarez asked, her pulse jumping a little.

  “As I said, the door was closed. Kathy didn’t know I could hear her, but I could and she said, ‘You know what I like . . .’ and then there was a pause as if she was listening to someone on the other end and then she chuckled and said, ‘Well, that, too, but not on top. I like to be under the sheriff.’ ”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “That’s what it sounded like, and then she giggled, you know, low and throaty, and then said, ‘I’ll see you later,’ and it was already nearly midnight. I mean, I thought she went to bed around nine with nothing more than a good book, but it shows you how wrong you can be about someone.”

  “Who do you think she was talking about?” Alvarez asked, thinking about all the implications. Just now, when they were thinking that Maurice Verdago was the culprit, was this a new love triangle wrinkle?

  “Obviously she was talking about the sheriff, of course. Sheriff Grayson. The guy who’s in the hospital. If you ask me, someone didn’t like him messing around with Kathy.”

  Alvarez’s hands clenched around the phone. Could this be right? “Or maybe it was the other way around?”

  “Like someone didn’t want her messing around with Dan Grayson?” she said. “Yeah, sure. It could be, I suppose.”

  But who would care? One of his ex-wives? Hattie Grayson, his sister-in-law? Hattie seemed interested in him, but she didn’t seem the type . . . neither did Cara nor Akina. And why try to take out the sheriff too?

  “Oh! I gotta go. I hear the garage door going up. Win’s back. Please, please, please don’t tell him I called you. He would be so ticked off!”

  Before Alvarez could say another word, Cee-Cee hung up.

  She lowered the phone from her ear, trying to wrap her mind around Sheriff Grayson and the judge. Really? She felt more than a little disappointment and she didn’t want to analyze that too carefully.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Pescoli asked, speeding up again.

  “Cee-Cee Piquard thinks she overheard the judge setting up a lover’s rendezvous with Dan Grayson.”

  “Oh, come on. I thought we’d ruled out the whole love triangle thing.”

  “We had,” Alvarez said, then repeated the conversation, finishing with, “. . . so Cee-Cee assumes that the judge and the sheriff were having an affair.”

  “If it’s true, someone knows about it,” Pescoli said.

  “There’ll be phone messages or love letters or texts or more overheard conversations. One of them would have told someone something. Tomorrow, we’ll start with Bess Brewster and talk to Samuels-Piquard’s maid. Then, if that doesn’t work, we’ll try the sheriff’s brothers.”

  “And hopefully Rule will have learned if Vincent’s in that cabin, and we can go talk to him,” Alvarez said.

  Pescoli nodded as she stared into the night and the distant glare of oncoming headlights from the eastbound lanes.

  “You think the ashes we found were old letters?” Alvarez asked.

  “It’s possible,” she said, “but who the hell knows?”

  “Why is it with this case that just when we think we’re getting somewhere, like with Verdago, we learn about a possible love connection?”

  “Just because Kathryn Samuels-Piquard had a private love life, even if it was with Grayson, doesn’t mean it pissed someone off,” Pescoli said.

  “But it could be the motive.”

  “Maybe.” Pescoli was cautious.

  “I thought you were the one who was thinking the case might have a personal angle to it.”

  Snow was starting to fall again, so she hit the wipers. “I just have a feeling about Verdago. What was it he said to the judge when he was sentenced?”

  “ ‘You’ll get yours’ accompanied by a nice finger gesture.”

  “Right. And his prison cell mate said he hated Grayson.” She scowled as the wipers slapped snow off the windshield. “He’s gotta be our guy.”

  “I think we need to keep our minds open.”

  “Always,” Pescoli agreed, but Alvarez knew her partner and when she got an idea in her head, especially about a killer, it took heaven, earth, and maybe a signed confession from another suspect for her to change her mind.

  He hung up his clothes with the precision of military training. The cabin was cold enough to elicit gooseflesh on his skin, yet he didn’t approach the banked fire until he was completely naked.

  Only then did he drop and, starting with push-ups, go through his routine of exercises, stretching, and testing each muscle, feeling the strain, watching sweat drip from the tip of his nose to the cold stone floor.

  He was tired. Exhausted. And yet he forced himself to go through his routine, to push himself. Soon, he would be tested and he had to prevail. Already there had been one mistake, and it ticked him off to think that Dan Grayson wouldn’t just give up the ghost. Surely he was mortally wounded. Had it not been for that damned Pescoli and the quick response of the EMTs and the skill of the surgeons—

  “Stop!” he ordered, breaking the silence within this tiny cabin. He couldn’t afford negative thoughts, had to persevere. He was on a path that had only one end.

  Once the exercises were complete, he walked outside and through a snowbank to the woodpile. Icy crystals caressed his bare skin and stung the bottoms of his feet. A gust of wind rattled the naked branches of a sapling and cooled the beads of sweat upon his skin.

  Calming himself, he drew in a long breath and reminded himself that sending the picture of the judge had been a success.

  Renewed, he split the kindling, remembering Grayson with his own armload of firewood, how he’d aimed at him and missed. He closed his mind to that particular mistake. It could, and would, be rectified.

  Back inside, he stoked the fire, coaxing flames to crackle and leap; then he warmed his backside as heat emanated from the hearth. Allowing himself one drink, he donned gloves and walked to the desk, his father’s old workbench.

  Lovingly, he ran a finger along the old wood. Arranging the four pictures on his desk, he tried to calm down, to think clearly, to think of the days ahead. His timing had to be precise. Impeccable. If any mistakes were made . . .

  No. Don’t let it happen. Take a deep breath. Count to ten. When doubts entered his mind, he pushed them steadfastly aside.

 
; The first bitch is dead, isn’t she?

  Soon, the second will go, and you know what will happen with the others . . . it is only a matter of time.

  Chapter 26

  The killer had to be Verdago, Pescoli reasoned as she pulled into her garage. The threats, his violent nature, the perfect timing of his disappearance—all stacked up to one conclusion: guilty as sin. It boiled her blood to think that sicko had killed the judge and put Grayson in the hospital.

  Cutting the engine, she grabbed her computer and purse, and once out of the Jeep, shut the garage door. She couldn’t wait to find the sorry bastard and haul his ass back to jail.

  Wild scratching on the other side of the door indicated the dogs had heard her arrival. They were waiting as she opened the door, and immediately vied for her attention as she dropped her computer case and purse onto a chair at the table.

  “Okay, okay,” she said, bending down as Sturgis’s tail worked double-time while Cisco spun in happy little circles and stood on his back legs. Yep, she thought, unzipping her jacket as the warmth of the house hit her full force. The dogs, of course, were ecstatic to see her. Her kids? Not so much.

  Jeremy was lying on the couch, video controllers in his hands. He barely looked her way as she walked into the living room. Gone was the enthusiastic, clean, Johnny-on-the-Spot volunteer from the station and in his place (and body) was her disinterested-in-life-around-him son.

  “Hey,” she said, noticing that his rifle was propped next to the couch. His cell phone buzzed. From where she stood, she saw that it was a text from Heidi.

  “Hey,” he mumbled back at Pescoli, then, not responding to the text, swore under his breath as some opponent annihilated him and the entire television screen turned a bloody crimson.

  “Good day at work?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sorry about coffee duty.”

  He shrugged as if he didn’t care.

  “Do you ever think that Brewster is picking on you or making an example of you?”

  “Of course. He’s a prick. Likes to rub it in that he’s bossing me. I think it’s his way of getting back at me for dating Heidi. At the office, I can’t disagree with him, have to do his bidding.”