Lisa Jackson - Born To Die

Pescoli and Alvarez were seated in the two visitors’ chairs, while the principal, a slim woman with slightly pinched features and pale skin, folded her hands over the desk. She sat as straight as if she had a metal rod up her spine; her blouse was crisply ironed; her brown sweater without a speck of lint or bit of fuzz. Not one strand of highlighted hair dared be out of place.

The terms neat as a pin and perfectionist and a little OCD flitted through Pescoli’s mind.

The wall behind Killingsworth’s desk was a bookcase filled with tomes on child psychology, education, and school administration. The top of her desk was neat as a pin, with only a bud vase holding a sprig of holly, a picture of her and some friends in a tropical paradise, a sun-spangled blue ocean glittering behind three women holding up drinks with parasols in the cups, and a thick manila folder marked WALLIS, JOCELYN.

“I know she was married a couple of times, no children, and her parents live in Twin Falls, Idaho, and, I think, a sister who lives in San Francisco. She visited there last summer.” Principal Killingsworth’s neatly plucked brows drew together to show a small line in her forehead.

“I believe her sister’s name is… Jacqueline. I remember because it was a lot like her name. But… I’m sure she referred to her as a stepsister. Maybe ten years older? I think Jocelyn said her father had been married once before, but I’m not sure of that.” Sadness darkened her eyes, and her hand trembled slightly as she touched the tips of polished nails to her lips. “This is a very difficult day for all of us at Evergreen.”

“We’re sorry for your loss,” Alvarez said.

Killingsworth nodded, and her gaze focused a little more tightly on Alvarez. “You said you were detectives. Do you think there was more to her death than an accident?”

“Just covering all our bases.” Pescoli gave the stock answer, but the principal didn’t look as if her worries were allayed. She set up appointments with Mia Calloway, the school secretary and a friend of Jocelyn Wallis’s, and two other first grade teachers, part of the “team” who worked together, offering to step into the classes as the teachers spoke to the detectives.

They didn’t learn much more about Jocelyn Wallis, only that she had definitely been married twice, she had no kids, the exes were out of the picture, and other than a little online dating, the only man she’d seen since moving to Grizzly Falls was Trace O’Halleran.

Eventually, they left Evergreen Elementary, where the bell had just rung for recess and the kids were walking in long, snaking lines toward the covered playground area.

They slid into Pescoli’s Jeep, and Alvarez said, “Let’s get coffee,” just as her cell phone rang. Answering with one hand, she clicked on her seat belt with the other as Pescoli drove around the teachers’ vehicles and out of the once-plowed lot.

Half a mile closer to the town, Pescoli found one of those coffee-shack buildings that seemed to be sprouting up on every street corner. Alvarez finished talking to the manager of her apartment building about a number of outdoor lights that weren’t working as Pescoli pulled into the open lane of the drive-thru and rolled down her window just a crack. She waited for the barista to finish taking the order from a car on the other side of the building. Silver tinsel had been strung around the window; snowflakes stenciled onto the glass. A big red sign with a winking Santa offered coffee gift cards at a discount.

The window slid open, and the barista, a girl of about eighteen who was wearing braids and a pilgrim bonnet, called out, “What can I get for you? We’ve got pumpkin lattes, a dollar off, just this week.” She offered a wide, toothy smile.

“Just a coffee, black,” Pescoli said.

“Skinny latte, no foam,” Alvarez said, angling her face so that she could meet the barista’s gaze. “Plain.”

“But the pumpkin is on sale.”

“Plain,” Alvarez repeated and dug into her wallet for a five-dollar bill.

The barista looked disappointed, as if she got brownie points for selling the special of the week. Pescoli rolled up her window as the espresso machine started whistling shrilly.

Digging into the Jeep’s console, Pescoli pulled out enough quarters to pay for her drink. “So tell me,” she said, turning to her partner before Alvarez could make another call. “Why are you so hell-bent to prove that Jocelyn Wallis was murdered?”

Alvarez readjusted the small hoop in her left ear. “Just a feeling I have. Something’s off about it.”

“Maybe.”

“Worth checking out.”

A red Dodge Dart, circa somewhere in the mid-seventies, rolled in behind her Jeep just as there was a sharp tap on the driver’s window. The pilgrim barista was holding two paper cups with plastic lids.

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.