Deserves to Die (12 page)

“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

“We?” he repeated.

“My partner, me. Everyone in the department.”

He glanced nervously at the mirror, behind which, everyone knew, was a darkened viewing room where Pescoli, the DA, and Blackwater were standing. “What do you want to know?”

“Let’s start with when was the last time you saw Sheree?”

“Two days ago. In the morning. Before work.” He closed his eyes and screwed up his face. “We fought.”

Alvarez’s ears perked up. “What about?”

“A stupid argument. Nothing really. She wanted to go visit her family. This week. Just pack up and go, but I couldn’t. My job isn’t that flexible. She wasn’t happy about it as Janine, that’s her sister, is due to deliver twins. Any minute.” He paused and sighed. “She might even have had ’em by now. Anyway, we got into it and Sheree wanted to talk more, but I left. I was already late for work. We didn’t . . . we didn’t talk or text all day, which is weird for us, and when I got home, she wasn’t there. No big deal, but then . . . she never came home that night and I figured she was just showing me how mad she was.”

“She’s done this before?”

“Once. Before we were engaged. About a year and a half ago.”

“Can you tell me about it?”

He paused again, took in a deep breath, and launched into his story.

He and Sheree Cantnor were high school sweethearts who had grown up together in Utah, but had moved to Grizzly Falls when he’d been transferred to Missoula. They’d been excited for the move, ready to make a fresh start, away from their parents and siblings who inhabited Salt Lake City and the surrounding towns. He’d given her a ring about a year ago on Valentine’s Day, and they’d moved the following June after she’d graduated from BYU in Provo. She’d found a job working as a receptionist and bookkeeper for a local insurance agency and they lived in an apartment on Boxer Bluff, located on the hillside. Their one bedroom unit had a peekaboo view of the river. Sheree’s job was in a strip mall within walking distance from the apartments.

“She wanted it close by so she could walk to work,” he said. “We have a cat and . . . and Sheree likes to get away from the office, you know, get a little exercise, eat lunch at home and play with Boomer. . . .” His voice lost all power as the weight of what was happening, that he’d lost his fiancée, settled over him. “Who would do this? Who?”

“Did your fiancée have any enemies?”

“None. Sweetest girl to walk God’s earth.” He slumped farther in his chair and eyed the folder as if it were malevolent.

“But you fought.”

“Not that often. We . . . we’re happy. Planned on getting married around Christmas time. In Salt Lake . . . Oh, Jesus.” He seemed about to break down completely so Alvarez nudged a box of tissues closer to him, but he ignored them. “I want to see her,” he announced suddenly, his face mottled and red.

“Mr. Pollard—”

“I want to see her,” he insisted. “This . . . this could all be wrong.” He motioned to the pictures and shook his head. “This woman. She could be like Sheree’s twin.”

“She had a twin?” Alvarez asked.

“No, no, but like a dead-ringer. And that tattoo. It’s stock. Not a big deal.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw, scraping the whiskers beginning to show on his jaw. Again he stated emphatically, “I want to see her.” He was grasping at straws.

“I have a few more questions,” Alvarez began, but he cut her off.

“Don’t you get it? I
have
to see her. To be sure.” His jaw was firm.

Alvarez saw that he was set on his plan, hoping that there had been a mistake, an error in the photography, a mix-up in the morgue, some ridiculous idea she knew she couldn’t dislodge.

She said, “One more thing, then we’ll take a break and drive to the morgue.”

“What?”

“You said you and Sheree were engaged.”

“That’s right.”

“Did you give her a ring?”

“Of course I gave her a ring. A
diamond
ring. Why? Why are you asking about it? Was the ring stolen?” His mouth dropped open. “Man, that thing cost a fortune. I’m still paying on it.” He looked miserable.

“Did it fit her?”

“Yes.”

“It wasn’t too big? And might fall off?”

“No, of course not. I went to a jeweler and had it sized. It fit perfectly.”

“What about her earrings?”

“I don’t know. She had lots of pairs.”

“Diamond studs.”

“Well . . . cubic zirconia. She bought ’em herself. They’re not valuable—” He cut himself off and held up both hands. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t give a damn about her jewelry. I need to see her. I have to.” He stood then as if it were decided.

Alvarez got to her feet and glanced to the mirror, a signal to Pescoli as she ushered Pollard out the door.

P
ollard stared through the window separating him from the viewing room where the draped body had been wheeled. An attendant pulled the sheet from the victim’s face and he got a clear view. His knees buckled and he leaned against the glass as Pescoli grabbed him by the arm. “It’s her,” he choked out in a bewildered voice.

With Alvarez’s help, Pescoli guided him to one of the two chairs placed against one wall. He nearly fell onto the worn seat and dropped his face into his hands. “No no no,” he said, then looked up. “Who would do this? Why, oh, God, why?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out.” Alvarez had found a box of tissues and handed it to him.

He fumbled for a tissue—the last one—and started wiping frantically at his eyes as his head wagged back and forth. “But she was the sweetest, the most loving, the perfect girl.” His voice cracked and he buried his face in his open hands again. “Why would anyone hurt her?”

“We’re going to need your help to find out,” Alvarez told him.

“Mr. Pollard, do you have anyone to stay with you?” Pescoli asked. “A relative? Close friend.”

“No. Sheree, she . . . she’s . . . she was . . . my . . .” His voice drifted away, and he seemed lost in thought for a few seconds. When he finally blinked and returned to the moment, he said, “I just can’t believe this.”

Alvarez glanced at the window where the attendant was waiting near the body. With a quick nod she indicated that they were done viewing and the attendant covered the dead woman’s face again and rolled the gurney through wide double doors that opened automatically upon her approach. “We’ll head back to the station now.”

Pollard struggled to his feet and without another glance at the window and the empty room beyond, shuffled behind them, walking as if he were closer to a hundred years old than thirty.

The drive back was almost silent as Pollard, in the rear seat, was alone with his thoughts. Neither Alvarez nor Pescoli wanted to interrupt his newfound struggle with loss and grief.

“Her parents,” he said, once they were back at the sheriff’s office and he was following Alvarez inside. “I’ll have to call them. And her sisters . . . she’s got five, you know . . . no brothers.” Shuddering against the cold or his own despair, he walked to the office where both detectives showed him back into the interrogation room. Seated in the chair he’d occupied earlier, he was less reticent to talk and he readily wrote down the names of her relatives and friends as well as the cities where they lived. He was fixated on the task, in fact.

Pescoli had seen it before, a way to stave off the terrible truth that a loved one was dead.

“I just don’t know all the addresses, but I have their phone numbers.” Pollard added those from his contact list and said, “She didn’t make a lot of friends here, y’know. Just people from work. Her boss, Alan Gilbert. He’s a dick. Had the hots for her. And then Marianne Spelling, no Sprattler. Oh, I don’t know her last name, something that starts with an
S
, I think. She and Vickie and Sheree, they all worked in the same room, but different cubicles, you know. They’d all go out for a drink or girl talk or whatever, every now and again. It wasn’t really all that often, maybe four times since we moved here, usually like during
Monday Night Football
. Sheree doesn’t drink that much.” Pollard wrote down a couple other names of people they knew, from the church they attended sporadically, and the wife of a guy he worked with. “We went out a couple times, to dinner, but Sheree didn’t like Angie much. Thought she was stuck on herself or something, but Bob, he’s a good guy.”

He drew a breath and shuddered.

“Tell me about the engagement ring,” Alvarez urged as he finished with the list of people Sheree had known.

“I told you it’s a diamond. My grandmother’s.”

“I thought you said you were paying on it.”

“I took out a loan to buy it from my mother. She inherited it and decided that she’d probably sell it before she died and split the money between me and my brother and sisters. I told her I wanted it. I’m the youngest and my sisters already had their own rings. My brother really didn’t want it. So Mom had it appraised and it came to about twenty grand. I had some money, but I had to take out a loan on my car for the rest. It was worth it, though,” he added. “I surprised Sheree with it last February. Put it in a box of chocolates. She almost bit into it,” he admitted, smiling before the tiny grin wobbled and he had to clear his throat.

“Do you have a picture of the ring?”

“Oh, yeah. I insured it. It’s valuable.” He scrabbled in his pocket for his phone, brought up the picture gallery and spying a photo of himself with Sheree, quickly found another shot of a left hand with the engagement ring visible. “Two karats,” he said proudly. “And those, the smaller stones flanking the diamond? Rubies. It’s an antique, you know. Sheree, she loves . . . loved it.” Before he could dissolve into tears again, he asked, “You think someone killed her to rob her?”

“We don’t know,” Alvarez answered truthfully.

“Why wouldn’t she just give it to him?” he asked. “I mean, if it was her life . . .”

“We don’t know what happened,” Pescoli said. “We’re trying to figure that out, so any help you can give us will help.”

“But I can’t. Everybody loved Sheree.”

“No one was unhappy that you were engaged?” Alvarez asked.

“No.” He gave a quick shake of his head as if dislodging an unwanted idea.

“Maybe you had an ex-girlfriend who didn’t like it.”

“Sheree and I started dating when I was sixteen and she was fifteen. We . . . we were each other’s firsts.”

“Can you send the picture of the ring to me?” Alvarez asked, offering up her e-mail address.

“I can do it now.” He typed onto the keypad of his phone, then said, “There.”

“Thanks. We’ll need to go over to your place, take your computer and anything of hers that might be of interest.”

“Okay.” His shoulders drooped wearily.

Two hours later, Pollard had finished calling Sheree’s relatives and Alvarez had coordinated information with the office so that bank, insurance, cell phone, and tax records could be accessed. Pescoli and Alvarez had not only examined the victim’s living space and taken her personal computer and iPad but her fiancé’s electronic gear, as well. Pollard had offered up passwords and given them Sheree’s cell phone number, which he’d admitted to calling “about a hundred times” when she hadn’t come home.

They were young and unmarried. There were no life insurance policies, even though she worked for an insurance agency. Just hadn’t gotten to it yet, he claimed. Sheree didn’t own a car, and she was a renter, so there were no other assets besides her missing ring.

As the detectives were leaving, Alvarez said to Pollard, “We’re sorry for your loss.”

He looked about to break down again, then stiffened his spine. “Just get the motherfucker bag who did this.” He turned and walked into the apartment alone.

Next, the detectives went to Sheree Cantnor’s place of business. Armed with a warrant, they approached the twenty-something behind a wide wooden desk and asked for her boss. Pescoli’s eye followed a blue carpet that ran behind the receptionist and through a room bristling with cubicles. A one-sided conversation was emanating from the only office, where shades were drawn over the glass walls, but the door was ajar.

“Wait a second, Len,” said the male voice inside the shaded box. “I’ll call you back. I think I may have a situation I have to deal with here. No . . . no . . . give me five. No big deal.”

Seconds later, hitching up his ill-fitting slacks, a man who was as wide as he was tall sauntered out of the office. “I’m Alan Gilbert,” he stated, obviously the “dick” that Pollard had mentioned. Also the namesake for the Alan Gilbert Insurance Agency. He was balding and, as if to compensate, had grown a thick, neatly trimmed beard that was just beginning to fleck with gray. Frowning from behind slim glasses, he said, “Can I help you?”

“Detectives Selena Alvarez and Regan Pescoli. We’re looking into the disappearance and possible homicide of Sheree Cantnor.”

Behind Pescoli a woman gasped.

“Homicide?” Gilbert blinked rapidly. “Oh, holy . . . Sheree didn’t show up a few days ago and we’ve been calling . . .” He looked as if he might actually swoon.

“We’d like to check out her work space and speak to everyone who worked with her,” Alvarez said.

“What? Now? Oh . . .”

“We have a warrant,” Pescoli said, handing him the document. She asked for someone to box up Sheree’s personal things. “We’ll also need access to her computer.”

He glanced at it unseeingly, still processing. “Yes, yes. Of... of course. Uh, there’s a conference room in the back.” He waved limply at a glassed-in area behind a row of cubicles.

Pescoli glanced at it and saw four different women’s heads stretched over their soundproof half walls. Every face showed shock, from the girl barely out of her teens and still wearing braces, to an older woman with a phone headset buried deep in her neat, gray curls.

“I, uh, I have to leave at three,” he said, rubbing his broad forehead as if that would help him think. “This way.” He walked along a path toward the conference room at the far end, passing by an empty cubicle. “This . . . this is Sheree’s.”

The small, boxed-in desk was neat with pencils and pens in a cup inscribed with
D
OUG AND
S
HEREE,
N
OW AND
F
OREVER
and a date, presumably of their engagement as they weren’t yet married. Pictures of Doug adorned the cloth-covered walls along with a few of them as a couple, a calendar, and various notes and memorabilia.

“I’ll be right with you,” Pescoli said, stopping to look through Sheree’s work space and gather what she thought might aid in the investigation. As she sorted through the personal belongings, she heard one woman softly crying and two others whispering. Sheree, it seemed, had made more friends than her fiancé knew.

By the time Pescoli met Alvarez and Gilbert in the conference room with a faux-wood table, Alvarez had already set up. A recorder was in place, a notepad at her side, and she was asking Gilbert basic questions about Sheree—how long she’d been with the agency, what kind of an employee she’d been, any odd behavior, who were her friends, and who were not.

The interview took less than thirty minutes and the same was true for the women who worked with her, all who happened to be present. After the interviews, in which the detectives learned again that everyone was convinced Sheree didn’t have an enemy in the world, they crossed the parking lot to Pescoli’s Jeep. Daylight had faded and dusk had begun to creep through the snowy streets. Street lights had winked on, adding a bluish illumination to the coming night, and traffic rushed by, wheels humming, engines purring, most vehicles pushing the posted speed limit of thirty miles an hour.

Once inside the car, Pescoli jabbed her keys into the ignition and threw Alvarez a disappointed look. She suddenly craved a cigarette. “We’ve got nothing,” she said, feeling a little defeated.

“It’s early. We haven’t begun to dig yet. So the workplace was a bust. Maybe there’s something on her calendar or on her computer.”

Pescoli shook her head, started the SUV, and backed out of the parking slot. She felt her stomach rumble. “Let’s grab some coffee. Maybe something to eat. I’m starved.”

“Fine.”

Pescoli took a detour to the lower level of town located on the banks of the river, then drove to Joltz, her favorite coffee shop, with not only a walk-up but a drive-up window. A blond barista took their orders. Decaf coffee and a raspberry scone for her and just a cup of jasmine tea for Alvarez.

“I got this,” Pescoli offered before her partner could dig into her wallet. As the Jeep idled beneath a wide awning covering the order pick-up area, she dug into a space meant for sunglasses where she’d wedged a change purse along with a spare set of shades. She pulled out a couple bills, then rolled the window down as the barista appeared again. Despite the shelter of the roof, a blast of cold wind managed to sneak into the car as Pescoli handed the blonde some cash in exchange for the drinks and a white paper bag presumably holding her scone. “Keep the change,” she told the barista, then rolled the window up quickly and handed Alvarez her cup. “God, it’s cold.”

“Montana. In winter.” Alvarez pulled the tab from the top of her cup and tested a sip as Pescoli took a long swallow.

She dropped her cup into its holder and eased the Jeep onto the street. “Yeah, but you know we could still do this same job in Phoenix or San Diego or El Paso or somewhere warmer.”

“You’d hate Phoenix.”

“Why?’

“Too dry. Too many people. Not your style. San Diego’s crowded, too close to the border. El Paso?” Alvarez’s eyebrows raised a fraction. “Really?”

“Maybe.”

“For sure.”

Pescoli rolled to a stop at the light and took another drink, the warm coffee taking off a bit of the chill as the police band crackled.

“So,” Alvarez said as Pescoli turned onto the road that wound along the face of Boxer Bluff, the Jeep’s wheels bouncing a little over the railroad tracks. “You’re wearing your ring again.”

“I’m getting married.” Pescoli had put the ring on again, but she wished she hadn’t.

“What’s going on?”

“Oh, I don’t know. . . .” Pescoli sighed. “I was talking to my kids and they’re less than enthusiastic, but I’m going to marry Santana, crazy as that may be. My third time, and all. I just didn’t want to talk about it, so I took the ring off.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t mean with you,” Pescoli assured her. “Just everybody else. And with Grayson’s death, I just . . .”

“I know. I do,” Alvarez said solemnly. “It’s so damn hard.”

“You got that right. Jeremy’s okay with it. He’s planning to move out, anyway.” As they reached the station, Pescoli waited for a flatbed heading in the opposite direction to pass, then pulled into the parking lot and nosed into an empty slot, her tires slipping into the ruts from an earlier vehicle. “Bianca isn’t a fan of the idea. She’s made that abundantly clear.”