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

Chapter 12.

Pollard 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 gla.s.s 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, G.o.d, 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 d.i.c.k. 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 s.p.a.ce and taken her personal computer and iPad but her fiance's electronic gear, as well. Pollard had offered up pa.s.swords 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 a.s.sets 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 motherf.u.c.ker 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 gla.s.s 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 "d.i.c.k" 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 gla.s.ses, 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 s.p.a.ce and speak to everyone who worked with her," Alvarez said.

"What? Now? Oh . . ."

"We have a warrant," Pescoli said, handing him the doc.u.ment. 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 gla.s.sed-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, pa.s.sing 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 DOUG AND SHEREE, NOW AND FOREVER 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 s.p.a.ce 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 fiance 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 s.p.a.ce meant for sungla.s.ses 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. "G.o.d, 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 a.s.sured her. "Just everybody else. And with Grayson's death, I just . . ."

"I know. I do," Alvarez said solemnly. "It's so d.a.m.n 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 pa.s.s, 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."

"She'll come around."

"Hope you're right." Cutting the engine and pocketing her keys, Pescoli thought of her daughter's issues. Bianca's preoccupation with her looks, how she was trying to "diet" to fit into the bikini good old Mich.e.l.le had given her for Christmas, that she was obsessive about her weight. Not good signs.

Luke and Mich.e.l.le planned to take Jeremy and Bianca on a trip to Arizona or California or somewhere warm enough to sunbathe for spring break. Hence, all of Bianca's concerns about being "bikini ready." There was even talk of a spa treatment before the trip that included manicures, pedicures, facials, and waxing.

"Have you set the date yet?"

"No." Pescoli found the bag with her scone in it, dropped it into her purse, grabbed her coffee cup, and opened the door. Again, the winter weather billowed inside. San Diego can't be that crowded, she thought. As she slammed the door shut and headed into the building, she said, "It'll be a small thing, though. The wedding. Maybe just the two of us, maybe my kids. We haven't even discussed it. But I've already been to this rodeo a couple times, so it'll be low key."

"Got it." Once they were inside, Alvarez added, "I'll start with the victim's family and a.s.sociates, friends, enemies-"

"She didn't have any. Remember?"

"Right."

They exchanged a look.

"I'll take the ring," Pescoli said. "It's pretty distinctive, so maybe we'll get lucky and find it in a p.a.w.n shop."

"No one has to cut off a finger to get a ring to p.a.w.n."

"Yeah, well, we're dealing with a sick b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"Amen," Alvarez said. "I'll fill Blackwater in."

"Good." The less Pescoli had to deal with the new sheriff, the better. She started for her office. Halfway down the hallway, she heard the distinctive clip of mincing footsteps and a few seconds later, Joelle called out, "Detective." Pescoli glanced over her shoulder and caught the receptionist waving frantically to flag her down.

With an inward sigh, Pescoli waited in the hallway while Joelle, black leather heels tapping, ebony earrings swinging in rhythm, approached. "There's going to be a memo later, of course, but I thought you, being as you were so close, should know the memorial service for the sheriff will be a week from Sat.u.r.day. I know it's a long time away, but because of all the officers from other jurisdictions who might want to attend, the family thought it would be best to wait. That way all the final tests will be performed on the body and"-she took in a deep breath, collected herself-"the service will be held at the Pinewood Center. As I said, there'll be more information on the interoffice memo via e-mail."

"The family?"

Joelle flicked a hand. "Cade and Zedediah, but of course Hattie had a hand in the decisions, too." She looked about to launch into the gossip about Hattie being married to Bart Grayson while supposedly involved with either Cade or Dan, depending on the year, but seemed to think better of it. Her polished lips, in a shade of pale pink, were pursed in disapproval as she clicked back down the hallway in her black heels. With Joelle, there really wasn't any need for e-mail or interoffice memos or even telephones. She spread the word more effectively than any technology. "Sergeant," she was calling as she tip-tapped along the hallway, her sweater billowing like a black cape behind her.

Pescoli stepped into her office, slung her jacket and holster over the hall tree, kicked out her chair, and nearly devoured the scone, which had, she guessed from its dry consistency, been sitting in the case at least one day, maybe two.

She was opening her e-mail, looking over the reports, hoping for a full autopsy on Sheree Cantnor, when she heard footsteps and a familiar voice outside the door to her office.

"You requested this?"