Expecting to Die

As in Bernard Reece? Senior partner of a local law firm? Father of Austin
Reece who seemed to be the ringleader of the group? Alvarez made a note.
Donny’s expression turned put-upon, as if his mother were really stepping into
his private space and time. “I can talk to them. I’ve got nothing to hide . . .” At
his mother’s sharp glare, he clammed up and scooped his things from the table,
but not before Carolina’s sharp eyes noticed the pack of Winstons.
“Donald,” she said tightly. “Really?” She plucked the pack from his big paw.
“We talked about this.”
“You smoke!”
Her cheeks tinged pink. “It’s not a habit.” She slid her eyes toward Alvarez to
see if she noticed. “And it’s different. You’re an athlete.”
Donny, red-faced, didn’t argue and hurried off, making his way toward a large
sliding door flanked by a wall of windows. As he yanked it open, Alvarez caught
a glimpse of a large kitchen that appeared to be recently remodeled, and opened
to an adjacent family room where leather furniture was clustered around a
fireplace, an oversized flat-screen mounted over the mantel.
From the corner of her eye, Alvarez saw Alex O’Hara easing toward the
hedge.
Mayor Justison noticed also. “Good-bye, Alex,” she said in a singsong voice.
As he disappeared through the hedge, she tucked the pack of cigarettes into the
side pocket of her computer case, then made sure that Donny had shut the family
room door. “Kids,” she whispered, as if the three women remaining were in a
tight-knit little coffee klatch that understood the foibles of teenagers. She seemed
less tense and, with another glance at the family room, Carolina scrounged in her
bag and withdrew a cigarette and Donny’s lighter. With her back to the house,
she lit up. “Since my little secret’s out, right?” Exhaling a lungful of smoke, she
flashed a smile as a motorcycle’s engine came to life, wheels chirping.
Presumably, Alex O’Hara had made good his escape.
Carolina said, “I rarely buy a pack, but today, I think I owe myself a wee little

---

shot of nicotine.”
The motorcycle was now racing away, engine whining to a higher pitch as
Alex O’Hara put the bike through its paces.
“Did you know that the victim was pregnant?” Pescoli asked.
Carolina was about to take another drag but stopped, the cigarette halfway to
her lips.
“Two months along,” Pescoli added.
“Oh, dear God. Oh, no.” She was visibly shocked.
Alvarez said, “Preliminary autopsy’s in. Looks like her neck was snapped. She
actually died of asphyxiation. She was strangled. But whoever choked her was
strong enough to break her neck.”
“I thought she drowned.”
“No water in her lungs,” Alvarez said. “Someone killed her and tossed her
into the creek.”
Carolina’s knees looked about to give way and she placed a hand on the top of
a table to steady herself. “Oh Lord.” She took a seat as well as another hit from
her cigarette. “Oh, dear Lord.” Then it hit her. “But you don’t think . . . that
Donald Junior . . . that he was involved?”
Alvarez said, “He admitted to meeting her that night, here. Claims they talked
things out. No one else was here. They fought. She stormed out, that was the last
he saw of her. He never went to Reservoir Point that night, or so he says, but it
seems he may well be the last person to have seen her alive.”
“Aside from the killer,” she said weakly.
Pescoli said, without inflection, “We’re asking for a DNA sample. And need
to see his cell phone records.”
“Now, wait a minute. You can’t possibly think that Donald Junior had
anything to do with what happened to that poor girl.”
Pescoli said, “He agreed to come to the station and give a DNA sample.”
“No,” she stated firmly.
“We’re just trying to get to the truth,” Alvarez assured her. “Eliminate
suspects.”
“Oh, for the love of . . .” Carolina rubbed her forehead with the fingers of her
free hand, then steadily climbed to her feet. “My son is innocent of any
wrongdoing. I can’t speak about paternity of the baby. That I don’t know, but I
assure you Donald Junior would have stood by his child, if—and it’s a big if—he
was the father. From what I understand Destiny was . . . loose with her favors.”
“Her ‘favors’?” Alvarez repeated.
“As in sexual favors. You know what I mean. The way I understand it, she
kind of got around. I think it was one of the reasons Donny broke up with her.”

---

“Then a DNA test will straighten all that out,” Pescoli pointed out. “And the
text and phone information on his cell will help clear him as well.”
For a second, Carolina studied the lit end of her filter tip, then took another
long drag and, in the stream of smoke that ensued, said, “I think we’re done
here, detectives.” Though she’d calmed considerably, there was still an edge to
her voice. “We all know that Donny is innocent except for being a slave to his
raging teenage hormones, as we all once were. That girl Destiny, poor thing, just
wouldn’t leave him alone. She was obsessed. Donny tried to let her down easy,
but, of course, that just didn’t work.” She sighed heavily, took a final pull on the
Winston, then let it drop to the concrete, where she crushed out the burning butt
with the toe of one pump. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m sure you can find your
way out.”
With that, she plucked the remains of her cigarette from the patio and dropped
it into a trash can tucked behind a fence near the hedge, then, back ramrod
straight, clipped her way into the house.
Pescoli said, with no inflection, “Bitch.”
Alvarez smiled faintly. “All right. Let’s go.” They would learn nothing more.
Alvarez suspected Carolina had put a gag order on her son, and even now, she
was probably on her phone, trying to connect to the sheriff to ream him out but
good.
Fair enough.
That was all part of Blackwater’s job.
Still ruminating about Carolina Justison’s mention of “Bernard” in the same
breath as “dinner,” Alvarez followed Pescoli back to the Outback and slid behind
the wheel. The interior was oven-hot, but before her partner could complain, she
started the engine and hit the fan to full speed.
“What do you think?” she asked, backing around a newer white Mercedes, the
mayor’s sporty two-door, which she had been unable to slide into the garage.
“About the kids?”
“Donny’s lying through his orthodontist-straightened teeth. Alex O’Hara,
too.” Pescoli rolled down her window. “I just haven’t figured out what it is
they’re hiding.”
“Everything.” She checked the street and wheeled out, then put the Subaru in
drive and caught a glimpse of the curtains moving in the big window not far
from the front door. Carolina Justison, cell phone pressed to her ear, was
standing on the other side of the glass and peeking through the drapes to make
sure the cops were leaving. “What about the mayor?”
“Piece of work.” Pescoli wasn’t one to hold back. “Thinks her kid is
innocent.”

---

“Or knows he isn’t.”
“A mama bear.”
“Hmmm.” Alvarez thought of the other calls she’d received earlier in the day.
“Lotta them around.”
Pescoli brooded. Held her hair off her neck to try to cool down. Glared out the
window but didn’t see any of the buildings as they passed. “Bianca was up there
at Reservoir Point with the rest of them.”
“Teenagers aren’t known for using the brains God gave them. I’m not worried
about Bianca. We’ll get this over ASAP.”
Pescoli gazed through the bug-streaked windshield and let her wild mass of
curls fall back around her face.

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