Let’s hope, he thought, as all the animals were getting antsy. He didn’t blame them, as he hated to be cooped up as well.
“Later,” he said to the small herd as he headed outside again, following his own path to the house, where the woodstove was already warming the kitchen and the coffee had brewed. He stomped the snow from his boots, wedged them off, one toe on the heel of the other, then carried them into the house. Once the boots were warming near the fire, he poured himself a cup of coffee and, though he knew it was way too early for any kind of response, checked his phone messages. Of course there were none. He’d hoped that someone who knew Leanna would call him, let him know where she was.
Now he examined the scrap of paper he’d taken from the desk with contact numbers for Leanna. Checking the time, he shrugged and dialed the Washington number, but it just rang and rang. No answering device. He then called the Phoenix number, also to no avail, but at least this time he could leave a message on voice mail after a computer voice said, “Please leave a message after the tone.” He took the time to explain who he was, that he had been married to Leanna and would like to get in contact with her. Finally, he called the attorney with the firm Leanna had used when they’d divorced, one Kelvin Macadam of Bennett, Stowe, and Ellsworth in Boise, but, of course, their offices weren’t open today. After that he was pretty much out of options.
So much for chasing down ghosts of ex-wives.
Sipping from his cup, he snapped on the small television he’d set on the butcher-block cart his mother had used as a baking station.
Hoping to hear the weather report, he pulled a carton of milk from the fridge and a box of Cheerios from the cupboard. While rattling around in the flatware drawer he heard about a local tree-lighting contest before the woman anchor said, “And on a more serious note, a woman lost her life in a one-car accident when her car plunged into the Grizzly River near the North Fork Bridge. Elle Alexander, a mother of two, was rushed to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.”
Terrible, he thought. More and more bad news.
He poured the last of the cereal into a bowl and set it on the table for his son, then crushed the box and put it on the back porch with the rest of his recycling. When he returned to the kitchen, a different reporter was speaking, a woman standing at the crest of Boxer Bluff. Behind her, lit by bright lights, was the short stone guardrail, and around it had been placed bouquets of flowers, candles, and balloons, even stuffed animals all frozen solid, an icy memorial to Jocelyn Wallis.
Trace stared at the screen as the woman reporter gestured toward the display as her short near-black hair blew in the wind and she clutched her microphone in her gloved hands. Looking into the camera’s eye, she said, “The Pinewood County Sheriff’s Department has released a statement saying that the death of Jocelyn Wallis, a schoolteacher at Evergreen Elementary School in Grizzly Falls, may have been foul play. The authorities are not ruling Jocelyn Wallis’s death a homicide at this time, but they are continuing their investigation.”
Trace, stunned, stood rooted to the kitchen floor as he saw Jocelyn Wallis’s face appear on the screen. His guts twisted as he watched images of Jocelyn smiling into the camera, then a shot of the long brick building of his kid’s school.
Once again the camera was on the reporter standing on the crest of Boxer Bluff, near the park. The camera’s focus moved from her to pan over the raging falls and the snow-crusted ledge above the river, where Jocelyn’s fate had been decided.
“The Pinewood County Sheriff’s Department is asking for anyone who may have seen Jocelyn Wallis jogging in the park or anything the least bit suspicious on the day of her death to contact them. That number will be posted on our Web site.” The screen split suddenly. The reporter out in the elements on one side, the two anchors sitting side by side behind a desk in the studio. “This is Nia Del Ray with KMJC News,” the reporter said. “Back to you, Drake.”
“Jesus,” Trace whispered, disbelieving, as he stared at his small TV. What had the reporter said?
The authorities are not ruling Jocelyn Wallis’s death a homicide at this time.
Homicide?
For the love of God, who would want to kill Jocelyn? And why?
The split screen returned to one image of the news set, and the story was quickly segued into another about a fire in a small town to the south.
Trace thought of his son and how he’d been close to Jocelyn. It had been bad enough to tell him that she’d died, but now to try and explain murder to a seven-year-old when he didn’t understand it himself . . .
The weather report forgotten, he poured some milk over the Cheerios, then left the kitchen to climb the stairs to Eli’s room.
Another thought struck him as he reached the top of the stairs. If Jocelyn had truly been murdered, Trace’s name would come up as a potential suspect. There was no way around that. He’d dated her. The damned school had called him when she hadn’t shown up for work. He had been in her place, knew where she kept a spare key, had identified her in the hospital.
Yeah, he thought as he pushed open the door to Eli’s room and found his son lying on his back, covers bunched, hair sticking out at all angles, casted arm resting on his chest while he slept soundly. Trace O’Halleran’s name would be on the suspect short list.
For a while.
He watched his boy’s even breathing as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Too bad that was all about to change.
By the time she left for work Monday morning, Kacey couldn’t imagine not having adopted the dog. And she intended, at least at first, to drive home for her lunch and play with him for a half hour or so to break up her, and his, day.
As for Bonzi being a guard dog, that was yet to be seen, but he was company and she felt safer with him in the house. She had allowed his dog bed in her room and had found comfort in his soft snores throughout the night.
“A good decision,” she told herself as she nosed her car through the drive-thru coffee kiosk on the outside of town, then headed to the office.
The weekend hadn’t passed without her thinking of Trace O’Halleran and his son. In fact, she’d caught herself daydreaming about him more than a couple times. She’d found him easy to talk to and sexy as the devil last Friday, but she’d attempted not to let her thoughts get ahead of her. She’d tried to keep herself busy with household chores, playing with the dog, and finding out everything she could about Shelly Bonaventure, Jocelyn Wallis, and, lastly, Elle Alexander.
Elle had claimed to have been born and raised in Boise. Kacey had checked and found no mention in any birth records of her being born in Helena, Montana, so maybe Elle’s claim had been true and all Kacey’s suspicions were for naught.
A couple of women who looked like her had died. And they’d been born near her. That was all it was. What had she expected? That they could all be related? Unlikely, and even if it were true, was that really so odd? She could have lots of shirttail relatives around these parts.