“Alli!” Cara admonished.
“Hubert,” Banks corrected. “Brady’s father. Herbert is his cousin . . . but that’s enough. The detectives don’t want to hear our argument.” He turned to Pescoli and Alvarez. “I’m sorry. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“No, for now, we’ve got all we need,” Pescoli said. She and Alvarez walked outside where the day was remarkably still and clouds were hugging the ground, sending wisping tendrils of fog through the thickets of snow-flocked mountain hemlock and spruce.
A damned winter wonderland, a perfect setting for Nolan Banks’s large, perfectly decorated home. Pescoli could just imagine what the imposing structure looked like at nightfall, when the thousands of tiny lights were illuminated, showing off the angles and pitches of the roofline in the forest. But appearances were often deceiving, smoke screens for what really occurred, and she wondered if the cracks within the foundation of the Banks family ran jagged and deep.
Once she and Alvarez were inside the Jeep and she was driving back down the curving lane on the Banks property, Pescoli asked, “What was your hit?”
“Did Cara Banks seem nervous to you?”
“Yep,” Pescoli agreed as she fiddled with the defroster so that air would warm the windshield where condensation had formed. “Maybe she’s hiding something. Or someone. Hey, hand me some tissues from the glove box, will you?” Alvarez complied, and while driving with one hand, Pescoli swiped the inside of the glass above the dashboard, giving her a modicum of visibility. “Better.”
“What’s the problem with the defroster?” Alvarez asked.
“Good question. Had it into the mechanics, but they can’t find anything. It’s an intermittent problem. Don’t get me started.” Stuffing the used tissues into an empty cup holder, she turned back to business. “The whole conversation with Cara seemed off. Stilted. Not right.”
“Think it had to do with Grayson?”
“Hard to say. Some people just react to the law showing up on their doorstep.”
“That wasn’t what this was,” Alvarez disagreed.
“Yeah . . .” They reached the end of the lane where Pescoli rolled to a near stop, then hit the accelerator to turn onto the county road. “What did you think of the daughter? I hate to say it, but she reminds me of Bianca with her attitude. They’re about the same age.”
“They’re in school together?”
“Oh, I don’t think so. Pretty sure the Banks kids all attended the private school in Missoula.”
“And you know this how?”
She shook her head. “Nolan has some older kids, boys, one was in Jeremy’s class in elementary school but transferred after fifth grade. Isaiah, I think. Has an older brother, Ezekiel.”
“Books of the Bible?”
“Maybe the first Mrs. Nolan was into the Old Testament.”
“Or just likes old-time, solid names,” Alvarez said. “She live around here?”
“Don’t know. Something we should look into.”
She was already fiddling with her cell phone, probably making some kind of note to herself as Pescoli continued driving. The surrounding landscape changed, forested hills giving way to snow-crusted fields stretched to the hills.
Alvarez took a few calls and the conversation was one-sided, and when she hung up the last one, she let out a disgusted puff of air.
“What?”
“Looks like Verdago skipped. Didn’t show up for work today, didn’t call in, according to his supervisor at the Chambers Apartments in Helena.”
“What about yesterday?”
“His day off.”
“Crap,” Pescoli said. “What time did he get off the day before, on Christmas Eve?”
“Don’t know.”
“It’s a three-and-a-half- to four-hour drive from Helena in decent weather, with no traffic, so let’s stay he would have had to get off work four-and-a-half to five hours before Grayson was hit because he’d have to have time to ditch the car, ski into position, and set up. If he worked until two-thirty or three in the morning, it’s an impossible feat.”