“About as likely as Santa Claus and the reindeer showing up.”
“It’s too late for them anyway.”
Alvarez smiled for the first time that day, though she didn’t feel any joy whatsoever. “You know, I heard once that if you throw a quarter up in the air in any major city in the U.S., chances are it’ll land a hundred feet from a Starbucks coffee shop.”
“I don’t think whoever came up with that theory has ever been to the Bitterroots.”
“I said, ‘major city.’ ”
“Yeah, I know. Still, a cup of anything hot sounds good.” She fiddled with the Jeep’s heater, which only allowed cool air to blow onto the inside of the windshield. It lent no heat to the interior but did start defogging the glass. “Should warm up soon,” she said, turning the rig around, jockeying between the other county vehicles that had parked haphazardly at the end of the trail.
“Good.”
Ramming into first gear, she eased the Jeep down the hill. “You think this is the same shooter who tried to kill Grayson?” Alvarez asked.
“No doubt in my mind,” Pescoli responded. “What are the chances that we’d have two similar attacks on the heels of each other? Slim and none . . . No, just make that ‘none.’ Whoever dropped the judge is an ace, a sharpshooter, so that should narrow the field.”
“What happened with Grayson, then?”
“I showed up just as the attack was going down. Probably rattled the guy, destroyed his concentration.”
“So now you’re the hero?” Alvarez asked, but the joke fell flat.
“Hardly.” Pescoli squinted as she guided the Jeep onto the little-used road. Sunlight was streaming through the woods now, dappling the forested terrain in beams that fractured and dazzled against the snow. “My bet is that when they dig that bullet out of Judge Samuels-Piquard’s brain, it matches the ones used on the sheriff.”
“Looks like we’ve got a crack shot with a grudge against not only Grayson, but the judge as well.” Alvarez slid a glance at her partner. “Probably not Cara Grayson or any of the family.”
Pescoli’s jaw tightened as she reached for a pair of sunglasses she kept on the dash. “I guess.” Slipping the shades over the bridge of her nose, she added, “At least it narrows the field.”
“Potentially. If we cross-check violent cons Grayson sent up the river with those sentenced by the judge and find out which ones are out, we might find our killer.”
“ ‘Might’ being the operative word.” The heater was starting to kick in, a little warm air filling the interior.
“Here’s the turnoff,” Alvarez said, spying a barely visible sign marking Monarch Lane.
Pescoli hit the brakes a little too hard and the Jeep slid a bit as she made the turn.
“Fresh tracks,” Alvarez observed. “Probably from the deputies Brewster sent up here.”
“They make a report?”
“Just that she didn’t answer and her car was there.”
“Did they go in?”
“Yeah, her kid, Winston, told them where the spare key was hidden. And don’t ask; yeah, it was under the welcome mat.”
“You talked to them?” Pescoli asked as the cabin appeared, a log structure with a sharp peaked roof nestled between thick stands of snow-flocked evergreens. The windows were dark, a holiday wreath hung near the clear glass door.
She parked fifteen yards from the house. Several sets of footprints had broken through the snow and, true to the son’s word, a key was wedged beneath a doormat decorated with a reindeer’s head, colored lights twisted through its antlers.
They let themselves in.
“Nice place,” Pescoli observed, an understatement as usual. The living room stretched from the front porch to a back wall of floor-to-ceiling windows offering a peekaboo view of the lake far below. Water as blue as a summer sky shimmered between the snow-laden bows of fir and hemlock and spruce.
Apart from Rudolph on the front porch, there were few decorations to remind the owner of the season, though candles were tucked between dozens of books that filled a bookcase, which, in turn, flanked a stone fireplace that rose to the peak of a wood-plank ceiling. A small display on the table, a glass bowl filled with red and green ornaments, was the only other bit of decor that gave a nod to the holidays.
Neat and dust-free, the cabin was sparse, a chess set on the coffee table, a backgammon board, pegs ready, on the bookcase near a well-worn leather recliner.