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“What I’d really like is a Diet Coke, cigarette, and a beer . . . not in any order. Oh, yeah, and a corned beef sandwich, but I’ve got to wait until the baby’s born.”
“Maybe you could throw in some sushi, too.”
Pescoli took a bite of ice cream and shook her head. “No raw fish for this girl, pregnant or not.”
“Don’t know what you’re missing.”
“Don’t know and really don’t care.”
As she finished her dessert, they discussed the case and the new wrinkle of Lindsay Cronin’s disappearance. Disturbing, yes. But connected? Hard to say.
Alvarez’s phone made a little bubbling noise. She looked at it, got a quick message, and nodded. To Pescoli, she said, “They got the records for Destiny’s phone. Zoller’s already going over the texts and calls, comparing them to her social media accounts, and the statements from everyone who knew her.”
“Maybe we’ll get something.”
“Let’s hope.”
By the time Pescoli scraped off every last bite, she felt satisfied, her blood sugar restored to order, the baby no longer kicking. They paid the bill and drove directly to Northwest General, the hospital where Destiny Montclaire and Simone Delaney volunteered, the very hospital in which, months earlier, Dan Grayson had died. Neither Alvarez or Pescoli said anything about it, but it was as if his ghost were there between them.
Grimmer than they had been, each lost in her own thoughts, they didn’t speak as they made their way to the cafeteria where Destiny had once worked part-time as an unpaid volunteer. No one within the kitchen staff had a bad thing to say about her. She was friendly and efficient, punctual and responsible, if at times quiet. Never did her supervisor worry that she would be late or not show up. She’d helped the cooks at the busiest times of the day, was always available to clean tables.
From the cafeteria, Alvarez and Pescoli made their way to the children’s ward. Destiny had transferred to the children’s wing about six months earlier. Here, they were told, she read stories or played with the kids or, once again, helped clean up.
No one in either food services or the children’s ward had any idea who would want to harm her. Everyone was upset that she’d been killed and completely at a loss as to who would do anything so vile. To a person, they claimed no one had seen her since her last shift, which had happened two days before she went missing. Also, no one had known she was pregnant.
Alvarez and Pescoli ended up with a big fat zero in the information department until they were on their way out, when Pescoli checked with the personnel director and learned Simone was currently working.
Perfect.
Here was the chance to speak with Simone without Mary-Beth hovering over her and offering up answers rather than letting her daughter talk. They found Simone in the soiled-linen room, where she was dutifully pushing a full cart of dirty bed linens to an area near closed oversized garage doors, big enough for a truck to pull through. After the bin was in position, she rolled an empty bin under one of the huge chutes that opened from the ceiling.
She was dressed in scrubs, her hair tied into pigtails, her makeup toned down from the previous Saturday night, an ID card with her picture on a lanyard swinging from her neck. She saw the cops and sighed. “My mom said not to answer any questions.”
Pescoli was impressed, in spite of herself, at the hard work Simone was doing. “Let me guess, she wants you to have a lawyer present.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Yeah, but I don’t really care what she says.”
“We could wait until you go home and talk to you with your mom or dad or a lawyer, if that’s what you want.”
“Just ask me what you want to ask me.”
“You and Destiny Montclaire were both volunteers here at the hospital,” Alvarez said. “Were you friends, too?”
“We got along, but . . .” Simone shrugged, then rolled her eyes when, in a whoosh, a wad of bedding fell from one of the three chutes and landed in an empty bin. “Fun, huh?” she said, eyeing the soiled sheets. “My mom forced me to work here, well, volunteer. I don’t get paid,” she admitted. “Says it’ll look good on my college applications.”
“Did you hang out with Destiny?”
“Nah. We didn’t even have shifts that overlapped. I’d see her around sometimes and once . . . no, twice, we ate together. That’s when she was working with the kids, maybe a couple of months ago. Before that, when she worked in the cafeteria, it was crazy busy for her. We never even talked.”
“Did you know she was pregnant?” Alvarez asked.
A shake of her head, pigtails swinging. “I don’t think she told anybody, did she?” When they didn’t respond, she added, “Anyway, I never heard about it until after she died. Like I said, we weren’t close.”
“Who was close to her?” Again, Alvarez.
“You mean besides Donny? I don’t know. I think Kywin Bell had a thing for her and maybe”—she squished up her nose as if she were really thinking hard—“Emmett Tufts? Or Alex O’Hara? But maybe not. Sometimes those guys would look at her the way guys do when they think a girl is hot, but then they’re all so horny they look at everyone that way. Come on. My shift’s over. I have to lock up.” She headed for the door and they followed after her. Once they’d passed into the hall, she locked the room behind them.
“What about girlfriends?” Pescoli questioned as they walked toward the elevator. “Who was her bestie?”
