In Desperation (26 page)

Phoenix, Arizona

A
t dawn, climbing out of a short, troubled sleep on Cora's sofa, Jack noticed the task force agents huddled around the laptops on the kitchen table.

One of them—
was that Detective Coulter?
—was whispering on a cell phone with a heightened degree of intensity.

Something's going on. They've got something.

Hair tousled, Gannon wrapped a blanket around himself, smelling fresh coffee as he went to them.

“What do you have?”

All eyes turned to him before Coulter, who was with Phoenix PD's Home Invasion and Kidnapping Enforcement Task Force, shook his head.

“Nothing, Jack.”

“Bullshit.”

“Nothing that's confirmed,” Coulter said.

“Well, what is it you
think
you have?”

“Jack, we can't tell you anything right now. Agent Hackett—”

Gannon looked around quickly.

“Where is he? He's usually here before the sun rises.”

“He's out in the field.”

“Out in the field, where? Doing what?”

No one responded. Tension mounted until Gannon's cell phone rang.

“Jack, it's Henrietta. Can you talk?”

He turned away from the investigators, pulling up his bitterness at her for ambushing him outside FBI offices before Cora's polygraph exam.

“I'm not giving you an interview.”

“No, that's not it. And I'm sorry about the FBI thing, but I had to do it. You'd do the same thing if the tables were turned.”

It took a second for him to agree. He'd only himself to blame, anyway, for calling her and asking about defense lawyers.

“My sister's not a suspect.”

“Our story never said she was. We reported that she hired a lawyer and the FBI said she was cooperating on the case.”

“Is that what you called to tell me?”

“I got a call from one of our stringers who sleeps with his police scanners on. Seems there's a lot of chatter about something in the south. We don't know for sure, but one cop apparently blurted something on the air that ‘this is related to the kidnapped girl' before a supervisor shut him up. We're doing all we can to get a location. I'm rolling south now.”

“Call me when you get it.”

Gannon took a quick shower and woke Cora, telling her, “Get dressed quick. Something's going on.” Then he ate a bagel and gulped some coffee, all within twenty minutes, and confronted Coulter again. “Are you guys going to tell me what's going on?”

“Jack, we can't.”

Gannon strode out the front door to the driveway. The few news crews who'd arrived already were gossiping over take-out coffee and high-fiber muffins. When they saw him, camera operators reflexively hoisted their cameras to their shoulders and someone shouted a question.

“Hey, why does your sister need an attorney?”

Reporters scrambled to ready microphones, incredulous that he was coming to them, until he held up his palms.

“No interviews. I need your help.”

“Come on, Gannon.”

“Have any of your desks heard any chatter about something going on at the south end related to the case?”

Most people shook their heads. Gannon studied the pack, looking for telltale signs. He saw one reporter on his cell phone and trying to take notes, ignoring Gannon.
The only time you can afford to ignore a primary source on a major story is when you know something bigger.
The reporter met Gannon's stare. “Who are you?”

“Sonny Watson, AZ Instant News Agency.”

“What?”

“New online news service.” Watson glanced around.

“Sonny, has your desk heard anything going on this morning in the south end, related to the case?”

Again, Watson looked around, reluctant to answer. Gannon figured he was adhering to the code of keeping exclusive information from a competitor.

“Kid, we're all going to find out,” Dave Davis, a seasoned TV reporter with the FOX affiliate, boomed. “Half of us likely know already anyway.”

“They think they have a major crime scene at the NewIron Rail yards. We've got somebody there already. That's all I know.”

Reporters called their desks while hurrying to their cars.

Gannon returned to the house for Cora. They rushed to her Pontiac Vibe and used the GPS system to direct them to NewIron.

“Please, please don't let this be Tilly!”

“Take it easy, Cora. We don't have many facts yet.”

Gannon's gut twisted as they threaded through traffic
while Cora prayed out loud. He got her to call Henrietta Chong, who'd just arrived at the scene.

“They're so tight-lipped. No one knows anything,” said Chong. “I think I see a good source. I'll call you back.”

“I think it's bad, Jack,” Cora said. “It has to be bad if they won't tell us anything.”

It took another fifteen minutes before Gannon and Cora reached the location. The area was an immense industrial graveyard of old factories and warehouses. As they neared the NewIron Rail yards they came upon scores of emergency vehicles lined up and blocking the entrance. News trucks dotted the road. Reporters were gathering around a cluster of police-types near a gate cordoned with crime scene tape. A breeze jiggled the brilliant yellow in festive juxtaposition to the hopelessness of the drab depot.

Gannon searched in vain for Hackett, Larson—anyone who could tell him what they'd discovered.

Reporters had encircled someone who was with the County Sheriff's Office.

“We have nothing to say,” he told them. “We're supporting the FBI.”

“Jack!”

Henrietta Chong tugged on his arm, pulling him and Cora away behind a satellite truck out of sight of the pack.

“What's going on?” Cora asked her.

“Listen, I just got this from a deputy I know. This is way off the record, but late last night two homeless guys who were sleeping in a boxcar flagged down a patrol car. Turns out they think they witnessed a murder in the yards, some kind of confrontation. They saw a body being hefted into the trunk of a car that drove off.”

Protective of Cora, Gannon challenged the information.

“That's pretty vague. How do they link this to Tilly?”

“There's an abandoned Cherokee in there that matches the one they linked to Galviera.”

“Oh God, no!” Cora whispered. “If they've killed Lyle…oh Jack, what about Tilly? Oh please, God, no!”

The sky above them split as a TV news helicopter hammered overhead, transmitting live footage that interrupted morning shows across Arizona. Soon the story would go national with Breaking News on a major development in the local story.

“…on what police sources say is a major crime scene linked to the case of Tilly Martin, an eleven-year-old Phoenix girl who was the victim of a brazen kidnapping from her home by a drug cartel to settle a debt with her mother's boyfriend, missing Phoenix businessman Lyle Galviera…”

Phoenix, Arizona

L
yle Galviera's head throbbed.

He tried to move but couldn't. He was tied to a chair.

He tried to see but he was blindfolded.

He heard only the echoed drips and creaks of an infinite space, like an enormous warehouse, punctuated with bursts of sporadic chatter from emergency scanners, like police dispatches.

Push the fear aside. Concentrate
.

Footsteps approached behind him and someone removed his blindfold.

Galviera's eyes opened wide.

Taking in his surroundings, the airy vastness, the high ceiling, he recognized that he was in an abandoned hangar. Sitting a yard or two from him on a worktable, legs dangling playfully, was a young man wearing a shoulder holster, showing the grip of a handgun. He stared at Galviera while he ate potato chips from a bag and sipped from a can of soda.

“You know why you're here, Mr. Galviera?” Angel asked in Spanish.

Is that the
sicario?
Think.

Galviera did not respond as his eyes swept over the array of his sports bags, lined up on the floor between them. All were open displaying bundles of cash.

“It seems,” the young man said between chips, “that
we have a discrepancy on the amount of our stolen property. You've provided us with three million, when our calculation shows the amount owing to be five.”

I need the two million. I can't give it up
.

“That's all there is.”

“Don't lie. That's not all there is.”

“Where's Tilly?”

“Our agreement was a simple one. You return our stolen property, all five million, and we return the girl. We've shown you the girl. We've kept our side of the agreement.”

“Where is she? I need to see her.”

Ignoring the question to sip his soda, the young man said, “You have failed to keep your part of the agreement. You've misled us and that is a mistake.”

I've got nothing left to bargain with. No leverage
.

“No. It's all there.”

“Your first mistake, Mr. Galviera, was to conspire to steal from us.”

“No, I never did that. What have you done with Tilly?”

“I will give you the opportunity right now to tell us where the rest of our property is so we can retrieve it and conclude our dealings.”

Either way, I am dead. If I get out of this, I'll have Tilly and two million
.

“But that is all there is. I swear.”

“You swear?”

“Salazar and Johnson controlled everything,” Galviera said. “They used my company for distribution for a limited term. All fees collected were stored until each collection period, then everything went to them to process to you.”

“So, Salazar and Johnson are responsible for any discrepancies?”

“Yes. It was them.”

Someone other than the young man cleared his throat.
Galviera saw two other men, older men, watching from the periphery.

“This complicates the situation,” Angel said. “Let's simplify it. Salazar and Johnson were stealing from us. They'd planned to set up their own cartel, the Diablo Cartel, to compete with us. With your help, they stole five million dollars from our organization for that very purpose.”

That's what happened and they know it
.

“I had no part in that.”

Something coiled; something out of sight was being prepared.

“I am afraid you are not being truthful, Mr. Galviera. I don't think you appreciate the gravity of your situation.”

“I do. With the utmost respect, please, I've brought you the money. Give me Tilly and we'll close the matter. I'm telling you the truth. That is all the money there is.”

Angel signaled to Limon-Rocha and Tecaza.

In an instant they left, then returned, carrying Tilly. She was bound to a chair by rope and chains. No hope of escaping this time. They set her down opposite Galviera. Her mouth was taped.

Angel hopped from the table, tugged on white latex surgical gloves, then picked up a sports bag that had been behind him and out of sight.

“I think you need an illustration to understand.”

Angel opened the big bag, reached into it and retrieved a round object that was slightly smaller than a ten-pin bowling ball. Then he reached into the bag for a second similar object, placing both on the ground before Galviera.

“You see, this is what happens when you lie to me.”

Amid the mass of hair, decomposing flesh and open eyes, Galviera met the faces of Octavio Sergio Salazar and John Walker Johnson.

Greater Phoenix, Arizona

“G
oodness, girl, slow down!”

Olive McKay scolded herself as her old Silverado SUV bumped along the dirt road leading to her friend Virginia's house.

Olive was running a titch late this morning but that was no reason to spill all the food she'd made the night before for the charity potluck—pecan tarts, a pineapple upside-down cake and pasta salad. Thank goodness she'd put it all in the cooler and belted it to the rear passenger seat.

Virginia's double-wide emerged into view. Olive tooted the horn as she wheeled up, noticing that Virginia had left her front porch light on.
Odd
. Being a penny-pincher on a tight budget, Virginia just never did that.

She's probably a bit preoccupied this morning.

Olive got out of her SUV, intent on helping load it with Virginia's food as quickly as possible. Raising her hand to ring the doorbell, she paused.

The door was ajar.

Did she leave it open for me? That's strange. She always keeps it locked, on account of the teenagers who sometimes get out of hand, out at the old airfield.

“Virginia?”

What's that clicking?

“Hello! Virginia, it's me, Olive! We have to get going. Flo said we should be there by now!”

She listened harder to the soft vibrations. What is that?

“Virginia?”

Olive's smile melted as the first icy thread of concern slithered up her back.
What's that rapid clicking?
The door creaked as she slowly pushed it open, seeing tomato juice all over the kitchen floor and thinking, what a mess. Then…
that can't be tomato juice…the consistency and the color's not right.
As the door swung wider. Olive saw a foot, then a leg, both legs, and Virginia lying on her back with a knife handle rising from her chest, her hand twitching in the puddle of blood.

Olive's scalp tingled. Her skin prickled with gooseflesh.

She called 911 and screamed for an ambulance, for police, for God to come right away because Virginia had been stabbed.

So much blood. Too much blood
.

Olive took her friend's hand. It was still warm.

“You stay with me, Virginia.”

Red foam bubbled at Virginia's mouth as she moaned, crying out to her dead husband, to Clay, to Olive, trying to tell her.

“…the girl…please…”

“Don't try to talk.”

“…missing girl…news…bad please…”

But Olive couldn't understand.

She didn't remember the sirens, the paramedics, the deputies pulling her away, working on Virginia, starting an IV, slipping an oxygen mask over her mouth, lifting her to a board, the gurney and loading her into the ambulance.

The deputy had to catch Olive before she collapsed, watching the ambulance wail down the same bumpy road she'd taken moments ago in her Silverado.

Virginia died en route to the hospital.

The same hospital where her husband had died, the same hospital she was helping with her potato salad and apple pies for the charity potluck.