No Way Back: A Novel (27 page)

Harold clicked on the link and read how Lasser, an honors graduate of William Payne High School and the former photography editor on the school newspaper, “was listed among the victims of what appeared to be a drug-motivated shooting in a remote Mexican town.” The article described how she was traveling by car through the Sinaloa region on spring break with two other University of Denver students, one of them, Ned Taylor, described as her boyfriend.

There was no mention of the Bienvienes or any details on the shooting. The article said that she was survived by her brothers Ryan and Beau, both still at the high school. And her parents, Robert and Blair Lasser, of Gillian.

Harold pulled himself away from the screen. If Ana Lasser had indeed been the target of this shooting, it surely wasn’t because she was dealing dime bags of marijuana out of her college dorm room. It was clearly intended as a message to someone important, a devastating payback. Just as the vendetta against Lauritzia’s family had been a payback.

And if it was, it only made sense that the person it was most likely aimed at would have been her father.

Harold checked the name again. Robert Lasser.

With time, Harold knew he could find out virtually anything he needed to about the man. Background checks, LexisNexis, D and B reports, private investigation services—the firm had the means. He knew he could uncover every bad check the guy had ever written. Every traffic ticket he’d received. Every phone call he’d made in the past few months; whether his business was healthy or in trouble. Whether he’d been screwing his secretary.

But that would take time and leave a trail of money, and Harold knew it was vital for him to be 100 percent confidential about why he would be looking into him.

The last thing he could do was risk having it coming out that
he
was the person behind the search. If it got back to the wrong people, he’d be putting everyone in jeopardy, including Jamie and Taylor. He’d already seen what these people do when they feel threatened.

He checked his watch. He still had about a half hour until Wendy was supposed to meet him. Since the police never went after her, he assumed she’d gotten out of the mall safely.

He punched
Robert Lasser, Gillian, Colorado,
into Google Search.

Dozens of hits came back—most having to do with the death of his daughter, almost four years ago, which had been picked up by newspapers around the country. Harold kept scrolling down. There were two other Robert Lassers who were on the web—a financial advisor in the Twin Cities and a personal liabilities lawyer in Boynton Beach, Florida.

Then an item caught his eye. Harold stopped on it.

LOCAL
BUSINESSMAN
MAKES
GENEROUS
GIFT
TO
SAVE
PUBLIC
PARK

Gillian businessman Robert P. Lasser has donated seventy-five thousand dollars to the town’s landmark preservation board to preserve Francis A. Dellinger Park, to fend off interest from an out-of-state real estate development group that had submitted plans to buy the park from the cash-strapped town and convert it into a business park. Lasser, a longtime resident of Gillian and president of Apache Sales and Marketing, and whose daughter, Ana, was tragically killed in Mexico three years ago, the victim of a drug-related shooting, said he donated the money “to preserve the integrity of our town and because it was one of his daughter’s favorite spots to photograph . . .”

Nice gesture,
Harold remarked to himself. He exited out of the article and typed in
Apache Sales and Marketing.
The company had a website. It said, “The finest in TV’s and home consumer brands . . .” It looked like some kind of consumer distribution company. Harold noticed they had warehouses in Colorado, Kansas, and Texas. It appeared they distributed products to Indian reservations. The home page was decorated with the logos of several recognizable brands: Sony. Panasonic. Samsung. HP. Norelco.

Colt.

Then he saw a promotional tagline that hit him like a blunt instrument to the face:
Direct sales solutions in the U.S. and Mexico
.

He also noticed an official-looking crest with a U.S. Government “Approved Vendor” logo on the bottom of the page.

Did Apache sell to the U.S. government? Maybe to military bases? Were Indian reservations still on government land? He’d have to check that. Then there was that “in the U.S. and Mexico.” He’d have to check that too.

But the connection to the Culiacán murders had just narrowed a little.

He jotted all this down, then glanced at his watch and saw the time. He picked up his phone and punched in a number only he knew. On the third ring, a woman’s voice answered.

“I’m going to be coming up,” he said. “I’m bringing someone. Someone needs to talk with you.”

“Okay,” Lauritzia said haltingly. “If you think it’s wise.

“Just trust me on this. We’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

W
e made a right turn out of the garage onto what had to be Summer Street and pulled up at a light.

I raised myself up and peered out the window at the tops of buildings in downtown Stamford. Somehow I had to get to Harold’s office in half an hour—and that was in the completely opposite direction.

And every second it was becoming farther.

We continued through the light, and I recognized the library and an Italian restaurant Dave and I used to eat at sometimes. Then we drove for a while down a long straightaway in the direction of Long Ridge Road without stopping. What began to throb in my mind like some silent alarm was what if the woman was heading back home and upon arriving went to take out her bags—she was about to get the scare of her life! In seconds she’d be on the phone to 911. Who even knew where she lived? I could be out in the middle of backcountry Stamford or New Canaan with no way to get back.

I’d be dead meat for the first cop who came on the scene.

The next time we stopped, I lifted my head and saw we had merged onto Long Ridge Road. Long Ridge was a highly trafficked, commercial boulevard, fast-food places and big box stores on both sides. Suddenly I heard the woman get on her phone. It connected over the speaker.

A man’s voice answered. “Hey . . .”

“Hey, hon,” the woman said brightly. “Just wondering what time you’d be home for dinner?”

I lowered myself back into the rear.

“Not sure . . . should be finishing up here no later than six. Maybe around seven.”

“I’ve got some sauce in the fridge. We could do a pasta. I could also pick up a pork chop and maybe do a baked potato?”

“Pork chop sounds good.”

“Okay . . . I’m passing the Stop and Shop in a second anyway. I’ve got to pick up some stuff for the kids.”

I figured that was my way out, as soon as she parked at the supermarket and went in. I’d just have to work out a way back downtown.

“I was at the mall,” the woman said. “I picked up a few things for the house. Frames for those pictures of the kids. Then I went into Williams-Sonoma. I was looking at those Japanese knives we were talking about—”

“Okay . . .” I heard her husband sigh, beginning to lose interest. If I wasn’t so damn scared, I might have laughed out loud—it sounded a lot like Dave and me.

“Anyway, I’m pulling in now. See you home.”

“Love you.”

The SUV turned to the right. I rolled against the shopping bags, knocking one over, a bubble-wrapped vase or something tumbling out. Did she hear? When she parked at the store, would she come around and check the back to make sure everything was all right?

I raised myself to see where we were and, to my alarm, saw that it wasn’t the Stop & Shop after all, but an Exxon station.

A wave of panic sheared through me—not knowing which side of the vehicle the gas tank was on, I envisioned the woman getting out and standing virtually inches from me as she filled up the tank. Her eyes becoming twice their size at what she saw curled up inside her car . . .

She pulled up at a tank. The driver’s door opened and the woman stepped out and went around the car, passing right above me. I held my breath. Thank God, the windows were tinted and I had her shopping bags pulled all around me. She crossed to the other side of the vehicle and went over to a pump.

Through the darkened glass I watched her put in her credit card and unscrew the fuel cap. My heart stood still as I realized what would happen if she merely looked up and let her eyes wander inside her car.

I froze.

Suddenly she put the pump on automatic and headed away. I lifted myself just enough to watch her go around the car and inside the market.

This is my chance
.

I pushed aside the bags and rolled myself over the backseat. I opened the door on the gas tank side, away from the market, and slid out, shutting the door behind me. Immediately I was face-to-face with a man at the pump directly across from me. Inside I froze, but on the outside I got my wits together just enough to give him an innocent smile; to him it would just seem like anyone climbing out of the backseat. I doubted if he’d even still be there when the woman came back.

Hastily, I hurried away from the car, expecting any second to hear a shout from behind me.
Hey, you, what are you doing? Stop!

But I didn’t. Ahead of me, there was a Bed, Bath & Beyond and a Burger King across the street. I hurried to Burger King and ran around the corner, out of sight. For the first time, I exhaled in relief. I checked the time. I was two miles away from where I had to meet Harold and had no way to get there. I had only ten minutes. I did the only thing I could think of.

I called Harold on his cell.

“Yes,” he answered hesitantly. I could hear he didn’t want to take the call. “You made it out okay?”

“Little wrinkle,” I said with a chuckle. “But doing better now.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

I
n the makeshift Homeland Security–FBI Command Center at Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan, Alton Dokes looked through a series of photos that had just come in.

The first was of a navy GMC Explorer parked at the Town Center mall in Stamford, Connecticut. It had New York license plates that had been stolen off of a 2008 Honda Civic in Bridgeport four days before. The Explorer matched the one that had been reported missing from a private home in Vermont yesterday morning.

A home directly across from one owned by David and Wendy Gould.

The next photo was of that same vehicle going through the ticketing gate at the Town Center mall in Stamford an hour earlier.

Dokes focused on the driver behind the wheel and smiled. Her shortened and newly dyed hair, the partially hidden face.
Gotcha, darling
. He chuckled to himself.

But what was she doing here?

A team of agents was already on their way. As well as additional surveillance photos requested from office buildings surrounding the mall. It was just a stroke of luck as it turned out,
his
luck actually, that she had managed to avoid being captured there.

He had to hand it to the gal—she had shown herself a remarkably difficult target to kill.

Still, one thing did concern him as he leafed through the photos. One of the suspect as she made her way through the mall, another of her sitting at a table having coffee in the first-floor atrium. She was huddled in conversation with a man. A man whose face might not be known to most, but it was to him. Someone connected to her in ways beyond what she likely knew.

Dokes paused on the photo. He knew what had to be done. His own survival depended on it. The survival of a host of people depended on it. That was what they did—warriors. They did the work that had to be done. The work that no one ever saw, through the muddy troughs of what ended up as history and what would never be fully known.

But that wasn’t the only reason he would make sure she never got to tell her tale.

He had spent too many years getting his hands dirty in holes like El Paso and Mexicali to see it all washed away now. And Harold Bachman . . . he had gotten his nose in it. He’d been asking about Gillian in DC. Hadn’t he learned?

He was another one to deal with.

One of the young agents came over, Holmes, who had been the trigger man at Grand Central, and asked, “You want me to get this out to the press?” He pointed to the close-up taken of Wendy Gould driving into the garage. “We can have her face across the country in minutes.”

Dokes looked at the grainy security photograph of her behind the wheel.
You’ve been more trouble than you’re worth,
he said to himself,
but that’s about to come to an end.

“Thanks,” he said, picking up his cell phone, motioning for the agent to leave. “I’ll handle it from here.”

The number appeared on the screen. KVC Consulting.

On the fourth ring a woman answered. “Sabrina Stein.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

W
e drove for an hour and turned off Route 15 in Hamden. We wound through the quiet streets of small apartment buildings and attached houses until we were near New Haven. A sign pointed straight ahead to Quinnipiac University.

Harold pulled in front of a five-story redbrick apartment building that had probably looked modern back in the sixties. He turned off the car. It was dark and cold. A few flurries were blowing around. We both agreed that someone must have recognized the Explorer—which meant the police now knew I’d taken it. Along with Jim and Cindy, who I figured could now put in a room with just about everyone else I knew who now assumed that whatever was being said about me had to be true.

“Wait here,” Harold said, opening the door. “I’ll be back in a minute.”