Their loss, she thought.
She looked at the time on the car’s dash. Her meeting was in twenty minutes.
He had asked to meet somewhere secluded—a warehouse on Fremont Boulevard.
She parked up the street to ensure no one would see her license plate or what type of car she drove. She smoothed her hair down and put on a tight wig before adding on a baseball cap. She’d bought a fake tattoo kit, the best she could find, and she took a few minutes to place a tattoo of an Asian tiger at the base of her neck and Arabic writing on each wrist. She popped in green contacts, then looked at herself in her side mirror before heading into the warehouse.
The building was dark and smelled of grease and wet cardboard. She scanned from one end to the other, noting the number of people inside and where the exits were. A few men glanced at her, but she could tell it was more out of lust than any type of curiosity about why a stranger was in their midst.
A man in a blue suit with a thick black beard stepped out of a room and motioned with his head. She went over to him. He stood by the door as she looked inside. A bald man in a silk shirt whose pattern looked like vomit or soggy cereal sat at a desk snorting cocaine. Tara glanced at the guard and then went inside.
“You gonna sit or what?” the man at the desk said.
Tara sat down in one of the chairs in front of the desk. Garos Vasili took one more line of coke and then put the straw and mirror in his breast pocket before wiping his nose and leaning back in his chair.
“How old are you?” he said.
“What does that matter?”
He shrugged. “Just making small talk.” He exhaled loudly. “So you work for someone who works for someone, huh? And why would they hire a little girl for something like this?”
“If I get arrested, I get a slap on the wrist.”
“And that’s okay with you?”
“For what they pay me it is.”
He smirked. “Smart girl. I’m worth millions. You know how much time I’ve done? Four years. Now you tell me, is it worth four years of your life to be rich for the rest of it? That’s what those people driving to jobs they hate every morning don’t understand. Everything’s a trade of your time, and most people don’t know it. That’s what it’s all about. Evaluating the trade.”
“Thanks for the lecture, but do you have the money or not? I’d like to get the hell out of here.”
He chuckled. “You got balls for a little girl.”
“Yes or no? I don’t have time for this.”
“Why? You gotta be back at the playground?”
She rose to leave, and he held out a hand. “Sit down.” They stared at each other a moment, and he said calmly, “Don’t worry so much. Sit down.”
Tara sat. Her heart was pounding, and she had to make a conscious effort to calm it down. She couldn’t allow him to see any fear. This wasn’t the type of man who would show compassion; he was watching for any weakness in her.
Vasili motioned to the guard by the door, and a moment later the guard came in with a gym bag. Vasili unzipped it, revealing hundred-dollar bills tightly packed with rubber bands.
“Two million, assuming of course that my expert can verify the paintings are actually his.”
“They are,” Tara said, unable to take her eyes off the cash in front of her. More cash than her mother would earn in a lifetime busting her ass in a courtroom.
“My appraiser will be here in a couple of weeks. Bring the paintings then, and you’ll get your money.” He paused as he looked down at his nails. “I would really like to know who you work for. I want to know who I’m in bed with.”
Tara shook her head. “They don’t work that way.” She rose. “Text me when the appraiser’s here.”
“Little girl,” he said as she turned to leave, “I don’t know you, and you don’t know me, but I need you to know, if you try to—”
“Save your threats. I don’t scare easy. And if I wanted to screw you, I would’ve done it already. You took the nameplate on the door down—I can see the outline where the wood is faded—and those shoes in the corner are probably an eight or nine. The shoes on your feet are an eleven or twelve. This isn’t your office. Which means you don’t work here and don’t want me to know where you really work out of. So that bag of money is not going to be left in this warehouse. If I were more devious, I would just wait outside until you left and shoot you both in the back of the head and take the money. Easy as pie. But I may need to do business with you in the future, so best we both treat each other well. Agreed?”
His eyes narrowed a little before he burst out laughing. He pointed a finger at her. “I like you. You make me happy. Keep it that way, and we won’t have any problems.”
Tara nodded and turned to leave. At the door, she glanced at the guard, noticing the handgun tucked in a holster underneath his left arm. Looking into his eyes, she could see nothing there. No emotion. She had no doubt if Vasili told him to kill her, he wouldn’t hesitate for a second.
She glanced back once before leaving. Vasili smiled at her and winked.
43
Yardley had dinner prepared before Tara got home. When she finally came in, she dropped her backpack by the door and went immediately to the fridge. She opened a bottle of apple juice and chugged half.
“You would not believe this professor,” Tara said, wiping her lips with the back of her hand.
“I made dinner, don’t eat anything. What’d they do?”
“He was, like, totally hitting on me, and Jared, one of the other grad students, was in there, and he was like, ‘Um, Mike, this is a little uncomfortable,’ and the professor’s like, ‘I’m just kidding.’ But it was such bullshit because I totally caught him checking me out. Guy gives me the creeps. I would drop his class, but I figure you can’t get away from it, right? I could end up with someone worse.”
“Maybe. But sounds like I’ll be going down to have a talk with him.”
“No, don’t. I took care of it. Once you call guys like that out, they run the other way.”
She went up to her mother and put her head on her shoulder. Yardley leaned her head against her daughter’s and closed her eyes. Tara still smelled the same as when she was a child, or perhaps it was just in Yardley’s mind. If it was, she wondered if Tara would always smell like that to her.
“You doin’ okay, Mom?”
“I’m fine.”
“You seem sad.”
“Not sad. Nostalgic, maybe. There was a time in life when everything seemed simpler, and I’ve just been thinking about whether it’s ever possible to go back to that.”
“Is that why we’re moving? You think it’ll be simpler?”
Someone knocked on the door. Tara put her juice on the counter and went to answer it. Yardley heard a woman’s voice, and a few seconds later River stood in the kitchen.
“Hey,” she said. “Sorry to just pop in. Can we talk?”
“Of course. Tara, stir this every few minutes, would you?”
Yardley led River out to the balcony. River didn’t sit. Instead, she went to the railing overlooking the desert. Stars were beginning to come out. A heavy wind blew, and the sand could rise high enough to whip someone’s face if they were standing at the railing, though Yardley occasionally found the sensation pleasant.
“I visited him at the jail,” River said.
“Why?”
“Honestly . . . I don’t know. Just to hear him deny it, I guess. To see if I believe him.”
“And?”
River shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I felt. I don’t know if he was telling the truth or lying to me . . . I don’t know anything anymore.” She took a deep breath, her gaze unwavering from the sand and red rocks spread out in front of her. “He looked terrible. Pale and tired. He had these really dark circles under his eyes. He said he didn’t sleep at all last night.”
“The shock of it will wear off. Jail isn’t prison; it’s not as violent. He’ll be all right.”
“The evidence certainly points his way.”
“Do you believe it? That he killed her and tried to kill me?”
“For me, cases are about probabilities. What is the probability that he had those Sarpong paintings, multiplied by the probability that he had the exact roll of gauze used in the murder, multiplied by the syringes full of ricin, multiplied by the fact that he was romantically involved with both victims, multiplied by the probability that he happens to have no solid alibi for either night?”
A long pause.
“What about that girl?” River asked.
“I called the Missing Persons detective again today, and she said they don’t have anything. Their best guess is that Zachary took her and . . .”
River turned. “And killed her?”
Yardley nodded. “I also think Zachary was working with the girl’s father, Tucker Pharr. That’s the most likely explanation. It’s just proving it that’s going to be the problem.”
River turned back toward the desert. “Is he getting out?”
Yardley hesitated. It wouldn’t be fair to lie to her. “Possibly. His attorney is one of the best, and he’s extremely motivated to win. But the evidence is solid, so he’ll have to find someone else to blame for the murder and your kidnapping. The most obvious choice is Tucker Pharr. He has a conviction for kidnapping, and he has the motive to kill you and his wife.”
“Will that work?”
“It could be enough to put reasonable doubt into the minds of the jurors, sure. But even if he only gets one, it will be a hung jury, and we’ll have to try this case again. Get a couple of those, and the DA will offer an extremely lenient deal to get it out of the press quickly. So yes, he could get out again.”
River’s head lowered, and she spoke quietly. “What if he tries to kill me again?”
Yardley moved to stand next to her. “I won’t let him.”
44
The press conference was a zoo. Roy Lieu, the state attorney general, the chief of police for the LVPD, and the county sheriff were all there, flanking Nathan Salls on a podium as he read a prepared statement in front of a microphone. Kyle Jax stood nearby and puffed up his chest for the cameras.
Yardley had accepted Salls’s offer. River was at risk, a young girl was missing, and it didn’t seem like anyone but she and Baldwin cared. Salls had asked her to join the press conference, but Yardley took a spot in the corner and remained seated, out of view of the cameras.
When the question-and-answer period came around, the first reporter with their hand up was Jude Chance.
“Do you have any information on the whereabouts of Harmony Pharr, and if not, are you willing to cut a deal with Dr. Zachary in exchange for that information?”
“I cannot comment about ongoing discussions with the defendant in this case,” Salls said. “You’ll have to speak to him and his attorney about that.”
“But prosecutors at your own department have said they believe Harmony’s father is just as viable a suspect as the defendant in her disappearance.”
“Which prosecutors said that?”
“You know I can’t tell you that, Nathan. But I’m just relaying what the front-line prosecutors in your office are saying.”
“Look, I get people’s apprehension about this and why they believe Mr. Pharr to be a suspect, but that’s all he was—a suspect. The evidence we have in this case was found in Dr. Zachary’s possession, and no one else had access to it, save his girlfriend, who is herself a victim. More details will come out during the preliminary hearing, if there is one, and your question as to why Mr. Pharr isn’t a viable suspect any longer will be answered then.”
Yardley didn’t know if anyone else on the floor recognized the lie. Tucker Pharr was a viable suspect. But Yardley believed them to have worked together, and in the coming weeks, she would have to piece it all together for the jury until she found enough evidence to charge Tucker as well.
Salls had started to call on someone else when Chance added, “Are you even actively searching for Harmony Pharr anymore, or do you assume she’s dead at this point?”
“It’s an ongoing investigation currently being handled by the Missing Persons Bureau of the—”
“Cut the political bullshit, Nathan—is the girl alive or not?”
Salls’s face turned a light pink, and he had to clear his throat and take a sip of water, probably so he wouldn’t immediately explode in a storm of profanity at Chance.
“We don’t know if Harmony Pharr is alive or not. Mr. Zachary has not spoken to us since he retained an attorney. I think that’s all for—”
“Whose fault was it that this case wasn’t indicted at the federal level? Someone on the grand jury informed me that the government wasn’t well prepared and attempted to move forward on a case they hadn’t researched thoroughly. Seems like on a serial homicide, you’d want to put in the work first, doesn’t it? Can we expect the same treatment of this case from the DA’s Office?”
Salls gritted his teeth, causing striations in his jaw muscles. Roy Lieu stepped forward and said, “I can probably best answer that. Sometimes things slip through the cracks due to misunderstandings by the grand jury. This isn’t exactly a science—we’re dealing with people, and when you deal with people, you’re bound to deal with mistakes.”
Chance said, “So you’re saying it was the grand jury’s mistake, not yours, that resulted in no indictments for the murder and kidnappings?”
Salls chimed in. “Right now our main focus is to ensure that this man is behind bars the rest of his life and cannot hurt another person. That’s all the questions we’re taking at this time. Thank you for coming.”
A few reporters shouted questions, but the group was already leaving the podium. Yardley waited until everyone had left and then went up to Chance. “I don’t think he’s going to invite you to the DA’s Christmas party this year.”
He chuckled. “Shit, they wouldn’t cross the street to spit on me if I was on fire. I noticed you didn’t talk much. Off the record, you really think Zachary is the guy?”
“Yes. At least one of them.”
“Huh. And I’m guessing you think the other is Tucker Pharr? I’d love to hear your theories, especially considering we made fun of old Johnny for speculating there were two of them early on. Guess I owe that prick a beer.”
“Anything I say will be off the record. Zachary’s defense counsel is going to blame everything on Tucker Pharr, and the last thing we need is me making a statement that I think Tucker had something to do with all this.”
“Well, regardless, you’re gonna wanna say your prayers and take your vitamins, ’cause I think this case is going to kick your ass.”
45
It felt strange to leave the house in the morning and drive to the Clark County District Attorney’s Office. The building was modern looking: glass and steel, lined with palm trees. Yardley checked in with a security guard.
The DA’s Office on the third floor was a cacophony of sound. Phones ringing, people talking, laughing, and a television somewhere turned to a news show. It seemed the opposite of the somber US Attorney’s Office.
“Hi,” Yardley said to the receptionist. “Jessica Yardley. Brie is expecting me.”
“One sec.”
Brie came out a minute later. They shook hands, and Brie led her back through the employee entrance that didn’t have a metal detector. The entire floor was a large space with offices on the outer edge and cubicles pushed together in the center.
“We have the next floor up, too,” Brie said as they walked. “That’s mostly the appellate team and civil guys. You won’t see them much. Nathan’s office is up there, but he’s never around. If you need anything, you can talk to Wendy—she’s the office manager—or just ask me. Yours is right here.”
She gestured inside a small office with large windows looking out onto the street. The desk was L shaped and massive,
with a computer and monitor set up. Other than the chair and some shelves above the desk, there was nothing in the room. Yardley noticed holes in the walls where the previous occupant had hung things.
“I’ll have someone get you all the files, and you’ll be set up with passwords for our server. Have you met the defense attorney before? Dylan Aster?”
“I have.”
“He’s smart. Be careful. He’s got that cute charm that disarms you, but I’ve seen him slit prosecutors’ throats when they let their guards down.”
“I’ll be careful.”
Brie grinned, but Yardley could tell it was forced. “I’m so glad you’re here. We need more women in the office.”
With that, she left. Yardley placed her satchel on the desk and sat down. She took out the only things she had brought with her: her laptop and a photo of Tara, which she placed next to the computer.
She rose and went to the windows. As she stared down at the traffic below, it hit her suddenly that, as a county prosecutor, she no longer had access to federal agencies like the FBI. If she needed specific evidence gathered, she would have to use the Sheriff’s Office, the LVPD, or in-house investigators, very few of whom she actually knew. It had taken years for her to learn which federal agents worked hard and were efficient and which ones cut corners. Which ones could be trusted and which couldn’t. She didn’t have time to learn all that with local law enforcement, and it made her anxious that she wouldn’t know who she was dealing with.
When the files were brought to her, she sat down again, the chair creaking, and began to read.
The DA’s files had some good information, particularly Detective Garrett’s supplemental narrative, which she hadn’t had in the federal file, but it didn’t contain much she hadn’t already seen. There was a note that the police had executed another search warrant at Zachary and River’s home but found nothing else relevant to the case. She hoped River hadn’t been there to watch the police tearing apart her house.
When she got through the files, she stacked them neatly on the shelves above her computer and left the office.
Crimson Lake Road (Desert Plains) Page 18