Ransom River

by Meg Gardiner

“So what the hell was going on with him?”

  “What would be your wildest guess?”

  In the back of her mind she noted that Seth had slipped into an old pattern—of playfulness, of trusting her to engage with him. He crossed the railroad tracks and accelerated.

  She watched live oaks go by. “The courthouse attack wasn’t political. And it wasn’t personal,” she said. “The two gunmen couldn’t have been more different, at least on the surface. One career criminal. One upstanding citizen with an Achilles’ heel. Did they know each other well? What’s the connection?”

  “None that I’ve found so far. Other than that they charged into that courtroom side by side, shotguns loaded.”

  She turned to him. “No connection between them at all?”

  “So far. It’ll be there.”

  “But neither of them have any apparent extremist ties. They’re not related to the victim. Neither was ever arrested by the defendants. They didn’t meet in line at the neighborhood pharmacy and decide jointly to go off their meds and take a psychotic road trip.”

  “No.”

  The trees blurred past.

  “In that case, I think it was about money,” she said.

  Seth nodded. “So do I. Maybe they were after the five mil in gold bullion from the start.”

  “Possibly. But that sounded like a crazy-ass demand they made up on the fly,” Rory said.

  “Unless they planned to take selected hostages to a remote location and then demand the bullion as ransom.”

  “That’s more plausible. But it’s still off the wall.”

  “Because attacking the courthouse to begin with is such a ludicrously high-risk strategy as to be insane.”

  “Bull’s-eye.”

  The truck hummed along the road. The radio was playing at low volume. Foo Fighters, “Long Road to Ruin.”

  Rory felt a seed of excitement, tiny and fragile. “Money. But not money they expected to get from the people in the courtroom. They weren’t attempting to extort cash from the government or from a wealthy hostage. They were being paid to attack the court.”

  “That’s my assessment too.”

  She considered it some more. “But so much of this still makes no sense. Sylvester Church—okay, he was a career criminal. Maybe he did it strictly for the paycheck.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But Kevin Berrigan? What, he found this opportunity on Craigslist, decided that raiding courthouses paid better than selling equipment to Jiffy Lube? That’s not plausible.” She shook her head. “He was doing it under duress.”

  Seth turned onto the winding road that led to Rory’s neighborhood. The mountains looked etched in the sun, gray and brown and rocky above foothills blanketed with orchards.

  “Berrigan was forced to do it,” she said. “To pay off his gambling debts.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Jesus.”

  The road curved past a windbreak of eucalyptus trees. Christ, what kind of people could force Berrigan to attack the courthouse? Who had that sort of power and could inspire such fear?

  “Vegas loan sharks—I don’t see it,” she finally said. “What’s their interest in a courthouse attack? Where’s the upside? There is none.”

  “So it wasn’t Vegas loan sharks.”

  Sunlight flashed across the black hood of the pickup. She said, “It was the person who bought Berrigan’s gambling debts from the Vegas loan sharks.”

  “That’s my guess.”

  Somebody who was still out there.

  “How deep was Berrigan in debt?” she said.

  “I don’t know the number. Six figures minimum.”

  “Minimum? Then this isn’t about money.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “It’s about big money.”

  “Wrong.” He looked sober. “It’s about huge money. Because even a career criminal wouldn’t take on a near-suicidal mission unless he was promised colossal bucks.”

  “And the pressure on Kevin Berrigan had to be tremendous. He wouldn’t have done it otherwise. He had to believe that attacking the courthouse was his last resort.”

  It was nuts, she thought. And yet it had happened. “Sylvester Church—from what you know of him, did he do anything for reasons other than money? Family, pride, anything?”

  “Boring and unimaginative guy. Too lazy to work, too greedy to get a regular job. With Church it was always all about the cash.”

  She half turned in her seat. “So how much was he promised?”

  “Sadly, in Southern California you can hire a killer to shoot your ex for a few thousand bucks. But if you want a guy to attack a high-security, high-visibility location against armed opposition, you have to pay significantly more.”

  “Six figures, would you guess?” she said.

  “High six. Maybe seven.”

  Her mind raced. “So the moneymen expected an even larger payoff at the other end.”

  “Enormous.”

  “What on earth could the people behind the attack have been after?”

  Seth’s face sobered. “Find that out and we’ll get the cops off your back and make you safe.”

  He turned onto Rory’s street. They cruised around the big curve by the eucalyptus grove.

  “Oh no,” she said.

  Outside Petra’s house a police car was parked at the curb. Two uniformed officers were in the driveway. Petra stood talking to them, hunched and miserable, wiping her eyes.

  26

  Seth pulled his truck to the curb. Rory jumped out and ran across the lawn toward Petra and the cops.

  “What’s going on?” she said.

  Petra walked toward her, arms crossed, head low, strawberry blonde hair hanging lank around her face. Rory opened her arms. Petra walked straight into a hug and sagged against Rory’s shoulder. It was an unfamiliar and disconcerting reaction.

  She was shaking. “Thank God you’re okay.”

  “Me?” Rory said.

  “Mirkovic’s men.”

  Rory tightened her grip. “What happened?”

  “I’m fine. They didn’t hurt me.”

  Seth approached, as did the two uniformed officers. One of the cops rested his hand on the telescoping baton tucked into his utility belt. He eyed Seth and Rory and didn’t look tender.

  “Two unknown men set off Ms. Whistler’s car alarm in the parking lot at the elementary school,” he said.

  Petra wiped her eyes again, and her nose. “When I went to shut the alarm off, two balloon animals in suits got out of a Suburban and tried to scare the shit out of me.”

  Rory turned to the cops. “I think the same men confronted me on this street when I was running earlier. Detective Xavier saw them.”

  Petra was flushed. She tucked her hair behind her ear, and Rory saw that she’d lost one of her bangly Indian earrings.

  “They said I had a problem named Aurora Mackenzie,” she said.

  The breeze rustled the plum trees. Seth put a hand on her elbow. “Seriously?”

  “They said the justice system took a hard knock yesterday, and that victims like Brad Mirkovic and his family are suffering because of it.”

  “Sons of bitches,” Rory said.

  Seth said, “And they specifically mentioned Rory’s name—as a problem?”

  The officers turned their gaze on him. “Excuse me, sir. Who are you?”

  Rory said, “He’s with me.”

  Petra took a breath. “I’m fine, Officers. Thank you for escorting me home.”

  “You’re sure you’ll be all right, ma’am?”

  She nodded. “Thanks for giving the house a look-see. I appreciate it.”

  The cops sauntered back to their patrol car. Petra waved as they drove off.

  She was still waving when she said, “Mirkovic’s men said you have some explaining to do, Rory. They said you need to be prepared to tell them what they want to know.”

  “Petra, I am so sorry.”

  Petra turned and looked at her. It was a harsh, desolate look. “The
y said being around you is dangerous—look what happened to people around you in the courtroom yesterday. They said if I wasn’t careful I could get hurt.”

  “Jesus.” Rory’s face heated. “I don’t—”

  “You should leave town. Go someplace. I mean it. Split.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “It’s the trial. I was just officially informed by a judge that none of the jurors can leave the area.” She glanced at Seth. “And the police department told me the same thing last night. So if I head for the hills, and they find out—”

  Seth said, “Which they will. They’re crawling all over you.”

  “—they’ll put out a warrant on me and drag me back. To jail.”

  Petra said, “Then let them arrest you. Maybe that’s better. Maybe you’d be safer in police custody with a twenty-four-hour guard.”

  Seth said, “Not on your life. You’d be in worse shape in a cell. Mirkovic’s network could cause you trouble inside. You’re better off under…”

  “What?” Rory said.

  “Under my protection.”

  She slid past that. “I do not want to end up in police custody.”

  She heard a bark. Inside the house, behind the screen door, Chiba stood wagging his tail.

  “Did Mirkovic’s men say anything else to you?” she said.

  “Yeah.” Petra looked like wax. “They said they’d be back. They said you’d better have answers for them when they come knocking on your door.”

  27

  The chilly breeze rattled the leaves. Rory took Petra’s arm and led her toward the house.

  “You should get out,” she said.

  “We both should. Could you stay with your parents?” Petra said.

  Rory shook her head. “I don’t want to drag them into this.”

  The very thought of bringing Mirkovic’s men into her parents’ orbit caused a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. She opened the door. Chiba barked and sat and wagged his tail. Seth followed them in.

  Petra said, “I’ll go someplace for the weekend. Santa Barbara. Could you at least stay at a motel?”

  Rory looked at Chiba.

  “Take the dog to your parents’ house,” Petra said. “Then hide.”

  “Hide.” Rory slammed the door so hard it shook. “Like a cornered rat?”

  She stalked across the hall and the kitchen and through the living room. She scraped her hair back from her face with her fingers. She stopped by the fireplace.

  Petra darted in and scooped ceramic figurines from the mantel. Her Hello Kitty goth collection. She held them to her chest, out of Rory’s reach.

  “The hell I’m going to hide,” Rory said.

  Seth stood back from them, absolutely quiet. But his face was strange.

  “What?” Rory said.

  He shrugged. His expression was expectant. She spread her hands.

  “What time’s your appointment with the lawyer?” he said.

  She checked her watch. “An hour. Why?”

  “Did the judge and the cops say not to leave the Ransom River city limits? Or did the judge say not to leave the jurisdiction?”

  She knew what he was going to suggest and shook her head. “That won’t fly. The judge did not mean jurors could stay in Santa Monica.”

  “I’ll take the sofa,” he said.

  “No, Seth. Not your place.”

  “Think about it.”

  She’d done a lot in the past two years, but thinking about Seth Colder’s bed was not at the top of the list. Not every night. Not when she was sober. Or alone.

  Petra looked embarrassed to be there. She said, “Friday after school I’m going to hit the road. Rory, please. Get out of this house at least.”

  “It just makes me crazy,” Rory said. “Petra, this is your home. The whole thing is infuriating.”

  Before she could throw something breakable, Petra picked up a bowl of fruit from the coffee table. It was filled with oranges. She offered them to Rory.

  Rory grabbed the whole thing and pitched it at the wall.

  The bowl clanged and clattered to the floor. Oranges rolled in all directions.

  “Not quite what I had in mind,” Petra said. “But that’s okay.”

  Rory turned to Seth. “What am I going to do? Knowing the names of the gunmen isn’t enough. What can we do with this information? Where do we go from here?”

  “I’m working on it,” he said.

  Petra rubbed her forehead. “Mirkovic’s men said something else to me.” She looked distraught. “They said you seemed to take your oath as a juror kind of twisted. That you were willing to pervert the course of justice and wouldn’t come clean with them, but you sure liked to get homey with your fellow jurors.”

  “What did they mean?” Rory said. But she was afraid she knew.

  “That they’d seen you in court, being friendly with the others in the jury box. Especially the people who sat on either side of you. They said they were going to find out what was going on one way or the other. Somebody could talk, they said.” She was fraught. “It could be you. Or not.”

  Rory stood for a long moment, feeling ensnared. She thought about Frankie Ortega and Helen Ellis.

  One of the oranges rolled slowly across the floor. Chiba trotted over, picked it up with his teeth, and dropped it at Rory’s feet. He joined the others in staring at her.

  The lawyer’s office was on the sixteenth floor of a black glass skyscraper at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard in Century City. Outside the floor-to-ceiling window were the Los Angeles Country Club and the Santa Monica Mountains, a vista of emerald fairways and hillsides jeweled with million-dollar homes. Sitting across from the lawyer’s desk, Rory’s stomach churned. The view alone told her that this visit was going to be costly. A secretary in patent stilettos brought coffee on a silver tray, and the coins rang louder in her head.

  A second later Jerry Nussbaum came in. “Ms. Mackenzie.”

  He stood as tall as a point guard, with the wingspan of a vulture. Rory stood and shook his hand.

  “David Goldstein tells me you need my help.” He sat down behind his desk. “That means I listen.”

  At three hundred fifty bucks an hour, Rory figured, he’d better. And she’d better talk fast.

  “I’m a juror on the Elmendorf murder trial. And the Ransom River police apparently suspect that I have some link with the gunmen who attacked the court yesterday. They’re threatening to prosecute me. They haven’t been specific, but they’re tossing around terms like conspiracy and felony murder.”

  “David sketched the basic scenario for me.” Nussbaum took out a legal pad and a fountain pen. “On what evidence are they basing these suspicions?”

  “CCTV video recorded during the siege. The gunmen seemed to choose me deliberately. And later I talked to one of them. One on one.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s apparently enough.”

  He wrote with quick, sharp strokes. “We’ll want to see the video.”

  “I’ve seen it. If you want to play conspiracist, you could make anybody in that courtroom look like an accomplice. But the cops homed in on me telling the gunmen, ‘We have to help him,’ after Judge Wieland was shot. They assert it’s evidence I was working with the gunmen.”

  “‘We.’”

  “Right.”

  Nussbaum looked thoughtful. “Take me through it.”

  It took her twenty minutes, and by the end, again, her heart was thudding, her hands knotted in her lap. Her coffee sat untouched on the table beside her.

  When she described the tactical assault on the courtroom, Nussbaum shook his head. “Since 9/11, Homeland Security has had buckets of cash to dole out to local law enforcement—grants to first responders who want to go paramilitary. Every truck stop in America now has a fully armed SWAT team.”

  He wrote more notes. “Is there anything else? Anything you want to tell me that could influence the situation?”

&
nbsp; The defense attorney’s gambit. He would provide her with a zealous defense, and, if it came to it, force the prosecutor to prove her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. He would not ask a client if she was guilty. He just wondered, hypothetically, if she had anything else she might like to divulge.

  “Three things,” she said.

  Nussbaum’s face was alert and open. He looked ready to hear.

  “I didn’t do it,” she said. “I did nothing except get called for jury duty. I never saw the gunmen before yesterday.”

  He nodded. He didn’t indicate whether he believed her or not. He may or may not have considered her truthfulness relevant at the moment.

  “Two, I think they were paid to attack the courtroom.”

  That caused surprise. “How’s that?”

  She laid it out. He took more notes and began to frown. He didn’t know what to make of her theory.

  “Three. I stopped talking to the cops when they came down on me. I told them I was getting a lawyer.”

  His expression turned rueful. “Kiss of death.”

  She smiled, but without any humor. “God bless the USA.”

  He carefully capped his fountain pen and set it on the legal pad.

  “And four. I just got laid off. Let me come in and work here to defray my bill. I’ll do anything. Staple documents. Lick envelopes. Play a crazed hostile witness while you prep for cross examination.”

  Nussbaum hesitated. When he finally spoke he seemed to have both stress and a smile in his voice.

  “You’re admitted to practice in New York, you said?”

  “Yes. And I’m taking the California bar exam in February.”

  “Then, Counselor, when this matter is resolved we may have a desk for you in the library. In the meantime, we’ll work out a fee agreement.”

  “Thank you,” Rory said. “How much trouble am I in?”

  “I wish I could say you weren’t in any trouble at all. You shouldn’t be.”

  She nodded. For a moment, he looked like he was contemplating the lawsuit he’d file on her behalf six months from now, for malicious prosecution.

  “But if the Ransom River PD wants to take this all the way, you’re in big trouble. They can twist the evidence and implicate you on the slimmest of pretexts. Face it: They have the power. They can make your life hell.”