In Desperation

by Rick Mofina

  Cora stared into the eyes of the two men who had invaded her home-the bastards who stood in this very space-bound her, stole Tilly.

  She gasped and steadied herself against the back of a chair.

  How did the FBI get their photos? Why did they identify them without telling her? Before Cora could react, the TV footage cut to a shaky live aerial angle from a news chopper.

  “Now stay with us,” the news anchor said. “We have just learned…have we got it? There it is. Our affiliate in Tucson is reporting out of Willcox, Arizona, east of Tucson, that a bus traveling from El Paso, Texas to Phoenix was believed to have been carrying one of these men as a passenger and was stopped earlier. Sources tell us the FBI, or rather the DPS, did not locate him but is still processing the bus for evidence. That would indicate he was on the bus and somehow eluded police.”

  Cora couldn’t stand it.

  “Did you find Tilly?”

  One of the task force investigators shook his head.

  “Ma’am, we just have more information on the people we’re looking for.”

  Cora went to her brother but his cell phone rang.

  Gannon answered.

  “Jack, its Henrietta.” Her voice was low. “I’m at the FBI news conference. New York is asking what you know about the bus and the other suspects.”

  “Zero. I know what’s being reported.”

  “That’s it?”

  “No one’s told us a damn thing.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell them, but they’re getting impatient.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Upon ending Henrietta’s call, Gannon had another one.

  “This is Isabel Luna in Juarez. Can you talk now?”

  “Hang on.” Gannon raised a give-me-a-moment finger to Cora and excused himself to a quiet corner of the house. “Isabel, do you know about the bus in Willcox?”

  “Yes. The suspect, Sanchez, is using an alias. The face is a true picture. It’s The Tarantula.” Gannon listened as Luna continued. “He is the Norte Cartel’s top sicario, the top assassin. Based on the crime scene and their sources, Esteban and his team believe he killed the two Americans in the desert south of Juarez, the men associated with Lyle Galviera.”

  Gannon’s breathing quickened; a picture began emerging as Luna continued. “The sicario entered the U.S. at El Paso and took a bus to Phoenix. American police were advised and they stopped the bus but he got away, as the networks are reporting. Jack, we believe he was dispatched to kill Lyle Galviera.”

  “Jesus.”

  “And Tilly.”

  “Oh Christ.”

  Gannon’s eyes swept the room until he found Cora and swallowed.

  Could he tell her? An assassin’s coming to kill your daughter. Maybe this was the time to push Cora to answer Lomax’s allegation.

  Luna continued, “The FBI and Arizona authorities are obviously taking matters seriously, with a dragnet, while gathering all the information they can. But sicarios at this level are impossible to find. They blend in like chameleons.”

  During his conversation Gannon noticed that Hackett, Larson and other people had entered the house through the back door, approached Cora and took her aside. They looked grave.

  This could be it, Gannon thought.

  “Isabel, thank you. I have to go. Please contact me the moment you have any new information.”

  “Of course.”

  Gannon joined Cora and the others.

  “Sorry,” Hackett said to Gannon, “we need to speak to Cora alone.”

  She shook her head, trying to read the faces confronting her for what was to come.

  “Whatever you have to say, I want Jack with me.”

  “Very well,” Hackett said. He turned and introduced a slender man in a well-cut suit. “This is Oren Krendler, our division’s polygraph examiner.”

  “Polygraph examiner?” Gannon said.

  “We’re requesting Cora submit to a polygraph examination as soon as possible.”

  “A lie detector? Now?” She half turned to the TV. “I don’t understand. Shouldn’t you be concentrating fully on finding Tilly? I mean-”

  “We talked about this earlier with you, Cora. We have some uncertainties in the case that we need you to help us clarify, so we can concentrate fully in the proper areas. This is just a tool we use to be sure our investigation is thorough. Now, it is strictly voluntary. You can refuse, but it would be helpful in our investigation of your daughter’s kidnapping. It could lead to her safe return. You want to do all you can to help us return Tilly, don’t you, Cora?”

  Cora glanced at Jack, immediately irritating Hackett.

  “I don’t understand,” Hackett said. “Why do you need to get direction from your brother on this, Cora?”

  “Because we know what this means,” Gannon said.

  “Oh? And what’s that, Jack?”

  “You consider her a suspect.”

  “I didn’t say that. What I said was that this is a tool. We need to clarify things so we can focus our investigation effectively.”

  “Do it, Cora,” Jack said. “But get a lawyer first.”

  “A lawyer?” Hackett repeated.

  “Come on,” Gannon said. “You all know that if you’re going to do this right, you should Mirandize her. So she should have a lawyer, and not feel pressured, since it’s strictly voluntary.”

  “Fine,” Hackett said, “but we need to get moving. So get your lawyer ASAP.” Hackett’s phone started to ring and he turned to answer.

  “Jack,” Cora seized his wrist hard and whispered, “I don’t have a lawyer.”

  “I’m going to help you, Cora.”

  As Gannon started to make a call himself, he overheard Hackett say into his cell phone, “Say that again. Who’s here from San Francisco?”

  47

  Phoenix, Arizona

  Upon returning to the FBI’s Phoenix Division, Special Agents Hackett and Larson were summoned to the ASAC’s office.

  Two men in suits stood to greet them.

  “Our friends here are with San Francisco P.D., Homicide Detail.” Seth Bruller flashed his diplomatic smile.

  “Paul Pruitt,” the first man said.

  “Russ Moseley,” said the second.

  Hackett and Larson introduced themselves, shook hands.

  “How is it looking for the polygraph?” Bruller asked.

  “Good to go once she consults a lawyer,” Hackett said. “Oren’s ready.”

  “Good.” Bruller nodded to the California detectives. “We need to move on this. Especially after we dropped the ball with the bus takedown.”

  “That was DPS, Seth. We weren’t there.”

  “Regardless. The ball was dropped, but this new twist gets us back on track. As I told you on the phone, our colleagues are here to share some important pieces of the case. In fact, they flew to Phoenix once they’d learned of the development in their cold case and its impact on ours. Let’s go to the small conference room. Kelly’s put out fresh coffee.”

  “Coffee would be good.” Pruitt reached for his briefcase.

  In the brightly lit meeting room, the investigators helped themselves to the ceramic FBI mugs and coffee on the credenza, then took seats at the polished table.

  “If this is going to have a bearing on the polygraph, I think Oren should be involved now to expedite things. Oren Krendler is our division’s polygraph examiner. I’ll get him.”

  “Paul, Russ, any objections?” Bruller asked.

  “None.”

  Once Krendler joined them, Pruitt began by summarizing the homicide of Eduardo Zartosa. He distributed old reports, maps, crime scene photos, explaining how the case had dead-ended.

  “It went into a deep freeze for nearly twenty years, until now,” Pruitt said. “Things just started happening, cracking it wide-open, to the point where we think we can finally clear it.”

  Pruitt said Donald Montradori, a drug dealer known as “Donnie Cargo,” was in San Francisco at the time of Zartosa�
��s murder. Montradori, a Canadian national, returned to Canada after Zartosa’s homicide and lived a quiet life until he recently passed away. Before he died he gave Canadian police a sworn statement on the crime.

  “Let’s view that now,” Pruitt held up a flash drive.

  Larson installed the drive in the meeting room’s laptop and the group viewed Montradori’s twenty-three minute deathbed statement.

  “To me, the question is,” Hackett said, “whether he’s telling the truth.”

  “That’s the reason we’re here,” Moseley said. “We need to be certain, just as you do.”

  “Montradori indicated that the high-profile coverage of your kidnapping had weighed on him,” Pruitt said, “because of its connection to the old case and the fact that his conscience had never been at ease since the murder. Our receipt of the statement from Canada came at the same time your fingerprint lab and ViCAP got a hit on latents from your case, matching those on the murder weapon in our cold case.”

  “This is wild, Earl,” Larson said, “just wild.”

  Hackett nodded, concentrating on the files in the San Francisco case, the photos of the murder weapon, a Smith & Wesson.38 Special, a set of clear latents obtained from it. There were pictures of other items in the file-a wallet, a ring, a crucifix and a lighter. Hackett was unsure of the importance of each to the case.

  “Then,” Pruitt added, “the El Paso Intelligence Center kicked out a little family history on Eduardo Zartosa. Admittedly, this aspect was lost on our people back then. But we’ve certainly grasped the significance of his family ties to your case now. We think we can help each other.”

  “What do you propose?” Hackett said.

  “We don’t want to get in your way,” Pruitt said. “Your case is more pressing. If you’re going to polygraph Cora Martin, consider weaving some of the questions we have into it. We’d need to do this delicately but we think it would also help your case.”

  “Sure,” Hackett said.

  “Then let us interview her afterward. We’ve spoken to our D.A. on charges and the way to proceed, depending on what we determine.”

  “I don’t have a problem with that,” Hackett said. “Do you, Seth?”

  Bruller stuck out his bottom lip. “It should be fine. I’ll call the Assistant U.S. Attorney and brief the office. Start working with Oren here on your approach. We need to keep moving on this.”

  As the investigators worked with Oren Krendler on developing a line of questioning, Hackett grew confident that this was the break they needed.

  He knew that Krendler-calm, cool, nonthreatening-was a master at obtaining admissions.

  Yes, Hackett thought, something’s going to pop.

  But will it come in time?

  48

  Mesa Mirage, Phoenix, Arizona

  “Why do you need the names of the top defense attorneys in Phoenix? What’s happened, Jack?”

  In the dead silence that followed Henrietta Chong’s question, Jack Gannon realized that he’d made a mistake.

  “Forget it.”

  “Is it for Cora?” Chong asked. “What’s going on? Are they going to charge her?”

  Gannon squeezed his phone, retreating from the request he’d made.

  “No, no, nothing like that.” Chong’s not stupid and she’s not my confidante. She is a WPA reporter. What was I thinking? “Forget I asked, just forget it. Did anything more come out of the news conference, the search for the suspects?”

  “No-”

  “Okay. I have to go. Thanks, Henrietta.”

  “Wait, Jack! What the hell’s going on? Asking me to recommend a lawyer is more than weird, given that I’m reporting on your sister. It raises questions and puts me in a conflicting situation.”

  “Just drop it, Henrietta. Forget it, all right? Have you never had a source backpedal on you? We’re under the gun, please drop it.”

  “What would you do if you were me?”

  “Christ, forget it.”

  Gannon hung up. Angry at himself for not thinking clearly, he cupped his hands to his face and exhaled. He was in Cora’s bedroom, trying to arrange an urgent meeting with a lawyer, a good lawyer. But he didn’t know anybody in Phoenix.

  Still, going impulsively to Henrietta for help on this was like putting out a fire with gasoline.

  He had to regain control but he didn’t know who to trust, where to turn.

  The FBI was pressuring them, an assassin was coming, Cora was not telling the whole story, no one could find Galviera. He’d already seen two headless corpses. Would they find Tilly next?

  Gannon resumed searching for a lawyer on his laptop when Cora stuck her head in the door. “I called Amy Henson next door. They’ll let us borrow their Honda when we’re ready. We can cut through the side yard by the garden shed. No press should see us.”

  “Great.” He didn’t look up from his typing. “I need more time.”

  It took another twenty minutes of scouring news articles on recent high-profile criminal cases in Phoenix before he found something. There was the case of a welfare mother wrongly accused of murdering her baby boy. Turned out the injuries could have been caused by a neighbor’s dog. A note to that effect in an autopsy draft report was overlooked by police. And in another case, a man imprisoned for twenty years for kidnapping and murdering a college student was set free after DNA exon erated him. Both cases were handled by Augustine Goodellini, a top-notch criminal defense attorney with Goodellini, Pereira and Chance.

  Gannon called the firm.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Goodellini’s not available.”

  Gannon was connected to a senior attorney in the firm, Lauren Baker-Brown, who, after listening to what he had to say and recognizing Cora’s case, cleared her calendar and instructed them to come to their downtown offices immediately.

  Gannon got Cora and they left.

  “You know our prayers are with you,” Amy Henson said, handing Gannon the keys to her white Honda and hugging Cora. “Good luck.”

  Gannon entered the law firm’s address into the GPS before they slipped by the press unseen and cleared the neighborhood.

  As they merged with freeway traffic, Cora started to cry.

  “I’m so sorry, Jack. You’re a good brother.”

  He said nothing as buildings flowed by them, like so many past hurts. He just wanted to get Tilly home safe, deal with the truth-whatever it was-and then get on with his life.

  His cell phone rang and he passed it to Cora to read the call display.

  “It says, WPA NY Lyon,” she said.

  “Don’t answer.”

  The offices of Goodellini, Pereira and Chance were on North Central Avenue. The firm’s reception area held an air of solemnity.

  “Please be seated. I’ll let Lauren know you’re here,” said the wispy, twentysomething man at the front desk.

  Gannon and Cora barely had time to take in the polished stone floor, thick leather sofa, light wood walls and a floor-to-ceiling painting that resembled a tiger’s hide.

  “This way, please.”

  The young man led them down the hall and into a corner office that conveyed a sense of ordered diligence. Two walls of windows overlooking the city; a wall of mahogany bookcases; a neat desk, everything organized and in place; a framed photograph of a handsome man and a girl who looked about the same age as Tilly. That’s good, Gannon thought.

  “Lauren Baker-Brown.” A woman in a peach suit with a pleated skirt came from around her desk to greet them.

  “I know this is serious and urgent. Thank you, Chad, please close the door.” Baker-Brown took her seat and provided a brief résumé. She’d been a county prosecutor seven years and private criminal attorney for six years. She was seasoned. She took up her pen and made a note of the time on her yellow legal pad. “Let’s get started. Bring me up to speed.”

  For the next thirty minutes, Baker-Brown listened to details of Cora’s situation, including a brief history of her life as a drug addict. She made notes to outline a
defense, if it went that far.

  “Okay, let me give Special Agent Hackett a call, then we’ll talk again. You can wait in the conference room. There’s a TV in there. You can watch news or whatever you’d like.”

  Half an hour later, Gannon and Cora were back in Baker-Brown’s office.

  “All right, seems we have a new wrinkle. Two detectives from San Francisco have just arrived in town. They want to interview you about your time there, once you’ve taken your polygraph test.”

  Gannon’s attention pinballed from Baker-Brown to Cora.

  “What happened there, Cora? Is it connected to Tilly’s kidnapping?”

  “Maybe,” Cora said.

  “Maybe?” Gannon said. “Is that the most you can tell us?”

  “Cora,” Baker-Brown said, “is there something more you think I should know? We could ask Jack to excuse himself. It’s all lawyer-client privilege.”

  Cora stared into her empty hands. Her past had caught up to her.

  “No, let them ask their questions. I will answer as best as I can. San Francisco was twenty years ago, a bad time.”

  Gannon said nothing, prompting Baker-Brown to resume steering the session.

  “Here’s how I see things, Cora. The FBI is either going to clear you as a potential suspect, or, acting on their suspicions that you may have been involved in your daughter’s kidnapping, they will start to build a case against you, likely by tying your time in California to Lyle Galviera’s dealings with the Norte Cartel. Now, in my view, based on what I could garner from Hackett, much of what the FBI has at this time seems flimsy, circumstantial, which does not bode well for them. But you say your memory of your time in San Francisco is hazy. And, you’ve said that, despite your past, you had no knowledge of Lyle’s relationship with the cartel. That’s a stretch for a jury, which would not bode well for you.”

  Gannon and Cora said nothing. He glanced at his sister. She was trembling, gripping the arms of the chair as Baker-Brown continued.

  “To take the polygraph would demonstrate that you have nothing to hide and are willing to do whatever is necessary to help find Tilly. To refuse is your absolute right. But a refusal will stigmatize you in the court of public opinion. It creates the impression that you do have something to hide. Any innocent, concerned parent would take a polygraph in a heartbeat to find their child, that sort of thing. And believe me, even though juries are supposed to be impartial, they are in step with the emotions of a community, often by osmosis.”