by Anna Burke
According to Sylvia, when she went into the house it looked as though a tornado had struck. Furniture was smashed to bits. The mattresses had been slashed, drawers dumped, dishes broken, the contents of cupboards and the refrigerator strewn about. In some places, the dry wall had been pulled off, exposing the struts, pipes and wiring. When Uncle Don arrived at Desert Memorial, they told him what Sylvia had found. He insisted on calling it in, filing a report of yet another break-in at that address.
Uncle Don told them later that the house, garage, and even Roger’s car had been systematically searched, just as Margarit claimed. They left behind a message of lethal determination. evident in the vehemence of the destruction wreaked on the house in Panorama. It wasn’t just searched, it was dismantled. It was hard to believe no one, not even the ever-vigilant Mrs. Gomez, reported anything out of the ordinary to the police. The demolition team must have been there for hours.
Jessica thought about the things she and Jerry had taken from Roger’s office. They hadn’t known, then, that they were looking for an SD card. So, perhaps it was still in among the items they had removed from his office. Jessica would go through everything again. Now that she knew what Roger had taken, she would ask Laura to think again about anything Roger might have given her in the days before his death. Something that small could have been secreted almost anywhere.
The last thing Jessica decided to do was find another way home. She had figured she might need to call for a ride, depending on what transpired at the spa. She did not relish the walk back to her car with the idea that Bedrossian’s guys might be milling about, on the lookout for Margarit or her. She wasn’t at all confident about how incognito their meeting had been. Margarit was not only a liar, but an idiot. She was a narcissistic, maybe psychopathic one, but an idiot nevertheless.
When the esthetician stepped out of the room to let Jessica slip on her robe and sandals, Jessica used her cell phone to call Jerry. She tried to sound calm as she explained where she was and that she needed him to meet her at the entrance to the spa as soon as possible. Her effort to project dire need with a modicum of nonchalance must have worked.
“I’m on my way, ten minutes, max!” There was no hesitation in his voice, nor a single question about why she was where she was, or why she needed him to pick her up.
“Thanks, Jerry. I have a lot more to tell you when you get here.”
With that, Jessica made her way back to the lounge area where she bumped into Barb.
“Jessica, honey, your friend Margarit had to go. She was in a real hurry today. Your face is beginning to heal up already. What a shame your friend had another accident.” Barb shook her head sadly. “Do you need anything else before you go?”
“No thanks, Barb, but I’ve got to run too. I’m just going to shower and change, then dash to my car. Everything was terrific. I’ll be back soon.” Jessica plastered what was as close as she could get to a pleasant smile on her face as she rushed passed Barb toward the locker room.
She had already decided to forego a shower so she wasn’t sure why she had lied about that to Barb. It made Jessica’s freshly massaged and exfoliated skin prickle knowing that Margarit was back out there on the street, and up to whatever it was she was up to. Of course, if Margarit had actually left, perhaps there was less chance Jessica would have a run-in with Bedrossian or one of his goons keeping tabs on the lovely Margarit. But maybe Bedrossian had another set of stealthy ruffians lying in wait for Jessica. Thank God Jerry was on his way.
Jessica slipped back into the leggings and t shirt she had worn to the spa, comfortable, nondescript sportswear. She plastered her hair down with a load of hair gel in the women’s lounge area. That made her hair color look darker than it actually was. She donned a baseball cap she had brought with her to shield her face from the summer sun and put on the large, dark sunglasses she had also brought along. Not much of a disguise but the overall effect rendered her rather absent of distinguishing features.
Opening the door that led to the front desk at the spa, Jessica looked around to see who might be in the outer waiting room. It was late afternoon on a summer day at the spa so, not surprisingly, the room was empty. As she passed through the door into the lobby she could see outside, through a small courtyard, to the street in front of the building. Jerry pulled up, beating his promise to be there in ten minutes by a minute or two. Jessica did not bother to check out with the spa staff standing behind the counter. Instead, she gave a little wave with a “thanks” as she dashed out the door and into the waiting cab of Jerry’s pickup.
“Where are we going?” he asked as she slammed the door and put on the seat belt. She took a quick look around and didn’t see anyone obviously lurking on foot or in any of the cars parked nearby.
“Take me home. I need to talk to Laura right away.” As Jerry drove her back to Mission Hills, Jessica filled him in briefly on her meeting with Margarit.
“When you said you were at the La Quinta spa I knew something was up. You do know you shouldn’t have gone to that meeting, right? At least not without telling me or someone else where to look for the body later.” He was stern, his jaw rigid. “You’ve been attacked twice in less than a week. So, not smart, Jessica.”
“Jerry, I do know. I’ve got the battle scars to remind me every time I look in the mirror or step on my right foot the wrong way. If I had told you about the meeting, would you have let me go?” Jerry paused for a moment before answering.
“Probably not. No, of course not.” He would have gone on but his cell phone rang.
His cell phone was in hands free mode so Jerry could answer without much effort or breaking California law about driving and using the cell phone.
“Hey Paul. Yeah she’s okay. She’s here with me now. You want to talk to her?”
Jerry handed her the phone. “It’s Paul Worthington. I was on the phone with him when you called me. He knows what happened in the parking garage and he was pretty concerned when I told him I had to go get you immediately.” Jessica picked up the phone to speak to Paul, taking it out of hands-free mode.
“Hi, Paul, it’s Jessica.”
“Are you really okay? Jerry seemed to think you were in some kind of trouble.”
“Yes, I’m really okay. I had a meeting with Margarit Tilik. You know the woman I told you about who’s engaged to Alan Bedrossian? It was in a public place, the spa La Quinta, so I figured it was safe to meet with her. Afterward it felt a little too public so I called Jerry as backup.”
“I’m glad you’re okay. I feel somehow responsible about the trouble on El Paseo. I should have seen you to your car, or let you borrow my uzi, or something. Is Detective Hernandez clued in on all this? Did he actually let you go to a meeting with the Tilik woman, alone?”
“Yes he’s up-to-speed, mostly. No, he didn’t let me go because I didn’t tell him I was going.” Jessica moved on quickly, changing the subject without giving Paul Worthington a chance to chew her out. “It’s not your fault that I got jumped in the parking lot, Paul. I should have been paying more attention to my surroundings, given the circumstances. Who thinks about being careful in one of the world’s great shopping Mecca’s? I’m not sure what the guy was planning, but what he tried to do was steal my purse. I now know why, thanks to my discussion with Margarit Tilik. As I was just telling Jerry, there’s a little storage device, one of those secure digital cards floating around out there somewhere. It apparently has loads of stuff on it about Bedrossian Bad Guy, Inc. There’s stuff on it that his loving fiancé took from him without his knowledge or permission. As it turns out, evil genius that she is, Margarit not only copied but removed files from Bedrossian’s computer in his LA office. Needless to say, he wants it back.” Jessica glanced behind them to see if they were being followed as she spoke to Paul.
“They’ve had a couple tries now at finding this thing at Roger’s house. Maybe Jerry already told you about the disaster they made of Laura’s house during their most recent visit. We just learned a
bout it at the visitation for Roger this morning. This time, they did a very thorough search. Something akin to a demolition team went through there, apparently. Laura was mortified, since she had given Roger’s mom the go ahead to stop by the house. The house had been thoroughly cleaned and repaired this week. Roger’s mom and Laura are both pretty shaken up about it as if they weren’t already stressed enough. I don’t know how Laura is holding up under all this as it is, and now her house is a crime scene again.” She finally stopped talking long enough that Paul could respond.
“That’s a shame. It’s hard to get on with grieving the loss of a loved one to crime when the crime is ongoing.”
“That’s for sure. It’s been a hellish week with one terrible blow after another. I’m sure Jerry must have told you the other bad news that turned up while you and I were having lunch.”
“You mean about Laura’s waiter friend? Jerry had just let that bomb drop when you called. These guys are ruthless and relentless, Jessica.”
“And not taking time to get much background before they go after whoever they think is mixed up in this. It’s doubtful they knew, or cared to find out, about the tenuous nature of Eric’s liaison with Laura. Eric couldn’t have had a clue about what they were asking him when they beat him to a pulp before shooting him”
“Yeah, poor .bastard, talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time! His cousin, too, for that matter.”
“Well, that chapter is now closed, for good, unfortunately. Life is just not fair. What I can’t figure out is how they found out enough about him to write him in to the story at all. I sort of found out how they knew I’d be in that parking garage on El Paseo, although Margarit has given me a couple different stories about that. According to Margarit, Mr. Bedrossian’s quite adept at surveillance, and his connections are far-reaching, including insiders among the police. This Bedrossian guy must have some kind of network, and skills too, like telepathy, since he got to Eric before Laura and I notified the police about him. From what Margarit told me today, Laura and I are both still on Bedrossian’s ‘to do’ list.”
“Which reminds me that I should admonish you about the risk you took not getting your homicide detective friend in the loop before your meeting with this Margarit character.”
“Yeah, I know.” Jessica let out a huge sigh. “Jerry was just reprimanding me about that when you called. I’m going to call Detective Hernandez when I get home That won’t be pleasant. He’s not nearly as diplomatic with me as you and Jerry. Maybe when I tell him what I found out from my meeting with Margarit, that’ll convince him to stay on the right side of the law and keep him from wringing my neck.”
“For your sake I hope that works. My advice is no more super hero antics for now. The dead bodies are really piling up and I don’t think these guys would think twice about adding your body to the pile. So please, Jessica, enough already okay?”
“I hear you. I am so ready to be done with this. I’m going to call Hernandez and take my lumps. Jerry will be in ear shot of the screaming and yelling on the other end of the phone so he can verify that I’ve kept my promise.”
“I’ll lay off the scolding for now. You have to let me take you to dinner so I can make up for allowing you to roam around El Paseo unescorted. I’ll be back in town next week so maybe we can work something out?”
“Sure, I’ll probably be climbing the walls by then if I’m still grounded by Detective Hernandez. You sure you want to venture out with a calamity magnet? That is my super power you know, attracting trouble. Ask Detective Hernandez, he’ll vouch for me.” Jessica sounded like she was joking but that’s how she really felt. It all started with calamity Jim and his blond partner-in-calamity.
“I’ll take my chances. Dealing with calamities goes with the territory for a criminal defense attorney. With any luck Alan Bedrossian will figure out his best bet is to get on a plane to someplace that has no extradition agreement with the U.S. Of course, depending on what sort of information is on that SD card, eluding U.S. authorities may be the least of his concerns. Mr. Bedrossian has partners and clients all over the world who would be very upset to have information about their business with him come to light. It’s no wonder the cutthroat is frantic.”
Jerry had sped home to Mission Hills and had just turned onto the street leading to Jessica’s house when the flashing light of a police car caught her eye. Paul was still on the phone saying something else about dinner next week, but Jessica cut him off.
“Oh, shit! Paul we’re going to have to call you back.”
CHAPTER 31
Jerry and Jessica pulled up to her house and parked on the street rather than in the circular drive. In addition to a marked police car, Jessica recognized the unmarked car Detective Hernandez drove. She was going to have that chat with Detective Hernandez, in person, rather than on the phone. The EMTs were there too and an SUV used by the CSIs. Jessica’s heart began to pound wildly. She got out of the cab of the truck as quickly as she could without landing on her foot the wrong way. She and Jerry rushed into the house.
“Bernadette! Laura! What’s going on? Bernadette, Laura, is everyone okay?” Jessica hollered as she and Jerry joined the crowd gathered in the house.
Detective Hernandez and two uniformed officers were standing in the kitchen. Two EMTs were nearby, one of them bending over Brien who was sitting at the table in the morning room.
“Whoa, slow down, Jessica. I’m okay.” Brien said as she burst in on them. He was holding an ice pack to his head. There was blood all over the front of his t-shirt.
“Esta bien, Jessica. Brien’s okay. He’s just got a hit on the head that’s all,” Bernadette added.
Laura was sitting across from Brien, pale as a ghost in the red Karla Colletto cover up Jessica had bought her. It was ripped on one side near Laura’s left shoulder.
“Some guys tried to grab me, Jessica. Brien came out of nowhere and knocked them into the pool. They tore my cover up, but I got away.” She gave the torn corner of the beautiful cover up a tug but to no avail. As soon as she let it go, it sagged down again where it was torn.
“Yeah, I mowed ‘em down, Jessica. Then I threw my filter flosser at them and I started whacking them with my skimmer.”
“He distracted them, Jessica, long enough so I got to my phone and called 911. They climbed out of the pool and came after me. When Brien tried to stop them, one of them hit him on the head. He keeled over but by the time they could get to me, our St. Bernadette was out the door of the house with a gun.”
“I was going to shoot them too, except I didn’t want to get Brien by mistake.”
“A gun? Where did you get a gun, Bernadette?” Jessica asked incredulously.
“From your dad’s study, niña. When all this trouble started I remembered where he kept it and decided to get it. I put bullets in it, too, so I could scare off the bad guys, you know? When those maleantes hit Brien and he fell down I was so mad I started shooting. I was going to let them have it, for Roger too. I’m not such a good shot though. I only barely shot one of them, not enough to stop him, but he’s not going to sit down for a while without remembering that old lady in Mission Hills.”
Jessica went to the back sliding door and looked out. CSIs were in the back yard. The patio and pool area had been cordoned off with crime scene tape. There were drops and streaks of blood in a variety of locations, with little markers by them. A police officer with a camera was taking photos. A CSI was collecting Brien’s pool tools, or what was left of them, anyway. Jessica turned back around toward the group and locked eyes with Detective Hernandez. “Time to come clean,” she thought.
“We need to talk, Detective Hernandez.”
“Now what? Have you set that new record for the number of crime scenes you can get mixed up in one day? Don’t think I’m not keeping count, and this is already number two for the day. We’ve had a team at the Stone residence most of the day.”
“No, well not exactly. Can we go into my father’s study a
nd I’ll explain, please?” Her cell phone rang as she motioned for Detective Hernandez to follow her down the hall that led to her father’s study. Jessica fumbled distractedly with the buttons on the phone and accidently opened the photo album. Before she could close it to answer the phone a photo caught her eye. It was blurry, but there in front of her was a photo of the hulk in Bruno Maglis that had assaulted her in the parking lot on El Paseo.
“Shit, shit, shit,” she ranted to no one in particular. She scrolled through quickly and saw there were a couple more photos. None of the photos were perfect. but with a little work they might be able to make use of them for identification purposes. Her phone had stopped ringing. Jessica had missed a call from Paul Worthington. She realized how it must have sounded when she hung up so abruptly, and hollered over her shoulder as she continued down the hall.
“Jerry, do you have your phone?”
“No. Don’t you have it?
“No, I think I left it in the car. We may have scared the crap out of Paul, again. Can you call him up and tell him we’re safe and catch him up on the latest? Tell him I’m getting the third degree from Detective Hernandez right now or I would have called him back myself.”
“I will be soon enough,” she thought. She moved to the door of the study with the detective in tow. “Let’s go in and get comfortable. I’ve got quite a lot to tell you and something to show you, too.”
“You did what?!” As Jessica learned later, that bellow got everyone’s attention in the kitchen. When Jerry came back into the house on the phone with Paul Worthington, he had Tommy trailing behind him. Brien, Laura, and Bernadette had filled him in, as Jerry reassured Paul everyone was okay. The little group was still huddled together a half hour later when Jessica and Detective Hernandez reemerged, both of them grim-faced.