by Anna Burke
Bedrossian had suspected Margarit was up to no good for some time. For months he had overlooked the fact that she was skimming money from him. He considered it “part of her charm” as he had told his security guys. He understood that “the stolen watermelon is sweeter” or some such sociopathic nonsense, according to Serj. When he discovered the missing files, though, Bedrossian went ballistic. This he could not overlook, or forgive, and Margarit’s fate was sealed.
It didn’t take long for Margarit to figure that out. She was sleeping with a member of Bedrossian’s security team. Aiden Azarian was a trusted associate, as close to Alan Bedrossian as anyone ever got. He came with the right ethnic credentials. His father was Armenian, like Bedrossian. Aiden’s mother was Turkish, teaching him her language and leaving him with a soft spot for the diabolical and beguiling Margarit. Serj claimed he had warned Aiden and Alan Bedrossian that Margarit Tilik was trouble with a capital T.
When Aiden told Margarit that Bedrossian had discovered the missing files the whole last nightmarish week began. Friday night Margarit went to Roger, demanding he return the money and the SD card. She was furious when he argued with her, trying to get her to go to the police instead. They continued to argue for an hour, pausing long enough for Roger to answer the door for pizza. While he was paying for the pizza, Margarit got a call from Alan, asking where she was. As she told Aiden later, she made up her mind to leave the country right then and there.
Shortly after the pizza guy left, Roger had downed a couple pieces of pizza. It infuriated her that he could eat when she was so distraught. When she lit a clove cigarette to calm her nerves, he made her more angry telling her not so smoke. Of course the version of events she told Alan and Serj was a little different.
“He was just eating pizza like it was nothing, like I was nothing. He won’t geeve me my money then he tells me to calm down, can you believe it? I had to make him take me serious!” she later told Alan Bedrossian and his henchmen. She pulled out the gun she had brought with her and threatened to shoot Roger if he didn’t hand over the satchel immediately.
Roger relented. The money was in his car and he would go get it, but had to get his keys first. Margarit said she followed him down the hall to his office where he retrieved his car keys from the desk. When he came out of the office he not only had his keys but his cell phone and started to make a call. Detective Hernandez said that from the phone records it was apparent he was dialing the local police.
That was the last straw as far as Margarit was concerned. In that instant she decided he was no longer to be trusted and shot him point blank. Jessica wondered if she had that little flask with her and had been tippling her way through the encounter with Roger.
Margarit took his car keys and retrieved her bag from Roger’s car. When she came back into the house she called Alan Bedrossian to tell him she was on her way back to her bungalow at the La Quinta Resort and would be there in 20 minutes or so. Then, as she eventually revealed to Bedrossian and his men, “I could not believe my ears. Roger was calling me to help heem. But why would I heem? He needed to be dead!” She marched back down the hall, bent over Roger, and shot him twice.
When she left the house in Cat City she headed straight for the airport instead of the resort. Bedrossian knew right away what she was up to thanks to a tracking device installed in the vehicle. He and his security team cut her off before she got to the airport and drove her back to the bungalow.
That’s where they were when they learned that Roger Stone had been holding money for Margarit along with the SD card. It was then, too, that they all discovered she had the money, but not the SD card. According to Serj, Margarit told them “some cock and bull story about Roger turning on her because he was madly in love with her.”
She swore that the whole thing had been his idea. He wanted her to take the money and run away with him. The information on the SD card was for protection from Bedrossian.
“In the end I could not do it Alan. It is you who is een my heart. I went there to tell heem. He tried to make me call the police and give them the card. He says if he can’t have me you can’t have me either...I say no and take the bag from heem. I didn’t know he double-crossed me.”
Margarit begged Bedrossian for a chance to get it back, not telling them that Roger Stone was already dead. Serj said she convinced Bedrossian that if he barged in over there that night they might never see that card again. If she played along, apologized and made up with Roger, she was sure she could find out what he had done with that SD card. Bedrossian told his guys later he didn’t believe most of what she said but figured she had a better idea than he did where the SD card was and agreed to give her a couple days to get it back.
“And,” as the loquacious thug informed the police “that was his first big mistake. He should have killed that bitch right then.”
Detective Hernandez tried not to editorialize too much but he said he thought the guy relished telling the whole blood-thirsty story. Serj had actually laughed when he spoke those words and made a little slash mark across his throat to illustrate what should have been done to Margarit.
Bedrossian’s second big mistake, in Serj’s account, was assigning Aiden to keep tabs on Margarit as she set out to retrieve the missing SD card. Aiden went with her the next morning and discovered that police were at the house. Serj wasn’t sure what Aiden knew, or didn’t know, about the circumstances surrounding the murder of Roger Stone. In any case he helped sell the story Margarit told later that a conspiracy was afoot.
It was Aiden who, at Margarit’s request, tapped into Laura’s cell phone. Aiden activated the microphone on Laura’s cell phone remotely, using the same roving bug technique FBI and NSA agents employ to track bad guys like Bedrossian. Once they could eavesdrop they stayed a step ahead of them all. No wonder they knew, even before the police, that Laura had spent the night with a waiter at Lulu’s by the name of Eric. Laura had, in effect, told them Saturday when she made her confession to Jessica!
Margarit wasted no time. She sent Aiden to the restaurant Saturday to find Eric. When he wasn’t there Aiden asked the same questions Jerry and the police asked later, giving them little new information other than a last name. The ever resourceful and increasingly desperate Margarit suggested they try to find him at the Villa Caballeros apartment complex Laura had identified as the site for their liaison. Eric’s unwitting cousin opened the door when Margarit knocked. With Aiden’s help, they easily overpowered the man, pushing their way into the apartment.
Of course, Jessica and her friends already knew the outcome of their ruthless, but fruitless, endeavor. Poor Eric and his cousin had been pushed hard to give up information they didn’t have. They had been killed when Aiden and Margarit couldn’t come up with the SD card, despite merciless interrogation and a thorough search of their apartment.
Police investigators were still going through all the ballistics evidence but they expected that the 9 mm Aiden had with him at the Santa Rosa Cove would be a match to the gun used to kill Eric Warren and Joe Abernathy. They had the same expectation for a match between the bullets taken from Roger’s body and those removed from Alan Bedrossian. Both they figured, originated from Margarit’s .38 she had with her at the condo.
On Saturday Margarit also dispatched Carlos Ramirez to search Laura’s house for the SD card, as a favor for her and for Alan. He was supposed to go in and do the search as soon as the police left the scene on Saturday but it grew late. Then, he decided it would be better to go back after nightfall so he could enter the house unseen. At that point, he had gone home and started partying. By sunset he was so drunk and stoned he couldn’t walk. He passed out or fell asleep so he didn’t get to the house until Sunday morning. Carlos had barely started the task when Jessica and Jerry arrived. A good part of that story was also already well-known to them all. Jessica, in fact, still bore mementoes of that encounter.
Promised leniency for his testimony, Serj admitted he had a hand in getting the story from Carlos
and ending the fool’s pitiful life. Carlos had met with an end as nasty as that meted out to poor Eric. From what Serj told them, there was no point in even looking for a body. There’s a lot of uninhabited desert between the Coachella Valley and Phoenix. Plenty of places to dump a body.
“Or two or three,” Jessica thought. If Bedrossian had gotten to Roger instead of Margarit, Roger would have ended up dead anyway. Serj didn’t know the nature of Roger’s involvement with Margarit. She was equally talented as vamp or victim and that wouldn’t have mattered to Bedrossian anyway. If Laura had been with Roger, when his boss came to claim what was his, she most likely would have met her maker that day too. Once he got his hands on that SD card, he would have had no further use for Margarit either. All three, Roger, Laura, and Margarit, would likely have disappeared into the desert, like Carlos.
Margarit’s time was already about up when Jessica stepped into the fray. Not only did Jessica preempt Carlos’ inept search of Roger’s house on Sunday, but then she turned up asking a bunch of questions at the resort the next day. Margarit’s apparent distress at that first meeting with Jessica was no doubt genuine. Jessica knew Roger was dead and, if she had made a connection between Roger and Margarit, the police would soon be able to place her at the house too. A bigger concern was the fact that if the police knew Roger was dead, so did Alan.
As Margarit told Jessica at the spa on Wednesday, she had indeed had a confrontation with Alan Bedrossian after that brief encounter at the Adobe Grill on Monday. Margarit told him who Jessica really was, and that she had asked about Roger Stone’s murder. Alan admitted that he already knew what Margarit had done.
“But how did you know he was keelled? How did you know it was me?” That’s when he hit her. Her head snapped back, propelling her backwards, onto a sofa in her bungalow. Bedrossian did not answer her, but Serj said it was Aiden who had brought Alan up to speed. He told Alan that Roger was dead and at the hands of Margarit.
“She was real lucky he didn’t kill her slapping her that hard,” the weasel informant had sniggered as he continued to tell his story. Bedrossian asked her how she could have been so stupid. By that he did not mean stupid because she killed Roger but stupid because she killed him before making sure she had the money and the SD card.
Margarit became hysterical, claiming she hadn’t gone there intending to commit murder but Roger was, as she had already told Alan, a double-crosser. He wouldn’t give her back the satchel so she got mad. She only meant to threaten him but the gun went off. Later that night when she had the money and figured out he was still alive she panicked and shot him again, trying to protect Alan from Roger telling the police as he had threatened to do. Imitating Margarit, Serj went on about it.
“I had to do it or he would tell the poleece and that would lead them right back to you, Alan. Pleeze understand, Alan, I had no choice. I didn’t want that to happen, I only wanted my freedom, what everyone wants.” He hit her again.
By that point, Alan had also found out from Aiden about the aborted search attempt. Alan was the one who made the connection for Margarit between Jessica and Carlos. That Carlos’ face looked worse than Jessica’s was information Margarit obtained second hand, since she never saw Carlos alive again. Serj could not help remarking that what Jessica did to him was nothing compared to what Bedrossian had them do.
Bedrossian hit Margarit a few more times. She cried and screamed and, to save her own neck, told him Jessica must have it. Why else would she have introduced herself to them at the resort? She must be planning to “shake them down.” Serj sniggered once again imitating the accent of the late Margarit Tilik as he spoke those last words.
It sounded like Bedrossian would have stopped at nothing to get that SD card back. He seemed ready to work his way systematically through Roger’s family and friends until he found someone who knew something about where that SD card had gone.
It was at Alan Bedrossian’s behest that Aiden went after Jessica in the El Paseo parking garage, with more in mind than stealing her purse. He had been instructed to get the bag, but to bring her along as well to the bungalow at the La Quinta Resort. Given his double-agent role it wasn’t clear what Aiden would have done if he had snatched Jessica because Margarit had not given up yet. She continued to pursue that SD card with Aiden’s help. The fact that he was later found with Margarit at the Santa Rosa Cove said to Serj that ‘the dumbass’ was playing Al and his crew. Aiden was in league with the diabolical Margarit all along.
With no luck getting to Jessica on Tuesday they went after Laura on Wednesday. Not at the funeral Wednesday morning, but later that afternoon while Jessica was meeting with Margarit at the spa. That meeting was most likely a clandestine one set up by Margarit since Serj seemed not to know anything about it.
Aiden and another of Bedrossian’s men were otherwise occupied, making the grab for Laura at Jessica’s house in Mission Hills. Bedrossian, no doubt, would have put Laura through some sort of interrogation process like that used with Eric. Laura, too, would likely have met the same end.
If Bedrossian had succeeded in snatching Jessica or Laura the SD card might never have been found. Instead, Laura and Jessica had found the damned thing. Still monitoring Laura’s cell phone, and watching the house in Mission Hills, too, the tenacious Margarit knew immediately that they had located the SD card. Bedrossian's own persistence in continuing to track Margarit kept him only a half-step behind.
With Aiden at her side, it had been a simple thing to snatch Sara. Sara left work in a flash when Margarit told her Laura had been in an accident and needed her to come to Eisenhower Medical Center right away. She didn’t even stop to ask who the hell Margarit was, but knew she had made a terrible error when she saw Aiden waiting for them out front. A quick shot of Ketamine stopped Sara in her tracks and kept her from getting away.
In the final analysis, Bedrossian’s real mistake was underestimating Margarit’s relentless conniving and maniacal resourcefulness. While he believed he had brought her back under his control, she kept working every angle she could, right under his nose. Aiden may have overestimated Margarit, perhaps too willing to believe she could prevail in her attempt to outwit and get away from Alan Bedrossian.
The informant wasn’t sure what Margarit had planned for Jessica and Sara, but he had a very good idea what Alan Bedrossian had in mind. When Margarit left the Santa Rosa condo, Bedrossian was nearby. He ordered his men to hang back, watching from a short distance away as Margarit drove to the spa. They continued to hang back as Jessica got into the Mercedes with Margarit and followed them back to the condo.
Jessica tried to imagine what it might have looked like as Detective Hernandez described what went on that afternoon. Peter March and the police, got there first, lying in wait for Margarit who showed up next, lying in wait for Jessica. The police must have been well-hidden or Margarit surely would have bolted. Bedrossian didn’t detect a police presence either, but they noticed him right away. Jessica, the last to arrive to the party as it turned out, saw no sign of anybody until Margarit pulled up and ordered her to get into the back seat of the Mercedes.
Serj said that when Bedrossian spotted Jessica at the spa they figured she had been a co-conspirator with Roger after all, and that she and Margarit had come to some sort of agreement about the return of the SD card. They let Margarit leave, tracking her with their GPS, and giving her a few minutes alone with Jessica to get that card back.
“Of course,” Serj said, “Margarit was not going to have it for long, and she would never get the jump on Alan Bedrossian again.” Alan Bedrossian had planned to kill Margarit and everyone else at the condo that day.
Margarit and Alan may have underestimated each other but neither of them gave Jessica any credit at all. Not even after she eluded two bad guys and, with Laura’s help, actually found the SD card. Having revisited the whole sordid week in one night, during that debriefing with Detective Hernandez and the cat pack Jessica just felt lucky to be alive.
Laura had gone home from the hospital with Sara. This time to watch over Sara for a few days as she continued to recover from kidnapping and Ketamine. Sara had been given close to a lethal dose of Ketamine. She was so out of it that she actually remembered little of what went on at the condo. Jessica and Laura agreed that was in fact a blessing.
Laura and the rest of the cat pack were coming over tonight for dinner to mark the occasion of their survival. Now that the police had cleared up Roger’s murder, Laura was no longer implicated in any way in Roger’s death. It was pretty clear, from that phone call he tried to make to the police, that he was more Boy Scout than bad guy. He was not suspected of any wrongdoing. If he had only placed that call to the police before his Friday night meeting with Margarit he might still be alive. Why he hadn’t done so was still something of a mystery. There were so many what-ifs to consider in an exorbitant number of permutations and possibilities. They were all part of the relentless ruminating Jessica was trying to curtail.
She intended to get the insurance company to pay out on Roger’s life insurance and that AD&D rider. As soon as she could get her hands on a copy of the final report from Detective Hernandez, she would get that money for Laura. She had already started working her networks to figure out who could lean on the CEO of the insurance company to expedite matters. Laura had been through way too much to get dragged over the coals by some officious, albeit, well-meaning insurance investigator.
Another reason they had called a meeting of the cat pack was that Jessica had insisted they all take a well-deserved vacation, on her. They were coming over not just for dinner but to plan and organize their next adventure. When Jessica made her suggestion Tommy had immediately decided that Brien was going to get that surf safari to the “north shore.” Brien and the rest of the guys, Tommy, Jerry and Peter, the newest cat pack member, were headed to Oahu.