Life or Death

by Michael Robotham

Desiree opens the file. The first document is a birth certificate from El Salvador for someone called Belita Ciera Vega, born in April 30, 1982. Her parents were a Spanish-born shopkeeper and an Argentinian-born dressmaker. The next document is a wedding certificate that also features Belita, issued by a chapel in Las Vegas in January 2004. The name of the groom: Audie Spencer Palmer.

  Desiree looks up from the file. ‘Where did you get these?’

  Bernadette seems to think about the implication of the question, plainly wondering if she’s going to get in trouble.

  ‘Audie sent them to me. We had a system. He had this email account and he gave me the password and the user name. Every week I would log on and he would have left messages for me in the draft folder. Sometimes there were documents attached. I had to print everything out and double-delete the messages. I couldn’t tell anyone. And I could never use the account for anything else.’

  Desiree can picture exactly how it was done. Audie set up an anonymous Gmail or Hotmail account using a computer in the prison library. Leaving messages in the draft folder is an old trick used by terrorists and teenagers to avoid detection because these communications are never sent and therefore leave a fainter digital trail.

  There is a photograph in the file showing Audie standing beneath an arch of white and pink flowers. His arm is around a young woman’s waist and a small boy is peeking from the folds of her dress.

  ‘Did you know your brother was married?’

  Bernadette shakes her head.

  ‘Do you know this woman?’

  ‘No.’

  Desiree finds a birth certificate from San Diego County. A boy was born on August 4, 2000. First name: Miguel. Surname: Ciera Vega. Father’s name: Edgar Roberto Diaz (deceased).

  Flicking more quickly now, she scans the rest of the folder, which contains Texas land record searches, copies of title deeds, receipts, financial records, company returns and magazine articles. It must have taken years to collate.

  One name keeps coming up in the documents: Victor Pilkington. It’s a familiar name to anyone who has grown up in Texas. Desiree has a particular family connection. Her great-great-grandfather, Willis Furness, was born on a Pilkington plantation in 1852 and worked in the family’s fields for nearly fifty years. His wife, Esme, a wet nurse and seamstress, probably suckled Victor Pilkington’s grandfather or darned his socks.

  The Pilkingtons had produced two congressmen and five state senators before their empire crumbled during the energy crisis in the mid-seventies. The family’s fortune was wiped out and one of them – Desiree can’t remember who – went to prison for securities fraud and insider trading.

  In recent years, Victor Pilkington had restored some of the family’s status by making a fortune in property deals and corporate raiding. Among the cuttings there is a photograph of him smiling at the cameras outside Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts, where he chaired the Latin American fund-raising gala. Black tie. White teeth. Hair an oily wave. Another story shows him throwing the ceremonial opening pitch at a Rangers game, his baseball uniform still bearing creases from the box. The media had nicknamed him ‘The Chairman’ and Pilkington played up to it, always being photographed with a cigar in his fist, unlit. He married a society girl with a double-barrel surname, whose father had been partying with George Bush Jnr on the night he got picked up for drunk driving in Maine in 1976.

  Wealth begets wealth, Desiree knows that, but she’s never envied such moneyed elites, who tend to be phenomenally dull and ignorant of the lives of others and blind to the beauty of the natural world. She glances again at Audie’s folder. Some of the documents mention shell companies and offshore accounts. She’s going to need a forensic accountant to explain them.

  Near the end of the file, she comes across a piece of paper that slips from between two others and rocks like a falling leaf to the floor. It’s not a full page. Somebody has torn off the lower half. The heading reads:

  CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES.

  NOTICE OF TRANSFER AND RELEASE OF LIABILITY

  It takes a moment for Desiree to recognise the significance of the document, which mentions a Pontiac 6000 with the same make, model and licence number as the car that burst into flames and incinerated a woman driver in Dreyfus County in 2004. The car was purchased in San Diego, California, on the 15th of January 2004, from Frank Robredo at a cost of $900. The man who purchased it gave his name as Audie Spencer Palmer.

  Desiree turns the page over. It’s a photocopy, but doesn’t look like a forgery.

  ‘Do you recognise this signature?’

  ‘That’s Audie’s.’

  ‘Do you understand what it means?’

  ‘No.’

  Desiree understands. Scooping up the folder she leaves Bernadette in the foyer and walks briskly to the elevator. Details are rapidly falling into place. More than she can handle. She feels like a bridesmaid trying to catch the bouquet at a wedding, but the bride keeps throwing dozens of them and Desiree can’t hold them all in her arms. The woman in the car was Belita Ciera Vega, Audie’s wife. The boy in the photograph is most likely her son.

  Desiree has reached her desk. She opens the folder again and stares at the wedding photograph, studying the young boy. His features are more Spanish than Salvadorean. Belita’s father was from Spain and her mother from Argentina. She calls up a photograph of Max Valdez as a teenager and compares the two. Take away the years – it’s the same boy. How is that possible?

  Valdez organised the adoption. He had contacts within the DA’s office, lawyers and judges, people who could smooth the path. Nobody came forward to claim Miguel. His father died in an earthquake. His mother perished in a burning car. Audie lay in a coma, never likely to recover. The medical records show that he was shot from close range, almost point-blank. It was almost as though somebody tried to execute him. Yet he survived. He witnessed what happened. How do you silence a man like that?

  ‘Working late?’

  Desiree gasps and snaps the folder shut. She’d been concentrating so hard that she hadn’t heard Eric Warner approach.

  ‘Christ, you’re jumpier than a virgin at a prison rodeo,’ he says, walking around her desk.

  ‘You surprised me.’

  ‘What are you reading?’

  ‘An old case file.’

  ‘Any news on Palmer?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I was looking for Senogles, he’s not answering his phone.’

  ‘I haven’t seen him since last night.’

  Warner takes a roll of antacid tablets from his pocket and peels off the paper wrapping. ‘I heard about the break-in. Are you feeling OK?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘I thought you were told to stay at home.’

  ‘Yeah. Can I ask you a question?’

  He pops a tablet on his tongue. ‘Depends.’

  ‘Why did you put Frank in charge of this investigation?’

  ‘He was more senior.’

  ‘Any other reason?’

  Warner puts his hand in the air, a stop sign. ‘Did I ever tell you that I met JFK? My father worked on Kennedy’s security detail – not the final one, thank God. I don’t think he could have lived with that. I was just a boy. One of my favourite Kennedy quotes was when he said politics was just like football – if you see daylight you go through the hole.’

  ‘It was political?’

  His smile looks ironically sad. ‘Isn’t everything?’

  62

  Before leaving the stilt house, Audie strips the beds, washes the dishes and flushes the toilets again for good measure. Then he collects some clean underwear and a rain jacket, shoving them into a pillowcase.

  ‘I’m just borrowing these things,’ he tells Max. ‘I’ll return them.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I haven’t decided yet.’

  ‘Do you even know what you’re doing?’

  ‘I started with a plan.’

  ‘What plan?’

  ‘To
keep you safe.’

  ‘How’s that working out for you?’

  Audie laughs and Max joins him and Audie feels a surge of warmth and relief. In prison he used to imagine moments like this, but nothing is ever exactly as we picture it – life splinters and smears the most ordinary of dreams – but this one feels like it’s almost right.

  ‘So what happens to me?’ asks Max.

  ‘A friend of mine is coming. He’ll make sure you get home.’

  Tony is watching from a chair at the kitchen table. His hands are taped in front of him, so he can reach a glass of water and his pills. Audie has loosened the tape around his ankles.

  ‘What about me?’ he asks.

  ‘I’ll drop you at a hospital.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to the goddamn hospital. They’ll just tell me what I already know.’

  Audie ponders the growing darkness. The western horizon is streaked with red and orange, like somebody has sliced open a sack of burning coals. He picks up his bag and the pillowcase. ‘I’ll put these in the car and come back for you, Tony.’

  ‘You gonna steal my rig?’

  ‘I’ll leave it somewhere safe.’

  Max glances nervously at the shuttered windows. Ever since he sent the text message to his father he’s felt something gnawing at his insides like a hungry rat is trying to get out. He doesn’t know if he’s done the right thing. His father will be proud of him. He’ll backslap and brag to his buddies. He’ll say that Max kept his head just like his old man did during that shoot-out.

  ‘Don’t leave!’ he blurts.

  Audie pauses at the door. ‘Moss is going to be here soon.’

  ‘I don’t want to be left alone.’

  ‘I could stay with him,’ says Tony. ‘Either that, or you let me take the boy. You’ll get a head start before I call the police.’

  Audie lifts his bag onto the kitchen table and unzips a pocket. He takes out the cell phone, along with a fresh SIM card.

  ‘As soon as we’re gone, you can call your mom.’

  Max doesn’t answer.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asks Audie.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Max nods without conviction. He can feel Tony’s cell wedged in his underwear and can picture the police coming. He wants to tell Audie what he’s done, but he doesn’t want to disappoint him.

  ‘Try not to worry,’ says Audie. ‘Things’ll work out.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘For you they always have.’

  63

  The dented paint-skinned blue pickup pulls up alongside Desiree as she nears her car in the underground parking garage. She turns her head and almost topples over when she spies the man behind the wheel.

  Wobbling for a moment, she tries to straighten, but one of her heels is caught in a ventilation grate. She attempts to pull it out, but has to hop backward a step and twist her boot.

  ‘Need a hand?’ asks Moss, who has one arm draped over the wheel and the other resting along the top of the passenger seat.

  Desiree wants to pull her gun from her holster, but it’s going to look clumsy and unprofessional because she has Audie Palmer’s folder in her arms. If she drops the papers, they’ll blow everywhere.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asks.

  ‘Get in.’

  ‘Are you surrendering?’

  Moss seems to ponder this. ‘OK, we can call it that, but first I need you to come with me.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere with you.’

  ‘Audie needs our help.’

  ‘I’m not here to help Audie Palmer.’

  ‘I know that, ma’am, but he’s out there on his own and people are trying to kill him.’

  ‘What people?’

  ‘I think it’s the men who really stole that money.’

  Desiree blinks at Moss, feeling like he’s been reading her mail. ‘Did you break into my apartment?’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘Are you armed?’

  ‘Nope.’

  She’s managed to free her heel from the grate. Desiree reaches for her pistol and points it through the open passenger window. ‘Get out of the vehicle.’

  Moss doesn’t move.

  ‘I will shoot you if I have to.’

  ‘I don’t doubt that.’

  Moss glances out the windshield and raises his eyes as though frustrated by how the day has gone so far.

  Desiree doesn’t lower her weapon. ‘Tell me where he is. We’ll take it from here.’

  ‘I know exactly what you’ll do,’ says Moss. ‘You’ll tell your boss and he’ll call a meeting and then he’ll brief a SWAT team and they’ll recce the area and study satellite images and set up roadblocks and evacuate the neighbourhood. Meanwhile, all they’ll ever find of Audie Palmer is a bloodstain. If you’re not coming, I’m going alone.’

  ‘You can’t just drive away. You’re under arrest.’

  ‘Guess you’ll have to shoot me.’

  Desiree runs her fingers through her hair, gingerly touching the bump on her head. Every fibre of her training tells her to arrest Moss Webster, but her gut is saying something different. In the previous twenty-four hours, somebody has broken into her place, knocked her unconscious and stolen her files. Her boss has lied to her and done nothing but try to bench her from the beginning or given her pointless errands to keep her out of the way. If she’s wrong about Audie Palmer it will be the end of her career. If she’s right she won’t be thanked. Every which way she loses.

  Getting into the car, she buckles her seatbelt and rests her .45 on her lap, pointing at Moss’s crotch. ‘You so much as run a stop sign and I’ll blow your balls off.’

  64

  The two Ford Explorers pull onto the shoulder of a dirt road and stop beneath a copse of low scrubby trees a hundred yards from the house. The sky is the colour of dishwater and the ocean dark grey topped with strips of froth. Rain coming. Sun disappearing. Time pressing.

  Senogles gets out of the vehicle and rests a rifle over the hood, pressing his cheek to the wooden stock, feeling the cold hard smoothness against his skin. Steadying his pulse, he runs the scope along the walls of the house, paying special attention to the windows and doors. The place looks shuttered. Empty.

  ‘You sure this is it?’

  Valdez nods and raises his binoculars. The coastline looks deserted. The only lights he can see are perched on the mast of a dredging barge moored in the canal and a couple of ships moving across the Gulf.

  ‘How are we going to do this?’ he asks.

  ‘First we need to make sure they’re still here.’

  Senogles walks to the other car and talks to Jake and Stav, telling them to scout ahead to the far side of the house. They check their two-way radios and move off along the edge of the canal, soon disappearing in the gloom. Valdez and Senogles stay in the open where beads of rain cling to their hair and bulletproof vests. Pilkington hasn’t left the car. He’s acting like he’s in charge, but Senogles is running the operation.

  Valdez peers through the binoculars again. The pulse in his throat is beating slowly. He remembers what it was like on the night of the robbery; how they waited for the truck to arrive, his sphincter tight, hands damp on the wheel. His uncle had spent four years setting up the opportunity, putting someone inside the security company and waiting for them to reach a senior position. It was Pilkington who discovered the delivery route and the timetable, but Valdez had recruited Vernon and Billy Caine, dumb and dumber. That’s one of the advantages of being in law enforcement – the people it brings you into contact with: the shysters, second-story creeps, money launderers, safecrackers, gunrunners, carjackers and thieves.

  When the Caine brothers hijacked the armoured truck and parked on the shoulder of an isolated road, they expected to meet a getaway car. Instead it was an ambush. The execution was clumsier than anyone planned, but the outcome the same. Audie Palmer was the joker in the pack – the wildcard that no one al
lowed for. Wrong place. Wrong time. Almost silenced. Not quite.

  The others blamed Valdez. Fenway the drunk, Lewis the gambler, both dead now because they were foolish and splashed cash around. They were supposed to launder the money through Pilkington’s land deals, but couldn’t wait to show off. Unexpected wealth draws attention. Cover stories are necessary. Care.

  ‘Someone is coming out.’

  Senogles looks through the scope of the rifle, one eye closed. ‘That’s Palmer.’

  ‘I can’t see Max.’

  ‘He must still be inside.’

  Palmer is walking down the stairs and across the lawn toward a Dodge pickup with a boat trailer attached. He opens the door and throws a bag inside before arranging a blanket on the passenger seat.

  ‘Looks like he’s fixin’ to leave,’ says Senogles, whose finger is poised on the trigger, eyes dilated. ‘We should take him out now.’

  ‘Wait till he gets closer.’

  Palmer moves around the boat, uncoupling the trailer. He wipes his hands on his jeans. The shot is easier to take. Senogles eases off the safety and places the crosshairs between Palmer’s eyes before lowering the sight to his chest, trying to make sure he doesn’t miss. He breathes, taking air into his lungs deeply and letting it out slowly. Then he takes a second breath, shallower this time, and lets it out halfway, judging the distance and the wind and the roll of Palmer’s gait. He blinks, resets his mind. Blinks again. Pulls the trigger.

  Audie has unhitched the boat trailer, checked the tyres and pondered how much gas Tony has in the tank. He doesn’t want to have to fill up until he’s well away from the coast. It doesn’t seem right to run off after going to so much trouble to find Max and tell him the truth, but he’ll be safe when Moss gets here, safer than he is now.

  Special Agent Furness will have the file by now. She’ll know what to do. Unless he’s misjudged her, of course, in which case there’s little that Audie can do except to keep running until they hunt him down. It wouldn’t matter so much if it were just him they wanted, but Max knows the secret now. Valdez raised him as a son. Will he protect him like one?