While Cora was running, she had no one to turn to. Vic had sent her money, which she used for drugs. She was so messed up and so scared. She ached to go home but thought she would be followed and killed, along with her family. Vic had control over much of her life because he knew about that night in San Francisco.
Cora looked to her brother for understanding but his face betrayed nothing.
“For ten years I drifted,” she said, “scraping along the bottom, believing I had taken a life and wasted my own. Then I was given a miracle. I had Tilly. She was my salvation, my chance to start over. I pulled myself together for her.”
Still, for some twenty years Cora had been tormented by guilt. Struggling to build a good life, she never told a soul about her past.
“I know I was wrong not to tell you when you were trying to help me find Tilly. I kept this one secret to protect Tilly, to keep anyone, especially cartels, from knowing my connection to the San Francisco murder because that would guarantee her death. If no one knows, then there’s hope they might let her go.
“I swear to you that I am not involved in Tilly’s kidnapping. I’ve worked hard at making a good life for her. I know nothing about what Lyle was up to. Nothing. Yes, I did dream that maybe I could have a better life with him, for Tilly, but that dream died the night she was kidnapped. Over the years, I read legal stuff about murder, about participating in crimes that result in murder. Before you arrest me, I beg that if you find Tilly safe, you will let me hold her one last time.”
A long moment of silence passed before Hackett shot Pruitt a glance.
“Cora,” Pruitt said, “Donald Montradori, the man you knew as Donnie Cargo, died a short time ago in Canada.”
“What?”
“Cancer. Before he died, he gave us a sworn statement about what happened that night. After seeing you pleading for your daughter on the news, he wanted to clear his conscience. All I can tell you is that he said that you did not fire the gun. After the shooting, the gun was placed in your hands. He and Vic knew that you were too high to remember anything. He said you had nothing to do with the murder and that Vic knew the truth.”
“Is this true?” Cora asked the investigators.
Moseley nodded.
“Then why all this?” Cora indicated Krendler and the polygraph.
“We had to see if your account of that night fit with Donnie’s and all the evidence.”
“Evidence.”
“The fingerprints you submitted for your daughter’s case matched those on the murder weapon and this.” Pruitt passed her a large color photograph of the crucifix. Her crucifix. “This was held back. Very few people knew what the victim held in his hand, or what he told paramedics before he died.”
“He spoke before he died?”
“He said an angel put him in God’s hands.”
Cora covered her face with her hands.
“Cora,” Pruitt said. “We’re not going to arrest you or charge you. Not at this time. You were present at the commission of a crime and you fled the scene, but we’ll talk to our D.A. There are plenty of complications and mitigating factors. We need to talk to other parties. We’ll be in touch.”
“Hold on. With regards to the victim…” Hackett, who had not eased off on his suspicions entirely, folded his arms across his chest, turned to Cora and said, “The man who was murdered in San Francisco was Eduardo Zartosa, the youngest brother of Samson Zartosa, leader of the Norte Cartel. The men who have your daughter work for him.”
All the color drained from Cora’s face.
A soft knock sounded at the door and a man opened it. “Sorry to interrupt but the task force at the house just received a call for Cora. The caller said he was Lyle Galviera.”
52
Six Feathers, Arizona
L yle Galviera was under siege.
A couple of boys were kicking the shit out of the soda machine outside his room at the Sleep City Motel because it had swallowed their money without giving up a drink.
Galviera had been striving to find a way out of his situation with the cartel but the assault outside on the machine was interfering. “Come on, you stupid freaking-” The earsplitting racket, the vibrating floor, as if forces were coming for him.
His chest was tightening; he couldn’t think.
Since the kidnapping, his face had appeared in the news next to Tilly’s, then Salazar and Johnson’s. But he had cut his hair, had stopped shaving, wore a ball cap, dark glasses and managed to move around freely.
For how much longer? I don’t know.
His entire room shook.
Christ, he wanted to go outside and slap those little assholes, but he couldn’t afford to cause a scene, to give anyone reason to remember him. He turned back to the TV to face himself on the news again, then concentrated on his work on the desk.
He’d emptied all the contents from his wallet-not his fake wallet, but the real one that he’d kept hidden in the liner of his travel bag. The desk was layered with credit cards, membership cards, cash, business cards, worn tattered bits of paper with notes scrawled on them.
Where is it? It has to be here.
He inspected each item, looking for an elusive scrap of information he had seen before. He’d placed a mental flag on it. He reexamined each business card, searching for the one possibility, the tiny thread that could lead him out of this.
His attempt back at Apache Junction to contact the cartel by trying Salazar’s secret number, using the phone he’d stolen in the restaurant, had failed.
The line just rang and rang.
He’d gotten nervous and given up. He’d left Apache Junction and driven aimlessly, trying to find a way out, until exhaustion stopped him here.
He wasn’t sure where here was but it seemed fitting for the hell he was in. The room smelled bad, there were cigarette butts in the corner of the bathroom floor, the ceiling was scuffed and the sheets were frayed.
Is this it?
It was a card Johnson or Salazar had given him long ago for their hotel, one he’d overlooked because it had been compressed against another card. He turned it over to a faded notation. A telephone number and next to it Thirty, penned in ink and crossed out.
Was this his link to the Norte Cartel?
Galviera recognized the area code as Ciudad Juarez. He knew that major cartel operators used numbers for aliases. Studying the number, he came back to his dilemma. If he surrendered to police, it was over. He’d lose his business, go to jail and risk Tilly’s life.
If he could reach the Norte Cartel, reason with them, put this all on Salazar and Johnson, give the cartel the money in exchange for Tilly, he might be able to make it work.
What do I do?
He returned to the all-news channel as once more it replayed the most recent development: the identities of Tilly’s kidnappers, who were known to belong to the Norte Cartel. And there was a new suspect, a young one, who’d been on a Phoenix-bound bus before eluding arrest. Then he saw Tilly’s face again.
Oh Jesus, should I go to police or try the cartel option?
Either way, I’m dead.
Time was running out.
Do something. Now.
Galviera gathered his wallet items, locked his room and drove through town until he found a bar that looked like it would do: The Cha Cha Club. Chicken wire covered the windows. The linoleum floor was warped. A few people were inside. A sign over the bar said Cash Only. There was a jukebox playing something painful, a pool table, two TVs mounted in the far corners, and there was a pay phone in a booth with a folding privacy door.
Galviera got change from the bartender, got into the booth, held his card up to the neon to read the number, checked with the operator, deposited coins and placed his call. The number clicked, followed by long-distance static, then it rang.