Rick Mofina - In Desperation

After a long pause, Gannon told Henrietta he would have to call her back. Hanging up, he looked across the room at Cora resting on the sofa and approached her with the request. After considering it, she said, “Just two minutes over the phone.”

At that moment Hackett materialized, eyeing Gannon.

“Two minutes with whom and for what?”

“A short interview with the WPA,” Gannon said.

Hackett weighed it. “As long as she only repeats what she said earlier. I’ll be right here, listening.”

Gannon called Henrietta Chong on his phone, then passed it to Cora. As he watched and listened, ambiguity gnawed at him. He knew he was exploiting his sister. But he rationalized it. After all this time, she’d called him. Some twenty-two years had passed between them. There was so much he didn’t know about her and it had kept him ambivalent toward her, torn over whether he should be consoling her or questioning her account of what was really at work with Tilly’s kidnapping.

Why had Cora asked him if she was being punished for past sins? What did she mean?

I knew dealers.

What had happened in her past? Was this somehow linked?

At that moment an agent rose from the worktable where he had been listening to his cell phone while working on a laptop. His face taut, he tapped Hackett’s shoulder.

“We just got something.”

Tempe, Arizona

Thick dried mud covered all but the first two numbers of the license plate on the back of the truck.

Vanita Solaniz could not read the rest of it but was convinced the pickup that had wheeled into the Burger King parking lot was the one the FBI was looking for: a metallic red, 2009 Ford F-150 with a regular cab.

As an assistant manager at Clear Canyon Auto Parts, Vanita knew cars, trucks and vans. A few hours ago, she and her customers at the shop halted their business to watch the TV above the counter when the news broke about the little girl who was kidnapped by a drug cartel from her home in Mesa Mirage.

“My lord, that just breaks your heart, doesn’t it?” she said.

One old-timer shifted the toothpick in the corner of his mouth, then said, “A damn shame. I got a granddaughter that age.”

For the rest of the afternoon, with every commercial break, the TV news repeated details on the case and the F-150. Vanita watched when she could, hoping for a good ending to the story. Nothing new had happened when her shift ended and she headed for her apartment near Escalente Park.

Vanita’s welder boyfriend was out of town. They had no food in the house, so for supper she’d decided to treat herself to her favorite: onion rings and a shake at Burger King. After getting her order at the drive-through, she parked her car in a shady corner of the lot, dropped the windows and caught a sweet breeze.

That’s when the Ford pickup rolled into the spot in front of her.

Hey, it’s a metallic red 150, like the one on the news, Vanita thought, munching on her rings. From the tailgate’s style she knew it was a 2009. The driver got out, a man wearing a ball cap and sunglasses. His passenger was a girl who looked about ten or eleven. She wore a sun hat and sunglasses. The man took her hand and they entered the restaurant.

An icy feeling shot through Vanita.

She looked at the Arizona plate, making out the first two numbers.

Five, then seven.

Vanita stopped eating.

She clawed through her bag for the blank order form where she’d jotted the pickup’s plate from the news.

Oh my God.

Vanita grabbed her cell phone, called 911 and reported the details to the Tempe police, repeating her location. “It’s them! Send somebody! It’s on East University.”

The Tempe police dispatcher kept her on the line while she alerted the FBI. A moment later the dispatcher told Vanita, “Police are on the way. Keep your eyes on the vehicle, your line open and do not move .”

Hackett drove and Bonnie Larson relayed information over the phone to a Tempe police detective who’d turned up his radio.

“Tempe’s on the line with the caller now,” Larson said. “The vehicle description fits Lyle Galviera’s pickup.”

“And the man and the girl?”

“They match the general description of Tilly and Galviera.”

As they wove through traffic, Hackett shook his head, uncertain what to make of this break. If it was Galviera, what was he doing with Tilly? Had the kidnappers released her?

“Advise Tempe not to send any marked units into the area,” he said.

“They’re only sending unmarked cars, no lights, no sirens.”

“We don’t want to lose them.”

“Tempe’s dispatching marked units to set up a one-block perimeter to stop the suspect vehicle if he flees.”

In Mesa Mirage, Cora waited in agony.

The investigators who’d stayed behind with her had few updates.

It was torture, as it had been watching Hackett and Larson scrambling from her home a few minutes ago when she’d begged them to tell her what was happening before they’d left.

“We have a lead on a truck that looks like Lyle’s,” Hackett had said.

“Take me with you!”

“No, we don’t know what to expect. We urge you to stay here.” Cora turned to Gannon as Hackett added, “I can’t prevent you or your brother from leaving your home. You’re not under arrest, but you could jeopardize things. That’s why I’m not giving you details on the location. It’s for your own safety.”

“All right.” Gannon nodded and the FBI agents left.

“But, Jack,” Cora pleaded, “one of us should be there.”

“Hang on. I’ll try to find out where it is.”

Gannon started to call Henrietta Chong when his cell phone rang.

“Jack, this is Henrietta, there seems to be a lot of activity coming out of the house and the TV guys listening to police scanners say that something’s going on in Tempe but police are being cryptic on the air.”

Gannon turned away and kept his voice low.

“Can you get an address from them for me, Henrietta? I’ll fill you in.”

When she called back with the address, Gannon asked Cora for the keys to her car.

Now, as Gannon drove alone in Cora’s Pontiac Vibe, the GPS system indicated he was about two blocks from the Burger King. His phone rang. It was Chong, about six blocks behind him with a WPA photographer.

“Jack, the whole pack is headed to this place. What’s going on?”

“They may have found Lyle Galviera’s truck.”

The knot in Vanita’s stomach was tightening.

It was twenty-five, maybe thirty minutes since she’d called police. Every minute or so, the 911 dispatcher asked for an update.

“The truck still hasn’t moved,” Vanita said.

“Thank you.”

But Vanita worried. Were police here? If they were, they did a good job of keeping invisible. What if the man and girl had slipped out of the restaurant? What if they got away?

Vanita couldn’t stand it any longer.

With her cell phone pressed to her ear, she left her car and entered the busy outlet. She threaded through the dining room, unable to find them, concern mounting until she spotted them in a corner booth.

“I see them,” Vanita told the dispatcher. “They’re done eating and getting ready to leave by the door near their truck. You have to do something fast!”

The dispatcher relayed Vanita’s alert to Phil Zern, the Tempe police sergeant in charge. Plainclothes detectives were positioned in the lot, some in cars, some on foot. There was no time for SWAT to set up and too many people around.

This would be a rapid takedown.

“Everyone on position, stand by,” Zern said, “on my order.”