Rick Mofina - In Desperation

“Yes.”

“Did you associate with Donnie Cargo in San Francisco?”

Cora hesitated and started breathing a little deeper.

“Yes.”

“Did you and Donnie Cargo associate with a man named Vic?”

“Yes.”

“Did you associate with Eduardo Zartosa?”

“No.”

“Did you ever know a person named Eduardo Zartosa?”

“No. I don’t know who that is.”

“Yes or no, please.”

“No.”

“Were you, Vic and Donnie Cargo ever in the vicinity of Haight-Ashbury in 1991?” Cora hesitated.

“Yes.”

“Were you in the vicinity of Belvedere and Waller?”

“I think so. Yes.”

“Was a fourth person present?”

“Yes.”

“Was a gun present?”

“Yes.”

Tears rolled down her face. It was raining so hard that night…

…Donnie wheels the car hard…there’s a shadow standing under the building’s overhang…taking shelter from the rain… She’s with Donnie and Vic. Vic’s angry. Crazy mother is dealing on my territory… Donnie and Vic leap out…don’t leave me alone…she’s so wired…wired to heaven she floats from the car…floating…everything turns blue…shouting…arguing…she’s there…no, she’s not anywhere… Vic’s shouting, swearing… What’s happening…a gun…the muzzle flashes fire in the night… CRACK…groaning…

“Was someone shot?”

“Yes.”

“Were you present when someone was shot?”

…screams…now there’s a hot gun in her hand and someone’s squirming on the ground… Donnie…Vic, what’s happening…she’s holding the gun…why…why is the gun in her hand…did she fire the gun…the car is leaving… Donnie and Vic are leaving…leaving her behind… DONNIEEE… VIC…

“Were you present when someone was shot?”

…everything is blue…confusing in the rain…who’ll stop the rain…trouble on the rise…a hand seizes her ankle…a voice gurgling…begging…pulling her down to her knees…to see that he’s young like her…scared like her…eyes blazing…help me…he squeezes…God help!!… por favor… touching him…warm blood on her hands…so much blood…help me…he’s been shot…somebody help…the rain glistening on his face…he’s young like her…begging in Spanish …por favor…por favor… he’s praying in Spanish…he’s dying…I’m sorry …por favor… she supports his head…I’m so sorry…holds his hand…sirens approaching …por favor… sirens getting louder…she’s alone with him…with the gun…blood on her hands…sirens…I’m sorry…they’re coming …por favor… he’s calling his mother…he’s dying…she has to go …por favor… I’m sorry…she has to run…but she can’t leave him to die like this…I’m so sorry…she removes her necklace…a crucifix…he receives it…crushes it hard in his hand…blood to blood…I’m so sorry…blood on her hands she runs away …por favor… his pleas echo…follow her, haunt her in the rain…rip into her …por favor… she throws the gun into the trash and runs…God please forgive me…and runs…leaving him to die…alone in the rain clutching the crucifix her mother and father gave her for her fourteenth birthday at the kitchen table in their home in Buffalo…she ached for home…sirens are screaming…she is screaming…and running…running for her life…

Krendler is asking her…

“Was someone shot?”

“Yes.”

“Were you present when someone was shot?”

“Yes.”

“Did you shoot someone?”

The needles of the polygraph swayed wildly as if scratching in desperation.

“Did you shoot anyone?”

She turned in her chair. Her eyes filled with pain, she found her brother.

“Cora, please face me and answer the question,” Krendler said. “Did you shoot anyone?”

Cora did not turn back. She met the stares of Hackett, Pruitt and the other investigators.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she said.

Krendler disconnected Cora from the machine. Then, against Baker-Brown’s advice, she began recounting all she could of that rainy night.

“I was so stoned. I nearly died later when Vic told me that I shot the guy, that I took the gun from them and shot him. I don’t remember doing that. I really don’t think I did that. I was so wired. Donnie disappeared. I never saw Donnie again. But Vic told me I did it.” Cora sobbed. “Maybe I did. Vic said that the kid was connected to very bad drug people who would come after me, come after my family in Buffalo. So I could never go home again. Never contact my family. Vic said he would watch over me, that what happened would be our secret, that I had to hide and never breathe a word to anyone. I was terrified. He sent me to New York, then Miami. Then I went to L.A., where he had set things up.”

Cora was anguished by what she’d done.

“I never should have left him to die alone. After the shooting I wondered about him. Who was the young man who died on the street in the rain? Did he have a family? I was going to check the San Francisco papers to see what they’d reported, but I didn’t. It was too painful. I didn’t want to know. I never knew anything about him.”

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.”