Rick Mofina - In Desperation

That’s what happened and they know it .

“I had no part in that.”

Something coiled; something out of sight was being prepared.

“I am afraid you are not being truthful, Mr. Galviera. I don’t think you appreciate the gravity of your situation.”

“I do. With the utmost respect, please, I’ve brought you the money. Give me Tilly and we’ll close the matter. I’m telling you the truth. That is all the money there is.”

Angel signaled to Limon-Rocha and Tecaza.

In an instant they left, then returned, carrying Tilly. She was bound to a chair by rope and chains. No hope of escaping this time. They set her down opposite Galviera. Her mouth was taped.

Angel hopped from the table, tugged on white latex surgical gloves, then picked up a sports bag that had been behind him and out of sight.

“I think you need an illustration to understand.”

Angel opened the big bag, reached into it and retrieved a round object that was slightly smaller than a ten-pin bowling ball. Then he reached into the bag for a second similar object, placing both on the ground before Galviera.

“You see, this is what happens when you lie to me.”

Amid the mass of hair, decomposing flesh and open eyes, Galviera met the faces of Octavio Sergio Salazar and John Walker Johnson.

Greater Phoenix, Arizona

“Goodness, girl, slow down!”

Olive McKay scolded herself as her old Silverado SUV bumped along the dirt road leading to her friend Virginia’s house.

Olive was running a titch late this morning but that was no reason to spill all the food she’d made the night before for the charity potluck-pecan tarts, a pineapple upside-down cake and pasta salad. Thank goodness she’d put it all in the cooler and belted it to the rear passenger seat.

Virginia’s double-wide emerged into view. Olive tooted the horn as she wheeled up, noticing that Virginia had left her front porch light on. Odd . Being a penny-pincher on a tight budget, Virginia just never did that.

She’s probably a bit preoccupied this morning.

Olive got out of her SUV, intent on helping load it with Virginia’s food as quickly as possible. Raising her hand to ring the doorbell, she paused.

The door was ajar.

Did she leave it open for me? That’s strange. She always keeps it locked, on account of the teenagers who sometimes get out of hand, out at the old airfield.

“Virginia?”

What’s that clicking?

“Hello! Virginia, it’s me, Olive! We have to get going. Flo said we should be there by now!”

She listened harder to the soft vibrations. What is that?

“Virginia?”

Olive’s smile melted as the first icy thread of concern slithered up her back. What’s that rapid clicking? The door creaked as she slowly pushed it open, seeing tomato juice all over the kitchen floor and thinking, what a mess. Then… that can’t be tomato juice…the consistency and the color’s not right. As the door swung wider. Olive saw a foot, then a leg, both legs, and Virginia lying on her back with a knife handle rising from her chest, her hand twitching in the puddle of blood.

Olive’s scalp tingled. Her skin prickled with gooseflesh.

She called 911 and screamed for an ambulance, for police, for God to come right away because Virginia had been stabbed.

So much blood. Too much blood .

Olive took her friend’s hand. It was still warm.

“You stay with me, Virginia.”

Red foam bubbled at Virginia’s mouth as she moaned, crying out to her dead husband, to Clay, to Olive, trying to tell her.

“…the girl…please…”

“Don’t try to talk.”

“…missing girl…news…bad please…”

But Olive couldn’t understand.

She didn’t remember the sirens, the paramedics, the deputies pulling her away, working on Virginia, starting an IV, slipping an oxygen mask over her mouth, lifting her to a board, the gurney and loading her into the ambulance.

The deputy had to catch Olive before she collapsed, watching the ambulance wail down the same bumpy road she’d taken moments ago in her Silverado.

Virginia died en route to the hospital.

The same hospital where her husband had died, the same hospital she was helping with her potato salad and apple pies for the charity potluck.

Phoenix, Arizona

As TV helicopters circled overhead Cora stared blankly into the press and police chaos at the NewIron Rail yards.

“Tilly’s dead. That’s it, isn’t it?” she said, waiting in her car with Gannon while he left another cell phone message in his attempt to reach Hackett.

“I know this is hard, Cora.” Gannon tried to console her. “But until we know everything, we know nothing.”

“Henrietta Chong said that they’d found Lyle’s car, that witnesses saw a body. I can’t take it anymore, Jack, I just can’t.”

She covered her face with her hands.

“You’ve got to hang on to hope while we still have it.”

Someone tapped on Gannon’s window. He turned to the clean-cut face of a uniformed deputy, who’d approached from behind.

“Jack Gannon and Cora Martin?”

“Yes.”

“Deputy Wadden. Agent Hackett is in there at the scene.” Wadden nodded to the storage tank tower and the lines of railcars. “He got your message and requested we get word to you.” Wadden’s shoulder microphone bleated with a coded transmission. “One moment, please.” Wadden leaned into it, responding with a numeric code before resuming matters with Gannon and Cora.

“I’m parked behind you. Please follow me in your vehicle.”

“What’s going on?” Gannon asked.

“I’m going to lead you to a location a few blocks from here. Agent Hackett said he’d meet you there in fifteen minutes.”

The sign in the window of The Bluebird Diner said, Today’s Special $1.99 Fish N’ Chips. Two men in their fifties were hunched over the counter, wearing faded T-shirts and jeans. The talk wafting from under their worn ball caps concerned pensions and a major league pitcher.

Gannon and Cora waited alone in a booth for Hackett.

From his days on the police beat at the Buffalo Sentinel, Gannon knew that investigators often took people away from the scene and the cameras in order to tell them the worst news. He steadied himself by staring at the milk clouds swirling in his coffee while Cora took deep breaths, her fear tightening around her.

Sitting there with his sister in the ominous air pulled Gannon back to Buffalo.

He is eight; Cora is thirteen. They are terrified waiting at their kitchen table. They’d been in the yard, Cora lobbing a baseball to him when he popped one that went up, up, so far up that it landed with enough velocity on their father’s new Ford to leave a fracture that spider-webbed across the windshield. Mom’s aghast. “Holy cow, Jack, Dad’s new car. He’s going to be sick about this, just sick!” Cora telling her, “Don’t blame Jack. It was my fault, Mom. I should have caught it. It was an accident, I swear.” At that moment Cora is his hero. Dad says nothing, works overtime and fixes the problem. That’s the way he did things. Jack felt horrible but loved Cora for being the big sister protector.

Despite all the pain-soaked years between them, despite her mistakes, his misgivings and the wounds, she was still his sister.

And she needed him.

He clasped his hand over hers. “Hang in there, okay? It’s going to be all right. Just hang on.”

Cora took his hand, squeezing it, until they saw Hackett’s sedan arrive out front. He was alone and sober-faced when he entered, pulling a chair to the end of the table.