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.
“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
Lyle 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.
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
