Ma also wanted to check inside Jeri’s Porsche to make sure it didn’t have anything in it that would point to me being in Fernley with Jeri, watching Bye’s house. The Porsche was where she and I had left it, and it had to stay there. It was part of the story the police would start to put together. Ma gave the place a last look then drove back to Reno. In a Walmart she purchased a cheap cell phone and the least amount of minutes possible. She paid with cash, drove several miles to south Reno, phoned the Washoe County Sheriff’s office, and told them they would find some bodies west of mile marker forty-four north of Gerlach about nine miles off the highway at an abandoned mine, down a mineshaft, and one of the bodies might be that of Senator Reinhart. A mile away she stuck the phone under a tire of the Caddy and crushed it, got out, gathered up the pieces, and dropped them into a trash barrel outside a 7-Eleven a few more miles away. In a dumpster at a random apartment complex she tossed the clothes I’d worn up north, and the towel I’d used to dry Jeri’s shower. When she returned to the Sierra Sky Apartments it was full light outside. She had a Walmart scarf over her head, using it to partly conceal her face.
Sarah and I were asleep in each other’s arms when Ma came in. While she was gone we had cried, talked quietly, and I’d kissed Sarah’s salty tears, but I’d been awake for nearly twenty-four hours, walked over thirteen miles, and losing Jeri had all but killed me, so I finally passed out. Not long after, Sarah had followed me into sleep.
“Wake up, you two,” Ma said softly.
Sarah stirred, then shook me a little. My eyes opened. They felt grainy from all the crying—the salt of dried tears.
“You can get up and get dressed or stay where you are, but we have to talk,” Ma said.
I looked a question at Sarah.
“Stay,” she said.
“We’re good, Ma,” I told her. “What’s up?”
Ma drew up a chair and sat. Sarah and I propped up on pillows with the covers pulled up high, then listened.
“I phoned it in, then crushed the cell phone,” Ma said. “They’ll probably be up there in an hour or two. If they go by helicopter they could be there sooner. It’ll take a while to get Jeri out, but once they do it won’t take them long to ID her, probably a matter of minutes, then things’ll get popping—for you, Mort. They’ll find Reinhart’s remains so the media circus is gonna start up again as well. But right now, Sarah, you have a big decision to make. Huge, actually.”
Ma laid it out. If we put the police onto Julia, there was a good chance she would escape. The SUV, the Fernley house, the trailer—nothing was in her name. By now she’d probably abandoned the Mercedes after wiping it down thoroughly, or she might’ve set it on fire since that was her way of getting rid of things, although she hadn’t burned down the Fernley house. There might not be enough evidence to put her at the mine in the hills, and even less to convict her of murder.
“Mort and I are going to track Julia down and . . . get rid of her,” Ma said. “She has no idea who I am or how good I am, but she’s as good as found. It couldn’t be any more illegal, Sarah, but it’s going to happen. Julia murdered Reinhart, your sister, Leland Bye, Jayson Wexel, Jeri. I’m sorry about your sister and, well, I really can’t think about Jeri, not right now. That’s just too much, too horrible. I’ve got too much to do. But if we’re going to get Julia, Mort has to have an alibi for the time Jeri was up at that mine, and it’s gotta be tight. Police will have a good idea of time of death for her, and a lot of people know she and Mort were together, so they’re gonna be all over Mort, and soon.
“So the question is, can you provide that alibi? Right now you haven’t done anything illegal, but if you tell the police Mort spent the entire night with you here, that could land you in prison.”
“I’ll do it.”
“That’s a real fast answer,” Ma said. “Now I want you to think about it. If they bust your story, you’re done for.”
Sarah stared at her, then at me. “We know she killed Jeri. Did she kill Allie, too?”
I held her hand under the covers. “Yes. Last night, Julia told us she shot Allie on the highway less than an hour after you got that call from her in the bar.”
Sarah closed her eyes and took a deep breath, opened her eyes again. “I’m in.”
Ma leaned closer. “You’d better be goddamn sure about that because this isn’t a kid’s game, Sarah. This is your life. Mort’s, too.”
“I’m sure.”
Ma looked at her awhile longer. Then she nodded. “Okay, then. Odds are the police or the FBI will be all over this apartment, and that could happen in a matter of hours. Well, maybe a little longer since it’d take them a while to find a connection between you two. In fact, they might not make that connection independently, but once they get hold of Mort, and he says he was here with you, they’ll
