Twenty-one

That was it for hiding Lily in the woods.

Aragon borrowed Javier’s truck, leaving Lewis with the department car. He arranged for a buddy with State Police to patrol the road into Loco Lobo ranch several times a day. Last night’s visitors might return with Serena out there alone. They might not be quick to accept Serena’s word that Montclaire was not there.

Lewis was now heading to District Court for the latest filings in Silva’s case while she took Lily by her house to grab clean clothes. At the door, Montclaire stumbled through her security code.

A laugh, the first Aragon had heard. “Only a couple days and already I forgot,” Montclaire said.

When she got the door open she headed to the bedroom. Aragon walked through the low-slung adobe, checking the location of windows and doors. There was a sliding glass door at the back overlooking a hill that could be climbed in the dark. The walls along the sides of the house would let someone get within a couple feet of a window before being seen. And three separate doors into the house, not including the one from the garage.

She called Rivera to prod him on getting Montclaire into witness protection. As she was waiting for him to answer she wondered why he’d given Lewis, not her, developments in Tucker’s work. Now that she thought about it, he hadn’t been calling her directly for two days, since before the visit to Sun-Hi Breskin. She got his voicemail and left another message.

“I’m ready.”

Montclaire emerged from a bedroom with an overnight bag and roll-on suitcase. Framed in the doorway, she was an older version of the young woman in the poster under glass on the wall, in a yellow bikini, the bottom riding below hip bones, a parasol tilted over her shoulder, not doing any good, not the slightest shade on her face.

“That’s you,” Aragon said.

“Seventeen years old. The Bahamas. I was right on the edge of making some big money, the next Evangelista. Where are you taking me?”

“Lewis wants to charge you and let the detention center take you off our hands. Screw this headache getting you into witness protection. Maybe I’ll agree with him before the end of the day. I want to hear what you have to say after we watch a little movie.”

She’d been focused on doors and windows and hadn’t noticed the large black portfolio taking up the coffee table in front of a low couch. It probably had Montclaire’s career in there, all her different phases, things Lily hadn’t shared with them.

She wished Montclaire had taken longer getting her stuff together.

She called ahead for Tucker, not bothering to go through Rivera. She drove to the FBI’s offices. Rivera’s car was not in its spot. Tucker was waiting in the media room. She skipped introductions and told Montclaire to take a seat.

He ran the Pizza Hut video of Montclaire coming to the booth where Cassandra Baca and Star Salazar were sitting, the flash of an envelope in her hand, reaching for the back of the booth, her hand coming back empty. Then Cassandra Baca leaving and Star Salazar going around to where Montclaire had been. Sliding out with an envelope pressed against her thigh.

Tucker froze the image.

“What was in the envelope, Lily?”

“Money.”

“You paid Star Salazar for the time with Andrea. Up front.”

“That was the arrangement.”

“It tells me something else,” Aragon said. “The way you left the envelope, Star not counting. There was some trust between you and her. More than I’m feeling between us right now.”

Montclaire did that thing with her hands, laying them flat along her neck, fingertips on the line of her jaw.

“I call bullshit,” Tucker said.

“You call it right,” Aragon said. “Lily, you didn’t want us knowing about Star Salazar. Explain that for us.”

“That’s how Marcy does it. She said if you give the cops everything right away, they’ll still want more. So instead of making stuff up that they’ll find out was a lie, you hold things back and play it out a little at a time. Always keep something in the bank, Marcy said.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be playing lawyer,” Aragon said.

“There’s not a lawyer in this town I would trust. Marcy’s screwed half of them. The rest won’t cross Judge Diaz. I’m doing the best I can.”

“I’d say your best is coming up way short.”

“I paid Star Salazar fifteen hundred dollars the last time.” Montclaire put her hands under her thighs. “I’d started at four hundred. Marcy gave me the money. I put it in an envelope from Judy’s office, it was all I had in the car. Star kept it. That’s how she knew Andrea was seeing the Chief Judge.”

“Why did you have an envelope from Judge Diaz’s office?”

“Marcy had been helping her send out invitations for a fundraiser.”

“What else are you holding back?” Tucker said. “The federal government doesn’t play hide and seek with people who want our protection.”

Aragon was on her feet.

“It’s more than holding back, Lily. It’s lying. You denied passing anything to Star Salazar until you saw we had it on film.”

“I’m sorry for that.”

“Save ‘sorry’ for sentencing. Come on.”

“Star probably still has the envelope. That’s something else you can use.”

“Star’s missing. No help for you there.”

She marched Montclaire to the truck and drove in silence out of town, under I-25 onto south 14. Montclaire could see where they were going from miles away. Aragon turned into the parking lot of the Santa Fe Detention Center and parked at the sign pointing visitors one way, prisoner deliveries the other.

“I’m thinking Rick Lewis is right. Not babysitting you, I could get real work done.”

She circled around so the jail’s walls and fences were on Montclaire’s side of the truck and stopped at the gate for prisoner transports. A van was coming through, heads above red jumpsuits in every window.

“It was Marcy who put me onto Star Salazar,” Montclaire said. “She’d handled her brother’s case.”

Aragon called Lewis.

“Meet me at the office. Grab an interrogation room. We’re starting over.”

Star Salazar’s brother had a different last name. Griego. Victor Griego had been charged with second-degree murder. A party in an apartment gone wrong, shots fired, young men who’d been friends before the PCP kicked in trying to kill each other.

Montclaire had interviewed Star, then brought her to Thornton. Star said her brother had been sitting across from a boy named Stalker, she didn’t know his real name. Two kitchen chairs facing each other, pulled close so their knees almost touched. Each tranked, each wearing a Kevlar vest. Each with a mouse gun in the hand dangling at the end of an arm. Mad-dogging in silence, other kids around them choosing sides, passing bottles and joints. Some loud rap music shaking the walls.

The joint in Griego’s hand without the gun had been dipped in liquid amp.

He took a hit, staring at Stalker through the smoke. He held out the joint, Stalker reaching to take it, making sure to keep his gun arm limp.

“What was the game, Lily?” Aragon asked, back with Lewis in the same cold interrogation room where Montclaire had first started talking.

“To see who could be the coolest,” Montclaire said. “They had to control their nerves, looking into the eyes of someone with a gun in their hand, the PCP kicking in, the kids urging them on. If a muscle twitched, that was it. Fair game. Quick draw with no chance of missing.”

“And so the small guns. It wouldn’t be fatal unless a lucky head shot. The vests would stop the small slug.”

“But when Stalker was taking a hit, Griego shot him point blank in the eye. He killed Stalker right there in front of all those kids.”

They left Montclaire to find the file on the shooting. After reading it together Aragon said, “Thornton pulled it off. Witnesses tripping over each other, changing their stories, saying they were hallucinating. Some key witnesses refusing to testify.”

“And no weapon. That killed the case. They couldn’t even put a gun in Griego’s hand.”

The DA sought sanctions, claiming Thornton was obstructing justice by withholding the gun that had killed Stalker. She claimed attorney-client privilege. Not saying her client had given her anything, but if he had, just revealing the weapon had come from him would divulge confidential information.

Back in the room Aragon asked Montclaire, “You said mouse guns. Where’d you get that?”

“It’s what Star called them.”

“What kind exactly?”

“Those little pocket Berettas,” Montclaire answered, hugging herself against the cold air blasting from the vents. “The ones where the barrel pops up in the back. The front stays down, the bullet flies out the back. I think .25 caliber. No, I’m sure of it. I’d never heard of that caliber before.”

“And you gave these guns to Thornton.”

Montclaire nodded.

“Okay. You bought yourself another night out of jail. How do you feel about staying here? We’ll bring in a cot. You can order delivery for dinner. Let’s talk about that gun.”

Montclaire chafed her bare arms. “You can turn down the AC. I can’t talk with my teeth chattering.”

“In a second. What happened to Griego’s gun?”

“Marcy has it. Star gave it to me. I gave it to her.”

“So that’s why you didn’t want us to know about Star. And the Backpage ads had nothing to do with it. Something else I want to know. Did you ever hear the name Benny Silva?”

Montclaire’s right arm came under her left, her hand reaching up, the pinkie hooking under the thumb of the other hand. This was a new pose.

“No.”

“You do that with your hands, I know you’re not giving me the truth.”

“I’m just cold.”

“So I’ll get you a sweater and ask again. Benny Silva. I’ll be right back.”