THE CALIFORNIA DESERT IS AN alien landscape to Erica. They leave teeming Los Angeles behind and head southeast, driving through a barren pass lined with hundreds of slowly spinning windmills—they look futuristic, surreal. As the city recedes and they get further into the desert, there are giant rock formations, cactuses, and spiny-leafed Joshua trees.
They reach an unmarked track and turn onto it. They drive deeper into the desert and within minutes civilization seems like a distant dream. As far as the eye can see, it’s sand and sun, sun and sand, broken only by the huge rocks looming up from the desert floor—all of it shimmering and wavy in the heat. It’s stunning, but so bleak and forbidding. Erica wonders how anything—or anyone—could survive out here.
And then, in the distance ahead of them, looking at first like a mirage, are the red lights of police cars and an ambulance. As they get closer, they see police tape forming a rough circle, and inside the circle a lifeless body lies on the ground.
They park and Erica gets out of the van. The air is like a furnace, a searing, dry heat she has never felt before. A masculine Asian woman in a dark pantsuit with a detective badge on her belt seems to be in charge. Erica walks up to her.
“The first vulture is here,” the woman cracks. She has short black hair and a tough face with a turned-down mouth and darting dark eyes.
“Happy birthday to you too,” Erica says. “I’ve got a job to do.”
“As long as you don’t interfere with mine.”
“How about we cooperate?”
“I’ve had investigations compromised by sloppy reporting.”
“Thanks for the benefit of the doubt. I’m going to do whatever I can to find the people behind Barrish’s murder. You want to stand in my way or help me?”
The woman narrows her eyes and looks at Erica, softens a little, kicks at the sand. “Detective Sergeant Betsy Takahashi, California State Police. And I know who you are.”
Erica looks over at the body—it’s sprawled facedown, with a single gaping bullet hole in the back of the head. “Where do things stand?”
Takahashi points to a somber Hispanic man who is speaking to another detective. “That’s Martin Alvarez, the head of Recipe for Success. He just identified the deceased as Arturo Yanez.”
“How long has the body been here?”
“Approximately seventy-two hours. He was killed elsewhere and dumped here.”
“Any leads?”
“Not so far. We’ll be removing the body shortly and taking it to the lab for a complete forensic analysis. Dead bodies have a way of giving up information.”
“What are you thinking?”
“That this was a contract killing. Someone persuaded Yanez to poison Barrish. The persuasion probably came in the form of hundred-dollar bills. But once he had done his job, he had to go.”
“But would Yanez kill Kay Barrish, or anyone for that matter? He seemed like such a nice kid. I thought he was doing well.”
“Doing well? He was an unpaid intern at Recipe for Success. He was an illegal, living on the edge, picking up day work, trying to survive. Desperate people do desperate things.” Takahashi blows out air and kicks at the sand again. “This is a tough one. I met Kay Barrish a couple of times, I saw her in action. She treated everybody from a senator to a cleaning woman with the same respect.”
Erica nods. Finding Barrish’s killer transcends her journalistic instincts. It reaches right into her heart and soul. Erica believes deeply in democracy and, like Barrish, is profoundly troubled by ideologues who cast compromise as a bad thing. Compromise builds unity, and unity is strength. A house divided will not stand. We’re all in this together. Barrish was America’s best hope—and she died in Erica’s arms.
“Can I get a statement from you?” she asks Takahashi.
“Keep it short. I’ve got work to do.”
Erica’s pod only takes a couple of minutes to get ready. Lesli calls New York and Erica goes live. Takahashi sticks to the facts and so does she. The sun is starting to set and Erica—a small speck in the vast, unforgiving landscape—closes by stressing that the discovery of the body raises more questions than it answers.