Damage Control (33 page)

A woman materialized out of nowhere to join the man. This was Tammy Georgen, Bill’s mother, and she wore a bathrobe over a nightgown. “Is Billy all right?” she asked. Judging from her perfectly coiffed big hair, she hadn’t yet lain her head on a pillow. “Is he hurt?”

The question meant that the boy wasn’t home, and that brought a sense of relief. “We need to talk,” Dom said.

“Is he hurt?” Georgen asked, building on his wife’s budding panic.

Dom kept his face noncommittal. “May I come in, please?”

Husband and wife searched each other for an objection, and then stepped aside to let him in. The house wasn’t large, but it was well-appointed. Lots of polished hardwoods, granite, and original oil paintings. Dom led the way to what he supposed they called their family room, where a beamed cathedral ceiling towered over a leather conversation group that was designed to give maximum viewing efficiency for the enormous flat-screen television that was mounted over the wood-burning fireplace.

“Please answer our question, Father,” Georgen said, pulling up the rear of the small parade that landed on opposite ends of the curved sofa.

“For now, the answer is yes. Bill is fine.”

“What do you mean,
for now
?” Tammy was wrapped tighter than a watch spring.

Dom took his time, both for dramatic effect and to gather his thoughts. “The way it was put to me, Mrs. Georgen, was,
What goes around, comes around.
”

Tammy recoiled while Georgen blanched. “What does that mean?” Tammy asked. She looked to her husband. “Eric?”

“I have no idea what he’s talking about,” Georgen said, but everything about his demeanor screamed that he was lying.

Dom turned to Tammy. “Have you seen or spoken to Rachel Wagner recently?”

“Tristan’s mom? No, why? What does she have to do with Billy?”

Georgen squirmed.

“Tristan and Bill were supposed to go on a missionary trip together, weren’t they?”

“No,” Tammy said. “Well, yes and then no. Eric decided that Mexico was too dangerous a place to go right now. You know, with the drug violence and all. We told the church that he wouldn’t be going. I don’t understand what any of this has to do with you.”

Dom shifted his gaze to the husband. “How about you, Eric? Do you see any connection here?” Agent Boersky had made it abundantly clear that the words needed to come directly from Georgen in order for them to be useful in court.

“Of course not. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Tammy saw it, too. “Eric, what’s going on here?”

“The Wagners know, Eric,” Dom lied. “They know the details, and they’ve vowed to make it right.”

Tammy reached for her husband’s hand, but he flinched and pulled it away. “What’s Father talking about?”

Georgen shot to his feet and towered over Dom. “Get out of my house,” he said.

“I don’t think I will,” Dom replied. “The name Abrams mean anything to you, Mr. Georgen?”

Even more color drained from the man’s face.

“You know that they’re all dead, don’t you?” Dom said.

“Who’s dead?” Tammy said. “Oh, my God, Father, what is going on?”

Georgen sat heavily onto the sofa. “That’s not possible. They swore.”

Tammy brought both hands to her mouth as realization dawned that something truly awful was unfolding in front of her. Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, my God, Eric, what have you done?”

“I haven’t done anything,” he snapped.

“Tell Tammy the real reason why you pulled Bill off of that trip to Mexico.”

“Eric, what is he talking about?”

A fine line separates self-righteous anger from all-out panic, and Dom could tell that Eric was toeing the line. If this was going to get violent, now would be the time.

Tammy rose from her seat and walked to her husband. “Eric, is Billy in danger?”

Georgen looked like a trapped animal, his eyes wild and red as they darted from one corner of the room to another, either looking for an answer or a weapon.

Dom rose to join them. “You can get in front of this,” he said. “If you go to the police before the police come to you, I think the Wagners will feel a sense of justice. Confession goes a long way toward counteracting betrayal.”

“Eric, tell me.” Tammy said. “Look at me and tell me.”

Georgen pushed her gently away and started to pace, nervously adjusting the belt on his robe. “I just want you to know that I told Reverend Jackie that this was a bad idea. I thought it was desperate. She countered that these are desperate times. And Abrams
guaranteed
that the missionaries would be safe.”

Tammy reflexively reached out for Dom’s arm. He covered her grasp with his other hand.

“What went wrong?” he asked Dom.

“First tell Tammy,” Dom said. “You owe her that much.” He walked her to the sofa and sat her next to her husband.

Eric started with a huge breath. “This man named Abrams approached us with a plan.”

“Approached whom?” Dom interrupted. He needed specifics.

“Reverend Mitchell, I think. I showed up for a board of directors meeting and he was there. Toward the end of the meeting, she asked all but the executive committee to leave the room, and then Abrams made his pitch. We were to allow the missionaries to be taken captive, and when the ransom demand came in, we were to walk through a series of very specific steps to arrange for a particular person to rescue them.”

“Oh, my God,” Tammy gasped.

“It sounds worse that it was,” Georgen said. “Honey, you know how strapped the church has been for cash since ... well, since the incident. This man—this Abrams—gave us the money for the ransom, with more to spare—millions of dollars—to keep us afloat.”

“You’re talking about
endangering children
,” Tammy said. Dom sensed that if he hadn’t been sitting on the other side of her, she’d have pulled away from Georgen.

“No,” Georgen insisted. “We’re talking about the charade of kidnapping. We were told that no one would get hurt.”

“Think of how terrifying that would have been,” Tammy said. Giving in to the urge to separate from him, she stood.

“It would be an adventure,” Georgen countered. “They’d be held for a couple of days, and then they’d be let go. No one was going to get hurt.” He pointed to Dom. “I don’t know what you’re talking about when you say they’re dead. I haven’t heard that.”

“There has to be an easier way to raise money,” Dom said, parrying the question.

Georgen rose to his feet, and Dom followed him. He wasn’t going to give him a height advantage. “It’s not like we dreamed this up out of the blue,” he insisted. “Abrams came to
us
with this. And with the details he knew, I actually thought that he was working for the government.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Tammy shouted. “Why would the government want to kidnap missionaries?”

“It wasn’t about the missionaries!” Georgen said. “It was never about them. That’s why we ultimately agreed. This was about arresting some enemies of the state or some such thing. They didn’t go into a lot of detail, but it was all an elaborate trap for the rescuers.”

He reached out for Tammy and grasped her shoulders. “Honey, you have to believe that we were told that there was zero chance that anybody would get hurt.”

“They’re
dead
, Eric! Didn’t you hear Father?”

Georgen shot a panicked look to Dom. “What happened?”

“Either someone lied, or communications broke down.”

“But why haven’t we heard?”

“The same reason why none of the families even know that their loved ones were taken captive,” Dom said. He felt his poker face slipping away. “Because this whole thing was designed to thrust all of the danger onto the innocents.”

“Jesus, Father, do you believe for a moment that I would deliberately endanger children and church volunteers?”

“I believe that you’re a coward,” Dom said. “And I believe that you had enough shadow of doubt that you pulled your own son off of the trip while you allowed other people’s sons and daughters to be slaughtered.”

“How dare you speak to me that way?” Georgen boomed.

Tammy was the first to hear the bullshit bell ringing in the back of her brain. “Why are you here, Father?”

“Are you even a priest at all?” Georgen asked. He took a threatening step forward.

Dom stopped him by pointing a finger at a spot above the other man’s nose. If it had been a gun, it would have been a sure kill shot. “Is that really where you want to draw the line for moral indignation?” Dom asked. “Enjoy your eternity in Hell.”

As he walked back thorough the foyer and out into the night, he heard the Georgens going at it. This would be the fight of fights. And boy, was there a surprise coming their way in a few minutes.

He’d just turned the corner at the end of the walk when he saw Agent Boersky and his driver striding toward him. “Your assistant called from Virginia,” he said. “She told us that you got everything.”

Dom pulled the recorder from his pocket and handed it over. “She’s nobody’s assistant,” he said, “and you’d do well not to be caught calling her that.”

“Give me a heads-up on what I’m going to hear on this,” Boersky said.

“He confessed to arranging the payoff, and he confessed to the fraud.”

“What about the government connection?”

Dom shook his head. “Nothing solid. He alluded to it, but I don’t think he knows those details.”

“But we got enough to give us cause to dig deeper?”

“That’s your call, not mine,” Dom said. “Right now, I just want to go and take a long shower.”

“Thank you, Father,” Boersky said.

“Let’s not do this again anytime soon,” Dom replied. “Do I have a ride back to the airport over there?” He pointed in the direction of Boersky’s vehicle.

“Yes, sir. Just wander that way. Agent Palmer is looking for you.”

Dom tossed off a little wave. Under the circumstances, he wasn’t sure if there was a right thing to say.

“Um, Father?” Boersky’s demeanor had darkened. “You need to give my boss a call. I believe you call her Wolverine?”

Dom’s insides tumbled. “Tonight?”

“She said right away.”

With an ever-growing sense of dread, Dom pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed the number from memory. He was about to hit Send when the phone buzzed in his hand. The caller ID showed that it Venice calling from the office.

He answered, “Hello?”

“Oh, Dom,” she said. She sounded near tears. “I don’t know what Digger is going to do.”

“What happened?” He asked the question even though he knew the answer.

“I just got a hit on ICIS. The Phoenix police found a woman’s body an hour ago in a Dumpster behind a bar. Evidence shows that she’d been shot several times. No identification, but the general description matches Gail.”

Dom stopped walking and sat on the curb.

Venice continued, “The body had been wrapped in plastic bags, but a homeless woman looking through the Dumpster for food found it and called it in.” Venice snuffled. “Oh, my God, Dom, it’s just so horrible.”

Dom closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. This was beyond horrible, beyond it on a scale that he didn’t know how to measure.

In that instant, Dom realized what he had to do. A woman had been murdered and her body disposed of as garbage. Even if it wasn’t Gail, she deserved better than that. She deserved better than to be left alone on a cold gurney in the morgue.

“Father Dom, are you there?”

“I’m going to her,” he said. “Can you get me the address for the morgue?”

Silence. Then Venice said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. This is an active homicide investigation. If you get involved, the questions are—”

“She was our friend, Venice. That’s really all that matters. Can you give me the address or do I have to look it up on the Internet?”

Consciousness came slowly to Trevor Munro. The phone call came in the deepest phase of his REM sleep.

This particular ringtone—“Ride of the Valkyries”—belonged exclusively to one person.

With the lights still off and his eyes still closed, he slid the phone open and brought it to his head.

“Yes,” he said.

“Jesus, Trev,” the big voice boomed. “Where the hell—”

“Call me back in three minutes,” Munro said. He clicked off.

These were delicate times. He wanted to be one hundred percent sure that he was awake and fully functional, if only as a hedge against saying something stupid. He kicked off the covers, padded to the bathroom to urinate, and then soaked a washcloth with cold water and scrubbed his face with it. Just to be sure that he was completely lucid, he recited the alphabet aloud—backwards.

He’d timed it all perfectly. He was back at his bedside table exactly two minutes and forty-five seconds after he’d hung up. Sjogren was not quite as punctual. It took him three and a half minutes to call back. The time on the clock read 2:37.

“Okay, speak to me,” he answered when the Valkyries started singing again.

“Jesus, Trev,” Sjogren said through the thick Boston brogue. “This is my third call to you. What the hell have you been doin’?”

“It’s called sleep,” Munro said. “Among life’s most important activities.”

“I guess you get to do that if you’re the one paying the bills. Me, I work around the clock.”

“For what you get paid, that’s the least I would expect,” Munro said. “The fact of your call must mean that you have a name for me.”

“I do,” Sjogren said. “And let me tell you, it took some doing to get it, too.”

Munro waited for it.

“It’s a babe,” Sjogren said. “A chick named Maria Elizondo.”

Munro jotted the name onto the pad he kept on his night stand. The name rang a distant bell, though he didn’t know why.

“And listen to me, Trev,” Sjogren went on. “I deeply don’t give a shit what happens to you, but I warn you to be prepared for a really bad reaction to this. Elizondo is this loon’s main squeeze. He thinks they’re in love.”

“I’ll be damned,” Munro said. He remembered now that he’d actually met this treasonous bitch. During one of his meetings with Hernandez, she’d been in the car.

“How certain are you of the identity?” Munro asked. He didn’t care all that much, but passing this news along was tantamount to issuing a death warrant. It seemed reasonable to want to be sure.