A Dead Husband (Jessica Huntington Desert Cities Mystery) (36 page)

“Let me check on my friend, please
. Then I’ll give you what you want.”  With that Jessica moved along the side of the bed toward Sara.  As she did so she nudged her bag that contained the SD card under the bed. Giving up that card was the last thing she intended to do.  Jessica leaned over and placed a wet cloth on Sara’s brow. She sat down on the bed beside her, murmuring as she leaned over close to Sara, speaking almost in a whisper.

“It’s okay, Sara, I’m here
. They’ve put the guns away.  It’s okay, it’s
not
okay.” That was the signal for Peter March, which they had agreed would get instant action. She had no sooner uttered those words when she heard a couple shots, then crashing sounds at the front door. Bedrossian must have had more men at the front of the house. One of the two henchmen in the room turned, heading down the hall back toward the upheaval. The other reached for the gun in his pocket.

Jessica wrapped her arms around Sara and rolled with her off the bed
.  They both landed soundly on the floor beside the bed.  Jessica thought she heard something crack in her wrist as she landed awkwardly on the ground with Sara’s weight added to her own. She stifled a cry of pain. Sara’s eyes fluttered open for a moment and she moaned again. Before Jessica could do anything else she heard commotion on both sides of the room.

“So you theenk I’m a stu
pid beetch, Alan.  Not so stupid as you think.”  Gunfire exploded around them. More crashing sounds were followed by a hail of glass as someone bounded into the room through the sliders.  At the same time, others burst through the doorway into the bedroom.  Jessica managed to roll Sara over and shoved her as close to the underside of the bed as she could. During the melee she saw Margarit land hard on the ground on the opposite side of the bed, a bullet hole in her wrinkle-free brow.  “What a waste,” Jessica thought in that instant, “all that Botox down the drain.”

The next thing Jessica knew, someone was grabbing at her shoulders
.  Adrenalin pumping, Jessica’s elbow flew back as she lurched, trying to free herself.  He let go.  In an instant she reached up and pulled the hat pin from her headband, rolled onto her back prepared to kick and stab the s.o.b. in the same instant. A fresh wave of pain from her damaged wrist stopped her in her tracks for an instant. Sitting back on his haunches, still within kicking range, was Peter March. 

He seemed poised to move if he needed to
, but put his open hands were up in the air, “Jessica, it’s okay. It’s me, it’s over.  You’re safe.  The EMTs are on their way to take care of you and your friend.”

Standing behind him was Detective Hernandez and a couple guys wearing what looked like SWAT team gear, still hanging on to guns that looked about the size of her Porsche
. Jessica was hyperventilating and fighting to regain control before she blacked out.  Too late.

EPILOGUE

Her arm in a sling, Jessica sat on the back patio, alone, basking in the late afternoon heat
.  Her wrist was badly sprained but not broken. In time, her wrist would be as good as new. She wasn’t sure about the rest of her.  Jessica’s already damaged sense of security had been dealt another blow. Several of them, in fact. In less than a week, she had seen things that would haunt her for the rest of her life. 

Vile pictures intruded upon her, waking or sleeping, worse even than the recurring image of Jim in their bed with the silicone-breasted blond bouncing on top of him
. Jessica now had a veritable photo album of revolting snapshots in her head. If she sat long enough in the incendiary desert heat perhaps it would burn them from her brain. 

Jessica fought against the intrusive images
.  She practiced her breathing, used thought-stopping, and all the other tools she had accumulated to manage rumination and worry.  No way was she going to let recent events leave her floundering in a sea of panic.  She took heart from the fact that when confronted with real rather than imagined calamities she had actually done quite well.  Perhaps then, in time, her mind, like her wrist,
would
heal. 

The ‘cat pack’ had been there late the night before, wound up for hours after Detective Hernandez filled them in on what the police knew
, or thought they knew about Roger’s murder. They were piecing things together from a variety of sources, but much of their information was coming from the one surviving member of Bedrossian’s team with him at the condo on Thursday. Serj Dorian had been taken alive as he fled down the hall from the bedroom when all hell broke loose, right into the waiting arms of the police.  He was being very cooperative, to say the least.  They were still trying to discern how much of what Serj had to say was based on what he knew rather than what he surmised, guessed or made up. 

Margarit was dead
. She was felled by a single shot to the head from one of the police sharp-shooters that had made his way into the backyard of her condo, and then burst into the room where Sara was being held. She had been killed, but not before putting a couple bullets into Alan Bedrossian from a .38 stashed in a pocket of the exquisite silk jacket she wore.  Apparently, the hit on the head she suffered when she fell, after Aiden punched her, had knocked her out, but not killed her. No one knew for certain when she had come to, but she obviously heard Bedrossian’s premature eulogy and had not taken kindly to his characterization of her as a stupid bitch.

Bedrossian was still alive but it wasn’t clear yet if he was going to make it
. If he did live, he wasn’t ever going to be the same. Margarit had shot him at close range in the face.  One of the bullets had made a permanent mess of his jaw but would have left him otherwise unharmed. It was the second bullet that tore a jagged path through his brain, giving him such an uncertain future. The thug who had so dispassionately ended Aiden’s life, right before Jessica’s eyes, had also been downed by a police bullet moments after Margarit was shot.  He had drawn his gun, but never had a chance to fire.

According to Serj, the l
ast man standing after the showdown at Santa Rosa Cove, Margarit was behind much of the murder and mayhem.  She had stolen files from Alan Bedrossian’s computer—sensitive material for sure.  In her ignorance and haste she had, indeed, not only
copied
, but
moved
some key files from the computer in his office in Los Angeles to that little SD card. Among the missing files was account information, along with user I.D.s and passcodes Bedrossian needed in order to access money stashed offshore.  Some of the money in those accounts belonged to “clients” that were every bit as ruthless as Alan Bedrossian. He had just changed all the passcodes and that information had not yet been backed up by the automated system he used.

It wasn’t just the money, though
. Some of the encrypted files contained information about clients and schemes including money laundering, arms dealing, trafficking in humans and drugs, as well as other criminal ventures. The partners revealed by the information in those files would not have forgiven such a breach if they had caught wind of it. He had to get that card back and end the potential for any further leaks. 

Authorities in a number of jurisdictions were having a field day with the information found on that little SD card
. They expected to find much more once they went through materials obtained from a raid of Bedrossian’s home and office Friday morning. one week after Roger’s murder. 

Bedrossian had suspected Margarit was up to no good for some time
.  For months he had overlooked the fact that she was skimming money from him. He considered it “part of her charm” as he had told his security guys.  He understood that “the stolen watermelon is sweeter” or some such sociopathic nonsense, according to Serj. When he discovered the missing files, though, Bedrossian went ballistic.  This he could not overlook, or forgive, and Margarit’s fate was sealed. 

It didn’t take long for Margarit to figure that out
. She was sleeping with a member of Bedrossian’s security team. Aiden Azarian was a trusted associate, as close to Alan Bedrossian as anyone ever got.  He came with the right ethnic credentials. His father was Armenian, like Bedrossian. Aiden’s mother was Turkish, teaching him her language and leaving him with a soft spot for the diabolical and beguiling Margarit.  Serj claimed he had warned Aiden and Alan Bedrossian that Margarit Tilik was trouble with a capital T.

When Aiden
told Margarit that Bedrossian had discovered the missing files the whole last nightmarish week began. Friday night Margarit went to Roger, demanding he return the money and the SD card. She was furious when he argued with her, trying to get her to go to the police instead.  They continued to argue for an hour, pausing long enough for Roger to answer the door for pizza.  While he was paying for the pizza, Margarit got a call from Alan, asking where she was. As she told Aiden later, she made up her mind to leave the country right then and there.

Shortly after the pizza guy left, Roger had downed a couple pieces of pizza
.  It infuriated her that he could eat when she was so distraught. When she lit a clove cigarette to calm her nerves, he made her more angry telling her not so smoke. Of course the version of events she told Alan and Serj was a little different.

“H
e was just eating pizza like it was nothing, like I was nothing. He won’t geeve me my money then he tells
me
to calm down, can you believe it?  I had to make him take me serious!” she later told Alan Bedrossian and his henchmen. She pulled out the gun she had brought with her and threatened to shoot Roger if he didn’t hand over the satchel immediately. 

Roger
relented.  The money was in his car and he would go get it, but had to get his keys first. Margarit said she followed him down the hall to his office where he retrieved his car keys from the desk. When he came out of the office he not only had his keys but his cell phone and started to make a call. Detective Hernandez said that from the phone records it was apparent he was dialing the local police.

T
hat was the last straw as far as Margarit was concerned. In that instant she decided he was no longer to be trusted and shot him point blank.  Jessica wondered if she had that little flask with her and had been tippling her way through the encounter with Roger. 

Margarit took his car keys and retrieved her bag from Roger’s car
.  When she came back into the house she called Alan Bedrossian to tell him she was on her way back to her bungalow at the La Quinta Resort and would be there in 20 minutes or so. Then, as she eventually revealed to Bedrossian and his men, “I could not believe my ears.  Roger was calling me to help heem.  But why would I heem?  He needed to be dead!” She marched back down the hall, bent over Roger, and shot him twice. 

When she left the house in Cat City she headed straight for the airport instead of the resort
. Bedrossian knew right away what she was up to thanks to a tracking device installed in the vehicle. He and his security team cut her off before she got to the airport and drove her back to the bungalow. 

That’s where they
were when they learned that Roger Stone had been holding money for Margarit along with the SD card.  It was then, too, that they all discovered she had the money, but not the SD card. According to Serj, Margarit told them “some cock and bull story about Roger turning on her because he was madly in love with her.”

She swore t
hat the whole thing had been his idea. He wanted her to take the money and run away with him. The information on the SD card was for protection from Bedrossian.

“In the end I could not do it Alan
. It is you who is een my heart. I went there to tell heem. He tried to make me call the police and give
them
the card.  He says if he can’t have me you can’t have me either...I say no and take the bag from heem. I didn’t know he double-crossed me.”

Margarit begged Bedrossian for a chance to ge
t it back, not telling them that Roger Stone was already dead. Serj said she convinced Bedrossian that if he barged in over there that night they might never see that card again. If she played along, apologized and made up with Roger, she was sure she could find out what he had done with that SD card.  Bedrossian told his guys later he didn’t believe most of what she said but figured she had a better idea than he did where the SD card was and agreed to give her a couple days to get it back. 

“And,” as the loquacious thug informed the police “that was his first big mistake
. He should have killed that bitch right then.”

Detective Hernandez tried not to editorialize too much but he said he thought the guy relished telling the who
le blood-thirsty story. Serj had actually laughed when he spoke those words and made a little slash mark across his throat to illustrate what should have been done to Margarit. 

Bedrossian’s second big mistake
, in Serj’s account, was assigning Aiden to keep tabs on Margarit as she set out to retrieve the missing SD card.  Aiden went with her the next morning and discovered that police were at the house. Serj wasn’t sure what Aiden knew, or didn’t know, about the circumstances surrounding the murder of Roger Stone. In any case he helped sell the story Margarit told later that a conspiracy was afoot. 

It was Aiden who, at Margarit’s request, tapped into Laura’s cell phone
. Aiden activated the microphone on Laura’s cell phone remotely, using the same roving bug technique FBI and NSA agents employ to track bad guys like Bedrossian. Once they could eavesdrop they stayed a step ahead of them all.  No wonder they knew, even before the police, that Laura had spent the night with a waiter at Lulu’s by the name of Eric. Laura had, in effect, told them Saturday when she made her confession to Jessica!

Margarit wasted no time
. She sent Aiden to the restaurant Saturday to find Eric.  When he wasn’t there Aiden asked the same questions Jerry and the police asked later, giving them little new information other than a last name. The ever resourceful and increasingly desperate Margarit suggested they try to find him at the Villa Caballeros apartment complex Laura had identified as the site for their liaison. Eric’s unwitting cousin opened the door when Margarit knocked. With Aiden’s help, they easily overpowered the man, pushing their way into the apartment. 

Of course, Jessica and her friends already knew th
e outcome of their ruthless, but fruitless, endeavor.  Poor Eric and his cousin had been pushed hard to give up information they didn’t have. They had been killed when Aiden and Margarit couldn’t come up with the SD card, despite merciless interrogation and a thorough search of their apartment. 

Police investigators were still going through all the ballistics evidence but they expected that the 9 mm Aiden had with him at the Santa Rosa Cove would be a match to the gun used to kill Eric Warren and Joe Abernathy
.  They had the same expectation for a match between the bullets taken from Roger’s body and those removed from Alan Bedrossian. Both they figured, originated from Margarit’s .38 she had with her at the condo. 

On Saturday Margarit also dispatched Carlos Ramirez to search Laura’s house for t
he SD card, as a favor for her and for Alan.  He was supposed to go in and do the search as soon as the police left the scene on Saturday but it grew late. Then, he decided it would be better to go back after nightfall so he could enter the house unseen.  At that point, he had gone home and started partying. By sunset he was so drunk and stoned he couldn’t walk.  He passed out or fell asleep so he didn’t get to the house until Sunday morning.  Carlos had barely started the task when Jessica and Jerry arrived.  A good part of that story was also already well-known to them all.  Jessica, in fact, still bore mementoes of that encounter. 

Promised leniency for hi
s testimony, Serj admitted he had a hand in getting the story from Carlos and ending the fool’s pitiful life. Carlos had met with an end as nasty as that meted out to poor Eric. From what Serj told them, there was no point in even looking for a body. There’s a lot of uninhabited desert between the Coachella Valley and Phoenix. Plenty of places to dump a body.