In Desperation

20

Mesa Mirage, Phoenix, Arizona

T hey’d met when she was working as a waitress at a North Hollywood bar and still messed up on drugs. Ivan would talk to her. He was a tough patrol cop, divorced because of the job. Cora dated him. Then she got pregnant. It took a long time before she could bring herself to tell Ivan.

His reaction was seared into her memory.

He drove her to a clinic somewhere around Wilshire Boulevard, slapped five hundred dollars in her hand and told her to “take care of it.” She got out and he drove away.

The clinic was a decaying building that smelled like a veterinarian’s office where they put down dogs and cats.

Cora was so afraid.

“You’re too far along,” the nurse said.

Cora took it as a sign. Overwhelmed, she went to a church and prayed until she’d reached the decision to keep her baby. This was her one chance to save herself. She took a city bus to a community support agency. They counseled her, helped her get clean for her baby. It was hard, very hard, but she had Tilly alone.

And she raised her alone.

Cora never saw Ivan Peck again.

Later, she’d bumped into one of the girls from the bar who told her that Ivan was a cheating asshole who was married when he was dating Cora. Everyone knew. Didn’t she know? And this girl had also heard that Ivan got caught up in some kind of cop scandal.

“Scandal? What kind of scandal?” Gannon had asked Cora.

“I don’t know.”

“Was it corruption, use of force, what? Was it in the papers?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ivan Peck may be linked to Salazar, the dead guy in the desert. He was ex-LAPD.” Gannon consulted his notebook. “Did you know a cop named Octavio Sergio Salazar?”

“No.”

“I need to contact Peck.”

“Why, Jack?”

“Maybe Peck knows something about Salazar, something that could help. Do you have any idea if he’s still on the force?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think, Cora!”

“Jack, it was more than eleven years ago, I don’t know.”

“I need to find him.”

Gannon immediately dug into Ivan Peck’s background.

He called his best source again: Adell Clark, the ex-FBI agent turned private investigator in Buffalo. This time he got through.

“Jack, I am so sorry,” Clark said. “I’ve been tied up with an insurance fraud. I got your messages. I saw the news out of Phoenix. It’s just awful. It breaks my heart. I want to help. Tell me what you need.”

Gannon confidentially related every aspect of the case to Clark.

“I need all I can get on Octavio Sergio Salazar and John Walker Johnson. But first, I need everything you can get on Peck right now. I’m assuming he’s alive. Adell, I need to confront him face-to-face to find out if he can help us. He’s Tilly’s father. He’s got a stake in this. I know I’m grabbing at straws but we’re running out of time.”

“Okay, I’ve got some friends with the LAPD. I’ll make calls and get back to you as quick as I can.”

Before ending the call, Gannon gave Clark both names Cora had used and her date of birth then asked Clark to check if his sister had any arrests, warrants or convictions.

He then requested urgent help from the WPA news library. Then he went online and used every database the WPA subscribed to, to search for more on Salazar, Johnson and Peck. He scoured property records, state and municipal records. At the same time, he searched news archives for anything on an assassin known as The Tarantula. He texted Isabel Luna in Juarez and pressed her for updates on the executions in the desert, the cartels, anything.

Nothing new, Luna responded. Will alert you when I know more.

The news library got back to him with more on the ritualistic worship of the bogus La Santa Muerte, or “Saint Death.” By collecting the blood of their victims to honor the “narcosaint,” the hit men believed she would protect them while they exacted vengeance on their enemies. The images of the corpses in the barn flashed in Gannon’s mind when his cell phone rang.

“It’s Adell. I got nothing on Cora. I’m still working on Salazar and Johnson but I have more on Ivan Peck. Ready?”

“Okay, Adell.” Gannon pulled out his pen and notebook.

“He’d been on the job roughly ten years by the time he’d met Cora. He left the department about a year ago. In all, he had twenty years with the LAPD, starting as an officer on a foot beat, then a black-and-white patrol. He was with SWAT, working his way up the officer ranks until he made Detective I.”

“Any problems?”

“Hold on. He’d been assigned to the Vice Division then worked Robbery, Homicide, Gangs and Narcotics. He was decorated, received the medal of valor.”

“For what?”

“It’s posted on their site. He was off duty, traveling on an L.A. freeway, when a school bus blew a tire, rolled and caught fire. He helped lead the rescue of twenty children, their teacher and driver. They all survived.”

“So he’s an all-star-apart from cheating on his wife and impregnating my sister.”

“Well, it was sometime after Cora that he actually did get divorced. His ex claimed he hit her, punched her one night after she’d asked him about his affairs. That triggered a slow downfall, which led to his troubles on the job.”

“What kind of troubles?”

“He was suspected of being…under the influence is the term I got, of some of L.A.’s gangs, notably those with ties to the Tijuana cartel.”

“Really?”

“Over his last years with the department, it was alleged he stole narcotics, used excessive force and beat suspects.”

“Bet he didn’t get a medal for that. Was he ever charged?”

“No. He went before a Board of Rights, at least four times. He was written up, given temporary desk duty, never charged or threatened with termination. They never had enough evidence. After he clocked in twenty years, he hung it up, took his pension.”

“Where is he?”

“He runs his own detective agency in downtown L.A.”

“Can you give me the address?”

“I’ve got it right here.”