by Alex Gilly
“Only after you showed up. Before that, all those trips to Mexico? No one forced her to do that.”
“But her daughter, the treatment costs…”
“There are plenty of people in this country without health care, Nick. They don’t all become drug smugglers.”
Headlights from a car in the opposite lane lit up Finn’s face.
“You really fell for her, didn’t you?” said Mona.
“I felt sorry for her daughter, that’s all.”
“Uh-huh. Look, I’m sorry for her daughter, too. But my brother is dead and Linda Blake is partly to blame. If the prosecution thinks her testimony will help them get first-degree-murder convictions against Cutts or Serpil or both, then yes, maybe she can cut a deal. But she did a bad thing and we shouldn’t pretend she didn’t. I’m surprised at you for not seeing that.”
“I’ll talk to her, make the legal situation clear.”
“I’m the lawyer. It’s better if she hears it from me,” said Mona.
Finn didn’t think so. “She doesn’t know you,” he said. “She trusts me.”
“Maybe, but I don’t trust her. She left you for dead in the sea, Nick.”
Finn couldn’t see a way out of it.
“You said she lives with her sister?” said Mona.
“In Palos Verdes,” he said.
Mona took the next exit.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Finn pressed the doorbell by the front door of Linda’s sister’s house.
He stood next to Mona on the front step in the pool of light that a motion sensor had switched on when they’d walked up the path. Linda’s white Tahoe was parked in the driveway in front of the garage door.
The front door opened. Linda Blake was wearing an olive hoodie over jeans and sneakers. She had her hair back. Her face went white when she saw Finn.
“Oh my god,” she said. Tears welled in her eyes. She threw her arms around him and drew him in. Finn looked awkwardly at Mona over Linda’s shoulder. Mona just looked bemused. Finn felt Linda’s hand brush against the semiautomatic he’d tucked into the back of his trousers. After a long moment, she broke her embrace and stepped back. Finn and Mona followed her into a dimly lit hallway. Mona closed the front door behind her. In the hallway, Finn noted two doors on the right and one on the left, all of them closed. The end of the hallway opened into what looked like a living room.
“Who else is here?” he said.
Linda wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Just Lucy. She’s asleep.”
“Where?”
Linda went to the second door on the right and slowly turned the door knob so as not to make any noise. Finn peered in. In the wedge of light that spilled through the open door, he saw a cabinet with dolls arrayed neatly on one shelf and picture books on the next; pinned to a corkboard on the wall were myriad artworks drawn by a child’s hand; glow-in-the-dark stars were stuck across the ceiling; along the far wall was a child’s bed; under a duvet with little pink ponies on it, Finn just made out a small form shifting in her sleep.
Linda put her finger to her lips and quietly closed the door.
“Come in here, I don’t want to wake her,” she said.
Mona and Finn followed Linda to the living room at the end of the corridor. Someone had decorated it in a Mexican theme—walls painted the color of yellow clay, tassels hanging from lampshades, an ocher textile draped over the back of the couch, folk masks hooked to the walls. On the coffee table, Finn noticed two dolls like the ones he’d seen on the reception counter in the hotel in Escondido, the ones Linda had called Catrinas: skeletons wearing dresses and headpieces, one pastel green and the other crimson, both holding bouquets. He looked up and saw Mona and Linda staring at each other. Mona still had her Trojans cap on.
“You must be Finn’s wife,” said Linda. “He talked about you on the boat.”
Mona gave her the hard smile that Finn knew she reserved for people she didn’t like. “This is your sister’s house?” she said.
Linda nodded.
“Where is she now?”
“She should be home soon. Her shift ended a half hour ago.”
Mona’s gaze was unflinching.
Linda turned to Finn. “I’m so, so sorry for what I did,” she said. “But you have to believe me, I didn’t have a choice—Cutts said if I didn’t knock you out, he’d kill Lucy.”
Her hands were trembling. Finn was surprised to see a slight curl at the corner of Mona’s mouth, almost a sneer.
“We’ll talk about that later,” he said. “Right now, we’ve got to get you and the girls out of here. We’re taking you to a safe house where he’ll never—”
“You had a choice,” Mona cut in. “Don’t say you didn’t.”
Linda turned to face her. “I’m sorry?”
“Nick told me the things you did. You had a choice. There are other ways to get medical treatment than paying for it with drug money.”
“But the insurance company…”
“The sector I work in, I meet a lot of people without insurance. They work hard, they find ways. They don’t become criminals.”
Linda’s eyes were dry now. She looked at Mona defiantly. “Are you a parent?” she said.
“No.”
“So who are you to judge me?” she said.
“You killed my brother,” said Mona.
The puff went out of Linda’s chest. “That wasn’t me. It was Cutts or Serpil.”
“They might’ve pulled the trigger, but you set him up,” said Mona.
Linda looked from Mona to Finn and back again. “I swear, I didn’t know they were going to kill him. I was so scared. You have no idea what kind of monster Cutts is. You have no idea!”
Linda realized she’d raised her voice and glanced anxiously in the direction of Lucy’s bedroom.
“Maybe we can talk about this later,” said Finn, looking at Mona emphatically. “Right now, we need to round everybody up and get going.”
Then it occurred to him. “Where’s Navidad?”
Linda collapsed onto the sofa, covered her face, and started sobbing into her hands. Eventually, her tears subsided enough for her to take her hands away from her face and look up at Finn with tear-reddened eyes.
“Cutts took her,” she said.
Finn’s mind reeled. “What are you talking about?”
“He’s a monster, Finn. I told you. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
She plucked a Kleenex from a box on the coffee table and waved a finger at Mona and Finn. “You want me to testify against him, right? That’s why you’re both here?”
“We want to bring my brother’s killers to justice,” said Mona.
“And that means you need me to testify, otherwise you’ve got nothing on Cutts. That’s why you came to me first, rather than going directly after him. That’s how smart he is. He doesn’t leave any traces, anything that implicates him in his crimes. It’s amazing that you’re still alive, Finn. Believe me, he’s ruthless.”
“What happened to Navidad?” said Mona.
Linda reached for the pack of cigarettes on the coffee table. She held her husband’s Zippo in two shaking hands.
“Is she dead?” said Finn.
“No. But she will be soon,” said Linda. “You want me to testify, fine. But you should know what you’re dealing with first. You might want to sit down, the both of you, to hear this.”
“I’m fine standing,” said Mona. Finn stayed standing, too.
Linda shrugged and dragged on her cigarette. “Suit yourselves,” she said. She waved her cigarette at Finn. “The narcotics we picked up in Puerto Escondido? That’s only part of it. Cutts and Serpil are running another racket. Something … unspeakable.”
She paused and sucked so hard on her cigarette that Finn heard it burning.
“They steal people’s organs and sell them.”
Mona sat down after all, in the armchair on the other side of the coffee table, facing Linda. She stared at Linda f
or a moment. Then she calmly took her smartphone out of her handbag, started the voice-recorder app, and placed it on the coffee table in front of Linda.
“Start talking,” she said.
Linda paused as though to collect her thoughts. Then she looked at Finn and said, “You know Cutts was in the IRA back in Ireland, right? He was an enforcer, he said. That’s the word he used: enforcer. But then something went wrong, he didn’t tell me what exactly, except that he upset the wrong people and had to disappear. He ended up in the French Foreign Legion, serving in Kosovo during the war there. That’s where he met Serpil.”
Linda took another long, slow drag on her cigarette.
“Either of you ever heard of the Yellow House?” she said.
Neither Mona nor Finn said anything.
“The Yellow House was a farmhouse out in the boondocks of Albania. A group of soldiers from the KLA, the Kosovo Liberation Army, took prisoners there. Serbs, mostly. Anyway, that’s where Serpil comes into it. He’s a doctor, from Turkey originally. I don’t know what he was doing in Albania, but he was there. He started the racket with those KLA soldiers. Cutts got involved. Cutts’s job was to find the buyers. As soon as he found a buyer—someone in Europe or the Middle East or Russia who needed an organ—Serpil would go to the Yellow House. They’d set up a crude little operating theater there. The KLA would bring him a prisoner. Serpil cut out the organ he needed, usually while the patient was still alive. The organ lasts longer that way. And then”—Linda put two fingers to her temple—“bang! The soldiers put a bullet through the poor man’s head.”
Finn and Mona stared at Linda in horror.
“Cutts told you all this?” said Mona.
Linda dragged on her cigarette and nodded.
“Why? Why would he trust you with all these details?”
Linda lit a fresh cigarette with the burning end of her last one. “To make it clear what would happen to my daughter if I didn’t cooperate.”
She held Mona’s gaze; neither woman blinked. Finally, Linda turned her attention to the ashtray and continued her story.
“The war ended and the KLA ran out of prisoners. On top of that, word got out. The UN started investigating. They were onto Serpil. Cutts helped him get out of Albania, first to France and then here.”
Mona shook her head. “There’s no way Cutts could’ve qualified for a green card,” she said. “A known member of the IRA? A designated terrorist group?”
“You think Cutts is his real name? He was a legionnaire, remember. You join the French Foreign Legion under any name you want. Afterwards, they give you a French passport in the name you joined up. Whoever you were before joining the Legion no longer exists.”
All the time Linda was talking, a sort of hollowness had been spreading in Finn’s stomach. He remembered the way Linda had reacted so violently to the play in Escondido on the Day of the Dead, when the shaman had been about to cut open Navidad on the altar. He saw the scene played out again now in his mind’s eye. Now he understood the horror she’d felt. He remembered what the coroner had told him, about Espendoza’s missing kidney. His eyes searched out Linda’s.
“Espendoza…” he said.
She nodded. “Yes. Him, too.”
Finn thought of the young men from Escondido who’d gone aboard La Catrina and had never been seen again. He looked at Mona. From the look of horror on her face, he surmised that she was thinking the same thing as he was.
“What happened to all the bodies? Where are they buried?” Mona asked.
“They’re ‘buried’ at sea, if you want to call it that,” said Linda, making air quotes around buried. Finn thought of all the shark sightings off Two Harbors. Linda turned her attention back to Finn and said, “You were supposed to be next. Cutts was furious that we lost you overboard. He wanted to carve you up bit by bit.”
A chill ran through Finn. He was surprised at how calmly his wife was taking this. She had on her thinking face.
“Talk me through how they do it,” said Mona.
“What do you mean?” said Linda.
“Talk me through the whole operation, step by step: where they get the organs, who removes them, and where. And how they get transplanted into patients. Surely you can’t just walk into a hospital with a human organ in an icebox and say, ‘Here, put this in me.’ There have to be protocols.”
“Sure, there are protocols, but these guys are professionals, remember. They did it all before in Kosovo. They’ve got it all worked out. The victims are sourced from Caballeros country down in Mexico. Mostly from rural towns in Sinaloa. Cutts pays the cartel a set fee per head. They’re smuggled north, to Serpil’s operating theater at Two Harbors. After they’re … they’re harvested, the organs are brought across to the mainland—”
“How?” said Mona.
Linda took a long while to answer. “Aboard the Pacific Belle.”
Mona could barely disguise the expression of loathing on her face. Linda looked at the floor.
“Then what happens?” Mona asked.
“Once they’re on the mainland, Cutts has a contact at the hospital who gets them into the system.”
“Which hospital? What’s the name of his contact?”
“A guy called Dr. Brian Wilson in the transplant program over at Pacific Memorial. He’s the organ-procurement director there. He whitewashes the stolen organs. Then he makes sure that the organs are allocated to the people who paid for them.”
“‘Whitewashes them’—what does that mean?” said Mona.
“There’s a centralized organ-allocation system. You need an organ, your name goes on the list, and you wait. When a consenting organ donor dies, his doctors flag his organs in the system. Dr. Wilson makes the stolen organs appear in the computer records like they came from legitimate sources. And he also makes sure the client gets it. Usually, when an organ becomes available, the computer uses a secret algorithm to determine who gets it. They keep the algorithm secret so that no one tries to game the system by pretending to be sicker or younger or whatever, stack the odds in their favor. But Dr. Wilson can game the system. He has access.”
“Why would he?” said Mona.
“You know how much you can get for a healthy adult kidney these days?” said Linda. She sucked on her cigarette and answered her own question: “A half million dollars.”
A black thought crossed Finn’s mind. “So, Navidad…” he said.
Linda shook her head sadly. “Cutts says children are worth twice as much.”
Finn had heard enough. “Where is he now?” he said.
“You want to hear the definition of irony?” said Linda acidly. “He’s back in the hospital. Turns out he needed an organ himself. Both his kidneys failed. So last month, he stole one. Espendoza’s, actually. That’s why he killed your brother, Mona. When Diego and your brother came around asking questions about the Belle, he let slip that he and Finn had found Espendoza’s body—to the very person who’d killed him. Cutts had a part of Espendoza right there inside of him. If Diego hadn’t mentioned Espendoza to Cutts, he’d still be alive today, and Finn wouldn’t be framed for murder.”
She gave another bitter laugh before continuing. “That’s why Cutts has lived as long as he has, he says—he always covers his tracks. Anyway, it looks like his luck might have finally failed him. His body started rejecting the kidney, which is why he’s back in the hospital. I wouldn’t feel too sorry for him, though—Pacific Memorial has the top-rated transplant team in the state. Cutts is getting the best care that money can buy. No doubt Dr. Wilson will find a fresh kidney for him any day now.”
“Do you know where Navidad is?” Mona said.
Linda shook her head. “I have no idea.” She started sobbing again.
Finn turned to Mona. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
They walked into the corridor, out of Linda’s hearing. Mona spoke first.
“You believe her?” she asked.
“It adds up,” said Finn. “The coroner said Esp
endoza was missing a kidney. Cutts didn’t look well that night Diego and I went to see him about Espendoza. We asked what was wrong, he said he’d just been operated on. He didn’t like the questions we asked. And what about what La Abuelita told us, about all those young men from Escondido, who disappeared? And then, the sharks…”
“What sharks?”
Finn rubbed his face with his hand. Over Mona’s shoulder, he watched Linda light yet another cigarette. At the rate she smoked, she’d need a lung transplant soon herself.
“A lot of sharks are being sighted off of Two Harbors. Way more than usual. All those bodies…” From the look of horror dawning on Mona’s face, he saw that he didn’t need to complete that sentence. “I think she’s telling the truth,” he said.
Mona studied his face for a moment. “She’s in deep,” she said. “She could spend the rest of her life in prison. Why’s she telling us?”
“You see how frightened she is? She doesn’t want to go to prison, be separated from her daughter. Her husband’s dead, all she has is her daughter. It’s all she talks about. She knows that we need her testimony. She’s coming clean to us now, making it clear she’s on our side.”
Mona nodded. “Okay. So then we should call the police, tell them to pick up Cutts at the hospital.”
Finn shook his head. “There’s not enough time. You heard what she said about Navidad. You want the police to do anything, then you have to convince them first. You have to get Linda to repeat everything she just told us. Doesn’t matter if you’ve recorded it—they’ll need to hear it. And she’s not going to do that until she feels Lucy is absolutely safe and she has a guarantee she’s not going to prison. Navidad will be dead by then.”
“So what do you want to do?”
“You take Linda and her daughter to the safe house. Get them settled in, make her understand that Cutts will never hurt her again. Then call the police from there. Meanwhile, I’ll go to the hospital and find out where Cutts is keeping Navidad.”
“What if he won’t cooperate?” said Mona.
Finn’s eyes went cold. “He will,” he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Finn drove Linda’s Tahoe to the hospital. Along with her car keys, he’d relieved her of her cell phone, with which he planned to stay in touch with Mona. He also wanted to make sure Linda didn’t change her mind again and use it to call Cutts. He wanted to see the surprise on Cutts’s face when he walked in.
