Weeks later, after Wilson and Martinez were dropped into the desert along with the rest of the Dirty Dozen, Soledad cooperated with federal authorities, agreeing to speak at a press conference. FBI agents were impressed with the bereaved mother’s courage, but they began to investigate her anyway, lacking confidence in the Santa Mariana police. They soon discovered that Leeta Albridge had been a volunteer at the women’s clinic where Soledad had once worked training rape crisis counselors. The FBI knocked on Soledad’s door again, to address what couldn’t be a coincidence, but there was no answer. A neighbor told them she’d gone to Mexico City to care for a sick aunt.
While Mexican law enforcement officers tried to locate Soledad, FBI agents in Houston visited her mother in the hospital, where the old woman would soon die from pneumonia. In her delirium she was insistent that her daughter was innocent of any wrongdoing and said she wasn’t running from the police but had killed herself. “She had a gun,” her mother said, describing the days before Luz’s funeral. “She was upset. She was drinking.” Soledad’s sisters, who were in the hospital room while their mother was being questioned, pleaded with the agents to leave her alone, but they refused.
“She’s a good girl,” Soledad’s mother repeated many times through her tears, and then she added: “My Jenny wouldn’t do anything wrong.”
Soledad’s three sisters rose from their chairs in unison, demanding the interview be terminated, but it was too late. The agents had heard what their mother said.
After her connections to Leeta Albridge and captain Missy Tompkins were uncovered, federal agents interviewed Soledad’s other friends and her associates from the army. In the Inwood section of Manhattan, FBI agents searched the apartment of specialist Agnes Szydlowski and her husband. As medics in Afghanistan, Agnes and Soledad had saved each other’s lives. Agnes drank coffee and smoked cigarettes at her kitchen table as the agents dusted every surface in her home for fingerprints. “I love Soledad like a sister,” Agnes said, “but you’re wasting your time. She’s never been in my apartment.”
Investigators later discovered that Agnes and her husband owned a motorcycle, the same make and model as the one witnesses in Times Square described on the night Stella Cross and her husband were murdered.
“That motorcycle was stolen months ago,” Agnes said. She said nothing else until she had a lawyer.
Across the Atlantic, authorities in Scotland began to investigate British Army captain Gwendolen Campbell at the request of the FBI. During Gwendolen’s first deployment to Afghanistan, the Taliban shot down a helicopter she was riding in, leaving her blinded in one eye and missing several fingers. Despite her injuries and the deaths of her fellow soldiers, she survived the attack thanks to American medics on the ground—Soledad and Agnes. Rarely did a day pass without Gwendolen thinking of the two women who had saved her life. When she heard the news that Soledad’s daughter had died, Gwendolen felt wounded, as if it had happened to her own family. She traveled from her home in Glasgow to California to attend the funeral. After she returned home, her family and friends reported that she fell out of touch, which wasn’t in keeping with her normal character. No one had been able to find her.
Investigators searched every residence associated with Captain Gwendolen Campbell in England and Scotland. They received a tip about a Highlands farmhouse not far from the village where the Empire Media CEO’s nephew had been found wandering one morning weeks earlier, released by his kidnappers. There was no direct evidence that Gwendolen had been in the farmhouse, and the nephew could not identify her, but there was a knife in the kitchen with traces of blood and blond hairs on it, which were later proven to be a DNA match for the CEO’s twin brother. On the bathroom mirror was a message written with red lipstick: For Jennifer, with no regrets.
Gwendolen’s passport had recently been logged at the airport in Buenos Aires. Since then there had been no sign of her.
Soledad Ayala (Aliases: Jennifer Ayala, Jenny Ayala) was placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, the only woman there, with a promise of a $100,000 reward for information leading to her capture.
In an interview with The Nola and Nedra Show, Cheryl Crane-Murphy said, “Before we send a lynch mob after this woman, might I remind everyone that Soledad Ayala earned the Silver Star for bravery in Afghanistan? She was not able to collect her award at the White House for obvious reasons, but she still deserves our respect.”
“Might one call her an American hero?” asked Nedra Feldstein-Delaney.
“One might,” said Nola Larson King.
? ? ?
ON FRIDAY, I WAS AWAKENED by the music: “. . . your mama’s in the trunk of Daddy’s car / no baby, she’s not gonna wake up / you see, Mama could never keep that big mouth shut . . .”
I placed the stacks of cash in white envelopes and stuffed them into a paper bag that Julia could take with her should I decide to give her the money. As I was folding up the bag, my phone rang.
“Change of plans,” Julia said, nearly breathless. “Come to the Beauty Closet right away.”
“Why can’t you come here?” I preferred Julia on my turf. Besides, I wasn’t allowed back in the Austen Tower.