10 Tahoe Trap Page 9

  Spot came running up to sniff the stranger. The man jumped back, then looked embarrassed at his fear.

  I took Spot’s collar and pulled him back.

  The man looked at Paco. “Paco, man, you’re not allowed here anymore. You and your mom have been evicted.”

  “You make a nice homecoming, Garnett,” I said.

  The man turned to me, venom in his sneer. “You want to act like a smart ass, you can tell it to the cops.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

  “When did you evict them?” I asked.

  He jerked his thumb toward Paco. “I served his old lady thirty days notice a month ago. She left yesterday, so the house is back in my possession. I’m selling the property, so I need the house vacant.”

  “Then we just have to pick up Paco’s things, and we’ll be out of your hair.”

  “You’re not picking up anything.” He stepped between me and the broken steps. “What’s left behind is mine. I already changed the lock.”

  I turned to Paco. “Paco, did Cassie take all of her things when you left yesterday?”

  He made the tiniest of head shakes.

  “I guess they didn’t move out,” I said to the man. “They just left for a couple of days. Which means that in changing the locks you are guilty of trespass.”

  “It’s been thirty days. I can file an unlawful detainer.”

  “You can file, but California law does not allow you to evict until your case is heard in court and the judge decides in your favor. Only then are you allowed to have the sheriff come and evict the tenants if they haven’t moved out.”

  I pointed at his cell phone, which he still held in his hand. “Go ahead and dial. We’ll see what the cops think. Meanwhile, we’ll get our stuff. Please unlock the door.”

  “I won’t. I have my rights. This is my house.”

  “If you don’t, I’ll have to let Paco in one way or another. It might cause some damage.”

  Garnett’s ears were red with anger. He put his phone in his pocket and stepped in front of me. His eyes darted to Spot, came back to me.

  “Touch my house, I’ll break your nose. I’m within my rights to defend my property.”

  This guy seemed more bluster than real threat.

  “Spot,” I said, “stay.”

  I went to walk past the man.

  He took a wild swing at my face. If he’d been sober, I might have been in trouble.

  I grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm. I used his momentum to spin him around, levering his arm up hard behind him.

  He grunted in pain, but otherwise didn’t vocalize. Impressive control.

  Spot had jumped forward and stood looking at me, then at the man, then back at me.

  “Stay,” I again said to Spot.

  “Assault is a serious crime,” I said from behind the man’s ear. I marched him past Paco up to the house. Paco was staring at me as if I were an alien creature. I half lifted the guy up and over the broken steps.

  “Unlock the door,” I said.

  “I can’t with my arm behind my back.”

  “You don’t want to try to sucker me again,” I said. “I’m bigger than you. I have an attack dog.”

  “Just need to get my key.”

  I let go of his arm.

  He slowly pulled it around to his front, testing his elbow movement. He inhaled with the pain. Then he turned as he hammered me in the ribs with his opposite elbow.

  It wasn’t a good move, but it was faster than I expected. It caught me off guard and sent stabbing pain through my chest. Pain can be incapacitating.

  Anger can suppress pain.

  I kneed him in the groin and pounded two quick punches into his gut.

  He bent over, trying to suck air. I took hold of the back of his belt, walked him away from the front door, across the porch to the edge of the broken steps, then ran him into the door. I rotated him at the last moment so that he wouldn’t break his neck. He hit shoulder first, and the door blew open, splintering the jamb. The man fell on the floor and curled into a fetal position.

  I looked at Paco. His eyes were wide.

  “Go get what you wanted to show me,” I said.

  Paco looked at the man on the floor, then said something in a small voice.

  “I’m sorry, Paco, I didn’t hear you.” I bent down, my ribs screaming.

  Paco spoke again, nearly a whisper. “I don’t want to walk past him.”

  I reached under the man’s shoulders, grabbed handfuls of shirt, and dragged him outside. His hips and feet bounced hard as we went over the two broken steps. As I dropped him in the dirt, he still couldn’t breathe. If his diaphragm didn’t loosen up soon, he’d start turning blue. I patted him down, rolling him on the ground. I went through his pockets, pulled out his phone, keys, and wallet, and walked over to his truck. The window was open. I set the pocket stuff on the dash.

  I walked back over to the man and stopped near his head so that he could see my shoe near his face.

  “You can go in, now,” I said to Paco. “He won’t touch you.”

  Paco took small, tentative steps, looking at the man, then he disappeared into the house.

  The man wheezed, getting a spoonful of air into his lungs.

  The principal’s comment about being a role model for Paco came back to me. I’d just used a man’s body to break down a door. It was the worst kind of example to set, resorting to physical violence to solve differences. I began to rationalize it by thinking that I wasn’t used to having a small boy observe my actions. Then I realized the folly of that thought. The actions were questionable regardless of whether or not they were observed.

  Spot had come closer, curious about what was going on. He sniffed the man in the dirt, put his nose on the man’s face. The man stiffened.

  Spot turned and trotted away. After a couple of minutes, the man was breathing a bit, sucking air in small, desperate gasps. Paco was still in the house.

  The landlord made a little jerk and swatted his hand at his head. He jerked again and reached down to scratch at the small of his back. Then, still unable to breathe well, he started writhing. He swatted at his legs, gasped a tiny breath, rolled over onto his stomach, did a feeble oxygen-starved pushup, his body jerking.

  It was then that I saw the ants on his back. They were tiny and red and swarmed over him, their movement fast and frantic.

  I lifted the man up by his belt, steadied him on his feet. He was bent at the waist, still struggling to breathe, swatting and doing a little dance step.

  “Time to go, Garnett,” I said. I gave him a push.

  One of the ants bit my hand. Then another. It wasn’t like getting stung by a wasp, but it was a sharp attention-getter.

  I brushed ants off my sleeves and legs as the landlord stumbled toward his pickup, swatting as he went. He slowly got inside, grabbed his keys off the dash, and started the engine.

  Through the reflection off the windshield, I saw a burning look of hatred on his face. He revved the engine, spun a fast circle, and shot back up the dirt path toward the house.

  I went inside Paco’s house. I heard soft noises back in one of the bedrooms. I went down a short hallway and looked into what must have been his room.

  Paco’s bedroom had generic boy stuff, a Transformers movie poster on the wall, an old skateboard lying upside down on the top of a green dresser. On top of the skateboard perched a dirty softball. The paint on the dresser had chipped in many places showing the previous coat of pink paint. Along one wall was a mattress on the floor. The bottom sheet was blue, the top sheet a print with Toy Story figures against a red background.

  Paco had put a wooden toy box up on a chair. He had climbed up and was standing on the box. The ceiling was made with acoustic tiles. Paco had one tile bent back. He pulled out a small object, pushed the tile back in place, and climbed down.

  Paco saw me, and handed me a bundle of copy paper, folded three times and taped shut.

  “That’s what Cassie told me to g
ive you if she got in trouble.”

  “She didn’t tell you what it was about?”

  He shook his head. “She said if I took off the tape, she’d find out, and I’d be in big trouble.”

  “What did she usually do when you were in ‘big trouble’?”

  Paco gave me a blank look.

  “Did she ground you? Take away the TV?”

  He shook his head. “She told me I’d have to skip my next meal. But she never made me do it.”

  “Is that why you’re so focused on food?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “When you were younger, before you lived with Cassie, did you go hungry?”

  “I don’t remember anything before Cassie.”

  “The principal said you only lived with her since you were eight years old. You don’t remember anything before that?”

  He paused. “Not really.”

  I put the folded wad of paper in my pocket.

  “How did Cassie know of me? Had she met me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What exactly did Cassie tell you?”

  “She just said that if something happened, I was supposed to call you and give you that paper. She wrote down your name. She showed me your number in her phone.”

  Paco walked over to his dresser and pointed to a note that was taped to the side. My name and phone number were written in feminine cursive.

  “Was she in some kind of trouble?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It might be a bit before we get back here,” I said. “Is there anything else you want to take?”

  “Can’t I stay here? You could stay here. Spot, too. If Cassie’s alive, she will come back here.”

  “I’m sorry, but you saw how upset your landlord is. We need to go back to Tahoe and look for Cassie there. You should grab a change of clothes.”

  Paco looked dejected. “Can we get another cheeseburger?”

  “Sure, Paco. Whatever you want.”

  Paco had obviously been through a lot in his young life and it had the ironic result of preparing him better for this situation. Take a happy kid out of a happy home, expose him to assault and maybe murder, then force him to stay with a stranger, and he’d probably suffer a meltdown. Take an orphaned kid who’s lived his life in foster homes and expose him to the same thing, and he thinks that if he can get a good meal, life isn’t so bad.

  Paco found a paper grocery bag and put some clothes in it.

  “Paco, remember how you said you had your money hidden?”

  He nodded.

  “Because we might be gone for awhile, you should get it.”

  He nodded, very serious. He carried the chair out of the bedroom and over to the front door. He came back and got the toy box, carried it out and set it on the chair. He climbed up onto the box, reached up and felt along the top edge of the door.

  It was a good hiding place. Unlike most interior doors, front doors were usually solid core. And based on how resistant the door was when the landlord made his forced entry, this one was solid core, too. Yet somebody had modified it.

  Paco felt something. Peeled off a strip of duct tape. Raised his hand and pulled out an out-of-round toilet paper tube. Climbed down off the chair. Handed me the cardboard tube. It was stuffed hard with rolled bills.

  “If I roll the money real tight, I can still get it in the tube. But I can’t get it out. I always have to tear the cardboard to add my new money. Then I put it in a new tube. When it gets too tight, Cassie gives me bigger number money. I give her five twenties and she gives me a hundred.”

  “It’s your money,” I said. “Maybe you want to carry it.”

  He shook his head. “I’m just a kid. Kids lose stuff.”

  “Good point. Okay if I take it out of the tube so it will fit in my pocket?”

  Paco thought about it. “I guess so,” he finally said.

  I peeled the cardboard tube off, re-bent the bills so that they would lie a bit flatter, and slid them into my pocket.

  “Anything else you want to pick up while we’re here?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  We went back outside. I sat on the broken front step and pulled out the folded paper.

  “Let me look at this.”

  Paco nodded. He walked over to the Jeep, got in the passenger side, shut the door and slouched down against the back of the seat.

  As I pulled out the note for Cassie, I faced the drive, watching in case the landlord returned.

  FOURTEEN

  The taped bundle of paper that Cassie had left in the ceiling consisted of several sheets folded twice. I unfolded them. The printing was 10-point type. Hard to read, but it was a long letter and the small font made for fewer sheets of paper.

  Folded inside the letter was a check made out to McKenna Investigations in the amount of $5000.

  Dear Mr. McKenna,

  My name is Cassie Moreno.

  I heard that you’re a private investigator, so I looked you up. If my foster boy Paco gives this to you, then I’m probably in trouble. I’m not exactly sure what is going on, but something isn’t right. I know of nothing bad that has happened. If I called the cops, I wouldn’t be able to report any crime, and I couldn’t even identify the person involved. But I’ve become concerned enough that I’m going to write down everything I can think of about my situation just in case. If things go bad, you can maybe make some sense out of it. The check is for your expenses.

  The situation I’m in is in some way connected to my clients, although I don’t know how. So first, I should tell you about my business.

  I’m an organic gardener specializing in tomatoes and peppers that I used to sell at farmers’ markets.

  A year ago, one of my clients asked if I would deliver produce to his house in Tahoe. He is very focused on having a healthy diet full of fresh produce, but he didn’t have time anymore to go to the farmers’ market. He said he also travels constantly for business, and that when he comes home late after a hard trip, there’s nothing better than a glass of wine and a stir fry dinner of fresh-picked produce. He said that he had tried sending his housekeeper to the farmers’ market, but that she didn’t have a good eye for produce. So he wondered if I could save my best produce and also buy the best from the vendors who sell other kinds of produce. He wanted me to deliver it to his house. He would pay top dollar for the privilege of having the freshest produce.

  It worked out very well. Soon, I started getting calls from his Tahoe friends. They, too, wanted my delivery service. And the word kept spreading. I ended up quitting the farmers’ markets, and instead I just focus on getting the best produce there is and delivering it to my clients up at the lake.

  I called this new business Field To Fridge: Fresh Organic Produce, Hand-Picked and Hand-Delivered. It has gone very well.

  Last winter, a time when I have no produce of my own, I started buying from distributors who fly in produce from countries like Chile to sell to restaurants. Because my customers are willing to pay extra, I pay the distributors a premium. As a result, they give me first pick of each day’s air shipments.

  My Field To Fridge business now runs year ’round, and I’m at a point where I can’t take any more business unless I decide to hire an employee. (Of course, I have Paco’s help, and he is a lifesaver.)

  One day last spring, I got a call from a man who said his name was John Mitchell and he wanted to make me an offer. He said he would like to call me once a week. He said he knew a man who was one of my clients. If I could tell him when and where this customer traveled, he’d mail me two hundred dollars in cash.

  I hung up on him because it just sounded wrong. I couldn’t technically say what was wrong with it, but that’s how I felt.

  John Mitchell called each of the next three weeks and asked if I’d reconsidered his offer. I hung up on him each time.

  The next week when I delivered to my client, the one that John Mitchell had asked about, the housekeeper told me that my client had l
eft for San Diego the day before.

  That evening, I got another phone call from John Mitchell. That time I didn’t hang up. I thought, if the housekeeper is willing to tell me – a delivery woman – where my customer went, what would be so wrong with me telling the man on the phone?

  So I did. It still felt wrong, but that’s how I rationalized it.

  (To be truthful, I was also influenced by some things that happened recently with Paco that cost a great deal of money. I’m not what you’d call well-capitalized. I’m just a hard-working woman. I used to clean hotel rooms and houses. Then I made the transition to organic farming. I’ve always put everything I made back into the business. But after Paco, let’s just say that my back-up kitty was used up. I needed money pretty bad.)

  The man asked for my mailing address, and two days later I got two one hundred dollar bills in the mail. The envelope was postmarked in Sacramento. No return address.

  He’s called each week since. Sometimes I have no information, other times I do.

  I know you’re thinking that I’m a bad person for doing this, and you’re right. But the money from John Mitchell has really helped me.

  Unfortunately, it gets worse. The man knows how to set the hook. After I’d received several payments from him, he asked me if I’d like to make many times more money. I asked how. He said that he would pay for the same travel information for some of my other clients as well. All I had to do was go through my client list and consider which ones I had enough contact with to learn about their travel plans. So I did. The next time he called I read him a list of client names. He said yes or no to each name. He ended up choosing nine names.

  From that point on, when he called each week, I’d give him travel information on three or four clients. Two different weeks I had info on seven clients. One week, eight of the nine clients on the list were traveling, and I knew where they were all going. Now here’s where it really gets dicey. The man raised what he pays me from two hundred to three hundred dollars per client per week. The week when I told him where eight different people were traveling, he mailed me $2400.

  This money has changed my life, Mr. McKenna. I’ve been able to buy Paco anything he needs. I’ve been saving for a house.