The Juan Doe Murders: A Smokey Brandon Thriller

by Noreen Ayres

  His eyes stayed fixed on his former roommate as we headed to the door. In the car again, he said, “I think I know where she might be.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  A hidden lake, he said. Not on any maps. “I looked. There’s no blue patch off El Toro Road. It’s where they bring some of the new ones. A migrant crash-pad until they find work.”

  “This would be Binky who told you this.”

  “Angela. I went up there last night.”

  “You what?”

  “Ray was in bed. I told him I was going out for ice cream. He was asleep when I got back. I can’t help it,” he said. “I feel responsible.”

  “You’re not.”

  “Why are you here with me if you don’t care?”

  “I guess my coat’s caught in the car door, hon.”

  “Same thing,” he said with a sad grin.

  I persuaded David to let Ray in on what he wanted to do. Ray fussed, then said wait a while. He’d be off at five and come help.

  In the intervening hours we called Joe. Doctors were with him now, a nurse said. We couldn’t talk, but I was appeased to hear he was much improved, arguing with them and cracking wise.

  When Ray showed up he said to David, “So, you’re on the trail, huh, buddy?”

  Dave looked a little sheepish. “It’s a start.”

  Ray was wearing tan pants and a Hawaiian shirt with big white flowers on a green background. I made a crack about it and he said “I wish I’d been born rich instead of so good-lookin’.” Then he said to David, “You figure Binky’s out there at this lake place.”

  “That’s what Angela says. I don’t know why she’d go back there, but…”

  “We’ve checked three maps,” I said. “Let’s just take a drive.”

  “You got it,” Ray said. “Why don’t you bring that piece of Tupperware you got?” I asked where his service piece was. “I mean for extra. You just never know.”

  I went to a small safe in my closet and got out my Glock, made mostly of plastic but deadly all the same. I put on loose pants with large pockets, set my pocket holster inside and the Glock in it, and was ready to ride.

  Once outside, David said to wait a minute, and he went to his car and brought out Binky’s red sweater. He didn’t say why, and Ray and I glanced at each other but didn’t say anything either. The heart has reasons, for a twenty-year-old boy…

  When Dave climbed in, Ray said, “Ready, sport?”

  We drove El Toro twice before finally pulling over to reconnoiter. That it was growing dark didn’t help. The road passes through a congested channel of strip malls until it gives into open country with rolling hills and old oak like a step into real country.

  On the third pass, we crept along so slowly cars blew horns at us. But then we saw a narrow dirt road. Thirty yards in was a flimsy wire gate. Dave got out and opened it. We drove through, and then he got back in, a growing alertness on his face. The road went on for a while, and then we passed giant wood-framed tubs holding dead starter trees, and I realized this was an abandoned nursery. Nursery was big business in the county, but this one hadn’t made it. Ray drove slowly, gauging the land. Ahead, a covered porch came into view at the end of a tunnel of six eucalyptus trees; then the roof, and the side of the building.

  We parked and got out. On a limb of chaparral a hawk hunkered like an old man full of grudges. A gust of wind blew through the trees and made the eucalyptus branches sway, and brought to our hearing something like a chime, as of ice being stirred in a glass.

  Ray walked ahead, the flowers of his shirt falsely bright in the dimness around us. He mounted the porch and peered into the low windows of the house while Dave and I stood off. Ray tried the door, went in, then stepped out of the cabin and said, “All clear.”

  There were three rooms divided by flimsy imitation-wood partitions. The first showed only food wrappers and indentations in the low-grade carpet where desks or chairs had once sat.

  The second had a ratty twin mattress on the floor covered with a dark blue blanket. Next to it was a six-pack of creme soda still linked in its plastic hood, and a package of Oreo cookies. A magazine called Shooter’s World lay on the floor. That room had the only rear window to let in light.

  In the last room was a twin bed with a “pencil” headboard, its narrow wood slats spaced an inch apart. Sections of white nylon rope streamed down from each of the four posts. On the bare mattress was a flat, stained pillow, no case.

  “Wonderful,” I said.

  I felt Dave behind me. In a low voice he said, “Surely she wasn’t here?” His face showed anguish.

  Ray, behind us, said, “Somebody was. Recently.” He nodded back to where the unopened creme soda was.

  An old, overstuffed chair blocked the foot of the bed. Nestled in the angle between the arm and back was an empty cigarette pack with the Harley-Davidson logo, and a bean can with dead matches and stubs in the bottom. The chair wasn’t all the way back against the wall. I looked behind. Used condoms lay in an ugly mass.

  “See anything?” Ray asked.

  “No,” I said, pulling back off the chair. I’d spare David that.

  Outside on the porch we could see a half-moon shying from incoming clouds above the tops of distant trees. I wished for a cleansing hurricane where none was bound to come.

  We headed down a path toward the lake. The body of water was small, maybe the size of two basketball courts. Brush rose at different levels, some three times our height, and the scent of sage, creosote, eucalyptus, decay, and toxic lake filled the air.

  Two tiny eyes broke the water’s surface as the path curved to the bank. A knot of gnats hurled our way, whirled around our heads, then departed as quickly as it came.

  Such silence here, yet the city bare miles away.

  David said, “It’s a fool’s errand.” He meant, of course, the girl with the small face and melted brown-sugar eyes was not here. I hoped she never had been. Some people think that what Tamika does for a living and what I did at one time myself is one rung away from sewer-flow. But there is low and there is lower.

  We saw headlights on a high ridge and the outline of a truck against the faint horizon. Ray said, “Stake-bed, occupied five times, two in front. Worker-bees coming home to roost.”

  “Not this road,” I said. “That’s another one.”

  I looked toward the entrance where we came in and saw nothing. An American coot shot across the lake on tiptoes, leaving a milky wake. The North Star was livening. I saw a hawk slide down an invisible string to the earth.

  We heard the tinkling sound again. “It’s close,” Ray said, narrowing his eyes.

  I said, “What would you think of getting a dog out here?”

  Ray studied me, while David’s face showed hope. “Why bring out the posse?” Ray said. “We don’t even know what we have here, if anything.”

  “The department wouldn’t be involved. Believe it or not, I know a handler, a civilian, lives right down the road here, on a street called Hunky Dory Lane.”

  “Hunky Dory Lane.”

  “It’s true. It’s on the map, I didn’t make it up. Her name is Rosellen Richards. We met four years ago on a hike in the Saddle-backs.”

  David said, “You think she’d come?”

  “One way to find out,” Ray said, and gave me a wink. Humor him, it said. “We even have scenting material, right, bud? That red sweater.”

  A look of great satisfaction that maybe he’d done something right flooded over the boy’s face, as he looked back toward the shack with the debris inside and out.

  We trounced back through the brush and grasses. Ahead, a rabbit hopped across the path, halted, became a rock with ears, then bounded off.

  Ray retrieved his cell phone from a pocket in the door of his truck, and I dialed Rosellen and I gave her the run-down. She came back with an unqualified, “Sure!”

  My two compadres stood leaning against the raised porch, ankles crossed like cowhands talking over where to put the nex
t post-hole. I felt curiously heartened, maybe just from the illusion that we were doing something. I remembered Rosellen telling me once, “Bloods fall dead last on the intelligence scale out of one hundred forty breeds,” she told me, “but if you can tolerate bad hips, poor eyesight, loud snores, a tendency toward cancer, and fountains of slobber, you’ll have a sweet companion.”

  Now she asked, “You want a trail dog or a cadaver dog?”

  “Not a body dog. As far as we know it’s not a crime scene, and if it were I wouldn’t want to compromise it.”

  “That’s too bad,” she said, “because she’s only trained with pig parts, and I’d sure like to try her on human.”

  We returned in the truck to the entrance to wait for her. At one point David said, “You think Binky’s dead, don’t you?”

  Ray reached across me and clapped David on the leg. “After this, we ride up to Santa Ana again. Deal?”

  “Deal,” the boy said.

  Rosellen’s headlights came easing around the big bend on El Toro. When we got her through the gate and Ray was driving back to the site, he said, “Hmp, she’s pretty.” And she is. Brown hair, good facial construct, and a body shown to advantage in jeans.

  At the building, she slid open the door of her van, opened the cage, and brought her hound named Madam. The dog was already drooling great strands of slobber and shivering from excitement. Madam wore a metal-studded Martingale harness that went around her shoulders and between the forelegs to form a Y on the chest. She was alternately pulling on her leash, dancing, and peeing in the road.

  “I keep her on six feet of lead and never work without a lantern,” Rosellen said when I warned her of the possibility of hidden barbed wire. She showed us the flashlight on her forearm and clicked it on with a finger.

  David gave her Binky’s sweater. She bunched it under Madam’s nose. “Geo-Say,” she commanded in Navajo, and Madam took off in a steady tug, the rest of us plowing behind.

  She went straight up the porch and into the building, her brindle tail twirling like a pinwheel. When she reached the back room, the dog barked once and once only, but joy shone in her eyes as she looked at her owner.

  Rosellen praised her and said, “She found her scent right off. There’s been cases where a dog was so morose from not finding someone she would grieve for days and maybe die. Yes, yes, so they say. Where else now, you want to look?”

  We went outside again, and Rosellen gave the “hunt ’em up” command. Madam’s nose was down and her tail twirling as she led us through the bushes in what seemed an aimless way. Willow, mulefat, and castor bean whipped us as we filed through.

  Hearing the gentle jingling, Rosellen pulled up and said, “Kee ki wah,” then sent her light high across the brush. Ray’s small mag light traced it too. Something gleamed in the chaparral.

  “What the hell? Look at this,” Ray said. We came closer and saw dangling from a tree limb a windchime made of printed-circuit boards bound with copper wire. The chromed edges hit together; the plastic layers gave only a soft tapping.

  “Somebody’s cute trail marker,” Rosellen said.

  Madam pulled us onward. She broke into a lope and Rosellen had to call her down a bit. The dog went a few more yards pulling hard, then stopped, was absolutely silent, dropped her hindquarters and urinated.

  “Big-time find,” Rosellen whispered.

  With a fair moon now overhead, Ray said, “Let’s shut the lights.” Another gentle gust of wind and a tinkling of PCB chimes, stereophonic now.

  We eased around a broad stand of pampas towering fifteen feet high, and made out an entryway built into the side of a cutaway hill. The front was shielded with a door made of close-set cane—arundo donax, to be exact. Rosellen dropped a hand to Madam’s back. The animal shivered from one end to the other.

  Then a stubby hand slid the cane door back, and a voice sounded from within.

  “Welcome to my humble jumble,” Cheng said.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Cheng held a pistol. A .40 or .45. He was a lefty.

  “Greg!” David cried hoarsely.

  Rosellen commanded, “Ko Coween, Ko Coween,” meant to quiet her growling dog whose rigid form seemed ready to burst from its platform of earth.

  Cheng’s gaze took in Ray. This one was the threat. This one.

  I moved tighter up to Ray so I could hide my hand as I slipped it into my pocket. Cheng said, “We meet again. You are trespassing on private property. You must leave.”

  Binky came forward from the shadows behind Greg, her eyes large, luminous, and void. She had the Bugs Bunny shirt on.

  David cried out her name. Madam barked, her tail flicking madly, her rear portion carried side to side with the force of the movement. Rosellen stilled her and slowly moved backward. Yanking Binky under his arm, Greg held her there and told us again to leave.

  Ray flicked on his flashlight, Binky tugged away from Cheng’s hold, and Cheng divided his attention.

  That’s all that was needed. Ray was in motion, leaping forward, striking out for the weapon. The flashlight plopped into the brush and stared like a wild eye.

  In the next few moments there was yelling, grunting, growling, and barking, and what I knew for sure was that Binky had fled into David’s arms by nearly running over me, Rosellen was shouting “Ko Coween!” to Madam yards away, and I stood jostling for a good mark with my gun pointed ahead. What was behind Cheng, in the cave? Know your target, know your target: That was my training and I couldn’t let go.

  Cheng collapsed onto the ground, knocking the raft of cane down on top of them. The pistol exploded, the sound deafening, even outdoors.

  My heart leapt. Where was Ray? I plunged forward, heaved the cane door off them with my left arm and shoulder, and aimed my weapon at Cheng’s temple. “Give it up, give it up!” I screamed.

  Then Ray was on him, jerking Cheng’s pistol away. He put a knee on Cheng’s arm, while Cheng screamed in pain and dug fingers into the earth.

  Ray dropped the gun’s magazine, ejected the round in the chamber, then tossed the weapon aside. He smacked Cheng with an open hand, then a backhand in quick succession, and yelled, “Pull down on me, will ya, you worthless piece o’ shit!”

  He rolled Cheng over, feeling for other weapons. Cheng made the mistake of moving. Ray smacked him again and ended his search with a heavy kick to Cheng’s buttocks.

  It made me wince, but what the public doesn’t know nor would want to accept is that kicking a subject is an allowable increment in “level-of-force” technique. Wiggle a finger, breathe too hard, you get clobbered. I said, “We got him, Ray. He’s done.”

  Ray pulled back. “Stay there and don’t move, you little shit.”

  Cheng stayed still as a stump. Ray grabbed up his flashlight and shone it in the hutch while we both still covered Cheng. Inside were several storage boxes and flats of soda cans.

  “I own this property! You’re trespassing! I’ll have you arrested.”

  “Arrest this, you slimey piece o’ puke,” Ray said, and kicked him again, this time in the thigh. Cheng yelped.

  Then gunfire with a hot-yellow flash tore through the darkness. I threw myself to the ground and rolled. Ray jumped inside the cave, then darted out again, crouching. Greg Cheng was gone, and branches were switching.

  Another blast flared, but I knew it wasn’t from Cheng: not the sound of a .45; something lighter. A second shot, and I heard the round pass through the bushes. I flattened to the ground and let out a grunt of relief when I realized I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t shoot for shit.

  “You all right?” Ray said from his spot.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  Over by the cabin a terrible howling lanced the night: Madam, having her say. I silently begged that Rosellen, David, and Binky were safe. A second howl set hairs on end. Ray made his way to my side. “Two o’clock,” he said. I nodded. The shooter at two, with us the center of target.

  “It’s not Cheng. Who the hell is it?”
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  We eased away, cutting a crescent in the direction that would bring us behind the shooter. Ray stopped, touched my collarbone with a finger and pointed back toward the cabin. He’d keep going, take a ridge that ran parallel but more in line with the shooter.

  “Keep your head down,” he whispered.

  Beyond the ridge, a car ignition ground and caught and a radio came on, a guy singing how he was a ramblin’ man. Just as suddenly, it cut off. There was another way in, then, maybe an off-shoot of the road the stake-bed truck used. That was why Cheng was here yet we saw no other cars. “He’s leaving,” I said.

  “Don’t count on it,” Ray said. Then his finger went to his lips to shush me. I heard it too: a woman’s voice, thin and plaintive. Then the sound of splashing. Again Ray pointed back toward the building. I’d go after the splash, counter-clockwise. “Can you handle it?”

  “No problem,” I said, and believed it, whatever it was.

  I slipped through brush made anemic by the moonlight, disturbing a grasshopper who rode the top of a shaft of grass. At a break in the scrub, I saw them: Binky, ten yards from shore at four o’clock if I was at six, trying to elude a man who kept reaching for her. Then another form on the bank at three o’clock, pulling off his shoes and diving in—David, trying to reach her.

  Madam was in the water, lunging forward, springing back, lunging, barking, at four-thirty: Rosellen had lost hold of her lead.

  Ray was somewhere at what should be about eleven o’clock, soon to set upon the man who caused the night to tear apart.

  The path I had to take to avoid being seen from the ridge lost me my sight-line to the water. I came out at a clearing near the bank some thirty yards from Madam. Rosellen had the sense to hide herself low behind a tree. There was a fury of splashing, and now I saw David struggling with the man in the water. The guy socked David on the back of the neck. He dunked face forward in the water, then struggled to rise.

  I saw the assailant’s face. Hector Lizzaraga. He reached out and pulled Binky up out of the water by the hair, her gasps like the sucking heaves of an ocean. “Back off! I’ll drownd her. I’ll drownd the fucking bitch!”