by Todd Borg
Diamond made a slurping noise on the phone. Coffee, probably. “I agree,” he said. “Unfortunately, there’s a lot of dark pickups out there with light-colored toppers. Not going to be easy.”
“Right. But if we see one, we could follow it and look in the back when it stops.”
“Hard for me without a warrant. Not so hard for you, a non-official law guy,” Diamond said. “But call me, you find a pickup that matches the description. Always good to save a kid, warrant or not.”
“You open the back of a pickup,” I said, “and you find and save a kid, no one’s going to worry much about warrants.”
“Sí,” Diamond said. “Let me know if you see or hear anything.”
We hung up.
Because I’d told the boy to call my cell first, I used my land-line phone to call Street on her cell.
“Learn anything new about bugs?” I said when she answered.
“Nothing I can’t tell you over brunch at the bistro,” she said. “But the fact that you’re calling makes me think you can’t make it.”
“Right.” I told her about the kid named Paco, supposedly trapped in the back of the truck of men who shot his foster mother.
“My God, Owen! That’s horrible! What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Wait and be ready in case he calls again.”
Street was silent for a moment. “What can I do to help? I could come up and help organize a search.”
“Thanks, but Diamond is going to alert the other sheriff’s offices. Eventually, every cop in the area will be looking for the pickup. We have no information about where to look. So another searcher probably wouldn’t make any difference.” I paused. “I’m sorry that this happened.”
“Owen, you can see me anytime. You wait on this kid. Let me know whatever happens. I’ll be leaving shortly. I heard what I came for, and without you coming for brunch, I’ll head home. If you can use any help, call me at my lab. I’ll be there in a couple of hours.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
We said goodbye and hung up.
THREE
I felt a terrible sense of helplessness when I hung up the phone. I believed the situation was serious. But I was powerless to do anything about it.
I called Commander Mallory of the SLTPD.
“Mallory,” he said when he came on the line.
“McKenna here. Wondering if you had any reports of gunshots this morning.”
“Not that I know of. Why?”
“Got a situation you should know about.” I told him about the phone call from Paco and how the boy’s foster mother had told him to call me if anything bad happened.
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’re saying that there may have been a murder or attempted murder of a woman whose identity we don’t know. You have no idea of where the crime took place. The woman’s foster kid is claiming to be in the back of a pickup, and he’s saying that the driver or drivers murdered his foster mom. And you have no idea where the pickup is.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“But it’s not a kidnapping,” he said, “because the kid voluntarily got in the back of the pickup, and the men don’t even know he’s there.”
“If the men in the truck knew the kid was in back, they would probably tie him in place. Then it would be a kidnapping.”
Mallory paused. I heard the pop and hiss of one of his ever-present Cokes. “And this is all based on what the kid said. A kid you’ve never met. You can’t vouch for his credibility. And you have no evidence. You don’t know where the kid lives. The kid doesn’t even know where he lives. You don’t know the foster mother’s last name.”
“Correct.”
“How old is this kid?”
“He said he was ten.”
“Ah,” Mallory said in that tone that just misses condescending. “The perfect age for telling the truth.”
“He sounded pretty stressed,” I said. “I’m inclined to think he’s telling the truth.”
“I should get the troops ready on your inclination? I’ve been burned doing that before.”
“Just doing my duty as a citizen. Your call on how you respond.”
As we said goodbye, I knew that Mallory would in fact let his troops know about the possibility of a kid in crisis somewhere near South Lake Tahoe.
I next called Special Agent Ramos who runs the FBI’s Resident Agency in Tahoe. I told him the same thing I told Mallory. Like Mallory, Ramos was skeptical, but also, like Mallory, he took all possibilities seriously. Murder, kidnapping, and the possibility that men had taken a kid across state lines, were all FBI territory. Ramos said to stay in touch.
I pulled out my topo maps of the Tahoe Basin and started with the farmers’ market location in the middle of South Lake Tahoe. Moving my finger northeast from there, I imagined the path that Paco’s foster mom may have driven. Paco had said that the pickup was parked near some cliffs. I looked for places where the topo lines were stacked close to one another, which would indicate very steep, rocky areas.
The topo map showed multiple rocky projections that might look like cliffs to a Central Valley boy. Some were in areas inaccessible to a van, but I found lots of accessible places, far too many for the map to be useful. And even if I went to the right cliff, I might never know it unless I found the woman’s body or the van.
I called Diamond again.
“The boy call?” he asked when he answered.
“No. Wondering if you heard anything or had luck with the vehicle.”
“There’s a lot of dark pickups out there with light-colored toppers,” Diamond said. As he said it, my cell started ringing.
I shouted. “My cell is ringing.” I picked up the cell and held it next to my land line phone so Diamond could hear.
“Hello?”
“It’s me. Paco.”
FOUR
“Paco, where are you?”
“I don’t know! In the forest.” His breath was short. Like he was gasping for air. I realized that he was running.
“Where was the pickup when you climbed out?”
“On the side of a road.” The boy was panting. “I jumped out and called you.” He was panicked. “But they saw me. They’re chasing me.”
“Two men?”
“Yeah.” Pant. Gasping pant.
“What can you see?” I said.
“Nothing. Just trees!”
“Keep looking,” I said. “If you give me a landmark, I can come get you.”
“They’re getting closer!” A whispered yell. A desperate plea. The boy was grunting with effort.
“Paco, keep running. Don’t give up.” I wanted to say something that would give him confidence. “Men can’t run through the forest like boys. If you dodge around trees and jump over boulders and logs, they can’t catch you! You can get away! Dodge through the forest!”
I wanted it to be true, but the image of two men chasing a young boy choked off my air, squeezed my heart and lungs.
“Don’t talk, Paco, just run!”
Paco’s short frantic breaths became low volume as if he was no longer holding the phone to his head. I heard a throbbing wind noise.
Although the sound was soft, it came in a fast, rhythmic pulsing. I visualized him holding the phone in his hand as he sprinted, arms pumping. I didn’t dare call to him or ask a question. I needed to wait and give him a chance to do what boys are often great at, running and evading and hiding. If he could hold onto the phone, if the battery still had power, if he could get away for a moment...
Maybe he could tell me something that would give me a clue about where to find him. I spoke into my land line. “Diamond, I’m going to hang this up and take my cell in my Jeep. I want to be on the road when Paco sees any landmark. I’ll call you when I can.” I hung up.
I trotted to the front door and opened it. Spot was already up, sensing my stress. He came outside with me into the rain. I let him into the back of the Jeep, got in the front, and started it.
T
he private drive I share with my upscale neighbors is almost always deserted because my neighbors are almost always in Los Angeles or New York or Miami or Frankfurt or Rio. I drove fast, but slowed hard before the curves so I wouldn’t spin out on the rain-slick asphalt. I was down the mountain and on the highway in a few minutes. Paco could be in any direction. I turned south for no reason other than that Paco’s only known location was at the South Lake Tahoe farmers’ market.
I drove fast in spite of having no destination. I held the phone to my ear and listened to the hyperventilation of a terrified boy.
Paco’s huffing got louder and quickened as he became exhausted. The pumping wind sound sped up. It sounded like he was running even faster then before.
The boy screamed. Loud enough to rip my eardrum.
I jerked with adrenaline.
“Paco, are you there?!”
I heard Paco crying. I couldn’t tell if his pain was physical or psychological.
“Paco?”
“I fell!”
“Get up, Paco! Keep running!
I heard faint, high-pitched cries. The rhythmic pumping was back. He was still alive. Still running.
“Do you see anything now? Any building?”
His grunting was extreme, each exhalation marked with a desperate cry.
I wanted him to concentrate on running. But I couldn’t get to him until I knew where he was.
“Let me know the moment you see anything,” I said. Maybe he heard me. Maybe not.
I had witnessed fear before. But a terrified child on the other end of the phone line was a much higher level of gut-wrenching emotion.
Another scream. Louder than before.
“Paco! Are you okay?” Adrenaline had my nerves burning as if from electricity.
I heard a heavy, whimpering grunt, a percussive exhalation.
“Paco, can you hear me? Are you okay?”
Maybe he was wounded and had collapsed. More sounds came. Exertion, as if Paco had climbed over something and then jumped to the ground.
The plastic of my phone made a cracking sound. I realized I was squeezing it like a vice.
I heard him moving. Still panting. Still alive. His cries were continuous. If I kept focusing him on looking for landmarks, maybe that would help control his fear.
Or my fear.
He hadn’t spoken after the last scream. I wanted him to say something.
“Paco, do you see anything, yet?”
“I see the bubble cars.” Paco’s voice was wheezing.
“What are bubble cars?” Maybe I heard him wrong.
“Bubble cars. Gray ones.” His panting was so loud I could barely understand him. “On the sky ride,” he said.
The Heavenly Ski Resort gondola.
I stomped on the gas. I was going south toward Round Hill. My speed climbed to 60, then 65. I let up to take a curve. Then I came to the hill going down and the long straight before the stoplight.
Puffing, sucking air, he said, “The bubble cars are in the woods.”
“Paco, run to the gondola. The bubble cars. Stay in the trees for cover, but follow the cars down the mountain, not up. Do you understand? Go down the mountain. You will come to a road. I’m going there now. I’ll look for you.”
I sped up to 70, slowed as I went past Kingsbury Grade. At the next intersection, I turned left to take the back road around Mont Bleu and Harrah’s.
As the gondola comes down the mountain, the first street that it soars over is the one that runs behind the casino hotels. Just past Harrah’s was the gondola. I skidded to a stop at Heavenly Village Way, turned left, and rushed into the new Van Sickle Bi-State Park.
I drove up to the lot, parked, and jumped out. I let Spot out of the back and sprinted toward the mountain.
We ran up the lift line, under the gondola.
The lift maintenance workers keep the lift line free of major trees, but it was not an easy run. There was a trail in places, but in other places nothing but boulders and impenetrable Manzanita bushes.
I wanted to call 911 and get patrol units to the scene, but I didn’t dare hang up on Paco.
“Paco!” I shouted into my phone. “I’m at the road below the gondola. I’m running up the mountain. Stay in the trees.” But my phone was silent. I looked at the readout. I had battery power, but no connection. Maybe Paco’s phone had gone out of range. Or he could be out of battery.
Maybe the men had caught him.
As I ran up the gondola line, I scanned the trees looking for any movement that could be Paco or his pursuers. I saw nothing except Spot trotting in front of me.
The gondola was stopped for fall maintenance, and the cabins, Paco’s bubble cars, hung motionless and silent in the air above me. I stopped, cupped my ears, and listened for any sound that could have been Paco up the mountain. There was no noise except for Spot’s panting.
A snapping sound came from up in the distant trees. Not a gunshot. More like a breaking branch.
Spot stopped and stared, eyes and ears focused.
I stared at the open line where the trees had been cleared. It was a wide, straight path a couple of miles in length and rising 3000 feet in elevation. But the rain had increased, and the dark clouds had lowered so that the gondola disappeared into the gray blanket just a third of the way up the mountain. There was nothing to see but green pine needles and the dark umber of wet tree trunks and gray boulders and gray sky.
Then a splash of blue color flashed from one tree to another, over logs, around boulders, just to the side of the lift line. The blue grew into a jacket on a small boy. He came down the mountain like a running back down the field, stiff-arming boulders and logs as he vaulted them, dodging trees, his feet churning as if to run through and over anything that would stop him.
I ran toward him.
I didn’t call out. I didn’t want him to get a false sense of security and come out into the open line where he would be an easy target. I saw no pursuers. But they might still be out there.
As I got closer, I realized that Spot might frighten him, so I called him to my side and held his collar as we ran.
When Paco was close enough that we might startle and scare the boy, I called out.
“Paco, it’s me, Owen McKenna!”
He kept running toward us, over rocks, around bushes. He reached out and grabbed the trunk of a sapling as he went past it. He used it to swing himself around the tree and off in a new direction.
As his face came into focus, I saw the unmistakable fear, the stretched grimace of terror.
“Paco, it’s me,” I said again as he approached. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
But he blew on past us, feet churning, unthinking panic driving his flight.
“Paco!” I lunged, grabbed his arm. Pulled him to a stop. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
The boy’s eyes were wide, the terror obvious. Blood from a scrape ran down his brown cheek. He struggled to pull away from me, straining to look back up the mountain, panicked whimpers coming from his throat.
I pulled him to me. He was a tiny kid, hard and wiry and soaked wet with rain. His head barely came up to my navel. I knelt and held him, forcibly quieting him.
His panting breaths caught, and he began to cry. In a half-minute he was sobbing and clutching at the front of my shirt. I held him until he calmed a bit. Then I stood and took his hand. His hand was small and sweaty, his skin as rough and callused and scratchy as that of any adult laborer.
We trotted into the trees and hurried the rest of the way down the mountain, staying in cover. I held Paco’s hand. Spot walked behind Paco, sniffing him.
Periodically, I glanced behind us, checking the woods for movement or sound, but saw nothing.
A minute later we were at the Jeep. I thought about the men back in the trees, maybe watching with binoculars. I thought it was best to not indicate that the Jeep was mine.
So we walked on past, moving fast, staying in the trees. When we got down to the road, we darted
behind buildings and followed a weaving path toward the shops and the gondola’s base station in Heavenly Village.
FIVE
I watched Paco as we walked. He frowned, deep and intense. He kept jerking and twisting to look back behind us, his fear so great that he didn’t seem to notice the giant dog sniffing him.
While we walked, I called Diamond, told him I’d found the boy, asked him to inform other law enforcement. I told him I’d call back when I knew more, and I hung up.
I worried about Paco having some kind of emotional meltdown. He’d witnessed the shooting of his foster mother. He’d been trapped in a pickup and chased by men with guns. How much trauma could a kid take? I expected some serious fallout as he coped with the enormity of what had happened. But he just did a fast walking trot, his body stiff with tension, his teeth clenched, his eyes twitching.
I tried to gauge when the big reaction would come, thinking about how to keep him distracted for a while longer. Spot was the most obvious vehicle for occupying a child with other thoughts. Spot had walked behind and next to Paco. After a hundred yards, Paco still hadn’t acknowledged him. As we got farther from the men who chased him, Paco glanced less behind him and more often at the dog who was the same height as he was and three times as heavy.
At the gondola base station, we stopped.
“Paco, you should meet my dog.” I turned the boy to face Spot.
Spot wagged, curious about the boy. Spot had rarely seen me hold a young child’s hand.
“Paco, meet Spot. Spot, meet Paco.”
Spot stuck his nose in Paco’s face. Paco jerked back and used his arm to wipe off his face.
I grabbed Spot’s collar and held him in position. “Spot is friendly. You can pet him. You can even ride him.”
Paco gave me a quick glance, then looked over toward the shops that were between us and the mountain. His eyes flicked around, taking in the milling people, looking at the corners of buildings as if he expected men to jump out.
I wanted to get Paco to change his focus.
“Go ahead and pet him,” I said, gesturing toward Spot.
Paco put his hand behind his back as if for safety. He telegraphed discomfort, did a little rocking motion.
