by Todd Borg
“Some laws are bad to break. Some are not so bad. And everybody breaks some laws.”
“Yeah,” I said, “like not wearing seat belts.”
“Why do they make some laws if everybody breaks them?”
The simplest questions were often the most difficult to answer. Yet I was glad that Paco was talking.
“An optimist would say that we make laws with the best of intentions and that those laws are good even if somewhat unworkable.”
“What’s an optimist?” Paco asked.
“Someone who thinks things will probably work out for the best.”
“That’s why they make stupid laws?” Paco said.
“A cynic would say that people make stupid laws because people have a natural desire to make rules for other people to live by.”
“What’s a cynic?”
“Someone who thinks that people often have bad reasons for doing things.” Another answer that didn’t feel quite right.
“Then I’m a cynic,” Paco said.
“I think you have reason to be a cynic. Some bad men killed your foster mother and chased after you. Meanwhile, some kids have nice families and nice homes and don’t have to worry about the authorities sending them to a country they don’t know. From your perspective, life isn’t very fair. It looks like lots of people have bad motivations.
“But you also have reason to be an optimist,” I added, trying to think fast. “Even though your mother died when you were a baby, other people took you in. They gave you food and clothes and a place to sleep and no one paid them to do it.
“I spent twenty years as a cop. I’ve seen first hand that there are a lot of very bad people out there, enough to fuel the thoughts of endless cynics. But I’ve also met lots of really good people. People who would take in a kid like you.”
Paco turned away and looked out the window. I realized that while I’d talked about good people who had taken him in during the past, I couldn’t find any now.
I called Street, got her voicemail, left a message about meeting up to return her car.
I called Diamond. “Checking in to see if your bed and breakfast offer is still good,” I said when he answered.
“Sí.”
“Gracias. We’re currently in Reno in Street’s car, so I need to get it back to her, then figure a way down to your homestead in Minden to borrow your old truck.”
“Why don’t I pick you up at Street’s lab or condo? Bring you down myself.”
“Muy gracias,” I said.
“Not quite right, but I get the idea,” Diamond said. “Which will it be, lab or condo?”
“I’ve got a message in to Street. Okay if I let you know in an hour or two?”
“Sí.”
THIRTY-FOUR
We drove south to Carson City, then turned west on 50. We were coming over Spooner Summit, back up into the clouds above Tahoe, when Paco said, “That’s the pickup.” He pointed up the highway.
A dark blue pickup was turning across the highway, coming from the southwest, heading north on 28 toward Incline Village.
I turned to follow it and sped up, closing the distance between us.
“When I saw the pickup after the men grabbed you at my cabin,” I said, “it was too dark for me to tell the color. But you said you thought the pickup was dark gray with a white topper. We’ve since learned that the topper might look dark in daylight. This topper is dark, so that fits. But it and the truck are dark blue. That’s not what you thought before.”
Paco stared at the truck as we drew near. I stopped accelerating when we were eight or ten car-lengths back. If the pickup belonged to Salt and Pepper, I didn’t want them to realize who was behind them. They might remember Street’s Beetle from when she used it to block their escape path from my cabin.
“Which do you think it is?” I asked. “This blue pickup, or another one?”
“This one,” Paco said.
“You sound so sure. How do you know?”
“I can tell. The shape of the topper. And the way the bumper sticks out. That’s the bumper I climbed on.”
“Paco, when you first saw the pickup, it was dark, and you were under serious stress. I can understand that your impressions of what the pickup looked like might have been wrong. But why would you think differently now?”
“I saw the pickup again when I got out and ran away down the mountain. It was daylight.”
“Ah, that’s right. What color was the pickup when you saw it then?”
“Blue.” Again, he sounded certain.
“Well, it makes sense that your daytime sense of color would be more accurate than your nighttime sense.”
We followed the pickup north, past Sand Harbor. I dropped farther back and pulled over to let two cars get in front of me.
“The handle on the topper door,” Paco said. “It was kind of broken. Like it flopped a little. We could check that.”
“Good idea,” I said, thinking that I’d seen multiple broken topper door handles over the years. But despite the often faulty design, if the one in front of us was broken, that would be a good reinforcement of Paco’s belief that this pickup was the one in which he’d ridden.
“How was it broken? Was the door just hanging loose?”
“It was like this.” Paco held his hand up, fingers out.
“I don’t understand.”
“It was at an angle. And kind of floppy loose.”
“So you still had to turn it to open the door, but it didn’t sit out straight?”
“Yeah,” Paco said.
I reached under the driver’s seat and pulled out the binoculars that Street keeps for birdwatching. I handed them to Paco.
“You could look at the pickup and see if the topper handle is at an angle. You know how to focus them?
“Yeah.”
He didn’t sound convincing.
I said, “There’s a little knob on the top and another on the right eyepiece.”
“I spin it, right?”
“First, you shut your right eye and look with your left. You use the top knob.”
Paco held up the glasses and worked the focus knob.
After a bit, I said, “After your left eye is focused, you look only through your right eye and use the right knob.”
He pointed. “This one.”
“Yeah.”
Paco looked through the glasses, adjusted the knobs.
“The picture jumps around.”
“That’s the problem with binoculars. You magnify the image eight times, and that’s great. But you also magnify the vibrations of your hands eight times.”
Paco kept looking through the glasses, adjusted the top knob again. He leaned forward and put his elbows on the dash, steadying the glasses. Held the position longer than I would have thought possible for a ten-year-old.
He lowered the glasses to his lap. “The handle’s broken. It’s at an angle.”
“You’re sure.”
“Yeah. That’s the truck.”
“Can you see how many people are in the truck?”
“No. It’s got smoked windows.”
“Be ready with the glasses in case they turn off the road. You might get a glance at who’s inside the cab.” I thought about when I ran the battering ram log through the pickup. “If they turn to the left, you can see if the driver’s window is broken.”
I varied my distance from the pickup, generally keeping two or three vehicles between us. We were just coming into Incline Village when the truck’s brake lights flashed.
“They’re going to turn,” I said. “Look through the glasses.”
Paco propped his elbows on the dash, put the glasses to his eyes. Big rain drops began to splatter on the windshield, obscuring the view. I turned on the wipers, but they left streaks on the windshield. Paco kept watching through the glasses.
The pickup made a right turn onto Country Club. I got the briefest glimpse of the passenger side window before the pickup disappeared into the trees.
<
br /> “It’s the guy,” Paco said.
“Which guy?” I sped up, got to the turnoff and pulled in after them.
“One of the superhero guys. The black guy.”
“Pepper.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re sure,” I said.
“Yeah.”
The pickup followed a winding road through the forested neighborhood of modest vacation homes.
“Was Pepper in the passenger seat? Or was he driving?”
“Next to the window. The passenger seat.”
“Could you see who was driving?”
“No.”
I tried to stay as far back as possible and still keep the pickup in sight. If we’d been spotted, the driver stayed cool about it.
His brake lights flashed again.
“He’s turning again,” I said.
Paco kept the glasses up. The pickup turned right again.
“See anything?”
“Just the same guy.”
The pickup turned into a driveway. I stopped well back and watched as the pickup moved through the trees. Its brake lights went on, and it pulled into the garage of a house that was tucked back against the slope. The garage door closed.
I pulled forward just enough to see the house better through the trees.
“Watch through the windows,” I said. “See if you see anyone moving.”
Paco held the binoculars steady.
“No,” he said. “You can’t see. The windows all have curtains.”
I wanted to take the binoculars and look for myself, but it seemed there would be little to gain. Better for Paco to feel useful.
“What’s the little blue sign above the garage door?”
Paco looked, then handed me the binoculars.
I adjusted their focus.
The sign said,
VACATION RENTAL
TAHOE TURF RENTAL AGENCY
Underneath was the phone number. To the right of the sign was the house number.
I dialed.
A woman answered, “Tahoe Turf Agency, giving you your piece of Tahoe when and where you want it.”
“Hi, I’m calling from Tahoe Gold Pizza. I’ve got a Deep Delish Extra Large to deliver, but when I got to the house up here at five six two three Forest Glen Circle in Incline, it’s all dark and no one answers the door. It’s got your rental sign. So I’m looking at the ticket, but Terry, who’s got, like, the worst writing in the world, totally scrawled the name. Now I’m wondering if I’ve got the right house. Can you tell me who’s staying in five six two three? Maybe I could recognize the name.”
“I’m sorry. We’re not allowed to divulge that information. If you gave me a name, I could confirm or deny, but that’s all.”
“Well I asked the neighbor and she said it was two guys. Can you confirm that? ’Cause if you could, then at least I could decide what to do with this pizza.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t help you with that.” She hung up.
Salt and Pepper could be in for the night. I didn’t want to risk knocking, so I drove away, changing my route from the way we’d come in, watching the rear-view mirror. When I got back down to the lake, I pulled over and called Mallory.
“Calling with an update,” I said when he answered.
“Yeah?”
“We saw a pickup that Paco thinks is the one that belongs to the suspects in Cassie Moreno’s murder.”
“You make a positive ID on the Collector boys?”
“No. They pulled into a garage on a vacation rental in Incline. I called the agency. The lady is playing it by the book. No help at all.”
“You knock on the door?” Mallory asked.
“No. I assume they’ll lie low and not answer.”
“No ID, no crime, no way to go in after them,” Mallory said. “At least you identified the pickup.”
“Not really. Problem is, it’s blue with a blue topper.”
“You’re kidding me,” Mallory said. “A couple of days ago, one of our officers called in about a pickup that was loitering near the “Y” in South Lake Tahoe. Had two big guys in it. He ran the plate, but got no hits. We had no reason to push because it was a blue over blue instead of the white over dark gray like the boy told us about.”
“The officer didn’t stop them?”
“No. He let them drive off when their plate came up clean.”
“Sorry about the confusion,” I said.
“When the boy gave me his statement, he was certain about his description. How certain is he now?”
I glanced at Paco who had his head against the window.
“Pretty certain,” I said.
“Pretty certain,” Mallory repeated. “Those of us in law enforcement love terms like that. Simple descriptions that sing with clarity.”
“You’re a poet,” I said.
“I’ll amend our description to include blue,” Mallory said.
“Thanks.”
THIRTY-FIVE
I called Street.
“Any luck today?” she said when she answered.
“Not much. I’m still at the stage where I’ve got a pile of jigsaw puzzle pieces but no sense of the picture I’m trying to build. Figured you could use your car back. Diamond’s going to take us down to his house for the next night or two. Are you at your lab or condo?”
“Lab. You can bring my car here.”
“See you in an hour or so.”
I called Diamond.
“I thought I should pick up dinner and Pacifico,” I said.
“You want me to make dinner, all you gotta do is ask,” Diamond said. He paused. “’Course, I’ve got standards. What were you planning to bring?”
“Burrito fixings?”
“I eat burritos all the time.”
“You want me to bring some non-Mex food? Lutefisk or something?”
“Mex food is usually best, don’t you think?” Diamond said.
“Tacos?”
“Sounds good. Where should I pick you up?”
“Street’s lab, please. An hour or whatever works for you,” I said.
I drove back down the East Shore. Paco was quiet as always. Spot snored in the back seat. I thought about the case.
I maybe knew where Salt and Pepper were staying. But I wasn’t sure. I could stake out their street, but the road layout was very risky. Any of the places from which I could see them were highly visible.
They’d already failed in their first attack on Paco. The next time they would be bolder. And they would be doubly careful to get both Spot and me with a Taser or a more serious weapon.
If I staked them out and they spotted me as I spotted them, it was almost a certainty that they would try not to let me out of their sight. At the first good opportunity to act, they would make their move.
Spot and I were pretty good bodyguards, but we wouldn’t have much chance of preventing them from taking Paco or killing him along with us.
The men had many advantages over us. Weapons, surprise of timing. Choice of technique. Twice as many men, both of whom were much bigger than me. The only advantage I had was Spot, a huge asset in some situations, but a liability in others.
I had to take control. But I had no idea how.
Paco and I picked up supplies at the Safeway in Round Hill. I put the beer in the back with Spot, but I didn’t want Spot to be tempted by food, so I handed the grocery bags to Paco.
“Maybe you could set these on the floor?”
He said nothing, but put them next to his feet.
Street was cheery for Paco’s benefit and maybe for mine, too, but I could see the worry on her face. She showed Paco how to look at bugs with her microscope, then turned up the music a bit to help cover our voices. We moved over to her desk and spoke in quiet tones while we waited for Diamond.
I told her about our day, meeting some of Cassie’s clients, talking to the Basque expert in Reno about finding a home for Paco, followed by Paco seeing what he believed was the pickup with Salt and Pepper
and following them to the vacation rental.
“What can you do? Can you get the cops to go in and find them?”
“We’d need a search warrant, but we don’t have probable cause. I have no evidence. All I’ve got is Paco’s belief that he saw one of the two heavies in a pickup that went into the house.”
“But Paco’s attempted kidnapping proves that these men exist.”
“Sure. But the pickup doesn’t match Paco’s earlier description.”
Street was silent for a long moment.
“So you’ve got nothing,” she said, “except your belief that Paco is correct about the man’s identity.”
“Right,” I said, glancing at Paco who was still looking into Street’s microscope.
“The Basque expert in Reno,” Street said. “Did he have any ideas about finding a family for Paco?”
“Not really. He’s going to email me about Basque clubs, groups of people across the country who try to keep Basque culture alive.”
“That sounds unusual.”
“Apparently, the Basque are a distinct people culturally and physically. Unique language, history, even DNA. And they’ve been persecuted, so that motivates them to maintain some cohesiveness.”
Street reached up and hooked a loose button on my shirt.
“You don’t want to take him in yourself?” she said in a soft voice.
“You’re kidding,” I said, even softer.
“No, I’m not.” Her look was unwavering.
“It’s not like taking in a stray dog,” I said. “Even if I could provide, he needs some kind of a family life.”
Street said nothing, waited.
“You know how often I’m gone. You know that a kid should have a home that is more than a one-bedroom cabin with no central heat and no TV. Other than you and possibly Diamond, I have no other friends who would provide any significant support. I’m ill-equipped and ill-trained in the ways of kids. But mostly, I have a dangerous job.”
Street looked at me some more. “Why does it sound like you’re marshaling evidence to support your desire to live without children?”
“Because it’s true, I suppose. But that doesn’t alter the fact that no kid should be in an environment where the only adult sometimes gets shot at and stabbed and chased and otherwise assaulted. Paco should have a home that is reliably free from those stresses. And all kids should have a parent or two who are at least somewhat enthusiastic about the day-to-day minutiae of children. A kid should have kid activities. I would not be good at kid activities.”
