Bikini Baristas: Ted Higuera Series Book 4

by Pendelton Wallace

  “Well, I brought my protection, just in case.” She reached over and petted Popo’s huge head.

  Ted lit the gas BBQ grill then peeled a clove of garlic. He hit it with the back of his chef’s knife, and sliced it in two. Then he rubbed the garlic clove halves into his wooden salad bowl. “Papa taught me to make a killer Caesar salad. I hope you like it.”

  “I love Caesar salads. Most people don’t know that they’re Mexican.”

  “I know, invented in Tijuana.” Ted poured the dressing in the bowl then mixed in grated parmesan cheese. “I made the dressing before you got here.” Next he tore leaves of Romaine by hand and dropped them in the bowl. He cut a lemon and drizzled lemon juice over the lettuce then tossed the salad with a wooden fork and spoon. Finally, he added croutons and paper thin slices of parmesan.

  “I’ve added my own touch.” He sprinkled bacon bits over the salad.

  “Looks lovely,” Maria said.

  “Tastes even better. Let me fire the salmon then we can sit down.” He stepped out onto the balcony and placed the cedar plank with the salmon on the grill.

  Ted’s furniture was a major upgrade from his poor student days. He covered his round oak dining room table with a green table cloth and set the places with green cloth napkins.

  Maria adored the Copper River salmon.

  “When I was growing up in La Paz, sea-food was a staple of our diet,” Maria said. “but I’ve never had fish prepared like this before.”

  She loved the French bread as well. “Just like I like it.” She wiped a crumb from her lips. “Crunchy crust and a nice soft inside.”

  Popo sat off to the side, his head at table level.

  “Do you mind?” Maria asked as she put her plate on the floor for the dog to lick.

  After dinner, they sat on the floor in front of the fire. Ted opened a second bottle of wine. Popo curled up and put his head in Maria’s lap.

  “This is dreamy,” Maria said, taking another sip of wine. “Just like some romantic movie.”

  Ted took the glass from her hand and set it on the floor. “It gets better.” He pulled her forward until their lips touched.

  “Mmmmmm” Maria groaned.

  “Shall we move this party to the bed room?” he asked.

  Popo let out a little moan.

  ****

  Tony Ortega did not need a murder case.

  He was parked on a side road off of California’s Highway 395 when his cell phone rang. He looked at the caller ID. Damn, it was dispatch.

  Deputy Ortega had selected this particular spot on the back road because it was in a dead zone. Far out in the desert and surrounded by low hills, he didn’t have radio reception here. It was the perfect place for him to take his afternoon nap in air-conditioned comfort.

  Ortega took the high desert patrol two years ago. It was his reward (or was it punishment?) for more than twenty years on “The Job.” In a couple more years, he would retire, buy that boat and head south to Baja. He would fish during the days and spend the nights playing with the señoritas. But right now he had a problem.

  “251,” Ortega said into his cell phone.

  “Unit 251, we have a report of a burning vehicle southbound on Highway 395, five point one miles north of the eighteen.”

  “Shouldn’t you give this to CHP?” Ortega asked.

  “Negative. They have a triple fatality collision on the Fifteen that they’re working. You’re it.”

  God damn it. This isn’t my problem! “10-4. Rolling.” Ortega wasn’t in any particular hurry to get to the site.

  There it was. A burned out pickup truck, off to the side of the road.

  Running his hands through his closely-cropped gray hair, the short, stocky deputy pondered his next move. It could be a simple vehicle fire. He could call it in, wait for the tow truck and go about his business. Or it could be a felony. Vehicle arson would require reports, paperwork, investigation and follow up. Murder would be even worse.

  Being very careful, the deputy pulled his Ford Explorer patrol car up behind and slightly to the left of the burned out vehicle. No way would he allow a passing motorist to accidentally sideswipe him.

  He could tell from the remnants that it was a Toyota, probably a Tacoma.

  His first concern was for the driver. Ortega climbed from the air-conditioned comfort of his vehicle into the blazing heat of the high desert; it nearly took his breath away. He walked around the vehicle, examining it from six feet away.

  Thank God. There was no one in the driver’s seat.

  He fingered the talk button on the microphone clipped to his epaulet. “Station A, 251,” he said into his microphone.

  “Go ahead, 251.”

  “I’m on the scene. I’ve got a burned-out vehicle southbound five miles north of the eighteen on three ninety-five.” He released the talk button and waited for a response.

  “10-4. Do I need to send a bus?”

  “Negative. No sign of the driver.”

  Toyota all right. Probably a 2002 or 2003. Crispy critter. There was something in the bed, a big, expensive looking piece of equipment. It too was badly burned, but it looked like one of those fancy coffee machines. The stench of burned rubber and gasoline was overwhelming. It hadn’t been sitting here that long.

  He touched the vehicle. Cool, or as cool as anything could be in this heat. The fire had burned itself out a while ago.

  He wiped the soot off the license plate and wrote down the number then walked to the front of the truck to see if he could read the VIN number.

  Okay, got it.

  “Station A, 251. I need a 10-29.” He gave the license number and VIN number.

  “Can’t you run that yourself from your computer?” the dispatcher asked.

  Ortega hated computers, hated all technology. As a matter of fact, he hated almost anything new, except possibly large flat screen TVs.

  “Negative, Station A. I’m in a dead zone. I don’t have computer communication at this time.”

  The dispatcher knew that he was lying. If Ortega could talk on the radio, he could look up the plates on his computer. But he also knew she wouldn’t challenge him.

  Ortega looked closer at the truck, no one inside. That was a relief. No need to deal with dead bodies. What caused the fire? Where was the driver?

  He looked around for footprints. Nothing. Where had the driver gone? Maybe abducted by aliens? He chuckled to himself.

  He walked around the truck again, this time closer to it, looking carefully at the charred remains.

  “251, I’ve your 10-29,” the dispatcher said over the radio.

  “Go ahead.”

  “The 2003 Toyota Tacoma is registered to a Richard Dwayne Randall. 3501 Paradise Way, Las Vegas, Nevada. No outstanding violations or warrants. We have no report from Mr. Randall about an accident.”

  Ortega wrote down the information in his notebook. “Thank you, dispatch.”

  Okay, this was a little suspicious. No sign of an accident, no body damage. What caused the fire? Why didn’t anyone report it? Where had the driver gone?

  Ortega expanded his search, looking farther and farther from the truck. No other tire tracks on the shoulder. Thank God, no bodies in the immediate area.

  Jesus Christ. What was that dark stain in the sand under the driver’s door? He kneeled down. Please don’t let it be blood. He’d have to call in the lab boys.

  He would call a tow truck, have the vehicle impounded and fill out his report. He prayed that was enough for one day.

  Chapter 8

  The Island County Juvenile Detention Center was just where Clayton Johnson-White needed to be. He considered it his college education.

  There weren’t many inmates in the twenty-four bed facility. He counted a maximum of fifteen other guys. The girls were kept strictly segregated so he had no idea if there were even any female inmates.

  The courts were soft, the judges a bunch of bleeding hearts. How had he managed to get the one hard-assed judge on the bench?
The do-gooder judges wanted to rehabilitate the poor, troubled kids. They set up all sorts of programs to educate and counsel the losers who got caught. It was only the hardest of the hard who made it to juvie.

  Clayton sat back on the school cafeteria-style folding table in the central area between the cells. The staff, Who were they fooling? They were really guards, called them “rooms.” They were cells. Any place where you got locked up at night was a cell.

  The tables served as their dining hall, but also as their social meeting area. During the day when the inmates, “guests” in guard-speak, weren’t occupied by other, prescribed, activities, they were free to congregate and practice their newly learned social skills. What bullshit.

  Of course, at night, each of the “guests” was locked in his “room.”

  The juvie facility occupied the second and third floors of the annex next to the Island County Court House. On the lower floor were the do-gooders’ offices; probation officers, social workers and counselors. Next door was the adult jail. Some candy-assed architect designed it so that the inmates could move between the detention facility and the offices without having to be taken into the streets.

  Did they think he was stupid? He quickly caught on to the system and devised a plan to beat it. First, he had some learning to do.

  The other guys here were hard cases. He was big and strong and when challenged on his first day, he decked his tormenter with one blow. No one bothered him since. As a matter of fact, they accepted him, even the guy he had given the shiner to.

  His crimes were bush league compared to the other guys here. They had robbed stores, been arrested for assault, one was a rapist and a couple others were car thieves. He could learn from them. These were the guys that the bleeding hearts were too sissy-assed to send to adult court.

  He had no intention of getting rehabilitated and joining jerk-ass society. He was smarter than that. He didn’t need to work. He was born to be a predator. He took what he needed and wanted, when he wanted it. Let the weaker drones do the work. He believed in the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest, and he intended to be the fittest.

  “I hear you’re here for burglary,” Clayton said to the shaggy-looking teen sitting next to him. Like everyone else, they wore gray jump suits and canvas tennis shoes.

  “So...”

  “How’d you get in? I mean, did you break down the doors or what?”

  The pimply-faced kid looked at him for a moment. “I picked the locks,” he finally said. “My dad’s a locksmith. He taught me how to pick any lock.”

  “Could you teach me?” Clayton asked.

  So it began, Clayton’s graduate education in criminology. In his brief time as a guest of the county he learned to pick locks, hot-wire cars, to disable alarm systems and where to look for hidden surveillance cameras. He was no one’s fool. It didn’t take long for him to learn what he needed.

  He attended classes taught by Mr. Weston, the troll of a teacher assigned to this joint. The slight man with a bad comb-over was dedicated to helping his students. He wanted to keep them current so that when they got out, they could re-integrate with their schools. He met with his students’ regular teachers weekly to synchronize his lessons plans with theirs.

  Weston’s problem with Clayton was that Clayton didn’t have a regular teacher. He’d been out of school for four years.

  The fool was so impressed with Clayton’s knowledge and intelligence that he soon found himself creating college-level lesson plans for his new student. Clayton had done a magnificent job of educating himself.

  “We’ll have you ready for the GED in no time,” Mr. Weston told him.

  What bullshit. Like he really cared. Clayton didn’t give a fat rat’s ass about Weston or his frigging lesson plans. His good behavior was just part of his plan.

  Clayton Johnson-White, model inmate. He found his boyish grin could melt the coldest guard’s heart. He was so tame, with the exception of his first night in the joint, and so well-mannered the staff often left him at his counselor’s to return to the detention facility upstairs by himself. They were teaching him responsibility, rewarding his good behavior. They were just lazy bastards.

  Sundays were visiting days. After bugging his mom for several visits, his sister Tammy finally showed up.

  “Love your outfit, dufus,” she told her twin brother.

  Clayton had definitely won the draw in the gene pool. He was tall, strong and good looking. His sister wouldn’t win any beauty contests. She was tiny, short and skinny, but her long brown hair and doe eyes did attract some boys.

  “You still workin’ at that coffee stand?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Money’s good. I can work pretty much my own hours.”

  “So, you’re making good money?”

  “Hah!” she laughed. “I’ve found ways to make money that you wouldn’t ever dream of. Mr. Randall said it best when he told us ‘Remember girls, whenever you’re down and out, you’re sitting on a gold mine.’”

  Clayton didn’t want to think about what that meant. “You got a car yet?”

  “No. I’m still saving.”

  “Can you get a hold of one?” Clayton lowered his voice. No sense letting anyone overhear this.

  “Yeah, I got a couple of boyfriends with wheels.”

  “Be here Wednesday at three pm.”

  She just stared at him.

  “You got it?” he asked.

  “Uh, yeah. three pm. What for?”

  “Just be waiting outside. That’s all.”

  The following Wednesday was his appointment with the school counselor. He sat through the interminable hour, fidgeting and huffing. It was the longest hour of his life.

  True to plan, the staff was lazy. Clayton was such a good boy. He could walk himself back to his room in the detention facility.

  Instead, he left the counselor’s office, turned down the hallway and to the outside door. He looked at the wall clock; they wouldn’t let him wear a watch. It was three pm sharp.

  He stepped outside into the daylight. A light mist was falling. He shuddered. He didn’t have a coat, only his jump suit.

  Tammy was dependable. She sat there in the passenger seat of a red Kia Soul.

  “Well, well. Goin’ someplace, big brother?”

  “Let me in.” Clayton pulled open the door and squeezed his six-foot one-inch frame into the back seat of the little car. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Thought you might need a change,” Tammy said. “There’s some of your clothes back there.”

  They were off, no one noticed, no one followed.

  Clayton laughed to himself. It was too easy. How could these idiots just let him walk away?

  ****

  Karen Randall basked in the Las Vegas sun on the chaise lounge by the pool in her tiny red bikini with an iced tea in one hand and People Magazine in the other.

  She knew she still looked good. How many women her age could still wear a bikini? Maybe Cheryl Tiegs or Christie Brinkley. She still had her showgirl body, long, thin legs and curves in all the right places. She slathered sun screen on her legs. Her tummy might not be as tight as it once was, but she wasn’t too bad, considering...

  She still got a little thrill, flaunting her curves. True, Dick’s grandson, Bobby, who lived with her, and his friends were only teenagers, but the way they gawked at her reinforced her self-image.

  Dick’s visit bothered her. What was he up to? Had he really missed payments on their house, Her house? How dare he?

  The beauty of their relationship lay in the fact they lived their own lives. He was off in Seattle doing God-knows-what, while she had her life here in Vegas. She still knew all of the casino owners and the showgirls. She visited them occasionally, but she was retired. She spent most of her time here by the pool. Sure, from time to time she went to lunch with friends or spent a night on the town, but she didn’t need all that glamour anymore. She was happy where she was.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the
door bell. Her two Chihuahuas went nuts.

  Who could that be? She wasn’t expecting anyone.

  She put down her magazine and walked through the French doors and to the double oak front doors. She could see two police officers through the glass windows on the doors.

  “Chico, Tina, down. No bark.” The two tiny dogs howled and jumped against the door.

  She realized she wasn’t dressed. What the Hell, might as well give the nice officers a little thrill. She hadn’t been a showgirl for twelve years for nothing.

  She opened the door. “Yes?” she said.

  Her dogs tried to make a break for it. She held them back with her foot then stepped outside, closing the door behind her.

  “Mrs. Randall?” the older officer asked.

  “Yes.” She smiled when she noticed the officers’ eyes checking her out.

  “Is Mr. Randall here, ma’am?”

  “No, he just left for Seattle. What is this about?” Her radar was off the charts. Something was wrong.

  “We’re not really sure, ma’am. We have a request from the San Bernardino Sheriff’s office to check on Mr. Randall, seems a truck registered to him was found burned out alongside the highway near Victorville.”

  She stepped back. “Oh my!” She put her hand to her mouth. “Dick left here in his truck yesterday afternoon.”

  “Have you heard from him, ma’am?”

  “Uh...no. But that’s not unusual. You see, ah... he lives in Seattle. He has a house there, businesses there. I don’t speak to him that often.”

  “Hmmm.” The officer made a note in his book. “When is the last time you saw him?”

  “Like I said, yesterday afternoon. It must’ve been around five or six when he left. He just flew in, picked up his truck and left.” She looked at the two officers. Their faces were stone cold. What happened? “You don’t think that something happened to Dick, do you?”

  “We don’t know, ma’am. We’re just following up for the San Bernardino Sheriff. We’ll report back to him and if he feels any further investigation is necessary, he’ll follow up.”

  “Victorville? San Bernardino?” she said. “That’s in California, isn’t it?”