10 Tahoe Trap (2 page)

“Do you know where you were when your foster mom was shot?” I asked.

“No. I was asleep when Cassie drove. Then I woke up when she stopped. Someplace near Tahoe, I think.”

“What makes you think that?”

“When I woke up once I saw the farmers’ market.”

“Do you know which one? South Lake Tahoe? Or Truckee?”

“South Lake,” Paco said.

“Are you sure? There’s no farmers’ market now,” I said.

“I saw the parking lot. We used to sell our tomatoes and peppers there in the summer.”

“Which way were you going when you saw the farmers’ market?”

“I don’t know.”

“What side of the car did you look out to see it?”

“Right side.”

“When your foster mom was shot, can you remember seeing anything?”

“No. Just some cliffs.”

“Do you know what kind of pickup you are in?”

“No.”

“Do you know the color?”

“No. It’s dark out. Maybe gray.”

“Is the topper gray, too?”

“It’s white.”

“The man with the gun,” I said. “Is he driving?”

“I don’t know. Him or the other guy.”

“Does the pickup belong to the men?”

“I think so.”

“And it’s still driving fast?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“What car did your foster mom drive?”

“She drove our van.”

“What kind of van is it?”

“Chevy.”

“Color?”

“Brown.”

“Do you know the year?”

“I don’t know. Kinda old. The pickup is slowing down! They’ll hear me talking!” His voice radiated terror. The phone went dead.

“Paco? Are you there?”

But he was gone.

TWO

I hung up the land line and picked up the cell.

“I gave the boy this cell number,” I said to Diamond. “I’ll call you back on my land line.”

I hung up the cell, dialed on my other phone.

“Could you hear what the boy said?” I asked when Diamond answered.

“Missed some words. But I heard enough to know that the boy didn’t give us much to go on.”

I thought about the phone conversation. “Paco said that the South Lake Tahoe farmers’ market parking lot was out the right side of their van, which means they were heading northeast as they went through town. Sounds like they may have crossed the state line into Nevada and Douglas County.”

“Making it my jurisdiction,” Diamond said. He was a sergeant with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.

“Maybe. When I asked the boy if he knew where his foster mom was shot, he said no. But he knows the area well enough to recognize the farmers’ market in the dark.”

“When he had just awakened,” Diamond said.

“Yeah. Then he fell asleep again, which makes me think that they ended up some distance away from the lights of South Lake Tahoe.”

“Like these guys met the foster mom in a deserted spot,” Diamond said. “She could still be alive. If only we had an idea of where to search. But without a make and model, or a plate number, we’re out of luck. We can’t put out an Amber Alert unless we have enough information to meet the criteria. We can’t even prove that the boy has been kidnapped, whether intended or not.”

Diamond paused, then said, “Maybe I can get something generic up on the signs. Dark pickup. Light topper. Wanted for questioning.”

“But the men don’t know he’s in the pickup,” I said. “The sign shouldn’t say anything about a missing child, otherwise it will tell them that the kid is a stowaway in their pickup.”

“Good point. I’ll hold off for now. I’ll contact the other county sheriffs. You want to call SLTPD? Tell Mallory about it?”

“I could,” I said.

“That a problem?”

“You would probably get a better reception with the commander than I would. Even though it’s been over a year since that no-knock entry his boys made on my faulty information, Mallory and I are still on eggshells around each other.”

“Good time to reconnect,” Diamond said. He started to say something else, hesitated, then spoke again. “We should consider that the boy was maybe still sleepy when he called you.”

“Like he had a bad dream and his story may not be reliable?” I said. “Could be he had a nightmare about his mama getting shot. But he sounded lucid. I’m willing to bet that those men fired a gun, that the boy is in the pickup as described. Of course, the details of a crime are always different in reality from what is initially reported, but the kid’s trauma is real. I think he told the truth as he knows it.”

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.

The 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.