Troubleshooter

Chapter 21

Tim was relieved to have a lead to follow, an excuse to avoid going home, and a distraction that would keep him from calling the hospital to check in every twenty minutes. Bear leaned against the faux wall that partitioned off the phone banks from the command post, but the warning creak it emitted straightened him back up.

"The mayor told me about a call you guys fielded on a girl who got snatched?" Tim said.

The court security officer tugged at the textured bags under his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. He flipped through the call log-textbook thick and growing. "Yeah, I think Mattie P. took that one. Here it is. Some girl called, hysterical, said her friend got nabbed off a street corner by bikers."

"Where?"

"Owensmouth in Chatsworth." He smirked. "Prime real estate."

"What'd you do with it?"

"Since the alleged victim had family, I told the friend we'd need an immediate member to file a missing person's. That we usually wait forty-eight hours, but if she wanted to call Sheriff's, she could see if they could move on her report. She said she'd have the mother call back." He flipped a page. "Never did."

"That's all you did with it?" Tim's frustration, he realized, was directed at himself. He'd adopted the dismissiveness in Strauss's tone and disregarded the piece of information. Dray's admonishment came at him: Everyone counts. And everyone counts the same. Getting personal is like putting on blinders. It blocks you from weighing deaths equally, which blocks you from weighing clues equally.

"We got nearly a thousand calls in twenty-four hours." The CSO worked up an impressive scowl. "The Sinners had just shot a deputy. I assumed they'd be on to more important matters. Plus, the woman-or the mother-never called back. I figured it was a hoax or a mix-up or something."

"Do you have a trace number for the call?"

As the CSO grumbled and clicked away at his computer, Guerrera leaned around the corner. His face sharpened with concern when he saw Tim. "What are you doing back? I thought you were gonna get some sleep."

"Sleep's overrated."

The CSO jotted a phone number on a piece of paper, ripped it from the pad, and handed it to Tim. "Happy tracking."

Lydia Monteverde came out on the porch to speak to Tim, Bear, and Guerrera because her baby sister and five-year-old daughter were sleeping in the living room. Battle-scarred holiday decorations clung to the walls, survivors of Christmases past-Frosty with a torn abdomen, Santa sporting crayon scribbles, amputee Rudolph. From the scattered toys and TV trays, Tim guessed that at least three others lived in the tiny apartment. Lydia wore a T-shirt with the sleeves cuffed up above her shoulders and a polyester maid skirt, freshly washed but stained.

Bear thumped a cigarette out of a crumpled pack-he didn't smoke but kept Camels on hand for precisely this reason-and she gladly took it. After a shallow inhale, she blew a shaky stream of smoke and gestured with the two fingers clinching the cigarette. "Right over there. That's where Marisol and me was talking."

A chain-link view of broken-down playground equipment festooned with graffiti tags. Owensmouth Avenue-a stretch of North Valley depravity, a mainline through the crack-and-porn hub of the nation. Lydia gazed up the street as if seeing it with them for the first time, her eyes momentarily blank.

"By the park?" Tim asked.

A jerky nod. She crossed her bare arms, rubbing them. She'd refused Tim's jacket earlier.

"I was too scared to see good. They vroomed past me on both sides. I ran, hid over there." She pointed to a jungle gym in the far corner, glistening like a mass of steel wool. "They circled around her on their motorcycles, revving the engines." She was trembling with the cold and the memory. "So loud. Marisol was screaming, but no one heard. Not around here."

"How'd they grab her?"

"One guy-big guy-drove by and just yanked her like this, around her neck and arm, and dragged her up on his bike behind him. He kept going." She was crying now, her frail shoulders shaking. "They passed me first. They could've grabbed me. It should've been me. But then I ran, and so they circled around Marisol."

"Was Marisol involved with any biker gangs? Any friends or boyfriends who were Cholos?"

Lydia laughed, swiping at her tears. Her knees cracked when she sat on the front step. "No."

"Did she live around here?" Tim caught himself using past tense a second too late.

A mousy nod. "With her abuela."

"We'd like to talk with the grandmother. Can you tell us where she lives?"

Lydia's eyes darted away. "You're gonna find out anyhow?"

"Yes," Guerrera said. "But don't worry. That doesn't interest us."

Bear furrowed his brow inquisitively at Tim. It took a moment for Tim to catch up to Guerrera, but then he put together why the mother hadn't made a follow-up call to the hotline.

"I have the address inside."

"Did you notice anything about the bikes?" Tim asked. "Or the bikers? Any distinguishing marks?"

She closed her eyes, drifting back through the scene, then shuddered. "One of them had a tattoo."

A baby's sputtering cry from inside set her on alert. She rose, dusting the wrinkles from her stained skirt.

"What kind of tattoo?"

"A burning skull. Like a devil. Real mean-looking." She flicked her stub at the pavement, where it sent out a shower of sparks. "And it was laughing."

The front door opened tentatively to reveal a rotund Mexican woman, pronounced black doughnuts ringing her puffy eyes. Her fearful expression-not surprising given the late-night ring at the door-yielded to panic. "No take me away. Please no take me. I no cause trouble."

Tim and Bear stood behind Guerrera on the front step. Bear prodded Guerrera with an elbow, and Guerrera said, "No somos Inmigracion. No se preocupe. Estamos aqui solamente para ayudar a su nieta."

But the woman was hysterical, bending deep on her knees as if contemplating collapse. "I no cause trouble. I jus' want to be here for when mija come home. I no cause trouble. Here. Mira, mira."

She grabbed Guerrera's arm and dragged him down a brief, dark hall, past a doily-draped side table with guttering Advent candles. A tortured Jesus hung from a porcelain cross; it seemed more a fixture than a holiday flourish. Kitchen humidity had spread through the apartment, tinged with the smell of cooked onions. Tim and Bear arrived at the bedroom door as the woman crumbled, weeping, one hand clutching Guerrera's pant leg. Neatly made bed, cutesy animal posters, costume jewelry laid with care on a pink towel covering the bureau. Marisol Juarez looked out from a picture frame, teased hair framing a plump, cherubic face. Eyeliner tailed beyond her eyes; russet lipstick widened the lines of her mouth. Generous smile, a dot of neon green bubble gum glowing at her molars.

"Por favor. She come home soon. I be here for her. You take me then."

Guerrera crouched beside her and spoke soothingly in Spanish. The woman finally calmed, overcome with relief. He helped her to her feet, and she reappraised them gratefully. She squeezed her eyes shut, muttered a prayer, then led them back to a small couch by the front door. She patted the cushions, then deferentially removed the plastic cover from the footrest. Tim's and Bear's soles were muddy; they kept them on the floor. Her insistence grew oppressive, so finally, to her apparent pleasure, they raised their boots to the spotless fabric.

Guerrera followed her into the kitchen, which flickered with candlelight. Tim clicked the lamp beside him, but no light cut the gloom. Evidently the funereal candles also served a pragmatic purpose. A few used tea bags punctuated the base of the lamp.

The old woman fussed over the sink as Guerrera murmured questions in Spanish. She emerged proudly bearing four steaming mugs on a tray. She plucked a desiccated tea bag from the side table and plopped it into one cup, which she reserved for herself. Reverently, she withdrew a box from the cupboard, removed the cellophane wrapper, and dropped fresh tea bags into the three remaining mugs. She handed them off, nodding encouragingly until they all sipped.

"You will help my Marisol? You will find her?"

"We'll do our best," Tim said.

She and Guerrera spoke for about twenty minutes, Tim and Bear straining to keep up with the Spanish, Guerrera pausing from time to time to fill in the blanks. They turned up no new information and no compelling reason her granddaughter might have been targeted. The woman must have read the disappointment in Tim's face, because she clutched his arm at the door and asked, "You bring her home to me?"

After the battering of the past twenty-four hours, the question hit him hard; his emotions had bled close to the surface. "We'll do everything we can."

She looked to Guerrera, who translated, and then her shoulders sank. Two skateboarders rolled past, their wheels snapping over cracks in the sidewalk.

Bear and Guerrera headed back to the rig. Tim paused on the walk and turned. Her squat, shadowy form remained at the door, candles mapping orange sheets on the walls behind her.

"Thank you." He gestured as if raising a cup to his lips. "For the tea."

Her face warmed, if only briefly, and the door swung shut.