“A little.”
She came over and glanced at the note.
“What’s ‘q coy’ mean?”
“I was hoping you could translate.”
“Sanchez is a name.”
“Uh-huh.”
She shrugged.
“I don’t know ‘q coy.’ Maybe it’s misspelled.”
“Any guesses what they were trying to spell?”
“No, not really.”
A drive-through customer appeared, so she returned to her station.
Other customers had lined up behind me, so I took the iced tea and set up shop in a booth as far from everyone as I could get. Two men wearing Union 76 shirts came in a few minutes later, but they couldn’t translate the note, and neither could a thin woman with two round little boys.
The woman and boys took a booth near mine. The boys sat together on one side, she sat on the other, and put out cups of vanilla yogurt and French fries. Nothing like balanced nutrition. The boys pushed and pulled at each other as they shoved in the food, and laughed loud so people would look at them. When the woman told them to stop, they ignored her. She looked exhausted, but happy for the distraction when I asked if she read Spanish.
She studied the note, then handed it back.
“Sanchez is a name. I don’t know these other words.”
“Okay, thanks for taking a look.”
“‘Coy’ is kinda familiar, but I don’t know. I think I’m confusing it with something else.”
“If it comes to you.”
“I don’t think it’s Spanish.”
“Okay.”
The boys pushed and pulled, and when she again told them to stop, they laughed to drown her voice as if she didn’t exist.
She stared at them with hollow eyes, then leaned toward me and lowered her voice.
“I hate them. Is that so wrong? I really do hate them.”
The boys laughed even louder.
They were still laughing when my phone rang with a number I didn’t recognize.
“Elvis Cole.”
“Mary Sue Osborne.”
I took the phone and tea to a booth farther from the laughing boys. I could see my car in the parking lot, and watching it gave me a reason not to look at the woman hating her horrible little boys.
“Hey.”
“Hey back. I looked up your article online. That was a nice piece. They made you seem cool.”
“Seem?”
“Check out my bad self. I cracked Krista’s password. I tried all these passwords, and nothing worked, so I got stupid and typed in o-p-e-n. Shazam, and I found Jack’s address.”
“You made my day.”
“This would be true. I should be rewarded.”
“What’s his address?”
She rattled off an address on Tigertail Road in Brentwood. Tigertail was in an affluent canyon in the hills west of the Sepulveda Pass. Jack’s parents did pretty well.
I said, “As long as I have you, let me ask you something-do you speak Spanish?”
“ Si, amigo. Well, poquito. I’m fluent in French and Italian, but I can get by in Spanish.”
“I’m going to read you something. I think it’s Spanish.”
I read it, then spelled it. Q coy Sanchez.
She said, “It isn’t Spanish.”
“That’s what everyone says.”
“Did Kris write it?”
“Would it matter? Let’s say she did.”
She was silent for a moment.
“I’m guessing, but I think it says ask about a coyote named Sanchez.”
“It does?”
“The Q. It’s a shorthand we use at the paper. Query, question, ask. Coy-you write fast, you abbreviate. I’m guessing ‘coyote’ because every article on her desk is something about coyotes sneaking people across the border. Also, I’m a genius.”
“I loves me a smart chick.”
“I knew you’d see the light. They always do.”
“Okay, there’s one more thing.”
“I know. You want me to read all these articles to see if a coyote named Sanchez is mentioned.”
“Affirmative.”
She made a big deal of sighing.
“I’m so easy. You should take advantage of me.”
“Thanks, buddy. This is a big help.”
“Buddy. Every girl’s dream, being a hot guy’s buddy.”
“I’m old enough to be your father. Kinda.”
“Only small minds are limited by society’s conventions.”
I was still smiling when I hung up and phoned Nita Morales. She was in a meeting, but immediately came to the phone. I told her where I was, launched into a rundown of what I had learned. I was just beginning to build up momentum when she surprised me.
“She went to that airplane?”
“You know about it?”
“This is how I came. She wanted to know what coming north was like, so I told her. Meeting there was common then if you came up the Imperial Valley. Our guide called it the airport. It was a safe place to meet and easy to find. He would say, tomorrow we are going to land at the airport, and you will get on another airplane. I hope that pilot knows how to fly. He thought this was funny.”
“What was your coyote’s name?”
“We did not call them coyotes. They were our guides.”
“Okay. Who was he?”
“I don’t think I ever knew. I was seven.”
“Have you heard of a coyote named Sanchez?”
She sounded annoyed.
“I don’t know people like this. People in my situation, we’re not part of some underground society. You think we get together, have margarita parties, and laugh it up about how we put one over on Uncle Sam? I was seven. It’s something you try to put behind you. These things are not part of my life.”
I told her about the things I found in the bush, including the handwritten note.
“Mary Sue thinks it means ‘ask a coyote named Sanchez.’”
“Ask what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it has nothing to do with where she is or why she’s missing, but if she wanted to ask Sanchez something, then I want to ask him, too.”
“The attorney I saw knows about these things.”
“The attorney you saw when you looked into changing your status?”
“Yes. He is an immigration attorney who is sympathetic in these matters. I know he represents undocumented people when they are arrested. I have his number.”
“Okay.”
“Thomas Locano. He was very nice. Here-”
She gave me a number with a Pasadena area code. I asked her to call him. As her attorney at that time, he would need her permission to share information.
“Mr. Cole? I will call the police if you think it is best.”
“I’ve been involved less than five hours. Let’s see what develops.”
“I would give up everything for her, Mr. Cole. Without hesitation. I want you to know this.”
“I know you would, but you won’t have to. Nothing happening now is about you. It’s about finding Krista and bringing her home. The police won’t ask your status, and don’t care.”
“Are you sure?”
Outside, a red Jeep Cherokee pulled into the parking lot and parked beside my car. The man inside did not get out. He waited without moving, dark glasses locked forward, immobile as a statue.
I checked the time.
“Yes. I’m sure. This is why I’m the World’s Greatest Detective.”
“You are trying to make me smile again.”
“Yep.”
“It did not work.”
“I know. But I had to try.”
I put away my phone, and went out to the Jeep. The man behind the wheel looked at me as I climbed into the passenger seat, but said nothing. Conversation was not his strong point.
Pike, Joseph, no middle initial, learned the tracking arts as a boy who grew up at the edge of a logging town, and later refined those same arts when he hunted men first as a combat Marine, then later as an LAPD police officer and a private military contractor in Africa, Central America, and the Middle East. If I was good at hunting men, Pike was better. Pike had also been my partner in the agency since we bought it together, and my friend for even longer.
“Thanks for coming.”
His head dipped once. A two-hour drive, and he had come without asking why, and without explanation.
Now, I told him about Krista Morales, her Friday night at the crash site, and what I found when I walked the scene. I gave him the nine-millimeter brass casings and the spent shotgun shell.