10 Tahoe Trap (20 page)

“For many illegals who’ve raised families and built small businesses, it can be like a death sentence. There are mothers whose children were born here and hence are legal. But the mothers get deported and possibly never see their children again.”

“We always hear about illegal immigrants who were picked up because they committed a crime,” I said.

“Powerful reasons to deport them,” Bolen said. “And some illegal immigrants, just like some legal citizens, commit crimes. And some of those crimes are horrific. But the association often adds to the rhetoric even as it subtracts from common sense. When a news story describes a criminal suspect who’s an illegal alien, they almost always sensationalize it, giving the impression that illegal immigrants are naturally bad people.”

“Do illegal immigrants commit more crimes as a percentage than legal citizens?” I asked.

“I don’t know how the groups compare. But I do know that some anti-immigration people get pretty loose with statistics. Sometimes you’ll hear or read comments about how many millions of illegal immigrants are criminals, when they are leaving out the fact that for many of them, the only crime they have committed is coming over the border illegally. The statistic gets used to paint a picture that is clearly a mis-characterization. It’s a black-and-white view of something that has a lot of gray area.

“The mother of the boy you are talking about broke the very serious law of coming to this country without papers. She probably did it to find work and make a better life for herself and her baby. According to the law, she should have been punished, fined and/or deported had she not died.

“People often stand behind a law without asking if it’s a good law. But how bad was the woman’s illegal entry? Maybe she’d already been deported and then re-entered illegally. If so, that second entry is a felony offense. Yet would she be bad like other felons? Should she be characterized like someone who robs or rapes or murders?”

“Congressmen have a lot of reasons why they pass laws,” I said.

“Yeah, but you don’t want to hear my take on legislators. I should also point out, however, that most deportations are administrative and aren’t attached to any criminal prosecution. They simply pick up people, make a decision, and deport them. They call these cases removals.”

I could hear more breathing on the line. It sounded like Bolen’s cigarette wasn’t going to last long.

“I think,” Bolen said, “that the root of the worry over illegal immigration is that they will take our jobs, overload our social services and suck the taxpayer dry. And there’s no doubt that some illegals absorb costly healthcare services, and send their children to public schools, paid for by our taxes.

“But the studies don’t support the job question, and a good portion of illegals have their taxes deducted from their paychecks just like the rest of us.”

It sounded like Bolen was getting lathered up.

He said, “If you ask hotel managers and farmers and restaurant owners and landscape companies if they could find American citizens to clean the rooms, pick the produce, fry the eggs, run the lawn mowers, and build rock gardens should illegals all be deported, they almost universally tell you no. Most Americans who were born here won’t do that work. Even if you find an uneducated American looking for a job and you offer him work cutting up chicken meat or cleaning the bathrooms in your factory, many if not most will say they’re going to keep looking.

“Does that make coming here illegally right? Of course not.” He paused to breathe and no doubt suck down more smoke.

“Is there a way to plead this boy’s case that ups his odds of staying?” I asked.

“If you were to hire a good immigration lawyer like me, and if you’re willing to spend some money, we may find a way through the thicket of fine print that is stacked against him. But I make no promises.”

“It sounds like you’re saying that if this kid wants to stay in the country, he should stay undercover.”

“Hard to say,” Bolen said. “Undercover, he could get picked up. He breaks any law, jaywalks, rides his bicycle through a red light, could be a cop stops him. Next thing you know the kid might be taken away to a detention center. A lawyer can sometimes intervene. And while the system is full of exceptions –and this kid’s situation may fit one of those holes – the system is also inflexible. You’ve got some bureaucrat filling in the form boxes on a computer screen. She’s been doing it all day, and she’s got to do a hundred more before she can go home. Your kid’s form gets filled in the wrong way for him, next thing you know, he’s on a plane to Mexico and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”
 

“Let me tell you one more thing about this kid,” I said. “He’s been in trouble.”

“What kind?”

“He got in a scuffle, and when the teachers checked his pack, they found his harvest tools, including his tomato knife. He was hauled in for bringing a weapon to school.”

I heard an exhalation.

“Christ, McKenna, if you’d told me that up front, you could’ve saved us both several minutes worth of my hot air. No way is any agency gonna let him stay. He’s toast. You better start teaching him Español.”

I thanked him and walked back over to Street’s. She and Paco and Spot were still sitting outside enjoying the November sun.

I sat down and looked up as a small plane whined above on a path from Squaw Valley. It headed toward the mountain behind us, roughly near where my cabin perches. The plane continued on, heading toward Carson Valley down below the back side of the mountain. It gave me an idea.

“You ever been in a plane?” I said to Paco.

Judging by Paco’s look, I might as well have asked if he’d ever flown to Paris for dinner at Maxim’s.

“No.”

I looked up at the clearing sky. “Good day for flying,” I said. “Want to come?”

He compressed his lips. “Where would we go?”

“I want to look for your van.”

Paco looked doubtful. “I don’t think you could.”

“Why?”

“My friend Rafael went on a plane when his father died. He said it went real high. He couldn’t see anything on the ground.”

“I’m not talking about a jet airliner. I’m talking about a little plane.” I pointed at the one that had gone above us. “See that little plane flying over the mountain?”

Paco squinted against the bright sky. He put his hand up to shade his eyes against the morning sun but never touched his sunglasses on the top of his head.

“That kind of plane,” I said. “Small. Flies at low altitude.”

Paco shrugged, the indeterminate version.

“Is that a yes?”

He shrugged again.

The absence of any emotional response from Paco was difficult to deal with.

I turned to Street. “You want to come?”

“And ride in a plane with you driving?” She was no doubt remembering my crash landing the last time I flew in a rush to save Jennifer Salazar from a killer who had her out on a boat in the middle of Lake Tahoe.

“The last time was in a blizzard,” I said, avoiding further explanation in front of Paco. I looked up at the cloudy sky. “It looks like it will be calm for several hours at least.”

Street gave me one of her beautiful, enigmatic smiles. “Thanks, but I have bugs to identify, bugs to count, bugs to put through my pheromone merry-go-round.”

So Paco and Spot and I got in the Jeep. As usual, Spot was overjoyed to go for a ride, and he held his head out the open rear window, an endless appetite for the sights and smells and sounds. Paco stared through the glass, zero appetite for the sights and smells and sounds. I wondered if it had diminished since the shooting.

We headed south down the East Shore. I kept my attention on the rear view mirror as much as in front of us. I saw no pickups.

At a few minutes before 10:30 a.m., we pulled into the South Lake Tahoe airport and parked in the lot. I left the windows open enough that Spot could see his view of choice. I told him to be good, grabbed his head, and shook it fast enough to make his jowls flap. He wagged.

Paco and I headed over to a small hanger building between the tarmac and the parking lot.

Across the top of the door was a painted plywood sign that said Tahoe Valley Wings. I tried the door. Locked. There was a little piece of paper taped to the window pane.

In red ballpoint pen it said, “Giving a lesson. Back at 11:00.” There was a rough, crude, line drawing of an airplane and an arrow that pointed up.

I stepped away from the building, looked up, and scanned the sky. Nothing but cobalt blue.

Fifteen minutes later, Paco pointed at the sky. A white Cessna 152 came into view out of the north, taking a straight-in approach to runway 18. It dropped down on final, lowering to just eight or ten feet above the landing strip. Then it slowed to the speed of a car going through town before it flared and made a soft landing in front of us. It taxied across the tarmac and stopped twenty yards away.

After the prop stopped, a skinny young man got out of the right seat, stepped to the ground, trotted around to the left door and opened it for a trim woman, younger than he. Been a long time since I’d seen a young guy open a door for a girl. He nodded at me. “Be with you in a few minutes,” he said as they went into the hanger office.

 They emerged five minutes later.

“You’re ready for your first solo next week,” he said to her.

“No way,” she said, beaming.

“You greased that last touchdown. Next week solo, next month your license, eventually your instrument rating.”

“No way,” she said again.

“You got the chops, girl. Go for it.”

They said goodbye, and the instructor turned toward me and introduced himself.

“Hi, I’m Ben Rashid.”

We shook. I told him my name.

Ben Rashid looked Pakistani and talked Brooklyn, New York. “You want to rent a plane?”

“Please. I’d like to go up for an hour or two. Maybe more. But I’m not current. Can you take me up for a check ride?”

“Sure, man.” He waved his arm toward the Cessna. “We’ve got this One-Fifty-Two, or, if you want some speed, we have a newer One-Seventy-Two Skyhawk.”

“I’m doing an aerial search,” I said. “Slow is good.” I looked at the smaller plane. “But we’d probably have a weight issue on the One Fifty-Two.”

Ben looked at the plane, then smiled. “You obviously know your stuff.” He pointed at the plane. “Gross payload on this sweetheart is five hundred pounds. Subtract off full fuel tanks and we’re down to three forty-four. What do you weigh?”

“Two fifteen.”

“I’m only one-forty, but just the two of us puts us over her limit. So we need to trade up. Our Skyhawk has a payload after fuel of a bit over four forty. What’s your boy weigh?”

I turned to Paco.

“Sixty-four and a half when they weighed me at school,” Paco said.

Ben wrote on his clipboard, added the numbers. “So we three are about four nineteen. And after I get out of the plane, you’ll have lots of room to spare. What are you searching for? Do you need to bring along any equipment?”

“No. We’re looking for signs of a missing woman,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows. “Oh. So sorry to hear that. I’m certainly happy to help.”

Paco wanted to wait outside while I made arrangements. I considered the risks and decided he could stay outside only if he remained in front of the big window where I could see him.

“Keep your eye on the parking lot. You see Salt and Pepper, you come inside fast, right?”

He nodded.

Ben and I went into the hanger office, filled out several pieces of paper.

I kept turning around to check that Paco was still standing in front of the window.

Ben asked me the basics and made notes while I gave him my particulars from my hours in the cockpit to showing him my last medical paperwork, a copy of which I keep in the Jeep. Then he gave me the oral exam, smiling at my answers.

He stood up and handed me the ignition key.

Outside, doing the preflight inspection, I made a show of being extra thorough while I checked everything, engine components to propeller to wheels to aircraft surfaces, wings and tail, to sampling the wing tank fuel sumps.

When we were done, I showed Paco the rear seat. He climbed in and immediately reached for the seat belts.

“I thought you didn’t like seat belts because they trap you inside. If something happened, you wanted to be thrown free.”

“Not in a plane,” he said.

I checked Paco’s belts, then we climbed inside, me in the left seat, Ben in the right.

I continued the preflight routine, going step-by-step through the long list. Then I started the engine and checked the instruments, oil pressure, fuel pump, fuel mixture. I turned on the radio, the transponder, checked the flaps. I taxied to runway 18 and did my engine run-up, checking magnetos, suction gauge, engine instruments, and ammeter.

When the radio chatter made it clear that there was no nearby traffic, I announced our takeoff, pushed the throttle all the way and released the brakes. The prop turned into a blur, and the plane gained speed like an ungainly little insect with its wings extended. The buzz-saw whine rose in pitch as the Cessna gathered speed. At 60 knots, I eased the yoke back, and we lifted off. By turning the yoke to the right just a touch, I crabbed into the west wind as we rose above the tarmac, knowing that Ben would notice that, despite the cross wind, our position stayed directly above the runway as we climbed into the sky.