9 Hell on Wheels (19 page)

Twenty-two

We were driving south
on the 405 Freeway in an older white SUV. Elaine was at the wheel; I was riding shotgun. Since we left the beach she hadn’t said much to me except to say no when I asked if we could swing by my house so I could pick up my purse and change into something else. I also didn’t have on any makeup and hadn’t even taken the time to brush my hair before leaving the house.

For miles I watched the familiar scenery of Orange County fly by. Shortly we would be at the intersection where the 405 melted into the southbound 5 Freeway, also known as the San Diego Freeway. That meant we were almost to Lake Forest.

“Are we heading to San Diego?” I asked.

“Considering that’s where the crime scene is,” Elaine answered, not taking her eyes off the road, “don’t you think that’s where the witness will be?”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “They could be anywhere.”

“But they’re not,” she said curtly.

I looked straight ahead and sniffed. “You could have at least let me say goodbye to my husband.” After speaking with Greg, Elaine had shut off my phone and pocketed it. She still had it.

“You can call him when we’re done.” She glanced over at me and smiled. “And if you’re a good girl, I might even take you for ice cream after.”

“Just get me home and I’ll be happy,” I told her, not one bit amused. “We have ice cream in the freezer.”

We rode along a few more miles in silence. When we reached San Clemente city limits, I said, “We need to stop and find a ladies’ room.” When Elaine looked at me with raised brows, I added, “I’ve had several cups of coffee this morning. It’s running right through me.”

“Yeah, me too,” she admitted after some thought. “It’s a bitch getting old. It’s more of a bitch when your bladder gets old.”

“Tell me about it,” I said with a little chuckle. “Do you pee when you sneeze?”

“Sneeze, cough, laugh, yawn—hell, even when I think too loudly.”

We looked at each other, and Elaine gave me a genuine smile.

After putting on her turn signal, Elaine moved the SUV into the far right lane and took the first exit we came upon. We pulled into a fast food restaurant right off the exit and went inside together to use their restroom. In less than ten minutes we were back on the road—Elaine with another coffee, me with a bottle of water.

“You need to pee again,” she told me, looking at the water, “you can just do in your pants. Pretend you sneezed.”

After a few more miles, I asked, “So I remind you of your sister?”

She was silent until we hit Carlsbad. “Yes,” she finally said. “You do.”

“Do I look like her?”

She looked at me, then shook her head. “Not much, but your personality is a lot like hers.” With her right hand, she picked up her coffee from the cup holder and took a long pull. “Her name was Dottie. She was short and squat, like you, and just as pig-headed and stubborn. Always going headfirst into messes without a thought to her own safety.” She took another slug of coffee. “Like you, she was a fixer.”

“A fixer? On TV that’s someone who cleans up after the rich and famous when they’ve screwed up.”

Elaine smiled to herself. “In her case, and in yours, it’s someone who’s trying to make things right. You know, hell-bent on justice at all costs. In the end, it’s what killed her.” She turned to me, her face dark. “I don’t want that to happen to you.”

I took a deep breath. “How did she die?”

“Do you remember that big scar on my right side?”

“Yes,” I answered, remembering the long, ugly scar I saw when I’d once seen her naked. “You said your husband gave it to you with a saw or something.”

“Yes,” Elaine replied, her voice dull with matter-of-factness. “It was a hacksaw.”

“And later you killed him for doing it, right?”

She took a deep breath. “Yes, but what I didn’t tell you is that Dottie was in the house when the fight started between me and my husband. After he sliced me open the first time, he tried again, hell-bent on killing me once and for all. Dottie got between us, and he caught her across the neck with the saw. He took off once he saw what he’d done. I survived; Dottie didn’t. I caught up with the bastard a year later.”

I was speechless for a full minute. “I’m very sorry, Elaine. That’s truly horrible and tragic. But trust me, I’m no hero like that.”

“You killed someone once, didn’t you?”

I looked at her with surprise. “You know about that?”

She nodded. “I did my homework after we first met. I heard you saved your life and someone else’s by putting a bullet into an attacker. The life you saved was Willie Proctor’s right-hand man. No wonder he’s so loyal to you.” She glanced at me again. “And yet you still go after killers armed with only your wit and dumb luck.” She paused. “I know you’d pull that trigger again if you had to. You’re a gutsy lady, Odelia Grey, just like Dottie, but one day you’ll pay for always being on the side of what’s right.”

Borrowed time, that’s what Dev called it.

Again, we rode along in silence until I broke it. “Do you have any children, Elaine?”

“No,” she answered. “And considering my lifestyle, that’s a good thing.”

Entering San Diego, we stayed on the 5, then merged onto the 94, finally exiting a few miles later. The further we drove, the more poor and unkempt the neighborhoods became until we finally pulled up in front of single-story stucco house with faded turquoise paint surrounded by a chain-link fence with a broken gate. The yard was mostly dirt with brown scruffs of grass and littered with dirty toys. In the driveway were a couple of old cars, one obviously not in working condition. The other houses in the neighborhood looked about the same.

Elaine pulled out her cell phone and made a call. “We’re here,” she said into the phone. She listened, then said, “Got it.” Opening her door, she got out of the SUV. “Come on,” she told me.

As soon as we were out of the vehicle, the front door opened and a figure emerged. It was a small woman wearing all black. She was toting a gun, held down close to her thigh. Recognizing her, I held my breath.

“You remember Lisa, don’t you?” asked Elaine as we walked up the cracked sidewalk.

I did, and it wasn’t from book club. The last time I’d seen the petite gunslinger, she’d just killed someone. “Yes, I do.” I looked at her and the gun with wariness. Lisa hadn’t liked me when we’d met, and from the look on her face, she hadn’t changed her opinion.

“Where are they?” Mother asked Lisa.

“In the back,” Lisa answered, indicating for us to enter. Elaine went first, then me. As I passed, I felt Lisa’s cold killer eyes on me. She brought up the rear—the caboose toting firepower.

We entered the house, which was dark due to most of the curtains being drawn. It was tidier inside than out. Toys were stacked neatly in a corner of the living room, newspapers and magazines were in order on the battered coffee table, furniture was dusted, and the thin carpet looked newly vacuumed. In spite of the poverty of the place, someone was taking pride in its cleanliness. My nose caught the aroma of something savory and yummy coming from the kitchen.

The three of us made our way through the kitchen single file, like ducklings crossing a road. A thick-set older woman with brown skin and long gray hair pulled back at her neck was stirring something in a big pot on the stove. She was wearing an old-fashioned house dress and apron. She nodded to us without smiling and went back to her work. On the kitchen table, boxes of cereal were lined up like soldiers next to a big bowl of bananas, apples, and oranges. Freshly washed bowls, glasses, and mugs were drying in a rack next to the sink. Even with its worn linoleum and ancient appliances, the kitchen was homey and well-tended.

Lisa had stashed her gun and now led the way into the back yard, where a man was seated at a plastic table reading a newspaper, a coffee mug in front of him. A woman sat at the table next to him. She was young and wore worry like an ill-fitting suit. She never took her eyes off a boy kicking a ball around the yard. The boy was thin but sturdy and looked about eight or nine.

Seeing us come through the back door, the man put down the paper, took off his reading glasses, and got to his feet. He was nearly six feet tall and slender. He smiled at us, his face lined, his eyes dark with concern but not hostile in any way. He shook my hand and Elaine’s, but no names were exchanged. When I offered mine, he smiled politely but still did not offer his or that of the woman with him. I took the hint.

“Carlos,” he called to the boy once we were all seated—all except for Lisa. She stood behind me and Elaine, her feet planted military style, keeping watch.

The boy stopped playing and jogged to the table. The man said something to him in Spanish and pointed at us. Carlos went to the woman’s side, his dark eyes round with fear. The man said something again to the boy and the boy relaxed a bit, but the woman, who I assumed was his mother, did not.

Then it dawned on me—the boy was the witness. He was the one who’d seen Miranda murdered. I closed my eyes tight, wishing it were not so for his sake.

The interview was conducted with the man acting as interpreter, translating our questions and the boy’s answers.

“He heard a shot,” the man told us, going over the story again to sum it up. “Then someone hopped out of the van and took off running.”

“Can he tell us more about the person who fled?” I asked.

“It was either a small man or a woman, thin and possibly white, dressed in jeans and sweatshirt.” He turned to the boy and asked him something. The boy responded. Turning back to us, the man relayed, “He said he didn’t see the face, but the sweatshirt was gray with a hood, baggy and long.”

The boy pantomimed something, accompanied by a barrage of words in Spanish. He was becoming more relaxed with the telling. The man said to us, “He says the hood was up, covering the head and the face.”

“I understand,” I said, “that the van was behind an old, abandoned warehouse. How did this little boy see it?”

The man and Elaine exchanged glances, then Elaine nodded to him as if giving him a green light. “You can tell her. She’s okay.”

“Carlos and his mother were in the area…traveling…and stopped for a bit at the warehouse to rest. Carlos was a bad boy.” Here the man looked at Carlos, who obviously knew enough English to hang his head at the words. “He slipped out, and that’s when he saw what happened.”

“But what were they doing down there?” I asked, confused. “I understand that area can be dangerous.”

Behind me I heard Lisa say half under her breath, “Dumber than a box of rocks.”

Elaine shot Lisa a stern look, and she went back to being a sphinx.

When the answer occurred to me, I did feel dumber than a box of rocks. “They’re illegal.” I said it softly, as if someone might have the place bugged.

“Yes,” answered the man. “Carlos’s father is deceased. They were being helped across the border, and that warehouse was a stopping place until they could be brought here. They are on their way to join family in the Central Valley.”

“Of course, and that’s why they can’t go to the police,” I said, more to confirm it for myself.

“My home is a safe house until people crossing the border can be united with family members,” the man told me, locking his dark eyes onto mine. “If you tell anyone, you will put many in jeopardy, including my own wife and children.”

I nodded my understanding. “You have no worries here. You and this place are already erased from my memory.”

When driving south in Southern California you can always tell when you are getting close to the Mexican border. Along the highway are yellow caution signs depicting a family of three—dad, mom, and child, with mom holding the child’s hand—running across the highway. Californians, including me, make a lot of jokes about those signs, but to the people running they are no joking matter. Many illegals have been struck and killed while running for a better life. Now Carlos and his mother had another worry. Depending on who killed Miranda Henderson, they may be running for a different reason.

I reached out and touched the young woman’s arm and gave her a smile that I hoped conveyed assurances that I was no snitch and understood her plight. She gave me a shy, tight-lipped smile in return.

The man said something to her. She looked at me with sadness and said something in Spanish, pulling her son closer to her. “I told her,” the man said, “that you were a friend of the woman who died in that van. She said she is very sorry, but her son cannot help you.”

“He’s already helped a great deal,” I said to the woman. The man translated my words to her.

“
Muchas gracias,
” I said to her and smiled. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the cash I’d taken from my wallet before meeting Elaine. It wasn’t much—about thirty dollars. I held it out to her. “
Por favor
.”

She looked at but didn’t touch the money. She turned to the man. He smiled and said something. Quickly the cash disappeared from my hand into one of her pockets. “
Gracias
,” she said to me and looked down.

I looked at the man. “What else can we do for her and the boy?”

“That’s been taken care of,” Elaine said to me. “We’re giving her and Carlos a lift to her family. They’re leaving with us right now.”

“
Bueno
,” I said and smiled at the boy and his mother.

With Carlos and his mother packed into the back seat of the SUV along with their meager belongings, Elaine and I left, but instead of heading for the 5, she took a smaller, less-traveled highway north. Lisa was riding a motorcycle behind us.

“How did you find Carlos?” I asked Elaine in a quiet voice.

“My people asked questions about the van and the shooting. One thing led to another and eventually to him.”

“But if you found them, so could the police.”

“Like I told you, the cops weren’t asking the right people,” she said. “My people went into the shadows, asking people who would never tell anything to the police.” She paused, then added, “Somebody always knows what happened, Odelia. You just have to know where to ask and have the right credentials to gain access to those people and their trust.”