Taken

  The caller’s name was Daniel Trehorn. The D.T. who left the note.

  I identified myself, explained that Krista’s mother was worried, and asked when he had last seen them, together or apart.

  He answered in the same hushed tone.

  “That was last Friday night. It’s been almost a week.”

  It had been six days. One day after Krista Morales left her apartment to meet Jack Berman. Two days before Nita Morales received the first ransom demand.

  “Where did you last see them?”

  He mumbled something to someone in the background, then returned to me.

  “In the desert. Listen, can we talk in twenty minutes? I’m working. I’m a caddie at Sunblaze. You know where we are?”

  “I’ll find it.”

  “On Dinah Shore, east of Gene Autry. We’re on the ninth of nine. I’ll meet you outside the clubhouse.”

  “See you in twenty.”

  “We had plans the next day. We were gonna hang out. Are they okay?”

  “I’ll see you in twenty.”

  Daniel Trehorn sounded worried. I sounded worried, too.

  8.

  Daniel Trehorn was a skinny guy in gray shorts, a maroon Sunblaze Golf Resort polo, and pristine white sneakers. A shotgun spray of zits speckled his cheeks, and mirrored orange sunglasses wrapped his eyes as he scanned the desert ahead. We were in his big Silverado pickup, all tricked out with big tires, big shocks, and big lights for life in the desert. Trehorn was driving.

  “We were going to Vegas. Krista’s never been to Vegas. Blast up Saturday morning, back Sunday afternoon. Kris hadda be back at school Monday. I went by to pick’m up, that was at noon, but they weren’t home. I called. Nothing. I texted. Nothing. I’m thinking, what the fuck? We don’t roll this way.”

  “You and Jack tight?”

  “He’s my boy. We go back.”

  “You know Krista, too?”

  “Sure. They’ve been hooked up for a long time.”

  Trehorn was taking me twenty-three-point-two miles south of Palm Springs to the site of an old airplane crash where he had left them that Friday night, six days ago. On that Friday, Trehorn, Jack, Krista, and another couple named Chuck Lautner and Deli Blake had built a fire, drank beer, and listened to music.

  I said, “Why did they stay when the rest of you left?”

  “Why do people ever want to be alone under the stars? What do you think?”

  “I think no one has seen or heard from them since you drove away.”

  The twenty-three-mile drive south was mostly on pretty good paved roads, but the last seven miles were ranch and county roads bedded with gravel or cut through sand and rocks. Twenty miles of empty desert is a long way. I wondered if their car broke down, or they had an accident, and if we would find their car overturned on the side of the road.

  “You guys came out here at night?”

  “Sundown, but it was almost midnight when we went back. I’ve been coming out here since junior high with my brother. It’s no big deal when you know the way.”

  I looked around at the long expanse of brush and rubble. You look up “middle of nowhere,” this is the definition.

  “Did Jack know the way?”

  “He’s been out a few times. It’s pretty simple when you know it.”

  Ten minutes later, we bounced to a stop in a cloud of yellow dust, and Trehorn pointed.

  “There you go.”

  A twin-engine Cessna was on her belly more than a hundred yards off the road, across a field of creosote bushes, barrel cactus, and rocky sand. Clumps of brush had grown up around her like puppies nuzzling their mother. The props and windows were missing, the left wing and tail were crumpled, and her corroded skin had been a forty-year canvas for graffiti that served as a history for pretty much every local high school class and romance for the past forty years. Even after all these years, a dim outline where the land had been scraped to create a landing strip could be seen by how the brush grew.

  “This is where you left them?”

  “Yeah. We were by the plane. That’s where everyone hangs out, you see how it’s kinda clear where the old runway was? You can build a fire, cook if you want, just kinda hang. Jack left his car out here ’cause he has that Mustang, so Chuck and I drove over, and parked by the wreck. It gets dark, bro, it is black out here. I turn on the floods.”

  Trehorn had a light bar bolted to the top of his truck.

  “Where did Jack leave his car?”

  “Couple of lengths behind us, I guess. Chuck went on to the plane, and Jack and Kris climbed in with me. He can’t drive his Pony over that stuff.”

  I slid out of his truck.

  “Let’s take a look.”

  “We can drive.”

  “Walking is good.”

  A long time ago the United States Army taught me how to hunt men in wild places. People in black T-shirts with loud voices taught us how to move and hide without leaving signs of our passing, and how to find and read the signs left by others. Then they sent us to dangerous places and gave us plenty of practice. I got to be pretty good at it. Good enough to survive.

  I did not go immediately to the airplane. I went behind Danny’s truck to see the tracks his tires left, then walked along the road until I found the same track leaving the road for the airplane.

  “This is you. See? Let’s follow you.”

  Six days after they were here, his tire tracks were still readable. We followed the trail he had left of broken creosote and manzanita, then left his trail for the airplane. It rested twenty yards off what would have been the landing strip, where it had slid sideways to a stop. Older tracks and ruts cut across the clearing were visible, too, along with discarded water bottles and beer cans that looked as if they had been there for years.

  Graffiti covered every square inch of the wreck like psychedelic urban camouflage that was alien to the desert. It was a small airplane, and now, dead on its belly with missing engines and broken windows, it didn’t seem like much of a reason to drive so far.

  The old airplane’s carcass had long been stripped of anything valuable by scavengers and souvenir hunters. The seats were gone, and eye sockets gaped from the control panel where the instruments had been removed. In the back, where the smugglers had probably strapped down bales of weed, were more crusty cans layered with dust.

  We continued past the nose to a clear area, where Trehorn pointed out the black smudge that had been their fire, then made a general wave toward a break in the brush.

  “We parked there, put on some tunes, and built the fire. See the cut wood? People come out, they scrounge shit from the brush, but that stuff makes a shit fire. Chuck brought real wood. It gets cold out here.”

  “Was the fire still burning when you and Chuck took off?”

  “Embers, maybe, but that’s all. It was pretty much done.”

  I circled the plane, found nothing, and was thinking we had driven out for nothing when I saw a brassy glint in the dust ten feet in front of him. I walked over and picked it up.

  Trehorn said, “Whatcha got?”

  “A nine-millimeter shell casing.”

  The brass casing gleamed brightly, indicating it had not been exposed to the elements long enough to tarnish. I held it up, but he wasn’t impressed.

  “People shoot out here all the time. That old plane has more holes than Swiss cheese.”

  I found two more casings a few feet away, and then a spent 12-gauge shotgun shell so new it looked like it had just come from the box.

  Trehorn wandered off, searching along with me, then called from the center of the clearing.

  “Shit. That’s a big sonofabitch.”

  “What?”

  He pointed at the ground.

  “Tires. I run two-fifty-five-sixteens on my Silverado. These gotta be five-seventies. That’s a big honkin’ truck.”

  I didn’t know two-fifty-fives from five-seventies, but the tracks he found were from a vehicle with two large tires mounted o
n each side. The double-tires suggested a large, heavy truck, but a large, heavy truck would have little reason to be in the middle of nowhere.

  “These here the night you guys were here?”

  Trehorn made a face as he shrugged.

  “I dunno. It was dark.”

  A confusion of footprints and smaller tire tracks crisscrossed the dirt. Some appeared fresher than others, but I couldn’t tell with any precision how recently they were made.

  Trehorn said, “What do you think?”

  “I think a lot of people were here. Which tracks are from your Silverado?”

  “Back by the plane on the other side of our fire. I didn’t come out here. Neither did Chuck.”

  Trehorn followed the large tracks toward the road, but I went in the opposite direction past the fire to the tire tracks he had left that night. When I found a clear example, I drew a large E in the sand, then noted the location relative to their fire and the airplane. I walked past the plane to continue searching the clearing when I saw a white shape caught in a creosote bush. I reached through prickly branches and found a California driver’s license. It pictured an Anglo male with short red hair, lean cheeks, and two bad pimples on his forehead. The name on the DL read M. JACK BERMAN.

  I said, “Well.”

  Trehorn was still on the far side of the airplane, so I pushed the branches aside. Three credit cards bearing Berman’s name and a worn leather wallet were caught in the lower branches. The wallet contained three hundred forty-two dollars in cash.

  I glanced at Trehorn again, wondering if Jack Berman had put his wallet in the bush, and why. The discarded wallet and cash made no sense. If Krista and Jack had left voluntarily, they would not have abandoned the cash. If they were forced away at gunpoint, the person doing the forcing would still take the cash. Good, bad, or indifferent—anyone tossing the wallet would totally keep the cash.

  I pushed deeper into the branches. A slip of paper with a handwritten note was caught on a twig near the bottom of the bush. The note read: Q COY SANCHEZ. A second DL was on the ground at the root of the bush, showing a pretty young woman with golden skin and raven hair named KRISTA LOUISE MORALES.

  I stared at her picture, then studied the note. Q COY SANCHEZ, written in blue ink with a shaky hand that left the oversize letters uneven.

  Trehorn was even farther away, searching the ground as if he hoped to find the Holy Grail. He was worried about his friend Jack Berman, but I did not tell him about the things I found in the bush. I read the note again.

  Q COY SANCHEZ.

  “Danny!”

  He looked over as I tucked the note and the DLs away.

  “Let’s go. There’s nothing here.”

  I wanted to speak with Nita Morales first, and a man named Joe Pike.

  9.

  Three minutes after Danny Trehorn dropped me at my car, I stepped into a cold, crisp Burger King and bought an iced tea. I wanted to think about what I had found before I called Nita Morales because I wasn’t sure what it meant, or what to recommend. Also, I was hot. Palm Springs is like that.

  Here is how the detective (moi) rehearses his report to the client: Krista Morales and Jack Berman arrived safely in Palm Springs, and were seen by others that past Friday night at a remote but well-known desert location. Krista and Jack had driven to that location in Jack’s vehicle, and, at their own request, remained alone when their companions returned to the city. They were neither seen nor heard from again except for two possible extortion calls during which laughably low sums of money were demanded. Six days following that Friday night, the detective ventured (ventured is always a good word to use with clients) to said remote location where he found items belonging to both Morales and Berman, including but not limited to both driver’s licenses, three hundred forty-two dollars in cash, and an incomprehensible note. Q coy Sanchez. Berman’s vehicle was not at the scene, nor were there any overt signs of foul play. (Foul play is another good term.)

  The person who sold me the tea was a bulky young Latino maybe nineteen or twenty years old. His name tag read JOHNNY. When he gave me the change and thanked me, I showed him the note.

  “Hope you don’t mind me asking, but do you read Spanish?”

  “No, man. Sorry. Maybe Imelda—”

  He called to a chunky young woman seated at the drive-through window.

  “Imelda! You read Spanish?”

  She eyed me suspiciously before she answered.

  “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.”