No Witness

by Warren C Easley

  “Are you suggesting they might have been impostors?”

  “I’d just like to confirm that they were on some sort of official business. The incident occurred around ten a.m. in the Red Hills. They asked for him by name. I’m concerned about the safety of the son and the rest of the family. And I would think you’d want to know if there are, in fact, people posing as ICE agents.”

  Drake showed a thin smile. “And the son shall go nameless?” When I didn’t respond, he continued, “Immigration Control and Enforcement reports to Homeland Security. I’m sure you can appreciate we’re bound by strict confidentiality guidelines. It’s a matter of national security.”

  “National security? Come on. All I’m asking is for you to confirm the two agents were sent by ICE. Lives are at stake here.”

  He steepled his fingers and tapped them against his lips for a few moments before logging into his computer, whose screen was blocked from my view. After a few more strokes, he squinted at the screen. “I can confirm that two agents were dispatched this morning to an address in the Red Hills. That’s more than I should tell you.”

  “Okay, thanks. I appreciate that.”

  We both stood, and his face tightened. “You know, I don’t get you immigration lawyers. Always looking to cut corners for these people, finding ways around our laws.”

  “These people?” I said, holding his gaze.

  He puffed a dismissive breath. “They aren’t worth your time, Claxton. They enter this country illegally and then expect to be coddled.” He raised his chin, his expression morphing into a look of smug self-righteousness. “It’s a new day in this country. We’re going to solve this problem once and for all.”

  I shook my head. “A final solution, huh?”

  His small eyes grew hard and seemed to retract into his head. “We’re done here.” He got up and escorted me back down the hall without saying another word.

  I left Curtis Drake’s office feeling angry and, if not stupid, then certainly blithely uninformed. An ICE holding center had gone up right in my own neighborhood, and I knew nothing about it. Sure, there were those in the migrant community who deserved deportation—the scofflaws and outright criminals who’re present in all populations—but Drake’s condemnation was sweeping and all-inclusive.

  There had to be a better way.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  My call to Luis Fuentes went to voicemail, but he called me back five minutes later. After I filled him in, he said, “Part of me wishes I’d been there, get the damned deportation over with. I’m a Mexican, not an American. No changing that. I—”

  “Look, Luis,” I said, cutting him off, “I know this is frustrating, but until we know more, you need to keep your head down, continue to stay away from places you might otherwise frequent.” As a stark, unwelcome image of Olivia’s limp body entered my head, I added, “This is no time to get careless. Keep your eye out for anything unusual.”

  “Got it,” he snapped. “By the way, I’ve driven by the cantina in Lafayette twice. I didn’t spot any familiar cars or bikes either time. Looks like they’re not meeting there anymore.”

  “No word from Vargas?”

  “Nada.”

  “You’ll call if he contacts you, right?”

  “I said I would.”

  I called Timoteo next. “No, it’s been quiet here,” he told me. “Mamá has settled down, but she’s going downhill so fast, Cal.” He paused, and I pictured the worried look on his face. When he spoke next, a note of desperation crept into his voice. “My father has no clue. What should I do?”

  “Let me talk to my psychologist friend again, see if she has any other ideas.” Of course, that was going to be problematic after the disagreement Zoe and I had. “You’re not leaving your mother alone, are you?”

  He sighed heavily into the phone. “We’re doing the best we can. She stays in her room with the door shut. Only Hillary is allowed in, and then not always.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, but in the meantime keep a close eye on her, Timoteo.”

  ***

  At home that evening, I showered and had Blossom Dearie on the sound system and a glass of pinot at my elbow when I heard a knock at the front door.

  “Hello, Cal,” Zoe said when I opened the door, “I brought you a peace offering.” She wore jeans, a cotton sweater, and the pearl earrings I’d commented on. Her smile had an edge of shyness I hadn’t seen before. She handed me a warm pot with a lid on it. “It’s lamb stew. Gertie said it’s a favorite of yours. She, ah, coached me on the preparation.” The shy smile again. “I think it’s okay.”

  I smiled back. “Peace offering? You didn’t have to do that.” I smelled the stew and my stomach did a backflip. “It smells way better than okay. I was about to call you. Can you come in?”

  She hesitated for a moment. “I suppose. I’ve already fed Gertie, and she’s watching TV.” After making a big fuss over Archie, she followed me into the kitchen. I set the pot on the stove, poured her a glass of wine, and sat down across from her at my old, nicked-up oak table. Blossom Dearie sang “I’ll Take Manhattan” in the background. Zoe took a sip of her pinot and fixed her eyes on me. “I’m embarrassed about the other night, and I apologize, Cal. I know you’re trying to help the Fuentes family. I respect that.”

  I put a hand up. “No, don’t apologize. I’m embarrassed, too. You know, the issue you brought up goes back at least to the Old Testament. Abraham had a choice—obey God’s law or break the law by sparing his innocent son. Same movie, just a different time.”

  Zoe’s eyes widened in a way I’d to come to expect when something surprised her. “You’re right.” She shook her head. “God was dead wrong in that situation. I would have told him to go to hell.”

  I laughed. “So you don’t believe in absolute adherence to the law?”

  She shrugged. “Not in that situation, but it still bothers me when people—immigrants or citizens, it really doesn’t matter—aren’t held accountable when they break the law.”

  I took a sip of wine to gather my thoughts, which were far from settled on the subject. “I believe in the rule of law, too, but laws need to be just. Otherwise, they become tools for the power structure to rationalize their position. I had enough of that as a prosecutor down in L.A.”

  She shifted her gaze past me and chewed on her lower lip for a few moments. “Yeah, I guess our immigration laws are pretty screwed up, right?”

  “Totally. We’ve needed reforms for decades. Meanwhile, millions of undocumented workers have made their homes here, started families, sent their kids to school. They’re good citizens.”

  She brought her eyes back to me. There was a hint of tease in them. “Now they’re as American as apple pie and tacos, huh?”

  I smiled. “Something like that.”

  We both laughed and then sat in silence for a while. There was more to be said on the topic, but I sensed that she was as reluctant as I was to go any deeper at this juncture. Zoe drank some wine and finally said, “Who’s that singing? She’s great.”

  “Blossom Dearie.” Without thinking, I added, “She was a favorite of my wife’s,” then instantly regretted it. Don’t get maudlin, I said to myself.

  Zoe held her gaze on me. “I’m sorry for your loss, Cal. Gertie told me what happened.”

  I forced a smile. “That was a long time ago, but this case has churned up the past, for some reason.”

  “That’s not surprising, given what’s happened. You must have been—”

  “I’m starved,” I said, looking over at the pot of stew. “Stay for dinner so I can run some new information by you.”

  She smiled in that knowing way of hers. “Okay.”

  I turned the heat on under the stew and started slicing some tomatoes and a chunk of mozzarella for a quick caprese salad. “I’ve got one solid lead,” I said, then described what th
e locksmith and the woman on Buena Vista Drive told me.

  Zoe curled a lip in disgust. “Now every time I see someone on a motorcycle, my blood’s going to run cold. What about the person who supplied the key?”

  “Nothing new on that front,” I said as I arranged the tomatoes on a platter and began topping each one with a slice of mozzarella, “but I’ve uncovered something interesting at Prosperar, the medical nonprofit where Olivia worked. She sent Luis to the Tequila Cantina to find out what was going on there. At the same time, she started flirting with a staff member at the nonprofit.” I described my meeting with Sofia Leon and my encounter with Robert Harris.

  “Young women are easily infatuated with older men, you know,” Zoe said when I finished.

  “I know, but Timoteo told me there was no way his sister would do that unless she had a damn good reason.”

  Zoe leaned forward on her elbows. “What could it be?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  Her face clouded over. “And it got her killed?”

  “Possibly. I’m interested in whether there’s a connection between whatever the hell’s going on at the cantina and Robert Harris at Prosperar.” I made a quick dressing with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and drizzled it over the tomatoes and mozzarella.

  Zoe made a moaning sound. “Is that going to taste even better than it looks?”

  “Guaranteed,” I said as I stepped out the kitchen door. I returned with the last few leaves from a potted basil plant on the porch and sprinkled them on the salad. “Luis told me the meetings at the cantina have ceased, and the head guy there, Diego Vargas, hasn’t contacted him, which doesn’t help matters.”

  Zoe’s eyes flared. “Do you think they stopped meeting because you’re investigating them?”

  “It’s possible. I’ve asked my private investigator to dig into both Vargas and Harris.”

  “How’s Luis doing?”

  “I was coming to that,” I said as I set the caprese platter down, dished out two plates of hot stew, and topped up our wines. “Two agents showed up at the Fuentes’s home today looking for him.”

  Zoe’s mouth dropped open. “No.” I gave her an account of my visit to the holding center, and when I finished, she said, “You were worried they were impostors?”

  “Yeah, the thought crossed my mind, but I guess they weren’t.”

  “That means ICE is looking to arrest Luis?”

  I shrugged. “We don’t know that, and it doesn’t seem very likely. Something seems off here. We’ll keep him out of sight until we understand what’s going on.”

  Over dinner the talk finally drifted away from the investigation, and I asked her about the book she was writing. She paused, dabbing her mouth with a napkin. “It’s fiction with a psychological perspective, I guess you could say.”

  “Will you use the book in your teaching?”

  She laughed. “Oh, definitely not. To be honest, I’m writing the book to take a break from teaching. I’m burned out.” Her look turned mischievous. “Just don’t tell my department head. He thinks I’m writing a scholarly treatise on new OCD therapies.”

  I laughed at that. “Testing the bounds of academic freedom, huh?”

  She laughed and held her glass up in a toast. “Yep. Here’s to academic freedom or a possible dead end on the tenure track.” We clinked glasses and drank to that.

  I asked her a few leading questions about the book, but she was about as forthcoming on that topic as I was on my wife. She did tell me she was bothered by writer’s block and that long runs in the Red Hills seemed to help. “The running quiets my mind,” she explained, “but it usually takes three or four miles for that to happen. Once it does, the ideas start to flow again.”

  We finished half the lamb stew, and she insisted I keep the rest. I’d like to say the stew was superb, but the truth was the meat was overcooked and the broth was way too salty. I never dreamed I’d find poor cooking endearing, but there it was.

  After dinner, Arch and I walked Zoe back across the field. She turned to face me at the gate as a cool breeze fluttered her hair and moonlight glinted softly off her earrings, her Vermeers, as I’d come to think of them. For an instant, I caught myself wondering if she’d worn them on my account.

  She said, “You haven’t mentioned the mother. How’s she doing?”

  My expression must’ve turned sheepish. “I was, uh, coming to that, too.”

  When I finished describing Elena Fuentes’s deteriorating situation, Zoe sighed. “I was hoping no news was good news for that poor woman. Elena’s in real danger, Cal.” She paused for a moment. “I’m an academician. Direct counseling’s not my strong suit, but let me try talking to her. Can you set something up?”

  I told her I’d try and heaved an inward sigh of relief.

  Back at the house, I cleaned up the kitchen, watched the late news, and started reading Killshot, an Elmore Leonard novel I hadn’t gotten around to. I must have dozed off, because when my cell phone rang, my reaction pitched the book off my lap and onto the floor.

  “Cal?” Luis Fuentes said, “Vargas wants to meet with me.”

  I came awake instantly. “When?”

  “Right now. I’m on my way.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “You’re on your way?” I said, keeping my voice calm. “Did he call you?”

  “No, a text.”

  “Can you pull over and wait for me? We need to talk about this.”

  He actually laughed. “Hey, man, I’m just gonna talk to the dude, find out what the hell he wants. I’ll let you know what he says.”

  A wave of frustration drenched me. “You’re not getting the picture, Luis. This could be dangerous. Where are you going to meet him?”

  “At the Road House. He said he would buy me a beer and tell me about a good business opportunity for a migrante like me.”

  I’d never been in the Road House, a small bar and grill on the Pacific Highway, but had driven by it plenty of times. I pictured the place, a low building that sat close to the road with a retro neon sign tracing the name of the place in cursive. What parking there was had to be behind the structure. I liked that he was meeting Vargas in a public space but was leery of the parking lot. What was the layout and the lighting?

  “I’d like to be there, but I’ll stay out of sight. Can you please pull over and wait for me?”

  He exhaled audibly. “I don’t need a fucking babysitter.”

  This time I struggled to keep my voice calm. “I know that, but this could be a trap. Two sets of eyes are better than one.” I waited, mentally crossing my fingers.

  After what seemed an interminable pause, he said, “I’ll pull off where the highway divides just past Lafayette and wait for you there. I’m in Marlene’s Prius, dark gray. Hurry, man. I don’t want to keep him waiting.”

  I dashed upstairs, took my Glock down from the closet, slapped a full magazine into the handle, and tucked the gun in my belt. Don’t be dramatic. You won’t need that, the judgmental corner of my brain told me. Besides, you’re a crappy shot. I took it anyway.

  “Guard the castle,” I told Archie as I stepped out the front door. I got a disgusted look in return.

  Ten minutes later I pulled in behind the Prius. “Thanks for waiting, Luis,” I said as I slid into the passenger seat. “Did the text say anything else?”

  “No. That was it.”

  “Okay. Let me go to the Road House first and check out the parking lot. If it’s clear I’ll text you, and you can go ahead and meet him.”

  His look grew anxious as the bravado began bleeding off. “What’s he want with me?”

  “Hard to say. If Vargas had something to do with your sister’s murder, your brother’s and my visit to the cantina probably tipped him. Maybe he wants to find out what you know, why you showed up at the cantina in the first place. But he
probably won’t be direct. Whatever he says, just go along with it. If he offers you a job, tell him you need money, that you’re all in. And Luis, don’t use the restroom or go anywhere in the bar where you might be alone with Vargas, got it?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Okay. Then what?”

  “We’ll see what he says and go from there.”

  The Road House parking lot had an entrance on the north end and an exit that teed into a tree-lined side street on the south end. A single, low-wattage lamp on a flimsy pole cast a pool of light in the center of the lot, and a half dozen cars were clustered below it like moths. None of the cars appeared to be occupied. I parked at the south end and watched for a while. Nothing moved, but then I saw a pinpoint glow in the shadows of the building. The glow intensified for an instant—a cigarette in the act of inhalation. In the dim light I could just make out the smoker, a man in a white apron leaning against the wall between a row of garbage cans and the back door of the bar. I tensed up, but a moment later the glowing tip swept out an arc and hit the pavement with a shower of sparks, and the man went inside.

  Nothing else moved. I texted Luis the all clear and told him to park in the illuminated section of the lot. He pulled in a couple of minutes later, and I watched as he got out, crossed the lot, and followed a path marked by solar lights to the entrance on the side of the building. I checked the time. Eight thirty-two. A light mist began to swirl and sparkle in the glow of the parking lot light.

  At eight forty, Luis texted me: He’s not here. I texted back for him to wait. Meanwhile, a couple came out of the bar and left, and another car parked in their space and discharged two young men who sauntered into the building.

  From Luis at nine fifteen: Where is he?

  Me: Wait another 45 mins. If he doesn’t show, leave without approaching me in case we are being watched.