We moved on to another window but the milk in my tea had just curdled.
As I sat on a bench waiting for Matt to return from a head call, my mind wandered toward the effort to protect Abigail that still lay before us.
On the way it bumped into fatigue, and finally Elijah stumbled across my crooked mental path. Elijah was the prophet who challenged the people to choose God over Baal. Then another gently whispered message stole through my brain, ear to ear.
For I hear a mighty rainstorm coming!
I recognized it from Kings. I couldn’t tell you chapter and verse. I just knew it was a warning that danger was filling the skies and it was time to get down off the mountain.
I looked up at the blackening clouds. I wouldn’t recognize the voice in my head as Ruth’s for several days. After I remembered that Elijah wasn’t talking about the weather.
Chapter 47
As we drove down the driveway to our Escondido home we spotted Luis sitting on a front step petting Wisdom. The first words out of Matt’s mouth expressed our frustrations. The first words out of Luis’ raised our fears.
“Why aren’t you answering our calls?”
“Pintos stole my phone. Abigail is fine, but that second Indian girl has been kidnapped—as school was letting out. Her name is Rosalia Fousat.”
I inhaled sharply then unlocked the door and let us all in.
He continued explaining as we entered the house and Matt retrieved another company cell phone from the first office. He handed it to Luis.
I listened from the kitchen while preparing Wisdom’s dinner meal.
“I hope you didn’t leave any sensitive information on the phone they took, Lou. Bastards will probably use it against us.”
Luis just grunted.
“Like Sandy’s phone number, for one. Maybe you want to warn her.”
“Shit.”
Luis hadn’t thought of that.
Matt handed the young man a beer and the two went out on the porch to sit and confer. I joined them.
“So tell me what happened.” Matt.
“What a mess. They struck right in the middle of the main hall again, dragging the poor screaming girl out a side door. Fucking teachers…”
He turned a worried face toward me.
“Uh… sorry, Rachel.”
I waved his concerns away and he continued.
“Anyway, those useless pieces of shit just turned away. Most of the other kids ignored her screams too. And what could they do anyway?
“All the guards were busy helping direct traffic off campus, manning the security gates out front. Freakin’ principal was probably under his desk. They headed for the baseball field and I chased them, but they counter-attacked.”
That was when I noticed the bruise on his face, just below his left eye.
“Let’s go inside, guys. It’s getting cold out here,” I said. He could still be in shock.
Wisdom chased us inside. I lit the fireplace and closed the windows. The house was filling with a chill.
The men resettled on the couch.
“I know I shouldn’t have, Matt. I’m sorry. I know my concern is with Abigail but she was okay, while this poor girl was being dragged screaming across the back field. Did you know the so-called security fence has a cattle exit? You don’t see it until you get right up on it, but the fences actually miss each other at the back of the field, and run parallel to each other for a section. Coyotes are probably laughing as they slip through it at night to eat the rabbits. At least the cattle aren’t getting in.”
He stopped to take a swig of beer, then continued.
“Anyway that’s how they got her off the campus, right out that opening in the back fence. It’s unmanned for Christ’s sake! That school is run by a merry band of fools.”
He took another slug.
“I went inside and gave the principal a piece of my mind afterwards. My cover was blown anyway. They need an armed guard posted there! Hell they need armed guards all over that campus! It’s a freakin war. I can’t believe I couldn’t stop them. They were without fear. They seemed more brazen and violent than any high school gang I’ve ever heard of.”
Matt tried to calm him. “Take it easy. You did what you could, Luis. Don’t berate yourself.”
“Well, at least I know Abby is safe. I spotted her heading for home on foot with a whole bunch of kids. She was a football field away by then. No way I could catch up.”
“On foot?” I asked.
“What? Oh, yeah. She doesn’t take the bus. She told me the kids are mean on it so she hoofs it home. It’s only a couple of miles, although I argued the point with her at first. But a whole bunch of them walk together so she should be okay. I trailed her the first day. Moms and dads are everywhere watching out after them. It’s really a nice town that way. That’s why I can’t figure this situation at the school out. It’s like these guys have suddenly arrived from another planet.”
Matt muttered, “Or another country.”
I added, “I don’t think they expected any of this. Listening to the conversations in the office after the deaths of the boys, the first time I’d come to pick up Abby, they seemed totally unprepared for emergency situations. It was like they were used to their peaceful mountain community, protected by height and distance from the dangers of the rest of the world.”
“Yeah, maybe that’s it. But they need to get up to speed fast, now. Just being out of their league won’t cut it. This violence is escalating so fast they’ll need the Marines soon.” Luis.
“We’re here.”
Matt had automatically spoken these last words as well. I didn’t think he was even aware of the spontaneous response—then he rose and walked away to answer our ringing doorbell.
I did my own muttering. “Or maybe they’re under orders not to get involved. I’ll call and make sure our charge arrived safely.”
I grabbed my phone and walked into the kitchen and speed dialed Abigail’s home. I held the phone to my ear until a foreigner answered in Cyrillic. Nana.
Meantime Matt opened the door and Sandra flew by him and took up station in front of the fireplace and began shouting down at Luis.
I stepped further into the kitchen to ask Nana if Abigail had arrived home okay, but I could hardly hear her—or understand her. And the noise in the living room was escalating so I moved back to the doorway. Sandra was pitching a fit.
At least Nana wasn’t upset. Abigail must be home.
“You could have been killed! Look at this! Look at this bruise, and blood! What are you thinking Luis? You’ve got to stop this.”
Blood? I hadn’t noticed blood.
She turned her female fire on Matt. It was a strange sight for me to see. I couldn’t decide how to respond. Finally I decided he could take care of himself.
“You can’t send him out into the field again! He’s an apprentice, for god’s sake. He’s supposed to be working in the background on the computers.”
Matt let her blow while standing his ground. See? He’s a Marine.
I hated it when he did that to me.
So did Sandra. She turned up the volume on her already high-decibel attack.
“Luis, this is it! It’s me or him, you hear? I can’t take this waiting to find out if you’ve been killed. You don’t even answer your phone! I can’t….”
Good grief, she’d been calling his missing phone. Luis lost it.
“I can’t leave Abigail. Will can’t do this, Sandy. There’s a goddamned war going on up there. I have to help those poor kids. And I told you last night, this is my job. I’m not a computer tech, Sandy. I’m a private detective…or will be.”
His voice went suddenly quiet at the end. He’d made his decision, which only tilted Sandra over the edge.
“I mean it! I mean it!” She raced back to the front door, and stood holding her hands in her curly blond hair as if she thought her head was about to blow.
My thoughts exactly.
I held my position in the
kitchen doorway, the now dead phone still at my ear. Nana had stopped making incomprehensible sounds and hung up.
“You can’t put me through this every day. I matter too!” And she raced out the door as upset as when she’d arrived.
I chased her out onto the lawn, thinking I should try to answer some of her concerns. Wisdom followed me, his tail held high, his ears at full attention. He was wondering where the battle was so he could jump in and help.
Beautiful Sandra climbed into her little red Corvette and sped away up our driveway and out of sight. A hysterical, blond Santa Claus in a Corvette--taking her gifts home with her.
I have no idea where these errant thoughts come from. But after that silly thought I contemplated her outfit. It was Corvette red. Maybe I should buy clothes that are the same color as my car?
Then another silly thought: She had a Corvette? While Luis drove a beat up ole Chevy Geo?
Of course, she was probably paying for it….
Hmm. Wish I had a Corvette, I was musing as I walked back into the house. Wish I was a twenty-something adorable blond again, come to think of it.
It must be some kind of defense mechanism, thinking stupid things when all hell breaks loose and there’s nothing I can do about it. Then I saw the look on Luis’ face and I snapped back to reality.
A few minutes later sad guy left, like a hungry polar bear after another day of no seals. He wasn’t getting any blubber tonight either.
Matt told me later Luis promised he’d be there at the school in the morning whether his cover was blown or not. Abigail was his kid now, too. He wouldn’t abandon her. And he wasn’t letting those bastards steal any more Indian girls.
I was certain he’d been a Marine in another life. Probably had died young and that was why the angels sent him back in a beautiful body.
Chapter 48
I have to tell you--from this point on I maintained a level of anxiety that matched the state I’d functioned under during my final years as a librarian. That previous instance of elevated anxiety was due to my having been pushed above my glass ceiling by the bureaucracy train I was on.
Of course I could have let the flood of excellence behind me pass around me, but….
No. I really couldn’t. I was excellent, too, if slowing with age. And my boss thought that was an attribute. She called it thoughtful, deliberative, and other hyperbole. But she was even older than me.
Matt began making calls to force the principal to accept Luis’ presence on campus Friday. I did too.
Two missing young women from campus meant that no female at that school was safe at the moment.
I started with Geraldine Patrone, blond bombshell with four kids, wife of a billionaire, but much more importantly, sister of sheriff’s detective Tom Beardsley.
We may never know which phone calls lit the fire under the Pinto Springs Police and Cleveland County Sheriff’s departments, but they were all over the place by the time Luis arrived on Friday morning.
And now the national news was covering the kidnappings. Cleveland County was acquiring a bad rep.
The doorbell rang. I looked at my watch—almost eight. Matt was already at the door, Wisdom at his side, his tail wagging.
It was Will. Matt greeted him with a half-angry query.
“Hey, man, where you been?”
“I made a trip up to LA to meet with the Deacon. I think we may need some help down the line with this gang problem at Pinto Springs, and he’s Southern California’s duty expert on the subject,” Will said as he stepped into the house. He was looking a little sheepish. He’d turned of his cell phone—probably to spend time with his woman. I went to get him some coffee so the men could work it out.
Will was referring to Deacon Harks, a well respected expert in gang activities centered in LA County. Will did a stint with the Harks Private Investigations agency in his first year as an apprentice. Then he switched out of that area down to ours and joined our team.
Matt led him out to the porch. Sunrise was magnificent out there on the eastern side of the house. The primates around the corner were chuffing and howler-ing in excitement.
“Good idea. But I’m afraid the whole thing has escalated yet again,” I heard Matt say as I returned.
“Yeah, Luis told me.”
I took a back seat, letting the men carry the conversation while I thought over what Sandra had said to me Sunday during dinner preparations.
I’d been thinking Will was a secretive guy because he had some dark secret in his past. But Sandra informed me Sunday while we were making dinner in the kitchen that he’s so quiet because his main woman, Amanda White, is up in Los Angeles. And worse, she’s still upset with Will for moving south to San Diego County. Sandra said she was refusing to join him. But I saw it as she couldn’t. A woman’s career was as important as a man’s.
Amanda White was an LA girl born and bred, specifically from Watts, and she needed to stay there because she has a good paying county job as a social worker in the community. Good paying jobs are hard to come by, especially these days. Knowledge of a community on this level is non-transferable. Moving would be a serious challenge to her career.
And this turns out to be his deep dark secret—not at all what I was thinking.
I was thinking he was either a stone cold killer with murder in his past or maybe that he was afraid of the violent LA streets. Not that he had a girlfriend with whom he was struggling to maintain a relationship.
What really killed my romanticized version of Will’s dangerous persona was to discover that he’d left LA because of the smog. Apparently he was born an asthmatic and the dirty air was getting to him, bringing back some of his symptoms.
Not the scar hiding under his beard.
Will had returned to LA to reconnect with Deacon Harks in preparation for a possible escalation in our current situation at Pinto Springs High.
I’d actually read some of Deacon Harks’ online writings on the subject of how to work with gangs after Sandra’s comment. His business webpage leads to a blog that is quite detailed. In fact his connections are legion. Dozens of web pages point to his essays, and his site points to dozens of others. He’s created a veritable web of interconnections.
And his dealings with those gangs were becoming the stuff of legends. Unbelievably, I discovered that gang members themselves have discussion boards now, and they can be pretty aggressive in protecting those boards from imposters--like a retired librarian trying to educate herself with a few innocent questions.
Their rage chased me back to the edges. In time I might learn to imitate their peculiar virtual lingo, but for now all I could do was lurk.
My mind raced back from my musings as I heard Matt suggest that maybe he should travel north with Will on one of his trips to meet with Harks himself.
“No, man, that isn’t necessary. I can handle it.”
Matt just stared at him, confused. This was where I jumped in.
“Besides, Will, I think it’s time we met this lovely lady of yours. What’s her name? Amanda White?”
Now both men were staring at me. Aren’t secrets wonderful? Especially when you get to spill them?
Will stammered. Matt grinned.
“Yeah, Will. We need to meet your lady Amanda,” Matt said.
“Uh, sure. But she could come down here, maybe. Have one of those cookouts with you guys, like Luis and Sandy just did.”
Uh-oh. He figured out Sandra told me.
Then the phone rang in our back office, saving me from shoving my foot further down my throat, and I chased its insistent sounds down the hall.
“The shit’s gonna hit the fan tomorrow, honey-chile.”
“Hi Latisha. That’s fine with us as long as they wear flack vests and carry so they can help defend those poor children, and their cowardly teachers.”
“Don’t pick on the teachers, hon, they never signed on to do no combat in the halls.”
I blinked. This was true. She’d tilted my view back toward th
e middle.
“You’re right. So what’s up?
“This call isn’t about your young man, if that’s what you’re thinking. Forsythe still figures that cute thing to be a volunteer who is horrified at the violence…like all the rest now banging down his office door. A parents’ group is preparing a suit against the school for not protecting the Native Americans on campus. They’ve hired two of the county’s top guns, McClellan and Jones from the law firm of the same name. Strange thing is the parents’ group is made up of mostly whites and blacks.”
I began to suspect Latisha was enjoying a glass of wine. I grinned.
“Is that the African American law firm you gave me a card for?”
“Yes. There are no Native American law firms in the area. I’ve checked. The missing girls’ parents have been pretty quiet about the whole thing, so far. The local NA’s up on the mountain can be like that, basically they keep to themselves. I’m not sure why they aren’t coming forward. I don’t know if they’re conferring with their tribal councils right now or what.”
“Why? Why aren’t they fighting mad and making noise, hiring their own lawyers?” I said.
“It’s certainly the way I’d be if it was my kids being kidnapped, but they just don’t act that way. May have something to do with their self image, as in being a peaceable people. Or maybe it goes much deeper. Maybe they had the anger beat out of them one too many times over the centuries.
“There are several tribes living up in the northern part of Cleveland County, on streets with names like ‘Seminole Patch’, ‘Tippecanoe Trail’ and ‘Walkingfoot Hills, remnants from the various Indian Removal treaties back before the great Dispersal era. They’re mixed in with the more local tribes of Southern California, like the Baronas, Cahuillas and Palas. Maybe the fact that they aren’t all from the same tribe weakens them, deprives them of a common voice.
“Anyway, consider yourself forewarned. Tomorrow is going to be messy. Let your cute young man know.”
I thanked her and walked back into the living room to be confronted by Matt. Will had left for home.
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