“How far south did you track?”
Cortnie sat in the chair at the side of my desk. “I only went as far as Chualar. Chualar Canyon Road would be a great place for someone to stash a bunch of people. I remember back in the day, there were some guys on the college rodeo team that had a trailer on a property there. They rented one trailer, but there were five trailers on the property. I’m going to stop by there just to check and see if the trailers are still there, or if anyone lives in them.”
“She said it was a house, though. Mobile homes or trailers don’t have an upstairs. I remember she said that they had been kept in the upstairs bedrooms.”
“Okay, then that saves a trip for me. But it might not hurt to check the place out, and see what kind of people are living there.”
What did she not understand about what I said? “We will table that for now. What do you have?”
Cortnie swiped and tapped at her iPad. “I have three that I think fit the bill for sure. Somo Road, Spence Road, and there’s a place off Old Stage Road that is called Goat Road.”
I frowned at her. “Goat Road? I’ve lived here how many years, and I’ve never heard of Goat Road.”
Cortnie ran her finger down the front of her iPad. “I tell you, it’s Goat Road. Maybe it’s one of those roads that you don’t notice because you drive by it all the time and have no reason to drive up it. From the look of the topical map on Google, it’s just farmland with a farmhouse that has a lot of outbuildings and equipment.”
I thought about it. It was going to be difficult to stake out these homes and not be noticed. Unless they were harvesting or planting in the area, a car sitting on the side of the road would stand out.
“I’m just trying to figure out how we can sit on these places and not be seen.” I hoped Cortnie had an idea.
“That’s true, other than Spence Road, these aren’t very busy streets. Any car sitting on the side of a field is going to be noticed. If nothing else, someone’s going to come over and check to see what or who is inside.”
“Let me think on this one. So what about electric bills? That will narrow it down for us?”
Cortnie’s look was sheepish. “I still don’t have any information on that. I’m hoping it will come later today, but with my contact, I may not get it until tomorrow.”
I slammed my hand on the desk, not frustrated with Cortnie so much as the waste of time. “We have to sit on three houses, plus Alma’s apartment. We don’t even have that many agents.”
“What about Mimi?” Cortnie asked.
I picked up my cell phone, intending to text Mimi, then put it back on the desk. “Even if they miss their flight to Italy, they can still go somewhere else. I’m not going to take this vacation away from her. Maybe I can pull Max in and we can just sit on those three houses for tonight. Alma said they didn’t come back to Salinas every night. They moved to other cities other than Oakland, then came back to Salinas.”
Cortnie asked, “Why do you think they did so much traveling? Do you think that International Boulevard is too risky to stay there?”
I had no idea what went through these scumbags’ minds. I couldn’t even imagine someone stealing another person, much less selling them for sex. I understood people getting down on their luck, and women and even sometimes young boys selling themselves for sexual favors, but that’s voluntary, it’s not forced sexual labor. I understood how someone could be that desperate. What I didn’t understand was kidnapping and selling other people for profit.
We were stretched thin. I had to come up with a better plan. I would only bring Mimi in if we were hanging from our last thread.
“We need to talk to Alma about timelines. We need to know if they were selling the girls in the daylight hours or at night. This will give us a better idea of when to keep an eye on the houses,” Cortnie said.
She was right. It didn’t do any good to sit on the houses in the daylight hours if they were going to be in Oakland or whatever large city they were prostituting those girls in. Same thing at night. I needed to find out when the best prostitution hours were for these girls. They were young, so it had to be at night. If these girls were out in the daylight, the cops would notice such young girls on the street. Then again, were they even on the streets? Maybe these guys had prearranged clientele that just called and told them what type of girl they wanted. As much as I didn’t want to know anything about this industry, I needed to know more about it.
“Did you find anything at Alma’s place?” Cortnie asked.
I pointed at the backpack on the table. “That, and I found a few thousand dollars hidden in a tampon box. Oh, and a manager.”
“She’s hiding money in a tampon box? That’s a lot of money for a teenager.”
“Yes, I thought so, too. But maybe she cashes her paychecks and doesn’t leave them in the bank. I know a lot of people who don’t trust banks. And immigrants may be afraid they won’t be able to get access to them.”
“She’s not an immigrant, is she?” Cortnie asked.
“No, but her parents may have been, and they’d have warned her.”
She didn’t say anything more about the money, but she asked, “Manager? Did you say there was a manager in her apartment?”
“Yeah, the manager came into the apartment when I was snooping around.”
“Did he tell you anything?”
“I didn’t ask. I didn’t want him to know the girls were missing. He was there to clean the place out because the rent hadn’t been paid, and he hadn’t seen them in weeks.”
“Interesting. I wonder if he knows anything.” Cortnie said.
“If he does, we’ll hopefully find out something from Lydia. Or we’ll have to go back and have a chat with him. He has a son about Alma’s age. I wonder if he knows her.” I hadn’t questioned the boy for the same reason. I didn’t want them to know someone was looking into their disappearance.
“Shouldn’t we stay on the down low for the time being? I mean, we don’t want people to know Alma escaped just yet.”
I silently agreed.
“Let’s go through the backpack and some of Yolanda’s stuff. I think I want to wait until tomorrow to sit on these houses. I might drive up to Oakland tonight, and just sit on International Boulevard and watch.”
Cortnie stood up and walked over to grab Yolanda’s backpack. “You want me to go with you?”
“No, I can do this by myself. Maybe Max will have the night off and he can go, but I need you here.”
“Good grief, this bag is heavy.” Cortnie unzipped Yolanda’s backpack and emptied the contents onto my desk.
I spread the contents across my desk, moving the books and notebook planners off to the side. I unzipped the pencil case to see what she had in it. I dumped out colored pencils, a ruler, an eraser, and a pencil sharpener. Who uses regular pencils that need to be sharpened nowadays? Then I remembered she had colored pencils. This was weird too, except maybe she was into those time-wasting adult coloring books. There was also a protractor, a square set, and even a couple of pads of sticky notes. Among the other stuff on the desk was a calculator, highlighters, a pair of scissors, and even a small stapler. Damn, didn’t schools supply anything anymore?
The thing that scared me the most were the minipads. There was no way these men were worried about AIDS or any other sexually transmitted diseases. I supposed if they got pregnant, they got dumped on the side of a road somewhere. If they were forcing this thirteen-year-old to have sex, she was going to get pregnant.
“Do we have any pictures of Yolanda? Because look at this make up: mascara, eyeliner, lipgloss, powder, blusher, oil blotting sheets and even false eyelashes.” Cortnie picked through the items.
Maybe she wanted to look older. Doesn’t every thirteen-year-old want to look older, have more responsibility? If they only knew what comes with growing up, they’d be happy to stay little kids longer.
Nowadays, sex was everywhere, rock ‘n roll used to be subtle about sexual innuendo, now it
’s blatant. You couldn’t escape it. Other than the violence, who’d want to escape it? Even though I preferred jazz and blues, I could still appreciate good rock music. And I’d never admit it out loud, but some country is good, too.
“I still only have a vague idea of what Yolanda looks like. Alma said she was a typical thirteen-year-old, which means nothing to me. She stands just under five feet tall and isn’t skinny, but she’s not fat. That was Alma’s description.”
Cortnie picked up the cell phones. “As soon as these are charged, I’ll bet there’s a zillion selfies to show us what she looks like.”
With the make up in that bag, oh yeah, Yolanda was into taking selfies.
“And everybody complains about people taking too many selfies. Maybe that’s good and bad, but in this case, good. There will probably be pics with and without makeup.”
Cortnie rummaged through a box next to my desk finding the proper charger for each cell phone. Alma’s phone was an iPhone 6, and Yolanda had a Samsung. All of these different phone chargers for each phone was nothing but a big fat pain in the ass and a way for companies to make more money.
“Do you think they’re password protected?” Cortnie asked.
“Does it matter?” I asked.
She grinned. “I guess I should have known better than to ask.”
“While these are charging, I’ll head over to Pacific Grove and check on Max and Alma. Max said he would stay there until I got there, just in case.” I stood up and pushed my chair under my desk.
“What could possibly happen? No way they could know where she is.”
It had been a full day since Alma escaped, and I still expected her captors to be scouting her house. I doubt anyone recognized her on the street as she was walking toward our office, but you never know who’s going to be driving down the street at any given time. Maybe someone saw her come into the office and had been following us ever since.
“We just can’t be too careful. She’s a young girl, and we can’t let her get recaptured, especially in her fragile state of mind.”
Cortnie sorted out the cell phone chargers, plugged in the phones, and placed them on the table. “I’ll call my friend and see if she’s got a line on the energy bills for those addresses. I’ll text you when I hear something.” She walked out of the office.
* * *
The hotel Max had checked Alma into was top-of-the-line. Each room had a kitchenette and a sitting room. I had hoped he could get a suite at this hotel, and he did. I felt like having the extra room was imperative, since Alma had probably not been alone during her entire captivity. She probably didn’t feel comfortable sleeping in a room with a stranger. I had gotten a text from Max, letting me know that they had gone grocery shopping, clothes shopping, and shoe shopping. And they had finally checked into the hotel. He told me what room they were in. Once I plugged the address into my GPS, it was time for me to zone out for a few minutes while I drove to Pacific Grove.
When I knocked on the door, I saw Max look out the curtains before answering. He opened the door wide and I walked in. My heart raced as I looked around the room and didn’t see Alma.
“Where is she?”
Max gave a nod towards the other room. “She’s been asleep for about an hour.”
“I have some questions for her, but I think it’s best that she sleeps.”
Looking past Max, I saw an enclosed patio through French doors. It was a nice day now that the fog had burned off, so I pointed and suggested we go sit outside. Max stopped at the small refrigerator and grab two bottles of water before heading out to join me.
“This sex trafficking is a big deal, Charles. It’s also dangerous. It’s not that I’m worried about you, but I’m a little worried that the rest of your staff doesn’t understand just exactly how dangerous these people can be. Especially if these guys are from Eastern Europe.”
I agreed with his assessment, and even worried about Cortnie. If Mimi was working alongside us, I wouldn’t have been as worried about her. She knew how to handle herself in dangerous situations.
“I’ve tried to make them very aware of the situation. Only time will tell if they listened.”
Max sat down in the wicker chair, twisted the top off the water bottle, and took a long sip. “You know that about seventy percent of these girls are escaping abusive homes, right? They’ve already been raped. What they don’t understand is that the people they go with have no empathy. It’s a business transaction. But these men are so good at telling the tale that it makes these girls think they’re finding a loving environment.”
I leaned back in my chair and rolled my head all the way back, looking at the sky. “Sadly, women have learned to barter and trade their bodies. It doesn’t do any good that men will prey on them. I’ve even heard that once a pimp is tired of a girl, he’ll sell her to another pimp.”
“It’s a pretty scary business,” Max said.
I heard noise behind me and turned to see Alma standing in the doorway. In the sunlight, her chipped nail polish was more noticeable. She had showered and her black hair was pulled up in a ponytail. She wore gray sweats, both bottom and top fitting extra loose. It seemed to me as if she was hiding her body under the loose fabric.
I stood. “I’m sorry, did we wake you?”
Alma shook her head and shuffled out into the yard. She pulled out the chair across from Max and me. “I wasn’t sleeping well. I’m exhausted, but I’m having nightmares.”
I wanted to reach forward and give her a big hug, but I didn’t think contact from a man was what she was looking for. “I’m sorry. Maybe we can get you something to help you sleep.”
“No, no drugs. Eventually I’ll sleep on my own. But I’m never ever taking drugs again.” Alma fiddled with the wicker on her chair, peeling off the paint. “I remembered one of the street names from another place they took us. They dropped us at a place called Food Mart on Sonoma Boulevard. I don’t remember the cross street though, I’m sorry.”
“They actually had you working out in public?”
Alma nodded. “They stayed close by, in the van. We walked the streets, we had sex in cars.”
“Even the young girls?” I asked.
Alma frowned. “I’m not sure. I didn’t see Yolanda every day. I never saw her on the street.”
Max put his hand on my forearm. “Sonoma Boulevard is in Vallejo. Right now in Vallejo, prostitution is so low on their priority list, it’s rampant.”
I remembered that the city of Vallejo had filed bankruptcy, and I’d heard stories that their police department had been cut by forty percent. No wonder they didn’t care about prostitution. They thought the women were out there voluntarily, and the men were paying money to a willing participant. But they had to realize not all of the women were there voluntarily.
“I remember I used to step around condoms on the sidewalk, but I was so out of it, I didn’t care.” Alma’s voice sounded hopeless.
“Why didn’t you and the others try to get away?” This was probably a stupid question with a legitimate answer.
Alma brought her feet up on the chair and was nearly in the fetal position. “We were terrified, and we were drugged. When we weren’t working, they took our clothes. Where could we go with no clothes or shoes?”
“Heavily drugged?”
Alma shrugged. “I guess. For me, for about a week, I pretended to be way out of it, like barely able to move. I think the drugs were in the sodas they gave us. I stopped drinking mine and only drank the water from the sink. I waited until most of the drugs were out of my system, but continued to act really out of it. That’s when I escaped.” When she said escaped, there was a hitch in her voice.
Before Max or I could blink, Alma was sobbing. “I can’t believe I abandoned Yolanda.”
She wrapped her arms around her legs and her whole body shook as she cried. Every ounce of me wanted to reach out and touch her, to reassure her, but I knew better. I just said, “We will get Yolanda back, and we will get the
others, too. I promise. And Alma, I never make a promise I don’t keep.”
“But she won’t be the same Yolanda anymore. Her parents trusted me to keep her safe. Their little girl is gone, even if you do rescue her.” She sobbed into her sweatpants.
Max took a chance. He reached over and touched Alma on the knee. She flinched, but she didn’t draw away. Max’s touch was gentle and reassuring.
“Sweetie…”
Alma looked up, her eyes wide. “Don’t call me sweetie.”
With those words, I could just imagine all of the pet names the girls had been called by these predators. Max didn’t remove his hand, and he said, “I’m sorry. Alma. We’re going to beat these guys at their game. I can assure you. We can’t make things go back to the way they were, but we can stop these people.”
“Can you rape them? Can you put them out on the streets and sell them to men who will sodomize them?” The hatred in her voice was almost too much to bear.
How does a girl that age know the word sodomize?
“If I find them, they will pay.” I should never have said that in front of Max.
He turned to glare at me.
Alma took a deep breath, and said, “Oh, one more thing. Sometimes we were at truck stops. The men would stand at the back of the truck and we would knock on the doors to see if the drivers wanted sex.”
So that might be the link to Salinas, I thought. With the produce industry, truck stops and loading dock parking lots were jam packed full of trucks and truckers who are lonely. My phone buzzed.
The text from Mimi read, No Italy. Call me if you need me.
It was good to know she was close by, in case I needed her. But I didn’t think I was in the mood for her attitude, and she’d be in a terrible snit over not getting her real vacation. I didn’t even bother to respond to the text message.
Then I remembered. “Alma, do you remember what time of day you worked? Was it daylight or nighttime?”
“When I escaped, it was early in the day. Morning. But I wasn’t on the street that day; I was taken directly to the location. That happened sometimes. We worked late at night, too. The ones where we were taken directly to the men were usually earlier in the day or early night. After that, we were put out on the streets.”
Trespassers Will Be Prostituted. Page 5