10 Tahoe Trap

by Todd Borg

  We left Spot in the Jeep and walked into the school.

  ELEVEN

  There was a small lobby area that led to a hallway with just one classroom on each side. On the left, through open, double doors, was a small group office crammed with several desks arranged back-to-back in pairs. Three people worked at the desks. A fourth was at a copy machine so old that the light gray plastic had discolored to a sickly greenish yellow. I left Paco in the lobby room and walked into the office.

  “Excuse me, I’m looking for the principal’s office,” I said. “Is this the right place?”

  A woman looked up from a desk. “Oh, hi. Yes, this is the principal’s office. And the administration office. And the teachers’ break room. And the PTA meeting room second Wednesdays of every month. Let’s see, have I forgot anything?”

  I pointed toward the counter at one side of the room where the coffee maker and microwave sat next to a mid-sized fridge. “Kitchen,” I said.

  “Yes! Of course. The most important activity that happens in this room.”

  The woman swiveled her chair and called toward the corner opposite the kitchen. “Pam! You have visitor,” she said in a sing-song voice.

  Through an open door into another office sat a woman at a desk, talking on the phone handset, which was wedged between her shoulder and head while she typed at a computer. Even at a distance I could see that she was better dressed than the others. She wore a navy pantsuit, and her black hair had been permed or otherwise treated so that not a single hair could be a renegade and get out of line. The woman looked ready to perform in a documentary about super-competent women.

  The woman who called out turned back toward me.

  “Pam is on the phone. She’ll be with you in a...” she stopped as she stared past me. I turned to see Paco looking into the doorway behind me. The woman put a formal, almost stern look on her face.

  “Mrs. Sagan, our principal, will be with you shortly. I’ll tell her that you are here. Your name?”

  “Owen McKenna. I’m here about Paco Ipar.”

  She nodded. “Yes, I see that. If you will just wait in the entry a moment.”

  I went back out to the lobby. Paco had moved over near a bulletin board that was plastered with pictures of smiling kids and adjacent printed pages that extolled their achievements. Some even had newspaper articles. I didn’t look closely, but I didn’t see any pictures of Paco in the display.

  The woman in the navy pantsuit came out of the office, saw Paco and made a tight grin. “Hello, Mr. Ipar. We missed you yesterday. And you weren’t here for roll call this morning, either.” Despite smiling as she spoke, she had an edge in her voice.

  Paco looked at the floor as she spoke. He didn’t answer.

  I reached out my hand. “Hi, I’m Owen McKenna, a private detective from Tahoe.”

  Her eyes widened. She glanced at Paco, then back to me.

  She shook. “I’m Pam Sagan, detective. I hope that Paco hasn’t gotten into more trouble.” She looked again at Paco.

  “May I speak to you alone?” I asked.

  “Well, I suppose Paco can wait in the lobby while I talk to you. Paco, will you be good if we leave you alone for a few minutes?”

  He made the smallest of nods.

  I followed the woman through the group office into her small office at the rear corner. As she stepped behind her desk, I shut the door behind us.

  She jerked her head at the sound of the door clicking closed, then sat down slowly, her hands tense on the arms of her chair. Her eyes flicked from me to the door as if she worried about the safety of being alone in a room with me and was judging her possible escape path. Of the two green metal chairs in front of the desk, I took the one that was farthest from the door and farthest from her, hoping it would help her relax.

  Sagan was a trim woman who radiated grooming perfection. Her lipstick and mascara weren’t directly observable but detectable through inference from her distinctive eyes and mouth. She had a gold brooch shaped like a miniature fountain pen on her lapel. It was angled exactly parallel to the cut of her jacket collar. She took a deep breath through her nose and shut her eyes for a second as she let her air out in a long exhalation.

  I knew that whatever relaxation she’d achieved, I was about to destroy it.

  “Mrs. Sagan, Paco’s foster mother Cassie brought him to Tahoe early yesterday morning. He witnessed a shooting and was later trapped in the back of the shooter’s pickup.”

  “Oh, my God! Where is Cassie?”

  “We don’t know. Paco believes that Cassie was the shooting victim.”

  “Cassie was shot?” she continued. “Oh, my God! The boy must be devastated!”

  “He’s holding up, but it can’t be easy.”

  “You say that Paco believes the victim was Cassie. Haven’t you found her body?”

  “No.” I tried to be brief as I explained what had happened, and how Paco had crawled into the covered bed of the pickup to hide, only to have them drive away. “We’re looking for her van. Until we find it or her body, we won’t know for certain.”

  “Was this some kind of random lunacy?” she asked. “Or do you think someone wanted to shoot Cassie?”

  “I don’t know. From Paco’s description, it sounded like she was meeting someone in the mountains very early in the morning. Not the likeliest time for something random.”

  “But why would anyone shoot Cassie? She can’t possibly have been involved in anything that would lead to violence.”

  “Paco told me that she raised tomatoes and peppers. Maybe she also raised some marijuana in with her regular produce. The money involved is so great that it has enticed many people and gotten them into trouble.”

  Pam Sagan shook her head vigorously. “No. Absolutely not. I don’t know Cassie well, but I’m a good judge of people. Marijuana is not her style. Besides, I’ve been to her farm. I’ve even walked through her hothouse. Her entire focus is tomatoes and peppers. It’s her identity. She’s even named some of them after herself. A little weird, if you ask me, but more evidence that she’s not growing pot.”

  Sagan looked out her window toward the Chevron station across the street. “That poor boy. He must have been scared to death. How did you rescue him?”

  “He had Cassie’s cell phone, found my number in its menu, and called me from the back of the pickup while the men were driving it away from the scene of the shooting.”

  “Paco did that?” She sounded incredulous.

  “Yes. His resourcefulness was impressive. Later, when they stopped, he opened the topper lift gate and ran. He called me again as two men chased after him. I was able to get to his location before the men caught him.”

  “Why were the men chasing Paco if they didn’t know he was hiding in the back of their pickup?”

  “Presumably, they saw him run and realized that he may have witnessed the shooting.”

  “And if they had caught him...?” She raised her hand up to her face, her fingertips pressed against her lips, her nails manicured.

  “They’d probably want to silence any witnesses.”

  “My lord, that’s the most frightening thing for a child!” She looked again toward the door as if she were visualizing Paco in the school entry.

  The woman’s expression gradually shifted. I wasn’t sure what it meant.

  “You don’t believe it,” I said.

  She gestured toward the closed office door. “If I hadn’t seen Paco out there, I’d say you must be mistaken about which boy you saved. Paco has never... well, let’s just say I’m surprised and impressed that he had that much initiative and leave it at that.”

  “Paco told me that Cassie doesn’t have friends,” I said.

  “Well, I don’t know about that. But I can say that Cassie is not real sociable. I’ve only seen her at the occasional meeting and once at her farm. She came to some school functions. She doesn’t engage much with other people, but she’s always tried to do right by Paco. She’s a hard worker. I belie
ve that her work is her first focus.”

  “I understand that she’s an organic gardener,” I said.

  “Yes, although calling her a gardener makes it seem like a hobby. This woman must farm two acres with no big equipment and only the help of a little boy. Lots of varieties of tomatoes and peppers, I gather. She used to sell at farmers’ markets all over. Now, she’s been doing some kind of delivery service. I’ve heard that she’s quite successful. Although, she also told me that she only gets to keep a portion of the produce. The rest goes to the landlord.”

  “Like a modern-day sharecropper?”

  “Well, I don’t know what term they use these days. But I suppose that’s what it amounts to.”

  “Without even knowing the dollars involved, it seems like a steep price,” I said.

  “Yes. But she told me that the landlord set her up in the business, taught her how to do it all. She made a comment about how she was able to start the business with no money. The landlord provides the land she uses. She told me that without him staking her, so to speak, she would still be cleaning hotel rooms. So maybe it’s reasonable. Who am I to judge? But when I gave Paco a ride home one day and saw the size of her operation, I thought she must be a juggernaut of farming and marketing to do it all.”

  “Do you know the name of the landlord?” I asked.

  “No. Do you think he might know something about what happened up in Tahoe?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “But I need to let him know about his tenants. I suppose that there isn’t much tomato growing this late in the fall, but he may want to know that the crops are not currently being tended. Perhaps you would have an idea of where Paco can live until we find out what happened to Cassie?”

  The woman frowned. “I’m trying to think of his friends in school. Most of them live in tiny rental houses with large families, so that wouldn’t work. The only student his age who lives in a house with sufficient room has a father who is, shall we say, not the easiest person to get along with. That would not be a good possibility for Paco.”

  She reached forward and shifted the position of her desk phone a quarter inch, or maybe three-eighths of an inch. When it was just so, she said, “We have a problem on our hands. With Cassie missing, Paco is adrift and quite alone.”

  “Mrs. Sagan, now that Cassie has disappeared, it’s possible that Paco won’t have a home to go back to. As a foster child, Paco has some kind of a supervisor, correct?” I said.

  “I should probably...” Sagan paused, then let it drop.

  “You’re not eager to call the state agency in charge,” I said. “Do they have someone bad assigned to Paco’s case?”

  The woman put her fingertips on a nearby pencil, rotated it so that the printing on it faced directly up, then aligned the pencil next to the right edge of her desk blotter. She looked out the office window toward the larger room, then leaned sideways to get a more thorough view. She leaned forward, elbows on her desk, and spoke in a hushed voice.

  “Mr. McKenna...” she hesitated again, thinking about how to proceed.

  “Owen, please,” I said.

  “If you learned something that would put a person at risk of having the authorities come after them, even if they’d done nothing wrong, would you feel compelled to report them?”

  “I already know that Paco is an illegal immigrant, if that’s what you’re wondering. I’m not about to call the border patrol. I know that he has no family.”

  “So I don’t have to worry about you making trouble. Then there’s something else you should know before you start calling the social service agencies.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Paco doesn’t exist.”

  TWELVE

  “Paco doesn’t exist?” I repeated. “In what way?”

  “In every way but the physical. He has never been in the data banks. The state doesn’t know about him. While many local people know Paco, he doesn’t officially exist in county records, either. He’s a classic illegal immigrant, more invisible than most.”

  “So Cassie isn’t really his foster mom.”

  “No, Cassie is most definitely his foster mom, in the truest and most important sense. She takes care of him and gives him a home and does it simply because it’s the right thing to do.”

  “But she is not part of the state’s program.”

  “Correct. She gets no money.”

  “Why doesn’t she go through the normal channels? The state would help, correct?”

  “My understanding is that it would be a possibility. But it is likely that the state would send out a case worker who would be required to report that Cassie is always working, that Paco is always working, which is clearly in violation of child labor laws, that Paco has no standard home life, that Paco has so little homework guidance that he hasn’t even learned to read, that Paco barely passes some of his subjects and fails others, that Paco often comes home from school to an empty house, and that the house is substandard by any measure.

  “That same case worker would note that in the spring and fall, Paco is mostly absent from school because Cassie works him harder on the farm than any child should work. And in the last several months, Paco has been busy helping her with the new delivery service that she’s started. In fact, my sense is that Paco works harder than nearly any adult I know. In many ways, this is not the way a child should live. Yet, it works for Paco.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked. “You make it sound like Paco is a child slave.”

  Pam Sagan still had her elbows on the desk. She raised up her hands so that the knuckles of her index fingers were against her chin.

  “Paco used to get in trouble,” she said. “It started out as some simple vandalism. Throwing tomatoes against the school. At McDonald’s. Then it escalated. He ran with some bad kids. One night they threw stones at a passing police car. The officer had been a track champion in high school. He ran after them and caught Paco and two others. Our local police chief knew that Paco was illegal. But he took mercy. He told Cassie that he would not cite Paco but only under the condition that she make certain that he never had idle time again.”

  Sagan took a breath, turned to look at a blank wall, then breathed out. She turned back to me.

  “Paco has been in some other trouble as well. In my opinion, Cassie deserves credit for saving him. She made him a full-time worker in her business, taking him out of school as necessary. She made him work the production side of the business, the distribution side, and the retail side. And she paid him well. As I understand it, this boy has developed a good savings account. And, much as we’d like the boy to do better in school, he has turned himself around in many ways.”

  Pam Sagan gave me a hard look.

  She continued, “I believe that if Cassie hadn’t worked him so hard, he would have been pulled into the juvenile justice system. I don’t think that Paco has a natural leaning toward a criminal mind like some kids. But he is a natural street kid. If he’d been left to hang out with other kids on the street, I have no doubt that he would have gotten into serious trouble. I know the type because I’ve seen it too many times. He’s very young. But he was on track to something bad. He would eventually end up in custody and be deported.

  “Of course, he’s technically here illegally,” she continued. “Many people would say a rule’s a rule and that he should have been deported years ago.”

  Sagan looked down, moved her hands behind her desk in a way that seemed as if she were smoothing her pants on her thighs.

  “I used to wonder about Cassie’s focus on making Paco work,” she said. “I don’t think she’s given him an ideal childhood this last year or so. But it’s clear to me and others that Cassie saved him. She taught him the value of hard work, and she taught him valuable skills that he’ll use for the rest of his life. Yes, she’s been doing it outside of the legal system. For all I know, she could be accused of harboring an illegal alien. But she’s done the right thing by the measure of something separate from the
law. She deserves a medal, and the legislators who chant their slogans to get re-elected should have to answer to that separate thing.”

  She looked at me. “Does that make any sense to you? Or do you think I’m nuts?”

  “It makes sense,” I said. “Answer a hypothetical question, please. What if they didn’t deport him? What if they simply registered him as a foster child or whatever it is that they do?”

  “If Paco were officially put into the foster program, he would be taken from Cassie’s care. She is not an official foster family. Because he is a willful child and not especially endearing, to say the least, it is unlikely they would find a new foster home for him. And even if they did, his foster parents would likely reject him after a time. He’d end up in an orphanage. It is not easy to find foster families for kids of any age and personality. But it is much harder for kids who aren’t young and charming.”

  Sagan gave me a pleading look. I could see how much she cared.

  “Paco has always lived here,” she said. “This is his community. His home. He’s not very likeable. In fact, he is one hard-case, tough kid. But he has some friends. His teachers and other community members look out for him. I try hard to insulate him from the forces out there in society that would look at him only as an illegal immigrant.”

  “You think the state would put him in an orphanage,” I said. “Are you saying that he would also be deported?”

  “It’s hard to say anything definite other than that it’s possible. Those of us who work with populations that have undocumented workers see how often somebody disappears. Sometimes we see it coming, witness a crime followed by an arrest, which is followed by the person being picked up by an Immigration Enforcement Agent. Next thing we know, they’re gone.”

  “If Paco were deported, where would he end up?” I asked.

  “Without a family in Mexico, he’d end up in a Mexican orphanage,” Sagan said. “Or on the street.”

  “Paco told me he doesn’t speak Spanish. Would they speak English in an orphanage?” I asked.