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.”
