“Okay. How about you help me search her stuff? An envelope saved with a birthday card might give us a home address. A handwritten note on a letterhead. Something like that.”
“Okay. Sure.”
Mary Sue started on the computer leg of Krista’s desk, and I started on the leg scattered with papers. I fingered through the printouts and clippings, looking for anything useful about Berman or their trip to Palm Springs. Most of the printouts were articles about illegal immigration, mass graves in Mexico, and the increasing power of the Mexican cartels. Several were interviews with immigration activists and political figures. Sections of text in almost every article were highlighted in yellow, but none of the notes I found were about Jack Berman, wedding chapels, or Vegas acts. Most appeared to be about the material at hand: who makes the money? where do they come from? who is involved?
Mary Sue edged closer to see what I was doing.
“This is research for her editorial. You won’t find anything there.”
“You never know. People make notes on whatever’s handy.”
“Uh-huh. I guess.”
“Is this the piece she was going to finish Sunday night?”
“Yeah. It’s about illegal immigration and immigration policy. She got super into it a couple of weeks ago.”
Nita appeared in the doorway.
“What was she doing?”
Mary Sue repeated herself.
“Writing her editorial. It’s her last editorial. She’s been working on it for a couple of weeks.”
Nita came over and picked up the articles. Her face was lined so deeply as she read, she looked like a stack of folded towels.
I said, “Did she pack for a long trip or a weekend?”
Nita didn’t answer.
“Ms. Morales?”
She looked at me, but her eyes were vacant, as if she couldn’t quite see me. It took her another full second to answer.
“Everything’s fine.”
She backed away, blinked three times, then left. We only knew she had gone when we heard the front door.
Mary Sue said, “What’s wrong?”
I considered the articles Krista had highlighted, then looked at Mary Sue.
“Would you do me a favor?”
“Sure. I live to serve.”
“Keep looking. Look for something that tells us where Krista went, or why, and where and how to find her boyfriend, okay?”
“Okay. Sure.”
I gave her my card, left her in Krista’s room, and found Nita Morales seated behind the wheel of her car. Her sunglasses were on, but she hadn’t started the engine. She was holding the wheel in the ten and two o’clock positions, and staring straight ahead.
I got into the passenger’s side, and made my voice gentle.
“You okay?”
She shook her head.
“Talk to me.”
Nita studied me from the far side of her car on that spring day, a distance too close to some clients and miles too far from others. She looked as if we were going a hundred miles an hour even though we weren’t moving.
“I am not a legal resident of the United States. My sister and I were sent here when I was seven years old and she was nine. We came to live with an uncle who was legally here on a work visa. I have been here illegally ever since. I am here illegally now.”
“May I ask why you told me?”
“What Mary Sue said. That Krista started all this two weeks ago.”
“You told her two weeks ago.”
“This isn’t something you tell a child, but she is almost twenty-one, and now she has this job in Washington. I thought she should know. So she can protect herself.”
“Did she react badly?”
“I didn’t think so, but she grew worried when we discussed what would happen if this became known.”
I wasn’t an expert on immigration, but anyone living in Southern California becomes conversant with the issue.
“Do you have a criminal record?”
“Of course not.”
“Are you involved in a criminal enterprise?”
“Please don’t make fun of this.”
“Nita, I’m not. I’m trying to tell you ICE isn’t going to knock down your door. Are you scared Krista is doing whatever she’s doing because you told her?”
“I’ve lied to her.”
“You said it yourself. This isn’t something you could have told her when she was a child.”
She closed her eyes as hard as she clenched the steering wheel.
“She must be ashamed. This girl earned a job with the Congress, and now her mother is a wetback.”
She tried to hold it together, but convulsed with a sob, and covered her face with her hands. I leaned across the console and held her. It was awkward to hold her like that, but I held her until she straightened herself.
“I’m sorry. This isn’t how I thought it would be. I don’t know what to do.”
“You don’t have to do anything. The World’s Greatest Detective takes it from here.”
A tiny smile flickered her lips.
“I thought you hated being called that.”
“I made an exception so you’ll feel better.”
She studied me for a moment, then picked up her purse and placed it in her lap.
“I didn’t hire you because of an article. I did my homework, but the picture caught my attention. I read the article because of the picture. The one with your clock.”
“Pinocchio.”
“The puppet who wanted to be a boy.”
Two pictures illustrated the article. One was a close shot of me on the phone at my desk. The second photograph was a full-page shot of me leaning against the wall. I was wearing a shoulder holster, sunglasses, and a lovely Jams World print shirt. The shoulder holster and sunglasses were the photographer’s idea. They made me look like a turd. But my Pinocchio clock was on the wall behind me, smiling at everyone who enters my office. Its eyes roll from side to side as it tocks. The photographer thought it was colorful.
Nita took something from the purse, but I could not see what she held.
“My uncle had a clock like yours. He told us about Pinocchio, the puppet who dreamed an impossible dream.”
“To be a flesh-and-blood boy.”
“To dream of a better life. It was why we were here.”
“Your uncle sounds like a good man.”
“The tocking rocked me to sleep. You know how people talk about the surf? The tocking was my surf in Boyle Heights when I was seven years old. I loved that clock. Every day and all night, Pinocchio reminded us to work for our dreams. Do you see?”
She opened her hand.
“He gave this to me when I was seven years old.”
A faded plastic figure of Jiminy Cricket was in her palm, the blue paint of his top hat chipped and worn. Pinocchio’s conscience.
