now, Gilberto, and tell me exactly what they looked like.”
“Nice.”
“Pretty?”
“Yeh.”
“Who was driving?”
“The Mexicana.”
“You’re walking, they pull up?”
“Yeh.”
“Then what?”
“The white one she ‘Hey, can you help us?’”
“Pretty girl.”
Chavez grinned and outlined the jut of enormous breasts.
“Big girl.”
“Big titties,” said Chavez. “I say ‘What?’ She get out.” Shaping bulbous hips. “Nice.”
“What about the Mexicana?”
“
“Skinny,” said Milo. “So she got out of the car, too.”
“Yeh. Laughing.”
“Something funny was going on.”
“I figure a joke.”
“What were their names?”
“No say names.”
“They didn’t talk to each other and use names?”
“Never,” said Chavez with surprising clarity. “First they say money for you help, then the Mexicana come out of the car with you know.”
“I know what?”
“You kn—okay, okay, a bag. Say ‘This better than money.’ I say for what do, they say ‘Go buy something.’ Lots of laugh.”
“They were having a good time.”
“I think a party, ice is a party, no? I dint do
“What were they wearing?”
“The white one, black on top, tight jeans.” Shaping lush hips again, he blew out air. “Long hair.” Reaching behind, he touched a spot below his waist.
“What color?”
“Black.”
“What about the Mexicana?”
“Also black, but the blond here.” Fingering the fringes of his own dense coiffure.
“Streaked,” said Milo.
“Yeh.”
“The Mexicana also had long hair?”
“Yeh. Red top—the tank. Tight jeans.” Whistling appreciatively. “Sandals, also heels. White, yeh, white.”
“You’re doing good, Gilberto. What else?”
“I bring the ice to the Honda, they gimme the bag.”
“Same bag I found in your pocket?”
“Yeh.”
“Who else was in the Honda?”
“Nobody.”
“You’re sure?”
“I put the ice in the backseat, nobody else.”
“Where’d they wait while you bought the ice?”
“A block, I had to carry.”
“That didn’t make you curious?”
“Whuh?”
“Them paying you to buy something they could buy themselves. Waiting a block away.”
“No,” said Chavez.
“No, what?”
“Two weeks I got no work. I don wonder about nothin’.”
We left the station and walked up Butler Avenue.
Milo said, “Girls and not Prep students. Lord, hand me the Prozac.”
I said, “Teenage girls like to please teenage boys.”
“Getting ice for a young stud. One of them being Latin could mean she knows Martin from his former life in El Monte.” Smiling. “God forbid I should racially profile.”
He called the lab about Fidella. Listened, turned serious. Hung up. “One palm print showed up on a gutter that runs down a corner of the garage. The sneaker impressions are probably Nikes, a common model, but too shallow to have evidentiary value. All the blood’s Sal’s and wherever there was no blood, the house was clean— definitely a wipe-down, same as with Elise. That and the computer theft tells me we’re dealing with the same guy. In terms of the palm print, the garage is near where the body got dumped so maybe a glove slipped while it got dragged past. Nothing shows up on AFIS but palms haven’t been cataloged long enough to make that meaningful. I get a suspect, it’s sufficient for a match.”
He phoned Martin Mendoza’s house, got the boy’s mother, listened for a long time with what sounded like sympathy.
But when he hung up, he said, “She said all the right things, but her tone wasn’t right, Alex. Too… composed. Like she was reading a script. This after her husband said she’d been throwing up nonstop.”
I said, “Not enough anxiety because she knows he’s safe.”
“Safe,” he said, “is a relative concept.”
Hitching his trousers, he growled. “Time to hunt.”
CHAPTER
26
San Antonio PD agreed to two daily drive-bys of Gisella Mendoza’s apartment for the next three days.
The shift supervisor said, “You got a serious fugitive, call the marshals.”
Milo phoned Gisella again, reached her at work at Bexar Hospital.
“Too damn polite and she worked hard at telling me nothing. Time to get some pix of the South El Monte student body, maybe Gilberto can pick out our enterprising twosome.”
No yearbooks available on a site that trafficked in academic nostalgia but the high school’s website linked to its store where Eagle Pride DVDs sold for ten dollars.
Milo tried to placed a rush order, was told by an administrative assistant named Jane Virgilio that he had to purchase online and shipping would take at least ten working days.
“Even for the police?”
“Why would the police want our DVD?”
“It’s related to a former student, ma’am. Martin Mendoza.”
“Martin? Why in the world?”
“You know him?”
“He was one of our stars, everyone said he’d go to the major leagues, then that prep school stole him away. He’s in trouble?”
