Rosa stood to Miguel’s side as he rang the front doorbell of Raul Mendez’s tiny house on the edge of town, receiving no answer. Dejected, they returned to the unmarked car. A young man who was busy pulling a plastic rain tarp over a motorcycle called out to them.
“You just missed him. Left about ten minutes ago!”
“Do you know where he went?” Rosa called back.
“Train station. I was putting the garbage bins out when he walked out of his front door with a suitcase. He got into a cab. I heard him tell the driver to take him to the main station.”
Rosa felt a thread of excitement vibrate down her spine. “Rod Jeffers must have called him! He probably guessed that we’re onto him.”
Miguel hurried to the driver’s side of the car. “He’s bolting.”
Rosa jumped in just as Miguel gunned the engine.
“This is so hard to believe.” Miguel pulled out the flashing light and placed it on top of the roof. “I’ve been playing gigs with that guy for almost a year!” He hit the switch for the siren, then accelerated.
“Which way do you think he’d go?” Rosa shouted over the wailing of the siren.
“There’s a route on the Pacific Surfliner,” Miguel shouted back. “It heads to San Diego Union station. From there, it’s effortless to catch a bus to Tijuana. I know Raul still has family in Mexico. If he makes it there—”
“Rod Jeffers’ neighbor called Mr. Mendez’s car a ‘rattletrap’.” That must be why he’s taking the train.”
“Faster too.” Miguel kept his eyes squarely on the road in front of him. “I think there’s a train that goes straight to San Diego once a day. I used to take it all the time to go visit relatives in Rosarito.”
“Do you know what time?”
“Five forty-five, I think.”
Rosa checked her watch. “It's five-thirty.”
Unfortunately, the rain began in earnest, and the roads were slick with water. Miguel was forced to slow down. He expertly guided the cruiser around traffic as cars stopped in deference to the police siren.
When they approached the vicinity of the station, Miguel cut the siren and the lights to avoid alerting Raul Mendez to the fact they’d arrived. As they jumped out of the car, Miguel said, “You go around the other way. If he sees one of us, he might run.”
The Santa Bonita train station was not a large building, certainly not the kind of station Rosa was used to using in the vast network of underground and overground lines in London. Instead, it was a modest two-story, Spanish-Revival-style construction with red clay roof tiles and a terra-cotta stucco exterior. It had two main entrances at either end of the building.
Rosa hurried into the south entrance while Miguel went into the north. She scanned the entries to the shops and saw there was a short queue at the ticket counter. Mr. Mendez probably already had his ticket and was out on the platform. Rosa glanced at the large clock on the wall: five forty-three. They had only moments.
Without an arrest warrant, Rosa wasn’t sure if the police had the authority to stop a train just to question someone. She rushed out onto the crowded southbound platform and looked both ways. About fifty people waited to board the train and stood in groups at each train car’s entry door. Rosa slowly worked her way north in search of the familiar figure of Raul Mendez. Far down, at the other end, she spotted Miguel as he made his way towards her. But Mendez was nowhere to be seen. Could he have already gotten on the train?
As the last of the people boarded, the loud voice of a ticket agent yelled, “All aboard!”
Just then, about sixty feet to her left, Raul Mendez emerged from one of the doors marked Men’s Restroom. Rosa watched him look to his left. Did he see Miguel who was three car lengths away?
Miguel had not yet noticed him, but when Raul saw Miguel, he started jogging in Rosa’s direction. She then realized she was between him and the nearest car entry door. Raul hadn’t spotted her, so she slipped behind a broad support post that held an extensive arrival schedule. Just as Raul sped by, she stepped out from behind the post, and with the wooden, curved handle of her umbrella, hooked his ankle, sending him sprawling to the pavement.
Rosa stood over him, the sharp end of the umbrella pointing at his throat. “En garde!”
19
“It looks like Raul is ready to confess,” Miguel said into the phone. “Can you come down to the precinct? As one of the lead investigators, I thought you’d like to be here.”
“I’ll come right now.”
The day before, when they had arrested Raul Mendez and brought him to the precinct, he had been belligerent and refused to speak until his lawyer was in the room. Rosa knew from experience that if a first-time killer was going to confess, it was often after a night in jail and a phone call to a lawyer.
Rosa quickly changed into a striped sea-foam-green and pink dress, which matched her pink flats. She arranged for Señora Gomez to keep an eye on Diego, collected the keys to the Bel Air, and headed for the garage.
When she entered the precinct, Rosa couldn’t help but notice how Miguel’s eyes flickered as they moved up her figure to her face, then met her gaze. It was a brief acknowledgement of attraction, but he quickly looked away, inhaled, and took on an expression of professionalism.
“Raul’s lawyer just arrived,” he said, getting straight to business. “Raul requested representation as soon as I told him we’d collected his prints from a cigarette found at the home of Jason Brewster. He, of course, had denied even knowing Mr. Brewster.” Miguel continued with his update as they headed to the interrogation room. “I’m pretty sure that convinced him that a full confession would serve him better than a
