She looked up and shook her head. “Talk to the lieutenant.”
“He’s mad at me.”
“Is crime scene contamination your job title?”
A young fingerprint tech looked at her. “Susan, he’s just doing his job.”
“So am I.”
I waited for Susan to thaw but she didn’t look up again so I wandered to the other side of the vehicle. A member decal for the Vista Valley Country Club was stuck low on the windshield. A small wooden cross on a string of leather dangled from the rearview mirror. The mirror, I noted, was tilted up for a driver much taller than five feet four, in keeping with the backed-up driver’s seat.
Through the open rear door I could see the handicap parking plaque lying on the back seat. And an LA Times, wrapped in its traditional orange plastic bag, and a Union-Tribune in its blue plastic bag. I recognized Tuesday’s front-page picture on the U-T.
And saw the word HELP written in crude red lipstick letters on the rear of the front seat, above the map pouch.
Five
My scalp crawled and the old boxing scar on my forehead tingled. I’d assumed that Natalie Strait’s status as a VIP had promoted her abandoned car into a full crime scene. But with HELP lipsticked onto the seat, her husband’s celebrity was now beside the point.
The photographer nudged in front of me, squatted to shoot straight-on, and patiently captured the lipstick letters. Flash-click. Flash-click. He leaned closer, camera pointed down, and studied the word. Repositioned himself and took another six shots. Stood and looked at me.
“I want this shot right,” he said.
Around back I studied the cargo space: two large, heavy-looking cardboard boxes labeled CAMPAIGN POSTERS, a plastic box overfilled with bundles of new wooden stakes, a heavy-duty staple gun wedged in handle-up, a couple of colorful fabric grocery bags, one stuffed inside the other. On the bumper was a San Diego State University Lacrosse team sticker, a decal for the band The Garden, and a Trojan Mom oval in crimson and gold.
I approached the ranch hand, who stood. He looked under twenty years old and thin — worn jeans and a blue work shirt and a white straw Resistol cowboy hat. Took off the hat and eyed me. The horse shook away a fly and lowered her head to the grass.
“I’m not going to arrest or deport you,” I said. “I’m a private investigator, not government.” I showed him my enhanced PI photo ID card, required by California, and my pocket license, also required. Together, they’re a combination that is impressive or at least puzzling to most people. I’m licensed to carry a sidearm, too. It’s a Colt 1911.45 that fits not quite inconspicuously against the small of my back in a leather paddle holster.
He gave the card and license a long look.
“Habla inglés?” I asked.
“A little.”
“My name is Roland.”
“Jesús.”
“Thank you for calling the police about the vehicle.”
He nodded.
“Did you look inside?”
“Sí. I tell the other police.”
“Did you open a door?”
The mare came up from her graze, looked at Jesús as if she was particularly interested in his answer, then lowered her head again.
“No,” said Jesús. “I look in the window.”
“What did you see?”
“I tell the other police.”
“Tell me, también.”
In his sparse English, Jesús told me that the windows were very dark and the sun was low and he didn’t see anything important when he looked in. He saw the cross hanging by the mirror and the newspapers and the handicap placard on the back seat and that was all. When I asked him about HELP written on the back of the front passenger seat, he said he didn’t see it. He didn’t remember looking at the backside of that seat at all. It was difficult because of the dark window glass and the sun.
When I asked Jesús why he hadn’t called the police until today he said that he tried to stay away from other people’s problems. He said there were casinos not far from here and he’d seen many cars speeding and swerving and going through stop signs. Once he had seen a new car smashed like a beer can against a telephone pole. Once he had seen a man chasing a woman along the side of the road and when he had tried to help her they both attacked him.
“So… I no call. I wait when the blue truck is very dusty and maybe forget.”
Forgotten, I figured.
The mare whinnied softly and shook off another fly.
“Did you show it to anyone else?” I asked. “Or tell them it was here?”
“No.”
“Did you see anyone around the car?”
“A woman is here, miércoles. Wednesday? She drive a small white car. Go around the blue BMW and look. Go slow. Stop and open driving door. Go in. Sit. Then drive her car back to Valley Center Road.”
“Describe her.”
“Don’t see good. Dark hair. Sunglass. Grande.”
“The woman was grande or her sunglasses were grande?”
“Sunglass big. Woman no big.”
Sunglass big, I thought, twice in one day. I don’t believe in coincidences but I do believe in luck.
“What kind of car?”
He shook his head. “White. Much… how you say arena?”
“Sand.”
“Much sand. And big abolladura on the driving door.”
A dent.
Based on Jesús’s description, I found Lark’s possible Fallbrook bomb mailer on my phone, shading the picture with my hand so Jesús could see. Your basic one in a million.
“Sí.”
“Yes, but absolutamente o quizá?” I asked. Absolutely or maybe?
A troubled smile from the young man, sensing my urgency.
“Maybe. Es difícil.”
I turned back and looked at the BMW again. I imagined a tall man at the wheel, another man — or was it a woman? — beside him in the front passenger seat, and a distraught and disbelieving Natalie Strait sitting behind them. Maybe she’s arguing. Or pleading. Maybe she’s too frightened for that. After all, they’ve forced or tricked her off the road on her way from breakfast with her sister in Valley Center back to work in Escondido. Jacked her car with her in it. Maybe roughed her up some, too, or showed a weapon, to spoil her mood for conversation. I pictured her scrawling HELP onto the seat back, eyes up to avoid attracting attention, just going by feel with the lipstick and hoping she was leaving a clear, meaningful message. I wondered why they hadn’t smelled it and rubbed it out. But they had their own levels of excitement to deal with. I pictured the getaway car, driven by associate number three — pulling up over there by the derelict little home, beside the SUV so the passengers could board.
This is what I saw. You learn to trust what you see, even when you doubt. And to doubt, even when you believe.
Jesús set his cowboy hat back on. I saw Hazzard and two of his uniforms heading our way. The mare gave me a glassy-eyed stare.
Hazzard waved me off like a picnic wasp. I retreated to the SUV. When I glanced back, the lieutenant was bearing down on the young cowboy, who again had his hat in his hand and a penitent expression on his face.
Six
The once Honorable Virgil Strait lived atop a boulder-strewn mountain near the border of San Diego and Imperial counties. The East County badlands, hot and windblown. A pickup truck carrying two stone-faced gentlemen fell in behind me as I climbed that mountain. Rifles racked in the cab. I had passed a similar pair in a similar truck about halfway up.