Coyote (3 page)

I scorn downtown parking lots. They're barely cheaper than tickets. And I guess I enjoy the challenge, the thrill of the chase, the contest between me and the meter maids. I wonder if they get a charge out of ticketing my poor Toyota, wonder if they recognize the car and say: “Aha! Gotcha again!”

Lately the thrill-of-the-chase aspect has come into question, what with fewer legal spaces and more cars competing for each one. Instead of a duel between equals, the traffic-ticket game is starting to feel more like the fox versus the hounds and the hunters. The fox, I think, gets considerably less enjoyment from the chase.

But then he doesn't always get caught. And I like to imagine him back in his den, tail and ears intact, giggling at all those stuffed-shirt red coats and riding breeches.

I'd just made up my mind to stick my car in the cop lot with a scrawled sign declaring it an undercover unit when Mooney saved me from a felony by coming down the steps.

He was followed by a scrawny guy wearing a three-piece suit, dark blue Sears model, and a red tie that might have been described as a power tie on somebody else. On this guy it just drew attention to his bobbing Adam's apple. He had thin brown hair, parted low on the side and scraped across his skull in an attempt to cover his baldness. He clutched a briefcase like he was scared somebody was going to snatch it.

The scrawny guy looked me over when I stood up. I was maybe six inches taller than he was.

“This your source?” he said to Mooney with ill-disguised skepticism. Or definite intent to demean.

“This your INS agent?” I said to Mooney in the same tone.

“Children, children,” Mooney said mildly, “let's go have a drink before we start insulting each other. If you'd been at that meeting, you'd need one, too, Carlotta.”

So we tagged together through the crowded streets, down Stanhope to a Red Coach Grill that stopped being a Red Coach years ago. I still think of it as the Red Coach, no matter what the neon over the door says.

We grabbed a table near the bar and I got introduced to the Immigration and Naturalization man. He didn't say his name. He didn't offer a handshake. He slid a brown leather folder across the table. I opened it a bit too ostentatiously to suit him. His photo had been taken when he'd had a bit more hair. His name was Walter Jamieson.

“It's
Jameson
,” he murmured from across the table. “You don't pronounce the
i
.”

I slid my card across the table, placing it facedown, imitating his routine with the folder. He stared at it for a while, and we were spared more hostilities by the waiter, who took our drink orders. I passed, it being slightly before noon. The other two ordered Scotch, Mooney's a double.

“Must have been some meeting,” I commented.

“We're not here to talk about that,” Jamieson snapped. Then he turned his charm on the waiter. “Bring me a corned beef on rye and hop it. I'm in a hurry here.”

Mooney and I exchanged glances. If ever there was a white-bread-and-mayo place, we were in it. I smothered a grin in anticipation of the culinary delights awaiting Jamieson, then I ordered a chicken club; Mooney, a salad.

“The lieutenant said you had some information concerning the identification card found on the deceased,” Jamieson said as soon as the waiter was out of earshot.

“You mean, the dead woman?” I said, giving Mooney the eye, as if to say, how could you have brought me this unbelievable clod. The deceased, my ass.

“Carlotta,” Mooney said softly while kicking me gently under the table, “why not just tell him what you told me?”

Because he's an obvious idiot is what I felt like saying. Instead I gave him the story, slightly abbreviated. I'd skimped a bit on the tale, even with Mooney, not mentioning the part about my Manuela saying she was illegal. With Mooney, put it down to my normal disinclination to share a client's confidences with a cop. With Jamieson, I figured it would just confuse him.

“We'll have to pick up this woman,” Jamieson said. “Pronto.”

Pronto. He really said that.

“Any chance of getting her green card back?” I asked. “I mean, why should she suffer, just because somebody lifted her card?”

“She can come down to the Federal Building. Here's my number. Have her call, and my secretary will make an appointment.”

“Somehow I don't think she'll like the idea of the Federal Building,” I said.

“That's the way it's done,” he said stiffly. “Of course, she can file a lost card report and go through the usual formalities. I'm offering a shortcut.”

“Then there's no way for me, acting as her agent, or for, say, a lawyer in her employ, to get the card back?”

The drinks came. Jamieson checked his watch and demanded his sandwich, which the cowed waiter brought, along with Mooney's salad, even though my order wasn't ready yet. Mooney sipped his Scotch. Jamieson bit deeply into one of the driest-looking bread-and-meat concoctions I ever hope to see and came up talking.

“Are you aware,” he said, eyes narrow, tone low, mouth full of stringy corned beef, “of what this sounds like? It sounds to me like some sort of scam to get hold of a green card.”

“The murder?” I said incredulously.

He wiggled his index finger in my face. “I mean, your woman reads the story in the newspaper—”

“Never mind that she barely reads English. Neither paper mentions a green card. They say something about an identifying document found on the body. What did she do? Take a lucky guess?”

“You have no idea what these people will do for legal documents.”

The man had a shred of something green caught between his two front teeth. I hoped it was lettuce, although why anybody would stick lettuce in a corned beef on rye, I have no idea. I tried another tack. “Can you tell me this? The document you found on the, uh, deceased, is it the genuine article?”

Jamieson glanced at Mooney to see whether I could be trusted with such valuable information. Mooney must have stopped downing his Scotch long enough to give me the okay, because Jamieson nodded his head. He didn't actually say yes. Secret agents might have overheard him.

“So it's genuine and it doesn't belong to the dead woman,” I said.

“We're not a hundred percent clear on that,” Mooney said slowly. “The way she was cut up, we'll have a hell of a time identifying her.”

Jamieson removed a probing index finger from his mouth where he'd been using it instead of a toothpick. “Unless your mystery woman knows who she is.”

“My client said she didn't know the dead woman.”

“I'd like to ask her myself. Make sure she contacts me before five o'clock today.”

“Maybe you weren't listening,” I said slowly and distinctly. “I have no idea where my client might be.”

“Sure,” Jamieson said, gobbling down sandwich moistened by Scotch. “Yeah, but when she calls you, make sure she gets in touch. Otherwise you can get in some pretty serious trouble yourself.”

“Mooney,” I said, “I am so shaken by this man's threats that I'm going to have a beer. How about you?”

“I'll pass,” he said. I called over the waiter and ordered. He assured me my sandwich was on the way. He didn't ask Mr. INS if he wanted anything else.

“Can I see the green card?” I asked.

Mooney opened his mouth, but Jamieson beat him to it. “That would be police property now, Ms. Carlyle. I'd doubt it very much.” He had a nasty way of saying
Ms
.

He was going to go on, but the digital watch on his wrist gave a feeble squawk. He shook it and looked perfectly appalled by the time he'd wasted interviewing me. I hope I looked just as appalled. He was exactly the type of guy who'd wear a cheap digital watch with an alarm.

“I have another appointment,” he said brusquely, comparing his watch with the clock over the bar while he wrapped a remaining sliver of sandwich in a wadded napkin. “Remember what I said.”

“What was that,” I asked blandly, “that you said?”

“I want to hear from your client, this Manuela Estefan, within the next few days. Or you could be in some serious trouble.” He opened his briefcase furtively, taking care that no one could see the contents, and shoved the napkin-wrapped bundle inside. I wouldn't want anyone to see the inside of my briefcase, either, if all I stored there was leftovers.

“I'm a citizen,” I said. “I thought you just made trouble for aliens.”

“You don't want to try me,” he said. And he grabbed his briefcase and stalked off without reading me my rights.

“Gee, Mooney,” I said after a long pause, “thanks so much for introducing me to your friend.”

My belated club sandwich arrived. Mooney hadn't touched his salad, so we ate together in companionable silence.

“You want to see the green card?” he said when we were done, by way of apology for subjecting me to Jamieson.

So we paid up and walked to Berkeley Street. The INS jerk hadn't even left money on the table to cover his lunch.

The card was in a plastic evidence bag. Mooney liberated it for me so I could get a good look. I assumed it had already been dusted for prints.

The more I stared at the card, the more confused I got. The photograph was smaller than a passport shot, slightly blurry. The woman in the photo was shown three-quarter profile, her right ear exposed. She had long, dark hair like my client. Brown eyes like my client. But her face … well, there was a definite resemblance, but I couldn't swear to it. If my client had worn her hair behind her ears, I'd have done a better job. Ears are distinctive.

The name on the card was Manuela Estefan. It looked genuine, the INS man had pronounced it genuine, and my client had called herself an illegal alien. I flipped the card over. This was no easy piece of counterfeiting. The front side, the one with the picture, had a white field with pink wavy lines running through it. It also boasted the photograph, an impressive seal in dark blue, and an index fingerprint in a square box. The back of the card was off-white with a beige wave and a white silhouette of the U.S.A. Three rows of numbers.

The card had been laminated. Its edges were rough, as if the job had been done in one of those drugstore machines.

It would have been easier to counterfeit a hundred-dollar bill.

Was my client lying about being illegal? Why?

Was the INS agent lying about the card being genuine?

My fingers played with the edges of the card. I wished I could just pocket the damn thing and give it back to her, case closed. But it wasn't going to be that simple. Not with a woman dead.

Mooney apologized for Jamieson, and I told him he wasn't responsible for all the jerks in the world.

On the way out I asked where they'd found Manuela's card. In a handbag? With any other ID?

“She didn't have a handbag,” Mooney said. “Or else the perp snatched it.”

“Yeah?”

“Not for publication,” he said, “but the card was in her shoe.”

“And one more thing: How come you're not absolutely sure about the ID? With the fingerprint and all?”

“Still not for broadcast?” he asked.

“Cross my little heart,” I said.

“Victim didn't
have
any prints. He cut off her hands.”

4

Driving home, one question bothered me even more than my instant dislike of the INS man.

Why me?

Why had Manuela Estefan picked me to carry her message to the police, to recover her green card? By right of alphabetical order, Acme's got the first ad in the Yellow Pages under Private Investigators. Nor do I have the flashiest ad, although I do indulge my passion for red in boldface print and a small rectangular outline. Manuela couldn't have decided she'd rather deal with a woman because in the directory I'm just the Carlyle Detective Agency, no gender announced.
Se habla español
is not included in my ad because of laws against false advertising.

Of course. Manuela hadn't needed the Yellow Pages. She'd tucked one of my cards into her handbag.

I don't keep track of my business cards. Who does? But I don't hand them out on street corners either.

The question was who did I know who spoke Spanish and owned a spare Carlyle Detective Agency card. One answer was Paolina.

When I was a policewoman, a lady from the Big Sisters Association came to the station to make a pitch. She said there were hundreds of young girls growing up in the Boston area without successful role models, girls who could use a Big Sister. It made sense to me, the one-on-one approach. I signed up on the spot and was rewarded one month later with Paolina. Paolina's … well, she's just what I would have chosen for a little sister. Smart and stubborn from day one, she now alternates between sentimental and tough, weeping over teen romances and arguing with her mom.

She's nearly eleven, and we've been sisters almost four years.

Paolina's mother is Colombian; her father's Puerto Rican. From Daddy she got her U.S. citizenship and not much else. He moved on after fathering a family of four. Marta was two months pregnant when he exited, so he doesn't even know number five exists. Just waltzed out the door one day, leaving Paolina's mother to cope.

Coping used to be what Marta did best. If she hadn't taken ill—rheumatoid arthritis—the family wouldn't be living hand-to-mouth in the Cambridge projects. No way. Marta would be deputy mayor by now, chief liaison with the Hispanic community at least. But she hasn't got the energy anymore, only rare bursts of it when the pain releases her.

Marta keeps an ear to the ground. She hears things even when she's bedridden.

I made an abrupt decision that caused the timid Nissan on my right to honk and screech, zipped across the B.U. Bridge, and headed to Cambridge, convinced that Marta had a hand in Manuela's visit.

Marta and the kids live in the projects near Technology Square. Every year another high-tech high rise comes along to block out their little patch of sunshine. The project buildings aren't bad, red brick two-story houses, four apartments apiece with cement steps and stingy porches. There's a sad-looking playground in the center of the complex, with busted swings and climb-on animals that haven't been painted in years. You can hardly see the gravel for the beer cans.