Heroine: California Dreamin' (15 page)

“He’s done”, hissed Soto with teeth clenched while he looked at his accomplice in contempt.

“If I had known what a wimp he is I wouldn’t have taken him along. But his daddy thought he needs to get used to the business. Roberto wouldn’t take this kind of behavior.” I didn’t understand what he was talking about.

Soto looked at me in a friendly way:

“You seem to take all of that quite well. Your friend had chosen the right woman for his business. Not only beautiful but also tough as nails.” Did he want to smooth-talk with me?

“Let’s have some breakfast. We are early and it is still four to five hours to Los Angeles”, he continued in a friendly way and smiled. He looked really handsome this way. If he only had a proper job! It was heartbreaking that such an attractive man was a murderer.

‘Then the two right ones have found one another’,
a hard voice growled inside me.

‘
A good looking man and a pretty woman. And both are murderers.’
I clenched my teeth and sent the voice to hell. If I gave in to it - it would be like suicide. I still had enough energy to withstand those malicious inspirations.

“Ah, we only drive to Los Angeles?” I asked with an innocent look. So we weren’t headed for Mexico. That was reassuring.

Soto looked surprised and his eyebrows contracted subtly. I realized that I must have committed an error and quickly I winked at him to make him believe that I wanted to rattle his chains. It worked. He smiled again and grinning I stuck out my tongue. Only to regret it immediately. That guy had killed Diego. I shouldn’t let myself go that far. Unfortunately. I looked at him again. When he looked so relaxed any woman would immediately go with him … I pulled myself together again.

I was hungry and thirsty and so we went to a small restaurant on a street corner where one could sit on a terrace. Soto had asked Andrew if he wanted to tag along but he only shook his head in silence. He neither wanted that we brought him something back from the eatery. Cody waited outside in the car. He was all alert. He had probably slept during the time when I was captured at the farm. And when Diego went on his nerves … I quickly dismissed these thoughts again. They made my stomach ache. Cody was also hungry and accompanied us after Soto had asked him to. That killed my plan to try to escape on foot if there was an opportunity. I couldn’t run away from both of them.

When the pancakes and the coffee were set before us I noticed how drained I was. Silently the three of us sat at a table in a corner of the terrace and gobbled the huge portions of food. Once in a while a small jet thundered across the landing strip just behind us. The weather was beautiful and when air traffic had a pause we heard children splashing and whooping from a nearby large swimming pool. The more I ate the more tired I got and I needed plenty of coffee to keep myself awake; but I was not very successful with it.

I felt how I slid into a world of dreams where everything was good. The colors of the summer sky mixed with the green of the softly swaying palm trees and the pink of the magnolia along the walls. A soft breeze blew my hair in my face and despite the insane situation I soon felt good and relaxed. Did this night actually happen or did I just have a nightmare?

Soto smiled again. He looked seductively good and slowly I was certain that I had only dreamed the whole thing. Such a handsome man can’t be evil at all. I wondered whether we could sleep-in together back in the hotel room. Andrew would surely leave us alone. Soto said something to me and winked with a mischievous grin but a starting plane drowned out his voice. I smiled back and told him through the noise that I didn’t understand him because it was too loud. He laughed. I laughed. And then the laughter in his face froze. I turned around still with some radiance in my face that soon gave way to a big surprise.

Two men in black suits, white shirts and black ties stood before us. Behind them several tall uniformed policemen who had their hands on their gun holsters. One of the two young men lifted up some ID and said with loud voice:

“FBI. I am from the office in Santa Cruz. Please leave your hands on the table where we can see them. If you keep calm and quiet things will be much easier for all of us.” Then he turned to me:

“Ma’am, are you Miss Julie-Anne Noula?” When I nodded with eyes wide open he looked at me quite skeptically for a moment and then continued:

“Your husband had contacted us via law enforcement. You had been kidnapped and abducted. Is that correct? Did somebody kidnap you?” I nodded again. And remained speechless. Something scared me terribly. A light went on in my head. FBI – Irene – my movie with Ron. Hopefully everything would turn out alright here.

At this moment Soto started out laughing loudly and smacked his upper legs in amusement. The cops drew lightning-fast their weapons from their holsters and pointed them towards Soto who immediately lifted his hands and kept them there. Now the other restaurant patrons became aware of us and loud yelling and screaming broke out. Soto kept his hands up but never seized to laugh. The FBI agent screamed into that chaos and ordered quiet but nobody would listen to him. Within a few seconds all patrons and personnel had disappeared.

“Stop laughing”, snapped the agent at Soto. “Kidnapping is a capital crime.”

“I am sorry special agent” interrupted Soto the agent and continued to laugh. “Does it look like that we had kidnapped this woman? Julie, tell them that you belong to us and that you are here on your free will. Otherwise you must pay for your breakfast yourself.” Now Cody also started to giggle. Where was Andrew? I looked around. The gray van sat in the parking lot surrounded by police cars and other officers; but Andrew was nowhere to be seen.

The situation was absurd. I sat with two of my kidnappers in a restaurant and had a pleasant breakfast. Whoever would watch us would never assume that I had been abducted with force.

“But it is correct, they had attacked me and brought me here”, I squeaked all excited with a high voice. I was desperate because I was scared that nobody would believe me. Soto had kept his hands up and said only laughingly:

“Julie, don’t play crazy again. You remember what kind of problems you caused us the last time. If you want to drive up your wages again then you can forget it this time. You’ll only get what we have agreed on and not a cent more. Even if I have to go to prison for that. This time I will not cave in”.

The FBI agent looked at us in mistrust and before I could reply again he ordered:

“Let’s stop this comedy. You are all under arrest. We take you to the police station in Prado now. There we’ll find out who has the jurisdiction.” Then he read out loud our rights to us and had us handcuffed. I was shocked because I didn’t expect that.

“Special agent, before you lead me away would you please take my gun from my jacket”, said Soto. “So that nobody at the station will believe I had taken it on my way there.”

That startled the agent. Apparently he had made a mistake which he rectified by taking the gun out of Soto’s jacket only by touching it with the tip of his fingers. Another officer padded down Cody who didn’t have a gun on him. I knew he was good enough with his fists. Then they looked at me and I expected to also being padded down.

“She’s clean”, Soto interrupted the brief moment of silence and released the officers from their awkward embarrassment. They had come without a female officer. The FBI agent shrugged his shoulders. A tanned uniformed giant of a man ran to the next police vehicle and came back with a plastic bag in which they dropped the gun.

In the meantime I had tried once more to convince the two FBI agents that I was the victim. But the other of the two agents looked at me only in silence and with cold facial expressions. The previous spokesman snarled at me:

“Just be quiet, Miss. You may tell your story to the hearing officer back at the station.”

They had probably watched us on the restaurant’s terrace at the pool when I joyfully conversed with Soto. I couldn’t find any other explanation. An officer pushed down my head when he guided me on the backseat of the police car. The rear of the vehicle was separated through a grid from the front of the car and the doors had no interior handles. Like in the movies. I saw how Soto and Cody were loaded in two other police cars. The two FBI agents got into black Cadillac cars.

Still no trace of Andrew. I was certain that he could help me! Andrew would certainly confirm that I had been kidnapped. I yelled as loud as I could to the two officers in the front seats that they should stop the car. There was one guy missing, he would be in the hotel room. The driver jumped onto the brakes and his colleague picked up the radio and called the other vehicles back. Soto got also out of the car and the FBI agent pulled the plastic key for the rented room from a side pocket of Soto’s jacket. They positioned two officers with drawn weapons left and right from the entrance. The agent also drew his gun and knocked hard against the door while yelling that the person inside should come out.
‘Like in a movie’
I thought again and didn’t know for a moment whether I was awake or in a dream. A bit later the officers came back shaking their heads. There was nobody in the room. The two guys who were supposed to drive me looked at me angrily and after they had shut the doors the co-driver said:

“Watch out, if you do something like that again we’ll drive you into a backyard and serve you a good beating. You understand?”

I sat there with my mouth wide open. I didn’t know what to say. I wished Daniel would finally come. But he was probably only on his way to the airport in New York. As far as I could manage I sat with my hands handcuffed in the back and stared to the floor.

It was only a short trip. My guards dragged me – supporting me on either side – through the door of the flat building. Then they pushed me into a windowless chamber that they locked up behind me. They didn’t hand me my purse back. I sat down on a chair and tried to figure out my situation. Ugly neon light reflected on the light chairs and the little white table in the room. How long I was sitting there all by myself I don’t remember. But it was at least for one hour. After that I was completely at the end with my nerves. I trembled and fits of rage took turns with crying fits. Alone, my hands still handcuffed and with no orientation I dove into a state that brought me close to losing my mind. Due to the lack of sleep lights started to dance before my eyes, I saw figures from the corner of my eyes, figures that disappeared when I looked at them full of fear.

Finally a door opened. A stocky dark-skinned woman in uniform and black curls on her round head entered the room followed by the two officers who had brought me here. The woman turned around to the two officers and growled at them:

“Are you right in your head? How can you let her sit there the whole time with handcuffs on? And she got nothing to drink. Go get her some coffee and water and take off her cuffs.” I was glad that somebody seemed to take care of me. After I drank something I felt better and I smiled at the uniformed woman.

“Are you ok?” she asked with sincerity in her facial expression. I nodded and was grateful for being respected by her.

“Good, then let’s go now into another room. We have to talk.” She pulled me to the corridor, passing by desks and then sat down in a glass box in front of a desk. Obviously she didn’t seem to consider me being dangerous because she left the door open. As in all other rooms the blinds were also lowered here so that one could not look out. She opened a briefcase in front of her and told me then that the FBI agent had in fact detained me but that I didn’t have to consider myself to be ‘arrested’.

“The FBI forwarded the case to us because obviously there is no violation against a federal law. We can clarify that here in Prado”, she explained quietly.

“But I had been kidnapped. Is that not a crime?” I replied indignantly.

“Of course, if there was force in play and state borders had been crossed. For now we need to clarify your personal data. By the way, I am the sergeant on duty. I apologize that I haven’t introduced myself earlier.”

Then we worked together through a thick pile of paper where I had to answer this and that question and enter my personal data. Questioned about previous convictions I declined. ‘Criminal record’ for my school English trained ears sounded too much like ‘serious offenses’, felonies etc. When we finally reached to talk about my version of what had happened she was joined by another female officer. My statements were recorded and then protocolled. At the end I felt alleviated. Finally somebody had lent me an ear. Now everything will turn out alright.

“Are you sure that this Andrew killed your friend?” the officer insisted for a second time.

“According to your description that must have happened in the
‘Temple of Gileah’
at Watsonville. We will dispatch a team there and check it out. Until that is done you must unfortunately still stay here.” I faced up to my fate but wanted my purse back. The other female officer lead me back again to the windowless room and locked the door behind me. I pulled out my cell phone and tried to reach Daniel. But there was no connection. The room was probably shielded. The officer managed to get me water in my cell and thus circumstances weren’t as bad as before. Now all I needed was some patience then they would find Diego’s remains and I would be set free. Time passed and I put my head on the table and fell asleep. It was already late afternoon when the door opened again. The female sergeant and two more female police officers entered the room. When I saw their faces I knew that something was wrong.

“Come with us”, she ordered me with a hard tone of voice. She brought me back to the interrogation room where I planted myself with wobbly knees on the chair. The two other cops positioned themselves at the entrance. Now it dawned on me that I was in danger again.

“Ms. Noula. The police has searched the entire surroundings and all rooms in the temple’s building in Watsonville. Nothing. Not a trace of a dead body. Our colleagues had subsequently actually flown in a dog by helicopter that is trained to find dead bodies. Still nothing. The entire premises are clean. What do you have to say?” I looked at her with my mouth wide open.

“But Andrew had vomited there all over the place after he had killed Diego. A dog must have picked up that scent? Or?” She leaved through her papers in front of her for a while.

“Correct. One did find a T-shirt there that was covered with vomit. But no dead body. And because of a soiled shirt we can’t arrest anybody.”

“And what about the kidnapping?” I yelled. “They have abducted me and threatened me. That can’t be everything?”

“Calm down”, the sergeant gave back. “To be honest – I don’t believe you one word. And do you know why?” I shook my head. It drove me bananas. Why didn’t they believe me?

The woman in front of me took a photograph from the folder and threw it on the table. I felt sick when I saw what it showed. It was a copy of the photo that was presented to me at the police station in San Jose. Pete and I fucking on an open road. Slowly it dawned on me where all of that was going. I looked up.

“Is that you?” the sergeant asked. I was unable to say anything and only lowered my head.

“Seems we’re getting to the bottom of this. We questioned your two companions at length. And they assured us that you came along voluntarily after they had offered you five hundred dollars.” I shook my head.

“No, no, it wasn’t like that”, I whispered. All my energy left my body, I had no strength left.

“Ms. Noula. The files from the authorities in California state that you have a prior conviction. Here you stated that you have no prior convictions. But only a short while ago you were prosecuted for prostitution. At that time you got away with a monetary fine. You didn’t tell us about that. This fact alone that you withheld this information is enough to take you to court. Whether we’ll prosecute you for prostitution is up to the prosecutor.”

The room’s floor suddenly started to spin and approached me with astounding speed. Only when I woke up on a stretcher I became aware that I had passed out. Two officers sat beside me and a female doctor in a white coat withdrew a tube from my right arm.

“She’s okay again. Only a temporary feeling of faintness.” Behind her the sergeant appeared.

“Then we can proceed”, she said in a harsh tone. I stumbled back into the interrogation room. Again I had my rights read to me and then she allowed me to make a phone call. So far I was familiar with it. Déjà vu it is called, I think. She pushed the phone towards me.

“I call from my cell phone”, I said. “Gimme my purse.”

“This is the phone.” Without emotions she pointed to the old apparatus. I didn’t know any of the numbers by heart they were all stored on my cell. I got angry and hissed through clenched teeth that I would be using my cell. The stubborn broad would shake her head and said:

“If you don’t want to make a phone call then leave it be. Then we will record your statements now.” I lost my cool. I jumped up and yelled at her:

“You let me make my phone call at once. You will not stop me from claiming my rights. I do know what I’m allowed to and I will drag you to court when you break the law!” I think she had never been approached by anybody in that way. But in the meantime I didn’t care about anything any longer. They considered me being a whore so I would behave like one. The room had filled up with uniformed cops. I turned around and continued to yell: