Dragon Fruit Read online

  ‘I see.’ So this lady did have a daughter. I hoped I was covering my surprise, but she shot me a hard look.

  ‘It happens, OK? I’m human. I get lonely sometimes.’

  ‘Be patient with me, Chucha. I’m trying to understand.’

  ‘Sorry. I know you are. I – I’m going crazy.’ Chucha got to her feet and paced down the room. Her long legs covered the distance in three or four strides.

  ‘I have to trust you, I know that. So here is what happened. I went to visit my family in Mexico. And there was a girl, Leticia … She got pregnant. The baby was mine.’ Chucha halted in frontof me.

  ‘I named her Rosamar. Rosie for short. Leticia, she didn’t care what I called her. After Rosie was born I would always send money, every two weeks. Then one of my cousins, she called me. She told me Leticia was spending the money on herself and her new asshole boyfriend. Rosie, she was crying all the time. She was too skinny, and she was always dirty, you know? Leticia never gave her a bath.’

  ‘So you decided to bring her here.’

  ‘Of course.’ She set a hand on her hip. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I would. But maybe I’d go and get her myself.’

  ‘Maybe you would, since you’re not a tranny like me.’ Chucha sniffed. ‘Oh, and no papers either, even though I came here when I was five. I’m not exactly the kind they give visas to. And believe me, border patrol don’t look the other way if I try to cross in a car.’

  ‘I’m learning. So, what did you arrange? You had her kidnapped, right?’

  ‘Yes, I had to! Leticia loved getting the money every two weeks, understand? She was mean to Rosie, but no way was she going to let her go.’

  ‘How did you work it?’

  ‘My cousin has a friend who knows somebody, a guy whosmuggles marijuana into California. The guy said he’d grab Rosie and bring her north in his boat. He said it was safe, he’d done the trip to Santa Barbara two times already. He would call me and tell me when I should go to the beach.’

  ‘The beach at More Mesa.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the one he wanted to land on. The one under the cliffs, past Hope Ranch. The one with the really steep path down.’

  ‘So, you paid for your daughter to be brought north in a panga boat.’ I tried hard not to sound judgmental. ‘And the pangero is a marijuana smuggler.’

  ‘Yes, I know. It sounds crazy! But the guy in charge, the one I talked to on the phone? My cousin’s friend said he has kids, he’s not a bad man. And he sounded OK. He told me he would take good care of Rosie. I paid him half. He was gonna meet me when the boat landed, and then I’d pay the other half.’

  There was one thing I was already sure of: a much bigger game was in play. The guy Chucha had dealt with wouldn’t have been the one in charge of the smuggling operation, not by a long shot. Most likely he was just someone who saw a chance to make a buck on the side.

  ‘So when you got there, the beach was deserted. You must have had a terrible shock.’

  ‘Yes! The boat was there, but it was empty. I used my phone for a flashlight, I looked all over the boat, to see if I could find anything, anything that belonged to my baby.’

  I looked down at the cross in my hand. ‘You found this instead.’

  ‘It was down in a crack. I noticed it because my light shined off it. Maybe one of the guys on the boat lost it, you know? He could have been carrying it to think of his own daughter.’ She dropped down on the couch and put her head in her hands. ‘I don’t know. I guess I hoped that cross might be a clue.’

  ‘Chucha, you’ve phoned your cousin, right? And the pangero. Have you made contact with him?’

  ‘I called the guy right away. What a surprise, his number don’t work anymore! I called my cousin, and she called her friend, and they both tried to find him. My cousin, she’s still trying. The name he gave us? It’s not his real name, we know that now.’ She looked up at me. ‘I’ve been so stupid. It’s all my own fault.’

  I looked out the side window. I felt cornered, pinned down by what Chucha was asking me to do. I needed to somehow convey my sympathy without implying I’d take on the case. Because I already had a good idea of what had gone wrong.

  The most likely explanation – that the child died in the course of the passage and her body was thrown overboard like yesterday’s trash – was the last thing in the world a mother would want to hear.

  ‘I very much hope you find your daughter.’ I folded the handkerchief around the cross and held it out to her. ‘I’m sorry, Chucha. But there’s not much I can do.’

  ‘No.’ Chucha held up a hand. ‘You keep that. Somebody might come looking for it one day.’ She frowned. ‘What you just said, that you can’t do much? I’m sorry, it just isn’t true.’

  I placed the folded handkerchief on the corner of the desk, got to my feet, and walked over to the window. The woman from the office next door was fastening Deadbeat’s tethered leg to his perch.

  ‘Jaymie, here’s my problem,’ Chucha said to my back. ‘If you won’t help me, who will?’

  Late that afternoon I was fluffing up a stack of papers on the kitchen table when I heard the front office door open, then close.

  ‘Miss Jaymie, I’m glad you’re still here! My third house today, it took so, so long. Mrs Gustafson, she left all the dirty—’ Gabi Gutierrez, my office manager, partner, and sometimes wise auntie, stepped into the kitchenette and halted.

  ‘Uh-oh. I am reading your face. What is wrong?’

  I pushed back my chair and got to my feet. ‘So, a big day for Sparkleberry, huh? How about una cerveza.’

  ‘Yes, that would be nice. I am going to stretch out on the couch, then maybe you will answer my question. Are any of those homemade tortilla chips left?’

  ‘Sorry.’ I closed the fridge door with an elbow and walked back into the main room, holding a pale ale in each hand. ‘Those chips were my lunch.’

  Gabi took off her sneakers and swung her legs up on the couch. ‘I am so tired. But it’s a good tired, you know?’

  I offered her a bottle. ‘This should perk you up.’

  ‘Hmm. I like Mexican beer better. Bohemia, that’s my favorite.’

  ‘No problem, I’ll drink it.’ I withdrew my hand.

  ‘Very funny, Miss Jaymie.’ She accepted the beer, twisted off the cap, and took a long sip. ‘I deserve this, you know?’

  ‘Yeah, I know what you mean. Me too.’ I dropped down in Gabi’s desk chair. The desk had once been my own, but that had changed the day Gabriela Rufina Martinez Gutierrez salsa-ed in through the door.

  Damn, the beer tasted good. I shut my eyes for a moment and listened to the everyday sounds: the rumble of going-home traffic out on Mission, and under it, the chatter of birds gossiping in the courtyard. The late afternoon sun flowed, like a river of gold, through the open front door.

  ‘Miss Jaymie, I am looking at you and you know what I think? I think maybe you should go get a haircut. Your hair is such a nice color, dark brown and a little bit red, but that ponytail, it don’t look so good. You are thirty-eight years old, it’s time to get rid of the ponytail. Miss Jaymie? I am sorry but that’s what I think.’

  I opened my eyes and set down my bottle on Gabi’s blotter. ‘I had a visitor this morning. Her name is Chucha Robledo.’

  ‘Chucha Robledo …’ Gabi set her own bottle on the floor and began to unwind her yards-long purple and pink crocheted scarf. ‘I think maybe I know who she is. Is she the girl that’s a man?’

  I wasn’t surprised Gabi knew about Chucha. My office manager was related to half the population of Santa Barbara. The other half she seemed to know all about, too.

  ‘Yep. She’s the one.’

  ‘I see her in my neighborhood, you know? On Haley. She kind of, how do you say it? Stands out.’ Gabi folded her scarf and placed it on the arm of the couch. ‘Lots of people know who Chucha is. I think she does makeup, for weddings and quinceañeras.’

  ‘I liked her. She seems like a nice per
son.’

  ‘Yes, I think maybe she is. Some people are mean to her, though, even some women. I think maybe people who are not …’

  ‘Positively positive?’ I said this just to tease. Positively Positive was Gabi’s favorite self-help book. She’d recently purchased the workbook, too, and the office was positively oozing with good intentions these days. I never thought I’d say it, but there were times I positively yearned for Gabi’s sharp tongue to return.

  ‘Please don’t laugh.’ She leaned forward and began to unlace her florescent pink sneakers. ‘Some people are afraid of anything different, know what I mean?’

  ‘I know what you mean.’ I got to my feet and walked to the open doorway. A hummingbird flashed rubies and emeralds as it plied a patch of white-flowered sage.

  ‘Like maybe your eyes, Miss Jaymie. The way one is blue and the other one is a little bit green. You are pretty, but some people, they might get bothered by that.’ Gabi sat back and folded her hands on her stomach. ‘Now tell me what Chucha said. And start at the beginning. We are investigators, so please don’t leave even the little things out.’

  When I’d finished telling Gabi all about Chucha’s visit, I opened the filing cabinet and took out the handkerchief. I flipped open the folds, exposing the tiny silver cross, and held it out to her.

  ‘Chucha found this in the boat. She said she’d never seen it before.’

  Gabi peered at it through her newly-acquired half-moon glasses. ‘MACB. Miss Jaymie, you shoulda put that in the safe. Otherwise why do we have a safe, know what I mean?’

  ‘I would have, if I knew how to open the damn thing.’ The combination changed every few days, for what Gabi referred to as security reasons.

  Gabi waved away my objection. ‘This cross is from Taxco, I am sure about that.’ She flipped it over with an intricately manicured fingernail. ‘So Chucha said she never saw this before?’

  ‘Right.’ I handed her a sheet of typing paper and pulled my phone from my pocket. ‘Put it down there for a minute. I’ll take a few snaps with my cell.’

  Gabi was quiet, observing me. When I’d finished photographing the cross, she spoke. ‘Here is what I hope. I hope another baby is not missing.’

  ‘It’s occurred to me too. But we don’t have any reason to think that’s so.’ I refolded the handkerchief around the cross and handed it to Gabi. ‘You’re right about one thing. We should put this away in the safe. We can give it to Mike the next time he drops by.’

  Deputy Sheriff Mike Dawson dropped by often now. We were back together again, and though I still choked on the word, you could call us a ‘couple’.

  ‘Don’t we gotta hold on to it? Till we solve the case.’

  ‘Gabi—’

  ‘A little girl, Rosamar, is missing. That is what you said.’ She lowered her chin and gave me a hard look. ‘And also, maybe a little child with the initials of MACB.’

  ‘Gabi, listen to me. I haven’t taken the case, and I won’t.’

  ‘What? You solve murders and you find missing people too, everybody in Santa Barbara knows that.’ Gabi’s voice rose into the stubborn red zone. ‘Chucha needs you to find her baby, Miss Jaymie. One thing I can tell you for sure, she will come back again right away.’

  I tipped up the bottle and swallowed the last trickle of beer. I could be damn stubborn too, when I had to. ‘You do know what happened, right?’

  ‘I think I know what you are thinking.’ Gabi swung her legs back to the floor and sat up straight. ‘Maybe Rosamar died, and the pangero, he put her body into the water.’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. Chucha still owed him half the money. If her daughter was alive, he’d have been waiting there on the beach with his hand out. I don’t want any part of this, Gabi. I feel bad about it, but there’s nothing I can do.’

  ‘I know you feel bad. But Chucha, like I say, she will come back here no matter what.’ Gabi placed her own empty bottle on the worn oak floor. ‘We have to help her, even if we are gonna find out bad news.’

  Then, for the second time that day, I was asked the same question.

  ‘Who else is gonna do it, Miss Jaymie? Tell me the answer to that.’

  TWO

  Next morning the sky was again a sweet and delicate blue. Thank the gods, we’d had a winter with rain. The drought was foiled, at least for the time being, and all was right with the world.

  I played catch with Dex for twenty minutes or so, till the three-legged heeler flopped down to inform me playtime was over. Then I jumped on my bike and coasted down El Balcon.

  I thought I was headed for the office, but the old blue Schwinn seemed to have other ideas. It carried me along Cliff and up Las Positas, then left onto Modoc. My rational mind ordered me to get back on track, but I knew where the bicycle was taking me: out to More Mesa.

  A sharpish breeze off the ocean fanned my warm face as I left the housing and pedaled across the rough muddy track. The fields, thick with wild radish and mustard, had just begun to burst into bloom, and the yellow, pink, and white pastel landscape was as pretty as an impressionist’s painting. I rode past a clump of brush adorned with pussy willow catkins, and couldn’t resist. I had to stop my bike long enough to stroke the catkins, soft as kittens’ ears.

  I dismounted at the cliff’s edge and looked out over the channel. Santa Cruz Island’s dark and austere form was shrouded in a skirt of white mist. From here, the island seemed close to shore.

  I cabled my bike to an ancient lemonadeberry bush that was tall as a tree. Then I began to make my way down the steep path to the beach.

  Part way down, at a switchback, I stopped to scan the beach below. The police must have removed the panga boat, as the beach was empty. The tide was way out, exposing rocks and pools. I didn’t expect to find much, and for a moment I wondered why I was there, wasting my time.

  But I knew why. Gabi was right: Chucha would return to talk to me today, no doubt about it. And although my decision to not get involved was the right one, it couldn’t hurt for me to learn something about what had taken place. To do that, as always, I had to examine the scene with my own eyes.

  I took a few more steps down the track, then halted. I’d heard something to my right in the brush. Not the usual scuffling sound of a towhee scratching through leaf litter. No, this was a larger sound, the kind of crackling noise an animal might make.

  I turned and looked, staring into the thick brush. Something took shape in the leafy maze: a pair of eyes. Human eyes.

  ‘Hi,’ I said. And I waited, to see if the guy would answer me. I was pretty sure it was a man. I could make out the sleeve of a gray sweatshirt and a stubbled chin. But there was no reply.

  Well, the fellow had every right to be there. Maybe more right than me, as the hillside was most likely his home. I continued on down the path, stepped onto the dry sand and crossed the beach to the water.

  When I reached the high tide line from the previous evening, I halted and scanned the wet hard-packed sand. It would have been nice to have discovered a set of tire tracks from a police truck and boat trailer, but the sand was swept clean by the surf in all directions. I calculated: there could have been two high tides since the cops had come and confiscated the panga boat. At this point, it wouldn’t be easy to determine exactly where it had come ashore.

  A gaggle of whimbrels skittered away as I crossed the wet sand and headed for the exposed rocks. This was a minus tide by a foot or two, and the pools revealed shag carpets of waving anemones, darting rockfish, and bumbling hermit crabs. Only a few starfish, though. Starfish were suffering a dieback in the channel, for reasons biologists couldn’t yet fathom, but which no doubt had to do with the usual ‘humanizing’ effect.

  I walked westward, skirting the water’s edge. I wasn’t sure what I was searching for. Some object, maybe, that the police overlooked.

  After walking two or three hundred yards, I stopped and looked back at the path down the cliff. I was too far to the west now. The pangeros would have lined up their lan
ding with the path.

  I turned and made my way back to my starting point, then headed east. In that direction, as it turned out, I didn’t have far to go.

  The scrapes on the exposed rocks were fresh. I dropped to one knee. You could see where an aluminum hull had torn off a long swath of sea lettuce, exposing the sandstone beneath. I bent down to study a glint: sure enough, there was even a streak of dull silver paint embedded in the rough rock. The tide hadn’t been strong enough to wash it away.

  So now I knew where the panga had landed. Early-rising beach walkers would have reported the abandoned boat straight away. Then the cops would have retrieved it as quickly as possible, by driving along the packed sand at low tide. Although no tire tracks remained, I guessed they’d driven on and off the beach from an access point to the east, maybe at Arroyo Burro.

  But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was to discover if the SBPD had missed any clues.

  Hopping from rock to rock, I peered into the tide pools. The miniature salt water worlds gleamed crystal clear, vibrant with red and green seaweed. I saw shards of broken tile and sea glass, but they looked like they’d been in the water for a long time.

  What was I searching for? I had no idea. But the police could be sloppy. I’d visited enough crime scenes to know they always left something behind, if only a blue latex glove.

  I returned to study the scrapes on the rock, then headed for the high water mark to see what might have washed up on the beach at that point. There was the usual flotsam: a plastic fork with broken tines, an Arrowhead water bottle. And something more.

  I’m not sure why they even caught my eye: they looked like nothing more than fragments of seaweed. The three small reddish-green fruits were ovoid in shape, like skinny ribbed eggs. When I picked one up in my hand, I noticed a few soft spines were still attached. Dragon fruit.

  I’d tasted dragon fruit once: the flavor was delicate, delectable. But what the heck were they doing here in the sand? Dragon fruit weren’t the sort of snack you’d take on a picnic. And besides, February wasn’t a month for beach picnics, not even in Santa Barbara.