Orange County Noir (Akashic Noir) (20 page)

Warren sighs and then types something on his keyboard.
"Don't go toe-to-toe with this guy," he says, and Jake's knee
starts bouncing. "Don't go anywhere near him with this. Jim
Westfall gets awards from anti-immigration groups-like the
crazy kind-from all around the country."

"But he set up the mother of his child to be deported. I sat
with that little girl last night."

Warren gears up to reply but then his phone rings.

"Hold on." He answers his call and tells one of his reporters to stay on the street. Apparently, some guy has been driving around to elementary schools in Santa Ana, trying to get
little girls into his car. Warren hangs up.

He leans forward to turn his monitor around. The desk
leaves a temporary imprint against his belly. I'm staring at a
file photo of Jim Westfall.

I scoot closer. Westfall wears a too-tight white shirt under
a flak jacket with big white letters: ICE. Behind his sunglasses,
I sense the condemning gaze of an inquisitor.

"Okay, so you want to go to this guy, an acknowledged
elder-in-training in one of the biggest churches here in Orange County, and ask about how he set up his mistress to be
deported?" Warren pauses to let this sink in. "What do you
think he'll say to you, if you have the proof?"

"We took on America's Sheriff," Jake chimes in. "We knew
he was dirty."

"When the feds had evidence of his wrongdoing," Warren
says as he turns his monitor back around. "Okay, here's what
we can do. Mario is following the ICE activities-"

"Raids," Jake interrupts.

"Activities," Warren insists. "Maybe Mario can make this
part of a larger story."

Mario Landrey is the reporter who covers immigration issues. They call him "Ice, Ice, Baby," and he posts online pictures of himself with agents and their guns. According to Jake,
Mario hasn't written one word about the ICE vans parked
outside Santa Ana's elementary schools or the day-worker
stops. But he's spilled a lot of ink about the arrests of illegals with warrants for drug dealing, rape, and murder. Mario
guards his territory like a pit bull.

"Dani should have this story," Jake pleads.

"We have a good relationship with law enforcement and I
want to keep it that way," Warren says, standing up to dismiss
its. "Even if it's true, Dani's not ready for this kind of story."

I stay in my seat. "But I know the grandmother. She'll talk
to me."

"Mario has a lot of connections in the Latino community.
He's got the expertise to handle guys like Westfall." Warren
grins at me. "Sorry, Dani. Westfall would eat you alive."

My nana calls me. Gina phoned her mother's cell from Central Jail in Santa Ana. She had been questioned and was offered the option of waiving her right to a court hearing, which
would've put her on the first bus to Mexico. Gina told them
no and now she's waiting to be arraigned.

"Gina and her mother were fighting over the phone so I
took the little girl outside to pick lemons." Nana keeps her
voice low and I strain to understand her.

"Do you think Gina will get deported?"

"You're the one with the college degree, mi'ja. What do
you think?"

"What about Pricila? If she was born here-"

"She'll go with her mama. It's the way things are. You
know that."

Anger gathers in my throat, like I'm being suffocated from
the inside out. Westfall is a bastard for doing this. No, wait;
under his commando posing, he's a cowardly bastard for trying
to hide his little girl. If people don't want kids, they shouldn't
screw around.

It's moments like this that I think I made the right decision when I was twenty-three and starting my advertising
career. I'd be like Gina now, irrevocably shackled to a man
who might hate me for having his kid. My mother got off easy.
Her husband, whose last name I bear, kicked her out when he
discovered she'd been sleeping with a fellow grad student. She
thinks my real father is a guy from England.

"Is Pricila still there?"

"Yes," Nana sighs. "Ay, Dani, you shouldn't have gotten
its involved in this. I had to take the day off and I have briefs
to type up for Mr. Levine-"

"You think I should've shooed them from the back
door?"

"No, but-"

"I'll come home."

"And do what?"

"Interview the grandmother. I'm a reporter. I'll write a
story to help them."

"Don't. You'll only make it worse, mi'ja."

My boss and team leader Jolene buzzes me right after I
hang up. Checking the mirror taped to my monitor, affixed
there so no one catches me checking job listings online, I see
Jolene painting her nails with her phone pressed between her
ear and shoulder.

I pull my purse strap over my shoulder and slip out before
she hunts me down in the newsroom.

When I turn on Nana's street, there's an unmarked white
Suburban parked facing the wrong way in front of her house.
The shotgun mounted in the center console is a dead giveaway that it's the cops.

As I get out of the car, I sense eyes watching from behind
curtains. Even the dogs are quiet as everyone is on full alert
that The Man has entered the forest.

Through the screen door, a man I instinctivley know is Jim
Westfall turns; my heart freezes when our eyes lock. Bettina is
sitting on the couch, her hands behind her back. I make out
Nana sitting in Grandpa's chair.

"Wait outside!" Westfall barks.

His partner then walks out and approaches me with his
hand hitched on his gun. "Which one works for you?" he
asks.

"My grandmother lives here." The wind blows hard against
my back and a spray of water dripping off the eaves sprinkles
my cheek.

He smiles instead of apologizing for assuming I'm a Newport mommy here to fetch my nanny. "Well, your grandma
has been harboring an unauthorized immigrant."

So that's what they call them now, huh?

"We don't card our neighbors when they're afraid to sleep
in their own homes."

"You know Bettina Duran?"

"Yeah, she's our neighbor."

"You know where the little girl is?"

"In school, I guess."

He surveys the street from behind his sunglasses. I want to flash my press badge and yell, Stop right there, bud, I demand
you let my grandma go!

The screen door hits the front of the house as Westfall
walks out with Bettina. She doesn't look at me and I'm hoping
Pricila is upstairs.

But she's not. Nana pulls me inside and tells me that a
woman with a baby came to the house less than twenty minutes before Westfall showed up. Bettina bundled Pricila in a
white coat and her backpack and sent her out the door with
her birth certificate and a hundred dollars cash.

"Where did she take her?"

Nana shrugs as she checks her briefcase. "Mexico."

"By herself?"

"This is not our business. Let it go."

"Does Gina know?"

"Yes. That's why they were arguing."

My cell phone buzzes angrily. It's Jolene ordering me back,
no doubt. I think about sitting with Pricila in the TV room
last night, watching Justice League and explaining Wonder
Woman to her. Girls these days, they don't even know who
Wonder Woman is. Then again, a girl like Pricila has more
important things on her mind, like if her mom will be there
when she comes home from school.

"Danielle, listen to me. We have no concern in this and
we don't want nothing to do with the police. Understand?"

"But they came to us for help! Where are they sending Pricila? What if something happens to her along the
way?"

Nana sighs.

"I'm supposed to just let it go, huh?"

"Yes, mi'ja. Let it go."

Today, 1 p.m.

Obviously I refuse, and that's how I wind up in the Santa Ana
Police Department.

When Officer Kravetz walks back in, he brings a female officer who looks like she should be running for ASB president.

"Stand up for its, Danielle," he says quietly. All the gentleness is gone in his eyes.

I stand as my heart pounds in my throat.

"Did you find her?"

"Dani, this is Officer Lara. You're under arrest for making
a false police report-"

"But I'm not lying. You said you were going to check with
her dad and-"

"Turn around, Danielle," Officer Lara orders. When her
hand moves to her pepper spray, I do what she says.

The cold handcuffs weigh my hands down and I have to
lean forward so I don't fall back. Officer Lara keeps me company while Officer Kravetz leaves the room.

"This is ridiculous. I wasn't lying about Pricila being
missing. She's being sent out of this country against her
will."

"Well, here's the thing, Dani," Officer Lara snaps, like
we're circling each other on the playground. "Jim Westfall
doesn't have a daughter and the claims you made about him
having a relationship with this woman are pretty underhanded. What are you hoping to gain from all this? A story
for the paper?"

Yes. Well, not completely.

"Aren't you going to read me my rights?"

Officer Lara stares at me.

"Do I have to wear an orange jumpsuit?"

Her lips twitch to keep from laughing.

"If you don't stop crying, I'm going to leave you here," Maya said
when Pricila started getting scared again. "They'll put you in jail
and you won't see your mom no more."

Pricila flinched when the train's horn shook the ground under
her feet. The station was hot and crowded with people who carried
boxes tied up with string. Maya told her that she had to hold her
coat if she took it off, but she wouldn't help Pricila with her heavy
backpack. Her feet squished in her pink boots from a puddle Maya
had dragged her through to get on the bus before it left Nana's
street.

Even though Maya had a baby, she didn't seem like a mommy.
She was mean. Maya pinched her arm through her coat sleeve. It
didn't hurt but Pricila felt the pressure all the same and now she
was making little squeaking sounds as she tried to stop crying.

"I want to go home," Pricila croaked.

"You can't. Shut up."

"I don't like you."

"I don't like you either."

Pricila almost fell when Maya let her go with a shove. Maya
hefted up Baby Carmen and craned her neck to look over the heads
of people waiting in line to buy bus tickets.

Pricila thought of all the bad words that Mommy and Nana
told her never to say. She called Maya all those names in her
head.

The line moved forward and then someone opened the door to
the patio. Cold wind swept in and Pricila lifted her face to it, smelling the thick fumes from the train. Then a man smiled at her. She
leaned to the right to hide behind Maya's fat butt.

Baby Carmen started whimpering and Maya growled like a
dog. She kneeled down and set her backpack on the floor.

"Help me," she said to Pricila. "Open up the zipper."

She did and the train's horn hurt her ears. Maya swatted her
hands out of the way.

"Zip it up," Maya ordered impatiently, and then stuck the bottle in Baby Carmen's mouth. But the baby twisted her head away
as if Maya had stabbed her with the bottle. "Come on," Maya said.
"Just take the fucking thing."

Why had Nana sent her away with Maya? Why hadn't she let
her stay with Danielle too? She hadn't caused any trouble.

"Shut up," Maya snapped at a lady in line who was telling her
to calm down. "Wait here," she then ordered Pricila.

"Where are you going?"

"I said wait here." People stared at Maya and Pricila heard the
lady in line make a comment about her.

Pricila started to follow Maya, afraid to be left alone. She was
getting that hurt feeling in her throat again. She wanted her mommy
and her nana.

"Are you okay?" The man who had smiled at her now stood
next to her. He had big blue eyes and curly black hair. "I'll stay with
you until she comes back."

They walk me out of the interview room, presumably to the
booking area. My eyes fill with tears, and since I can't bring
my hands up to wipe them clear, they spill down my face.

They take me through the station and I burn with humiliation. It's like I'm a prize fish, by the looks of the passing cops.
We ride an elevator and it opens to a floor that smells like new
carpet, paper, and ink. The men and a few women wear suits
with their badges and guns displayed on their belts.

Officer Lara gives me a look that says, You asked for it. She
opens an office door and two men are standing by a window
streaked with rain.

One looks at the other and murmurs something. He ges tures to the other officers, who back away and I'm left alone
with the Mexican Terminator. His dark face betrays nothing
as he walks straight at me. He never drops his stare, even
when he moves right into my personal space and stands there
with his arms crossed over his chest.

"You made some claims against one of my agents," he says
in a hushed voice that's all street.

I fight the urge to step back. "Her grandmother claimed
her daughter was set up by your agent. I'm worried about the
little girl."