The three migrant workers had pooled their money at the north shore cafe to buy a bag of tortilla chips and two cokes to be split three ways. Then they got back into the hot-wired Ford and cruised out Highway 111. They'd decided to drive to Thermal, hoping to impress some girls.
The driver had learned to operate a car in Calexico, where he had a job cleaning restaurant grease traps, so filthy that cats wouldn't even touch them, but that brief driving experience wasn't enough. He zigged across the double line as a big rig was roaring toward him, and the eighteen-wheeler clipped the Ford.
The car went airborne and came to earth upside down with an explosive crunch. The two lucky ones were blown out and suffered broken bones and a few internal injuries. The passenger in the death-seat was decapitated.
Like too many police agencies, the sheriff's department hired few Hispanics, and neither of the two deputies who arrived before the paramedics could speak Spanish. Nor could Nelson Hareem, who sped down the highway and skidded to a stop across the highway from the overturned Ford. But the next unit to arrive was driven by a CHP officer who at least spoke Border Patrol Spanish and was able to ask a few questions.
The headless corpse and the crash itself no longer interested anybody. What the cops were all excited about was that the crunched Ford bore the license number of the one stolen by the smuggler the day before. For the least injured of the migrant farm workers, a slow and painful interrogation continued until the ambulance arrived.
The Chippie, frequently interrupted by Nelson's "Whad-hesay?," learned that the husky bald man had stashed the stolen car in a stand of tamarisk trees the night before, and ditched the car that morning.
As the paramedics arrived and began loading the more seriously injured farm worker first, the one doing the talking kept telling the cops that he wouldn't have kept or sold the stolen car, that they only wanted to use it for a day or so, because of the girls in Thermal. And just before being lifted into the ambulance, the young farm worker volunteered that the husky bald man was about thirty-five years old and muy intelligente. He was certainly not a farm worker, the young man informed them.
The cops immediately called in a chopper, which thudded over the canyons all the way from Highway 10 to the Salton Sea before giving up. Everyone figured that the bald smuggler had probably hitched a ride moments after he'd started out on foot.
Lynn followed the Range Rover to the county park, where to his surprise, Clive Devon got out with a shopping bag, spread a blanket and laid out a little picnic on the desert floor for man, woman and dog. Lynn made an approach on foot and lay flat on his belly, watching from behind a clump of sage. He used his elbows as a tripod to steady the binoculars and was able to see that the woman was a young Latina, probably in her early twenties, and the brown dog knew Clive Devon very well. The animal was jumping all over him and cuddling up to him, being fed by hand from the picnic bag. Lynn Cutter had gotten a cramp in his neck and had mighty sore knees by the time the happy picnickers picked up their litter and got back inside the Range Rover.
Nelson Hareem returned to the station to have a chat with his sergeant.
"Sarge," he said, "have you heard that the hot car from yesterday, the one the smuggler was driving, got wiped out near the Salton Sea?"
"Yes, Nelson," the sergeant sighed. "Calexico's only eighty miles from there, and you can spit on Mexicali from Calexico, so I'd say the guy's home free by now. South of the border planning to hire another load-plane."
"But Sarge," Nelson said, "he stayed in the area last night cause he didn't know where he was for sure. He didn't take a chance and drive out on the highway where he might get spotted. He holed up and waited out the night. This guy might do the same thing again. He might still be burrowed, waitin for an absolutely safe way to Palm Springs."
"How do you know he's going to Palm Springs?"
Nelson didn't want the boss to know he'd been out of town interrogating the injured campesino, so he said, "Well, I'm jist guessin. He's not some lettuce picker. And he's prob'ly packin a bag full a dope and waitin out the daylight so he can take his drugs to Palm Springs."
"That's pure speculation, Nelson," his sergeant said.
"Sarge, I been thinkin, maybe if it's quiet this afternoon you might let me go back down around Box Canyon and . . ."
"Stay in your own backyard, Nelson," the sergeant said warily. "You could fuck up a one-car funeral. Several years ago a guy like you brought down a president. It was called Watergate. The guy was a hotdog of a loose cannon named G. Gordon Liddy, ever heard of him?"
"Sure!" Nelson said. "My hero. He went to the joint but still he didn't rat off nobody. I named one a my goldfish Liddy. The other one I named Ollie after Colonel Oliver North."