ENCOMIENDA
Chapter 4
The next morning before I left for Everglades City, I wrote a note to Ruben. “There’s a letter to one of the missing boys from his father. See what you can find out about the father: socioeconomic status, political views, lifestyle dangers, etc. Let’s make sure that some of Venezuela’s politics hasn’t spilled over onto us. Caridad can fill you in on some of the details. File is in its folder: Concepción – missing person.”
I drove leisurely across the Trail. I drove slowly, not only because the two-lane blacktop undulates and has potholes but also because I wanted to put my mind into the two college boys’ minds. They were on Christmas break, free to do what they wanted, going to Tampa to see a couple good-looking girls from school. I imagined Nano driving and Paulie talking about this and that: maybe the college football team’s national championship prospects, maybe professors they liked or didn’t like, maybe how many bases they could get to with the girls, maybe about what it was like back home in their respective countries – the upheavals in Venezuela, the prosperity of a freer Mexico – maybe how different or alike Miami was to their home countries. For me, driving is conducive to thinking.
However, I was stopped before long by a lone figure on the highway: a girl hitchhiking. I have a policy of not picking up hitchhikers, but I had been cruising along thinking about what had happened to a couple missing offspring and here on the road was somebody’s offspring. I didn’t know if she was missing, but she was doing a very dangerous thing.
As I passed her, I could see that she was very young, maybe another college student or younger. She was thin and dressed for the road as if she’d had some experience on it. She wore walking boots, loose blue jeans, an orange sweatshirt, sunglasses and a floppy floral-print hat to keep the sun off. She had a backpack bulging with unknown items. She was holding a cardboard sign that read “Ft. Myers.”
I don’t pick up hitchhikers for several reasons. First, they often smell from being unwashed and on the road for days; driving is not pleasant while the nose is being assaulted by distracting, acrid odors. Second, if the hiker is high on some substance, then one has to sit with an altered consciousness in the passenger seat; depending on the substance swallowed or inhaled, the hiker could erupt into frantic discourse or sink into drooling fantasy. Neither state makes for pleasant conversation. Third, hitchhikers can be moochers, begging not only for rides but also for food, drink, smokes and money. Most importantly, the hiker could be as predatory as any driver. He or she could be participating in a scam or operating as a ruse for a holdup. Drivers have to be very cautious.
But my conscience made me stop; I didn’t want to leave a young woman in jeopardy by the side of the road. I pulled over and in my rearview mirror watched her run toward my Z3, her backpack swaying from side to side. Before she reached me, I opened my door and stepped out and held my hand up for her to stop.
She stopped and stared at me. I’m not a small man. I waved her forward and she stepped in front of me. My actions alerted her that I wasn’t an ordinary driver.
She said, “Are you a cop?”
I said, “I’m willing to give you a ride, but first I want to make sure you’re decent.”
She smiled and said nothing.
She didn’t smell bad. She had bathed recently and her clothes were fresh. She wasn’t wearing perfume, but she smelled newly scrubbed with soap. She’d passed the first test.
I said, “Take off your glasses, so I can see your eyes.”
Her eyes were light brown with clear white pupils and irises of normal diameter, neither the dilated black holes of amphetamines nor the pinhead dots of opiates. She said, “Well?”
I said, “All right, I’m going your way. Do you have any weapons on you?”
She wriggled out of the nylon backpack and swung it down. She ripped the Velcro-secured top open and said, “Just this claw hammer . . .” The hammer was a beauty; red wooden handle and black steel head. She pulled her hat off and pulled out a long pearl-tipped, silver hatpin from the band. “and this hatpin . . .” She stuck the hatpin back into the band and patted her right pocket with her right hand. “and a pocketknife in my pocket.”
“Let me see the knife.”
She took it out and opened it. It was also pretty: an ivory handle engraved with an eagle inlaid with turquoise and obsidian and coral and armed with a three-inch steel blade with one keen edge, perfectly legal. She said, “It’s my dad’s.”
“Ok, put it back. I guess you’re good to go. Stuff your backpack behind the seat. My trunk is full.”
When she had pulled off the hat, her long, shiny black hair had tumbled down and draped around her back and shoulders. She picked up the pack, resealed the top and put it and her hat behind the seats. Then she slid in and I got in after her.
As I put the car in gear and rolled onto the blacktop, she said, “Are you going all the way to Fort Myers?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure.”
“Why aren’t you sure? Don’t you know where you’re going?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Why don’t you know?”
I looked at her. She was looking right into my eyes. I concluded that this young person was traveling purposefully, not necessarily fleeing. I said, “I tell you what. First, answer some questions for me. And when I’m finished, you can ask me anything you want.”
“Ok.”
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
“Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“School is pretty boring.”
“Do you live in Fort Myers?”
“My mother lives in Fort Myers.”
“So, you’re going to visit your mother?”
“Sort of.”
“Does your father live in Miami?”
“Yes.”
“Your parents are divorced?”
“Yes.”
“You live with your father?”
“Sometimes.”
“Who has custody?”
“Mom.”
“So, you live in Fort Myers.”
“Officially.”
“Doesn’t your mother have something to say about that.”
“She has custody, but not control.”
“Who has control?”
“Me.” She smiled.
“Why are you on the road?”
“To go from one place to the other.”
“Ok, smarty pants, I mean why didn’t you take a plane or a bus?”
“I prefer making my own way and saving the ticket fare. Instead of the airlines having the sixty-nine dollars, I have it.”
“Do your parents know you’ve left?’
“Dad will figure it out tonight. And Mom will know it when I get there.”
“So, you do this often?”
“Often enough.”
“Don’t your parents worry?”
“Sure. But they’ve gotten used to it.”
“You should call your Dad to let him know you’ve left.”
“Why?”
“It’s called being considerate.”
She glared at me a minute and said, “All right.” She pulled a cell phone out of her left front pocket, opened it and punched on the set number. I could hear a phone ringing faintly.
Speaking into the phone, she said, “Hi, Dad, I’m heading back to Mom’s.”
. . . .
“No, I’m hitching.”
. . . .
“No, I’ve already got a ride.”
. . . .
“With some guy.”
She handed me the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”
I pulled onto the shoulder of the road and stopped and took the phone. “Hello”
A male voice said, “This is Iris’s father Bill Dabney. Who are you?”
“My name is Buck Jaspers. I’m a private detective heading toward Naples on a case. I saw your daughter thumbing rides and was concerned for her. I thought she’d be safer with me than someone else.”
“Can I have your driver’s license number?”
“No, I don’t give out that information to people I don’t know. But if you want to check on my validity, call Lieutenant Horatio Jenks with Metro Homicide. He’ll vouch for me.”
“Will you take her all the way to Fort Myers? I’ll pay the extra mileage.”
“Don’t worry about that. This case may take me that far anyway.”
“She’s not a bad kid, just very headstrong.”
“I’ve learned that already.”
“Well, let me talk to her.”
I passed the phone back to Iris.
She said, “Dad, I’ll be fine. Goodbye.”
I said, “Now, call your mother.”
“She won’t be worrying. She doesn’t even know I’m coming.”
“Then promise me you’ll call her when we stop for lunch.”
“Ok, I promise. Geez, if I’d known I was getting into a car with another parent, I’d have waited for another ride.”
I laughed.
She said, “Are you really a private dick?”
“We like to be called private investigator.”
“What kind of case are you working on?”
“Missing persons.”
“Who’s missing?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Maybe I’ve seen ‘em. Did they go down the Trail?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of car were they driving?”
“A Toyota Samurai.”
“Those are cute. But I’ve never gotten a ride in one. Been in plenty of trucks and vans and lots of cars.”
“Ever had any bad experiences?”
“Of course. There’s lots of goofy people out here.”
“What was your bad experience?”
“Been more than one. Once I got picked up by a guy that was really drunk. I didn’t realize how drunk until I was in and he was driving. He kept weaving and drifting. Here and there. Over the yellow line. Onto the shoulder. I’d have to yell and grab the wheel and get us back on line. Finally, he passed out altogether, so I stopped the car, shoved him into the passenger seat and drove us all the way to Miami. He never woke up. When I was close to Dad’s area, I pulled over, turned the car off and left him sleeping on the shoulder on the turnpike. I figured a trooper would wake him sooner or later.
“A lot of guys ask for sex, but I never let ‘em have any. A guy tried to rape me last year. I stuck him with the hatpin and told him I’d injected him with poison. We were almost to Naples, so he drove straight to the hospital and went into the emergency room. He was yelling and screaming that I had tried to kill him. ‘This bitch is a witch!’ I got my stuff and ran. I suppose he was pretty angry when he found out he just had a pinprick.”
I laughed. I said, “Iris in control.”
“Right.”
“You seem pretty bright. Too bad you don’t like school.”
“I like learning. I keep up. In fact, I’ve got my books in my backpack. That’s why it’s so stuffed.”
“How do you know what the assignments are?”
“I call the teachers and they send me text messages.” She pulled out her cell phone and tapped a few keypads. “See.” She held the cell phone in front of my face so I could see the screen. On the screen were the words “Read Chapter 10, ‘A Rebirth of Learning.’ Answer the questions at the end of the chapter.”
I said, “Did you read it?”
“Did. It’s about the Renaissance.”
“World history class?”
“Right.”
“Did you do the questions?”
“Did.” She tapped more keys and showed me the screen again. It read “Read ‘Julius Caesar’; write an essay discussing the virtues of a republic versus a dictatorship.”
“Does that refer to the play by Shakespeare?”
“Does.”
“Did you write the essay?”
“Did. I’ll type it up when I get home.”
“Sounds like advanced placement classes.”
“Are.”
“So, you’re a little genius?”
“Words like ‘genius’ are useless. I’m just me. What about you? You seem pretty smart for a private d . . . investigator.”
“I have a college degree and I enjoy reading history.”
“What made you become a detective? Were you a policeman first?”
“It’s one thing I’m pretty good at. I was an MP in the military and while I was going to college, I worked as a security guard. My major is history; my minor is criminology.”
END of Chapter 4
Iris is patterned after my younger sister when she was a teenager. She wasn't really wild; she just wasn't sure who was in charge of her, so felt free to roam.
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