Chapter 22
Sylvia
After a year living in Portland, Sylvia could still not say she knew much about what went on east of the Willamette River. She never had a reason to go out there, unless she was meeting a client – and most clients also wanted nothing to do with the eastern side of town. Sylvia had heard lots of nice things over the months, of course. Mostly that there were great ethnic eateries, little theaters, and enough parks to make any cyclist or jogger happy. We’ve got that in Northwest, too. So there.
Things were certainly more relaxed around places like Hawthorne. Sylvia felt slightly overdressed in her Breakfast at Tiffany’s ensemble, but that’s what the client wanted. This was the first guy to call her cell phone and not be after sex. In fact, as Chester Heddington informed her, he hadn’t been interested in sex in months. Perhaps it was his age. He was getting up there, one had to admit. No, no. He simply wanted the company of a pretty young lady as he made the rounds at the racetrack and to a brunch near Mt. Tabor. Sylvia had come highly recommended. Not only that, but they had met before at her former place of business! Didn’t Sylvia remember him? Ah, perhaps not. It had been over a year, and it was quite the party.
Sylvia was simply happy to have some extra business. Even better if they didn’t want to have sex, although she didn’t get much money for just escorting. Still more than she made in a night at Decades.
“Where should we drop you off?” Chester asked, referring to both himself and his driver. They rode in the back of a rented sedan, the early sunset fucking with Sylvia’s head after many long summer nights. I’m sad to see the summer go already. It may not have snowed much in Portland, but the winters still somehow managed to be drearier than back in Boston, or anywhere else in New England for that matter. “We can take you home, or wherever you prefer.”
“I don’t wish to impose on you much longer. You can take me to the nearest MAX station and I’ll make my way home.” What she didn’t tell Chester was that she had some other errands to run. A trip to the local mall before it closed might have been nice…
“All right. Nathan, do Ms. Rogers a favor and locate the nearest MAX station for her. We’ll be sad to see you go, Sylvia, but I will keep you in mind for my next trip to this city.”
“And I look forward to seeing you.” Sylvia left him with a light kiss to his grizzly cheek. That was enough excitement for Chester Heddington, who waved at her through the sedan window before the car pulled away again.
Sylvia briefly looked in her purse to make sure she still had the cash he left her as tip. Yesss. I can get that dress. A girl needed a warm sweater dress if she was going to be fashionable that winter. She had been eyeing a beautiful cashmere dress that had her name written all over it. Charcoal gray. Ah, she could already see the makeup palette she would wear with it…
A police siren jolted her from her daydream. Behind her, a police cruiser zoomed by, lights flashing and siren wailing. Sylvia reoriented herself and pulled out her phone. Google Maps would tell her the shortest route to the mall. Even better if it delivered before the next Blue Line MAX arrived and tempted her with a ride home.
Another police car zoomed by. Then another.
Then another.
“Wow. Someone’s in trouble.” Sylvia walked along the sidewalk with nary a care. She only looked over again when a fire truck and an ambulance followed each other down the boulevard. So many cars had pulled over and probably wouldn’t be moving anytime soon. Nevertheless, they honked their horns in frustration. “Wonder what’s going on?”
She soon found out. After ten minutes of walking, Sylvia came upon a dire scene.
Signs blocked the on and off ramps leading to the 205 freeway. Particularly the southbound portion was out of commission, with cars rerouted around a gruesome site.
A long, unmarked truck had crashed onto its side, smoke blowing into the air while streams of water from firetrucks sprinkled in the sky. Sylvia caught herself staring, wide eyed, the awe that such a scene could make her forget her errand. Wow. I hope they’re okay. No way. That driver was fucked.
She decided to take the long way around. What she didn’t anticipate was being blocked by police everywhere she turned.
They were shutting down entire streets. Uniformed officers didn’t stop to answer questions as they hurried outdoor diners out of their seats and discouraged pedestrians from attempting to cross the street. Everything was nondescript. “No entry. Turn around. Nothing to see here. It’s being handled.” Meanwhile, plainclothes officers appeared, badges displaying and hands on their Glocks.
One particular plainclothes officer caught her attention right away.
“Joseph?” That was definitely him, getting out of his car and racing to the scene. He joined another officer, received information that Sylvia couldn’t hear, and joined the rest of the investigators at the crash site.
The sight of him had stopped Sylvia’s heart. Oh my God, he’s still so handsome. Gee, was that the thought she really should be having right now? So not appropriate. A giant crash had occurred. Big enough to halt all traffic in the area. People were evacuated. More emergency vehicles arrived. Sylvia spotted paramedics racing out of their vehicles, stretchers ready.
“They got it,” grumbled a toothless voice. “They got the joggin’ bus.”
Sylvia spotted a homeless man lurking in the shadows. The only color on his person was a large, unruly beard the color of graphite. He smacked his gums, tongue cleaning his lips, head erratically shaking back and forth – probably without his control. Such behavior didn’t deter Sylvia from approaching him. No, that would be the smell. She had smelled worse from Sam Jean and Carl back in her neighborhood. “Joggin’ bus?” Hadn’t Sam Jean said something about “going jogging?”
The man looked up at her. He wagged a finger as if Sylvia had said something unscrupulous. “See that bus every week. Different times, different days, but almost every week.” He was hard to understand without any teeth, but his conviction made his words more palpable. “The joggers come get you at night. They put you in their truck. They take you to Tijuana, Juarez, don’t know, then you go to Thailand.” He waved Sylvia off. “Everyone knows this.”
“I don’t know about this.”
“Everyone who they wanna take knows this.”
You never know. I walk alone at night a lot. I’m sure I’m prime pickings. Especially if someone scoped Sylvia out before. Few friends, no family, her only connections to this town being a waitressing gig and stripping, of all socially acceptable things. “You say that’s the truck?” Sylvia craned her head in hopes of seeing Sheen’s name on the side of the truck. Instead, she saw a large animal control bus, and shouts of a tiger on the loose.
“It comes through here a lot, huh?”
“Oh, yeah.” The homeless man scratched his cheek. “Like I said. Every week. Anyone over at the Garden can tell you that. We see it all the time. Tell the police but… all the pigs care about is kickin’ us out of paradise.”
“The Garden?”
He jerked his thumb toward the park on the other side of the freeway. “Garden of Eden. A slice of paradise around these parts.”
Must be one of the homeless camps. They were all over Portland, with names like Living Hope, Springwater Tent City, and Camp Jordan. Garden of Eden must have been more recent for Sylvia to not know it yet. Perhaps it was a smaller camp than the ones often in the news.
A stretcher came back toward the ambulance. A woman with dark hair and blood pumping through a bandage was loaded into the back.
“Ain’t pretty,” the homeless man said. “I’ve got a dollar in my back pocket that says she was going jogging.”
At least Sylvia knew what that meant from Sam Jean. She was kidnapped. Trafficked. What about that damn tiger on the loose? Animal control wouldn’t have been called in unless there were also wild animals in that truck.
Sylvia couldn’t help it. She pulled out her phone and dialed the only person who would maybe listen to her.
“Montoya. Make it quick.”
Sylvia swallowed, chills driving her wild as she stood on the street corner. The smoke was dissipating as more fire trucks arrived on the scene, but it still wasn’t the safest place to be. “I’ve got a witness for you over here.” Fate would figure shit out from there.
***
Joseph stood on the other side of the street, arms wide and face incredulous at the sight of Sylvia at his damned crime scene.
“What are you doing here?” No traffic was allowed to obstruct his movements as he crossed the two-lane boulevard and bestowed a glowing gape upon his ex-lover.
“Long story.” Hello to you too. “You want a witness or what?”
“Why? Are you the witness?”
Why was he being so aggressive toward her? He was acting like there had never been something between them. Typical. Sylvia understood that this was a stressful situation, but that didn’t mean her would-be prince charming could treat her like another nobody on the street. Then again, the only reason he left the scene to come find me is because he knows me. Still, would it have killed him to give her one kind look after completely dumping her without a word?
“No.” Sylvia pointed to the man still sitting on the sidewalk behind her. “He is.”
Joseph took one look at him and rolled his eyes. “Don’t waste my time.”
“Hey!” Sylvia grabbed his arm before he could turn away. Jesus. I forgot how strong he is. The man wore a baggy jacket to beat the chill of a late September evening, but he was rock hard muscle beneath. “Don’t dismiss him because he’s homeless. What’s your problem? Do you want to get these people or not? Besides, what happened over there?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Like you never were at liberty to tell me what happened with Cindy and that jogger?”
Joseph’s furrowed brows were liable to cut his own face. His sneer? Menacing. “You want to know what’s happened with Cindy? She’s still in a coma. The jogger’s dead.”
Sylvia took a step back, lips pursed. “I knew about Cindy… but…”
“How did you know about Cindy?”
She shot him her own snippy look. “Because I tried to visit her a couple weeks back. You think I didn’t care she was hurt? You think I didn’t care about any of this?”
Joseph opened his mouth, but was cut off by Sylvia once more.
“Fuck off. Now’s not the time to be a dick, Joseph. I’ve heard what this guy has to say and I think you’ve got a lead over here!”
The homeless man held up his hands. “I ain’t talkin’ with no pigs.”
Joseph eyed the man with all the disdain he was harboring for Sylvia right now. “What happened?” she asked with a near-whisper. “Tell me that.”
He wasn’t in a hurry to tell her anything. But he did, and for that Sylvia could only be thankful. “We received a tip that a truck of victims was going out tonight. And then we got a call that possibly the same truck crashed like you see up there.”
“Oh my God. Were there people inside?” Was that woman on the stretcher a driver, or…?
Joseph sighed in resignation. “Yeah. No casualties so far, but a lot are badly injured. That’s what we’ve found so far. They had crammed the women in the back and blocked them with a partition. They put two tigers in the front as a cover. One is barely alive. The other is on the loose, as you’ve probably heard.” As if on cue, static popped over his radio, announcing that the tiger had been tranquilized. “Anyway, we think that some of the women who survived managed to escape before we showed up. We’re about to search for them.”
“The Garden!”
Both Joseph and Sylvia looked back at the homeless man. “What was that?” Joseph asked.
The man pointed toward the freeway – and beyond. “If anyone ran from that wreck, they had to go through the Garden.”
“He means the Garden of Eden,” Sylvia said.
“Yes, I know of it.” Joseph considered the man’s face before activating his radio. “This is Montoya. I’m going to the homeless camp on the other side of the freeway to look for the victims and ask some questions. Someone copy?”
“Copy that. Will send backup when it arrives.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m going with you.”
Joseph glared at Sylvia. “No, you’re going home. You’re not a part of this investigation anymore. Oh, and even if you were, this isn’t something for a civilian to deal with.”
Man, that word means something way different to me. She dared him to call her a civilian one more time. “Don’t think you heard me, Montoya. I’m going with you. What? You gonna keep me off public property?”
“I will if it’s formally closed off as a crime scene.”
“Oh, come on!”
“If victims have run into that camp, then it might count as a crime scene.”
“Stop being an ass and let me come with you. You clearly don’t know how to talk to these citizens without pissing them off.”
“And you do?”
“Way better than you do!”
“Well, isn’t that peachy? I could have my own homeless interpreter.”
“See? There you go being an ass again.”
Joseph was on the verge of throwing his arms up in the air. “Fine! But if you get in the way, I will send you home with an escort. You are not a part of this investigation.”
“Never dreamed that I was.”
Joseph walked ahead of her. Sylvia was about to follow when the homeless man on their street corner cleared his throat.
“I seem to recall being pretty helpful,” he grumbled. “Ahem.”
Sylvia fished into her wallet and gave the man the first bill she could find: a fifty from Chester Heddington. She didn’t really want that dress anyway.
***
The Garden of Eden was absolutely nothing like its namesake, and Sylvia was certain that was done on purpose. Besides, wasn’t the real, Biblical garden quite possibly a desert-like wasteland now?
All right, so she wouldn’t go to those extremes describing the homeless camp taking refuge along a stretch of road on the other side of the 205. It had some healthy greenery thanks to a small municipal park that would not be seeing basketball games or families playing Frisbee anytime soon. But that’s where the niceties ended. Even Sylvia, who often had a high tolerance for what the homeless brought to a neighborhood, had to admit that this was a sad situation.
Portland was covered in camps, some of which were heralded as the largest in the country. A poor economy, mass gentrification, a convenient location between Seattle and the whole of California made Portland a prime spot for those either making a life out of wandering or those recently homeless. Some camps were self-ran, with elected leaders who helped arrange for food, port-a-potties, and camping gear. These camps tended to lend themselves toward those evicted from their homes. Women with young children. The disabled. War veterans. Some of them were dependent on certain substances and experienced varying levels of functioning. Others had kicked their addictions only to find an unforgiving job and housing climate. Some didn’t do the stuff themselves but made sure that the middle-class kids living in cozy suburbia got their weekend party kicks. Anything to make a living. Sylvia knew that feeling well. Some of these women she recognized from her various stints in lockup.
Most of these people, she garnered, were refugees from the recent Springwater Corridor cleanup that happened earlier that month. Most of them were small families, couples, a few singles living in tents, compelled to come out and take a gander at what went on. Sylvia stepped over newspapers and waded through what was probably someone’s waste. A child looked quite sheepish a few feet away.
“Has anyone seen a few women come through here now?” Joseph’s voice carried through the front half of the camp, although few people paid him any mind. He brandished his badge, and that only made things worse.
Old women tsked. Men grumbled. Children’s eyes widened in fear before they ran off to huddle behind their caregivers. Dogs barked. A stray cat flopped over. Most people went back to their cooking and clothes washing. A few began to talk loudly about how much they hated cops, and all the times they were wrongfully relocated or locked up because they had nowhere to go after they were laid off from such-and-such place and their former landlords jacked up their rent 300% in one year. I need to get out of this town. If it weren’t for Sylvia’s connections in her industry, she would probably be living in a place like Garden of Eden. Fuuuck this.
“I repeat. We are looking for three, possibly four women who are victims of sex trafficking. We need to find them as soon as possible.”
“That’s like half of us, pig!”
“Gee, Sylv.” Joseph, hands on his hips, glared in her direction. “This was a great idea.”
“You’re acting like such a cop right now.” And he had blown their chances in this part of the camp. Sylvia walked ahead, making eye contact with half the people she passed. Most of them relaxed when they met her gaze. What was a petite gal like her going to do to them? She probably wouldn’t give them the rest of Chester’s money she had on hand, but at least she wouldn’t harass them like Agent Montoya back there. “Excuse me,” she said to an older woman with an even older dog lying next to her. “Have you seen some youngish women coming through here? They would be pretty scared, possibly injured. We’re trying to find them.”
The woman shook her head. “No comprende Ingles.”
Joseph swiftly came up behind Sylvia and said something in Spanish.
That made the woman sigh. “Si,” she mumbled, and pointed to the far back of the camp. “Hablas con Maria.”
“Gracias.”
“Vete a la mierda, Puerco.”
Sylvia didn’t know what that meant, but it probably wasn’t very nice since it was accompanied with a spit. The dog growled, although it was too old to get up and bite anyone, least of all Joseph.
He ignored her. He was probably called way worse things in English.
“We’re looking for someone named Maria,” he announced to the next group of cookers. The scent of canned beans and fast food almost made Sylvia hungry. “Dónde está Maria?”
Some people tried to point, but their fingers were smacked down by campers with a greater sense of self-preservation. It took Joseph a few more tries before a middle-aged woman wearing a colorful afghan around her shoulders stepped out of a large tent. Her hair was prematurely gray, face lined with worry, and nails chipped down to the cuticles. Nevertheless, she carried herself with clout. If she wasn’t the leader of Garden of Eden, she was at least seen as an authority figure from the way she delegated orders in Spanish and people – whether they spoke Spanish or not – deferred to her. A group of children, seemingly unrelated to each other, got up from their play circle and went back to their respective families.
“Yo soy Maria,” she said with a cracking voice. “What do you want with us? We are here peacefully.”
“I’m not interested in breaking up your camp, ma’am.”
Maria snorted. “Ma’am. There’s one I haven’t been called in a while.”
“I don’t suppose you see that mess over there.” Joseph pointed behind him. The smoke was gone, but the sirens continued to wail in the distance, and red and blue lights flashed across the landscape. “Real nasty stuff. You and everyone else needs to be careful tonight.”
“That’s not why you’re here.” Maria crossed her arms, her afghan draping like a royal cape. She was short and squat, but she could give Genevieve Stone a run for her commanding money. “You wouldn’t come here to give us a pleasant warning for our well-being. You’re looking for someone. You think one of us had something to do with that?”
“Not at all. There were some human trafficking victims in that truck, and we have reason to believe they ran as soon as they had the opportunity. Before we arrived.”
“Hmph.” Maria glanced at her fellow campers, many of whom backed away from the consultation taking place at the back of the Garden of Eden. “If they ran, this would be the logical place to run first, hm?”
“Have you seen anyone out of the ordinary or not?”
One of the small children ran up to Maria and Joseph. “La chica, abuela!” He pointed to Maria’s tent.
“Off with you!” Maria lightly smacked the boy’s bottom and shoved him back toward his mother. When she looked back up at Joseph, his stance matched hers. “Yes. But before I tell you where one of these girls is, I need you to promise that you won’t put her on the streets.”
“Ma’am, if you know something, I need to know.”
“We promise,” Sylvia said. “She’s going to the hospital and will be taken care of.”
“Most of us are in this camp because of what the hospital did to our wallets.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am, but I still need to find this girl. She may be our only viable witness for a horrible scheme going on. A scheme that is preying on people like those in your camp.”
“Yes. The joggers.”
“Come again?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Sylvia insisted. “You’ve gotta find this girl.”
Maria paid careful attention to how Sylvia interacted with Joseph. When she put another hand on the agent’s arm in a knowing manner, Sylvia chanced that this would show a little humanity that was sorely missing from most encounters between the police and those like Maria. These people want to be respected and treated like human beings. Come on, Joseph. Maria was willing to help, based on what she had implied so far. But whatever she knew, she had her reasons for keeping it to herself.
“Fine,” Maria finally said. “There. In my tent. Catch you going through anything else and you won’t receive a warm welcome like this when you return.”
“I’ll pretend that wasn’t a threat.”
“Indeed you should.”
Joseph held Sylvia back. “I’ll check first,” he insisted, hand on his gun. Maria was already rolling her eyes. Most of the people around them backed away as well, some of them cowering beneath blankets. One little boy began to cry. “Stay here, Sylv.”
He cautiously approached Maria’s tent, hand still on his firearm. While Sylvia understood his trepidation, did he really have to scare the piss out of these poor people? They wanted to eat their dinners, take their shits, and prepare for another night sleeping in the cold.
“Fuck,” Joseph muttered once he took a peek inside the tent. The way he ripped open the flap and dove inside implored Sylvia to rush forward as well. “Montoya here. I’ve got one of the possible victims,” he spat into his radio. “I need backup and paramedics in the Garden of Eden right now. No weapons. Proceed with caution. I’ll try to meet you toward the front.”
Sylvia popped up the moment Joseph knelt on the ground. There, huddled in the far back corner of Maria’s otherwise spacious tent, was a girl of only about nine or ten. Her face was gaunt, her hair stringy, and the way she held herself implied that nobody had touched her in a friendly way in a long time.
“Oh my God,” Sylvia gasped. “A little girl?” With cuts on her face and hands?
“What’s your name?” Joseph asked softly. He did not attempt to touch the girl, which was a damn good thing, because she stared at him as if he were going to do a number of terrible things to her. Because what she needs right now is some big guy cornering her! Really, did Sylvia have to interpret all the body language for this daft bastard?
Apparently, because Joseph was the one who could interpret the language the girl spoke.
“Come te llamas?” He flattened his hand against his heart. “Yo soy Josef. Estoy aqui para ayudar.”
Tears brimmed in the little girl’s brown eyes. “Me llamo Cristina…” she said with a shaky voice. “Mama? Dónde está Mama?”
She was crying now. Her scratchy plaid blanket fell away to reveal nothing more than a faded T-shirt and worn out shorts on her hungry frame.
“Lo siento,” Joseph said. “No le sé.” He glanced back at Sylvia, who still had one hand clasped over her mouth. “Estás herido?”
The little girl was crying too hard to answer. Maria appeared behind Sylvia, muttering that cops, had no way with children. Sylvia was thinking quite the opposite. When Joseph gathered the scrawny girl up in his arms, blanket still wrapped securely around her? Something popped inside of her. Perhaps it was the glimpse of true humanity cresting Joseph’s visage as he turned around, the little girl sobbing in his arms while half the camp watched on in a mixture of curiosity and heartbreak.
They reached the front of the camp as paramedics with a small police escort arrived. Cristina was so shaken that she almost refused to let go of Joseph when he attempted to lower her to the stretcher. Sylvia had to intervene, placing a light hand on the girl’s bony leg and telling her – in English – that she was going to be okay.
Whether or not the girl understood her words did not matter. Cristina reached for Sylvia, still clinging for dear life to Joseph’s neck.
“Mama,” she cried. “Dónde está mi mama?”
Nobody had an answer for her. Not yet, anyway.