She must have known better than to pepper her response with lots of past participles and pluperfects. I wasn’t going to get it unless she kept the meaning down to a minimum.

What I believe she said was, “Gone …they leave …not here.”

“¿Permanente? Completely vamos?”

“Sí, sí.” She nodded vigorously and repeated her original statement.

“Mind if I take a look?” I didn’t really wait for her permission. I pushed my way into room 312, where I checked the dresser drawers, the night table, the desk, the mini-bar. Goddamn it. They hadn’t left me anything. Meanwhile, the maid was watching me with interest. She shrugged to herself and moved back into the bathroom, where she tucked the wastebasket under the sink again.

“Gracias,” I said to her, and backed out of the room.

As I passed the cleaning cart, I caught sight of the plastic bag attached to one end, filled with newly accumulated trash. I snagged it off the hook and carried it back to my room, closing the door behind me. I moved over to the bed and dumped the contents on the spread. There was nothing of interest: yesterday’s papers, Q-Tips, used tissues, an empty can of hairspray. I picked through with distaste, hoping my tetanus shots were up to date. As I gathered the detritus and stuffed it all back in the bag, I caught sight of the front page, which was splashed with news of a crime spree. I unfolded the section, flattened the newsprint, and studied the Spanish.

Living in Santa Teresa, I’ve learned it’s almost impossible not to pick up a smattering of the language whether you take a Spanish class or not. Many words have been borrowed, and many simply mirror their counterparts in English. Sentence construction is fairly straightforward and pronunciation is consistent. The story that was spread across page one of La Gaceta had something to do with a homicide (homicidio) in the Estados Unidos. I read aloud to myself in the halting style of a kindergartner, which helped me decipher some of the meaning of the text. A woman had been murdered, her body found on a deserted stretch of highway just north of Los Angeles. Four male inmates had escaped from the juvenile facility in Perdido County, California, fleeing south along the coast. Apparently, they’d flagged down the victim and commandeered her car, shooting her in the process. By the time the body was discovered, the escapees had reached the Mexican border, crossing into Mexicali, where they’d killed again. The federales had caught up with them, and in a wild exchange of gunfire, two youths were killed and another was severely wounded. Even in black and white, the photograph of the shooting scene seemed unnecessarily lurid, with ominous dark splotches on the shrouded bodies of the deceased. The four juveniles were pictured in a row of sullen mug shots. Three were Hispanic. The fourth was identified as a kid named Brian Jaffe. I booked the first flight back.

On the plane coming home my sinuses seized up, and during our descent into Los Angeles, I thought my eardrums would burst. I arrived in Santa Teresa at 9:00, bearing with me all the symptoms of an old-fashioned cold. My throat was scratchy, my head ached, and my nasal passages stung like I’d sucked a pint of saltwater up my nose. I couldn’t help but rejoice, anticipating the use of NyQuil in fully authorized nightly doses.

Once safely home, I locked the door behind me and hauled a stack of newspapers up my spiral stairs. I emptied my duffel into the dirty clothes hamper, stripped off my travel clothes, and added them to the mix. I donned my sweat socks and flannel nightie and tucked myself into the hand-stitched quilt Henry’s sister made for my birthday, settling in with the accounts of the jailbreak in the Santa Teresa paper. The story had already been moved to the second section, page three. I got to read it all again, only this time in English. Wendell Jaffe’s younger son, Brian, along with three confederates had made a daring daylight escape from the medium-security juvenile commitment facility called Connaught. The dead inmates were identified as Julio Rodriguez, sixteen, and Earnesto Padilla, whose age was fifteen. I wasn’t sure what extradition agreements the United States had with Mexico, but it looked like Brian Jaffe was being sent back to the States as soon as sheriff’s deputies could be dispatched. The fourth escapee, a fourteen-year-old, was still in critical condition in a hospital in Mexico. His name was being withheld from the local papers because of his age. The Spanish-language paper, as I recollected, had listed him as Ricardo Guevara. Both the murder victims had been Americans, and it was possible the federales were anxious to relinquish responsibility. It was also possible that a great whack of cash had been passed under the table. Whatever the circumstances, the escapees were lucky not to find themselves permanently incarcerated down there. According to the paper, Brian Jaffe had celebrated his eighteenth birthday shortly after his capture, which meant that once he was returned to the Perdido County Jail, he’d be kept and charged as an adult. I found a pair of scissors and clipped all the articles, setting them aside to take with me for the office files.