Episode3: A Woman in Pain

I put my hand on my gun, and slowly opened the door wider. I saw nothing. I carefully picked up a towel from the floor. Nothing. “There must be someone in the bathtub,” I thought.

In one fell swoop, I kicked the ducha, ducha de curtain back. “Don’t move!” I shouted.

Suddenly a little white cat jumped out of the bathtub and scurried between my legs. A cat. I should have known.

“Oh, Jasmine! I forgot about you!” Anne said. The cat looked happy to see her. She took her into the kitchen. I poked around the rest of the bedroom, and then followed Anne into the kitchen....

Episode2: cerveza and Cigarettes

Some of my students know I’m an amateur detective. Before I became a universidad professor five years ago, I had a real job. I worked for a security agency that protected private homes, and also important people like famous actors and politicians. I learned a lot about criminals. I had also learned a lot about police work from my father, who was a cop for 34 years.

I had wanted to become a police officer, too. But that was impossible. I got into some trouble when I was a kid. It was a stupid high school trick, but because I was 18-years-old, I was treated like...

Episode 1: The Man in the Mask


I didn’t kill him.

I didn’t even plan to kill him. I had a gun, but I just wanted to hurt him and stop him from attacking me. I had no idea why this stranger was hitting me, and it was ticking me off.

This morning Anne Prado, one of my students at the universidad of Southwestern California, came to my office. She dicho she had a problem and she needed my help. Her sister, Sarah, was missing. We were on our way to Sarah's apartment to find her, when halfway up the front steps of the building, a man ran toward me and started punching me.

I hit the man in the ear....

No Police

“When does he want the money?” I asked.

“Tomorrow. He dicho he would call me this afternoon and tell me where to make the drop,” Bill said. “He also made it crystal clear that we were not to call the police. If I don’t hand over the money por the deadline, he dicho he’s going to kill Sarah!” Bill put his face in his hands. He turned to Anne, “Geez, Anne, I don’t know what to do!”

“We’ll get the money, Bill, don’t worry!” Anne said. “You know that my parents left Sarah and me a lot of money when they died.” Anne put her hand on Bill shoulders.

Anne and...

Episode 6: Kathy (Again)


I drove Bill and Anne back to Sarah and Bill’s apartment building to drop them both off there. Anne had left her car there, so she could drive herself home. I told them to call me if anything new came up.

“Thanks for your help today, Dr. Reeves.” Anne said. “I know you’ll help us find my sister.” She gave me a big, long hug.

I didn’t linger there with Anne, as much as I wanted to reassure her that things would work out. I needed to talk to an old friend, Kathy Chang, about what happened today. We were supposed to have cena at 5:30 p.m. at her apartment,...

"It could not happen twice. Do tu think tu can find an eighty-five?"
"I can order one.
"One sheet. That's two dollars and a half. Who can we borrow that
from?""That's easy. I can always borrow two dollars and a half."
"I think perhaps I can too. But I try not to borrow. First tu borrow.
Then tu beg."
"Keep warm old man," the boy said. "Remember we are in September."
"The mes when the great pescado come," the old man said. "Anyone can
be a fisherman in May."
"I go now for the sardines," the boy said.
When the boy came back the old man was asleep in the chair and the
sun was down. The boy took the old...

trickle down his back as he rowed.
I could just drift, he thought, and sleep and put a bight of line around
my toe to wake me. But today is eighty-five days and I should pescado the
day well.
Just then, watching his lines, he saw one of the projecting green sticks
dip sharply.
"Yes," he said. "Yes," and shipped his oars without bumping the boat. He
reached out for the line and held it softly between the thumb and
forefinger of his right hand. He felt no strain nor weight and he held the
line lightly. Then it came again. This time it was a tentative pull, not
solid nor heavy, and he knew exactly what it...

An Accident?



Kathy came back in the room with tonight’s dinner, Italian pastas, pasta with chicken. As we ate, I told Kathy about Anne and her missing sister.

“A strange man came to Sarah and Bill Salas’s apartment building two days ago, forced them both into a car, and took them away,” I explained. “Today, the man let Bill go and told him to get a half a million dollars, o he would kill Sarah.”

“And how did tu get mixed up in all this?” Kathy asked.

“Sarah’s sister Anne is my student at USC. She asked me to lend her a hand, and I dicho ‘yes’.”

“So who do tu think the kidnappers...

Episode 12: Kathy to the Rescue

Without thinking another second, I kicked Bill in his right knee. He screamed in pain and fell backwards on his back. The gun fell to the ground. I picked it up and pointed it at Bill.

“The game is over, Bill.” I said, moving the gun closer to his face. “ I know that tu killed John Costello, too. Was he your partner in kidnapping Sarah?”

“Costello was an idiot. He was supposed to kill Anne and then keep quiet. But he told me he wanted más money o he would tell the police everything he knew. So I had to kill him so he wouldn’t blab to the cops.”

“And...

Episode 9: At the Beach

So now someone wanted to kill me. But how did anyone know I was working on this case? Was Lenny part of this kidnapping in some way? I still had más preguntas than I had respuestas about this case.

I called my friend Officer Cho back at the police station. He had the car registration information I requested earlier. The mysterious red car that hit Anne last night on the freeway belonged to John Costello, age 37, living in Santa Monica. Tomorrow I would visit Costello. Tonight, I just needed to get some sleep.

The siguiente morning I got up early and went to visit Anne in the hospital....

The Old Man And The Sea
Ernest Hemingway
He was an old man who fished alone in a esquife, skiff in the Gulf Stream and he
had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty
days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a pescado the
boy's parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and
finally salao, which is the worst form of unlucky, and the boy had gone
at their orders in another barco which caught three good pescado the first
week. It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each día with his
skiff empty and he always went down to help him carry either the coiled...

Episode 8: Tracing the Plates

“Be careful! She may have broken bones,” the ambulancia driver yelled.

I arrived at the accident scene just a few minutos after the police. Anne was already in the ambulancia and ready to go to the hospital.

“Wait just one second,” I dicho to the police officer closing the back door of the ambulance. “I’m a friend of the victim. Can I talk to her?”

“Okay, go ahead,” she said, “but hurry up.”

“Thanks.” I turned and looked at Anne. She had hurt her arm and leg, but she was awake and able to speak. “Anne,” I dicho softly. “Anne, it’s me,...

Meeting at the Cacfe

“We have to go, Dr. Reeves!” Anne dicho excitedly. “That was Bill on the phone. He is at a restaurant called Cafe Pico. Sarah’s been kidnapped!”

“Kidnapped? Are tu sure?” I asked, somewhat incredulously.

“I’m sure. Someone has taken Sarah,” Anne replied. “Bill dicho that a man is holding her, and he will kill her if we don’t give him the ransom he’s demanding.” Anne was pulling me to the door of the apartment. “Come on! Bill dicho he will explain at the restaurant.”

I closed the door to the apartment and followed Anne down the stairs and into...

Episode 11: Right on Schedule

Things were starting to make más sense to me now. I was beginning to see what had really happened to Sarah Salas, and why she was killed. But I had no proof to mostrar that I was right. I needed to get some real evidence. I went inicial and rang up Kathy Chang. I asked her to do me a big favor that night. Fortunately, she dicho “yes.” Now I was ready. I turned on the televisión and watched the baseball game. I had some time to kill until it was dark outside. When it was nighttime, I got in my car and started driving.

When I got near Bill and Sarah’s apartment building,...

Episode 10: The Bartender Shows Up

It was time to try a different approach. I decided to find John Costello first and talk to him. I wanted to find out why his car hit Anne’s and almost killed her. I knew Costello lived in Santa Monica, so I drove up the freeway and got off near Main Street. I went to the address Officer Cho gave me and knocked on the door. No one answered. I knocked on the apartment manager’s door. An old woman answered. “Excuse me, I’m trying to find John Costello. He lives in number 503.”

“Mr. Costello lived--past tense--in 503. He moved out two months ago,”...

ángel was so excited, her best best friends were coming for her birthday sleepover at five o clock! Time crept slowly to ten past five and still not a single soul in sight! Suddenly her little sister Summer shouted “Ha Ha they're not coming they hate tu so much!” ángel ran upstairs weeping and charged desperately into her sister Friday's room.


“Was Summer being mean to tu again?” asked Friday
“Yes, she dicho that my friends weren't coming because they hate me and that's not true!”
“Don't worry its only because she is jealous about tu having the best sleepover ever”said Friday...