Under the Boardwalk

by Barbara Cool Lee

  A newspaper clipping? Was this it?—the clipping Alec O'Keeffe said Zac was looking for in the paper's morgue? She set the phone down on the desk and picked up the article to skim through it: it was about a city council meeting. They were discussing the maintenance of the town's sewage treatment plant. Clipped to the article was a dittoed sheet. "Write a two-page paper on a current local issue before the village council," Hallie read aloud. Her heart sank. She had told Kyle it was ridiculous for her to be involved in this. Her imagination had gotten the better of her. Zac had just been working on a school project when he looked through the newspaper's morgue.

  She went through the rest of the papers on the desktop. Stacked on one side were several library books.

  Hallie lifted up the top book. A page fluttered out and drifted to the floor. She bent over and picked it up, then looked at the book it fell out of: The History of the American Amusement Park, by Jeremiah Smythe.

  It was a heavy book. She flipped through the pages: fine print interspersed with occasional black-and-white-photos, a scholarly text on the subject, not a coffee-table type of book. Why did Zac check this out of the library? She looked in the index for Pajaro Beach. There were several mentions.

  She began to flip back and forth between the index and the pages cited: on one page the text retold the story Chris and Kyle had told her of their great-grandfather's scheme to open an amusement park on his ranchero along the coast, and of his purchase of state-of-the art rides shipped from the finest East Coast factories: a (for the time) giant roller coaster, a top-of-the-line carousel, the largest Ferris wheel on the West Coast at that time. The page had a picture of the roller coaster against the skyline. It looked odd, she thought, then realized that the view showed only bare hillsides where many of the town's houses now stood. The next paragraph went on to describe other parks along the West Coast.

  She flipped back to the index and found the next citation—only a short paragraph that described how the fire destroyed half the park: the tragic loss of a classic 1920's Coney Island-style amusement park that was on the national register of historic places—all of the original rides were destroyed except the Big Wave roller coaster and some small buildings. It went on to talk about how, because so many of these amusement parks were built close to coasts, floods, storms and an occasional earthquake or fire had often taken care of what time and neglect left behind.

  Hallie turned the page to a photo of a Coney Island workshop at the turn of the century—blocks of wood being turned into prancing horses for a carousel. She settled down into the chair and began to read. She got immersed in descriptions of the lost art of old-time woodcarvers and her hands ached to pick up a tool and try to imitate the work in the photographs.

  After a while lost in daydreams she looked up. This was pointless. None of this had anything to do with Windy and Zac's disappearance. She sighed and closed the book.

  Outside there was a crunch of wheels on gravel in the driveway, then the slam of a car door. She glanced out the window and saw Kyle go into the barn. Probably going to search the place all over again, she thought. Just like she was doing here.

  The book still lay in front of her on the desk. Nothing she'd read had brought them any closer to finding the kids. Nothing they did seemed to be working. She put her head down on her hands and closed her eyes.

  "Everybody has something they were meant to do," Kyle had said.

  What if Windy and Zac never came back? What if the thing Kyle had devoted his life to was taken away from him? That's what was wrong with starry-eyed dreams—if you don't have any dreams, no one can take them away. She rested her palms on the desk.

  His "mission in life" he called it. But why didn't he see that those kinds of dreams never worked out? If you gave all your heart and soul to something it would burn you every time. Hallie closed her eyes and let the tears come. She was crying for Kyle, for Windy and Zac, for herself, for all the lost dreams that the world had taken away.

  All her life she'd believed in dreams. Even as a little girl, with no one in the world who'd loved her or wanted her, she'd believed that one day she'd find a place where she belonged. Dave Cooper had walked into her empty life and promised to make all her dreams come true. She sat up in the chair and wiped her tears away with her scarred hands. She'd believed in a fairy tale once, and she'd ended up scarred. The worst scars weren't on her hands, they were on her heart, and she knew she'd never be able to really believe in anything again.

  Hallie brushed away the last of her tears. That creep who attacked her was still out there, and somehow the kids were mixed up with him. She had to do something to help.

  She set the amusement park book aside. Underneath it on the desktop was the paper that had fallen out of it, the paper she'd picked up off the floor and laid aside. It was a xerox of a newspaper clipping. Her heart jumped. "This is it," she muttered.

  It was the front page of the local newspaper, dated thirteen years ago. A grainy photograph of two men standing amid smoking wreckage was in the center of the page, with the headline Madrigal Family Mourns. Two Dead in Pajaro Beach Fire. In the margin next to the photo someone had scribbled "See, Zac?" It was Windy's handwriting.

  This was it. This was the big fat clue they'd been looking for, but what did it mean? She stared at the photo. Kyle and Tom were the two forlorn figures standing amid blackened ruins. They both looked so young. The caption beneath the photo read: In the aftermath of the devastating fire, family members survey the wreckage of the ruined carousel.

  See, Zac? What did Windy see in this picture? What was so obvious that she assumed Zac would get the clue? This paper had presumably been read by everyone in town at the time of the accident. What was so obvious to them that no one else had noticed about this picture?

  She read the story beneath the headline and photo. Firefighters believed an electrical short had smoldered in the office over the carousel for some time, then suddenly erupted into flames that lit up the night sky over Pajaro Bay. The story went on to say that Tom Robles, associate manager of the park, had rushed to call the fire department while Jonathan and Emma Madrigal, owners of the park, fought to contain the blaze. By the time Tom and the volunteer firemen had returned to the scene, the couple were dead and the fire had engulfed the carousel building and spread to several nearby rides.

  The Madrigals are survived by four children. Kyle Madrigal had no comment about the family's plans for the park. Hallie touched Kyle's name with a fingertip. She felt a stab of sorrow. Even in the grainy photograph, she could make out the signs of grief and worry on his face—she'd seen that grief again recently, when she woke to him slumped in a chair by her bedside this morning. He didn't deserve this pain.

  She turned the page over. There was another article copied on the back. This one was dated several weeks later: No Arson in PB Fire. The recent fire that resulted in two deaths and 2.3 million dollars in damage at the Pajaro Beach amusement park was the result of faulty electrical wiring, according to a report released today by inspectors brought in from Great Bend to investigate the recent fire at Pajaro Beach.

  Further down on the page there were some phrases circled in red: death from asphyxiation... the result of breathing toxic fumes... wood, fiberglass, and plastic... no sign of foul play. A large red exclamation point was in the margin.

  Hallie felt a chill run up her spine. No foul play. But Windy had found out something about the fire no one else knew. Something about her parents' deaths. What had Zac said? "Feed Smoky some extra grain." Feed a dead horse? The dead horses—the destroyed carousel horses? She turned the page back over.

  "Come on, guys," she muttered. "Stay with me here. I know how you think. What are you trying to say?" She read over the articles again. Zac and Windy were the kind of dreamy-eyed kids who'd spend hours wrapped up in a book, or exploring a dusty old newspaper office. They were the kind of kid she had been, before fate had taught her to give up idle dreaming. They recognized something in this story that more practical, down-
to-earth people skipped right past.

  What had they discovered? She hated to think of what the answer might be, because she was sure it meant more sorrow for Kyle. She looked at the circled phrases: death from breathing toxic fumes. What toxic fumes? Kyle had said the whole place, floor, walls, the rides themselves, was made of wood. That big red exclamation point in the margin glared at her. "No," Hallie whispered. "Could they have been poisoned? Foul play? How could that have been missed?" And the fire was set to cover up the crime? But why? And who would do such a thing?

  In the picture beneath the headline, Tom and Kyle stood amid the wreckage. Tom was the only survivor of the fire. Tom worked for the two people who'd died. Tom's office was over the carousel. Tom didn't want Kyle coming around and examining the books. Tom, Tom, Tom.

  She had to show this to Kyle. She rushed downstairs and out the front door.

  ~*~

  Hallie opened the barn door and stepped inside. The smell of dust and leather and horses greeted her. She thought she could hear the bats rustling in their sleeping place somewhere overhead, and she pulled up the collar of her jacket to cover her neck. It was dark and warm inside, but she could feel a cool breeze coming from an open stall at the other end of the barn. She went closer, and heard the sound of feet crunching on straw. The stall door stood open, and Kyle's plaid flannel shirt was draped over the top, the iPhone next to it on the rail. Hallie peeked through door, then just stood in the shadows and watched.

  There was a second door to the stall, leading to the corral outside, and Poky stood in the corral, stamping her feet, leaning her head over the rail barring the entrance, and watching Kyle. Hallie watched him too.

  The floor was bare, and Kyle had a bale of straw cut open in the middle of the floor. He was spreading the straw in the stall with a pitchfork. Hallie leaned against the door frame and watched the ripple of muscles across his tanned back. She was struck by the sculptural quality of his body. A vision of Michelangelo's David flashed through her mind. She'd never worked in marble, but oak might do. She envisioned a torso carved of oakwood, rubbed and oiled and polished to bring out the warmth in the wood. The piece could be carved so the woodgrain would emphasize the pattern of musculature radiating out from the spine. She studiously observed the muscles contracting and stretching in rhythm across his back as he pitched the hay. He stopped and leaned against the pitchfork, body glistening with sweat in the dim light.

  She watched him bend over to pick up the water bucket.

  Kyle turned around, bucket in hand. "Oh, hi there," he said. He smiled, then frowned. "What's the matter? You look kind of flushed."

  Hallie straightened up. "Nothing, nothing."

  He smiled and gestured to the stall. "Thought a little manual labor might get my mind off things."

  He stopped in the doorway, bucket in hand. He reached up with his free hand to lightly brush her hair.

  Her fingers tightened around the paper and telephone in her hands. The paper. All of a sudden Hallie remembered why she'd rushed out here.

  "What's the matter?" he asked. He set the bucket down on the straw. Came over, grabbed his shirt and put it on. "Did you get some news?"

  She shook her head. Handed him the paper, then stood by silently while he read it.

  He turned the page over and looked at the back. "See, Zac?" he said softly.

  "You know what it means?" she asked.

  He looked up at her, startled. "I was just quoting. I was just wondering what she meant."

  "That's Windy's writing, isn't it?" she asked.

  Kyle nodded. "Where'd you find this?"

  She explained. "So you agree it's an important clue, don't you?"

  He paused, then shook his head slowly. "I don't know. It could be nothing. We don't even know what it means."

  Hallie folded her arms in front of her. "What do you think it means, Kyle?"

  His eyes widened at her expression. "You tell me."

  She shook her head.

  "You have another theory, Hallie. Come on, spill it."

  "I could be totally off," she said. "I don't want to plant suggestions in your head. What do you think it means?"

  He sat down on a bale of alfalfa and went over the page again. She paced back and forth, feet crunching on the dry straw. When he finished reading through both sides again, he turned the page over several times, as if reading the margin notes again. "Aha," he said thoughtfully.

  She stopped her pacing and faced him. "Aha?"

  He set the paper on the hay bale next to him, then stood up and grabbed the empty bucket. He walked over to a water tap in the wall, and she followed.

  "At the time, I wouldn't have noticed if the coroner had said they were bitten by a tsetse fly," he said, half to himself. "I was pretty out of it. I had been off in my first year of college, thinking I was going to be a doctor and live up to some predetermined plan I'd gotten in my head when I was a little kid. I thought I was so grown-up. Then all of a sudden I get this call to come back, and my whole life turned upside-down."

  He turned on the tap. The stream hit the metal bucket with a clatter. They silently watched the water reach the rim and slosh over, then he turned off the tap.

  He carried the bucket back to the stall and hung it from a hook in the corner. "My mom was a doctor," he went on. "My dad ran the rancho. The younger kids would take over the family legacy, I would follow my mother into medicine. Everything seemed settled. I went off to college thinking I'd always have El Pajaro to come back to—but that it wasn't my responsibility. All of a sudden, there was nobody left except the kids, and somebody needed to take care of them."

  He sat back down on the hay bale. "It was a bad time. I'd lost both my parents, and it hit me all of a sudden how alone I was. I felt like the floor had been knocked out from under me. But Jen and I got married, like we'd originally planned to do when I finished college. We were both looking for someone to lean on, I guess. We thought we were going to be the perfect couple with a ready-made family."

  She hadn't even known he'd been married. "Why did you get divorced?" Hallie asked, then blushed. "Not that it's any of my business," she added.

  He smiled at her. "She dumped me." He cocked his head and looked at her thoughtfully. "She was a lot like you in some ways."

  "And she left you?" Hallie blurted out.

  Kyle laughed out loud. "Hard to believe, isn't it? I mean, I'm so perfect and all." He said sarcastically. "But we had some problems." He looked at Hallie with a trace of a smile on his lips, and a look in his eyes that Hallie couldn't quite identify. "Yeah," he said softly. "You're a lot alike."

  He picked up the paper again and looked it over. "Murder's a strong word, Hallie." He said it quietly.

  She walked over and stood in front of him. "But you reached the same conclusion I did—as they did. It's the only logical explanation."

  "The only logical conclusion?" Kyle leaned over, elbows on knees, and stared at the page. "It can't be the only conclusion. But if it is true... who would want to kill them?"

  "Who?" Didn't he see?

  The tone of her voice made him look up. "What?" She looked down, unable to meet his eyes. "Oh no," he said. "I know what you're thinking but.... No. Tom's family."

  "That's what Tom said," she said. "He said he wouldn't hurt his own family. But what other explanation is there?"

  Kyle put his head in his hands. "The whole thing's crazy. I just can't believe Tom could...." He stopped.

  "Commit murder?" Hallie whispered.

  Kyle looked at her. She could see the sorrow in his eyes. "We don't know that."

  "But you can't just ignore this."

  "No. I can't. But what am I going to do?" he whispered to himself.

  She handed him the phone. "Call the police, of course," she said. "What else can you do?"

  He took the phone and set it on the hay bale next to him. He shook his head. "Not yet—not yet," he repeated when she started to protest. "Listen. This is a small town—and Tom, for all his f
aults, proven and alleged, is still family. I can't publicly accuse him of murdering my parents and doing who knows what to Windy and Zac just because of a note scribbled on an old newspaper."

  "But you can't just let it go." She felt sick to her stomach. A parent abuses a child—Keep it in the family. A husband beats his wife—Don't tell outsiders. That was what people always said about this sort of thing. It's just a little family murder, sweep it under the rug.

  "What's the matter?" Kyle asked her. She realized she'd been staring angrily at him, tears in her eyes. Kyle jumped up and came to put his arms around her. She shied away. "What is it?"

  She brushed away the tears. "Just because he's family doesn't mean you can overlook a murder," she said roughly. "It's never okay to hurt people."

  He took her hands in his, cradling them together in his palms. "I'm not overlooking anything," he said softly. He lifted her hands and brushed his lips against their scarred backs. "No one has the right to hurt anyone else—being family is no excuse." He wrapped his arms around her, and this time she didn't shy away. "If Tom had something to with my parents' deaths, I'll make sure he's locked up for life. And if he did anything to my kids—" He paused and took a deep breath. He pulled back to look her in the eye. "I'm not trying to protect a criminal, Hallie. But if I accuse Tom and I'm wrong, it'll destroy him. I can't do that."

  Hallie heard a nickering outside the stall. She pulled away from him and brushed away her tears, then turned to where Poky leaned against the barred entrance to the stall.

  Kyle sat back down on the hay bale.

  Hallie gestured to Poky. "Should I let her in?"

  Kyle nodded.

  Hallie lifted the bar so Poky could get through the opening. The mare trotted past her, then stood waiting at the feed rack in the corner.

  "She's hungry. Can I feed her?" Hallie asked.

  Kyle smiled wanly. "She's a little pig." He pointed to a barrel outside the stall. "Go for it."