Until the Ride Stops

by Amie Denman

  He tried to read Caroline’s expression from a distance. Was it safer for him to steer clear of her or tell her the whole sad story of his uncle’s broken spirit?

  He wondered why she was so interested in that old ride. The story was clear. It was an accident that was never determined to be anyone’s fault. The state inspectors had absolved the construction company and Starlight Point of guilt. The ride closed because of negative perception and diminished rider interest and was torn down.

  His uncle had sold his business to his brother, but neither of them ever seemed to feel right about it. This had never been said out loud and no one talked about it, but the fact that John had moved away and started another business made Matt wonder. Bruce worked hard for years and made Bayside Construction a success, but his brother’s recent death had seemed to reopen an old wound.

  What did Caroline think she was going to find by digging around in ancient history?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  WHY CAN’T NEWSPAPERS put all their old editions online? Caroline had discovered that the Bayside Times had digital editions available for only the last ten years. If she wanted to see the newspapers from the summer of 1985, she had two choices: public library or newspaper office.

  The library was by far the easier option. Its website was inviting and gave clear directions to the archives on the upper floor. No appointment necessary. And she had to do something while she waited for her records request to arrive from the state agency.

  On her Tuesday off, Caroline packed her laptop and notebook and drove to downtown Bayside. The Bayside City Library was in a historic building just steps from the water. It shared a block with a park, a gazebo and a convenient parking lot. As Caroline entered the stone building, she noted the graceful arch over the front door with the year 1879 carved in it.

  This place held all the answers. She hoped.

  In the third-floor archive, the librarian helped her sort through microfiche sheets—something she’d only seen on television shows and in pictures in her college textbooks. She focused the film reader and began to read two weeks’ worth of articles from July 1985.

  The front page of the Bayside Times the day after the accident had a picture, but the photograph wasn’t helpful. It showed the ride entrance shrouded in darkness with a Closed sign.

  The article described the accident, including several eyewitness accounts. All the witnesses interviewed were on the Loose Cannon at the time. No one on the midway or even the ride platform had seen what happened, and the actual riders were also unclear because of one important fact: the accident had occurred after dark.

  The riders interviewed, four of them, said almost exactly the same thing. They felt a jerking or lurching sensation, heard a scream, and then the ride continued into the station. The riders all believed this had happened near the end of the ride as it approached the unloading platform.

  The officials from Starlight Point had no comment. They all deferred to the state agency that was expected to send out inspectors the morning after the accident.

  Caroline knew that Starlight Point had been sold to the Hamilton family at the end of that season, so it was no surprise that she didn’t recognize the names of the publicity person or the ride supervisor.

  Both Starlight Point and JC Construction had changed hands by the end of 1985. Interesting.

  The saddest part of the article was the story of the twelve-year-old girl thrown from the train, possibly because she was the smallest person on the ride, who fell over twenty feet to the ground, and then died of her injuries a short time later at the local hospital.

  Caroline was not surprised when she read the girl’s name. Jenny Knight. The girl whose parents lived with her loss just down the street from Caroline’s childhood home. The article also described one person who had a broken collarbone and possible dislocated shoulder from being jerked violently on the ride.

  Caroline flipped to the rest of the article printed on an interior page of the paper, hoping she would find more pictures. Instead, there was only one more paragraph with quotations from the owner of Starlight Point, a man named Culbertson, who insisted that the park had a flawless safety record and guests would find all the other rides open and safe. Page two of the newspaper featured the small headline Maintenance Worker Dies at Starlight Point.

  Here was the gold, she thought. The article explained that a maintenance worker had been accidentally electrocuted while working on a ride late at night. The three-paragraph story gave the man’s name, George Dupont, and explained that he had failed to follow lockout procedure even though he’d worked there twenty years. The article included no speculation as to why the man was under the Loose Cannon so late at night just hours after the accident.

  Didn’t anyone else think it was one heck of a coincidence?

  Caroline moved the microfiche reader to the next day of the Bayside Times. She expected to see a full report from the state agency with findings on what caused the accident. She also hoped to find more information about the ill-fated maintenance man.

  Disappointment settled into her stomach. The article included a picture of men in hard hats checking the ride. When interviewed, the inspectors said there were no obvious indications of what caused the lurching the riders described. They saw nothing out of place, nothing mechanically wrong with the ride. The team of inspectors said they would complete a report, but the ride was cleared to reopen the next day.

  The same edition had an update on the condition of the injured guests. The man with the shoulder injury had been treated and released from a local hospital.

  The most surprising thing in the article was a paragraph about the deceased girl’s father, who was nearly arrested for taking a swing at the Starlight Point spokesperson who went to the hospital to meet with the family in the hours after the accident. Although the girl’s father was detained by hospital security, Starlight Point declined to press charges and the matter was dropped. Caroline tried to imagine the sweet, quiet, elderly gentleman she’d known threatening someone.

  But the worst had happened to him. A senseless, horrific loss.

  Caroline flipped through the next week’s newspapers with a heavy heart. For day three after the accident, she found the obituary of George Dupont, but it did not include any details about the cause of death. For day seven, she found a follow-up on the report from the state agency, which labeled the cause of the accident inconclusive and noted that the ride was back in operation.

  From day eight on, the Bayside Times did not mention the Loose Cannon accident—until Caroline inserted a new microfiche sheet and flipped to the September editions. In the middle of the month when the summer operating season had come to a close and the park’s gates were shut, there was a lengthy front-page article about the future of Starlight Point.

  The story explained that the Loose Cannon would be dismantled, and it rehashed the July accident. No new details had emerged since the state agency had closed the case, and the cause of the accident was again labeled as undetermined. There was no mention of the company that had the contract to tear down the ride, but Caroline already knew its name. JC Construction, the builder and destroyer of the Loose Cannon.

  Whatever her research turned up, she hoped Matt Dunbar would never have to tear down a ride he’d built as his uncle had.

  He hadn’t shared information with her, but she still respected how much he cared about his work. Caroline had never built anything larger than a birdhouse for an art project, but she imagined it would be demoralizing and devastating to have to knock down something that took a year to build.

  Was that why John Corbin sold the company to his brother, Matt’s stepfather? Was his enthusiasm for construction destroyed by the short life of the Loose Cannon?

  The article continued inside the front page and included speculation that Starlight Point would be sold because the owner had an
“opportunity” in another state. There was no timeline for the sale, other than a quote from an unnamed source saying it would happen before the next season. There was no potential buyer listed. As a privately owned business, Starlight Point was not required to file federal forms disclosing worth, so there was no information about the purchase or sale price.

  “Are you finding everything you need?”

  Caroline jumped. The librarian stood over her shoulder and had crept up so silently Caroline hadn’t even known she was there.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Thank you.” The librarian glanced at Caroline’s untouched paper and Caroline imagined it looked as if she wasn’t finding anything worth writing down.

  Which was close to the truth.

  “I see you’re reading about Starlight Point,” the librarian said. “Any reason in particular?”

  How much should she reveal to the archivist? Perhaps the older lady knew something useful.

  “I’m interested in the history of the place,” Caroline said. It was true, but not the whole truth.

  “You might like to see a book on the history. We have one in our collection.”

  “You do?” Caroline feared it was too good to be true. “What years does the book include? Anything from the last thirty years?”

  The librarian shook her head. “Sorry, it’s all early history. Turn of the century to the mid-1950s. Beautiful black-and-white pictures of the Lake Breeze hotel being built, early photographs of the midway and the carousel. I could find it for you if you think it would be helpful at all.”

  Caroline wanted to remain in the good graces of the librarian, who was clearly enthusiastic about the old book and pictures. “I’d love to see it,” she said.

  “Be right back.”

  While the librarian consulted shelves of books on the other side of the room, Caroline skimmed through sheets of microfiche. She was looking for an article about the sale of Starlight Point, which she already knew happened that fall. A November issue of the Bayside Times provided the information she needed.

  Starlight Point was sold for an undisclosed sum to Ford Hamilton, who was previously the general manager of the park. Culbertson indicated he had plans to move to Florida where he had an interest in a small family-owned theme park. Ford Hamilton expressed excitement about Starlight Point and his enthusiasm for the future.

  End of story.

  But it wasn’t the end of the story. If Ford Hamilton was the general manager at the time of the accident, he had to know more about it than almost anyone else. Unfortunately, he had passed away several years before Caroline came to work at Starlight Point. How much more did his widow and children know about the accident? Caroline imagined it wouldn’t be polite dinner conversation at a Hamilton family affair.

  “Here’s the book,” the librarian said.

  She must have the quietest shoes in the county. Caroline smiled and accepted the book.

  “You can’t check it out, but if you’d like a copy of any of the pages, just let me know and I’ll put it on the document scanner.”

  Caroline surrendered her microfiche machine, gathered her notebook and found a comfortable chair by a window. She began leafing through the one-hundred-page book, which consisted primarily of pictures with detailed captions.

  A three-page preface at the front gave a history of the peninsula that housed Starlight Point and information about early entrepreneurs who recognized that the unique location had possibilities for recreation. The book appeared to be professional and well researched. It was also far more interesting than she’d expected it to be.

  She flipped past photos of old wooden roller coasters, long defunct according to the dates in the captions. Women in long dresses with pretty hats walking along the beach boardwalk in front of the hotel. Men in three-piece suits and hats riding the carousel. Families disembarking from the ferry that brought them across the bay or from cities along Lake Huron.

  Parts of Starlight Point had hardly changed. She recognized the arcade building and enjoyed seeing the ballroom as it looked in 1945. Caroline wondered if the men pictured dancing with their local sweethearts were freshly home from the war. One of the men was tall and blond with a crew cut. He reminded her of someone who’d gotten under her skin far more than she’d expected.

  Not that she’d expected to meet an interesting man at Starlight Point this summer.

  What had Matt been about to say when the reporter interrupted them a few days ago on the boat cruise? Matt had said, “You look—”

  How did he plan to finish that statement? You look hungry? You look as if you were only invited because your brother married well? You look out for pirates and warn me if you see any?

  Or was it you look pretty? Beautiful?

  It doesn’t matter, Caroline thought as she paged through the book. She would never know the answer to that question, and she was beginning to think she’d never know what caused the Loose Cannon to lurch or the maintenance man to die.

  If there was one thing Caroline could not stand, it was a mystery going unanswered.

  Matt had had opportunities to tell her the Loose Cannon had been built by his uncle’s company, and he’d deliberately concealed that fact—until the reporter blew the news open. Matt himself had said that his smiles were a cover concealing his worries.

  What else was he hiding?

  CHAPTER NINE

  CAROLINE TRIED TO enjoy her morning on the beach. She smoothed out a towel on a lounge chair and settled in for girl talk with her artist friend Agnes. With a fresh breeze off the lake on the first day of July and a bag full of magazines, drinks and snacks on the sand between them, it should have been a relaxing morning on the Starlight Point beach. The hotel towered behind them and summer tunes poured from the speakers spaced along the boardwalk.

  Agnes kept up a steady stream of chatter, but all Caroline could think about was her lack of answers on the Loose Cannon accident.

  “Which is why I swore I would never date another artist,” Agnes said.

  Caroline propped herself on an elbow and turned a guilty expression to her friend.

  “You weren’t even listening,” Agnes said.

  “Sorry. Tell me again why artists are off your list of eligible bachelors.” I really should try harder at being a friend.

  “Because they get all wrapped up in their work and I feel like they’re not even hearing me,” Agnes said. She tossed a bottle of water at Caroline and wet drops of ice-cold condensation sprayed her. “Now are you ready for my story?”

  “Ready.”

  “I met Lucas last year when we were freshmen, and I thought he was adorable in a brooding sort of way. We had two classes together, and we both worked in the art gallery for campus jobs.”

  “So you had a lot in common,” Caroline said, attempting to prove she was immersed in the story this time around. “And you dated?”

  “We sort of dated. Almost dated.”

  Caroline laughed. “How do you almost date?”

  “You ask someone out and don’t show up, even though the girl you asked was waiting at the campus pub and even bothered to put on lipstick.”

  “He stood you up?”

  “Yep,” Agnes said. She sprayed sunscreen on her legs and rubbed it in meticulously. “He said he got emotionally involved in a portrait he was drawing and went for a walk to clear his head.”

  “Do you believe his story?”

  “You sound exactly like a cop when you talk that way.”

  “Good,” Caroline said. “I’m practicing. So, believe him or not?”

  Agnes sighed. “I believed him. Like I said, he was a brooding artist. It’s one of the things I liked about him. And he showed me the portrait later. You should have seen it. I swear you could feel the passion rising right off the page.”

&nbs
p; Caroline tried to imagine passion rising off a piece of paper. She’d taken one art class in high school and decided it wasn’t for her when a spin of the color wheel told her she had no sense of complementary colors. Police uniforms were uncomplicated. Black shirt, black pants, black shoes. She even had a drawer full of black socks.

  “Who was in the portrait?”

  “His father.”

  This was interesting. Caroline knew nothing about Matt’s father, but she did know Matt and Lucas had a stepfather. She’d seen Bruce Corbin on the media cruise last week. He was pale, sat most of the time, didn’t seem to eat or drink, and he let his stepson do all the talking. Was Matt not only in charge of the roller coaster build, but possibly the entire company?

  “Lucas drew his own father wearing an orange prison jumpsuit in a cell wallpapered with dollar bills,” Agnes said. “It was painful to look at. Lucas is a very good portrait artist, and you could see from the picture how much Lucas must resemble his dad. But the agony in every line of that drawing... I could hardly look at it.”

  Caroline leaned closer to her friend. “Why would he draw his father in jail?”

  “Because that’s where he is.”

  “What?”

  “Lucas broke down and told me the whole story. He was only five when his dad—who was some kind of accountant—got caught stealing money and got a twenty-year sentence.”

  “Twenty years? That must have been a lot of money.” Caroline had read about cases of embezzlement and other white-collar crimes in her criminal justice classes. Twenty years was a very long time.

  Agnes shrugged. “I guess it was. I think it involved tax fraud, too. That’s bad, right?”

  “Yes. You’re getting into the felony range. That may explain the twenty years.”

  “Either way, he went to jail, the cops raided their house, and Lucas ended up in a homeless shelter with his mom and his older brother.”

  Caroline felt a sick twist in her stomach. Of course the police had to raid the house. There was probably evidence inside. And all the criminal’s assets were probably seized. But she imagined five-year-old Lucas, his distraught mother and his older brother facing that terrible thing. Did they stand in the yard and watch their home being searched and taped off? Weren’t there any relatives to take them in?