Elly shrugged. ‘Sorry. I don’t remember. He was just . . . a bit grubby. Kinda sweaty.’
*
Marianne Ziegler, formerly Garland, answered the phone breezily, but the wind dropped as soon as Salgado introduced himself. ‘Oh. Hi. Is there more news, Detective?’
‘Nothing yet, Marianne. I had just a couple of questions and hoped you could help us out.’
‘Okay. Sure.’ The tone was much more reluctant than the words.
‘My partner and I are over in the Mojave Desert. A bit north of Barstow. We wondered if maybe Ethan had ever talked about anything up this way. Maybe some place in the desert, maybe a town nearby he used to visit.’
‘Barstow? I don’t remember him ever talking much about Barstow. Although he did used to drive the old Route 66 with his dad when he was a kid.’
‘Can you think of anywhere else around this area that he might have known? We’re trying to trace his movements and need a place to start. What about Peggy Sue’s Diner, that mean anything to you?’
There was silence on the other end of the line, Marianne thinking.
‘Yes. That name is familiar. An old-school diner, right? He used to stop there with his dad when they went on trips. He went there and a waterpark. Talked about the park a lot. Happiest days of his life and all that.’
‘Do you remember what the waterpark was called?’
‘Oh, it was a long time ago. It was like a woman’s name. Uh . . . no, sorry. It’ll come to me. Can I call you back?’
‘Sure, Marianne, thank you.’
Patty arrived with the cheque and Salgado shoved six ten-dollar bills across the table. ‘Keep the change, Patty.’
‘Why thank you, honey. Y’all have a good day now.’
When Salgado didn’t reciprocate, she hesitated. ‘You got some more questions, cutie? You don’t need to tip that much to ask me anything.’
He grinned. ‘Just the one. Do you know of a waterpark anywhere between here and Vegas, or maybe between here and Baker? I don’t know what it’s called but it might have a woman’s name.’
Patty made a face. ‘A woman’s name? Can’t rightly say I know where that might be.’
‘Lake Dolores.’ Elly had been serving at a nearby table and obviously listening in. ‘It’s Lake Dolores. Rock-A-Hoola Waterpark was originally called Lake Dolores, after the wife of the man who built it.’
‘So it was!’ Patty exclaimed. ‘Lake Dolores. I haven’t heard that name in years. That place used to have kids coming from all over in the sixties. First waterpark in America, you know. Shame it closed down.’
‘It’s closed?’
‘Oh hell yes. That’s why I didn’t think of it right off. It’s been closed for, man, must be fifteen years. It’s been another twenty years since it was called Lake Dolores. Nothing but a ghost park now. The buildings are all still standing but nothing but cockroaches there these days.’
‘Is it far?’
‘Far? Honey, it’s less than twenty miles away straight along the 15. You can’t miss it.’
CHAPTER 17
It was right there off the freeway, just a deserted desert block in full view of every car and truck that thundered east to Baker and Vegas or west to Barstow and LA.
Lake Dolores. Rock-A-Hoola Waterpark.
‘I must have driven past this place a dozen times, maybe twenty, and never stopped to wonder what it was,’ Salgado admitted.
‘Hiding in plain sight,’ O’Neill told him.
‘Guess so.’
They’d turned off the freeway onto Yermo Road, a dusty two-way that ran alongside the rail track. A half-mile long freight train paced beside them for a bit then disappeared into the distance as they slowed to turn left, crossing above the freeway then left again onto Hacienda Road and the old entrance to the abandoned park. Salgado pulled into the dirt and parked.
The desert sun hit them as soon as they got out of the car, standing either side of it and staring at the faded signs and multicoloured buildings they could see through the palms and across the sand.
Salgado looked doubtfully to the ground and O’Neill could see the thoughts see-sawing through his head.
‘You worried about those shoes?’ She pointed at the brown Italian leather brogues on her partner’s feet. ‘They look good with that expensive suit but there’s a chance they might not be the best choice for the desert.’
‘No,’ he replied defensively. ‘I’m worried about snakes. I don’t like snakes.’
She tried to hide a grin. ‘There’s bound to be rattle-snakes round here. It’s their territory, not ours. But you’ll hear them. They rattle real loud.’
‘They all look like sticks, right?’
‘Right. And all sticks look like rattlers.’
‘Great.’
Two great palms stretched to the sky right in front of them. Behind, on the hill to the right, a huge white cylindrical water tower dominated the vista. To the left, the faded remains of the waterpark sprawled beyond the sand with the Calico Mountains in the distance. Salgado sighed then led the way.
Patty had told them the park was built up water ride by water ride by the first owner, a guy named Bob Byers, intending it just to be for his own kids and their cousins, until it grew big enough that the obvious thing was to open it for business.
It was now a weather-worn graffiti palace. Every available inch was spray-painted in slogans and art, much of it suitably sinister. The old water tower on the hill had a giant Coca-Cola bottle etched on it, while the billboard a hundred yards in front of it proclaimed itself to be the property of Shie47.
Dry sticks cracked under their feet and O’Neill hid a smile each time Salgado jumped. The slick city boy wasn’t enjoying this much.
As they neared the park entrance, they saw there were a number of buildings that would easily serve as a body dump. Even if Walker Wright was here, he wasn’t going to be easy to find. It could have been the pink stucco block to the right with the art deco frontage, or maybe the long block behind the four stocky palms. That was before they even passed through the gates.
Salgado stepped over a fallen palm, sidestepped a piece of rock and made his way inside the first building, O’Neill at his heels. They were greeted by a riot of decay and destruction. The ceiling had been pulled down, insulation strewn on the floor and dangling from exposed beams. An air duct drooped in mid-air like an elephant trunk while another sprouted copper wiring like a steampunk haircut. The walls and thick central pillars were covered in art, leading them deeper into the room in search of hidden corners. They advanced warily, Salgado not the only one giving thought to what might be sleeping under the rubble that littered the floor. Every step offered the chance of disturbing a sleeping rattler or stumbling across the weatherman’s decaying corpse.
The first building didn’t give them anything other than chills, the second one the same. They passed through the official gate, defaced with the uplifting message that Life Is Bittersweet, but with the consolation that Jesus Loves You from John 3:16.
A kids’ stroller stood abandoned on the baked tarmac, daubed in paint and long forgotten.
‘This place is creepy as hell, O’Neill.’
‘You think? Is it the ghosts of long-lost childhoods or the bones that might be bleaching in the sun? Or the snakes?’
‘Fuck you.’
‘I’m just asking.’
Salgado stomped off to the right, reclaiming his machismo by barrelling straight into the next building, a low-slung white concrete oblong that was sprayed in green and red. As soon as he was inside, he slowed his pace, seeing it was a minefield of potential missteps.
‘Shit.’ She was right behind him. ‘If we thought the rest was creepy . . .’
‘Yeah.’
The white walls screamed with graffiti, the ceiling falling towards them as polystyrene tiles booby-trapped the floor. Air ducts and wiring, broken doors, dark corners and half-open closets. It was in half darkness, punctured by blinding laser beams of ligh
t as the sun broke in through holes in the plasterboard.
Outside again, the sun felt even harsher. It was over ninety with not a whisper of wind. They had to manoeuvre their way through a twisting section that looked like it once held water, across a now unnecessary bridge to another, bigger building.
As soon as they were inside they saw it used to be a concession stand, a long counter facing out to the public, the floor behind it a mess of tiles, panels and spurs of wood. Two metal panels that might have been the back of control boxes glinted in the sun. Beyond them, a human-shaped hole had been broken through plasterboard. Salgado shrugged and ducked through it, finding a maze of rooms. Some dark, some light, all junked with boxes, cabling, metal spikes, ceiling tiles and pieces of wood.
They emerged once more into the broiling heat and climbed a steep hill behind the dried-out concrete river, where concrete steps led to a series of concrete crossbar-like structures at the top. It was a concrete Parthenon. From there the barren park spread out before them, the highway and train track beyond.
Salgado did a 360, seeing a dust devil spiralling maybe halfway to the Calicos in the west. The wind blew, muffling the cars on the 15 and increasing the sense of isolation.
‘So, we were wrong?’
He puffed out his cheeks and grimaced. ‘I don’t think so. Garland’s bank record says it. The diner says it. His ex-wife says it. And . . .’
‘Don’t tell me. Your gut says it.’
‘Yes, it does. It surely does.’ He finished his slow spin, ending up staring east at the white water tower a thousand feet away on the hill.
‘In there,’ he told her. ‘He’s got to be.’
*
It seemed taller once they stood at the foot of it and looked up, blinking, into the sun. The white cylinder was occasionally daubed in red to the top, black and blue graffiti at the bottom. The exterior was warm to the touch.
A large round hole, maybe three feet in diameter, was carved into the shell. It presumably was covered by some kind of hatch back in the day but now offered a porthole into the tower, albeit guarded by four thick black metal slats that were bolted horizontally across the gap.
‘Shit, it’s huge.’
‘People have obviously been able to get in. There’s graffiti all over the lower walls.’
‘What the hell are those chains for?’
Maybe fifteen links of metal were drawn through the arc of the tower’s floor into the middle. It was most likely part of the working machinery of the place, but it gave off a ritualistic vibe that screamed of pagan sacrifice.
‘And what the fuck is that?’
Salgado’s voice spiralled up the tower, bouncing back at them from the metal as it climbed.
There was a darker circle where the chains met in the centre of the floor. Their eyes strained to make out what it was, seeing it slightly raised and not quite a circle at all.
‘It’s a blanket,’ O’Neill replied. ‘Or a small tarpaulin.’
‘Yeah. And what’s it covering?’
‘Shit.’
O’Neill backed off the tower wall and considered it, shielding her eyes from the blinding afternoon sun.
‘If we had the equipment, which we don’t, then we could cut these spars off and climb in. But, like I say, we don’t. So, either we call for backup to cut our way in, or . . .’
They both looked at the white metal ladder running up the side of the tower, encased in a white metal cage. According to the measure that ran from the tower’s top to the desert floor, the lowest rung of the ladder was seven feet from the ground and the tower itself was forty-eight feet high.
She heard Salgado breathe out hard before he turned to look at her. ‘You know I’m shit with heights, right?’
She smiled tightly. ‘I know.’
‘It’s vertigo. I mean, I’ll do it but—’
O’Neill cut him off. ‘I can’t take the chance of you falling off this thing. I’ll do it.’
‘You’re going to make me look bad.’
‘Yeah? Well I can live with that if you can.’
‘I can as long as you don’t tell anyone. You are going to be able to get out again, right?’
O’Neill shrugged. ‘Probably.’
She took her jacket off, turning it inside out before placing it on the ground, acutely aware that her blouse was damp even before she attempted the climb.
Salgado boosted her up till she was able to grab a hold of the lowest rung then hoisted her further until she was able to pull herself up, struggle into the ladder’s metal cage and catch her breath.
From there, she hauled herself up, the desert floor and Salgado shrinking below her as she climbed towards the sun. The temperature rose with every inch she got closer to it, her blouse sticking to her back, her brow glistening and her throat crying out for water.
She pushed on, hand over hand, step over step until she got to the top. There, the cage opened out onto the flat roof of the tower, divided into scuffed white slices of pie that converged in the middle where an opening let sunlight filter into the tower. Immediately in front of her was a second opening, a dark square that seemed likely to be her way inside.
She ventured one leg into the hole, hoping it would land on something solid. When it did, she stamped hard to make sure it wasn’t going to move under her, then stepped her other leg in too.
The heat inside the tower was stifling and she felt like she was in a giant kettle heading towards boiling point. Her back was soaked and sweat dripped from her forehead, stinging her eyes. She wiped at them and settled for staring straight ahead at the inside wall as she descended, rung by rung. When her right foot stepped on fresh air it was time to look down.
There was still seven feet to the tower floor, just as there had been outside. She let both legs step off, glad of the time spent on pull ups and weights, dropping rung to rung by hand until she let go and hit the bottom.
The landing was maybe an eight point two, nothing for flair or artistic ability, but right on the money for safety. As she stood again she saw that the bottom rung was way out of her reach and there was no way she was climbing out of there again.
‘You okay?’ Salgado had his face pressed to the slatted opening.
‘I’m fine. You might want to crack a window on the drive back to LA, but I’m fine.’
She wiped a sleeve across her forehead and eyes, trying to adjust to the odd light at floor level, semi-darkness slashed with rays of sun from the opening above. Closer to it now, she could more clearly see the object in the middle of the tank, its dark shape gaining more definition. She walked around it, putting off the inevitable as she wasted time guessing rather than just getting on with the doing. The covering was a dark brown blanket, a heavy woollen type that might have been used for camping.
When she was on the far side of it, the shape between her and the anxious Salgado, she crouched, took the edge of the blanket, and cast a final look up at him before she began to lift it. Her nostrils were already telling her and so was her cop sense. Every sense that she had. Lifting the covering confirmed it beyond any doubt.
Salgado caught the look on her face. ‘Is it him?’
She stared longer than she wanted to, unable to tear her eyes from what was left of the corpse.
‘It’s been three months. In over a hundred degrees heat. There’s nothing much more than bones and dust. But there’s fingers missing from the right hand. If it isn’t Walker Wright, it’s one hell of a coincidence.’
She glanced back up at the ladder that was out of her reach, then back down at the corpse.
‘Call Barstow sheriff’s station. And tell them to hurry.’
CHAPTER 18
Salgado and O’Neill were back in the city, the broken corpse of Walker Wright left in the care of the Barstow sheriffs, when they got a call from Kurt Geisler. He was brief and to the point but there had been no disguising the excitement in his voice. He had something.
Ethan Garland’s computer had finally been re
moved from the house on Finley Street and Geisler had been picking it apart in a room in headquarters.
‘How far away are you?’ he asked O’Neill.
‘Ten minutes, I’d say. What have you got, Kurt?’
‘If you’re ten minutes away then it will wait. It’s easier shown than explained. But I think you’ll be interested.’
O’Neill relayed the message and Salgado flipped the blue light, speeding through the last couple of miles. Once in the building, they raced to the IT room, barely stopping themselves from running along the corridor like school- kids. Geisler was hunched over the PC with his back to them and swung round on the chair as soon as he heard their footsteps. They tried to get a read on his face but all they saw was tiredness.
‘Yeah,’ Geisler nodded wearily in answer to the unasked question. ‘It’s been like chipping away at a coalface with a toothpick, but yes, I’ve dug some stuff out of this.’
‘Good stuff?’
The tech blew out some air and shrugged. ‘I think so. Nothing major like where the kid is, but I’d say gems. Little sparkly ones. Pull up a chair.’
Salgado grabbed a chair from the nearest desk and pulled it a few feet in front of Geisler, but O’Neill remained standing, her arms crossed in front of her.
‘Like I say, it’s been digging away to get out whatever I can. Partial search results, sites visited. Very, very slow going but it’s been worth it. Everything is in a file that I’m going to email to you both but here are the highlights. First, I’ve got a search he made within Facebook, looking for another user.’
‘Anyone we know?’ Salgado was edging forward in his chair like a kid hearing a story.
Geisler nodded. ‘Yes, it’s a match to one of the names in the file that Garland had hidden as a Christmas card list. Stefan Kalinowksi.’
‘Good work, Kurt.’ The tension in O’Neill’s voice was unmistakeable. ‘Can we be sure it’s the same person?’
‘Yes. There were a bunch of matches to what was written in the profile in Garland’s file. According to his Facebook page, Stefan likes Echo and the Bunnymen, A Flock of Seagulls, Greenpeace and Quentin Tarantino movies. It’s far too much of a stretch for it not to be the same one. But then there’s the surprise.’
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