Wonderland

by Jennifer Hillier

  “My fourteen-year-old daughter’s already got a job lined up at the park this summer,” she said. “She starts next week. Are you telling me she shouldn’t work there?”

  “No. She’ll be fine.” Donnie’s voice was flat. “Just tell her not to drink the Kool-Aid.”

  FIVE

  Under the Clown Museum

  Blake awoke with a start, and the first thing he was aware of was that his head was killing him. There was a dull pain throbbing from just behind his right ear, and reflexively, he tried to touch it.

  But he couldn’t, and the second thing he realized was that his arms were bound behind his back.

  The third thing he knew was that he was horizontal. He was lying on his side on a damp cement floor, and wherever he was, it was crazy cold.

  The fourth thing he became aware of was that there were eyes staring at him. Small, red, glowing eyes, watching him from across the cement floor. He wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating, or if they were really there, because when he tried to focus on who or what the eyes belonged to, his brain would get fuzzy again.

  None of this made any sense. The last thing he could remember was the Wonder Wheel. He had climbed that fucking thing, sure as shit, but whether that had been today or yesterday or a week ago, he couldn’t say. He had climbed it, yes, because he could remember the wind in his hair and the warm morning sun on his face. But how had he gotten back down? And where was he now? That part was hazy.

  The eyes were still staring at him, not blinking, not moving. An animal of some kind, had to be. He continued to stare back, mainly because it was too dark to see anything else, and then he heard a scuffling sound.

  The eyes got closer. And then there was more scurrying, and the eyes got closer still.

  Squinting, Blake tried to focus, and after a few seconds, he heard it. It was a grinding noise, the sound of teeth mashing against teeth. And then he saw it.

  A rat. About five feet away from his face. It was looking right at him, whiskers twitching, its long tail pink and hairless and dragging behind it. Its eyes glowed, watching him, as if it was contemplating its next move. It seemed almost cartoonishly large, which made him wonder if it was really there, or if this was some figment of his cruel imagination.

  Blake writhed where he lay, and discovered that it wasn’t just his arms that were bound; his legs were, too. Panic kicked in, and all he knew was that he needed to get out of here. He needed to get away from the rat. He squirmed and wiggled, but even the slightest movement made the throbbing in his head worse.

  And then there was music. It was impossible for him to tell which direction it was coming from, but the jangly tune was immediately recognizable.

  Welcome to Wonderland!

  Or as we like to call it, Funderland!

  There’s something here for everyone

  Whether you’re three years old or eighty years young!

  Stay, play, and have a great day

  That’s the Wonderland way!

  What the fuck? Okay, that proved it, he was totally hallucinating. He must have hit his head on something climbing back down the wheel and knocked himself out, because now his brain was vomiting out random jingles. Every kid knew the words to the Wonderland song, and every kid could sing it by heart—the jingle hadn’t changed in twenty years. This was all just a hallucination. Or maybe he was sleeping and having one of those lucid dreams he’d read about, and as soon as he woke up, the nightmare would begin to fade away. In a few minutes, he probably wouldn’t even remember it.

  Wake up, he told himself, wriggling again, trying to ignore the hammering in his head that felt totally real. This is just a bad dream and none of this is really happening. You fell and you hit your head, and soon you’ll wake up and realize how fucking stupid this all is. Too many horror movies, you asshole. You should never have marathoned the Saw movies on Netflix last week. Now look, all this creepy shit is in your head. So wake up. Wake up. Wake UP!

  The rat made the grinding sound again, and while it wasn’t particularly loud, the sound cut into Blake’s thoughts like a cleaver.

  This was not a dream. As much as he wanted it to be, he knew it wasn’t.

  He watched, helpless, as the rat began moving purposefully toward him, claws scraping the cold cement, sharp little teeth gleaming under its whiskers.

  Opening his mouth, Blake took the deepest breath he could manage, and screamed with all his might.

  But no sound came out. All he could hear was the scurrying, growing closer, and then closer still.

  SIX

  Homeless Harry, as the dead body had been nicknamed by the good people of Twitter, had not yet been identified, and yet pictures of him were all over social media. It was Oscar’s worst nightmare, the exact thing he had wanted to prevent from happening. The first picture showed up online at 9:05 a.m., posted by someone called @Chico_Roxxxx, who’d tweeted Dead body found at #Wonderland so fuckin gross his face is gone.

  By 9:10 a.m., the picture had gone viral, and somewhere along the way, someone had dubbed the dead guy #HomelessHarry. Oscar could only guess that the nickname was based on the clothes of the deceased, which were ripped and tattered and soiled with dirt and god knew what else. He assumed the name Harry was selected because it made a nice alliteration. According to police chief Earl Schultz, they had no way of knowing right now what the dead guy’s real name was. But whoever had tweeted the picture probably worked for the park, and when Oscar figured out who it was, heads would roll.

  Bianca Bishop had just arrived at the scene. The CEO’s vibrant red hair was still wet from a shower and pulled back in a ballerina bun, her face a mask of displeasure despite her carefully applied makeup. Oscar personally liked her better without the cosmetics, as the makeup and the bun made her seem older than her thirty-six years. He suspected it was why she never went barefaced in public. She’d taken some heat in the past for being such a young CEO.

  The area at the bottom of the Wonder Wheel surrounding the dead body had been cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape. Bianca’s eyes stayed fixed on it as she made her way through the throng of cops, first responders, crime scene techs, and park employees. The lights from the ambulances and fire trucks flashed blue and red on her crisp cream slacks. Oscar braced himself.

  “You couldn’t find me first?” the CEO hissed when she reached him. She stood so close, he could smell the toothpaste on her breath. “This is a fucking circus. How long have they all been here?”

  “I called nine-one-one just before eight. You weren’t answering your phone and I didn’t know where you were. After I called, I went back to the admin building and buzzed your apartment, but you didn’t answer.” Oscar spoke calmly. She was already worked up; any defensiveness from him would only make it worse.

  “You should have come up and banged on the door.” She looked around in disbelief. “This is a fucking disaster. That crime scene tape might as well be a neon sign that says dead body. Is Earl here? This mess better be cleaned up as quickly as possible.”

  That mess is an actual person, Oscar thought, but of course didn’t say out loud. He agreed that the yellow crime scene tape looked terrible, but so did the dead body. And so did the picture of it that was currently going viral. “I tried to get ahold of you—”

  “You should have tried harder. The guy’s already dead. Five minutes more wouldn’t have made him any deader.” Bianca’s face was pink with anger underneath her makeup. “Obviously we can’t open today. Not with cops crawling all over the goddamned place making it look like someone was murdered.”

  “Someone was murdered.”

  Her eyes cut to him. “How do you know that?”

  “I heard them talking. He was hit on the back of the head. It’s likely what he died from.”

  “And who is he?”

  “Don’t know. Probably a homeless guy, based on the way he was dressed. I over
heard them say it looked like he was starving.”

  “Do you know how much we lose when we stay closed for even one fucking day?”

  Of course Oscar knew. He knew down to the dollar what they could expect to gross today based on last year’s same-day earnings. But it could have been worse. The guy could have died over the weekend, which would easily have lost them ten times more money.

  “I told Earl we needed this wrapped up fast,” Oscar said. “But it would be better coming from you.”

  A large man dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt was standing near the yellow tape, a few feet away from the tarp-covered body. He was engaged in deep conversation with the medical examiner, whom Oscar had also dated once upon a time. Bianca followed Oscar’s gaze and her face relaxed slightly when she saw the chief of police. Earl Schultz’s presence at the park was a sign of respect.

  “I’m going to draft a written statement personally on behalf of Uncle Nick.” Bianca didn’t bother to look at Oscar as she spoke. “I’ll release it as soon as Earl gives me the okay. Prepare yourself for the reporters—I want you to be the spokesperson for this, Oz. You and only you.”

  “No problem.”

  “And be goddamned careful with what you say. Make sure you get across that we’re deeply concerned and sympathetic without accepting any responsibility. And put a fucking sign outside the front gates to let people know we’re closed for the day. Make a note on the website, too. And call all the Wonder Workers scheduled for today and tell them to stay home. They all get the day off. The last thing we need is more people walking around.”

  Instructions issued, she walked briskly toward Earl. Oscar used his cell phone to call the management office to delegate everything Bianca had just said. It occurred to him then that maybe he should have told her about the #HomelessHarry hashtag currently trending on Twitter, but he decided he didn’t want to.

  Across the midway, the chief of police greeted Bianca with a kiss on the cheek and a somewhat paternal smile. Earl Schultz had been the chief of police of Seaside PD for a long time, and he and the Bishops had often socialized together before Nick had taken off to travel the world. Oscar didn’t doubt that Earl would see to it personally that everything was handled expeditiously. There wasn’t much the department—or Seaside, for that matter—wouldn’t do to keep the Bishops happy. Wonderland was by far the town’s biggest source of revenue.

  After a short conversation, Bianca was gone, speeding off in her purple golf cart the same way she’d arrived, with scarcely a glance back.

  Earl approached him, hands in his pockets. “Sorry about all this, Oz,” he said, as if it was somehow his fault that the park was in chaos. “I didn’t want this to turn into a shit show, but a dead body is a big deal, and the more people we have here doing their jobs, the faster this goes. I know Bianca’s anxious to get everything back to normal. We’ll be out of here as soon as we can.”

  “High season starts this weekend, Earl. You know how stressed she gets this time of year.”

  The police chief nodded. He was a burly man, six two, with thick arms and a belly that stretched over his jeans. His eyes were large, droopy, and perpetually bloodshot due to years of smoking, making him look like a basset hound. “We’ll get it sorted. The body’s pretty rank. Whoever he is, he obviously wasn’t killed here, so that gets us out of your hair a little quicker.”

  “How long do we have to stay closed?”

  “I told Bianca that reopening tomorrow is unrealistic. Hopefully I can get you up and running by the weekend, but the Wonder Wheel is out of commission for at least a week since that’s the area we’re processing. What I’ll do is run a temporary wall around the base, kind of like what you’d see at a construction site, and we can work inside it. I don’t think we’ll find much, though.”

  “I guess that’s not so bad.” The Wonder Wheel was a popular attraction, but it wasn’t one of the newer rides like the Legion of Doom or the Beast. Park guests would demand a refund if one of those was unavailable. “So any initial thoughts on why the hell the body’s in the midway?”

  “My best guess right now is that whoever dragged the body out here wanted it to be found. But until we ID him, we can’t even begin to know why he’s dead or why he’s here. Hopefully we’ll get a hit on his prints. If not, we’ll try dental records. If not, DNA, but it can take weeks for a match to come back, if there even is one.” The police chief rubbed his face. “Who was at the park overnight? Anyone working?”

  “It was supposed to be Glenn Hovey, but I’m not sure he showed up.” Oscar had forgotten all about the man. “He wasn’t in the security office when I called and he hasn’t returned my messages.”

  “Okay, I’ll have Donnie and the new deputy follow up on that. They’re on their way over. Who else?”

  “Nobody else,” Oscar said. Clearly the police chief had no idea that Bianca had been in her apartment here all night, but if she hadn’t made a point of telling Earl that little fact, then Oscar was sure as hell not going to say anything. “And what new deputy? You’re not handling this yourself?”

  “I’ll stay on top of it, you know I will,” Earl said. “But I have to delegate a little. I’m on the board of directors at Seaside Hospital and they put me in charge of the fund-raiser gala. I’m swamped, but I can’t let it slide. There’ll be a lot of important people there, and I need to take advantage of everyone being in one place so I can get the shopping plaza development deal locked. Speaking of which, any word from Nick? He still in Europe? I could really use his support on this. A push from Wonderland’s owner would be huge.”

  Oscar hated fielding questions about Nick Bishop. “I haven’t spoken to him. If you need him, it’s best to email him. Anyway, Bianca’s not going to be happy you’ve delegated this case to someone new.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on it. And don’t worry, the new deputy’s an experienced detective from Seattle PD. You’re in good hands.” Earl clapped Oscar on the back before walking away.

  The last thing Oscar wanted was to deal with a new deputy chief. Carl Weiss had been an idiot and a kiss ass, but at least he understood the chain of command with respect to Seaside and Wonderland. Carl knew which toes to step on, and which toes to avoid. He’d understood the importance of relationships and which ones needed to be prioritized. Someone from Seattle would have no way of knowing any of those things, and Oscar was surprised to learn that an outsider had replaced Carl Weiss.

  Two figures were walking toward him from about two hundred feet away. One of them looked like Donnie Ambrose. The other one, he couldn’t tell, but she had a distinctly feminine shape. Her curvy figure reminded him of the woman he’d been with the night before, the woman who was at least partly responsible for the hangover he was nursing today.

  Not that it hadn’t been worth it. The woman—likely a tourist, as he’d never seen her before at the Tango Tavern—had been nothing short of intriguing. Beautiful in an understated, girl-next-door way, she’d had an easy laugh and a love of sports and good beer. In other words, she couldn’t have been anything less like Bianca if she’d tried.

  He cursed himself. He had to stop comparing every woman he met to Bianca Bishop.

  Jamie from the management office was calling his cell, and Oscar stepped into the shade of the Giant Octopus to take the call.

  “Reporters are asking questions, Oz,” Jamie said when he answered the phone. “Two so far, from the Monthly and the Times. Bianca told me to refer all calls to you, so you’ll have messages in your voice mail when you get back to the office.”

  “That’s the exact right thing,” Oscar said. “Just keep funneling them to me. We’re going to release a statement as soon PD gives the okay.”

  “Bianca’s in a real tizzy.” Jamie sounded muffled, as if she was speaking into the receiver with a hand over her mouth. “I’d stay out of her way today if I were you.”

  “Too late, already ta
lked to her.”

  “By the way, don’t know if you heard.” The receptionist’s voice was hushed. “Another picture’s going viral.”

  “Christ, another picture of the dead body?”

  “No, it’s a picture of some kid on top of the Wonder Wheel,” Jamie said. “He must have snuck in early this morning and climbed it. He took a selfie of himself giving the finger and uploaded it to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.”

  “What are you talking about?” Oscar couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Someone climbed the wheel? Who? When?”

  “This morning. Apparently he’s some kind of free climber,” Jamie said. “I don’t know the details, but I’m looking at the original tweet right now and it was posted at five thirty this morning. He’s wearing the uniform, Oz.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Blake Dozier. I looked him up, he’s worked here for almost four summers. Do you think he had something to do with Homeless Harry?”

  “Don’t call him that.” Oscar frowned, trying to make sense of it. “And I don’t know what it means. I’m sure PD will find out once they talk to him.”

  “The thing is, Oz, I’ve seen this kid. The Wonder Wheel kid, I mean. He was, like, around a lot last summer. He seemed to be close with Bianca. Once, I forgot my phone at work and came back to get it, and they were in her office. Alone. They weren’t doing anything, but . . . he had his hand on her leg.”

  Oscar was quiet for a moment as he processed this information. “You’ll keep that to yourself, right? You know how Bianca is about people knowing her private business.”

  “I can’t lie if someone asks me about it, Oz.”

  “I’m not asking you to lie,” Oscar said quickly. “I just don’t think it’s necessary to volunteer that information unless someone specifically needs it. We don’t know why the kid was in her office.” Except that Oscar damn well knew why. Goddamn you, Bianca.