Wonderland

by Jennifer Hillier

  “Holy shit,” Oscar said. He took a step back, the realization dawning on him. “That’s why Blake climbed the Wonder Wheel. That’s why he did it wearing his uniform. He knew a stunt like that would get him fired, but he didn’t care. You’re the one he was giving the finger to. It was his way of telling you to fuck off. Are you the reason he’s missing?” He stopped, then held up a hand. “You know what, don’t answer that. I really don’t want to know.”

  “You’re so angry with me.” Bianca’s smile was sad. “Oz, please. Let’s try again. Give me another chance.”

  Oscar gave her a sad smile of his own. “I’ve given you enough,” he said. “I’m done.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Vanessa sat impatiently inside her office at the department, waiting for the chief of police to finish up his phone call. Earl Schultz had scheduled a status meeting with her but he was running fifteen minutes behind, which ordinarily wouldn’t be a big deal, but she had plans to meet Jerry for an early dinner. They were heading over to Wonderland to surprise Ava, who still hadn’t seen Jerry yet, and then the three of them would pick up John-John from day camp.

  Her head was throbbing slightly from the day before. She and Jerry had spent her afternoon off with Tanner Wilkins, first at the Devil’s Dukes, and then at the Monkey Bar for a late lunch, a local spot Vanessa had never heard of that served the best burger she’d ever tasted. If Tanner liked Vanessa in the way that Jerry had suggested, she definitely didn’t see it. The man was certainly nicer to her than he’d been at the beginning, but the conversation had focused on his son. The three of them had gone over Jerry’s notes and Tyler’s police file, dissecting every detail surrounding the boy’s disappearance, trying to find something—anything—that might have been missed. They hadn’t come up with any new theories, and it was disheartening.

  There was a knock on her office door. “I got something, Deputy,” Donnie said.

  Vanessa perked up. “You found Glenn Hovey?”

  “No, sorry, nothing new there.” Stepping in, the young detective closed the door behind him. “You got a minute?”

  “Earl’s going to summon me at some point, but he’s already running late, so yes, I do.” She smiled at him. “What’s up?”

  “I know you’d mentioned sending the Wonderland surveillance footage to an outside forensics expert, but you don’t need to now. I watched the footage a dozen times and was about to give up on it, but something kept gnawing at me, so I went over all of it again.” Donnie placed a thumb drive on her desk. “Did Oscar Trejo explain to you how their security system works?”

  “Not really.” Vanessa reached for her coffee and took a sip. “All I know is it’s old and pathetic, and he didn’t disagree.”

  “It’s definitely both those things.” Donnie sat down. “The cameras are a hot mess. Some of them work, but not all of the time. Some don’t work at all. The picture quality, as you know, is shit. The computers are supposed to be recording everything from every camera all the time, but the system is buggy, so it only records some of the time. The system is also set to erase every twenty-four hours—”

  “Twenty-four?” Vanessa almost choked on her coffee. “Then what’s the point of recording at all?”

  “Twenty-four,” Donnie repeated. “Which means if you hadn’t grabbed the hard drive when you did, we might have lost everything that happened the morning Blake Dozier took his infamous selfie.”

  “But it wasn’t helpful anyway.” Vanessa frowned. “We couldn’t see anything. And the video cut out.”

  “I don’t think it did cut out, actually. I think someone stopped the recording. On purpose.”

  She stared at him. “Don’t tease me.”

  “I don’t know how much you know about computers—”

  “Very little. You need to explain it to me like I’m a five-year-old, and not get technical, because I won’t understand it anyway.”

  “Fair enough.” The detective leaned forward, rubbing the back of his head like he always did when he was thinking, a sure sign his brain was firing on all cylinders. “Okay, so when something’s deleted on a hard drive, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s gone. A lot of stuff is retrievable if you know where to find it. When I went back and looked at the footage, and I mean really looked, like a techie would, I discovered three things. One, the camera in the midway that was pointed towards the wheel didn’t actually cut out. Otherwise it would have continued recording static, or showed nothing. I think someone stopped it from recording, on purpose. Which tells us that someone with access to the security office was in the park that night.”

  “Glenn Hovey.”

  “He’d make the most sense, but really it could be anyone with access to the admin building. Two,” Donnie said, getting ramped up, “the system didn’t cooperate when that person pressed stop. The recording glitched, kind of like a hiccup, and then it just continued recording. And it recorded for approximately one more hour.”

  Vanessa was beginning to get excited. “Please oh please, tell me you were able to retrieve that hour.”

  “Unfortunately, no.”

  “Shit.”

  “Whoever it was came back to the security office and checked it to be on the safe side—which was smart—and then erased that extra portion. And then for good measure, wiped it again.”

  “I knew it was too good to be true.”

  “All but two and half minutes, that is.”

  “What?” Vanessa said.

  “I was able to retrieve two and a half extra minutes.” Donnie was triumphant. “Because of that stupid glitchy hiccup, whoever tried to wipe that portion of the drive missed that part. Which means that the shitty security system—for all its dated and archaic ridiculousness—is the reason we have those two and a half minutes. They were deleted, but not wiped, and so I was able to get them back.”

  “Nice work, Detective.” Vanessa grinned. “So? Don’t keep me in suspense. What did you see?”

  “Stick this into your hard drive.” Donnie came around to her side of the desk. She inserted the thumb drive into her computer and the video began to play. “I copied just this portion of it so you can see it real quick.”

  They both watched her monitor. The video started with a repeat of Blake Dozier reaching the top of the wheel, and then taking selfies. His arms were extended while he used his cell phone to snap several pics.

  “I never fail to get vertigo watching this,” Donnie said. “I’m sorry, but this kid is nuts.”

  “Agreed.”

  The video then glitched slightly, just as the detective said, and then after a couple of seconds, it continued. “Okay, we’re in overtime. Watch closely.”

  Vanessa did. At first it was more of the same. Blake appeared to be typing into his phone, both hands now. Two minutes passed.

  “Based on the timestamp, this is probably when he was uploading the photos to Twitter and Facebook,” Donnie said. “Okay, right now. Watch. Wait for it . . . wait for it . . . there.”

  The video went black.

  “Did you see it?” Donnie said.

  “That he lost his balance?” Vanessa was confused. “Because that’s what it looked like to me. It almost looked like he was about to slip.”

  “Yeah, but did you see why he lost his balance? Let’s watch it again.” The detective rewound it back about twenty seconds. “Watch closely. Don’t look at Blake. Watch the spokes of the wheel. Makes it easier to spot what’s happening.”

  Vanessa focused on the spokes as Donnie instructed, and a few seconds later, she saw it. “Holy shit. Did the wheel move?”

  “At least a foot, by my guess.” Donnie paused the video. “At that height, that could have been enough to cause him to slip. The bars between the spokes he was standing on are thin, and slanted. It would have been hard enough to keep his balance with the wheel moving.”

  “But he didn�
��t fall.” Vanessa stared at the screen. “If he had, his body would have splattered all over the midway. And if that had happened, no way could anyone have cleaned it up that fast. We would have found traces of it when we processed Homeless Harry.”

  “Right. If Blake’s dead, he’s dead some other way. But this footage does prove that someone turned on the Wonder Wheel while he was on it.” He went back around the desk and sat down again. “When I worked at the park way back when, you needed a key to turn on the Wonder Wheel’s motor. Whoever killed Blake had access to that key, which, from what I remember, was kept in a box in the maintenance building.”

  “Which is just off the midway, right? Gray brick structure?”

  “That’s the one. Whoever’s in charge of ride maintenance each day has to inspect the Wonder Wheel first. If it checks out okay, the key is signed out to whichever operator is working the first shift.”

  “And does the key stay in all day?”

  “Usually. Whoever worked the last shift then checks the key back into maintenance.”

  “So what you’re saying,” Vanessa said, thinking hard, “is that for the wheel to move, someone had to make it move, and to do that, they’d have to know where to get the key. Blake’s weight couldn’t have caused it to rotate?”

  “No way. That wheel weighs, like, two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.” Seeing the look on Vanessa’s face, the detective shrugged sheepishly. “I looked it up.”

  “Good work. This is a break in the case, for sure. It looks like someone was trying to kill Blake.” Vanessa drummed her fingers on the desk. “It had to be Glenn Hovey. He was the only person scheduled to be there that night. He has complete access to the park after hours, and obviously the security office, and he’d know exactly which cameras worked and which ones didn’t. He’d also know how to delete footage off the hard drives. He probably knows how to operate the rides. Not to mention, he watches porn during his shifts and his neighbor thinks he’s a creep. And lastly—and this is the big one—where the hell is he? It all fits. At the very least, I can charge him with the murder of Aiden Cole.”

  “Congratulations Hovey, wherever you are,” Donnie said. “You’ve just graduated from a person of interest to an official suspect.”

  Vanessa’s intercom buzzed, and Earl’s voice blared through the speaker on her phone. “Ready for you.”

  She gave Donnie a look. “Well, this should be fun. And here I was worried I didn’t have anything new to report.”

  “The chief isn’t going to like that someone murdered the Wonder Wheel Kid at his precious park.” Donnie rubbed his head. “Don’t envy you having to be the one to tell him that.”

  “I’m not going to be the one.” Vanessa gave him a sweet smile. “Come on, techie. Get your ass up. I’ll let you take all the credit.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Under the Clown Museum

  Blake had been out of food for a while now. How long, exactly, he couldn’t say, but he knew that every part of his body was hurting. He was doing his best to stay hydrated, drinking as much water as he could every chance he got, but it wasn’t enough. The candy bars, cookies, and wrapped sandwiches hadn’t lasted more than a couple of days, and he was in agony once again.

  Food and escape were all he thought about, all day long. He could see why solitary confinement was an effective punishment. Deprived of everything but the basics, you could drive yourself mad just sitting alone all day, being forced to think your thoughts. There was nothing to distract you, nothing to keep you from mentally dying, and the time dragged so slowly it felt as if the world had stopped spinning on its axis.

  But at least guys in prison got an hour a day outside in the fresh air, where there was sunshine. At least guys in prison could read books to pass the time. At least guys in prison—murderers, child molesters, drug dealers—had three square meals a day, clean clothes, showers, and warm blankets. They were not subjected to endless hours in the dark, where there was no concept of day or night, and you had only the stench of your own body to keep you company.

  Blake was wracked with another spasm. He clutched his stomach and moaned. Holy fuck, the hunger was terrible. It was almost as if his entire body was eating itself to stay alive, and no amount of water would make the spasms stop. He cried out again as the pain overtook him, then started to sob into the bare mattress.

  Anything was better than this. Anything.

  A small sound caught his attention, a rustle of some kind. Blake forced himself to calm down so he could hear it. The only light in the tunnel was coming from the corridor to the right of his cell, and he’d assumed it was a slowly dying lightbulb based on the way it flickered. Sometimes he heard sounds coming from that direction, too, like the Wonderland jingle that had played when he first woke up here. But since he’d never heard it again, he thought maybe he’d imagined it.

  But the rustling sound right now was real. Trying to ignore the cramps in his legs, Blake got out of bed and walked toward the metal bars. On the cement floor, a one-liter Camelbak thermos was rolling toward him, coming from the same direction where the lightbulb occasionally flickered. The thermos was not unlike the one Blake kept in his backpack at all times. Made of transparent blue plastic, he saw right away that it wasn’t filled with water. Nor did it appear empty.

  Crouching down, he reached between the bars of the cell and picked it up. Several mini candy bars were stuffed inside, the same ones that had been tossed to him by his captor the other day. He twisted off the lid and shook them out. There were five—three Twix and two Three Musketeers. Tearing the wrapper off of one of the Twix bars, he ate it quickly, and then ate another.

  Forcing himself to stop, he looked out into the tunnel, where it was dark.

  “Hello?” Blake called out, not feeling it was necessary to shout. He kept the volume of his voice moderate; wherever the candy bars had come from, it couldn’t have been too far away. Nevertheless, his voice echoed slightly throughout the tunnel. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

  No answer.

  “Hello?” He didn’t dare speak any louder, for fear that whoever had brought him here would come back and take away the food that quite possibly he wasn’t allowed to have. “If you’re out there, please say something. Hello?”

  Still no answer. He emptied the bottle, putting the candy bars into his pocket. He screwed the lid of the thermos back on and placed it on the floor outside the bars. It hadn’t rolled very fast when it had appeared in front of his cell, so when he rolled it back, he did his best to approximate the same speed.

  “My name’s Blake,” he said. “Thank you for the candy bars. Whoever you are, I’d really like to talk to you.”

  Another moment of silence passed, and then softly, music began to play. It was coming from the same direction as the candy bars had, and that’s when Blake realized that the dim flickering light he’d seen was not from an aging lightbulb. It was from a TV.

  It hit him then, and he felt like smacking himself for not realizing it sooner. There was another cell beside his, and whoever was in it, their TV worked. There was a comedy on, judging from the faint sounds of canned laughter. Instantly Blake was jealous. A working TV would make all the difference down here. Just to be sure, he reached up and pushed the button on his own TV again, but it still didn’t turn on.

  Another hunger cramp seized him, and Blake unwrapped his third candy bar. The other two he needed to try and save, because who knew when he’d be fed again. Whoever was in the next cell probably had his own ration, and Blake would have to do better the next time his captor arrived with food.

  His pressed his face against the cold metal bars, wishing his head fit through so that he could get a glimpse of who was beside him . . . or at least get a glimpse of their TV. The light continued to flicker, dimly illuminating the section of the corridor to the right of him that was normally always dark.

  The flickering light cau
ght something in the corridor. Curious, Blake strained to make out what it was. He squinted. Lost it. Squinted again. Saw it. Then felt the horror rise up inside him, threatening to gag him, threatening to unleash the little bit of food he’d just consumed, which he couldn’t afford to vomit up.

  A dead body lay about ten feet away.

  Its clothes were in tatters, an emaciated grimace carved into its decaying face, and the hollow spaces where its eyes once were stared directly at Blake, seeing nothing.

  He screamed.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The pizza box was in Ava’s hands as Vanessa came down the stairs, and she felt her daughter’s scrutiny.

  “Hot date?” Ava’s voice was dry.

  “Does that mean I look nice?” Vanessa asked, hopeful.

  Her daughter shrugged. “You look all right. Those sandals new?”

  Vanessa looked down at her feet. She was wearing black strappy sandals with three-inch heels, black leggings, and a loose gray tunic top. “I bought them a year ago, I think. Haven’t worn them till now. You approve?”

  “They’re okay.” Then, grudgingly, “What size are they?”

  “Eight,” Vanessa said. “You could wear them. You walk better in heels than I do, anyway.”

  “Can Katya sleep over?”

  “Again?” Vanessa frowned. “Why don’t you just hang out with John-John tonight? He was looking forward to it.”

  “Katya’s an only child,” Ava said. “She’d probably love to hang out with John-John, too.”

  “Nice try,” Vanessa said. “You two have been doing a lot of sleepovers. Take the night off and spend some quality time with your little brother. Please.”

  “Fine.” Ava took the pizza into the kitchen without a word. Vanessa allowed herself a small smile as she reached for her purse to touch up her lipstick. You never knew which way it was going to go with teenage girls.