by N. M. Brown
It had been tough for Mark, who had found everything he ever wanted in Jo, to accept she was still looking for something more. But he was wise enough to know she was like a wild bird – stuck in a cage and dreaming of wide blue skies. She talked as if getting down to the coast would be a visit, but they both suspected otherwise.
As they lay together in bed one night, with Jo facing the bedroom window, Mark asked the difficult question.
‘Do you want me to drive you down, just from a safety point of view, I mean? I have some time off coming up. No strings.’
‘It’s okay,’ she said softly.
‘I don’t mean in a stalker “take me with you” way. I just meant to save you taking the bus.’
‘It’s okay.’ Jo half turned and smiled. ‘I kind of like the old bone shaker buses, plus I got a really cheap ticket – all the way to San Diego for fifty bucks. Leaves tomorrow night.’
‘Oh.’ Mark took a deep breath. ‘Sorry, I didn’t think you’d booked already. Are things here that bad?’
He sat up in bed, took a cigarette from the nightstand, and lit it.
‘Mark, I’m not trying to get away from you,’ Jo said, as she turned fully around and placed a hand on his arm, touching the edge of a spiralling tattoo. ‘I’m just trying to find my place.’
‘I know,’ he said, blowing out a cone of smoke. He knew this was true. ‘Look, Jo, I’m not trying to be some ball and chain. Whatever you need to do is cool. But, I’m not naïve – you have the heart of a poet, the voice of an angel, so I’m guessing you might not be showing up here again too soon.'
‘Never say never.’ She shrugged. ‘Plus, you could always come down too.’
He shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t want to be your baggage.’
‘Then how about a weekend trip?’
‘Maybe once you’re settled, eh?’
‘Yeah, that would be nice.’
She turned away and Mark switched off the night light. The sound of the Blue Oyster Cult was drifting through from the living room. Somehow, the darkness made it seem louder.
As he pressed against her back, Mark slipped a hand on Jo's warm stomach and closed his eyes.
‘I do love you,’ he said, his mouth against her warm, soft shoulder, but she was already away.
That had been the last night he ever spent with her.
The following evening, Mark drove Jo to a bus stop on the outskirts of town. They had sat and waited in the car until the silence was unbearable for both of them. Then they had stood uncomfortably apart by the roadside until the silver coloured bus had arrived. The driver – a large, friendly guy in a Hawaiian shirt – loaded Jo’s guitar case into the luggage compartment as Mark gave her a quick hug and said his brief goodbye. He watched the tail lights of the coach shrink into the darkening horizon, feeling like he had been robbed.
Now, five weeks later, he sat alone in his apartment and rubbed his hands over his unshaven face. If she had been in touch, then he had been prepared to move down to the coast for a few weeks. They could see how things went and simply chill out for a while. But as time passed, Jo had not contacted him – no phone call, no email – just a void. It seemed to Mark she was either sending him a message she was happy without him, or something had gone badly wrong.
Despite the pain it caused him, Mark hoped the reason was the former, but somewhere at the back of his mind, a small alarm bell was ringing.
Chapter Eleven
The town of Barstow was slightly larger than Vicki had expected. The way Laurie had spoken about it made it sound like one dusty street in the middle of the desert. Instead, it was a grid shape formed by intersecting roads which formed a basic cluster of functional homes and single storey businesses.
Leighton turned the car into the parking lot of Barstow Station. ‘Okay, this is the town,’ he said. ‘So what’s the address?’
‘Four Vineyard Drive,’ Vicki said. She was holding a home printed map in her hand but didn’t need to consult it.
‘If you drive through the main street, you need to keep going until you leave the built-up section. Then you’ll reach Burke’s End, then turn right, then left – it’s the fourth house along. They are fairly spread out.’
‘I thought you said you had never been here?’ Leighton said, as he put the car in gear and began driving back out onto the street.
‘I haven’t,’ Vicki confirmed. ‘I checked out the town online a few times. I must’ve just learned it by osmosis.’
Leighton shot her a sceptical glance. ‘Maybe you should consider a career with the Oceanside Traffic Unit,’ he said wryly.
‘I doubt I’d be very good,’ Vicki said softly.
‘You couldn’t be any worse than I was.’ Leighton’s words could have been taken as a joke, but there was no humour in his voice.
It took no more than a few minutes for Vicki and Leighton to travel along the dusty road leading through the Burke’s End area to Laurie’s home.
As the car pulled into the roadside, Vicki suddenly felt a sick feeling in the depths of her stomach. Up until that moment, she had somehow managed to push the reality of the situation to some dark area of her mind. But now she was forced to confront the painful truth.
Looking at the single level, misshapen bungalow with peeling rust coloured paint and broken roof tiles made her guiltily aware of the extreme contrast between her own Oceanside accommodation and Laurie’s humble home. This sad fact seemed to solidify Vicki’s commitment to finding her friend.
‘You coming?’ Leighton smiled briefly and unclipped his seatbelt, but his tone had become business-like. Crime scenes – if this was indeed one – were as familiar to him as his own home.
‘Sure.’ Vicki nodded, as if to motivate herself. ‘Let’s go.’
Vicki opened the creaking car door and stepped out into the dry heat. Laurie’s house sat on an empty stretch of desert road. Directly across the street from the small house was a weed-covered pile of sandstone rubble, which may once have been a similar building, but other than that, Laurie’s home looked out on nothing but flat, dusty fields filled with needle grass and giant cardons poking up like prickly scarecrows.
Even to Leighton, Laurie’s home looked like a lifeless and lonely place to live. But Vicki was also aware of the irony of the place. She imagined what it must have been like for Laurie, who had dreamed of leaving college to take photographs in Europe, to have found herself stuck in a shack on the edge of a desert town.
The front garden of the grubby house was little more than four square metres of dead grass ringed by a waist-high fence of sun-bleached wood. Leighton lifted the loop of green garden wire which held the small wooden gate shut, and pushed it open.
‘After you,’ he said, and stepped aside to allow Vicki to approach the house first.
Vicki stepped cautiously towards the hazy screen door at the side of the building. She was so preoccupied that she almost tripped over a swollen bag of trash, which sat surrounded by a scattering of crushed cigarette stubs. A frenzy of house flies buzzed in the air around the garbage, as if to protect their territory. Vicki wondered how many of their wriggling offspring were feasting inside the plastic bag.
Turning her head back, she found Leighton was peering intently at the rust coloured soil beneath the windows.
‘Should I try the door?’ Vicki called.
‘Sure,’ he responded, without looking up.
Vicki reached towards the steel door handle then hesitated. ‘Hey, what if they need to, you know?’
‘What?’ Leighton called.
‘I don’t know.’ She searched for the right words. ‘Maybe check for prints later?’
‘They can discount yours,’ said Leighton, who was crouched near the ground, peering at the garden gate. ‘I’ll vouch for you.’
‘Okay,’ Vicki nodded. ‘Sure.’
As she reached for the handle again, Vicki closed her eyes and silently wished for the impossible. She wished the door would open easily, and inside she would find
Laurie sipping a glass of iced tea, wearing one of her trademark outfits and listening to classic rock. Her mouth would fall open at seeing her friend. She would laugh, rush to hug Vicki, and explain she had somehow gotten all mixed up. Perhaps she would even invite the strange old detective inside to have a drink with them and share in the joke. But, that was not going to happen, because when Vicki opened her eyes and held the handle, she found that the door was locked.
‘Any luck?’ Leighton said from directly behind her, making her jump.
‘Shit!’ Vicki let out a sigh.
‘Sorry, I thought you heard me talking to you as I came along.’
‘No, I never heard you. But I’m good.’
‘I was saying there’s no sign of a break-in at the front of the place.’
‘Well, this door is locked too.’
‘Then let’s have a look round the back.’
Leighton walked around to the rear of the property to find nothing more than a fence, a patch of parched grass, and a grey plastic bird feeder. Vicki followed him and watched intently. The retired detective turned his attention to the house. The rear wall of the property had one small window and a glazed sliding door. He walked over to the door and crouched down. After a moment, he walked to the window and put his face close to the glass, peering at the lower corners. A roller blind blocked any view into the room.
‘You think someone could’ve broken in through there?’ Vicki asked.
‘No.’ Leighton shook his head. ‘The window’s too small to get through.’
‘So, what are you doing?’
‘I’m just making sure there isn’t a body in here.’
‘Oh.’ Vicki felt a momentary jolt of fear. ‘But you can’t see inside.’
‘Come over here a second.’ Leighton beckoned to her.
Vicki walked cautiously over to where Leighton stood.
‘Look in through the glass,’ he said, his voice deep and reassuring.
Vicki stood on her toes and cupped her hands over her eyes to reduce the glare of the sun. Leighton was close enough so that Vicki could smell his faint cologne – musky and sweet.
‘What can you see?’ he asked.
‘Nothing really – the blind is down and there’s just a tiny space at the side of it.’
‘What if you look down?’
Vicki cast her eyes downward. ‘Just the window ledge.’
‘Anything on it?’
‘Yeah, a small white ashtray with some nickels and dimes in it.’
‘But that’s all you can see on there?’
‘Yeah.’ Vicki pulled back from the glass and turned to Leighton. ‘Didn’t tell me much.’
‘If your friend was in there, even just because of an accident – carbon monoxide, a slippery bathtub or faulty electrics say – after two or three weeks, that window ledge would be covered in flies. In summer like this, they can fill a house in a fortnight. I also checked the windows at the front and side, they’re clean too. All of the main access points into the property are secured and undisturbed.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I believe it means you are going to buy me lunch.’
Vicki fixed him with a surprised expression, though not entirely shocked by his comment.
‘It’s okay.’ Leighton smiled. ‘Now we know her home is secure, we can discuss where Laurie is most likely to be, but we can do that over some food, okay?’
‘Okay.’ Vicki sighed and smiled. ‘Let’s go, Sherlock.’
They walked back to the car and climbed inside. It was just as Leighton had started to drive along the road that Vicki grabbed his arm to stop him.
‘Oh shit! Hang on,’ she said.
The car lurched to a stop.
‘What’s wrong?’ Leighton asked as he applied the parking brake.
‘I left my bag in the yard, give me a minute,’ she said as she unclipped her seat belt and clambered out of the car.
‘I’ll wait,' Leighton said, 'but the meter is running.’
Sighing, he picked up a bundle of tape cassettes and began choosing his next playlist. A few moments later, Vicki climbed back into the passenger seat, clutching her bag to her chest. Leighton noticed she was breathing hard too, with a mist of spray on her forehead.
‘Bit stressed. Thought you’d lost it, huh?’ Leighton said as he restarted the engine.
‘Yeah.’ Vicki nodded. ‘My backpack is my life.’
‘Amen to that,’ he said, and the car rolled along the dusty track towards the centre of town.
Chapter Twelve
As he lay on the ground with his hot urine soaking through his shirt, California Highway Patrol Officer Charlie Thomson marvelled at how quickly circumstances could change. Nineteen minutes earlier, he had been cruising along Route 138 where the freeway cut through the San Bernardino National Forest.
Around that time, the officer had felt the first grumbling of hunger starting to form in his gut, and he began to consider stopping off at the Lazy Faire Ranch for a burger. The place was only a few miles down the road and the traffic was light for a weekday, so Charlie was confident he could get there in less than ten minutes.
The afternoon was warm and bright. Charlie had eased off the gas as he approached a curve in the road. It was then that he noticed the sunlight glinting off something reflective located within the trees at the roadside.
Slowing down the bike, Charlie turned his head to get a better look and realised something large and silver was partially concealed by the fringe of trees bordering the highway. The officer pulled his bike into the side and, after waiting for a stream of cars to pass, turned his bike around and crossed over to the northbound section.
As he cruised slowly along the highway running parallel to the treeline, Charlie could clearly see shiny metal panels. As an officer with six years’ experience, he knew there was no designated parking this far north in the park. It therefore seemed likely the vehicle was possibly stolen, then abandoned. He slowed the bike to a smooth stop on the verge of the road. Kicking down the stand, he climbed off his bike and unclipped his helmet in a single practised move.
As he walked towards the trees, the officer glimpsed more metal from the object set back into the woods. Initially, Charlie had thought it might be a food van, or even an old style polished RV, but stepping through the shadowy trees, he could see the actual size of the vehicle, which appeared large enough to be a truck trailer. He stumbled on a gnarled root, and had to grab a tree for support. Although he was only moving twenty or so metres away from the freeway, Charlie noticed how eerily quiet the area was – as if someone had turned down the volume on some cosmic remote.
By the time he had covered more distance towards the vehicle, Charlie realised there were no bird sounds either, just the regular sound of his own breathing. For some reason, he found himself thinking of Bing Crosby singing “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic” song – it slipped into his head and occupied the void left by the departing sounds of the world.
Leaving the treeline, Charlie stepped into a rough clearing and paused in confusion before a large old style bus. This was not something which belonged in the middle of the woods. The bulk of the body of the vehicle was a dull silver colour, and the windows were dark and grimy. The officer figured it had been the sun glinting off the metal panels which had initially snared his attention. Still, it seemed strange to find something like this- in the middle of nowhere. There was no actual road here; it looked like the bus had simply dropped from the heavens, or been pushed up from below.
Charlie crouched down and his eyes narrowed as he peered beneath the bus. The weeds sticking out of the dry earth appeared to be green and healthy, suggesting the bus had only arrived there recently. He stood up and gazed around at the ground and bushes. The immediate vicinity looked as if a cluster of vehicles had recently been parked nearby. Moving cautiously closer to the bus, the officer’s right hand instinctively found the solid comfort of his Smith and Wesson. He slid along the side of the bus and reached
the open door. Darting his head around to glance through the opening, Charlie found the driver’s seat was empty. Most likely whoever had dumped the bus here was long gone.
‘Hello?’ he called out. ‘Police. Is anyone aboard the vehicle?’
There was no reply.
Holding his gun before him like a torch, Charlie boarded the bus.
Stepping up into the silence of the vehicle, the officer noticed an unusual smell that didn’t seem to fit with public transport, but a hospital or dental surgery – clean and antiseptic. He moved slowly along the central aisle, suppressing the urge to run his hands along the headrests. A sweep of the bus revealed it was not only empty but utterly spotless. This fact struck Charlie as seriously weird. He had been on numerous buses in his life, but none of them looked like you could eat your dinner off the floor. He would have to call this in.
As he stepped off the bus and into the bright sunlight, Charlie decided the best way to deal with the situation was to radio it in and get a team out here to investigate the scene. The technicians could use their tape and tubes, and Charlie could sit down for lunch. Turning his head to one side, he brought his hand up to the chest-mounted radio and paused. There was something wrong beneath his feet. It was the combination of sound and texture that drew his attention. Staring down at his shoes, the officer realised he was standing on a wide square of clear plastic sheeting. This was something that had definitely not been there before he boarded the bus.
Before he had time to process the terrible implication of this shift in his environment, Charlie Thomson felt a sharp wasp-like sting on the left side of his neck. His hand shot up to the site of the pain, where his fingers found the small source of his discomfort. Pulling the foreign body from his flesh, he stared at it, and momentarily thought it was some type of insect. But as he brought his hand closer to his face, Charlie found himself staring at a steel dart with an orange feathered tail. As he struggled to comprehend this development, his right leg suddenly buckled beneath him and Charlie felt himself collapse onto the slick plastic sheeting.