by Peggy Dulle
“And viper trucks?”
“I have no clue. Did you ask Justin?”
“No, I haven’t yet.”
“Give him a call, he loves helping you.”
“He’s a great kid,” I remarked.
“Not so much a kid anymore.”
I smiled remembering all the years I had spent watching Justin grow up. The DJ was playing some slow romantic tunes, so it was relatively quiet. I got my phone from my purse and dialed Justin.
He answered on the second ring, “Hey, Teach.”
“Anything new?” I asked.
“I’m so much closer to the partner. That was a great suggestion you made.”
“What exactly did I say?”
“You said that he might not exist.”
“And that helped?”
“Sure. I stopped looking for a person and started looking for a baseline corporation. It opened up several layers. I’ve tracked the company through several countries, including the Caymans and South America, but it all came back to the good old USA, through New York, down to Miami and straight to Las Vegas.”
“Once you find the company, then you’ll find who owns it?”
“Yep.”
“Do you have time to look something else up for me?”
“Of course, I’ve got five computers doing multiple searches for the company, but I’ve still got my laptop free.”
“Five computers?”
“Yeah, I’m tied into the computers at the high school, so I’ve borrowed a few of them to work on the searches.”
I didn’t even want to ask if hacking into the school computers was legal because I knew the answer.
Before I could caution him, he said, “I’ve made sure it can’t be traced to me and besides those computers are just sitting there and doing absolutely nothing. They might as well be working for us.”
“Okay. I just need to know what a viper truck is.”
“That should only take a few minutes. Let’s bring it up.”
I heard him click the keys, then he whistled.
“What?” I asked.
“These are cool trucks, Teach.”
“What are they used for?”
“You drive them.”
“That’s all?”
“They were made in the early 2000’s. The 2004 is propelled by a Viper-based 10-cylinder engine mated to a six-speed manual transmission that delivers 500 horsepower and 525 pound-feet of torque. It has a 4.10 axle ratio, specialized 22-inch forged aluminum wheels on Pirelli tires. It can do 0-60 mph in around five seconds. It also has a 508-watt stereo, 505 cubic inch engine, unique interior accents and metal pedal assemblies. Wow!”
It sounded like he was reading from a manual and I didn’t understand a single word he had just said. “It’s a regular pickup?”
“Oh, it’s much more than that. This pickup is meant to rock!”
“But it’s a truck, right?”
“Yes and I’m going to ask my mom if she can buy this for me when I get my license in a few months. She said I could pick out anything I wanted since I’m maintaining my 4.5 grade point average this year. I’m sure we can have it modified so I can use my hands to work the accelerator. Although it would be a shame since it has metal pedals.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to find the truck and check on the changes that need to be made.”
“Thanks, Teach. I’ll let you know if the school’s computers find out anything.”
I hung up the phone and slipped it back into my purse. Then I told Dad what Justin had said.
“He’s old enough to be driving? When did I get this old?”
They started playing the Electric Slide and everyone got into rows. I’ve always wanted to try line dancing, so I said, “Let’s join in, Dad.”
Dad stuck his feet on the chair next to him and said, “Nope, I’m still resting, but go ahead.”
I got up and joined the back row. It wasn’t a difficult step but it still took me a while to master. First we grapevined to the right four steps, feet together, clapped, then back again, stepped back four steps and then back to our starting point. That was simple. But when we started stepping forward and back in a rocking motion. My feet kept getting tangled up with each other, but I got the clapping sequence right. A quarter turn and we started all over again.
Like me, the people in my row were all concentrating on our feet, trying not to trip ourselves or each other. I noticed Grace in the front row. She looked like she was born doing the dance. Finally, by the third time through the steps I was getting them mostly right, so I added my own hand movements swaying back and forth with my feet. When I messed up, I would laugh, and start again.
I remembered the last time I got up to dance in a crowd like this, I ended up stabbed, so I kept a close eye on the people around me. But the dance was uneventful. They played Brooks & Dunn’s Boot Scootin’ Boogie and Billy Ray Cyrus’ Achy Breaky Heart and I followed the people in front of me who seemed to know every step. It was fun but after three songs, my feet started hurting again, so I left my row and headed back toward my dad.
After a few feet, Doc slid up next to me and said, “My daughter is having some feminine issues. Would you be willing to go and talk to her?”
“Sure,” I told him. There couldn’t be any harm in that.
CHAPTER 20
“Just let me tell my dad where I’m going.” I told him.
“It will only take a minute, Liza. She’s hysterical about some boy and I can’t calm her down.”
I glanced toward my dad. He was watching the dance floor and probably wouldn’t even know that I was gone for a few minutes.
“Okay.” I nodded.
Doc led me out the door and to a red SUV. The temperature had dropped several degrees since we had gone to the dance. I wish I had my sweater which was back at the table with my dad.
“Where is your daughter?” I asked.
“She called me from the lagoon. She was sobbing and when I told her I’d come and get her she cried louder. If I show up alone, she’s going to get worse. She needs a woman now, not her dad.”
“Where’s Priscilla?”
“She was called to a meeting at the power plant. There’s an ecology group that’s picketing there and at the Lagoon. She’s the landowner so they figure she can get the law to evict the picketers. It may be a power plant but it’s also private property.”
I turned back toward the Saddle Club. “I’d better let my dad know that I’m leaving, Doc.”
“I’m right here,” my dad said. “What’s going on?”
“Doc is having trouble with his daughter and I am going out to the Lagoon to talk to her.”
“I haven’t seen the Lagoon yet. Can I tag along?” he asked Doc.
Doc looked at my dad and then back at me. “Sure, why not? Get in.”
I took the passenger seat in the SUV and my dad got into the back seat.
As Doc took the road out of town, Dad said, “I had two daughters of my own, Doc. It’s hard raising girls. They’re so emotional about the littlest of things.”
“Yeah. It’s been hard raising her without a mother.”
“That’s really tough,” Dad remarked. “I had my wife to handle the crying females.”
“I wasn’t a crying female,” I told him.
“I was talking about your sister, Liza. Jordan certainly had her share of boy troubles, but the worst was the drama between her and her girl friends.”
“I hear that,” Doc remarked. “One minute she and Doreen are best friends and the next they’re enemies. I tried to get involved once and ended up not speaking to Doreen’s parents for over a year. The girls were friends again in a week.”
Dad laughed. “That’s true enough.”
“I had girl problems,” I said.
“No, you didn’t, Liza. You played basketball and volleyball and scored for the boy’s baseball team. You were busy with sports and didn’t have time for girl friends.”
“I had girl friends.” I felt like
somehow I was being slammed in this conversation or at least having my girlhood downplayed.
“Sandy doesn’t count. Neither of you had time to deal with the other girls and their drama on a regular basis. The two of you would just go off and practice basketball or volleyball, depending upon the weather.”
“Sandy and I didn’t always get along,” I remarked remembering several big blowups between the two of us.
“Yeah, but you’d play a game of horse on the basketball court to settle your problem. You never got your mom and me involved. Jordan would run home and cry to your mom. Your mom would get upset and call the parents. The doc’s right. Soon only the adults are still mad and the kids make up and move on.”
“It’s been going on since she was little. They’d fight over who got which Barbie,” Doc said.
“Jordan had a Malibu Barbie that not one of her girlfriends was ever allowed to touch and it was the first thing they’d go for each time. I think they knew it would upset her.”
“Sandy and I played dolls together,” I reminded him.
“Yes, you did. I went to more tea parties with the two of you than I ever did with your sister.” Dad put his hand on my shoulder. “But after she was gone, you just didn’t like to play with those types of toys anymore.”
Remembering the loss of my best friend sent a fissure through my heart that I thought had been closed by time. Sandy and I became friends in second grade. For six years we had been inseparable but then she had been kidnapped. They found her body a month later. I thought finding Jessie, another child who had been kidnapped, last year had helped to heal that wound but obviously you never forget your first real loss.
Soon we were driving on a farm road with no street lighting or buildings in sight.
“How far is the Lagoon?” I asked.
“A couple of miles down this road, then onto the main highway for five miles. Once we’re off the freeway again, it’s real close.”
“Do you have any idea what the problem is?”
Doc shrugged. “No, just something about a boy.”
“How old is your daughter?” Dad asked.
“Sixteen.”
“Definitely boy problems.”
When I started to speak, Dad said, “Were you going to say you never had boy problems or that you did have boy problems?”
How did he know what I was going to say? Sometimes it felt like after Sandy was killed, I gave up on being a girl. I never wanted to feel as vulnerable as I had envisioned she had felt when she was kidnapped and killed. But I rolled my eyes, pretending that neither had been my intention. “I was going to say that you might want to stay in the car when we get to the Lagoon.”
“Why?” Doc asked.
“Didn’t you say there were picketers at the Lagoon?”
“No, they all moved to the power plant earlier this evening. That’s why Priscilla went there to see if she can get them thrown off her land. There has to be over a hundred people carrying signs and chanting around the plant.”
I glanced back at Dad. When our eyes met, I knew that the lagoon was the site of the incident that was supposed to happen tonight. Was it the one Dad was involved in or the radical group that he couldn’t control?
“I’ll just come along and keep the Doc company while you talk to his daughter,” Dad said without unlocking our eyes.
I glanced at the time displayed on the vehicle’s dashboard. It said nine-thirty. I looked at Dad and raised my eyebrows to indicate whether the time was close or not.
He shrugged.
That wasn’t a good sign. That meant he had no idea what was going to happen at the lagoon or when. So it was the radical group’s event we were walking into.
“Let’s hope we can get your daughter calmed down quickly so we can all go back to the dance,” I told Doc but meant the words for my dad.
Dad nodded.
Within minutes we flew down the deserted highway. Doc took the first exit and we were back on a dirt road again. The truck’s headlights illuminated the signs for the Lagoon Recreation Area with placards for swimming, boating, camping, hiking, and a full marina. The hours listed were from sunrise to sunset.
We came into a deserted parking lot that was dark except for the small section lit by the truck’s headlights. A thousand stars sparkled in the moonless pitch black sky.
“How’d Brenda get out here?” I asked.
“It’s my understanding that she came with a group of friends. I don’t know if they left her or she told them to go away,” Doc said, as he pulled into a spot near the door of a small wooden building.
“What’s that?” Dad asked.
“It’s the marina store and café. They make great fish and chips and the coleslaw is good, too. They’re only open for lunch since the place is closed at sunset. It’s just not worth it to bring a lighting system out to the Lagoon. It really only gets used in the summer months.”
“Where did your daughter call you from?” I asked, as I got out of the truck.
“She used her cell phone and said that she was out on the platform.” Doc turned on a large flashlight and lit our way.
“Platform?” my dad asked.
“It’s in one of the coves and is a place for the kids to jump from. We put it in when several of them broke their arms jumping from the rocks near the back of the lagoon.”
“So do they use it?” I asked.
“Sometimes, but they still prefer the rocks.”
“Do we have to take a boat to the platform?” My stomach tightened with anxiety. I’m not a fan of the water, especially pitch black – can’t see a damn thing – water. I knew it was because my sister and I were left floating for sixteen hours in a lake with my mom and a friend when we were very small. My dad had witnessed a killing and we were hiding from the murderer. That one event had changed our entire life. Even knowing all of that, I still felt petrified when I was around water.
“No, we’ll take one of the golf carts on the frontage path. I don’t like boating at night in the lagoon. It’s just not safe.”
My dad put his arm around my shoulder and whispered, “Take a breath, Liza. You haven’t exhaled in almost a minute.”
I let out the breath I hadn’t even realized that I was holding and said, “A golf cart sounds like fun. I hope it has good lights.”
“It does get dark out here, doesn’t it? I haven’t been here after sunset in a long time. Maybe we should invest in a few lights. But,” he shrugged, then continued, “I guess it’s not worth it.”
Not worth it because it wouldn’t get used? Or because they planned to level the entire place for the new freeway? I wondered.
We walked past a tall tractor with massive wheels, a cab, and a small protruding platform with hydraulics attached to it. I had never seen anything like it before.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
Doc glanced at the tractor and said, “Priscilla is having a section of land cleared north of the Lagoon. She wants to put in a decent marina. The truck is used to level out the ground.”
“So she doesn’t want the new freeway?” I asked.
“The new freeway wouldn’t affect the Lagoon. The plan has it going down Main Street.”
“So the Lagoon might get more business if it’s near a major freeway,” I suggested.
“That’s what Priscilla thinks, too. If we don’t get the freeway, then it’s still good business to have a better building than the shack the marina uses now.”
“I’ve seen one of those tractors before,” Dad said. “It must have been at another area that was being leveled.”
A few feet ahead stood a small metal building.
“Here’s the golf cart garage,” Doc said by way of explanation.
He used a key to unlock the padlock and swung the door open. Inside was a white golf cart.
“I’ll back it out and then you can get in,” he told me.
When he went inside, I leaned toward my dad and said, “Should we be concerned that no picketers
are here?”
Dad nodded and whispered, “But I told the Fed the problem would be here, so we should have lots of company around.”
When the golf cart backed out and onto the path, Doc said, “Hop in.”
I instantly felt better. If Tom and the Feds were close, then we would be safe.
I sat in the passenger seat and Dad got into the back seat and turned around so he would be able to see where we were going.
A few minutes later we tooled down the frontage path. The only thing lit by the golf cart’s headlight was the path three feet in front of us. Darkness surrounded us like a blanket and it made me feel smothered and very uncomfortable.
“How much further?” I asked.
“There’s a building around the bend. We have to go through it and then out to the platform.”
Doc took the bend and I couldn’t see a thing. A few seconds later the silhouette of a very tall building was illuminated by a single light near its door.
He parked the golf cart in front of the door and we all got out. Doc entered a number into a key panel near the door and the door made a strange noise as it opened.
“Is this a hermetically sealed door?” Dad asked.
Doc laughed. “Yeah, it’s a hand-me-down from a plant that closed in Sacramento. The kids kept breaking into this building, which houses all the electronic equipment for the recycling of the lagoon’s water. If we didn’t recycle the water it would turn green and nobody, not even the kids, would want to go swimming in it.”
“Why would the kids break in?” I asked.
“You’ll see when we go in.”
He opened the door and the inside was immediately illuminated. There were pipes, gears and an elaborate belt system. Two small windows near the roof illuminated the corner where a heating and cooling unit sat.
“This room is kept at a constant seventy-five degrees.”
“Because of all the pipes and gears?” Dad asked.
“Yes. If it gets too cold, the water in the pipes freezes. Too hot and the gears don’t work.”
“The kids like this because no matter what time of year it is, they can come here and be comfortable,” I suggested.
“And get into all kind of trouble and nobody can see them,” Dad added.