Desert City Diva

by Corey Lynn Fayman

  ‘Uhnnn!’ said the man with the large body. He was handcuffed to base of the sink. There was a hood over the man’s head and long black hair spilling out from beneath it.

  ‘Daddy Joe?’ said Rolly.

  The man raised his head. He nodded. Rolly placed his crutches in the corner, hopped over to the toilet and took a seat. He placed Randy’s phone on the edge of the sink.

  ‘I’m a friend,’ he said. ‘I’m here with Macy.’

  ‘Uhnnn,’ the man said.

  Rolly reached down and pulled the hood from the man’s head. The man stared at Rolly, blinking his eyes as they burned with the light. His eyes were bloodshot and bleary, but in all other ways he was the man Macy had described, with long black hair and broad features. Rolly leaned down to peel off the duct tape that covered Daddy Joe’s mouth. It was wet, covered in sweat and spittle and hard to grip. He gave up, leaned back on the toilet and picked his phone up from the sink.

  ‘I’m calling the police,’ he said, tapping the button. He looked out the door to the office. ‘You’ll be safe now.’

  A shadow moved across the line of sunshine on the floor in the office near the back door. Someone fumbled at the lock. Rolly waited, expecting Dotty or Macy to open it. The latch clicked. Rolly stood up.

  ‘Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?’ said the operator, coming on line.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Rolly. He bolstered himself in the doorway. The shadow moved away from the door. He glanced at the door handle. There was a double-keyed bolt on the door.

  ‘Do you wish to report an emergency?’ the voice on his phone asked.

  ‘Yes, an emergency,’ Rolly said, putting the phone back up to his ear.

  ‘Do you need police assistance?’

  ‘I found a man here. I think he needs help.’

  A bell tinkled on the other side of the wall. It was the bell inside the front door. Someone had entered the shop.

  ‘Macy?’ said Rolly. No one answered. ‘Macy?’

  ‘Someone’s here,’ Rolly said to the operator.

  ‘Do you need an ambulance?’

  ‘Yes, an ambulance and the police. He’s going to kill us.’

  ‘Can you describe your location, sir?’

  ‘The Alien Artifacts store. El Cajon Boulevard off Fairmount. Please hurry.’

  Rolly glanced down at Joe Harper, who stared back at him with unfocused eyes.

  ‘Who’s out there?’ said Rolly. ‘I called nine-one-one. The police will be here soon.’

  There was a sound from the other side of the partition, muted electronic pings. Rolly jammed his crutches into the floor and hurried back towards the shop. He cut the corner too close and the left crutch jabbed into his ribs, knocking him into the display shelves. A collection of plastic Doctor Who figurines scattered across the floor. He stepped on one of the figurines, lost his footing and joined them on the floor. A steady beep emanated from the ceiling. He looked towards the front of the shop. Dotty stood by the door, watching him.

  ‘I am blameless in this,’ she said. She opened the door, stepped outside and keyed the lock.

  Rolly stood up and steadied himself on the table. He heard the bolt set. Dotty walked past the front window and out of sight. He walked towards the door. The beeping continued. He reached for the latch but it had a double-keyed bolt, just like the back exit. The electronic countdown pitched higher. The alarm bell went off, a short ring, and the shop was silent. He was trapped. The police would arrive too late. Macy was gone.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The Interview

  The San Diego Police Department’s Mid-City station was attractive, for a police station. It looked new, both inside and out. In matters of government largess, the Mid-City neighborhood wasn’t always treated as generously as other parts of Rolly’s fair metropolis. He was glad to see his tax dollars had been spent on something regular folks could appreciate.

  It was still a police station, though. On general rules of principle, Rolly preferred not to be in one. He greatly preferred not arriving at one in the back of a squad car with his arms handcuffed behind him. But that was how his day had gone. He’d have to put up with these inconveniences a while longer.

  After finding himself locked inside the Alien Artifacts shop, he used Randy Parker’s cell phone again to call emergency services again and update them on his situation. Unfortunately, the shop’s alarm system had been equipped with infrared sensors. As soon as he pulled the phone from his pocket the alarm bell went off. It left him with the difficult task of explaining his situation to the emergency operator while the alarm bell rang in the background. Within five minutes, a squad car had arrived, followed shortly by firemen and paramedics.

  The arresting officers were both polite and professional. One of them took notes as the other inspected the shop. The paramedics attended to Daddy Joe. The officers gave no indication they doubted Rolly’s story, or suspected Rolly had anything to do with Daddy Joe’s condition. They tried calling the owner of the business, but the owner’s phone was, as Rolly explained to them, the same phone he’d used to call them. Now he sat in limbo at the attractive Mid-City Police station, waiting to find out if he would be spending another night in jail, hoping he would get to go home.

  He shifted his weight in the hard plastic chair and closed his eyes to ward off the nervous jitter of the fluorescent lights. The police had taken his wallet and keys, as well as Randy’s phone. No one seemed concerned he might be a flight risk. No one expected a paunchy forty-something on crutches to make a break for it. They were correct in their assumptions.

  He heard a familiar voice, turned his head and spotted Bonnie speaking with the officer at the front desk. She glanced Rolly’s way but didn’t acknowledge him. A man in a coat and tie walked up to greet Bonnie. They spoke for a moment. The two of them walked over to Rolly. The man in the coat crossed his arms.

  Bonnie looked down at him. ‘Breaking and entering, huh?’ she said.

  ‘I entered. I didn’t break,’ Rolly said.

  ‘I hear they had to break in to get you out. That some white-haired lady got the drop on you?’

  ‘I’m not particularly agile right now,’ Rolly said, indicating the crutches.

  Bonnie picked up his crutches. ‘Where’d you get these?’ she asked.

  ‘I got bit by a black widow spider. Wanna see?’

  ‘I asked where you got them, not why.’

  ‘Brawley General Hospital. It’s in the desert, north of El Centro.’

  ‘I know where Brawley is. What were you doing out there?’

  ‘I was working. On a case.’

  ‘For this Macy Starr woman? She’s your client?’

  Rolly nodded.

  ‘You say Macy ran after the old lady,’ said Bonnie.

  ‘Dotty,’ said the man in the suit.

  ‘Dotty,’ said Bonnie. ‘Macy chased after this Dotty and left you holding the bag.’

  ‘I don’t think Macy had anything to do with my getting locked inside.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘There had to be someone else there.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The man who tied up Daddy Joe. The one I met two days ago. The ex-con who pretended to be Randy Parker.’

  ‘What makes you think he wasn’t Randy Parker?’

  ‘I think Randy Parker is dead.’

  The man in the tie and coat exchanged glances with Bonnie. ‘We better record this,’ he said.

  Bonnie nodded. ‘C’mon,’ she said, handing Rolly his crutches.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Rolly asked.

  ‘I’ll explain in a minute.’

  Rolly climbed out of his chair and followed the man in the coat and tie down the hallway. Bonnie followed behind them. The man walked into a room with a small table and some chairs and closed the door behind them. He asked Rolly to take a seat on the opposite side of the table and seated himself. Bonnie pulled up another chair across from Rolly. The man in the suit pushed a red button o
n the table.

  ‘Detective John Creach interviewing Roland Waters,’ he said. ‘Assisted by Sergeant Bonnie Hammond.’

  ‘Are you arresting me?’ Rolly asked.

  ‘Please state your name, for the record,’ said Detective Creach.

  ‘Roland Waters,’ said Rolly. ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘Mr Waters,’ said Detective Creach. ‘Are you acquainted with Randy Parker, proprietor of the Alien Artifacts shop at 5424 El Cajon Boulevard?’

  ‘I met someone who claimed to be him. At the store.’

  ‘You don’t believe this man was Mr Parker?’

  ‘Not any more.’

  ‘Can you describe the man?’

  ‘He was an older guy – older than me anyway. Kind of tough looking, in good shape for his age. Muscular. Taller than me.’

  ‘How tall would you say?’

  ‘Six-two, six-three.’

  ‘Hair color?’

  ‘Black. I think it’s a dye job, though. Or a wig.’

  ‘Eyes?’

  Rolly shrugged. ‘He had sunglasses on.’

  ‘Any other distinctive features?’

  ‘He had tattoos on his arms and neck. One was a watch, without any hands.’

  Someone knocked on the door. A young woman entered the room. She handed a large envelope to Creach.

  ‘Thank you, Denise,’ said Creach. The woman left. Creach opened the envelope and pulled out some photographs. He passed one over to Rolly.

  ‘Is this the man you met at the store?’ he asked. Rolly looked at the photo – a young man in his early twenties.

  ‘No,’ Rolly said.

  ‘Do you recognize the man in this photo?’

  ‘It looks like Randy No Pants,’ said Rolly. ‘I saw him talking to Macy in Slab City.’

  ‘We heard they were arguing.’

  ‘It was an animated discussion.’

  ‘Do you know what they were discussing?’

  ‘He told Macy he’d met someone who knew her parents. He wanted her to go with him.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To the hot springs.’

  ‘In Slab City?’

  ‘Look, I know all about this. I know Randy No Pants drowned. I know Macy found him. We went through all this with the detective from Imperial County. Kinnie Harper was there.’

  ‘Yes, we know. Sergeant Hammond has talked to Chief Harper.’

  ‘So why are you asking me about this stuff?’

  Creach picked up the photo and inspected it. ‘Would it surprise you if I told you this was a photo of Randy Parker?’

  ‘Two days ago, yes. But not now.’

  ‘This is not the man you talked to in the store?’

  ‘No,’ said Rolly. He was tired of hearing himself answer the same questions. ‘I started to think that Randy Parker and Randy No Pants might be the same person, which meant the guy I talked to in the shop wasn’t Randy Parker. That’s why I went there with Macy. I wanted to talk to Dotty and find out for sure.’

  ‘What did this Dotty woman say?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘You remember anything specific from your conversation?’

  ‘She said she was blameless.’

  ‘Blameless for what?’

  Rolly shrugged. ‘Blameless in all of this, that’s what she said.’

  ‘Do you have any idea what she meant by that?’

  ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘She was into this alien stuff. The Randy guy was too. They were looking for a one-string guitar owned by the UVTs.’

  Detective Creach looked over at Bonnie. She nodded.

  Creach handed Rolly another photo – a mugshot. ‘You recognize this man?’ he said. Rolly nodded. ‘That’s him,’ he said. ‘The man in the store. Who is he?’

  ‘His name’s Parnell Gibbons.’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘You’ve never heard of him?’

  ‘I think Kinnie Harper mentioned his name to me earlier.’

  Bonnie cleared her throat.

  ‘What?’ said Rolly.

  ‘C’mon,’ she said. ‘You really don’t know who this guy is?’

  ‘No. Kinnie said something about Daddy Joe arresting him.’

  ‘This lady at the store talked to you about the Universal Vibration Technologies, right? The UVTs?’

  ‘Yeah. They were this UFO cult who thought they were aliens in human form – something like that. Macy told me they drank this gold soup. That it was poisoned and that’s why they died. I guess this Gibbons guy had something to do with it. Randy Parker’s parents were there. They died with the rest. Kinnie showed me the memorial. Near the reservation.’

  ‘What’s this guitar thing?’ said Creach. ‘The diddley whatsis?’

  ‘Diddley bow.’

  ‘You say they were looking for one?’

  ‘A friend of mine runs a guitar shop. Rob Norwood. This guy was in there, gave him Randy Parker’s business card, said he’d pay good money if Rob could find him a special kind of diddley bow. It has something to do with the UVTs, I guess. Kinnie showed me a crime-scene photo. There was a whole rack of them in the back. Kinnie said she remembered the UVTs playing these things out on the mesa when she was a kid.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Daddy Joe purchased a diddley bow from the sheriff’s property auction. He was looking for one that was built by a guy Rob and I used to know. The guy worked up at Guitar Trader a long time ago. His initials are on the back. B-M, for Buddy Meeks.’

  Detective Creach wrote the name down. ‘Parnell Gibbons was released a few days ago. From Calipatria State Prison.’

  Rolly remembered a road sign just north of Brawley. Calipatria State Prison. On the way to Slab City.

  ‘Macy said Randy Parker went to see someone in Calipatria. He said it was his brother.’

  ‘Mr Parker was a regular visitor at the prison,’ said Creach. He shuffled through some papers. ‘He talked to Gibbons many times over the last year.’

  ‘What was Gibbons in for?’ said Rolly.

  ‘Manslaughter and embezzlement,’ said Creach. ‘Multiple counts.’

  ‘He killed those people,’ said Bonnie. ‘Gibbons purchased the poison. The D.A. didn’t think they could convince a jury the poisoning wasn’t accidental so they charged him with manslaughter.’

  Rolly rested his elbows on the table and put his hands over his face. ‘You think Gibbons killed Randy?’ he said.

  ‘We’ll wait to see what the coroner out in Imperial has to say,’ said Creach. ‘Intentional drowning is tough to prove, unless there’s some kind of a struggle. There’s some marks on the body that suggest he might have been shocked with a stungun. Joe Harper has similar marks on his body.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Rolly.

  ‘Excuse me?’ said Creach. Rolly turned around in his chair and lifted his shirt, exposing the two brown dots on his lower back. He turned back to the table.

  ‘When did this happen?’ said Bonnie.

  ‘The other night, after we played the casino, at this place called Desert View Tower.’

  Bonnie clenched her jaw and gave him her blue-eyed beam-of-death look. That was all she could do with Creach there and the recording machine going. He would get an earful later.

  ‘Did you report this incident to anyone?’ she said.

  ‘I told Kinnie about it. Except for the stungun part.’

  Creach looked through his papers for something. He found it.

  ‘Joe Harper’s car was found near there,’ he said. ‘Off the In-Ko-Pah exit.’

  ‘Yes. I talked to Kinnie about that too. I saw his car that morning driving away from us.’

  ‘You saw Joe Harper in it?’

  ‘No. I couldn’t see who was driving. It was an old blue Toyota. I saw it about a hundred feet from us, pulling out from this secondary road. We were parked near the gate.’

  Creach made a note.

  ‘Has anyone seen this Gibbons guy since he got out?’ asked Rolly. ‘Did anyone see him in Slab City?’


  ‘No witnesses, so far,’ said Creach. ‘Did Macy Starr ever mention his name?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you believe Macy Starr was taken by force?’

  ‘I don’t know. She ran out after the woman, Dotty. That was the last time I saw her.’

  ‘You think it’s possible she ran out on you?’ said Bonnie.

  Rolly slumped back in his chair. Anything was possible at this point. ‘What about Dotty?’ he said. ‘What’s she got to do with this guy? Why did she keep saying she was blameless?’

  ‘We’re working on something,’ said Bonnie.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Too soon,’ said Bonnie. ‘First we need you to tell us more about your case.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘How about everything?’

  Rolly closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. It came out in a rush. He told them everything he could remember about Macy, the photo of Aunt Betty and Eric Ozzie on the back of the diddley bow, Cool Bob and the bird-calling gravel thrower, and the schematic he’d found in the maps display at Desert View Tower.

  Bonnie and Creach let him run. He told them about TEOTWAYKI and the Astral Vibrator, about Daddy Joe and his files and the mysterious beeping phone calls. He purged his memory, vomited up everything in his brain. It kept him from vomiting up whatever was left in his stomach. He felt better when it was done. He leaned back and opened his eyes. Bonnie and Creach both stared at him. It was a lot of information to take in. He hoped they could make more sense out of it than he could.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The Patents

  Rolly parked the Tioga at the Rite Aid in Hillcrest and walked to his house. Negotiating his own driveway in the motorhome seemed like too fine a task to attempt in his present condition. Backing it out would be even more problematic. No spaces of sufficient size were available on his street, but there was plenty of room in the drugstore’s parking lot. Security services wouldn’t call for a tow unless the Tioga had been there for more than twelve hours.

  He opened the door to his house. Everything looked clean and neat, more so than when he left. His mother had been there, doing her bit in his time of duress. He sat down on the sofa. His phone rang. ‘Hey,’ he said, answering.