by Nic Saint
He rocked back on his heels, staring up at the sky. “Just what Mayor Vaughn told Chief Brody. And see how many lives were lost in that disaster.”
“That was just a movie!”
He faced me again, his smile gone and replaced by a look of annoyance. “Movie or not, I’m here to tell you that that woman was murdered. And the sooner you come to terms with that, the sooner we can find the killer. Mr. Shearwood. You see my point, don’t you?”
“Oh, sure I see your point,” said Luitpold with a grimace. “But frankly I think you’re mistaken. Why would anyone murder this woman on one of our rides? That’s just nuts.”
Detective Jamison’s jaw set, and a mutinous look came into his eyes. “I’ll discuss this with Chief Render and the Mayor. I’m sure they’ll see my point.”
“I’m sure they will,” I said. “And I’m sure they’ll be a lot more reasonable than you, Detective.”
I’d only met him five minutes ago, but already I disliked the man intensely. And the feeling appeared to be mutual, as he leveled a nasty look at me before stalking off, grumbling something under his breath.
“Can you believe that?” I asked. “The nerve of the guy!”
“A woman did die,” Luitpold reminded me. “And we still have to find out what happened.”
“We will, and I’m sure the investigation will show that the equipment malfunctioned and that Mrs. Reckitt was the victim of a terrible and very unfortunate accident.”
“Let’s hope Chief Render and the Mayor see it that way,” said Luitpold. “And that they don’t decide to close down the park.”
“If that happens, it will ruin us,” I said. A murder in Charleneland? This was a place where people came to enjoy a family holiday. Murders didn’t exactly feature into that. If Jamison was right, we were in big trouble.
Chapter 3
Luitpold and I watched on as the coroner’s people removed the body from the Haunted Ride through an emergency exit on the side, and placed her in an ambulance.
We entered the structure where the two cousins had done so, through a breach in the cladding. We’d have to get that fixed. The body of Anny Reckitt had been found in the Pit of Doom, right at the bottom of the ride, where the car dips down and makes a flip so that the visitors are upside down when they travel through the pit and are faced with snakes and spiders popping up, seemingly attacking them. It’s the scariest and also the most popular part of the ride, and keeps people coming back for more.
“That’s where they found her,” Luitpold said as he gestured to a spot next to a giant anaconda.
The lights had been flipped on, and the pit didn’t look scary at all now. Just a bunch of rubber props operating on an elaborate system of hydraulics.
I glanced up at the railroad track that runs through the ride. There was no question that the woman had been ejected from the ride just when the car went through its notorious flip. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Ever.
“Did you look at the surveillance footage?” I asked.
“I had the boys set it up. We’re waiting for you to take a look.”
“Let’s do that now. We need to know which car malfunctioned so my dad can take a look at it and find out what happened, exactly.” And make sure it never happened again.
We headed back out, and my attention was drawn to some sort of altercation that was taking place right in front of the Haunted Ride. At first I thought they were visitors, dismayed that the ride was closed. But when we rounded the corner and arrived at the front of the ride, I saw that the protagonists of the altercation were none other than Charlene and… Anaïs Phoenix.
Phoenix, as she’s more commonly known, is about the same age as Charlene, and has gone through pretty much the same career trajectory. She started out in the late sixties, became a huge star in the seventies, peaked in the early eighties, fizzled in the nineties and has been living off her former glory ever since.
She runs a theme park similar to Charleneland called PhoenixWorld not fifty miles from Sapsucker, in Ipanema. The two ladies have competed since the dawn of their respective careers and their rivalry is as notorious as they themselves are.
“You killed her!” Phoenix was yelling, pointing an accusing finger at Charlene. “You killed my voice doctor!”
Like Charlene, Phoenix loves to cause a scene, and is a regular drama queen. But where Charlene is well-known for her outrageously big blond hair, Phoenix’s hair is black and sleek, her face an expressionless waxen mask due to innumerable facelifts and procedures. She might be sixty-five but she doesn’t look a day over thirty. Charlene, too, had stuff done to her face, but not to the extent she lost the use of her facial muscles.
Charlene thrust out her sizable bust. “You’re crazy! I didn’t kill anyone!”
“You did! You knew I relied on Doctor Reckitt to fix my voice so you went and killed her, destroying my career in the process! You’re a murderer!”
Charlene threw her head back and uttered a hoarse laugh. “Your career? You have to have a career for it to be destroyed. You never had a career!”
“I did, too! Unlike you, who hasn’t had a hit in thirty years, my latest album just went platinum!”
“Greatest hits albums don’t count. You haven’t had new material out in decades. Admit it, Phoenix. You’re a has-been who never was in the first place!”
“Should we break them up?” I asked Luitpold.
“Nah. They’re not going to fight. They just like to yell a lot.”
People were gathering around, taking out their smartphones and eagerly filming the scene. When they bought their tickets that morning they probably didn’t expect to see Charlene and Phoenix engaged in a catfight.
“I hate you,” Phoenix said dramatically. “And I’m going to sue you and this ridiculous excuse for a park of yours.” She wagged a bony finger at Charlene. “You’re going down, Charlene Chocker. Mark my words.”
“It’s Simple, Anaïs, not Chocker. I told you I never want to hear my ex-husband’s name again. Not after he cheated on me with you!”
“And it’s Phoenix, not Anaïs. And you’re going to pay for this, Charlene.”
“You’re going to pay for slinging baseless accusations and threats at me! You’re going down!”
“No, you’re going down! You and this stinking park of yours.”
The two famous ladies stood glaring at each other, practically nose to nose, and for a moment I was afraid Luitpold was wrong. That they were going to tear into each other, just like Alexis Colby and Krystle Carrington on Dynasty. An excited hush had descended on the crowd, and Charlene and Phoenix finally became aware that they had an audience and seemed to snap out of it. Phoenix was the first to draw back from the precipice. “You haven’t seen the last of me, Charlene Chocker. I’m going to get you for this. Mark my words. This is the last time you’ve tried to destroy me!”
“And you mark my words, Anaïs Phoenix: I won’t stand for this nonsense. You’ll hear from my lawyer!”
“Not if you hear from my lawyer first!”
Next to me, Luitpold produced an involuntary chuckle. “This stuff is better than a soap opera.”
“Yes, if Charlene ever decides to retire from singing, she should audition for a part on Days of Our Lives.”
“Or the Dynasty reboot. She’d make a great Krystle Carrington.”
All around, the audience seemed to sense the show was over, and they applauded heartily, thinking this had all been part of the day’s entertainment. Phoenix, ever the diva, turned around and blew them a kiss, while Charlene took a bow.
Charlene joined us, still looking extremely upset. Immediately, she challenged Luitpold. “I thought I told you never to allow that crazy woman inside my park?!”
“She must have registered under a fake name, Charlene,” said Luitpold. “She’s on the blacklist, so there’s no way she could have gotten in under her real name.”
Charlene stood glaring after her rival’s retreating back. “The nerve of t
he woman. To claim I killed her voice doctor.” She turned to me. “Tell me that was an accident, Mia.”
“It was an accident, though the police seem to have gotten it into their nut that it was murder.”
Charlene’s expressive eyes widened considerably. “Murder! But how?!”
“I have no idea. The detective in charge of the investigation thinks someone tinkered with the locking mechanism on the harness. But I don’t see how that’s even possible.”
Charlene pressed her lips together. “I want you to get to the bottom of this, Mia. I want to know what’s going on in my park and I want to know now. You can rest assured Phoenix will spread the word that this was murder. She’s going to try and close us down and we can’t let her, you understand?”
“I think our first priority should be to determine what happened to Doctor Reckitt,” I said. “Whether it was murder or not, we have to figure out how she died. And then we can start worrying about the impact on our park.”
Charlene stared me down, or at least she tried to. I stood my ground. A person had died, and to do right by her was priority number one.
“Fine,” Charlene finally snapped. “Find out what happened to Phoenix’s voice doctor. But if it was murder—”
“Impossible,” Luitpold said, shaking his head.
“If it was murder,” Charlene insisted, “we need to come up with a strategy to handle the fallout. Because believe you me, there’s going to be consequences.” She gave Luitpold a threatening look and it was clear his job was on the line.
Luitpold gulped as we watched Charlene sashay off. For a sixty-five-year-old woman, she still had a wasp waist and an impossibly large chest. I frankly didn’t know how she did it, as I never saw her working out.
“Do you think she’s going to fire me?” Luitpold asked, scratching his chin.
“I think she’s going to fire us all,” I said, “if we don’t get to the bottom of this.”
“She can’t fire you,” said Luitpold. “You’re family.”
“Oh, she will fire us,” I said. “Just you wait and see.”
Chapter 4
We walked back to the entrance of the park, where security was housed. It was my home away from home. Well, technically the entire park was my home, of course. The crowds were thickening, and people were having a great time all around us. Main Street, which had been made to resemble an Old West town, complete with saloons, banks, a jail and a sheriff’s office, was filled with visitors taking pictures with the cast members dressed up as cowboys and Indians, pioneers and gold-diggers, and bank robbers and sheriffs. The restaurants, candy stores and soda stands were also doing great business, as were the ice cream parlors.
Scattered across the park were roller coasters, which could be seen over the tops of the trees and houses, the most popular of which was still the wooden one. There were themed villages, like Tepee Town, Ghost Town, where the Haunted Ride stood, Stone Age Town, with a popular dinosaur exhibit, Pirate Lair, with a gigantic pirate ship where a 3D pirate show had proved a huge draw, Pharaoland, where the Mummy’s Tomb thrilled younger visitors, and Water World, with its fountains and popular log ride.
And then there was the concert hall, of course, where all day long shows were being performed, with the biggest show reserved for the end of the day, when Charlene made her appearance on the main stage and sang all of her biggest hits. She did this every single day, and her show and her ride through Charleneland before each show in a gorgeous classic pink Chevrolet were the highlights of the day for many of the visitors. It was why they came to Charleneland, and not one of the many other amusement parks in the vicinity.
We arrived at what looked like an ordinary settler house, near the entrance, and walked in through the front door. Once inside, it was as modern as any office building, with several people staring at monitors that displayed footage from the hundreds of cameras we had set up all over the park. At the back was Luitpold’s office, right next to mine. And we’d just stepped foot inside my office when loud voices reached my ear.
“Not again,” I said, fearing Phoenix was causing a fuss again. But when we approached the front desk, right next to the Lost and Found area, I saw that the person responsible for the commotion was none other than Detective Blane Jamison. His face had turned slightly red as he stood talking to Sam Brown, the woman manning the front desk.
“I demand to see that footage. Right now!” he was saying.
“All I can tell you is that I can’t give you access to—Oh, Mia. Thank God. This policeman has been making quite a nuisance of himself.”
“What seems to be the problem, Detective?” I asked, walking up to the desk.
“I want to see the footage from your security cameras and this woman refuses to cooperate.”
“That’s because Sam has been instructed never to allow visitors access to our command center,” I explained. “It’s all part of the park experience. We don’t want to ruin the magic by allowing guests a look behind the scenes.”
He tapped his chest. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a cop, not a visitor. And I want to see those tapes.”
I directed a quick look of exasperation at Luitpold, who gave me a sympathetic grimace. “Follow me,” I said. “We were just about to go over them.”
I led the way to my office, and Detective Jamison fell into step beside me. “So have you thought about my theory?”
“That Mrs. Reckitt was murdered? It’s simply not possible, Detective. People don’t get murdered in Charleneland. It never happens.”
“And why is that?”
“Because we run a pretty tight ship.” I gestured at the banks of screens depicting every nook and cranny of the park. “We are always watching. And whenever something takes place, we’re in place to act.”
We stopped in front of one of the monitors, where a man could be seen thrashing about. He was very obviously drunk, and attacking a visitor waiting in line for the water log ride. The employee managing the ride immediately spoke a few instructions into her ear mic and on the screen we could see a cowboy and a settler grab the drunken man by the arms and restrain him so he couldn’t harm anyone else. Within seconds, guards showed up and took over the ruffian and walked him off.
“Where are they taking him?” Detective Jamison asked, watching with interest.
“Right here. We have a prison cell for people like this gentleman. He’ll be photographed, his identity ascertained, and put on the blacklist. If he harmed any of our other visitors or if there was property damage we will file a complaint and transfer the gentleman causing the disturbance into police custody for further processing.”
“What is this blacklist?”
“A list of people who are banned from entering the park.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Banned as in, never allowed back inside?”
I nodded. “Depending on the charge, they are banned for life, or for a shorter period of time. We also ban schools and organizations if there are too many infractions.”
He whistled through his teeth. “You don’t kid around, do you?”
“Not when it comes to security. We take the security of our guests very, very seriously.”
“And still you allowed a woman to die on your watch,” he said. “How did that happen?”
I gave him my best steely look. “That’s what we’re here to find out.”
We stepped into my office and I plunked down on my swivel chair. My desk was piled high with paperwork I needed to wade through, and I saw Detective Jamison’s gaze dwell over it amusedly. I ignored him and his gaze and fired up my computer. “So what are we looking for?” I asked as I launched the security camera software. It was some state-of-the-art stuff and allowed me to bring up every single camera feed as well as the footage it had shot in the course of the last six months.
“According to the coroner the woman most likely died from a broken neck. She must have died on impact,” Detective Jamison said. “His best guess is that she died approximately an hour
before she was found.”
I tapped a few keys and the Haunted Ride cameras all flickered onto my screen. There were a dozen in all, mounted all over the ride. I typed in the approximate time of death, and let the program run through the footage, all displaying simultaneously on twelve mini-screens. “One of the cameras is directed straight at the Pit of Doom,” I said. “But first we need to ascertain which ride she was on.”
I magnified the footage from the start of the ride and zoomed in on the visitors getting on. I saw Byron, as he instructed them to get seated. Then I watched as the restraints all clicked into place. There were only seven people on the ride at this early hour. The park opened at nine and they must have been the early birds, wanting to avoid the lines.
“That’s her,” Luitpold suddenly said, pointing at the screen. “Right there at the bottom. Last row.”
He was right. The doctor’s white sweater and blond hair were unmistakable. She was sitting alone, no one next to her, looking around excitedly. “Let’s take us through the ride,” I muttered as I sped up the footage. We followed the car as it passed by all of the twelve cameras.
“Hey, did you see that?” asked Detective Jamison suddenly.
I halted the footage. “What?”
“There’s someone sitting next to her!”
And indeed there was. Unfortunately this was the part where the ride went through a tunnel, and since it was pretty dark it was impossible to make out who was sitting next to her. Still, it was weird. No one did that.
“Good catch,” said Luitpold.
“Thanks. Does that happen a lot? People switching seats?”
“Never,” I said. “They’re not supposed to do that. It’s incredibly dangerous. Plus they’re not supposed to know how to release the harness.”
“Unless they’re familiar with the ride,” said Luitpold. “They might know how to work the release button and where it’s safe to switch.”