The little boy was Felipe, Lucia’s uncle. On some level he had known it even before he saw the nametag. He recognized the boy’s big, thoughtful eyes. He had seen those eyes overlooking a model of 1950s Sunnyview—and before that, on the street outside the Blue Agave. He’d tried to deny it, but he was sure of it now. Felipe was the man who had first spoken to him about “the glare.” And that meant that Felipe was not what he appeared. The realization was unsettling. Benjamin had learned over many years as an investigator not to ignore his gut—and this wouldn’t be the first time a revelation came to him in a dream—but this time, it seemed like something else.
He was still thinking about what the dream meant when his phone rang. It was Detective Lentz, asking him to come down to his office. He wouldn’t say why, but it didn’t sound like good news. He showered and shaved, gulped down a handful of aspirin for his pounding head, got some coffee, and drove down to the Sunnyview Administrative Center. Benjamin’s hunch was right: it wasn’t good news.
“What do you mean, she’s gone?” Benjamin asked. He could hardly believe what Lentz had told him.
“The FBI showed up this morning,” said Lentz. “I really can’t say any more than that. They took Jessica’s body as evidence in a federal case.”
“They can’t do that!” cried Benjamin. “I don’t care if they are the FBI, they can’t steal my daughter’s body!”
“I’m sorry, Benjamin. I’m not happy about it either. They just showed up at the morgue facility this morning and insisted they needed the body. The Medical Examiner tried to call me, but I was driving in to work at the time. By the time I returned her call, the body was gone. They’d browbeaten a morgue technician into releasing her.”
“That’s unacceptable,” said Benjamin. “The morgue technician should know better than to—”
“She was pretty shaken up,” said Lentz. “I don’t think they gave her much choice.”
“Assholes,” grumbled Benjamin. “What’s their justification? Who are they investigating? XKredits?”
“I don’t know any more than I’ve told you,” said Lentz. “I tried my contact at the FBI office in San Francisco already, but he wasn’t talking. I’m going to have to go over his head. I’ll let you know as soon as I find anything out.”
“What the hell is going on in this town?” asked Benjamin.
Lentz had no answer.
Benjamin got up and left the building. He drove back to the motel.
Not that he didn’t trust Lentz, but Benjamin spent the next three hours on the phone with the FBI. It had been a while since he had worked a case with the feds, but he still knew a few people in the San Francisco office. He got the distinct impression all his contacts had been warned about talking to him, however. They wouldn’t tell him anything about his daughter or confirm they had an ongoing investigation having anything to do with Glazier or Cameron Payne. Hell, they wouldn’t even admit they had sent any agents to Sunnyview that morning. Somebody had put the fear of God into the entire office.
Without thinking, Benjamin grabbed his keys and left the motel room, making a beeline for his car. By the time he got in the car, he knew exactly where he was going: Lucia’s house.
He didn’t yet know how, but somehow Felipe was connected to everything that was happening in Sunnyview—his daughter’s murder, the blackmail, and Glazier’s shady past. He was going to confront the man and find out what he knew. He got in his car and drove to Lucia’s.
He knocked several times at Lucia’s door, but there was no answer. Lucia and her father were undoubtedly at work, and Sofia would be at school. Felipe would be home alone, bent over his model, insensate to the outside world. Unless he was out wandering around downtown again, that is.
Benjamin tried the knob and found the door was unlocked. He called out again, and then opened the door and stepped inside. He shouted a greeting, but there was no reply. The house was completely silent.
He walked through the foyer and down the hall to Felipe’s room and stopped in front of the bedroom door. “Felipe?” he asked loudly, more to announce his presence than to evoke a response. There was none, of course. Listening at the door, he heard nothing. It was impossible to tell if Felipe was even inside.
He turned the door handle, pushing the door slowly open. Not knowing the exact nature of Felipe’s condition, he erred on the side of being overly cautious. He knew that people with autism could have severely adverse reactions to any unexpected occurrences. Felipe hadn’t reacted the last time he’d caught sight of Benjamin, but maybe he had felt safe because Lucia was there. Benjamin wondered how long it had been since Felipe had been forced to encounter a stranger on his own.
Felipe was there, still bent over his model. He didn’t seem to notice Benjamin standing there.
“Felipe?” said Benjamin again, more quietly. Still no reaction. Felipe was adjusting the position of a car on his tabletop model. It was a 1950s-vintage Buick Roadmaster, very much like one that Benjamin used to drive. Now that Benjamin got a good look, he realized that the model depicted the town of Sunnyview, circa 1950 or so. It was an eerily accurate model, conforming exactly to Benjamin’s memory. If he squinted a little, he could imagine it was an aerial view of the town of his youth—not that he’d ever seen it from that perspective.
The place where Felipe placed the Buick wasn’t far from where Benjamin had encountered the homeless man. Benjamin had convinced himself that man was Felipe, but now doubts crept back. It seemed impossible. How would this pathetic man sitting here in his pajamas, whose world existed entirely within the confines of his bedroom, have made his way across town to accost Benjamin? It was clear to Benjamin as he watched Felipe that this model was the only reality he knew.
For an instant, Benjamin was seized by the disturbing idea that he was just a puppet in Felipe’s model. It was a crazy thought, but his experiences since he’d come back to town gave it some traction. The feeling that he was part of some grand scheme that he couldn’t quite envision nagged at his consciousness. Something was off about this town, and whatever it was, Felipe had tapped into it somehow.
Benjamin stepped slowly toward the table to get a better look at the model. Still, Felipe didn’t stir. Having made his adjustment, he now simply stared down at the streets he had populated with strikingly realistic automobiles and tiny people. He seemed to be waiting for something.
Benjamin found his eyes wandering to the intersection of Fremont and Olive, where the newspaper had said Dominick Spiegel had been killed in a car accident. The intersection, just outside the downtown area, and near the edge of the table, was unremarkable. All four corners were occupied by vacant lots. None of the buildings that now stood there yet existed. And yet, despite the complete ordinariness of the intersection, something wasn’t right. It was the same feeling Benjamin had gotten when he had explored the intersection two nights ago, but more concrete.
The intersection was wrong. As a kid, Benjamin had ridden his bike down every street in Sunnyview, but he had never been to the intersection of Olive and Fremont, for one simple reason: when he lived there, the intersection didn’t exist. When he was a child, Olive Avenue had dead-ended in front of a brick building that had long since been torn down: Sand Hill Children’s Hospital. The hospital had been moved a few miles out of town in the 1970s to make room for commercial development, but in 1952—the year of Spiegel’s fatal accident—it had stood on the side of the modern-day intersection.
It was impossible. Had Benjamin remembered the newspaper article wrong? He had specifically double-checked the location of the accident before driving to the intersection. It seemed unlikely he could have made such a glaring error. But if he remembered the story correctly, that meant it had been a fabrication: Spiegel couldn’t possibly have died at that intersection, because the intersection didn’t exist at the time of the accident. That suggested some sort of cover-up, but that idea made no sense either: the error would have been obvious to anyone living in Sunnyview at the time. If you w
anted to cover up the details of an accident, claiming the accident had occurred at a nonexistent intersection was probably the absolute worst way to do it.
And why did Felipe’s model—which clearly depicted Sunnyview of the 1950s—contain the same error? Why was it missing Sand Hill Children’s Hospital? If the model had been designed by anyone else, Benjamin would have chalked it up to over-reliance on the designer’s knowledge of modern-day Sunnyview, but it was hard to believe Felipe would have that problem.
Benjamin walked slowly around to the edge of the table and reached out with his right index finger, pointing at the intersection. “Right here,” he said. “There should be a—”
Felipe screamed. He pulled away from the table, buried his head in his hands, and he screamed. It was like nothing Benjamin had ever heard before, like he had shoved an icepick right into Felipe’s heart. There was a split-second of silence as Felipe took a breath, and then the screaming continued.
Benjamin backed away, reflexively holding his hands up. “Hey,” he said, trying to sound non-threatening. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to….”
But his voice was inaudible over the screaming. He debated whether he should try to subdue or calm Felipe, but decided against it. He might just make things worse, and Felipe could very well turn violent if he felt threatened. Benjamin walked slowly out of the room and closed the door. The screaming continued, seeming as loud as ever. Benjamin could only hope that this was an episode of a sort he had experienced before; the neighbors three houses away could probably hear him.
Benjamin made his way quickly down the hall to the front door. But as he reached for the handle, the door swung open toward him. He stopped abruptly, face-to-face with Lucia. Holding her hand, looking terrified, was Sofia.
“Benjamin!” yelped Lucia. “What are you doing here? What is wrong with Felipe?”
Benjamin held up his hands. “I’m sorry, I just wanted to talk to him.”
“Talk to him?” yelled Lucia in disbelief, shoving past him. “You can’t talk to Felipe.” Down the hall, Felipe was still screaming.
Lucia turned to Sofia and said, “Sweetie, go in the kitchen and make yourself a snack. I need to take care of Uncle Felipe.” Sofia nodded and darted into the kitchen. Lucia spun to face Benjamin. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “How did you get in?”
“It was unlocked,” yelled Benjamin. “I’m sorry, is there anything I can—”
“Wait outside,” Lucia snapped.
Benjamin knew better than to argue. As Lucia disappeared down the hall, he stepped outside, closing the door behind him. The screaming was a bit muted out here, but he was sure it could be heard throughout the neighborhood. Hopefully everybody in the area was at work. He sat down on the stoop and waited.
The screaming died down thirty seconds or so later, and after another five minutes Lucia came outside.
“What was that about?” she demanded. “Why were you in my house?”
“I’m sorry,” said Benjamin. “The door was open. I just wanted to talk to Felipe for a moment. Shouldn’t Lucia be in school?”
Lucia glared at him. “She had a doctor’s appointment. I was going to take her back to school after lunch, but now I’ll probably spend the rest of the day trying to keep Felipe from flipping out again. I’ve never seen him that bad. What did you say to him?”
“I just asked him about his model,” said Benjamin. “I’m very sorry. I’ll go.” He got up and began walking toward his car. Lucia didn’t stop him. He heard the front door slam behind him.
Chapter Thirteen
Benjamin returned to the library and confirmed what he already knew: the newspaper article about Spiegel’s death definitely placed the accident at the corner of Fremont and Olive, an intersection that didn’t exist at the time of the accident. There was only one copy of the article, preserved on microfiche. Benjamin supposed that the microfiche could have been phony, but why would anyone go to the trouble to plant such a bizarre clue? Was someone expecting him to come to this particular library to research a car accident that had occurred over fifty years ago? And why would this hypothetical forger want to mislead him this way? None of it made any sense. The pounding in his head had subsided a bit, but his brain wasn’t connecting the dots.
He searched the Internet for information about the crash, but none of the sources he found mentioned the intersection. For a moment he considered driving to another town to check their version of the microfiche, but then he had another idea: he found the phone number for the Sunnyview Herald and stepped outside to call them. The story had been written by the paper’s news editor, a man named Tony Sabbia. He explained to the woman who answered that he was a retired police detective who was doing some research on Spiegel’s accident and asked if she had any information on Mr. Sabbia’s whereabouts. She put him on hold and came back a few minutes later with a phone number for him. It was a local number, and Benjamin called it. Twenty seconds later he was talking to Tony Sabbia. Benjamin reiterated his story and Sabbia told him he’d be happy to help out. He gave Benjamin an address near the Hidden Oaks area, not far from where William Glazer lived.
Benjamin stopped for lunch and then drove to Sabbia’s house. Tony Sabbia looked to be in his late seventies, which would have put him in his mid-twenties when he wrote the story about Spiegel’s death. Pretty young for a news editor, but of course back then Sunnyview was just a tiny farming town. The Sunnyview Herald had probably only had three or four employees at the time.
Sabbia met Benjamin at the door and led him into his living room. Sabbia moved slowly, but seemed alert.
“I don’t know what I can tell you about that accident,” said Sabbia. “It was a very long time ago. Are you writing a book or something? I get calls from people writing books about Glazier once in a while.”
“Something like that,” said Benjamin. “Were you at the scene?”
“Sure,” said Sabbia. “I got there right after the paramedics. Saw them pull Spiegel from the car. Grisly scene. You don’t forget something like that.”
“Do you remember where the accident happened?”
“Boy, you’re really testing me now,” said Sabbia. “If you can wait a minute, I’ve got all those papers in boxes in the garage. That paper doesn’t hold up too well, but I’ve got them wrapped in plastic.”
“I was actually hoping you could tell me from your own recollections,” said Benjamin. “There seems to be some discrepancy in the records.”
“Well,” said Sabbia thoughtfully. “It wasn’t far from downtown. It was on Fremont, I think.”
“Fremont and what?”
Sabbia shrugged. “It was almost fifty years ago. I’m lucky if I can remember where I put my keys these days.”
“It’s important,” said Benjamin.
“I’m sorry,” replied Sabbia with a shrug. “I can’t remember.”
“The story says Fremont and Olive,” said Benjamin.
“Okay, then it was Fremont and Olive.”
“The problem is, that intersection didn’t exist in 1952,” said Benjamin.
“What do you mean? Of course it existed.”
Benjamin pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. Before he left the library, he had photocopied part of an aerial photo of Sunnyview from 1948. It showed a large, irregular rectangle where the intersection should be. “That’s Sand Hill Children’s Hospital,” said Benjamin. “The hospital was moved in 1954, but the building sat on that spot until 1976. They had to tear it down to put Fremont through to Jasper. The intersection of Fremont and Olive wasn’t completed until 1977.”
Sabbia shrugged again. “What do you want me to say? The paper made a mistake. I made a mistake. It happens.”
“And nobody noticed? I checked the next several issues of the Herald. There were no letters to the editor, no corrections. You printed a story about a car accident at a nonexistent intersection, and nobody in the entire town said anything?”
“Maybe
they did,” Sabbia said. “Maybe we intended to publish a correction but never got around to it. We were a small paper. Mistakes happen.”
“But a mistake like this? How would a mistake like that get in the story in the first place, unless you were hallucinating when you wrote it? Or just making the whole thing up?”
Sabbia bristled. “Are you accusing me of something?”
Benjamin shook his head. “Not at all. I’m just trying to understand this. Something very strange happened here.”
Sabbia nodded. After a moment, he said, “You’re not writing a book, are you?”
“No, sir,” admitted Benjamin. “I’m interested in this on a personal level.”
“A personal level,” said Sabbia flatly.
“Do you watch the news?” said Benjamin. “You heard about that girl they found dead in the creek?”
“Sure.”
“She was my daughter.” Benjamin had tried to avoid using his daughter’s death to manipulate Sabbia, but he didn’t seem to have much choice but to tell him the truth.
“Oh,” said Sabbia weakly. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right,” said Benjamin. “I hadn’t spoken to her for some time.”
“And you think Spiegel’s death is somehow related to what happened to your daughter?”
“I have my suspicions,” said Benjamin. “Honestly, I was ready to let the police handle it, but things like this keep nagging at me. There’s something about Glazier that just isn’t right.”
Sabbia stared at Benjamin for some time. “Well, you’re right about that,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
Sabbia sighed. “I spent a lot of time looking into Glazier and his pet projects. You’ve heard of GLARE?”
Benjamin’s ears perked up. “Counter-intelligence program during the war.”
“That’s what they claimed, anyway,” said Sabbia.
“You’re saying it wasn’t?”
“Sure, it was. But it was more than that. William Glazier was a strange man, with some eclectic interests, and the feds loved throwing money at him. They were terrified about Communism at the time, of course. He was able to indulge a lot of impulses at GLARE, under the guise of fighting Communism.”
City of Sand Page 10