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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Sirens

4:00 a.m.

Tap, tap, tap.

Joe’s dream held him in a headlock of reoccurrence that was both confusing and sinister. A mountain man with straggly black- and brown-streaked hair and beard repeatedly threw short bungee cords at him. The kind with hooks at each end for tying down books on the back of a bike. It was the desert. Joshua trees had eyes. One winked at him. Another bungee cord whirled from the mountain man's dirty hands. His clothes were shredded, caked with dirt, splattered with blood. Joe ducked. It caught him going down and lassoed him around the neck, the hooked end of the cord slashing his throat.

And then it all happened again. And again.

Tap, tap, tap.

"Joe!" a voice called from the distance. Sounded like it came from above. He couldn't get the hook of the bungee cord out of his neck.

"Joe!" the voice called again. "Wake up, Joe!"

A wailing. Sirens. In the desert? Not possible.

"Joe!"

Bang, bang, bang.

He turned 360 degrees. When he came around again, the mountain man was gone. Only the empty desert was before him.

"Joe!"

Wailing. Loud wailing. Or was it screaming?

The dream unlocked, went to black. Joe awoke in a sweat, the cool air of early morning seeping through the open window of his room. It was dark.

Someone was knocking on his door. "Joe," Leah was calling in a loud whisper. "Wake up!"

In the distance, sirens wound down abruptly.

"What?" he said, dazed by the dream, confused by the hour, having come from deep sleep. Clock glowed. "It's four in the morning–what the hell do you want?"

"Open the door!" she pleaded and gave it a whap.

"Damn it," he swore, throwing back the sheet. He stumbled over his clothes on the floor, unlocked the door and peeked out onto the balcony. "What?"

Leah, fully dressed, pushed open the door. "I've been banging on the door for five minutes. Don't you hear that?"

"I was asleep."

Leah flipped on the light. Joe's eyelids crushed together.

"Get dressed," she said, ignoring the fact he wore only his Jockey shorts. "Something's going on down at the lake."

"What're you talking about?"

"Sirens. Two or three police cars went by ten minutes ago. Then an ambulance. Something's going on."

"Some old fart had a heart attack or something."

"Maybe not."

"It's four o'clock, I've had two hours sleep, we'll get a paper in the morning and whatever it is, it'll be on the front page in this town."

Leah folded her arms. "It won't hurt to investigate."

"Then in-vest-i-gate," Joe replied, exaggerating each syllable. He crawled back under the sheet. "Turn off the light on your way out, Sheerluck."

"Joe," she said evenly, "get up. We can't miss an opportunity."

"Opportunity? You mean like tonight? You were sure we'd find Jackie with Reggie."

"We went about it all wrong. We should have come right out and asked him."

"Who started the gag on the guy? Huh? Tammy." He rolled over, his back to the door. He closed his eyes but could feel the darkness cover the room. His door closed. Her footsteps clacked down the balcony.

He laid there for a few minutes, unable to fall back asleep. He kept hearing those words: We can't miss an opportunity. Besides, he finally decided...he wanted nothing more to do with mountain men and bungee cords.

"Crap!" he spat through clenched teeth. He threw off the sheet. No more feathers in her cap. He snatched his trousers from the floor, sat on the bed, fell back, and stuffed both legs in at the same time.

* * *

Reggie understood that it would be the hardest thing he had ever done. He'd remember forever. It had been unreal. Lifting Jackie's raisin-skinned body from the tub of water. Wrapping it in the blanket from his bed. By a circuitous route outside the cabin grounds, he had carried her down to the lake. The memory came slowly–too slowly–and tortured his sensibilities. A stench had risen from the bundle in his arms. He breathed through his mouth. Feeling her weight, he had thought that this couldn't be happening. This was a dream. A movie. A horrible fantasy.

On the east side of the lake, several hundred yards from the cabins, he had knelt at the water's edge and rolled her nude body back into the lake, watched her sink into the dark, murky water. Jackie's stiff, clawed hand, paused above the top of the water, before disappearing. Gooseflesh swept over his arms, up his back. He shivered. His stomach undulated. Ferociously, doggie-style, he vomited in the sand.

The walk around the lake to the pay phone behind the darkened camp store had seemed to take a lifetime. The operator put him through to the police. Disguising his voice, he quickly said:

"Somebody drowned in The Plunge."

The dispatcher wanted his name. He repeated himself, saying each word distinctly, underlining it with a tone of seriousness. Again, the dispatcher asked his name.

"Check the east side," Reggie said, then hung up. He had returned to the cabin with the damp blanket, put it back on the bed, washed out the tub. The deathly odor, released when he pulled the body from the water, lingered in the cabin. Putting together the few toiletries bought earlier in the afternoon for his short stay, he had discovered the bottle of cheap cologne. He opened the top and threw the bottle as hard as he could into the tub. It shattered, spraying cologne around the tub and wall.

After dropping the cabin key in the slot of the office door, he had begun the walk around to the southern hills. It was almost three. He hadn't heard the sirens until almost three-thirty. Someone must have taken him seriously enough to go check it out. Her body would have sunk about only three feet at the spot where he'd returned her to the lake. Someone had scoured the water along the shore and discovered her.

When the sirens first sounded, he had just reached the Paley ranch by the back way. He'd spotted the small dirt landing strip in the little valley behind the house. He came upon the road where Jackie had parked the motorhome, where she'd been brutally raped by...he wanted to believe it was Josh–but a twinge of doubt pinched him in the back of his brain. Jackie was killed by her rapist. It was the only explanation. Who else knew her? Who else could want her dead?

Now it was just after four in the morning. He approached the back of the house from the orchard. The house was dark. He wondered if Lucilva would be inside asleep. He hoped not. He wanted the place to himself. And Amalia, the maid. Was she a live-in?

Quietly, he stepped up to the window beside the door leading out onto the side yard. The race of blood in his body wouldn't stop. His nerves worked on his muscles and organs, creating a sick light-headedness. He reached up to the window, pulled himself up onto his toes. The drapes were open slightly. Using different angles, he tried seeing through the glass, but it was too dark inside. He reached for the doorknob. He was surprised and anxious when it turned easily and the door opened. He went inside, closed the door behind him.

What now? Why am I here? Organize your stupid brain before you do anything. Lucilva's bedroom first. Make sure she's not here.

Lucilva's door was open. He peered inside; the bed was made. Turning on the light beside the bed, he carefully looked around the plushly furnished bedroom, with a sitting area off to the right with a view of the orchard. He rummaged through her drawers. Lingerie, tops, socks, bras. Then her closet. Dresses, jeans, slacks, blouses and several pairs of shoes on a lower shelf. On the upper shelf was a cowboy hat and some boxes. He pulled them down and looked through them. Only more clothes. Things she didn't wear anymore.

After finding nothing in the closet and nothing under the bed, he turned off the light and went back into the hall. At the end of the hall was Paley's office–now Lucilva's. The door was closed. He paused, listened. The house was silent. It felt empty. There was a padlock on the door, something she'd added after Paley's death. Must be something in there. Then he looked at the lock closely. The notch on one end of the loop of steel was showing. He twisted it. It was unlocked.

* * *

The faces of the police, paramedics and neck-stretching tourists blinked red and blue from the patrol cars' twirling gumball lights. Yellow tape stretched between two skinny trees only yards from the shore. The detectives milled about in the bright headlights, pointing, talking, squatting, inspecting the area. Two unlit bowl-shaped beacons set on stands had already been put up, one at each end of the area.

"What's going on?" Joe asked an officer guarding the perimeter along the road. The officer looked at Leah and back to Joe. The ambulance that had been parked just to the north of the scene backed up to the yellow tape.

"Why don't you go back to bed?" the cop said.

Leah had moved away, farther down the tape, and inched her way around the end of it. "Joe," she said. "It's a body."

Joe got behind her. It was. Lying on the shore. The person was small, child-like, igniting Joe's panic. A scalding realization, cooled only by a hope that his panic was meaningless, unfounded.

"Who drowned?" Joe heard himself ask. The cop didn't answer. And then the shock of light from the beacons exploded over the shore, reaching several yards out into the water. The nude body laid flat on its back. It had small breasts. Short hair pasted around its face.

Joe glanced at Leah. Her expression didn't hide anything. She was thinking the same as Joe.

"Oh, God," she whispered.

Joe lifted the tape, walked passed the officer.

"Hey, buddy, where do you think you're going?" He grabbed Joe by the arm and slung him back to the yellow tape. Joe threw off his arm, never taking his eyes off the girl.

"I know her," he said, continuing to walk towards the body.

"Can't go down there," the cop said, stepping in front of Joe, planting his hand on Joe's chest.

"I can identify her," Joe said loudly, hoping to get the attention of the detective in charge.

"Who are you?"

"Who's in charge?" Joe asked brusquely.

The cop considered him a moment, then said: "Wait here. Move and your ass is mine, buddy."

The cop spoke to a man wearing jeans and smoking a pipe. As he spoke, he pointed at Joe. The detective nodded and strolled up to the tape.

"I'm Detective Tom Lee. Officer says you know the girl."

"I might. Let me see her."

"What's your name?"

"Joe Cox. I've been looking for a girl about seventeen who was last seen here in town."

The detective nodded. "Got a weak stomach?" Joe shook his head, preparing himself. He followed, dreading it. When he reached the drowning victim, he dropped his gaze from the detective down to the gray, bloated face. His memory of Jackie Weldon's picture erupted.

"You okay?" the detective said discreetly. Joe nodded, swallowing bile. "That her?" Joe nodded. "Who is she?"

"Jackie Weldon."

"We know. But who is she to you?"

"Friend of her mother's."

"Runaway?"

Joe breathed deeply, nodding again.

A paramedic draped a sheet over her body, tucking the corners under her feet and head, then, with the help of the other paramedic, lifted her onto a Gurney. They rolled her to the ambulance, the wheels bouncing over the rocks jarring the body, shaking loose the sheet around her face. Leah, standing near the ambulance, put her hand to her mouth and looked away.

Joe followed the paramedics, watched them load the Gurney into the ambulance, close the doors and leave, the boxy vehicle swaying as it climbed through the shore rubble to the road. As it took off around the lake, Detective Lee said something to Joe.

"I'm sorry," Joe said. "What?"

"Did she know how to swim?"

"I...I don't know."

* * *

Sitting at Paley's huge, glass-topped, kidney-shaped desk, Reggie pushed aside a bronze statue of a cowpoke mounted on his horse, a stubby cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth and a lasso curled around the saddle horn. He pulled a seven-slot file organizer to the middle of the desk. The files were stuffed with papers, bills and correspondence. Paley had been organized. Or maybe it was Lucilva.

One at a time, he went through each file. He found bills and insurance papers and other daily business pertaining to the Paley enterprises. There were letters from the Resolution Trust Corporation–something about the closing of both the Barstow and Paley City branches of Joshua Tree Savings & Loan. Past due notices and letters of demand for payment and threats of lawsuit made it evident that Lucilva had been telling John Quinn the truth about Paley's financial problems. Furthermore, the Environmental Protection Agency had tested the water in The Plunge for pollutants in June. The letter notified Paley that upon completion of their analysis that Chris Paley would be notified of the results and that any non-compliance in correcting the problem, stemming from a weak enforcement of swimming and boating restrictions, could result in the closure of the recreational facility. So not only did he have problems with his bank and creditors, but the Feds wanted to close down The Plunge.

Reggie was beginning to understand why Christopher Paley killed himself. And that there was probably an insurance policy that wouldn't pay off if anyone found out about it. Dr. Rendquist had signed the death certificate, indicating stroke as the cause of death, never revealing the suicide. Maybe he was after a kickback from Lucilva for doing it. Maybe he did it out of loyalty. So would the good doctor steal Chris's body and hold it for ransom? Why would he make demands for so much money? He didn't need the body to blackmail Lucilva. He had the facts. Of course he was one of the facts. Maybe someone else knew about the suicide. Quinn? When he was up here on Thursday, had he discovered something? No. Lucilva wouldn't be that careless. And in their phone conversation Friday night, he'd asked her why the office was locked, so he couldn't have gotten in here.

Thinking about Friday night, he recalled his losing battle with Josh after finding Jackie up in the orchard. Josh and Lucilva carried him into the house and put him to bed unconscious. Lucilva said she'd cleaned up Jackie and put her to bed. But what if Jackie heard or saw something? And someone wanted her kept quiet for good about it. That idea opened up the canvass for more paint. Jackie's murderer may not be Jackie's rapist.

A metal file cabinet sat in the corner of the room next to a portable TV perched atop one end of a high table. It was locked. All the drawers were locked. He could probably jimmy them open, but the damage wouldn't go unnoticed. It was something he could do later–when he didn't give a shit anymore.

And then he spotted several sheets of yellow paper and a small booklet in a trash can beside the table. He pulled out the booklet. Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, it read in blue across the top. Below that:

A two by two color photograph of the center spread across a valley surrounded by hills was in the middle of the page. He read the bold caption below it:

The pamphlet explained the history of SLAC and described its major research facilities, as well as the management, staff and operating budget for 1988.

Deeper in the trash were sheets of paper stapled together. The cover sheet was titled, An Introduction to the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Six pages of information about the facility. Under a sub-heading of Related Research Matters, Reggie read:

Reggie dropped the papers back into the trash, wondering why this information would be coming to Paley. He didn't wonder very long. A calm deep voice behind him said:

"If you wanted the tour, why didn't you wake me up?"

Reggie spun around. Standing naked in the doorway, his big hands propped on his waist, face crinkled from sleep, was Bear Adams.