Coaster (4 page)

The detective asked the girl quietly.
"You were in line when the explosion happened?"

The girl just stared and only moved her eyes when Detective La Rosa touc
hed her shoulder. "Hon? Did you get caught in the mob? What's your name?" La Rosa looked at the police officer asking the questions. He shrugged and shook his head. "Can you tell me your name? Have you contacted your parents, they must be worried."

For a long moment there was silence and then the girl spoke in barely a whisper. "They're dead."

Detective La Rosa moved her head closer, "I'm sorry. What? Who's dead?"

"Heather and Megan. They're dead."

"Sweetie, are you saying that Heather and Megan were on the ride? Are you sure?"

The girl nodded. "They haven't resp
onded to my texts. They would've responded. They must've been on the ride. They're dead."

"Hang on. W
hat are the girl's full names please?"

"Heat
her Monroe and Megan Pilcher." The girl's phone began to ring. Both the police officer and La Rosa's eyes widened. The girl moved fast picking up the phone and saying, "Hello."

Her face fell, "Hi
, Dad. Yes, I'm okay. No, I went to the bathroom. Heather and Megan...I think they were on the ride, Dad." The girl paused and started to sob.

Detective La Rosa
pulled the girl to her chest and hugged her hard. "It's going to be okay, sweetie." The police officer had taken the girl's phone and was speaking to her father. Detective La Rosa spoke into the girl's hair. "What's your name?"

"Lindy."

Detective La Rosa felt the front of her shirt wet from the girl's tears. "I know it hurts, but you're gonna be okay."

"What are their parents gonna do? Heather's an only child. Mrs. Monroe is not going to make it." Lindy began crying harder.

The police officer hung up the phone and motioned to La Rosa to join him.

             
"Sweetie, I have to go talk to Officer Brandt. Can you sit here a moment?"

             
Officer Brandt said, "Lindy, your dad is on his way to get you, okay?" He moved toward the back of the tent. "La Rosa, no one has told these parents about their daughters. We aren't for sure that it was them, but we have to contact them and at least let them know their kids are missing. They might not even know yet."

"I know. I think I'd like to do this in person. Did the father give you
their information?"

Officer
Brandt handed her a piece of paper. "Here are the addresses."

"C
all Lindy's dad back and tell him I will drop her off on the way. They probably live close together. He'll have trouble trying to get in here. Okay?"

"Of course." He immediately picked up his phone and dialed.

Detective La Rosa touched the girls arm, "Lindy, come with me. I'm going to take you home now." 

                                                                      ****

Chapter Six

The next day the fervor over the tragedy had expan
ded. There were about a hundred news crews and vans in the parking lot of the park. All the big mucky mucks from the corporation that owned the park had flown in to deal with the situation. The marketing and publicity people were trying to find a way to spin this horrific event. The park had a heavy pallor and was uncharacteristically quiet. The mayor had put a no-fly zone over the area around the park because the news copters were trying to get pictures of the damaged roller coaster. Most staff of the park were asked not to come in to work for the next week, but assured they would be paid for that time off.

                                                                      ****

The coroner had been there for several hours collecting specimens to make identification of the bodies, although that wasn't really necessary since many of the families of the individuals had figured out what happened and contacted the park.

                                                                      ****

The McBride's parents had been brought by a neighbor to identify some items. But since they hadn't heard from their daughter or grandchildren they were pretty sure that Rachel, Mitch, and the kids had been on the ride.

                                                                      ****

Heather Monroe's parents were sure when they hadn't heard from Heather. Lindy told them she also hadn't heard from Heather. Both the Monroe parents sat in silence as Detective La Rosa told them they weren't one hundred percent sure that Heather had been on the ride. But they both looked at her with doubt and then clutched each other's hands before asking her to leave.

                                                                      ****

Megan's family was beside themselves at the loss of their baby. Many of the kids had already moved out and had lives of their own, but they were still a close clan and the phone was ringing off the hook as they rallied around their parents. The house was soon filled with sisters, brothers, wives, husbands, and grandkids. The noise kept growing as tears and anger were exploding around Detective La Rosa. She left her card on the table, touched Mrs. Pilcher's hand and left.

                                                                      ****

Detective La Rosa dropped off Lindy. Her father had tucked her into bed soon after she got home. She'd slept all night and through most of the next day.

                                                                      ****

Diane and James Richfield were to arrive in the morning and had a car service that would be bringing them to the offices at the park. Their son's passport was the only sure evidence that both their children had been on the ride when it exploded. They had packed quickly, only stopping to take a call from the Queen when she rang to give her condolences.

                                                                      ****

The bodies were removed by five coroner's vans. More tests would be run at the coroner's office, but cause of death was obvious. As the five vans left the park the press went crazy trying to get pictures. There was almost a stampede, and more police officers were called to push them back. The press was removed to the farthest part of the parking lot where they could only hear a distant clamor of voices at the entrance to the park. This exile helped allow the necessary and clandestine arrival of many officials.

The mayor of Los Angeles arrived at noon and met with the higher-ups at the corporate offices. He had demanded this issue be high priority for his office since not only was this horrible publicity for the park, but was detrimental to the tourism of the city. The corporate higher-ups tried not to laugh at the obviousness of his statement. The mayor was pissed and wanted to know who was responsible for not finding the bomb in the first place. The suits hemmed and hawed and said no one was responsible. But the mayor wanted a head on a platter and basically told the suits to get him one.

                                                                      ****

Detective La Rosa got no sleep the night after meeting with Heather and Megan's parents. Their horror and bereavement in losing their daughters had affected her physically all night. The Monroe's only had one daughter, and it was apparent by all the photos of Heather, that she was their pride and joy. Lindy might be right; Heather's mother may not be able to take this.

When she had arrived
to tell the Pilcher's about Megan, it had been no less upsetting. However, the Pilcher family was large and close and the brothers and sisters were soon at the house to help the parents ease their pain. It was touching and awful at the same time. 

D
ropping Lindy off to her dad had been no picnic either. He had run out of the house when they had pulled up and thrown open the passenger door and grabbed Lindy so hard that Detective La Rosa was sure he was hurting her. Lindy didn't say anything. La Rosa had watched their slow walk up to the front door, a frightened parent and heartbroken girl. La Rosa hoped that Lindy made it through the night because in situations like this the survivors often turned to suicide. The guilt was only going to get worse as the days passed, and La Rosa made a mental note to get a counselor's name to Lindy's father tomorrow.

              La Rosa walked into the park's corporate offices and saw the mayor leaving. He bumped her as he exited and didn't pause to apologize. Detective La Rosa didn't have a high opinion of him. He had come from the same part of town as her. He’d campaigned in the barrios where she and her family lived so he could get elected. But once in office he didn’t follow through on even one of the promises he made.  Growing up in the poorer parts of Los Angeles meant La Rosa knew the real meaning of bureaucracy and the ridiculously slow way anything got done. It was paperwork everywhere and she knew that lip service was something people did when they either wanted to use you or ignore you. The Mayor was a pro at both.

             
She entered the offices and saw the full contingent of the higher-ups from the park's corporation had descended, especially their lawyers. She moved through the lobby looking for her partner and had several lawyers ask her who she was and what she was doing there.

Finally
she found her partner, Lionel Kincaid. He nodded at her, "Hey, La Rosa. Come here." Lionel pulled her into an office and closed the door.

"What the hell? I
t looks like the cast of L.A. Law out there."

"Yep, the corporation is lawyering up."

"No surprise. So what have we got today? Anything on the people that died? How many in total?"

Kincaid pulled out a notebook. "We got six dead from injuri
es received when they were trampled in line. Then the eight from the ride. And we have twelve people still in the hospital with severe injuries."

"Damn, this is a mess. Okay, are we allowed to go near the site yet?"

"Yep, as of nine this morning. The fire investigator is out there now and we're up after that."

"Good. I'll want to talk to him
, so let's head out there now to see what we can pick up."

"You got it." He opened the door and saw
a wall of backs. "Holy crap."

"What is it
?" Detective La Rosa was shorter than Kincaid and wasn't able to see much, but she pushed a back out of her way and stepped out. "What's going on?"

One of the lawyers spoke over his shoulder
, "It's the Richfield's. Their kids were on the ride. They just got here from England. I guess Mrs. Richfield is a cousin to the queen or something."

La Rosa was impressed.
"Really? Where are they going?"

"The CEO of the corporation is here to meet them."

"Wow, that's impressive. Why wasn't he here last night to see the people that were trampled to death?"

La Rosa and Kincaid made their way through the mass of lawyers out into the fresh air.

"You know, La Rosa. This is going to be a nightmare to investigate. That is if we don't get thrown out of the mix by the Feds."

"I know. But let's keep on it now. Either way we are in this
, and I'd rather examine the evidence at the site before the Feds come and take it all."

They walked to
the coaster and immediately they saw indicators of where the deceased individuals had fallen. Making their way to the gate around the ride, they could see where the device had detonated and about thirty feet away was the car that held the deceased had landed.

"Wow. They were shot into the air, weren't they?" Kincaid was shaking his head.

La Rosa stood looking at where the roller coaster had been blown up. The area was twisted and charred and the heat from the explosion had melted a lot of the metal. La Rosa saw the fire chief and hailed him over. "So chief, can you give me the scenario as you see it?"

"Looks like this was an IED. We're still working on the charge and power source. But I'm thinking the switch was activated when the car w
ent across it at a particular time. That would explain why it went off at such a seemingly random moment. The charge could be one of many items. Again, we're still gathering information. But it blew the car up into the track above it, which means if they weren't dead from the shock waves from the bomb, death was from impact. The car hit the track in a way that several of the individuals were actually crushed. For the others, the impact and the fire did the rest."

"You're saying they were on fire when they hit the tracks above?" La Rosa was trying to hide the
revulsion in her voice. She'd seen a lot of things in her career, but this was so senseless. These people were just having a good time and were viciously killed. It was disconcerting.