Wonderland (6 page)

EIGHT

V
anessa didn’t know what to say, and neither, it seemed, did the man she’d had sex with last night.

Oblivious to the awkwardness between them, Donnie Ambrose went ahead and introduced them. “This is Oscar Trejo, VP of operations here at Wonderland. Oz, this is Vanessa Castro, Seaside PD’s new deputy chief.”

“Well,” Oscar said. “This is a surprise.
Vanessa
, is it?”

“Have you two already met?” Donnie asked.

“Sort of. We met at—” Vanessa stopped, completely flustered. She didn’t want to lie, but she sure as hell didn’t want to tell Donnie the truth, either.

“The grocery store,” Oscar said smoothly. “We were both there just before it closed, got into a bit of a heated discussion about the Seahawks, I’m afraid. I’m glad you didn’t arrest me for the things I did last night.”

Vanessa felt her face grow hot. Clearing her throat, she said stiffly, “We ran into the chief on the way out, and he brought us up to speed. You’re the one who found the body?”

Oscar nodded, staring at her intently. “I can’t even bring myself to look at it again. It’ll be awhile before the image is out of my head. And I feel like the smell is in my clothes.” He moved closer to her. “Do you smell anything on me?”

She took a step back. “I’m sure you’re fine.”

He gave her a small smile, then turned to Donnie. “If you spoke to Earl, then I’m sure there’s no need to stress the importance of getting this all resolved as quickly as possible. High season starts this weekend.”

Donnie gave Vanessa a look that said
I told you so
. “We’ll do our best, but it takes as long as it takes, Oz. Anyway, I’m going to go talk to Gloria. She’s the medical examiner. You coming?” he said to Vanessa.

“I’d like to talk to Oscar first, being that he’s the one who found the body.” She cleared her throat. “I’ll catch up with you.”

The young detective headed off toward the yellow-taped area where the body was still covered in tarp. It was standard protocol that it not be moved until the lead on the case had a chance to look at it, which Vanessa would do once she finished talking to Oscar—
Oz
—privately. There were way too many people here at the moment, some of whom were looking over at her curiously. They all knew she was new to Seaside, and suddenly she felt very exposed. Especially since Oscar was staring at her once again.

Had he been this handsome last night? Just over six feet tall, his black hair had just a touch of gray at the temples. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing his muscular arms and his strong hands. Hands that had touched her naked body.
Everywhere
.

“Why do I feel like this town just got smaller?” she said, more to herself than to him.

“Because it just did,” Oscar said. “It gets worse. Everybody knows everybody. Why didn’t you tell me you were the deputy chief?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were the VP of Wonderland?”

“Because—” He stopped. “There’s no way to answer that question without sounding like an ass.”

“Exactly.” Vanessa took a breath. “Look, obviously last night happened. And at some point we might want to talk about it, but can we shelve it for now? It’s my first day on the job.”

“Certainly. But can I just say, it was totally uncool of you to fake-name me.” Oscar grinned. “There, it’s out of my system. Now I can officially welcome you to Seaside. Oh, wait. Did that already last night. Twice.”

She felt her face grow redder. Oscar was clearly having fun with this, but people were still watching, and she wanted to at least appear like she knew what she was doing. She forced herself to stay professional. “Can you tell me what happened when you found the body? What time was it?”

“Early. Seven thirty,” he said. “Not long after you snuck out without leaving me your number. Or your real name, for that matter. You didn’t have to do that, by the way. I would have made you breakfast.”

“Oscar,
please
—”

“Okay, okay,” he said. “In all seriousness, I usually get here by seven, and I’m almost always the first one. I like seeing the park in the morning when it’s clean and quiet, before things get noisy and chaotic. I took a golf cart and did a round of the park like I usually do. It reminds me of what I do here. Sometimes, in the office, I forget what the point of this place is when all I’m doing is taking meetings and crunching numbers.”

“And that’s when you saw him?” It was hard to stay on point with him. He had such an easy manner of speaking, she found herself wanting to hear about his job.

“Yes.” Oscar closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, there was no trace of humor left in his face. “You must see a lot of dead bodies in your line of work. I don’t know how you sleep.”

“Earl told me some kind of animal got to his face,” Vanessa said. “That would be pretty traumatic to see, especially if you weren’t expecting it.”

“I touched him.” He shuddered. “I know you’re not supposed to do that, but I thought he was asleep. He rolled over, and that’s when I saw that his face was gone, and I jumped back about three feet. I threw up,” he added, looking ashamed. “In one of the trash cans. I hope I didn’t ruin any potential evidence.”

“That’s a normal reaction, and besides, thousands of people come through this park every day. It’s going to be impossible to isolate trace evidence, anyway.” Vanessa resisted the urge to touch his arm. “Then what did you do?”

“I called nine-one-one.” He stopped. “Wait, no. I called Glenn Hovey first, the security guard who was scheduled to work overnight. But I couldn’t get ahold of him. I’m not even sure he showed up for work.”

“Earl mentioned that,” Vanessa said. “Any idea where he might be?”

“No, but his mother would probably know. You might want to start there.”

“How long has he worked here?”

“Full time? Twenty years, same as me,” Oscar said. “But we both worked here as kids, back when it was World of Wonder.”

“And yet he’s just a security guard and you’re the VP of operations.” Vanessa cocked her head. “That’s interesting.”

“Hovey’s not stupid, but he’s . . . different,” Oscar said. “He was never going to be more than what he is. You’ll see that when you meet him.”

Vanessa looked up at the camera mounted to the lamppost closest to them. “You have security footage?”

“Earl asked me the same thing,” Oscar said. “I’ll tell him what I told you. The surveillance system was bought used back in 1995 when Nick—that’s the owner—took over the park. It wasn’t anywhere near state-of-the-art back then, and it’s downright terrible now.” He seemed embarrassed. “I can check to see if anything’s there, but mainly the cameras are for show.”

“You’d be surprised at how often that’s the case,” Vanessa said. “It’s surprisingly effective. I’ll need to see what you do have.”

“I can get that going for you. The security office is on the first floor of the administrative building.” He pointed east. “That brown building way down there. I’m assuming you need to spend some time here at the . . .”

“Crime scene,” she said.

“Right. When you’re done, give me a call.” Oscar pulled out a business card and jotted a number down on the back. “That’s my cell. So you don’t have to talk to my receptionist.”

Vanessa slipped the card into her pocket. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Looking forward to it.” Oscar gave her another smile. “It’s really good to see you again, by the way. If I didn’t say it before.”

He turned and headed for his golf cart before she could respond.

NINE

T
he body was in bad shape, but Vanessa had expected that going in. In her opinion, the smell was worse than its appearance. The man’s face was almost completely eaten away, but the medical examiner was estimating he’d been dead for at least six to eight days, which accounted for the horrible stench. They’d know more once the body was examined in depth, but for now, the ME’s best guesses were that the man was between the age of thirty and forty years old, he was probably homeless based on his muscle atrophy and the amount of dirt and grime on his skin and clothing, and he’d died of blunt-force trauma to the back of the head. As for which animal had eaten him, the ME suspected a large rodent—and it had happened postmortem, thank god. Somewhere in the park, or in the woods behind it, was a rat with a very full belly.

Why the dead body had been left in the middle of Wonderland for all to see was anyone’s guess. Earl Schultz had made the assumption that the killer wanted the body to be found, and that was usually true in cases like this. But Vanessa had worked more homicides than Earl ever had or would, and the positioning of the body—lying on its side, no posing or staging—suggested that the body being left in a public area might not have been planned after all.

Vanessa left the crime scene techs to finish doing their jobs. The body was being prepared for transport to the morgue. The next ten minutes were spent with Donnie, discussing the case and their observations. The young detective told her about the #HomelessHarry picture on Twitter, which pissed her off because it confirmed that the crime scene should have been secured better. There were too many people here, and she blamed Earl for that.

Donnie then told her that another picture had just surfaced on social media. An eighteen-year-old Wonder Worker, dressed in the signature purple uniform, had uploaded a picture of himself at the top of the Wonder Wheel earlier that morning.

“The time stamp says he posted the picture at five thirty,” Donnie said. “Either he was the one who dragged Homeless Harry in, or the body hadn’t been left here yet, because no way did he not see it or smell it when he started climbing the wheel. If it’s the second one, that narrows down our window since we know Oz got here at seven thirty.”

“What do we know about him?”

“Which one?” Donnie asked.

“The Wonder Wheel kid,” she said.

“His name is Blake Dozier, and he calls himself an urban free climber.” Donnie curled his fingers into air quotes. “Apparently he’s done this kind of thing before. There’s a picture of him on his Facebook at the top of a construction crane in downtown Seattle. I can’t stand heights, so I don’t get it.”

“Free climbing? I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Vanessa said. “Okay, see if you can track him down.”

“Already on it. Once the park finds out about the picture, he’s totally getting fired.”

“If he had something to do with the body, losing his job will be the least of his worries.” Vanessa wiped a bead of sweat from her eyebrow. It was nearing noon, and the midway was heating up. She fanned her face with her black notebook. “I need to check the security footage. Which one’s the admin building again?”

Donnie pointed east. “Take one of the golf carts. You’ll die of heat exhaustion before you get there.”

“I’ll walk, it’s not that far. When you’re done, text me, and we’ll head back to the department together. You’re my ride, don’t forget.”

She started heading toward the administrative building, and five minutes later was regretting her choice not to take a golf cart. The park was beginning to swelter, and by the time she reached her destination, she was drenched. Her hair was plastered to her forehead and she dared not lift her arms, for fear her blouse would reveal round sweat stains underneath her armpits.

Oscar was in the security office, talking with a paunchy bald man in his early fifties who was gnawing on a red licorice whip. The only difference between his purple uniform and that of a Wonder Worker’s was that his shirt said
SECURITY
in large white letters. Both men turned when she walked in, and Vanessa self-consciously wiped her moist brow again with the back of her hand.

The security office wasn’t much to look at. It was a small room with three computer monitors set up side by side, two hard drives, and a long desk filled with junk food wrappers. The monitors, at least, were flat screens. That seemed promising; the system couldn’t be that old.

“Don’t look so excited,” Oscar said when he saw her expression. “The monitors are only five years old, but the rest of the system is ancient. Rudy, this is Seaside’s new deputy chief, Vanessa Castro.”

“Nice to meet’cha.” Rudy gave her the once-over. Popping the last bit of licorice into his mouth, he cleared away the pile of food wrappers, depositing the entire mess into the wastebasket. “Sorry about the garbage. I quit smoking two weeks ago. Cold turkey. I’m doing good so far, but I want to eat everything in sight. So much for my girlish figure.” He patted his stomach, which was bulging firmly over his pants. He’d been eating everything in sight for a lot longer than two weeks.

“It’s hard to quit,” Vanessa said. “Congratulations. How’d you guys make out with the security footage?”

“There’s hardly anything.” Oscar sounded disappointed. “All we have is some spotty footage of the kid climbing the Wonder Wheel—did you hear about that? Apparently it’s all over Twitter. Not that I wanted to see a dead body being dragged down the midway, but I was hoping we had that on tape, knew you’d be pleased if we did. I’d hate for you not to be pleased.”

Vanessa gave him a look and moved away from him.

“I made you a copy.” Rudy handed her a thumb drive. “You can see the kid climbing from about a third of the way up the wheel, all the way to the top, and then taking the selfie. You see the pic? It’s actually pretty fantastic, though you’d need a death wish to climb that high without a harness.”

“I haven’t seen it yet, no,” Vanessa said. “And I appreciate the copy, but I will need the actual hard drive.” Normally she’d need a warrant for something like this, but she figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. If the VP of operations gave his consent, it would save a lot of paperwork.

“Oz?” The security guard looked up with a frown. “You want me to remove it?”

“Whatever she needs,” Oscar said, not taking his eyes off her. “We want to cooperate in any way we can.”

Looking dubious, Rudy dug a screwdriver out from the desk drawer and went to work.

“Any theories on how someone could enter the park without an access card?” Vanessa tried to pretend she didn’t notice the way he was staring at her.

“Probably through the forest,” Rudy said, though she’d posed the question to Oscar. “It’s really not that hard, I been saying for years we should put up a fence back there. And Hovey’s supposed to check the grounds every hour. That’s part of the job when you work an overnight.”

“You mean Glenn Hovey?” she asked Oscar. “The security guard who was scheduled last night?”

Oscar nodded, then with a quick glance down at the back of Rudy’s head, he mouthed the word
yes.

“You just have one person manning the security monitors?”

“That’s all you really need at night,” Rudy said, piping in again as he removed the back of the computer console. “Overnights are pretty boring; nobody wants them. During the day we have more security to keep things in order, but I mean, it’s an amusement park, not a casino, and nothing really happens other than maybe the older kids getting into squabbles. Some car break-ins, but that’s to be expected anywhere. And we’ve had a coupla incidents of vandalism at night, sometimes a homeless person sneaks in, but that’s really it.”

He got the hard drive out and handed it to her.

“Thanks,” Vanessa said. “Either of you have a Facebook or Twitter account? Because I don’t, and I’m curious about this Wonder Wheel picture. I’m wondering if Blake Dozier’s camera inadvertently caught something going on down below.”

“I don’t have any social media other than LinkedIn,” Oscar said. “Working here, the number of Wonder Workers I’ve employed over the years, I’d probably have ten thousand Facebook friends.”

“You can’t have ten thousand Facebook friends,” Rudy said. “The limit’s five thousand.”

“You have an account?” Vanessa asked.

“Yes, ma’am, I have them all. Which one you want?”

“Whichever one has the picture.”

Rudy typed into a different monitor and a moment later he had the Wonder Wheel kid’s Facebook profile picture up on the screen. Vanessa almost gasped when she saw it.

The security guard hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said the photo was fantastic. Blake Dozier’s arms were stretched outward, and it appeared as if he was floating, unanchored, in midair. His handsome face was perfectly lit by the early dawn sun, and his expression was one of exhilaration. Below him was Wonderland, and beyond Wonderland was the Pacific Ocean, glistening and never ending. He looked fearless and proud. The only thing marring the picture in any way was the middle finger shooting out from Blake’s left hand.

A fuck-you to Wonderland? Why?

“Blake’s worked here for a while, right?” Vanessa said. “Why the hostility? He made a point to wear his purple uniform shirt.”

“He’s been here three or four summers.” Rudy looked up at Oscar. “You’re gonna fire him, right, Oz?”

“Yup.” Oscar’s jaw was clenched.

“He obviously knew this picture would result in his dismissal,” Vanessa said. “Why not just write a resignation letter?”

“The picture went viral,” Rudy said. He reached for his bag of Twizzlers and offered them one. Vanessa and Oscar both declined. “The Facebook picture has over three thousand ‘likes,’ over a thousand ‘shares,’ and over five hundred comments already. On Twitter, it’s been retweeted almost five thousand times. That’s impressive. It’s doing much better than the picture of Homeless Harry.”

“I imagine that people would enjoy looking at this more than a dead guy,” Vanessa said, still staring at the photo. “Did either of you know Blake?”

“Nope, but I do now. He’s famous.” Rudy pointed to the screen to show them the hashtag that read #WonderWheelKid. “You know you’ve made it when you’re trending on Twitter.”

“I didn’t know him, either,” Oscar said. “We have a thousand to twelve hundred Wonder Workers here during the summer. It’s impossible to meet them all.”

“Thanks again for your help, Rudy.” Vanessa moved toward the door. “Oscar, can I speak to you outside for a moment?”

He followed her out of the security office and into the hallway.

“Tell me,” she said, when they were alone. “Who has an access card to the park after hours?”

“Generally anyone whose position requires them to come in early,” Oscar said. “Any administrative employee. Maintenance staff. Cleaning crew. Security, obviously.”

“No Wonder Workers?”

“Rarely. But still, it’s at least two hundred people.”

“I’ll need a list.” Vanessa paused. “It’s convenient that the camera stopped working just at the precise moment we might have seen who left the body.”

“I know it seems that way, but the cameras cut out all the time,” Oscar said.

“You said Glenn Hovey was scheduled to be here but you’re not sure if he showed up for work. Do you track whose card gets swiped?”

“No, because they’re not unique. The access cards are generic.” He saw the look on her face. “I know, our security is abysmal. But in fairness, there isn’t much to protect. Everything’s locked up at night, and as Rudy said, we’re not a casino or Fort Knox. There’s nothing to steal. Nobody’s going to pick up a roller coaster and take it away somewhere.”

“Other than Glenn Hovey, who else would have been at the park last night?”

He appeared to think about it for a moment, and then said, “Nobody.” Moving closer to her, he touched her arm. “Are we done being professional now?”

Immediately Vanessa felt her face grow hot again. “Oscar—”

“Oz. And you’re gorgeous when you blush.”

“Oz. I think it’s best we stay professional. I’m working a case that involves a suspicious death, and until I resolve it, it would be a conflict for you and me to be . . . involved.” She felt a twinge of regret as she said the words.

“Why is it a conflict?” Oscar moved closer. “Obviously the guy wasn’t killed at the park. And unless I’m a suspect, which I’m not because I was with you all night, I don’t see the problem.”

Everybody’s a suspect
, Vanessa thought. “It’s not just that. My life is . . . complicated. At most, I’m not looking for anything more than a casual thing.”

“I can be casual,” Oscar said with a straight face. “I am amazing at casual.”

“I can’t.” She took a step back. “I’m sorry. Last night was great, but it was only ever meant to be one night. I hope you can understand that. And I do appreciate how cooperative you’ve been today.”

“Maybe you’ll change your mind.” Oscar’s tone was light. He took the hand she offered, assuming he was going to shake it, but he turned it over and kissed her palm gently instead. It felt more intimate than if he’d kissed her on the lips, and it took effort to withdraw her hand. “In the meantime, we’ll be friends. I’ll see you around, Vanessa. Call me if you need anything.”