Gone

“Unfortunately, chrome don’t bleed, and it’s blood I’m after.”

Outside the barn, he replaced the open lock and wiped it clean. “Gazillion dollars’ worth of go-carts and he doesn’t bother bolting.”

I said, “He doesn’t expect visitors.”

“Confident fellow. No reason not to be.” We began the return trip to the car, walked around the south side.

Ten steps later, we stopped, synchronized as a drill team.

A gray circle. Easy to spot; the grass had died two feet from the perimeter, leaving a halo of cold, brown dirt.

Steel disk, nubbed with little metal pimples. A lever folded flat pulled up easily when Milo tried it. An inch of lift evoked a pneumatic hiss. He let it drop back into place.

I said, “Bert the Turtle.”

“Who?”

“Cartoon character in these booklets they gave out to schoolkids in the fifties, teaching the basics of civil defense. A bit before my time but I had a cousin who held on to hers. Bert was big on ducking into his shell. Knew proper bomb-shelter etiquette.”

“In my school it was drop-drills,” he said. “Put your head between your knees and kiss your ass good-bye.”

He toed the edge of the shelter lid. “Ol’ Walter really was worried about the communists.”

“And now Brad reaps the benefits.”

CHAPTER 42

Milo walked around looking for a surveillance camera.

“None I can see, but who knows…”

Returning to the shelter lid, he squatted, lifted the handle a few more inches. Hiss hiss. He let it fall back into place.

“Air lock,” I said. “Keep nuclear fallout at bay.”

“Play canasta while the bombs drop.” Stretching prone, he pressed his ear to steel. “You hear the cries of a damsel in distress like I do?”

Off in the distance, a puny breeze barely ruffled the meadow. The trilling bird had gone mute. If clouds made noise, the silence might’ve relented.

I said, “Loud and clear. Grounds to search.”

He lifted the handle halfway. Peered in. Had to stand and put his weight into completing the arc. The hatch gave way with a final whisper and he stepped back. Waited. Inched over to the opening. Looked down again.

Snaking through a tube of corrugated steel was a spiral staircase, metal treads stripped with friction pads. Bolts secured the flight to the underside of the rim.

“The big question remains,” he said.

“Is he down there.”

“None of those cars have been driven recently, but that could just mean he’s bunked down for a while.” Removing his desert boots, he unsnapped his holster but left the gun nestled. Sitting at the edge of the opening, he swung his legs in. “Something happens, you can have my Bert the Turtle lunch box.”

He descended. I took off my shoes and followed.

“Stay up there, Alex.”

“And be here alone if he shows up?”

He started to argue. Stopped himself. Not because he’d changed his mind.

Staring at something.

At the bottom of the stairs was a door, same gray steel as the hatch. A shiny brass coat hook was screwed to the metal.

From the hook, a white nylon cord hung taut. Its ends were looped around a pair of ears.

Waxy-white ears.

The head they co

Well-formed face, but hideous. Dermis more paperlike than corporeal. Lumps distorted the cheekbones where stuffing had settled. Nearly invisible sutures held the mouth shut and pried the eyes open. Blue eyes, wide with surprise.

Glass.

The thing that had once been Dylan Meserve was as lifelike as a milliner’s mold.

Milo crawled out. His gullet throbbed. He paced.

I got closer to the opening, smelled the formaldehyde. Saw writing on the door, an inch below the thing’s chin.

Shimmied down low enough, I read.

Neat printing, black marker.

PROJECT COMPLETED.

Below that, a date and a time. Two a.m. Four days ago.

Milo walked around for a while, searching for evidence of burial, returned shaking his head, looked into the maw of the bomb shelter. “Lord only knows what else is down there. The moral dilemma is…”

“Is there someone down there who can be saved,” I said. “If there is, will attempting it make matters worse. You could try calling him, if he’s down there, maybe we can hear the ring.”

“If we can hear it, he’s probably heard us already.”

“At least he’s not going anywhere.” I eyed the dangling head. “Talk about probable cause.”

He took out his cell and tried Brad Dowd’s number.

No sound from below.

His eyes widened. “Mr. Dowd? Lieutenant Sturgis…no, nothing huge but I thought maybe we could chat about Reynold Peaty…just tying up loose ends…I was hoping more like tonight, where are you? We stopped by there earlier…yeah, we must’ve…listen, sir, no, no prob coming back to your house, we’re not far. Camarillo…actually it is related, but I’m not at liberty to say…sorry…so can we- you’re sure? Today would be a lot easier, Mr. Dowd…okay, I understand, sure. Tomorrow it is.”

Click.

He said, “Hard day out in Pasadena, plumbing leaks, blah blah blah. Mr. Cool and Charming until I mentioned Camarillo. Got this little catch in his voice. Happy to cooperate, Lieutenant, but I just can’t today.”

“You shook him up, he needs to regroup. Maybe he’ll revert to what calmed him down when he was a kid.”

“What’s that?”

“Arts and crafts.”

Milo went down in the hole again, pounded the door while keeping his distance from the thing on the coat hook.

Sidled away from it and found a spot on the door where he could press his ear without touching dead flesh. He knocked on the metal door, then pounded.

Climbing back out, he brushed away nonexistent dirt. “If anyone’s in there, I can’t hear it and the door’s bolted solid.”

Lowering the hatch, he wiped it clean, scuffed out the footsteps we’d left in the dirt halo.

We put our shoes on and retraced our steps back to the car, worked hard at obscuring our tracks.

I drove off the property and repeated the climb I’d taken when I’d overshot. When we found nowhere to hide the Seville within walking distance, I turned around and descended.

A mailbox two properties down from Billy Dowd’s land was lettered with gold stick-ons: The Osgoods. A sagging plank-and-chicken-wire fence blocked a gravel drive.

Flag up on the box. Milo got out and checked. “Least a week’s worth, let’s trespass.”

Unlatching the gate, he stood back as I drove through, swung it closed, hopped back in.

The Osgoods owned a much smaller spread than Billy Dowd. Same oak-sycamore combo, a flat brown lawn in place of a meadow. In the center, a pale green fifties ranch house with a white-pebble roof squatted behind an empty corral. No animals, no animal smell. Half a dozen empty trash cans stood against one side. A cheap prefab swing set tilted nearby and a child’s plastic trike blocked the front door.

The sky had started to darken. No light spat from any windows.

Milo reached over the tricycle and knocked on the front door anyway. Left his card wedged between the door and jamb and a note under one of the Seville ’s wiper blades.

As we walked back to the road, I said, “What’d you write?”

“ ‘Oh, lucky citizens,’ ” he said, “ ‘you are doing your bit for God and country.’ ”

We reentered Billy’s property on foot, found a watch spot just shy of where the trees met the meadow.