Dead Girl. Craig Nybo

      As if on queue by the bureau of horrible timing, my cell phone rang, shrilling its click and chirp version of the Beach Boys’s “California Dreaming.” Biels shook his head. I felt contempt oozing from him. I checked my phone--a text from Ernie Sanidoro, my boss back at The Wasatch Times. The text read, Call me RIGHT NOW or you are fired. I checked the time; it was 10:30 PM. I had an appointment with DeeDee in 20 minutes. I had just enough time to get back to her place and make a pacifying call to my gorilla of a boss on my way.

      I dropped my phone into my pocket and smiled at Sheriff Biels. “I’m happy to say that I’ve learned my lesson. I’m ready to give up my voyeur ways and live my life clean and sober.” I removed the binoculars from my neck and wound up their faux leather strap. “I think I’ll be off. I need to get back to my room where I can sit quietly by myself and concentrate on not causing any waves here in this little pumpkin town.”

      Biels shook his head slowly from side to side. “Just remember, Hunshuler, or Vang, or whatever your name is, I’ve got my eyes on you.”

      I got into my Grand Fury, fired up her dinosaur bone burner and patched away, leaving Sheriff Biels to go about his own brand of voyeurism up on Bluff Road, overlooking the Milvian Bridge.

      Chapter 7

      I speed dialed Ernie Sanidoro as I drove toward town. The phone emitted only a half-ring before Ernie answered. I could practically smell the sen sen and Aqua Velva as Ernie’s voice boomed through my cell phone.

      “Where in the hell are you, Block?”

      “I told you yesterday, I’m following up on a hot story; and I gotta say, you’re going to like it. It has everything, love, intrigue, violence--”

      “Spare me the Jimmy Olsen pitch. For starters, where’s my Micheal Bay review?”

      “I emailed it to Barb, It should have hit your desk this morning.”

      “Something hit my desk, but it stinks, Block.”

      “What do you mean? I hit my deadline.”

      “Did you even see the flicker? I mean, come on, you didn’t even bother to mention the names of any of the actors.”

      “What’s in a name, anyways? I nailed the gestalt view of the film. It’s an action joint with plenty of testosterone, a dish of a broad, scantily dressed for most of the shots, and hotter-than-hell action sequences. Sure it suffers in character development and plot, but that’s not why you go to a Micheal Bay joint.”

      “You didn’t even see the movie, did you?”

      I hesitated.

      “Admit it, dammit.”

      “No, I didn’t see it, but wait ‘til you see the story I’m whipping together. It’s a scorcher, I’m telling you.”

      “The Wilshire paint warehouse burned to the ground today. Did you think to check your messages? I could have used you on that one. Word is, it was arson.”

      “Look, chief, I’m sorry, but--”

      “Sorry don’t cut it. You’re a reporter, Block. You write for a legitimate paper, not some tabloid rag. I had to put Sharp on the arson story.”

      “Sharp? Come on, boss, He’s a lifestyle-writing hack.”

      “That may be true, but he’s here. I can count on him. What are you writing on now anyways? Aliens? Vampires?”

      “I can’t say yet.”

      “That’s because you’re wasting my time and money up in butt-crack, Utah with a bunch of hayseed idiots. This is your final chance, Block. Be here tomorrow at 8-in-the-AM-sharp to cover the follow-up of the arson story. I don’t need your science fiction tripe. I need your flair for intrigue and sensationalism. Now get in here tomorrow or it’s your job.”

      I drew a breath to respond to Ernie’s threat, something witty and cutting. But he knew me too well. He hung up. I tossed my cell phone on the dashboard and put both hands on the wheel. Maybe Ernie was right; maybe I was chasing a rainbow here in Ridgewater. I was interested, sure; but in what, a bunch of odd characters in a backcountry bio dome of absurdity? I could get that in any podunk town. I decided that if DeeDee couldn’t win me over at 10:50 PM with whatever it was she aimed to show me, I’d blow Ridgewater and get back to the grind.

      As it turned out, DeeDee would more than win me over.

      Chapter 8

      When I rolled up on DeeDee’s pull out, her front room light shone in tallow yellow through the large bay window on the front of her house. An old rocking chair looked like bones sitting on the porch backlit by the amber pallor. Through the window, DeeDee’s silhouette darkened a smear in the lace curtains that hung inside the pane. I got out of my car and walked the gravel path to the porch. By the time I mounted the top step, DeeDee had opened the front door.

      Her face blanched, her hair hanging in whips, she wasn’t the same woman I had visited that morning. I ignored her unkempt appearance and smiled. “It’s been quite a day, DeeDee; I’ve met the good sheriff of Ridgewater. I’ve tried the cuisine. I’ve even become acquainted with your cerebral, next-door neighbor. And I have to say, although I’m intrigued with the compelling cross-section of characters living within the confines of your city limits, if I can’t get my hands on something truly grounded, I’m afraid I will have to cut my stay here short.”

      DeeDee looked me over with a bedraggled stare. She turned away toward the garage to the east of the house. I glanced at the block and iron bar building, then back at her. “DeeDee?”

      She broke out of her reverie. “Don’t worry, you’ll get what you have come for. And if you play your part in it all, you might be instrumental in saving lives along the way.”

      I couldn’t think of anything to say.

      An unexpected smile bloomed on DeeDee’s face, perhaps bringing out some of the former beauty Stan had seen in her so many years ago. “What time is it?” she asked.

      I checked my watch. “Eleven-forty-seven, why?”

      “That’s grand. We have just enough time for tea and another of my biscuits.”

      Another of her biscuits? Wonderful. I swallowed the phantom gulp of the petrified rock of a biscuit I had choked down earlier that day. I turned down her offer, telling her that if we didn’t get to what it was she wanted me to see, her eleven-fifty-seven deadline would pass. The ruse worked; she gave me a verbal rain check on tea and biscuits and led me down the porch steps.

      We walked across the back lawn, well kept, trimmed tight and edged. We made our way past a spindly apple tree that was just putting out its green produce for the upcoming fall harvest and closed on the back door of the garage, a block fortress, built in a utilitarian fashion.

      I reached for the doorknob.

      DeeDee stopped me by placing a liver-spotted hand on my wrist. Her expression drooped as if made from melting wax. Lemon-colored light from a halogen bulb above us lay on her hair and shoulders, cutting her features from the night. For a moment as she looked up at me I felt spooked, as if something deep and sinister had momentarily taken her over. She blinked and most of the malevolence left her pallor. She became DeeDee again. I wondered if she might have schizophrenic tendencies.

      “I must warn you, what I am about to show you is quite dangerous.”

      My lips put on a familiar smirk I reserved for people who warned me of danger.

      “Do not take it lightly,” she said, a reprimanding tone in her voice. I dropped the smile and tried not to roll my eyes. “Have you read the journal?”

      “Some of it,” I said. Although Stan’s entries interested me in a voyeuristic way, I hadn’t found anything that was story-worthy.

      “Then you know that the evil in this garage has taken several lives.”

      “I