The Disappearance (28 page)

Bowie’s philosophical about Doug’s behavior. He’s seen worse. He’s also used to the scorn and anger that comes with the information he dispenses; he’s the messenger, the blame falls on him. “It happens, Mr. Lancaster,” he says calmly. “You’re going to have to come to grips with the fact that her history is going to be part of the trial.”

Doug composes himself. He slips the pictures and report into the manila envelope. “Thanks for your effort. Have your office send me a bill.” He opens the cabana door-flap, escorts Bowie out. People are scattered about the sides of the pool, reading in deck chairs and reclining on chaise lounges, mostly middle-aged women but a few lookers, Bowie notices appreciatively, young housewives and teenage daughters.

“I’m sorry I was the bearer of the bad news about your daughter, Mr. Lancaster,” he says. “But you needed to know.”

Doug, a father aggrieved, stares at him. “I didn’t want to. I didn’t want anyone to.”

The call comes to the office late, when Luke’s wrapping his work up after a long day. Classes are finished for the evening, the building is dark; down the hall, through his open door, he can hear the vacuuming of the cleaning crew. He still has material to read, but he’ll take it back to the house, even though it’s Friday night.

He picks up the phone.

“Luke Garrison, please.” A woman’s voice, an efficient secretary. His own part-time secretary leaves on the stroke of five; this is a high-powered executive secretary who works at her boss’s beck and call and is paid well to do so.

Hedging, he asks, “Who’s calling?”

Too late to duck the call—she’s already made the connection, as soon as she heard his voice.

Doug Lancaster comes on the line. “Luke? Luke Garrison?”

He doesn’t need this now. Not this late at night, or any night, or any day for that matter. “Yeah?” he mutters.

“Can we talk?”

Luke sighs. “Go ahead, Doug. But make it short. I’ve had a long day and I have work yet to do.”

“Not over the phone. I want to talk to you face to face.”

Luke holds the speaker away from his ear for a moment, contemplating. Then he brings it up again. “We’re on opposite sides of a legal action, you know that.” Suddenly paranoid, he asks, “Are you taping this call, by any chance?”

“No, of course not,” comes the immediate, irate answer. Almost too immediate, Luke thinks.

“What about your secretary? Is she listening in? Taking notes?”

“No one’s listening in, or taking notes, or anything else,” Doug tells him.

Was that a click Luke heard, someone replacing an extension phone on the cradle? “Okay,” he says. “But you did hear me, right? If you want to talk with me, have your attorney or Ray Logan’s office contact me so we can set this up through official channels. Now, good night, Doug. Have a pleasant weekend.”

“Wait!” The plea comes so fast he doesn’t have time to move the receiver from his ear.

A long sigh. “What? We can’t talk, don’t try to force this.” A thought comes to him—start taping your calls, for your own protection.

“The autopsy report,” Doug says hurriedly. He can’t not keep talking. “My daughter was not a tramp.” The man’s voice is rising, he’s definitely losing it.

Luke says nothing. But he can’t bring himself to hang up, either. His morbid curiosity about where this is going overwhelms his better judgment.

“She was a sweet, young, wonderful girl.” Doug isn’t yelling—it’s almost as if he’s pleading. “And you can’t drag her through the mud. You can’t drag this girl’s reputation through the gutter for everyone to see.”

The voice breaks; he’s almost crying, Luke realizes.

“I don’t care what the D.A. says or does, or what he has to do.
You
don’t have to, Luke. You don’t have to destroy the little that’s left of her. She’s dead, man. Isn’t that enough? What more do you and your pedophile client want?”

There’s a click on the line. Luke’s day is over.

Leisurely cruising west out of town in the old glasspack pickup, heading up Highway 101. The truck’s handling is harsher than normal—he needs to get the brakes and shocks attended to. He drives slowly, giving himself plenty of space between the truck and other traffic on the road.

It’s Sunday morning, crack of dawn. Up at 4:30 and on the road by five. At this hour on a weekend there’s little traffic. He drives past the oil terminus at Gaviota, which operates 24 hours a day and looks, with all the polished metal and running lights and tubing, like a docking station out in space, turns off 101 at the state beach, and heads south towards the ocean. His excitement grows as he nears his destination—he hasn’t surfed Hollister Ranch for over three years.

He’s alone. Riva flew up north yesterday to check on her business and look in on her house, she won’t be back until late Monday night. The trial is coming up in less than a month, and knowing all too well that he’ll be working eighteen-hour days, seven days a week, he’s allowing himself a day off.

Hollister Ranch is one of the legendary California surfing spots. Originally a huge oceanfront ranch, it was subdivided generations back into 100-acre parcels; up to a dozen people can share ownership in a lot. Most of the parcel-holders don’t live there—they have the property so they can use the beach. Unless you own a parcel, or are the guest of an owner, you can’t get on the beach—it’s private, patrolled by security. If an intruder is caught, he’s unceremoniously booted out or arrested.

The beauty of surfing Hollister, aside from the waves, is the exclusivity—you aren’t jaw to asshole with other surfers out in the water. And everything’s pristine, a piece of the world as it used to be in the good old days.

Luke has owned a parcel for years. It’s the only thing in Santa Barbara county he held onto. About the only smart thing he did in that period of his life.

He leaves the county hardtop and drives a short distance down an access road. There’s a guarded gate, attended around the clock. He shows the attendant his ID. The gate swings open. He gets back in the truck and drives through, the gate closing automatically behind him.

He rides along a winding road that parallels the ocean, crossing the railroad tracks, where he parks his truck next to some nondescript sedans, a vintage ’49 Ford woodie station wagon, and another truck almost as old and beat up as his. There are also newer cars, mostly SUVs, Explorers, Range Rovers, Toyota Land Cruisers. Peeling off his T-shirt and shorts, he pulls on his wetsuit, grabs his board from the truck bed, his Igloo cooler and his daypack with his towel and other necessities from the front seat, and walks towards the ocean.

Standing at the water’s edge, he looks out to sea. The waves are good—four to seven feet, long, regular lines. Out in the water he sees half a dozen other surfers—from this distance it looks like four men and two women—spread out over a couple hundred yards. Hard-core wave riders—he was up before the sun and yet there are people already in the water ahead of him. He remembers when he was younger, just beginning to surf here, sleeping on the beach so he could roll out of his bag and hit the water before the sun was up.

A big wave starts to form a hundred feet out from where the surfers are lined up. Two of them, about twenty yards from each other, start paddling furiously, getting into position. The wave picks up momentum, then it’s cresting, and the surfers are straining to catch it, and they do, they rise to their feet. They catch it clean, dropping and turning with the wave as it breaks towards shore, both of them riding all the way in to the beach.

Luke’s seen enough—he needs to be out there in the water, pronto. He tosses his board into the surf and starts paddling out, pushing his way past the breakers. He hasn’t surfed for a few months, not since that time at Rincon, and he can feel the muscles straining in his chest and arms. He’ll be sore tomorrow, a good sore.

He gets past the shorebreak into open water, leisurely paddles out to where it looks like he can catch some waves without crowding anyone else, setting up at the high end of the point, twenty-five yards from the nearest surfer. A few of them closest to him glance over as he paddles out, reserving judgment—they’ll see how he does, but unless he messes up, he gets the benefit of the doubt. This isn’t cutthroat, like down south in parts of L.A. and Orange counties, where surf gangs establish territories, breaking boards and heads if a stranger, or anyone they don’t want there, which is everyone except them, tries to surf.

He takes it easy at first; conservative maneuvers, nothing audacious. The regulars watch him a few times until they see he knows what he’s doing, then they ignore him, which is fine with him. He wants to surf, be in the water, be left alone.

Often, in times past, there would be people his age, or older, out in the lineup, but today he’s the oldest by a good decade.

He’s a “pops.” He never thought he’d see that day.

He surfs until the sun peaks, midday. Hungry, he rides in, carries his board ashore, props it up in the sand to give himself some shade, peels his suit down to his waist, and eats his lunch, a couple of tuna-fish sandwiches he picked up at a Von’s deli, a bag of jalapeno chips, a lemon Snapple. He’s in good shape for an old guy who doesn’t work out as much as he should—lean torso, flat stomach, swimmer’s muscles across his back and triceps. But he’s already sore in his muscles, he’ll have to marshall his strength if he wants to make it through to the end of the day.

He rests for about an hour, then goes back out again. It’s not the best time of the day to ride, the surf is flattening in the midday tide, and the sun is hot on the water. He doesn’t care. This is his last time to be out on the ocean for months, he’s going to milk every minute, until it’s too dark to see.

Slowly, then gradually faster, the day slips away. A few other diehards hang on until near the end, but finally, as the sun is dipping into the ocean, a huge fuchsia meltdown, he’s the only one out there.

Then, like a window blind being abruptly drawn, it’s dark. There’s enough residual light left, along with some splotchy moonlight, for him to ride in one last time, which is all he has in him anyway. He’s bone-weary, but it’s been a great day. He’s drained, happily wrung out. A long hot shower, the stinging needles massaging his body, then dinner, a good bottle of wine, and he’ll be asleep before his head hits the pillow, dreaming of waves and Riva’s warmth.

A big wave is breaking behind him. A good one to ride home on. He sees the foam on the lip, phosphorescent in the moonlight. He paddles in rhythm, feeling the speed of the wave, then he’s on his feet on his board, riding one last time.

It’s a big wave, long, it’s going to be a long ride, one of the best of the day, he’s tucking in, almost getting under the curl, his legs are still steady and strong. He rides forward, crouching down on the nose of his board, the power and speed exhilarating.

He takes a quick hop-step back as he nears the shoulder, and as he does the board shatters under him, right where his foot had been an instant before, it explodes into thousands of shards like it had hit a land mine, one second he’s balancing on a nine-foot surfboard and the next second he’s going under, and then he hears the sound, the delayed sound of the rifle firing, carrying across the water from the shore. Echoing. The water explodes two inches from his body, and then he hears another delayed sound.

Someone’s out there in the dark, trying to kill him.

Treading water, he looks towards the shore, over a hundred yards away. There’s nothing there, it’s all black. Past the beach he can see the outline of the low bluffs, a dark blotch against the night-time sky. Someone is up there with a rifle. The rifle has an infra-red night scope, the shots were too close to be that accurate with a regular scope in this non-light, which means that even though there isn’t much moon, he can be seen clearly, he can’t hide in the dark water.

Another explosion hits a few feet from him. The shooter’s good, he’s honing in. Taking a deep breath, he dives under and starts swimming in what he thinks is a sideways direction, not directly towards the beach.

He swims underwater as long as he can, and then comes up for air, and less than a second later, there’s another shot, right by him again, he’s being tracked with that night scope, the motion of his swimming can be detected, even if his actual body can’t be seen. Treading water for a moment, his lungs burning, he goes under again on a diagonal as yet another shot explodes the water, right where he was. One second’s more hesitation and the bullet would have hit him. Even a nonlethal shot will kill him, he’ll never make it to shore if he’s wounded.

He can’t stay out here long, he’s too tired, too muscle-fatigued. The lactic acid buildup will kick in and he’ll freeze up, unable to move his muscles well enough to swim strongly. And the water feels much colder because he’s tired, even with his wetsuit on he feels the chill. He won’t be able to stay underwater as long as he’d like, because he needs the air, he has to come up for it, already his lungs are starting to feel as if they’re catching fire. When he comes up the rifle will find him, the shooter knows what he’s doing, it’s a matter of time. How long the shooter will stay up there, firing down at him, before he worries about someone hearing the shots, is the only question.

He has to get to shore, before the fatigue and the cold make it too hard to swim fast enough and move around enough to have any chance at all of dodging the sniper. He has to take the chance that he can swim in without getting hit, at least not fatally, then make a run for it once he gets to the beach and finds safety under the edge of the bluff. His cell phone is in his daypack. If he can make it to temporary safety under the bluff, he can call 911. He knows his chances aren’t good, they’re terrible, but if he stays out here in the middle of the water he’s a duck in a shooting arcade.

He swims underwater towards the beach, making as little motion as possible. He sculls his hands along his body and tries to pretend he’s a dolphin, a natural swimming machine.

His muscles, particularly his chest, triceps, and stomach, feel like they’ve been attacked by a sledgehammer. The dark black-green water is getting colder—he feels his strength rapidly ebbing away. His lungs are bursting. He has to come up.