Chapter 42 #6
Darren Palmer’s cell phone had been buzzing and chiming with text messages, but the phone was locked, and he didn’t want to hand it over to the tech team just to read dozens of texts from Palmer’s friends.
Then his cell phone rang. Seeing his son’s number, he answered it. “Colin?”
“Dad?” The boy sounded concerned. No, more than that. Upset. “Do you remember Ted Ocampo?”
“Ocampo? From your swim team?” Forrester watched his detectives snap to attention. “What about him?”
“He sent me a really weird text, and he’s not in school today. Neither is Darren Palmer, and his pack of bullyboys are acting strange, like they’ve been waiting for something to happen—and they’re uneasy now.”
That would explain all the texts coming into Palmer’s phone.
Forrester made a writing motion. Ian Kuhn pushed a scratch pad of paper and a pen toward him. “Colin, I’m with my team right now. Would it be okay if I put you on speaker? We have reason to be concerned about a couple of boys from your school who may be missing.”
A hesitation before Colin said, “Okay. Sure.”
The high school was in the 12th precinct’s district, not the 13th’s. Colin would understand what it meant that Charles’s team was investigating.
Forrester put his phone on speaker. “Read me the text.”
“ ‘Going to swim home. Clothes are on the shore. Phone is in my sneakers. My dad will shit bricks if I lose the phone.’ ”
“What time did Ted send the text?” Forrester heard his office phone ring. Beth Fahey rushed to answer it.
“This afternoon,” Colin replied. “I was at swim practice and didn’t check my messages until now.”
“Okay.” Another phone began ringing. Tom Castelletti hurried to answer it. “Anything else?”
“Yeah. This is the really weird part. ‘Dare turned into a rat-faced chicken and was killed by a freaking big bird that had a woman’s face.’ ” A shaky release of breath. “Dad? What should I do?”
“You told me. That’s all you should do right now. Do you understand me, Colin? Don’t tell anyone else about the text. Just go home. We’ll talk about it this evening.” And hopefully he could tell his boy that one of his friends survived whatever idiotic thing they had done on Wyrd.
Forrester ended the call. “Well?” he asked when Beth Fahey returned to her place around the table.
Tom Castelletti also returned, tipped his head toward Fahey, and said, “You first.”
Fahey drew in a breath. “That was Captain Stan Wozniak from Lovecraft. A patrol car picked up Ted Ocampo. The boy was wearing nothing but briefs and was found lugging a ring buoy—the kind boats carry in case someone falls overboard. Ocampo says he has important information, but he has to talk to someone who has been to Wyrd so the cops won’t think he’s crazy. ”
“Fahey, you take this. Do you know which Lovecraft precinct Captain Wozniak works out of?” When she shook her head, Forrester added, “Kuhn, go with her. Castelletti? What have you got?”
“A couple of fishermen found a dead man in a dinghy,” Castelletti replied. “The officers who answered the nine-one-one call are…spooked.”
“You take that one. I’ll make the call to Wyrd and see what assistance Lucas Frost can give us in locating where Ted Ocampo went into the river—and in finding Darren Palmer’s remains.”
9
Beth sat across the table from Ted Ocampo and Jeni Slown, the psychologist who was the welfare officer attached to this Lovecraft precinct. Someone had found some clothes for the boy, but he still looked cold and so very young. Except for his eyes. They were old now—and haunted.
“Ted? I’m Detective Beth Fahey. You have something important to tell us about what happened to you and your friend?”
“Dare’s not my friend, but you don’t say no when Dare wants you to do something. Except I did. I said no when he wanted me to go through the moon gate first.”
“Okay. Tell me about that.”
“You been across the river?”
Beth nodded. “I’ve been to the Isle of Wyrd. I was on official business, so I didn’t have time to see much, but I’ve been there.”
“Did you see a moon gate in the park?”
“No. Tell me about that.”
“Dare—”
“That’s Darren Palmer?”
“Yeah. Dare got this bug up his butt that he was going to figure out the secret of the moon gates, and I got tapped to skip school and go with him because none of his pack of bullyboys would do it.
Dare is the alpha big balls, but even so, his pack must have known what he had in mind, and none of them would go.
“The pavilion was sort of lame—the kind of place my aunt would have jazzed over because she’s into reading her horoscope and that kind of stuff, and the park had these gardens that my mom would have jazzed over.
” He paused. “The statues might have creeped her out. Anyway, the park is pretty big, so it took a while to find a moon gate.” Ted braced his forearms on the table and leaned toward Beth.
“There are signs when you enter the park. Rules. You know?”
She nodded. “I saw them.”
“Bad idea to break the rules there, but Dare doesn’t give a sh—doesn’t care about following rules.
He was giving me a hard time about not hassling this woman who was on the ferry, and I said he was a rat because…
well, he said something about me and a girl I liked.
Then he wanted me to go through the gate first, but the gate was doing this weird thing, like going back and forth between two choices. ”
“What were the choices?”
“Transportation and transformation. Those words kept appearing on the top stone.”
“The keystone? Okay. Then what happened?”
“He started dancing around, saying he was a rat-faced chicken, and he was saying that when he walked through the gate.”
Jeni Slown hadn’t said anything up to that point. “Do you need to take a break, Ted?”
He shook his head. “He walked through the gate.”
“And a rat-faced chicken came out the other side?” Beth asked.
Slown gave her a strange look, but Ted nodded.
“Then this bird creature with a woman’s face dropped out of the sky and landed on top of him. Killed him. Flew away. I ran. First I threw up, and then I ran.”
“Did you see anyone? Yell for help? Call anyone on your phone?”
Ted stared at Beth. “I ran. And then I was trying to swim across the river. Stupid. I’m a strong swimmer, but trying to cross the Fate with those currents? Stupid.” He kept staring at her. “I might have texted Colin. He’s a friend, and his dad is a cop.”
Beth smiled. “Captain Forrester. My boss.” Her smile faded. “You swam across the Fate River?”
Ted shook his head. “Wouldn’t have made it if Alan hadn’t pulled me into his dinghy. Hey, did you find Alan? He gave me letters.”
Slown pushed a package across the table. “Ted told us he needed to give these letters to the police.”
“Yeah,” Ted said. “A letter to Alan’s wife and a list of his enemies.”
A dinghy. Beth tried to keep her expression neutral. “So Alan…rowed you…? To the other side of the river?”
“Yeah. Oh! And there was a ship that freaked him out, but he said I was a lucky piece because I was in the dinghy with him and that’s why they let him go.”
“What kind of ship?”
“Tall ship with sails.”
“A sailboat?”
“No, bigger, like a pirate ship with masts and sails, or one of those ships that sailed the oceans. You know? A woman—I got the idea that she was the captain—looked at us and gave a kind of salute. Can women be pirate captains?”
“Women can be anything.”
“I guess.”
A knock on the interview room’s door before Ian Kuhn stepped in. Beth’s cell phone rang at the same time.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I have to take this. Castelletti?”
“I sent a photo to Ian,” Castelletti said. “Ask Ocampo if he recognizes the man. I’ll hold.”
Kuhn stepped forward, showed her the photo, then turned his phone so that Ted could see it.
“Yeah, that’s Alan.” Ted looked a little puzzled. “He’s dressed funny in that picture, like he was going to a retro costume party, but that’s Alan.”
“Last name?” Beth asked.
“Naylor.”
“Ted just confirmed the man is Alan Naylor, who pulled him into a dinghy and helped him cross the river,” Beth told Castelletti.
“Jesus walks on water,” Castelletti muttered. “You can confirm we found Naylor. Don’t tell the boy anything else.”
“Like what?”
“Like Naylor’s been missing for fifty years and was presumed dead. And now he is dead.”
“Understood.” Beth ended the call. She slipped her phone into her pocket and picked up the package. “We’ll take care of the letters. Is there anything else you want to tell us?”
Ted shook his head.
Beth looked at Slown. “Unless you have something more…?”
“No,” Slown said. “I’ll go with Ted when we take him home. Help smooth out the explanation of why he wasn’t at school.”
“My dad will kill me if I lost my phone,” Ted said.
Beth smiled. “It’s been reported. Someone will turn it in.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s across the river.”
“Someone will turn it in.” She hoped.
After Ted was escorted out of the room, Jeni Slown paused in the doorway and studied Beth. “Do you believe what he said?”
“Yes,” Beth replied.
“All of it?”
“All of it.”
“Why?”
“Because he and Darren Palmer went to Wyrd—and things happen there.”
And the first chance she had, she was going to take the ferry to Wyrd and try to get some answers.
10
Charles Forrester set a file folder on the worktable, indicated the man standing next to him, and addressed his team. “I believe you all know Captain Stan Wozniak from Lovecraft.”
Castelletti and Kuhn nodded. Fahey hesitated before nodding. Forrester took that to mean a formal introduction hadn’t been made yet. Something he’d have to take care of before Stan left the building.
“Since police in Penwych and Lovecraft are involved in this investigation, Captain Wozniak looked into the list of Alan Naylor’s alleged enemies.”