Chapter 2

Two

W alter

1982

"Mama? What's a true bay door?"

I stood in front of a carnival booth holding my mother's hand, staring up at the sign—The Troubadour's Talking Board.

"Like a singer or a storyteller, I think."

"Mama, what's a talking board?"

Mom kept looking around for Dad. He'd said he was going to get me some cotton candy, but he'd been gone for a while. She had a tight hold on my hand and a crinkle on her forehead.

"I don't know," she said, looking puzzled. "Maybe like a Ouija board?"

A man stood across from the booth, leaning against a fence post, smoking a cigarette. He had the prettiest sea-foam green eyes I'd ever seen, and his dark blond hair was long, past his shoulders, kinda like Dad's brother, Uncle Butch, had when they were teenagers. Dad and his other brother, Uncle Herman, had complained about it constantly, as they were both Marines and hated to see a Muse man not meeting the grooming standard.

The green-eyed man strolled closer to us, flicking his cigarette on the ground. I couldn't stop staring at him and the big scar he had on his cheekbone. He must have noticed, because he put a hand over it.

"Some folks call it that, but this one is special. You're welcome to come on over and ask a question. Whatever you want to ask. Your answer will be in the form of the prettiest poem I can possibly compose for you."

I looked up at Mom with my best puppy dog eyes. "Can we please? I want a poem of my very own."

Mom glanced around, looking for Dad once more. She had a hard time resisting me.

The beautiful man stepped inside the booth and perched up on a stool.

"Just for a minute," she said, smiling down at me. Mom had been extra patient and generous with me lately. I thought it was because I was double digits now, but maybe it was because Dad was struggling to hang on to himself these days.

The pretty man cracked his knuckles and gestured to the table before him that held a board with letters and numbers on it. He had a small piece of wood on top that had a hole at the point. Next to that was an old-timey typewriter, and a tin cup full of colored pencils.

"This is my talking board. Have you seen one before?"

I shook my head. "What does it do?"

He smiled at me like he was telling me a secret, and he leaned a little closer. It was the first time I ever felt funny in my tummy talking to someone. "It's like a gateway to all of the answers in the universe. It gives me the words I need to write your poem. Now, you can ask me a question and we'll see what message comes through the aether."

That gave me a little worry, like the other night when I came out of my bedroom and Dad was watching a scary movie about a little girl who got sucked into a TV. I didn't sleep the whole rest of the weekend after that. I looked up at Mom. I didn't want her to know I was scared because then she wouldn't let me take my turn.

"Mom, how 'bout you go first."

Mom smiled and sighed."Okay. How about… how old is this carnival? It sure seems… dated." Her gaze traveled to the end of the arcade, where a cart full of balloons was being pushed by a man in a clown costume that wasn't much more than tatters.

"Now that's a clever question. Let me consult the talking board."

The pretty man placed his fingertips on the piece of wood and he focused his gaze on the clear glass hole. His eyes went kinda spacy for a moment and then he sat back and smiled at me. He turned to the typewriter and his fingers tapped the keys pretty quick for a man. I'd only seen Mom type that fast before. He pulled a small white card out of the roller, picked up a purple pencil, scribbled on the paper, and then handed it to Mom.

She read it and smiled, then she handed it to me.

Older than time

Sooner than now

Longer than life

Farther than near

Where it's needed

When it's required

Always on schedule

Perpetually on time.

"Well," Mom said to the man with a nervous laugh. "I guess that's an answer."

"What does it mean, though?" I asked them both. It reminded me of a poem my teacher made me read in front of the class once. I hadn't known what that meant, either, and when I told her that, the whole class laughed at me.

"What do you think it means?" the man asked.

I thought hard for a moment, my belly flipping around. Please don't let him laugh at me. "Maybe it's whatever it needs to be?"

"I like the sound of that," he said, and he smiled that sneaky smile again. "Now, what would you like to ask?"

I had so many questions for him. He seemed sad, but he was so pretty, and it seemed to me that Dad had once said "pretty people don't have problems." He did seem out of place here amongst all the corny acts and games, so that's what I asked. "What kind of a place is this carnival?" I'd been ambivalent about coming when Mom told me where we were going, but ever since we'd stepped through the gateway that said "Welcome, Traveler," my curiosity was close to overflowing. I had so many questions, but I was sort of stupefied by the pretty man, so that was the best I could come up with.

He lost his smile a bit and cleared his throat. "Okay. Coming right up." He laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles, sucked in a breath and squeezed his eyes shut before putting his hands back on the wood piece.

He jolted on the stool and stumbled back, falling on his bottom.

"Oh! Are you all right?" Mom leaned over his booth, her eyes wide.

He held up a hand and chuckled. "Not to worry. Just a little light-headed." He tried to play it off, but he looked spooked, sorta like I probably had after I'd watched that little girl get sucked into the TV.

Mom pulled me closer to her. "Honey, maybe we should leave mister…?"

"Dee Dee. Just Dee Dee. And I'll have your poem ready for you in a jiffy."

He stood and brushed off his pants before he placed his fingers on the typewriter keys. He pulled his hands back, wiggled his fingers, and cracked his knuckles again.

When he finished, he spent a little longer with the pencils before he handed me the card.

Here, there, any old where

Exists a carnival without a care

Behold, beware, a wild grizzly bear

A place where creatures frolic and dare

Welcome children, come and share

A magic, a wonder, a splendid affair

Your luck, your skill, or a wild sort of hair

Make your own way at this mystical fair

And when you leave for places elsewhere

So does the wondrous carnival, without a care

"Your very own carnival poem. I hope you'll treasure it always."

I clutched it to my chest and nodded. I'd never had anything so special in my life, but I also didn't want to act like a goober. I handed it to Mom.

"Take care of this for me, please?"

"What are you two up to?" Dad put his hand on my shoulder, and then he looked at Dee Dee the Troubadour—and he turned white as a sheet. "You."

Dee Dee smiled at him, glanced at me, and then looked back at Dad. "I'm the Troubadour. Care to ask a question, sir?"

Dad gripped my shoulder tight and pulled me back from the booth. "You! You're… you're him. I saw you. You…"

"Walter! Come on, let's go." Mom dragged me away with one hand and pushed Dad's chest with the other.

I looked back at Dee Dee. He was watching us leave with a confused look on his face.

2019

My phone buzzed on my nightstand, pulling me out of that unwelcome memory, and I thought at first I'd forgotten to turn off my alarm. Then I realized it was still dark.

God, I hadn't thought about that trip to the carnival in ages. It had ended with Dad having one of his episodes outside the carnival gates, and the day that had started off so great turned into a real downer. Why the hell was I dreaming about that?

I picked up my phone and squinted at the screen.

Caught a case. I know you're off today and headed out on vacation soon, but you might want to come out.

My buddy Dax worked opposite my day shift. I'd been his training officer at the Kern County Sheriff's Department and eventually trained him as a detective. Why on earth would he ask me to come out? Unless…

I'm at Buttonwillow.

That was why. Because in a few hours, I would have been waking up on the one day every year that I'd grown to dread, and I'd drive the hundred miles to Los Angeles like I had every year since I'd become a detective and taken over the seemingly unsolvable case.

It was 4:30 a.m. Guess the worst day of the year would start a little earlier this time.

Be there ASAP.

I took the fastest shower in history, hoping the noise from the water didn't wake Mom. She was still recovering from her hip surgery. She was mobile, thankfully, and could be left alone for a little while, but she needed her rest. Her caregiver, Kathleen, would be here at six like we'd agreed, to fix her breakfast and handle her medications for the day. She was also set to stay with Mom for the next week.

I was dressed and writing a note in the kitchen fifteen minutes later when I heard her door squeak and the shuffle of her slippers in the hall.

"Walter? Is everything okay?"

"Hey, Mom. Sorry I woke you. I got called out."

She sighed and tilted her head to the side. "On an already long day. I'm sorry, son."

I gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Normally we lived like roommates, doing our own thing and enjoying the bits of time we snagged to spend together. She was an active senior, and I hoped she'd be right back to it when she'd healed from surgery. Me? I was a divorced dad of college kids and an accused workaholic.

"Can I get you anything? You should go back to bed and get some more sleep. Kathleen will be here at six."

She reached up and cupped my jaw. "Your father would be so proud of you."

I frowned a little. We didn't talk about Dad much anymore.

"I know. I love you. Get some rest. I'll keep you posted on what I decide to do with this vacation ." I waited while she used the bathroom and then helped her back to bed. I refilled her water glass and kissed her on the forehead. She grabbed for my hand as I stood.

"You need this vacation, honey. Between working yourself to the bone and looking after me…"

"Mom—"

"I know, I know. When will you be back?"

I groaned, and she chuckled again, though her eyes were closing.

"I've got seven days off. I don't know, I may stick around and do some things around the house."

"Take your time off away from here, son. And tell Mrs. Donovan I'm thinking of her today."

"I will."

The drive to the rest stop in Buttonwillow took thirty minutes, and when I arrived there were CHP and Kern County cruisers all over the parking lot. Uniforms were talking to two truck drivers outside their cabs and the K-9 units were checking the perimeter with flashlights. Floodlights had been set up, and detectives stood below a permanent light post, swatting at bugs as they talked.

I parked my blue Tacoma next to Dax's silver Explorer and got out, tucking my tie inside my suit coat. The only other vehicles were a beat up minivan and a big jacked up four-by-four.

"Hey, man," he said as I found him in the melee. He grabbed my shoulder with one hand and shook my hand with the other. "Sorry, but I thought you'd want to see this."

"Vic found?"

He gave me a hard look and nodded his head. "Out back. Follow me."

We made our way around the back of the men's room, where we were met with caution tape. Crime scene techs were still taking pictures of a blood-soaked lump propped up against a tin garbage can. I couldn't make out the words but there was writing on the can. In red.

"White male, early twenties or maybe even late teens, clothes missing, hands bound with duct tape. Femoral artery cut, probable cause of death blood loss, lacerations to the face. Victim's blood was used to write on the can."

"What does it say?"

Dax cleared his throat and rubbed his chin.

"What?" I asked again.

"‘I'll C U Again DD'."

I swallowed back bile and bit down on my tongue hard enough to taste blood.

"It's been forty years, Walter. How the fuck?—"

"I know." I was well aware of what day this was, how many years it had been.

"Any other similarities?"

"Kid had the same hair color, similar build, was traveling with some buddies. They thought he was having intestinal distress or something, so they didn't worry until he'd been gone like twenty, thirty minutes. They were sitting in the car listening to music, didn't hear a thing. They didn't think anything was wrong until all the patrol cars rolled in."

"That it?"

Dax blew out a breath. "Another guy called it in." He gestured with his chin toward the big black truck with three men standing beside it, talking to a CHP officer. "Blond guy with the hat found the victim. He said he saw the killer run off. Says he checked the vic for a pulse, then ran back to his friends' truck, and they called. He had blood on the hand he said he touched the body with but nowhere else, which isn't consistent with the struggle that must have gone on, though he could have changed clothes. None of the truckers saw anything or remember seeing any cars leaving. Suspect can't have gotten too far on foot. Could have had an off-road vehicle stashed on one of these dirt roads, though."

I nodded.

"I'm sorry, Walter." Dax understood better than most at the department why this day, this case, held such significance for me.He walked with me to my vehicle, which was parked a ways down from the black truck.

"Thanks for calling me. You need me to stick around?"

"Nah, we're tight here. Just wanted you to… I don't know…"

Dax had been on his own as a detective for the past year and a half, but he was young and he still asked for my opinion. Since we didn't get many brutal murders like this, he hadn't had a lot of experience. I trusted him, though. And I knew if he needed anything, our two compadres would help him out.

I wanted to walk the crime scene, but I didn't want to step on his toes. I knew he was good—he knew what to do.

"You'll call if you get anything else? I'll be on the road for the next couple hours."

"Will do. Hey, at least there should be less traffic at this hour."

I snorted. "I'll have time for coffee and a donut like a good little cop."

We shook hands, and I was about to climb into my truck when the CHP officer trotted over to us.

"Detective? Can I let these guys go?"

"Sure. Here…" Dax reached into his pockets and came up empty-handed. "Hey, Walt, you got any business cards?" His guilty grin was fleeting. I would never give him shit in front of another cop for running out, but I'd razz him later.

"Yeah, yeah." I dug in my blazer pocket, pulled out my card case and handed him one. As the paper exchanged hands, I glanced over at the truck—and had immediate tunnel vision when the smallest of the three men, the one with the long blond hair, turned to look in our direction.

He was slight, dressed in funny clothes, like some sort of corduroy bell bottoms over ratty boots, a flat-brimmed brown hat, brown vest… He stood staring after the CHP officer, and then our gazes locked.

Forty years.

"Make sure you give me copies of their interview cards?" Dax asked the CHP officer, but I barely heard him. Something about the guy in the hat had me enthralled. As the CHP officer walked back toward them, I put a hand on Dax's shoulder.

That face.

I know that face.

My dream. The poet.

The prettiest man I'd ever seen.

But that wasn't all…

The case files.

It can't be. My brain was so overtaxed, it was mixing the two faces together. There was no way.

This guy's hair was hanging in his face, but as the CHP officer approached and handed him the card, he flipped his hair back.

He had a massive scar down his cheekbone.

"Walter? You all right? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"You see him? Over there?"

"What, you mean the one talking to CHP? Yeah? What?—"

"You see him?" I balled up Dax's shirt in my fist. "You see him, right? I'm not seeing things."

I'm not my father.

"What the fuck, Walt? You all right man?"

My gut bottomed out. What's the matter with me? There was no way I could even give voice to my thoughts?—

They'll think you're just like him.

"Detective?" A tech stood watching us, like he didn't want to interrupt. "The crime scene is done and the coroner is ready to take the body."

Dax pulled out of my grip and shot me another funny look. "I'll be right there. Walt? You going to hit the road? Call me when you get back from LA."

I couldn't stop staring at the young man. He'd climbed back into the truck and was talking to the guy in the driver's seat, but his gaze returned to mine.

That face. A fucking ghost is right.

Dane Donovan had disappeared on this day in 1979, from this exact spot. He'd been twenty-seven years old. This kid barely looked worn around the edges, but the resemblance was…

His eyes flared as he realized I was staring at him. He said something to the driver, who backed out and then followed the directions of the CHP out toward the highway.

It had to have been the early hour, the dream, something. Maybe I needed to have a physical. I'd never had any issues with my eyes or heart to this point, had tried to take care of myself, but I was forty-seven and shit happens. Especially to the men in my family.

There had to be an explanation for why I just saw the ghost from my cold case.

I barely remembered the drive to Los Angeles and up into Laurel Canyon.

Of all the cold cases I continued to monitor, Dane Donovan's bothered me the most. I had personal connections to the case, and when I made detective with Kern County twenty years ago, I'd taken over the case that had seriously impacted my own family. He'd been a poster child for wrong place, wrong time, and I wanted—needed—to put the case to rest.

I still had a poster of him from his first record hanging in my home office. I could explain it away as part of the case, or that it had been part of my father's original case files. But that wouldn't be true.

No. I'd been obsessed with Dane Donovan since first hearing his music. I begged my father to tell me about him on the tenth anniversary of his disappearance, and it turned into one of the worst fights I'd ever had with him. It was the case that eventually broke my dad. It was the one that made me decide to follow in his law enforcement footsteps.

It hadn't broken me, but as the years passed, the leads dried up, and the witnesses and potential suspects died off, and since I was no closer to having an answer for his mother, maybe it just hadn't broken me yet .

Poor Diane Donovan.

I made the drive to Los Angeles as I did every year on this date like clockwork for our usual tea and conversation, but when we greeted at the door, she held on to our hug a moment longer than usual.

"Detective?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

She pulled away finally and patted my arm. "Come in. My assistant, Barbara, has some tea set out for us."

She led me into her small sitting room, where I'd sat on so many previous occasions. Twenty now, to be exact.

"Detective, you've looked for my boy for so long, and looked after me. Who's looking after you these days?"

I chuckled. During our annual visits, she always asked me this. I'd first tried to bypass that line of questioning. Then I told her about Lisa. She knew about our twenty-year marriage and divorce. She knew about my subsequent boyfriend, Brady, and that breakup two years ago. She had a way about her that got me talking about all kinds of things.

"Same as last year, I'm afraid. Work keeps me busy. Gotta pay for the kids' college somehow."

She squeezed my arm. "They're lucky to have you." Her smile turned sad. "I always wanted Dane to go to college, but I'm afraid it was my fault that he turned toward music. I couldn't exactly be a working artist while telling him he had to have a backup plan. Besides, his father was a very gifted musician. Dane never knew him. He was a man I met in London. I came back here to Laurel Canyon and raised Dane by myself. He was surrounded by art and so many talented people his whole life. He had so much potential. I just wish…"

"I know. The sheriff's department is planning to do a media blitz today. Hopefully it will turn something up, but if not…"

"You'll be here next year?" She exhaled and shook her head slowly, taking a sip of her tea before speaking. "Oh, Walter. I love our visits, but I know this tears you up almost as much as it does me."

I planted my hands on my hips and sighed. I'd tried everything for the past twenty years. At one point, we'd found remains at the rest stop when construction workers were building a new restroom, and I'd thought finally . Having to tell Mrs. Donovan, seeing hope light up her face alongside dread, hope that this would be over, killed me, especially when I had to go back and let her know the remains weren't Dane's. I couldn't tell her about this morning, and part of me hoped that there really weren't any connections to Dane's case. But that would be fooling myself.

A homicide on the anniversary and in the same location? Too much to be coincidence.

But then, the official police reports for Dane say "missing person"… despite what the first officer on scene, Walter Muse, Senior, saw when he arrived.

"Promise me something, Walter?"

I took her wrinkled and knobby hand in mine. Arthritis had robbed her of her ability to do the fine-line paintings she'd been famous for, but she hadn't let it stop her from creating stunning works of art. She changed her style and her admirers loved the new pieces just as much.

"Anything I'm able." My voice cracked.

"Don't come back next year. I'm not saying don't ever come back… but not on this day. Come see me when you've found someone to look after you, so I won't worry anymore. Dane wouldn't have wanted our sad reunions. He always gave me a hard time for allowing melancholy to settle into my work."

"From what you've told me, I think you're right." I frowned. The experience I'd had this morning was still fresh in my mind. "Is it strange that I feel I know him? From our visits? And that I feel like he's still… present?" I couldn't tell her what I'd seen. She knew what had happened to my father. Besides, how cruel would that be, to tell her I'd imagined that I'd seen her son at the place where he may or may not have been killed forty years ago.

She smiled brightly. "His presence is everywhere." She looked over my shoulder to the large painting of him hanging on the main wall in the room, the one that reached up to the vaulted ceiling. "He's always with me, Detective. His music, his smile in the photos I took of him, the paintings I did of him… he's always close. But lately?" She hesitated, and my stomach dropped.

"Yes?"

"Lately, I feel him even closer. Maybe it's me who's closer to him in this stage of my life, if that makes sense."

I didn't want that to be true. I didn't want her to go. She was, in a way, a tether to my father. A last-ditch effort to bring him peace and her closure. But what if there was something to her feeling?

"Diane, I promise. If I find… someone, I'll bring them to meet you. Maybe you oughta hang around long enough for me to do that." I didn't like the vibe I was getting from her. It was almost like she was preparing me for the fact that her time was coming to a close. That made me sadder than it should have.

We hugged again. I promised to be in touch, she reminded me of my promise to her, and we said our goodbyes.

I'd planned to meet up with my friends that evening after I got back to Bakersfield, but I needed to clear my mind before heading home. Maybe I'd go in search of some other ghosts in Laurel Canyon. I put the car in drive and took off, putting on a playlist of some of the great artists who'd once lived in this area. The Doors, The Eagles, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Joni Mitchell… What was it about this particular piece of real estate that had such an impact on the music and culture of the time? Was it the drugs? Or the clear skies up above the smog like David Crosby claimed? The multitude of friendships between musicians, from The Monkees to The Rolling Stones?

Some of the famous places were still around, like the Canyon Country Store. There were two old women sitting outside the laundromat to the right of the old store selling hippie wares and crystals, even some pentacles and candles, from under an umbrella. I drove past them with my windows down and wondered if I should stop and talk to them. The women were out there every year when I passed by, rain or shine. They stared ahead with vacant eyes, a little tinny speaker playing The Doors' "Love Street" over and over.

How long had they been sitting out there selling their goods? Had they been in the area when Dane was riding his bicycle around?

I'd always wondered if I could get closer to finding out what happened to Dane if I could just tap into the legends of this place. So I listened to the music over the sound of the engine growling as it climbed the hill, and tried to manifest some answers.