Chapter 4

Four

W alter

As an officer of the law, I knew better than to be sneaking around the homes in Laurel Canyon, even if I had good cause. I knew the man I'd seen couldn't be Dane Donovan, but my instincts told me it was possible. And with the date, and the similarity to my father's recounting of the crime scene, I couldn't ignore what Dax called a coincidence.

"Walt, my man. You've been burning the candle at both ends lately. I know you wanted to have something for Mrs. Donovan this year. Hell, I woke you up in the wee hours to come out to Buttonwillow when I should have let you sleep."

"No, I'm glad you texted."

I'd called him from my truck on my way back to Bakersfield to update him on my meeting with Diane and to find out any news on the morning's homicide. I would not be telling him that I thought I saw Dane, though I couldn't get his face out of my mind.

"Whoever did this, I think it's connected somehow. What better way to celebrate the anniversary? Or maybe he really did take off that night?" Dax suggested. "Hitchhiked away from the rest stop and started a new life somewhere? Back then it would have been easier."

Dax knew I didn't agree with the theory that Dane had left on his own.

Diane had told me once that Dane often worried her because of his obsession with the folk musicians he admired. There was one woman, Connie Converse, who'd never quite made it big, though she was often referred to as the "female Bob Dylan." Converse had been frustrated with the lack of interest from a label and she eventually left New York to work on social justice issues in Michigan. Diane told me that Dane was specifically interested in the fact that, in 1974, Connie disappeared. She'd sent letters to her family members and friends saying she didn't want them to look for her, that she was just going to start a new life.

Whenever Dane got frustrated with the fact that he still hadn't broken out in the folk rock scene, Diane would find him listening to a bootleg recording of Connie Converse that he'd gotten from Tess.

I'd become a bit of an expert in folk rock, especially the artists who'd made up what became known as The California Sound. They were all contemporaries of Dane's, and he'd played with so many of the huge artists, had lived among them and opened shows for them, but every time he got close to a break, something would happen. He said in an interview once that he thought he was cursed.

Connie Converse's story seemed to fit with Dane's profile, but there were no letters, no word to anyone, and it had been the middle of the night. My father saw something, not to mention Dane's clothes being found at the rest stop, as well as a lot of his blood.

My father swore to his dying day that Dane had not walked away from that rest stop on his own, and I believed him.

"Sure, because someone would happily pick up a naked hitchhiker in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. What if, though? What if he got away? What if he's had amnesia? What if?—"

"Walt, you need this vacation. Are you still planning to come by the bar tonight before you leave? What time's your flight?"

I'd been forced to take the vacation time. My captain noticed I'd been pulling a lot of extra shifts and he didn't buy the old "I've got two kids in college" bit, so he told me he didn't want to see my face for seven days. "Vacation or administrative leave, Muse," he'd said.

I'd told everyone I was going to Hawaii… I just hadn't been real forthcoming about any detailed plans. And I hadn't exactly purchased a plane ticket. Nor had I booked a hotel.

The last time I'd gone to Hawaii, after Brady and I broke up, I'd booked a flight same day, found a cheap hotel, and spent the week bored out of my mind. Sure, I'd had good food, good drinks, and found a vacation fling to pass some time, but I didn't do idle well. Traveling with Lisa, and then with Brady, had been fun, but they'd both had to push me to step away from work.

Perhaps Diane had been onto something when she'd encouraged me to come back when I found someone. That would require actual looking.

I just tended to get involved in the job. In that way, I was like my father had been. I couldn't afford to become like him, though. I had to keep that side of me in check, and having a partner had always done that for me. My kids, too. I'd done all the coaching, supervising, chaperoning, whatever I could fit around my detective duties. But they were off to college now. They didn't need Dad anymore. Just my wallet.

"Early," I fibbed. I would get up early and do whatever I was going to do for the next seven days. "But I'll be there tonight. I want to hear what you've found out about Buttonwillow."

"Sure, sure. Yeah. I'll see you at Fallen Anchor around seven. After the day I've had, I'm going to need a drink, and so will the other guys."

I didn't tell him that I'd seen the truck in Laurel Canyon that had been at Buttonwillow. I didn't tell him that I'd just watched the man who looked eerily like Dane Donovan walk into the house that had belonged to Tess Miller. I didn't tell him because the last thing I needed was for my colleagues and higher ups to think I'd fallen prey to the same mania my father had.

I was not my father.

I hoped to emulate the good things about my dad, but I refused to be sucked into madness by this job.

Later that evening…

" Today marks the fortieth anniversary of the disappearance of folk rock singer Dane Donovan, who went missing from a rest stop off of I-5 in Kern County. Kern County Sheriff Wade Nelson had this to say…"

"Mr. Donovan's disappearance, sadly, remains unsolved. Detectives continue to monitor the tip line and are in communication with Mr. Donovan's mother. There have been no new leads, but we hope that by presenting the facts of the case to the media, along with the last-known photograph of the young singer and an age-progressed image, someone may come forward. There is a reward of one hundred thousand dollars, offered by Mrs. Donovan, for any solid information that leads law enforcement to finding her son."

"Dane Donovan was a member of the Laurel Canyon folk rock music community. Growing up, he lived with his mother, artist Diane Donovan, in a bungalow not far from the homes of famous folk singers like Tess Miller, Cass Elliot, Joni Mitchell, members of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and more. He was surrounded by the who's who of the music business. Donovan spent his teens learning the art of songwriting from Tess Miller and others in the scene, making his solo performance debut in 1970, but protests at college campuses over the Vietnam War overshadowed his tour. Donovan eventually joined Tess Miller's band, and performed as an opener for artists like Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and Jackson Browne. He never quite reached the level of stardom as his fellow Laurel Canyon neighbors, but he contributed several hit songs to the soundtrack of that era.

"Donovan was traveling in a van with members of Miller's band and crew, on their way back to LA after a series of shows in the Bay Area, when they stopped to use the facilities at the rest area. He never returned to the van. Authorities searched the area for weeks, but Donovan seemed to vanish into thin air. He was twenty-seven years old.

"If you have any information about Dane Donovan's disappearance, please contact the Kern County Sheriff's Department."

"Guess what we'll be doing for the next week," Detective Gene Ochoa, my best friend in the world, groused over his third beer as he sneered at the TV over the bar. I was glad our chaperone, twice-divorced former Marine turned Detective Denny Hamilton, had driven him over, otherwise it would be a fight for his keys.

"Answering phones like we're the damned Jerry Lewis Telethon volunteers," said Denny. He was the only detective who was older than me. He was mere months away from hitting fifty, which was the magic number for our pension. I figured him for a lifer though. He'd been resisting all calls to retire. "What the fuck else am I going to do?" he'd say. "Besides, who's gonna babysit your asses? I can still outshoot all of you and my case closure rate is second only to Junior's."

Dax Brown, Gene Ochoa, and Denny Hamilton were my closest friends. Hearing them talk, one might think they were jaded, grumpy cops, but they were some of the best law enforcement officers working today. We all had our roles to play: I was the go-getter, the doggedly stubborn and determined detective who never gave up. Gene was the class clown, but he paid attention to detail and was a great spokesperson for the sheriff's department. We all anticipated that he was next in line to be elected to the big seat.

Dax was the youngest, eager, always willing to learn and put in the extra work, and, naturally, a frequent victim of harassment from the rest of us. Denny was the most knowledgeable and experienced cop among us. After serving eight years in the Marines, he'd been a cop for twenty-three years, and he still showed up with his full attention, endless empathy, and wisdom that came with all the cases he'd worked over the years.

Denny was also the big brother I'd never had, and as much as I wanted him to be happy, I wasn't looking forward to the day when I'd be doing this job without him.

"He's gotta be dead, don't you think?" Jasmine, our favorite bartender, asked me in a low voice. "He'd be, what, sixty-seven by now?"

"Yep." I'd been nursing a dark fruit cider for the last hour, and the combination of the tangy aftertaste and the news story was starting to sour my stomach.

"If he is alive, you'd think somebody would have reported it," Gene said. "A hundred grand is a lot of cash."

"If he's not," I said, "his poor mother deserves to put him to rest before she goes. She's in her late eighties now. Still active, but slowing down."

"How was she today?" Gene asked with a gentle voice. The guys knew me better than anyone, and knew my history with this case and Mrs. Donovan.

"Arthritis is bothering her. She's got an assistant with her all the time now, nice woman named Barbara." I blew out a breath. "I didn't tell her about this morning, of course. I hope the message on the can and the similarities to Dane's case don't make it into the news." I downed the rest of my cider and looked to Dax. Gene had joined him after I left and they worked the scene together. I hoped they had some information for me.

"Similarities." Gene exhaled through his nose and kept his voice low. There were a few patrons at the tables along the far wall, but only one other guy up at the bar. Jasmine was down at the other end taking care of him. "Clothes were folded, same as your vic's in seventy-nine, and this kid had a similar appearance. Long hair, light brown or dark blond. But this boy was strangled and had cuts to femoral arteries leading to catastrophic blood loss. Since we have no body for the Donovan case," Gene gave me a sympathetic look, "we don't know his cause of death or the condition he was in, so it's difficult to make further connections. There were a few shoe prints around the body, but so many people have walked around there, who knows?"

"The likelihood is that we're not dealing with the same killer," Dax said. "It's been forty years, the suspect would be at least in his sixties, and how many men nearing seventy are physically capable of overpowering a much younger man? Unless he had a gun or an accomplice."

"You'd be surprised, actually," Denny said. "Both Donovan and this vic had slight builds."

"And why would he have stopped all these years?" Dax asked.

Gene shrugged. "The Golden State Killer was married, had a niece living with him at one point, and during that time he went dormant for years. Could be a lot of things."

"Could have been locked up," Denny said. "If he survived forty years locked up, he's probably in good physical shape."

"So we check recent parolees," I said. "We go back over the list of suspects. But we also look at the fact this crime could be unrelated."

The guys all nodded and grumbled as they went back to their drinks.

Jasmine came over to check on us. "Can I get you anything else?"

"I'll take a Diet Coke, thanks." It had been a long day of driving, and my brain was still working overtime.

"Let's consider one other possibility," Dax said. "Walt… what if he's the killer? What if he went into hiding, faked his death, and now he's back?"

I shook my head. "There's nothing in his background that even hints at that sort of behavior. I've interviewed everyone who ever knew him, and I didn't find anything to indicate he might have had violent tendencies. I'm not disagreeing that he could have faked his death and walked away, but how does anyone stay gone so long? And how would he have stayed hidden all these years?"

"What about the guys in the truck?" Dax asked. "They called it in. The one guy touched our vic to see if he was really dead. I got their info from CHP. Think I should get a DNA sample from the guy?"

"Stranger things have happened," I said. "But I don't think they would have called and stuck around for CHP to get there if they did it. Don't rule it out, but doesn't sound likely to me."

Gene pulled out his phone. "I've got the report here. Truck belongs to a Ryan Wells, twenty-nine years old, former singer of metal band Backdrop Silhouette. Did time for DUI, reckless driving with bodily injury. Released from parole in January of this year. The other guys were Kallos Alexandrou—apparently he and Wells just got married—and the third guy didn't have ID, said his wallet was stolen at work. He and Kallos worked at a carnival together outside of Vegas? Said his name was Dee Dee Miller. Worth keeping an eye on them."

That name piqued my interest. Dee Dee, could be initials? And Miller… Like Tess Miller? A relative? Seemed too coincidental.

"How in the hell does a rock star connect with a carny?" Denny asked. "None of these guys were even born when Donovan disappeared, but there's been enough bullshit podcasts about this kind of fuckery. Jesus, such a peculiar case. It's like Donovan vanished into thin air."

Unless you believed my father, which no one did.

"I remember that case." The grizzled old guy at the bar had moved closer to us. He'd been quietly drinking his beer since before we'd arrived, and he seemed like the type who'd be there after we left. He wore a white t-shirt under a flannel shirt-jacket, denim jeans, and work boots, none of which had the wear and tear of a day laborer. He looked to be in his late sixties, maybe early seventies.

"Shitty case," Gene said, raising his fourth beer.

The guy nodded and circled the pint glass back and forth in his hands. "I was with CHP in San Joaquin County at the time. We had a string of disappearances that next couple of years. All young, long-haired, single men. Off I-5 and 99."

I turned on my stool to face the guy. "Yeah? There was nothing in the case file. My father was the original detective on this case, and he never got wind of anything similar. Catch anyone?"

He shook his head. "We turned them over to the San Joaquin Sheriff's Department. They never had any luck, eventually considered them runaways. Heard LA County had some, too, the next year, but they never found any bodies, either so same thing. Presumed runaways."

I held out my hand. "Detective Walter Muse, Kern County Sheriff's Department."

He looked at my hand a minute before he shook it. Seemed like he might be regretting opening his mouth, but I was going to get him to talk. I was known to be pretty persuasive without having to use a heavy hand.

"John Soto. Retired CHP."

I had a million questions. "You have more details?"

He sat back and rubbed his hands on his thighs. He had some fairly heavy scar tissue on the back of his left hand, as if he'd been burned. "Not much. Back then, kids hitchhiked up and down those highways all the time. Figured they got in the wrong cars. No signs of foul play at the rest stops, no cameras back then. Lot of missing people off the highways."

"But mostly women, right?" Denny asked.

That was the issue my father ran into when investigating Dane Donovan's disappearance. There hadn't been any similar cases involving men at the time in his jurisdiction. He tried to keep up with stories from other places, but there was never enough evidence to tie the missing people together. If a missing person was male back then, law enforcement assumed they'd just wandered off. They went with friends. They committed suicide. There wasn't a whole lot of effort put into investigating the cases of missing men.

Soto shook his head. "There were several men that went missing. All from rest stops on highways, and all we ever found were piles of clothes."

"You got a name of someone I can contact who might be able to show me the case files?"

He sighed, and yeah, he was definitely regretting his actions. "Been gone a long time. Not sure." I wondered what had happened to the guy to have him not want to be involved. Maybe he'd left on less than good terms and wanted to forget the job. My father hadn't, though, and he'd left under the worst terms a career cop could imagine. What was this guy's deal?

Denny, Gene, and I exchanged looks.

"My cousin works for San Joaquin. I can get her to hook me up with whoever's in charge of cold cases there," Denny said. "I'll also check with my other cousin, Ernie. He's in Calaveras County."

"I'll check my LAPD contacts," Gene offered. He'd gotten his start working in the Hollywood division, but when he got married ten years prior and he and his wife decided to have kids, they'd moved closer to her family in Bakersfield, so they could help out.

"You won't find him," Soto said, shaking his head. "None of them have been found. No one gave a shit back then because, at least in my department, they assumed they were gay guys hooking up at rest stops." His scowl was deep.

That was an angle I'd considered in Dane's case, but I had no clue if he was gay. Diane Donovan certainly hadn't shared anything about her son's sexual orientation, only that he was loved by everyone who knew him.

Soto's demeanor, though, wasn't flippant. He seemed truly bothered by the possibility that these victims might have been slighted. Perhaps he had firsthand knowledge.

It had taken me years of self-exploration to accept and embrace my own queerness, and being in law enforcement meant coming to terms with the fact that crimes against queer folks were often overlooked, mishandled, or outright rejected for decades. When I made detective, I made it a point to do better, and to make sure my department did better. I couldn't fix the entire law enforcement field, but I could clean up my own house.It helped that I wasn't alone.

Denny climbed off his stool and stood at my back, and Gene put his hand on my shoulder.

" We give a shit," Denny said. "That don't fly with us."

Soto looked between us and nodded."All right then. I'll tell you what happened the night I interrupted a kidnapping." He rubbed at his jaw with that scarred hand.

"Let me buy you a beer," I said, signaling to Jasmine, and she shook her head.

"Thanks, fella, but this is my limit." Soto smiled at Jasmine, and she back at him.

And then he told us his tale.

"It was nineteen eighty and everyone was obsessed with CHiPs . Guys wanted motorcycle positions. I didn't care one way or another. I preferred working nights, and patrol cars were better at night. We regularly did rounds at the stops for safety checks. One early morning, I pulled up, no cars, creepy mist all around. I walked the perimeter of the restrooms and I heard something, like something being dragged. I shined my flashlight behind the building and caught sight of a young man on his back, being yanked by the arm into the darkness. He was moaning, there was blood on his clothes. I shouted, and whoever had him tugged again.

"I moved the beam up toward his face and he turned and ran. He ran so fast, he had to have known the lay of the land. There are rocks, hills, cacti out there, but he took off so fast there wasn't even a trail of dust behind him. I called for backup and an ambulance, provided first aid to the poor kid and waited there in the dark. I kept hearing noises, though, and my skin crawled like I was being watched. I didn't want to leave the kid, and it was so dark and misty… and yeah, I was a little freaked out. It took the longest fifteen minutes of my life for my zone partner to show up."

"There were no tracks or anything? No search was done in the daylight?"

"Sure there was, but there were a ton of footprints back there. A couple of other drag marks too, as if this wasn't the first time. That was confirmed when one of the officers found blood and two neatly stacked piles of clothes belonging to two other missing persons. But no bodies. Dogs couldn't find anything. It was like the guy and the vics just disappeared."

"You get anything from the kid?"

Soto shook his head. "He was hit over the head, that's all he remembered. He didn't see a thing. Lucky I found him. Might never been heard from again, like all the others. We had surveillance set up for weeks after and no more people were taken from that rest stop."

"How many are we talking about?" Gene asked him.

"Had to be ten or more total. About every other month that year. None of those cases were ever solved, none of the vics ever heard from again. If it was the same guy, he hid the remains well. Somewhere, there's gotta be a big pile of bones."

My skin was crawling by the time he finished.

Was that what happened to poor Dane? Had my father been right? Would I ever have answers to what happened to him?