Oblation: A Spine-Tingling Crime Thriller set in Small-Town California, page 8
Scanning the room once more, she settled on the face of Giuermo Guerro. His wife had accompanied Michael to the hospital. Everyone else had somebody. He was alone. She smiled at him, trying to establish a connection. “Mr. Guerro, I want you to know that your son, Michael, is a hero. By his actions, he probably saved lives on that bus.” Giuermo gave a slight, half-hearted nod of acknowledgment and thanks. “If your younger son, Alex, is anything like his big brother, I know he is trying to make his way home. I am going to do everything that I, and my department, can do to make sure that not only Alex but all your children are brought back to you.”
She knew she was dangerously close to saying that everything would end up fine and they would find the children. She did not want to say that. She did not want to offer what might be false hope.
“Sheriff Tarpley?”
It was Hoa Nguyen, the mother of Le. She was a tiny woman, to begin with, and the stress of the moment made her appear even smaller. “My husband and I come to this country from Vietnam. We have tried to learn the American culture and raise our child to respect both U. S. and Vietnamese culture.”
Tarpley could tell she was having trouble putting her thoughts into words, but she was not sure how to help her, so Tarpley simply allowed her to continue speaking. “Today is Halloween. We have something similar in Vietnam, though not the same.” She hesitated, searching for the right words. “Some of our family has said that here, in the U.S., there are witches who will kidnap children on Halloween and kill them.”
Hoa looked down at her hands, not sure she could bring herself to utter the next question, but she needed to know. “Is this true? And is my little girl going to be killed?” Having said what she wanted, she started crying, and her husband patted her hand. There was a soft gasp through the room as the parents realized the implication of her question.
Sheriff Tarpley had anticipated the question earlier in the day and had been somewhat surprised that it had taken so long for the question to come up. She was sure that the idea was being bandied about by the media, but she needed to reassure these parents. “Mrs. Nguyen, I am not going to tell you that, unfortunately, such events don’t happen. They do. But usually, these are individual abductions, not group abductions. Here we have five children who are missing. So, I do not believe the taking of your children has anything to do with Satan worship.” Trying to move the discussion in another direction, she continued, “I want to talk with all of you and see if we can find something that all the children have in common. That might help solve this mystery and find your children.”
The parents glanced questioningly at each other, wondering what hope or ideas they could offer each other. It was Mr. Guerro who spoke first. “I don’t see anything that is obvious that we all have in common.” He looked at the floor and then at the ceiling as if he was recalling pictures from his memory. “They are all different ages. Male and female. Obviously, they go to the same school. As far as I know, except for us, and Mr. Hendricks’ family, I think we all go to different churches.”
Sawsan Emami broke in, “Our son, Ubay, plays soccer in the same league as your Alex, but they are on different teams, and as you said, they are different ages.”
Jasmine’s mother picked up on the process. “My little girl is five. This is her first year in this school. She has nothing to do with the other children.”
The desperation and panic in her voice were palpable, and the other parents felt it as well. They started talking over the top of each other. Each reiterated the same point that there was nothing any of the five children had in common.
Sheriff Tarpley let them talk for a few seconds and was getting ready to say something when Principal Oakes walked into the library. The squeak of the door’s hinges caused the parents in the room to stop talking and look with hopeful expectation at the school principal. Not expecting to suddenly be the center of attention, he was taken aback and looked across the room at Sheriff Tarpley, who raised one eyebrow in a “the floor is yours” look.
Gary Oakes cleared his throat. “I just wanted to come in here and be with all of you. My office is too quiet. I guess I just needed to be around other people. Like you, I’m concerned about our children.” The phrase seemed strange, but that was how he viewed the students. Not having any children himself, he looked upon each of them as his own.
The simplicity of his statement made a couple of the parents smile. Tarpley also grinned at the principal. “That’s understandable.” She waved him to a seat at the front of the room. “We were just trying to figure out what the children had in common. Looking for a pattern that might help us understand why these five children were taken.”
Gary nervously took his seat but did not like that he had been placed in a position where he was having to look at the faces of the parents. He would have preferred being in the back of the room, where he would not have to see the grief and pain in their eyes. “Have you come up with anything?” he asked.
“No. I’m afraid not. Each student is different, without any connection to the others.”
Principal Oakes thought for a minute. “Maybe that’s the point.”
“What do you mean?” Mr. Emami asked.
“Well,” he said, looking around nervously, “forgive me for what I am about to say because, in school, we try not to categorize children, but I think, in this case, it might be helpful.”
The parents looked at him expectantly, and Sheriff Tarpley encouraged him, “Go ahead. What do you mean?” She had a sense of where he was going. It was so obvious.
Gary Oakes stood up, feeling more comfortable walking while he talked. “Mr. and Mrs. Emami, you are of Middle Eastern origin, right?”
“Yes,” Mr. Emami answered, “we are from Syria.”
“And Muslim also, if I may be so bold as to make an assumption?”
A bit hesitantly, he responded, “Yes?”
Gesturing toward Mr. Guerro, “You are Hispanic and most likely Catholic?”
“Yes, we’re Catholic and from Guatemala.” Giuermo then added, almost defensively, “but both my wife and I are citizens, and Mr. Hendrick’s family is Catholic also.”
“Mr. Hendricks,” the principal continued, “your ancestry is European?”
“English and German.”
“Good. Mr. and Mrs. Nguyen, if I remember correctly, you immigrated from Vietnam. Is that correct?”
“Yes, twenty years ago.”
“And if you don’t mind me asking, what religion are you?”
“Buddhists.”
Finally, he turned to Steve and Lacee Kalmins. “And I assume your family was brought over during the slave trade.”
Steven Kalmins sat up straight in his chair, realizing the point Principal Oakes was making. “Both of us are descended from freed slaves, yes. And before you ask, we are Baptist.”
Sheriff Tarpley finally chimed in, “So what you are suggesting is that the children were chosen because they were different from each other? Each representing a different race or culture, and possibly religion?”
“Right. We have black, white, Asian, Arab, and Hispanic, and we have a United Nations of religions. The only major religions we are missing are Jews and Hindus.”
“Excuse me.” It was Linda Hendricks who whispered. “I’m Jewish.”
The silence in the room was heavy with the realization of what had just been stated.
Finally, John Hendricks broke the silence. “So, where does that leave us? Jordan is my firstborn. I know I have two other children, but I want him back as well.”
“And Jasmine is my oldest child. We need to find her,” agreed Lacee Kalmins.
“Le is our only child,” Mr. Nguyen volunteered. The raw emotion of the possibility of losing his only child caused his voice to crack.
Sheriff Tarpley had a thought. “Mr. and Mrs. Emami, where does Ubay fall regarding your children?”
“He is the oldest,” Sawsan replied.
“But Alex is the youngest,” Mr. Guerro said.
“That is true,” she said, remembering something Michael had told her when they had talked. He said, “I was supposed to be taken, but I was damaged, so he took Alex.” Somehow, she knew this point was important, but she was not sure why.
FOURTEEN
The house is old. It’s going to burn fast. Robert Santos knew that. That was one of the reasons he had chosen it and convinced the city council to allow it to be burnt as a training opportunity for the Cedarville Volunteer Fire Department. After being abandoned for five years, the house had physically fallen into disrepair but remained solid enough at its core to remain structurally sound as it burnt. That made it a perfect house for training new recruits. The house had been declared abandoned and condemned by the city, so Santos went before the council and convinced them that rather than just demolishing the place with a bulldozer, they should let the fire department use it.
Santos, whom people simply referred to as Chief, was the senior member of the Cedarville Volunteer Fire Department with almost twenty-five years under his belt. Most of the firefighters had more experience with car accidents and brush fires than house fires. The city council liked the idea of letting the fire department have the house, especially after Santos suggested they burn the house on Halloween and turn it into a town festival. Cedarville was a small town, so this was a great opportunity for neighbors to get together, allow the children to trick or treat among the cars, and watch a house burn. Who doesn’t like to watch a house burn?
As a welder on the local oil wells, Santos dealt with heat regularly. But the heat from a welding torch and the heat of a burning house were two completely different things. He wanted his people to feel just how hot a burning house could get and, more importantly, how unpredictable a house fire could be. The topic had been discussed in multiple training sessions, but nothing could take the place of experiencing the unpredictability of a house fire from the inside.
The date and the burning had been planned as a joy-filled, family-friendly event, but with the news out of Alturas about the missing children, Robert Santos was not sure what the mood of the people would be or if people would even show up. Modoc County’s population was small, and most of the people knew each other or knew someone who knew someone. While Cedarville had its own grade school through the eighth grade, the entire county went to the same high school. Parents and students knew each other. When Santos heard the news about the abductions at work, he called the mayor to ask if they should cancel the evening’s gathering. They talked about postponing it, but the mayor thought it might be a good idea to continue as planned. “It may provide a needed distraction,” he reasoned.
Santos did not completely disagree, but as a father of two and a grandfather of three, the last few hours had been dominated by thoughts of his own family and what he would be doing if one of them were missing. I’d not be attending a public house fire.
But now he needed to focus on the task at hand and not the missing children. It was almost 4:30, and the house was scheduled to be torched in about two hours. The time had been chosen because it would still be light enough for the firefighters inside the house to observe the fire spread but dark enough afterward to provide something of a spectacle for the people outside.
As Santos walked through the house, everything appeared normal. He double-checked the panel box to ensure there was no electricity inside the house. He was pleased with the furnishings the previous owner had left, especially in the back bedroom, where an old quilt lay over the bedframe and the mattress. The natural fibers of the quilt would burn quickly, especially in comparison to the new polyester comforter on the bed in the front room.
The kitchen was a completely different matter and was almost fireproof with its old white metal cabinets, a metal-tiled ceiling, and asbestos tile flooring. But here again, this would be a great lesson for his crew. While much of the exterior material would resist the fire, once the flames reached the wood inside the walls and the floor joists caught, everything would collapse in on itself.
He smiled at the contents of the living room as he passed through it. The couch, the rug, and the old rotting drapes that bordered the window would all burn nicely. He came to a stop as he stepped across the circular rag rug of the living room when he felt the floor give ever so slightly. Rocking back and forth from heel to toe, he felt the floor flex below him. It felt solid enough, but the safety of his men and women was his priority. He did not want the possibility of a soft flooring collapsing and injuring one of his firefighters. Bending over, he pulled back the edge of the old rug.
“I don’t remember this,” he said to himself as he examined the piece of new plywood. His training took over, and he started mentally calculating the burn rate of OSB plywood compared to the original wood flooring. Another good lesson for his firefighters. OSB burns slower, and they would be able to observe that first-hand. But his people would need to see more of the plywood. He crossed to the other side of the living room and pulled the rug, dragging it closer to the window. He walked across the plywood one more time just to check its stability.
Satisfied, his thoughts returned to how they would burn the house. He would start in the backroom with the bed and the quilt, then move to the front room before observing the flame spread into the living room. Finally, they would escape through the kitchen before the roof and ceiling collapsed.
A crew of five younger firefighters would be working with him inside the house. They would be simulating fighting the fire while he tried to explain to them some of the things going on regarding the fire spread. As a safety backup, there would be two more crews of five outside the house. One crew in the front and one crew in the back. Each in radio contact with him and each other, ready to assist if needed. If things got too bad too quickly inside the house, they could always escape through the front door.
Satisfied that everything was in order, he left through the back door, careful to avoid some of the more questionable wooden steps. Just enough time to get home, have a quick bite to eat, and come back.
FIFTEEN
Tarpley looked at her watch: 4:30. The parents had left the school about an hour before. There was no reason why they needed to sit around staring into each other’s eyes, hoping that all the children would be returned safely but secretly wishing that at least theirs would walk through the doors of the school’s library unharmed. Before they left, Tarpley promised that if there was any development, the parents would be the first ones contacted.
Only a few teachers now lingered in the hallways talking to each other, not wanting to go home to a lonely or empty house. Most parents had opted to pick up their children either during the day or when school had finally been dismissed. It was a long, slow funeral-like procession of cars, trucks, SUVs, and vans snaking through the parking lot and out into the street. Everybody asked about the latest news. But there was none to share.
But things were happening behind the scenes. After the sheriff had put trooper William Blantley on the spot and forced him to contact the governor, a team from the California Bureau of Investigation showed up and were at the factory going over the bus. They had re-interviewed some of the parents, and a couple of CBI agents accompanied Mr. Guerro back to the hospital to talk to Michael. Giuermo was more than happy to have an excuse to leave the school and be with his wife.
Agent Raimer led the CBI contingent. He appeared to be in his mid-fifties and simply introduced himself as Agent Raimer. He was abrupt, never revealing his first name, which Tarpley thought was odd and rude, but given the way she had treated Trooper Blantley, she was not surprised. They informed her that the CBI was taking over the investigation, and they promised to keep Tarpley informed and in the loop. Tarpley was not insulted or put out because she realized that this was bigger than she and her department could handle. They simply did not have the resources that were needed to do a proper search or investigation. The CBI did, and they could more directly focus the efforts of Blantley and the highway patrol, and they had the power of the governor behind them. Blantley, of course, was not happy to have been pushed to the background. He left town shortly after the arrival of the CBI, letting them know that any further communication with the Northern Division of the Highway Patrol should pass through his lieutenant.
One of the best things about having the CBI present was that they had a person who was trained in handling the media. When the news broke about the missing bus, the local news crews turned their full attention to it. Once the bus was found, minus five children, the crews from larger markets like Reno, Sacramento, and San Francisco became interested. As a result, the story of the missing children had become a national story, running as a second lead during the east coast’s evening news behind the upcoming elections. While the media did not directly push the idea of devil worshippers, every newscaster made a point to mention it. Tarpley could already see tomorrow’s headlines: “Children Abducted, Satanists Suspected.” It fit perfectly into the image of California as being out in left field and fed the public’s interest in blood and gore.
Tarpley sat in one of the wooden chairs in the principal’s office, observing Gary Oakes leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head, gazing at the ceiling through half-closed eyes. The two of them were trying in their own way to forget the events of the day. A press conference had been scheduled to take place just before the five o’clock news cycle on the west coast, and Superintendent MacDonald was there. It was explained to Tarpley that the more the events could be publicized, the more people would be looking for anything suspicious and, hopefully, contact law enforcement. Both Tarpley and Oakes had been invited to be present but had turned down the invitations. Neither one wanted any more people looking to them for answers than were already doing so.
