Desert Kill Switch ~ a Nostalgia City Mystery ~ Book 2 Read online

An hour later, Kate watched workers uncrate the Nostalgia City display panels. They had been assigned a space in a large park-like area downtown--turned into an outdoor exhibit hall. The booth stood in a row in the middle of the lot, but only one booth away from North Virginia Street where classic cars and hot rods would be parked for viewing.

  Nostalgia City’s booth included a curved, backlit backdrop, self-standing display boards, racks for literature, plus seats for Kate and Amanda. The backdrop featured a map of the park with panoramic pictures of each area. Centerville, an historically accurate re-creation of an entire small town from the mid-1970s, sat, appropriately, in the center of the park. Photos showed shops and restaurants with vintage neon signs, streets lined with ’60s and ’70s cars, plus other details that made visiting Nostalgia City a trip back in time. Surrounding Centerville, connected by roads radiating out, were a golf course, dude ranch, a collection of hotels and restaurants, and the Fun Zone, an amusement park filled with rides, some themed for period movies and TV shows.

  Kate started unpacking artwork and signs and attaching them to the display boards. Some showed photos of the classic cars available for rent and the vintage excursion railroad that connected Nostalgia City with a new Indian casino. As she attached photos of slot machines and craps tables to the display board, Kate thought local casino officials might not be happy with Nostalgia City touting its nearby gambling. Indeed, with its meticulously re-created ’70s environment, the park itself could be seen as direct competition for Reno’s Rockin’ Summer Days.

  As her booth took shape, Kate watched two people across the aisle setting up a booth that sold what looked to her like tacky mementos and souvenirs: plaques, miniature street signs, plastic statues of Elvis, ashtrays, hats made out of beer cans. Was Reno the right demographic after all? And where was Amanda?

  Chapter 3

  No question Lyle was going back out to the scene.

  He dropped Sam off at her car, parked in front of his condo, and saw her safely on her way back to Arizona State. He paused only to consider if he should pick up one of his two handguns. He decided he probably didn’t need a weapon now, so he cranked up his Mustang and pointed it down the main street in Timeless Village, the collection of houses, condos, and apartments--mainly for Nostalgia City employees--that bordered the high-desert theme park. When he reached the county highway, he turned east to retrace his steps. After he had gone several miles, he called Undersheriff Rey Martinez.

  “Rey, are you there yet?”

  “Not quite, but I got a call from a deputy. He can’t find it.”

  “What? Is the body gone?”

  “No body. No car. Nuthin’.”

  “Is he on Wagon Trail Road?”

  “Yeah, east of Broken Bend, like you said.”

  Lyle hit the accelerator and his Mustang responded with a growl and more speed. “I’ll be there in ten, fifteen minutes. Meet you at that intersection.”

  ***

  From a distance, Lyle could see the erratic pulsing of red and blue lights on two sheriff’s cars. He pulled up, got out, and walked over to Rey’s cruiser.

  “It’s just down that road,” Lyle said pointing west. “Less than two miles. On the left.”

  Martinez looked up from his driver’s seat. He wore his tan uniform and gun belt. “We’ve been down there. But okay, let’s look again. Lead the way.”

  Lyle didn’t say anything. He tried not to think anything. He just got back in his car and drove along Wagon Trail Road. In his rearview he saw Martinez had turned off his flashing lights and slowed down, giving Lyle plenty of room. How could Martinez have missed the shiny blue Pontiac with its door open and the body by the road? Lyle crept along looking left and right, searching for the right spot. He recognized a curve in the road and, off to the right, a red rock formation in the shape of a giant igloo. The murder scene should be just ahead. Quarter of a mile passed. Half a mile. Where was it? The road now headed downhill. How did he miss it? And why hadn’t he noted the location more exactly on his GPS?

  Lyle remembered having to pull off the road past the Firebird because of thick brush in the way, but that didn’t help. He looked back and to the left and saw the low, brush-covered bluff above the spot where he found the body. He’d passed it.

  Pulling a swift U-turn, Lyle drew up next to Martinez, facing the other way. They both rolled down their windows.

  “We just passed the spot back there,” Lyle said.

  “How far?”

  “I dunno. Thousand feet. Maybe two.”

  “Wagon Trail Road, right?” Martinez said.

  “Uh huh.”

  Lyle now traveled uphill in the same direction he had been about two hours earlier only now he slowed to a crawl with the black and white right behind him. Plainly, the car and the body weren’t there.

  It was the right road, the right spot. But where the hell was the body?

  He passed the top of the rise where he knew he’d seen the car and almost pulled over where he’d parked earlier. Instead, he drove ahead a few hundred feet and nudged his car into a patch of hackberry, getting all but his left wheels off the pavement. He wiped sweat from his upper lip. The car thermometer said ninety-five. Martinez drove past Lyle and parked in a wide dirt area off the shoulder on the other side of the road.

  Lyle walked purposefully along the edge of the blacktop looking for his tire tracks in the light terra cotta earth. He looked for twigs he might have broken when he’d pulled off the road with Sam. He saw nothing.

  He shook his head slowly as he walked around the creosote and manzanita that bordered the road. The expanse of desert dust, rocks, and dry grasses ahead gave no hint that a car had been there earlier that day, or any day. No blood. No brass. Shit, this has to be the place. Lyle turned to look at the rocky outcrop he remembered above the other side of the road. He saw Martinez slowly looking from one side of the road to the other.

  “This is the damn spot, Rey. Right here.” Lyle walked into the dirt. He waved his arms, making parallel arcs. “The car had pulled in at an angle like this. The door was open and the body was here.” He kicked the sand with his running shoe.

  “We looked down the road another three or four miles and didn’t see anything,” Martinez said.

  “It wasn’t down there. It was right here. I remember that little cliff and these bushes.” Sweat soaked the back of Lyle’s shirt and it stuck to him as he stood in the late afternoon sun. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand then interlaced his fingers and rested his hands on top of his head. He paused to take deep breaths, smelling sage and desert soil.

  He looked down. The dirt, uneven and windblown, showed none of the footprints he thought he’d seen. If someone had cleaned up the mess, he did a hell of a job. Lyle looked over at Rey and for a fleeting second thought he saw disbelief on the face of the tall San Navarro Sheriff’s Department’s second in command. But now Martinez’s expression showed simply raised eyebrows and tight lips.

  Lyle came to know Rey when someone sabotaged theme park rides at Nostalgia City. Drafted, almost against his wishes, to help investigate, Lyle became friends with Rey when he helped Martinez out of a tight situation. That counted for something. Rey would cut him some slack on this--what was it--a false alarm? But Rey also knew about Lyle’s Phoenix background before he went to work at Nostalgia City.

  Lyle stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and paced the ground, no longer worried about disturbing the scene. He stopped at the spot where he thought the body had been and knelt down. Spreading the gritty soil with his fingers, he looked for traces of blood, or anything. Then he got up and walked farther off the road through the brush, hoping to see something out of place, a piece of clothing, a stray shell casing. He covered his mouth and nose with his hand in disbelief as he stared off across the desert.

  “Damn. Where the hell is it, Deming?” he said aloud through his fingers. Walking back to the shoulder of the road, he noticed the footprints he’d just made. Easy to see. �
��Wait a minute,” Lyle said. “A couple of minutes after we left here, we saw another car going the other way. Did anyone else report this?”

  “Just you. I checked.”

  In other words, no one else saw it. Lyle put his hands on his hips and just looked up and down the road.

  Martinez frowned as he took a few steps along the pavement. “Looks like a gravel road off to the right, past the bluff.”

  “I noticed it earlier but didn’t explore it before I left.”

  Lyle walked across the pavement and looked up the gravel road. The rutted surface gave no indication that anyone had driven or walked on it recently. Lyle crunched down the road several paces until he could see where the road headed. Empty space.

  “The deputy and I will check down there,” Martinez said. “Then we’ll cruise the roads that intersect with Wagon Trail, any cross streets for a few miles. We find anything, we’ll call you.”

  Back in his car, Lyle popped a small yellow pill in his mouth and washed it down with warm, stale water from a bottle in the back seat. He knew the deputies would not find anything.

  Chapter 4

  A rock band drifted through a rendition of a Bee Gees’ hit and Kate could smell chili and hear the tinkle of glasses. Tired from almost a full day in the sun, Kate put on her game face and followed the sounds into the Reno hotel’s banquet hall. Inside, four musicians, three guitarists and a drummer, played at one end of the room. Glittering script on the face of the base drum spelled out Rockin’ Summer Days. Hundreds of people stood in small clusters chatting while others lined up at one of the bars. Kate wondered if Amanda had come down yet. Before she could find her, a frail-looking woman wearing a slightly too large tan and gray high school varsity jacket approached her with a big smile and an outstretched hand.

  “Welcome,” she said. “I’m Marge Drysdale, RSD board member.”

  Kate smiled and introduced herself.

  “Oh, Nostalgia City,” she said. Her eyes got wider and Kate had a sense Drysdale was unsettled by her presence. “I’ve heard of Nostalgia City,” the woman said, recovering quickly. “It sounds exciting. Does it really look, you know, just like the past?”

  “I think you’d be fooled. We don’t even let staff members use cell phones. Everything’s authentic.”

  Kate thanked her and wandered through the crowd to the bar where she saw Amanda waiting in line.

  “Just going to get a club soda,” said the young woman to her boss.

  “Relax, Amanda. Get a margarita or something. It’s been a long day. This is a thank-you reception for vendors and sponsors. That’s us, so just circulate, pass out your cards, and observe.”

  A few years out of college, Amanda was young, about fifteen years younger than Kate. Amanda didn’t yet have a complete understanding of their target market, the baby boomer generation--Kate was still learning a few things herself--but she thought Amanda had promise.

  When Kate had a drink in her hand, she wandered toward a group of men who appeared to be RSD officials. After ten years doing PR for Vegas hotels, before moving to Nostalgia City, Kate knew the cocktail party, meet-and-greet drill by heart, but she strived to avoid cliché comments when possible and connect with people when she could.

  “Well, hello up there,” said a man with a slight Texas accent. “Are ya havin’ fun yet?” So much for avoiding clichés. Kate mentally gritted her teeth and smiled.

  “Sorry, ah didn’t mean to be disrespectful,” he said, showing a winning smile, half chagrin, half smirk. He wore a light gray suit, sport shirt, no tie, and cowboy boots. “Ah’m glad to see you and well...”

  “No offense taken,” Kate said, shaking his hand. It was certainly not the first time a man had teased her about her height. He’d either started the cocktail hour earlier than the rest of the participants, or he was naturally relaxed. Maybe both.

  “I’m Chris Easley.” His name badge said he was executive director of RSD. “You’re with Nostalgia City, right?” he said after a quick glance at her name badge. “Is this your first time at Rockin’ Summer Days?”

  “First time for Nostalgia City, of course, and first time for me, too. I lived in Vegas and used to come up here for work and to see Lake Tahoe, but I never made it for the event.”

  “I’m glad you’re here.” He sounded like he meant it. “We have cars registered from forty-six states, four Canadian provinces, and five foreign countries. This could be our biggest year yet.”

  “You have an agency doing your advertising and PR, don’t you?”

  “Yes, they’ve been doing it for years. And I have connections with collectors and classic car clubs. That helps get the word out.”

  “This is your third year here, right?” Kate had done her homework.

  “Yeah. I ran a similar car event in San Antonio for quite a while. Not as big as this, but a lotta potential.”

  “Then you got recruited to Reno?”

  “That’s what happened. I lived here before, for about six years, working on the rodeo and other events. That’s partly how I got the job. I knew Marge Drysdale--she’s a sweetheart--from the rodeo board. She remembered me when the position became available. The RSD board wanted someone who knew the town. Al, he’s the board chair, he says you gotta know the locals to make an event like this work. He’s pretty much right.”

  “But Al Busick is from Las Vegas.”

  “Yeah, but Al knows all o’ Nevada.”

  As Easley said that, Kate glanced nearby and saw Busick himself slowly making his way toward them.

  She recognized him immediately. Busick owned a chain of Vegas car dealerships and used to do all his own TV commercials. He’d always start the ads with the same gravel-voice greeting, “Hi, I’m Al Busick. I’m a family man, like you. You want your family to have reliable transportation...” A few years ago Busick disappeared from the commercials, replaced by a young, shapely pitch person who always smiled, showing nearly all of her thirty-two teeth, and other assets.

  Busick, a heavy, balding man in his sixties, wore an RSD polo shirt and slacks. Kate judged him to be a bit under six feet tall. His stomach preceded him as he walked toward Kate and Easley. He looked Kate up and down as if he were examining a horse for sale and not totally satisfied with it. But when he reached them, he smiled.

  “Hi,” he said, “I’m Al Busick.”

  For a moment, Kate thought he was going into his TV spiel. She introduced herself.

  “Ah, Nostalgia City,” Busick said. “The amazing theme park. Are you our big competition?”

  “Not really. Yours is a participation event. So many of your guests bring their own cars for display. That’s what makes Rockin’ Summer Days.”

  “Yes, but you have a car show going on now, too.”

  “It’s a tiny one. Something my boss wanted to try out. And it’s just finishing up. I believe you have cars in our show, Mr. Busick.”

  “Please, call me Al. Yeah, we go to a bunch of shows. I want to keep our name out there. We sent over a few cars.”

  Kate had seen Busick Pony Cars on the list of registrants for the Nostalgia City car show. In addition to his Vegas new-car dealerships, Busick had a small classic car business that sold “pony cars,” muscle cars from the ’60s and ’70s, as well as other, older vehicles.

  “So you’re not our competition,” Busick continued, “but would you like to see our event in Arizona?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean doing Rockin’ Summer Days in Nostalgia City.”

  “Wouldn’t work. We don’t allow people to drive their own cars in the park,” Kate said, “even if they are pre-1976. What a nightmare that would be for security. And the local sheriff. We have a hard enough time now with our Nostalgia City rental cars.”

  “I can understand that,” Easley said. “With thousands of hot rods and other classic cars roaming all over Reno, this is a big job.” Easley looked at Kate with the beginning of a smile. “But I’m calm as a June bug.”

  “What
the hell’s that mean?” Busick said. “With all these cars, this event is getting more hectic and more expensive every year.”

  “We pay the county and the cities of Sparks and Reno,” Easley explained, “for traffic control, policing, and other services. But hey,” he waved his drink in the air, “we take up huge chunks of the metro area for nearly two weeks.”

  “And we pay for cleanup, portable toilets, and county permits,” Busick said. “Expensive. We may have to raise entry fees.”

  “Hopefully not for a while, Al,” Easley said.

  “You need to spend more time on financial management and less on schmoozing.” Busick waved a hand in the general direction of Easley’s drink. “You’re supposed to be running this show, Chris. Get on it.”

  Easley nodded slightly, then turned to Kate. His smile now appeared forced. “We have expenses, but we also have hundreds of the best volunteers anywhere. They really make Rockin’ Summer Days work. Many of the volunteers have been with us since we started.”

  “That’s another thing, Mr. Texan,” Busick began.

  Kate noticed Amanda hovering nearby, trying to get her attention. It gave her the perfect excuse to step away politely from Busick’s abuse.

  “What’s up, Amanda? You having a good time?”

  “Somebody just asked me if we’re here to buy out Rockin’ Summer Days and move it to Arizona.”

  “You told them, ‘no,’ I hope.”

  “Yes, but there’s a story in someone’s blog that says the event is going to move out of Reno. He writes for newspapers, too. Someone showed me.” Amanda pulled out her smart phone, swiped the screen, then handed it to Kate. “Look.”

  Is the RSD car event leaving Reno? the headline read. The byline said, Gale Forrester.

  Chapter 5

  Centerville Car Rental, the sign said, and the models parked out front included a Plymouth Roadrunner, Oldsmobile Cutlass, and a VW Beetle. All were 1970s vintage, but all looked brand new, thanks to the small army of mechanics, auto body specialists, a few engineers, and various restorers who worked in the Nostalgia City garage. They took worn out and abandoned cars and turned them into reasonable facsimiles of what new cars looked like forty-plus years ago. But Lyle was not here to admire their work.