Jeff Sherratt - The Brimstone Murders

What did I expect? Did I think there would be signs pointing the way? Signs like the Burma Shave ads posted every mile or so I saw driving up here: “The monkey took…One look at Jim… And threw the peanuts… Back at him… Burma Shave.” Even the Burma Shave pundits didn’t think I had a chance.

This was hopeless. I’d better forget about the center and head back to Downey. But before I left Barstow, I’d call Sol and see if he had any news. Maybe he could find out, through the authorities, something about the center. It had to be licensed, I was sure. But where would he begin? I didn’t even have the name of the place. Oh my God, it suddenly dawned on me that I had hung up on him.

I cast a quick glance in all directions and spotted a phone booth. I was about to make a dash to it when I saw the gas station guy pointing to the west at what appeared to be an abandoned train station just down the road about a hundred yards.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“The Harvey House.”

“Where? I don’t see any house.”

“The Harvey House is the old railroad depot and hotel right next door,” he said. “Ain’t that what you were asking me about?”

I had only thirty seconds before the teenage girl would leave. Jumping in my car, I cranked the engine and stomped on the gas. I swerved to miss the fence separating the gas station lot from the dilapidated hotel, then stood on the brake. In a cloud of dust, I skidded to stop in front of the antiquated hotel-depot. Ten seconds to spare.

The sun was low in the western sky when I darted around the corner of the building and ventured into the dirt yard behind the derelict building. I stopped and glanced around. The girl wasn’t there.

The atmosphere was eerie, unnaturally quiet. The trash-laden yard was blanketed with long murky shadows. I watched carefully as I walked to the other end of the building amid a minefield of debris. Rusted oil drums, a banged-up refrigerator, a jumbled nest of broken pipes sitting next to a worn-out sofa with its fibrous stuffing pulled out in spots like the straw from a long-standing scarecrow littered what was once, I imagined, the manicured grounds of the old mission-style building behind me.

A spotted lizard, no bigger than a Tiparillo cigar, scurried from its position under a rock, stopped once with its head raised as if listening for a distant train that would never pass this way again, then quickly vanished behind a rusty hubcap.

Still no sign of the girl. I stopped again and glanced up at the building’s facade. Six large Spanish arches ran the width of the outer wall. The portals gave access to a ghostly promenade. Halfway down the building, opening into a dark, foreboding interior was the main entrance, a black gaping maw situated behind a row of fluted Roman columns.

I took a few more steps and heard soft clicks. Light footsteps repeated behind me. I spun around and listened: nothing. Starting back to the corner where I’d come from, I heard the footsteps again. But when I stopped, they stopped.

A slight breeze kicked up. A scrap of yellowing paper fluttered at my feet like a butterfly before settling down again. I felt a chill in the shadows behind the building and shivered a little. But, it wasn’t the breeze that caused me to shudder. It was the ghostly, decaying place itself.

What the hell was I doing out here in a town in the middle of the Mojave Desert anyway? Looking for a drug center that probably had nothing to do with Robbie’s escape. Standing behind an old dead hotel waiting for a teenage girl who was obviously pulling a prank. She was probably laughing it up right now back at the Bright Spot with her buddies, the Barstow Steinbeck Society.

I had to get back to Downey, find Sol, and apologize. Sol lived like a potentate, only more so, and he always bragged, “No one hangs up on Sol Silverman.” Well, he won’t be able to say that anymore, and he’ll be pissed, that’s for sure.

I took one last glance at the old derelict behind me. “Bye, Harvey,” I said and started to walk back to the car. But just then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a slight movement; a figure stood in the gloom behind one of the arches inside the building. It was her, the teenage girl. She slipped out to where I could see her and stood silently, staring at me in the dim light just in front of the last arch.

It startled me for an instant, seeing her there unexpectedly. I must have jumped. “Whoa!”

“Did I scare you?” she asked in a slow, emotionless monotone.

“Startled me for a second, that’s all. What’s your name?”

The girl was kind of spooky, but she had pretty features-sapphire blue eyes and pure white skin that contrasted with her coal-black hair. She could have been Snow White.

“My name is Jane. Do you like me?”

Uh-oh. With all the problems swirling around me, I didn’t need some mixed-up adolescent coming on to me. “Look, Jane, I’m kinda in a hurry.”

She turned and faced the dark inner recesses of the hotel. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so abrupt. “Look, Jane, I like you. But I’m old enough to be your father.” I wasn’t that old, but it was a good line.

She spun around. Her soft demeanor was gone, replaced by wrath. “He’s dead!” she screamed.

“Who’s dead?”

“My father.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” I said with as much tenderness as I could muster. “What about your mother? Do you live with her?”

“He killed her.”

“Who killed her?”

“He did. Then he killed himself.”

“Oh, my God! You poor girl. I had no idea.” I stood there not knowing what to say. I just stared into the deep blue eyes of this disturbed young woman, a child, really.

“That’s when they took me here…” Her voice trailed off and she stood still, almost as if in a daze. But her eyes were focused intently on me.

“To Barstow? You live here with a relative, an aunt, or someone?”

“No, they took me to the base. I work in the kitchen. They send me to work here at the cafe, too.” She said no more than that, but I knew there was more she wanted to tell me. She took a step forward.

“They took you to the base?” I felt my throat tighten. If I handle this right, she’d take me there. “The base is the teen center?”

“Yes, that’s what they call it. I was small when they took me away. There was nothing I could do.”

“Did you do drugs? I mean, after your folks died, is that why they sent you out here to the center? Drugs?”

“No! No drugs. My body is a temple, belongs to the Lord.” She quickly looked away and just as quickly turned back to me.

I had so many questions for the girl, but also a strong sense that at any moment she would leave. I knew I had to tread lightly.

“Why did you ask me to meet you here? Is there something you wanted to tell me about the center?” I asked with trepidation.

“It has to be closed.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s evil,” she said calmly, as if she were telling me the time of day, but her eyes held a burning intensity and remained fixed on my face. “I’m scared to be here,” she added. “They will give me a beating.”

In spite of the chill in the air, I started to sweat. “Jane, why? Why would anyone beat you? Who would give you a beating?”

“The old man you were talking to. He will tell them to beat me.”

“Ben Moran? The guy at the cafe? He has something to do with the center?”

Before she could answer, a black-and-white squad car rounded the corner of the Harvey House.

I shifted my gaze away from the girl for a moment and took a quick look at the cop car. A uniformed officer was starting to climb out.

I glanced back at the arch. The girl had vanished.