“Telegram or Snapchat?”
“No social media. It’s a gateway technology.”
“Gateway to what?” I asked.
“The evil in the world.”
Of course evil predated social media by a few hundred thousand years, but what would have been my point?
“I learned a few things at her school that you should know about,” I said.
On my way out of the room I saw what looked like kick marks on the inside of Daley’s bedroom door. I stopped and felt the doorknob’s outside lock.
“I lock her in her room at times,” said Penelope. “Very reluctantly and very rarely. She doesn’t care for it.”
We sat at a small oak table in the dining area. From there I could see the living room, separated from the kitchen by a half-wall, and some of the front yard through the screen door. I watched the bikers and skateboarders and runners, and the steady parade of drivers heading home from their late-summer day at the beach.
“What can you tell me about Alchemy 101?” I asked.
“An Oceanside teen club. Daley likes it there.”
“Do you like her there?”
“So long as I know where she is. I’ve been to it. The security is adequate.”
“Do you know how she gets there?”
She gave me a skeptical look. “What do you mean?”
I told her what Alanis and Carrie had said about Connor and Eric, the silver SUV, and the rides to Alchemy 101 after school. How they just dropped the girls off and let them find their own ways home. How the men loosely fit an eyewitness description of Daley’s escorts, who arrived and departed Nick Moreno’s house in a silver Expedition.
“No. No, I don’t know of these men.” I saw the shame cross her face.
“People lie to me all the time,” I said. “Even when I want to believe them.”
“You seem too cynical for that.”
“It’s a weakness in my line of work, hoping that people are telling the truth. It usually doesn’t last long.”
While those maybe cynical words hung in the air I studied the small house, the worn hardwood floors and beach-rental furniture. Bare white walls. Tattered, poorly fitted blinds. An orange-and-red plaid couch, a cheap wooden side table, and a knockoff Tiffany lamp. A flimsy-looking wicker stand loaded with photos. Two blue director’s chairs. A boom box on a sideways orange crate on the living room floor, some paperbacks and CDs propped inside.
“How long have you lived here?” I asked.
“A year. We rarely stay in one place for long.”
“Because Richard is a Marine pilot?”
“Yes, as I told you,” she said. “So Miramar for now. A Second Marine Aircraft Wing instructor. The Top Gun days are over at Miramar, but don’t tell Richard that.”
“I was One MEF,” I said. Which is the First Marine Expeditionary Force that led the charge in Fallujah. We were aided by the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, which was headquartered at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, then and now.
“Oh?” she asked. “MEF? I’m sorry but I can’t keep up with Marine Corps acronyms.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. But it did. “Is he in town now, your husband?”
“He’s out at Fallon for a few days. Nevada.”
“How is his relationship with Daley?”
A cool drift into her eyes. “Excellent. She has only a few memories of Dad. Richard is her father figure. There are uncles on both Mom’s and Dad’s sides, but, well, we moved around a fair amount. The three of us.”
She retrieved a small brass picture frame from atop the kitchen refrigerator, handed it to me. Penelope, Daley, and a Marine pilot in his flight suit, all standing in front of an F-16. Smiles, wind in their hair, all three wearing aviator sunglasses. A happy moment.
“When did you and Richard marry?”
“November sixth, 2011. It was the happiest day of my life. When your husband is career, you go where they throw you.”
I nodded, setting the picture on the table between us. My father had been career and we had gone where they threw us for years. Then he retired, but came back to consult for three times the salary and none of the deployments, transfers, and reassignments.
“How is your relationship with Richard?”
“Very good, thank you. Why do you ask?”
“To understand the forces in Daley’s life.”
“The strongest force in Daley’s life is Daley.”
“You described her as precocious but capable of making bad choices,” I said.
“A textbook fourteen-year-old, I would say.”
I wasn’t sure there was such a thing. “The precocious part worries Chancellor Stahl,” I said. “She says that Daley has had three ‘interactions’ with much older boys in the two years she’s been at Monarch.”
“She’s still a virgin,” said Penelope. “I spend tremendous amounts of psychic and physical energy making sure of that. I always have very pointed discussions with Daley’s male friends. I scare them. Maybe because my ten percent killer shows through. I know I can’t keep her protected forever. I’m doomed to fail, but I think Daley is worth the fight. Fourteen is too young. When I was that age I was happy. I loved horses and my girlfriends. I was still innocent.”
I nodded but wondered if innocence had already passed Daley Rideout by. Nick Moreno had died and Daley had left with the men who killed him. Without apparent struggle or coercion. The girl and the men looked okay with each other.
Penelope stood quickly when her phone rang, took it from a rear pocket, and looked down at the screen. “Richard,” she said. “I need to take this.”
5
Alchemy 101 was in a strip mall in Oceanside on the inland side of Interstate 5. Oceanside is home to some one hundred and seventy thousand souls: Anglos, Hispanics, African Americans, Luiseño Indians, Asians, Pacific Islanders. Marines, ex-Marines, and veterans of all the branches. Surfers, anglers, motorcyclists, and a diverse beach-hugging citizenry too quirky to categorize. There’s the California Surf Museum, the Oceanside Museum of Art, a good public library, and the Supergirl Pro Jam — the largest women’s surf competition in the world. Oceanside is not one of your plush Southern California beach towns. Not enough mansions or gated neighborhoods. More woodies than Teslas, more wheelchairs than Segways. It’s got street cred.
It was early evening by then, the western sky hanging orange and blue beyond the power poles. Alchemy 101 was in the middle of the mall, flanked by Reptile Republic and Blondie’s Scooters. The mall’s anchor store was a Dollar Tree. I noted Coast Donut, Discount Military, and Frank’s Surf Shop.
Alchemy 101 had a neon Celtic-script sign in the entrance alcove and densely smoked windows. The sign was on, throwing its hot red letters against the darkened glass. At the booth I paid my ten bucks, got my right tamped with a red A. The sign said teens paid five. The cashier was a pleasant girl with pink hair and steel studs embedded the length of her right eyebrow who said, “Welcome to Alchemy 101, man.”
I noted a ticket-booth decal saying that these premises were protected by SNR Security. The company graphic was a round blue emblem with an eagle gripping lightning bolts in its talons.
Interesting.
Inside, Alchemy 101 was larger than I’d expected. Well lit, the smells of incense and coffee. A stage at the far end, a dance floor, and booths along two walls. A snack bar and kitchen, and one entire wall of screens playing music videos, old TV shows, and what appeared to be Thoroughbred horse races from around the world.