CHAPTER TWO
Traffic was already a nightmare by the time Veronica dropped her dad off at home and headed back out toward Mars Investigations. Spring break had descended on Neptune in all its bacchanalian glory, and even though the worst of it choked the beaches and boardwalks, the party had spread inland, creeping up through the commercial districts and the historic downtown blocks. The drunk and disoriented glutted the bars, restaurants, and shops all over town, even at noon on a Monday. It’d already been going on for more than a week, and it wouldn’t slow up until mid-April—there were hundreds of colleges within driving distance, each with its own spring break dates.
Veronica glanced in her rearview mirror. Traffic stretched as far as she could see, motionless in the sun. The sidewalks were crawling with undergrads, shouting at their friends, lifting glass bottles in impromptu toasts. Apparently Neptune’s public consumption laws were being selectively enforced. But that was par for the course during the three-week spring break season—money talked in Neptune, and no one heard it louder or clearer than Sheriff Dan Lamb. He spent most of the year chasing “undesirables” (translation: anyone flirting with the poverty line) off the streets, only to turn a blind eye to binge-drinking eighteen-year-olds descending en masse.
Someone laid on his horn. A girl with feather hair extensions leaned down into the gutter to vomit, then straightened up and kept walking as if nothing had happened. A cluster of bikini-clad girls on roller skates tripped laughing across the road while several boys stood on the sidewalk filming them with their cell phones. She sighed and fiddled with the radio dial. She’d let Keith man the stations on the way home and now Blue ?yster Cult blared from the speakers, the cowbell ringing loud and proud. Five hundred stations on this thing and he went straight to 1976. There’s no help for some people. She played idly with the controls, looking for something to pass the time.
“I can tell you one thing: I wouldn’t let my daughter go to Neptune for spring break.”
Veronica paused. She knew that voice right away: Trish Turley, big, blond, and Texan, sounded like an avenging fury cutting across the airwaves. Her TV show ran daily on CNN, and Neptune’s local talk radio streamed the audio.
“I mean, the place is just a pressure cooker of hormones, drugs, and alcohol. Kids these days aren’t taught to respect their own limits. And have you seen the way these girls act?” You could practically see Trish Turley shaking her head in approbation. “All you have to do is look up Neptune in your World Wide Web and you’ll find video upon video of them showing their breasts for free beer. And then we’re shocked when someone gets hurt.”
Ah, the twin pillars of outrage journalism: slut shaming and victim blaming. Trish Turley liked to call herself a “victim’s rights” advocate, but anytime she could turn an eye on the general decay of society (as witnessed through WASP-colored glasses), she made sure to cover all the bases. The corruption of youth? Check. Amoral decadence? Check. Missing white girl? Yahtzee.
But even Veronica had to admit that it was disturbing how little difference eighteen-year-old Hayley Dewalt’s disappearance had made to the festivities. The news had hit that weekend: Hayley, down with friends from UC Berkeley, had been missing for almost a week. But you’d never have guessed it from the air of celebration hanging over the town. The bass pounded on and the beer still flowed freely. She wasn’t sure what the reaction to one of their own vanishing into thin air should be, but the spring breakers’ blind and blissful determination to carry on as if nothing bad could happen to them surprised even her. She wasn’t sure she’d ever had that invincible, indestructible air, even when she’d been younger.
“And then there’s this Keystone Kop sheriff.”
That caught her attention. She turned the radio up a little.
“This Dan Lamb character? What a joker. Who goes on national TV in the post–Natalee Holloway world to say we shouldn’t worry about a missing teenaged girl? I hope that the Dewalt family has a good lawyer on the books. A lawsuit might just get Lamb’s attention.”
A slow smile spread over Veronica’s face. Trish, Trish, Trish. We have so little in common, and yet suddenly I have a powerful urge to kiss you. She’d been watching Lamb for the past few months, waiting for any opportunity to nail him to the wall—but if he kept this up, he’d do it himself.
The video Veronica had sent to TMZ had started the ball rolling, of course. She’d caught Lamb on tape talking about the Bonnie DeVille murder case, saying, “I don’t care if Logan Echolls ain’t the guy. America thinks he’s guilty and that’s good enough for me.” That little snippet had hit the airwaves hard. Lamb had an election in eight months, and for the first time his reelection was a less-than-sure bet. The town’s wealthiest residents still supported him—Lamb looked after their interests, after all—but his approval ratings had taken a nosedive in the past few months.
“Let’s listen to this guy’s statement when the press finally cornered him Friday afternoon,” Turley continued.
The sound quality changed—wind crackled against a cheap recorder. Sheriff Dan Lamb’s voice was calm, but there was no mistaking the hint of impatience.