Half Moon Bay: A Novel (Clay Edison Book 3)

The stereotypes that typify the Bay Area flourish alongside their opposites. Sixty miles separate San Francisco from the Central Valley, with Alameda County functioning as a buffer between them. Our electoral map mirrors the country as a whole: densely populated coastal areas bleeding blue and a vast, sparse tract of hillside, farmland, and unincorporated wilderness, red to the core.

All of it’s my jurisdiction.

Fewer people means fewer dead people. We don’t often get out to the eastern fringes, where Dale, Gunnar, and Kelly Dormer made their home. When I called Nieminen to let him know I intended to pay them a visit, he said, “They’re where?”

“Rip’s Gulch.”

“Never heard of it.”

I hadn’t, either. “About eight miles southeast of Livermore.”

“Huh. What’s anyone doing out there?”

Living under the radar. Making and disseminating their very own white power podcast. Staying out of trouble, except for when they were causing trouble.

The Dormer brothers’ exploits paled in comparison with their father’s. With a name like Gunnar, you’d think he’d be the hardest core, but only Dale had done real time, eighteen months for aggravated assault, after he shot at a station wagon that cut him off on the freeway. Smaller potatoes for the other two: petty theft, malicious mischief, trespassing, DUI, public intoxication. Pulling donuts in the Walmart parking lot appeared to be a cherished pastime.

I wondered if Fritz felt disappointed in or proud of his brood.

I told Nieminen I was headed out on Saturday afternoon.

“Ah, geez…My daughter’s got a soccer game, and then—weekend’s stacking up kinda busy, know what I mean?”

“Why don’t I talk to them and report back to you?”

“You don’t mind, do you.”

“Not in the least. Any news on the bear?”

“Flo sent it to the crime lab.”

Good on you, Sibley.

—

A FEW DAYS later, with the sun falling at my back, I rolled through the bedroom communities of Dublin and Pleasanton. Auto plaza, outlet mall, warehouses: bland matte piles blending into the sapped terrain. A sign noted the exit for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where Gene Franchette had spent a portion of his working life designing bigger and better bombs. On my GPS it registered as a village-sized blank.

I’d never been inside. Either no one died there, or the feds had their own way of dealing with it. The closest I’d come was the removal of a bicyclist, a chemist struck down by a van as he exited the parking lot and turned toward the Vasco Road BART station. The impact threw his backpack thirty feet down the shoulder. When I unzipped it, it appeared full of vomit, and a powerful, earthy smell bloomed out at me. His fiancée would tell me that he made his own hummus, bringing deli containers to work to share with his colleagues.

Today’s high-speed tour continued past Altamont, site of the concert where the Rolling Stones had hired the Hells Angels as security with predictably deadly results. Ahead loomed the county line and the city of Tracy. One of the missing persons cases I’d browsed had gone down in Tracy. A little girl taken by her father, Sybil Vine.

As I wondered how she was doing—if she was alive—the freeway split, and I was heading south.

The second off-ramp coughed me out into low crumbly hills, unsuitable for agriculture but tailor-made for hiding. The asphalt skinnied and deteriorated until it had become a single fissured lane, unlit and bounded by flaccid telephone lines. On my left ran a chalky berm; on my right, an endless stretch of barbed wire.

The GPS began counting down—five hundred feet, two hundred, one—until it announced, absurdly, that I had arrived. Nothing about that spot differentiated it from the preceding half mile. No sign for Carlos Canyon Road; no address marker or mailbox. Way off in the distance, an angular smudge indicated the presence of human beings, but I couldn’t see how to reach it, short of plowing through the fence.

The sun sent up a death knell flare.

I crept along.

In three hundred feet, make a legal U-turn.

I made an illegal one.

You have arrived at your destination.

I shut the GPS off.

On my third pass I spotted a subtle variant in the fence line: a doubled post, one of which could be wiggled loose, allowing the wire to be folded back. A pale strip of hard-baked dirt ran toward the encroaching dusk.

I bounced along the track, wheels spitting gravel. Slowly the smudge began to resolve, like a body surfacing in swamp water. Structures, then vehicles, then living things: gaunt dogs and children chasing one another, their roles as hunter or prey in constant flux. Bare feet raised a dusty haze.

I counted three half-ton trucks, two motorcycles, four ATVs, and a riding mower. Half a dozen single-wide trailers with steps made of hammered planks formed a semicircle. The leftmost sported a satellite dish on its roof.

Here and there and in between rose hillocks of junk: buckets, lumber, spare parts, cinder blocks and bricks, orphaned furniture, mutilated toys.

Amid a weedy patch, a woman slouched in a lawn chair. Pustulant acne ravaged her face; she could have been eighteen or forty. A slack-limbed toddler slept on her chest. She was managing to keep the child balanced while also doing her nails. Bothered by the glare from my headlamps, she squinted, then blew quickly on the wet polish, recapped the bottle, and heaved up, shifting the child to her hip.

She headed for the middle trailer, dress billowing behind.

I stopped the Explorer and got out.

The air carried woodsmoke. Cicadas droned.

From behind me came the beady click of a racked shotgun.

A man’s voice said, “Hands up.”

I said, “County Coroner.”

“I don’t care if you’re Luke fuckin Skywalker. You’re trespassing. Hands.”

I raised them.

“Turn around slow.”

I did, recognizing Dale Dormer from his mugshot. He was a sinewy, shrink-wrapped version of his father, Willie Nelson braids and a sheepskin coat. The shotgun was ancient, with a chewed-up stock, like he threw it to the dogs to gnaw on when not in use.

I said, “I’m just here to talk.”

“Didn’t you see the sign? Private property.”

I remembered a similar warning made to Anthony Wax, right before Fritz Dormer and company murdered him. “Must’ve missed it.”

“Yeah, well, I dunno about that. Plain as day.”

“I’ve been trying to call,” I said. “Your phone’s off.”

“What phone?” he said. “I’ll need you to surrender your firearm.”

“You understand I can’t do that.”

“Then looks like we’re at uh impasse.”

The children ranged in age from a two-year-old in a low-hanging diaper, her belly as distended as a July peach, up to twin adolescent boys. In my periphery I saw them gathering; saw the glint of the dogs’ eyes, mutts with a strong streak of German shepherd, stalking, licking their chops. Rectangles of yellow light yawned, doors creaking and blinds whipping up, narrow-shouldered silhouettes leaning out.

The woman in the dress stood on the threshold of her trailer, withdrawing to allow by a second man, who came thunking down the steps in jeans and cowboy boots and a John Deere shirt.

The youngest son, Kelly Dormer. Taller than Dale, rough-hewn, he wore a glassy, dissolute stare: the Marlboro man on a weekend bender.

He scratched his neck and spat, and with a rolling gait went to join his brother.

My position—surrounded on all sides by property, pets, womenfolk, and offspring—was somewhat reassuring. Nobody could shoot at me without fear of collateral damage.

Nobody sane.

My own wife and daughter were far from my mind. I did not run the slow-motion film of Amy answering the phone and falling to her knees, or the time-lapse of Charlotte growing into a girl and a woman and a mother, her image of me growing more faded and idealized every day. I did not feel the futility of being unable to explain myself, to tell them it was Tom Nieminen’s fault I’d gone out there alone.

Instead I examined the angle of the shotgun barrel and the height of the Ka-Bar knife sheathed on Kelly Dormer’s belt; the yardage between them and me; numbers expressed as a multiple of the distance from my own hand to my service weapon.

What could Nieminen have done, anyway? I hoped his daughter had won her soccer game.

“Gentlemen,” I began, bringing a smile to Dale Dormer’s face.

“Hear that, Kel? We’re gentlemen now.”

Kelly Dormer’s reply was to hook his thumbs in his belt loops and shove his hips out. One scabby finger tapped the knife sheath.

“Nossir,” Dale said. “You’re looking for gentlemen, you came to the wrong place.”

“I’m not here to cause problems for you, or to accuse you of anything. It’s a courtesy call. I think you and your brothers will want to hear me out.”

“Courtesy call. All right, then. Let’s have it.”

“In private.”

“Anything you got to say you can say in front of all of us.”

“Here’s the deal,” I said. “I’ll leave my card, and if you change your mind, you can get in touch. The card’s in my jacket. I’m going to take it out. Okay?”

Dale had allowed the shotgun to dip; he flung it back up. “I’ll advise you to refrain from doing that.”

Buzz-saw quiet; gnats frantic in the columns of light that lay like felled timber.

Nobody sane would fire a shotgun toward a backdrop of his loved ones.

Nobody sane would chase down a man and beat and stab him for being black and discarding a cigarette butt.

The knife concerned me most. A majority of gunshots miss. But a blade, at close quarters, doesn’t have to be accurate to do serious damage.

“I’m leaving,” I said.

I took one step backward and a door banged open. I jumped, Dale Dormer jumped, the shotgun twitched in his palms; the dogs began to leap and prance and yelp hoarsely, and I realized that their vocal cords had been cut.

From the trailer with the satellite dish stepped Gunnar Dormer. He was the biggest of the trio, forearms straining the rolled sleeves of a lumberjack shirt, thighs like grain sacks. A forked brown beard draped his gut.

He descended the steps. The children parted to allow him into the circle.

He frowned at me, frowned at his brothers. “Is there a problem.”

“The gentleman,” Dale Dormer said, “was just leaving.”

“Put that away,” Gunnar said.

A beat, then Dale lowered the gun.

Gunnar said to me, “What do you want?”

“To speak with you concerning a family member.”

“He won’t say what it is,” Dale said.

Gunnar stroked his beard. “Let’s get acquainted.”

—

DALE AND KELLY closed ranks behind me as I followed Gunnar into the trailer. The interior had been reconfigured as a recording studio, foam baffling on the walls and the fold-down table set with a laptop, two USB microphones, two sets of over-ear headphones, a pair of black swivel chairs, broad and plush enough to accommodate a two-hundred-seventy-pound host and that week’s special guest.

The Dormer brothers’ podcast was called Tide of Fire. To access it, you had to join their mailing list, which I hadn’t been willing to do, because I wasn’t interested in receiving Nazi-themed spam. Keep your swastika pillowcases. White sale be damned.

I stood by the sink, hemmed in by Dale and his hot, panicky aura. Kelly shrank into the shadows by the door.

Beneath a flyblown light fixture, Gunnar pulled out one of the swivel chairs and sat, flapping his beard. “Speak.”

His expression didn’t change as I explained who I was and why I’d come.

Dale, on the other hand, grew noticeably flustered, sputtering in incredulity when I raised the issue of defraying funeral costs.

“No fuckin way,” he said. “You think we’re idiots?”

Gunnar clucked his tongue. “Our father doesn’t know about any child.”

“That’s what he told me.”

“You saying he’s a liar?” Dale said.

“I’m saying it’s possible the mother never informed him she was pregnant. There’s no doubt it’s his son. I can show you the test results, if that matters.”

Dale waved peevishly. “Give it.”

I handed him the sheet, watched him blink without comprehension.

“I don’t see nothing about me or any of us.”

“You could have the sample tested against your own.”

“Right, so you shitbirds can steal our DNA. Nice try. I seen CSI.”

“Why would you expect us to know who the birth mother is?” Gunnar asked.

“I don’t,” I said. “By all means, tell me if you do. My primary concern is giving the decedent a proper burial, and I’m running out of options.”

“You want us to pony up,” Gunnar said.

“I’m giving you the option of contributing.”

“How thoughtful of you. Say we decline, as well.”

“The remains will be disposed of by the county.”

Gunnar’s smile was stubby and gray, set far back in the sprouting cliffside of his face. “Somebody did dispose of them. Feels like a waste of taxpayer money to do it twice.”

He spoke with a kind of calm sadism. It was as though Fritz had divvied himself up and handed out heirlooms: the hotheadedness to Dale, to Gunnar the guile.

As for Kelly, he had yet to say a word.

Someone had to inherit the taste for blood.

Outside, a child was squalling.

“You’re not interested, that’s fine,” I said. “There’s no legal obligation.”

“Put that way,” Gunnar said, “it makes me think you think there’s a moral obligation.”

“I have no opinion. I’m relaying facts. Your brother’s body was left in a public park. Nobody deserves that.”

“Ah. Ah. That’s an opinion, not a fact.”

“You’re free to head over and have a look yourself. I think you’ll come to the same conclusion. There are people, perfect strangers, leaving flowers and notes. It doesn’t bother you that they care more than you do?”

Gunnar chuckled. “You know what I hate most about cops? How judgmental you guys are. You take one look at a person and decide you know everything about them. Same attitude lets you feel entitled to go around shooting unarmed”—he smiled sardonically—“oppressed minorities.” He touched his heart. “I feel for them. I really do.”

“I would’ve thought you’d consider that a net positive.”

“Fine, till you come for us, too. That’s what you don’t understand. What matters to me is the liberty of the individual, and of individual races, to pursue their sovereign destiny. Once that’s achieved, the rest’ll sort itself out according to the laws of nature. I’m not worried. Strength is strength. But I’ll need interfering pricks like you to get out of the way first.”

I was getting tired of this. “Right. You change your mind, any of you, let me know, soon as possible. And, by the way, your dad misses you. You might want to do more than send him a Christmas card.”

I started forward.

With the shotgun in his hands, Dale stepped out to block me. His eyes bugged, and I thought: Well, this is it, this is how it happens for me, in a water-stained trailer, in my thirty-sixth year.

Sorry, Amy.

Sorry, kiddo.

“Excuse me, please,” I said.

“Say it again.”

“Move,” I said. “Now.”

Silence.

Gunnar said, “Kelly will escort you off the property.”

The murk stirred and the door whined open, admitting a gush of moonlight.

“Dale,” Gunnar said.

Dale remained in place, gripping the shotgun, grinding his jaw.

Gunnar said, “Not today.”

Shriveled, trembling, Dale stood aside. I sidled past, hand near my holster, backing out into the coarse air, fixed on the shotgun’s snout. As it slipped from view, I caught a single word, Gunnar Dormer’s parting utterance, faint and flat: tomorrow.

—

KELLY DORMER RODE lead, cutting a line through the blackness and preventing me from straying off the road and blowing a tire. A hundred yards shy of the fence, he roared ahead, then swung the bike ninety degrees, spraying dirt.

I jammed on the brake.

He set the kickstand, dismounted, and began ambling toward me.

I checked the locks and took the safety off my gun.

He motioned for me to roll the window down. When I didn’t, he cupped his mouth.

“How much’s it cost?”

His voice was high and reedy. Kelly Dormer had been nine years old when his father shipped off to San Quentin. His decision to worship the same gods was in one sense forgivable, and at the same time incoherent.

Whatever sympathy I could muster for him was dwarfed by my concern for the baby in the pit.

I cracked the window a few inches. “That’s up to you. Cremation runs seven, eight hundred bucks. Plot and a stone, sky’s the limit.”

Even the lower figure had him grimacing. “Do they, like, offer financing?”

“Some places do. Read the fine print before agreeing to anything.”

He ran his tongue over chapped lips. “I don’t want my brothers to find out.”

“They don’t have to.”

“What do I do?”

“First thing is to call a mortuary or funeral home.”

“I don’t know any.”

“You have the internet.”

He toed the ground morosely, like a big, unshaven toddler.

“I’m not permitted to recommend a specific funeral home,” I said. “Most are fine. One thing to bear in mind is the location of the cemetery. You don’t want to be driving three hours to visit the grave. I mention it because people don’t always think about that. Once you decide, tell them the remains are with us. They’ll take it from there.”

I lowered the window a bit more, just enough to hand him my card.

He raked at one edge with a blackened nail. “I always wanted someone littler’n me to kick around.”

I did not point out that, had the baby survived, it would be roughly twenty years his senior. “Let me know what you decide.”

He went to roll his bike out of the road.