June Gloom

© 2012 by Bev Brannon. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 06/25/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-2409-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-2411-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-2410-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012910951

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter one

Chapter two

Chapter three

Chapter four

Chapter five

Chapter six

Chapter seven

Chapter eight

Chapter nine

Chapter ten

Chapter eleven

Chapter twelve

Chapter thirteen

Chapter fourteen

Chapter fifteen

Chapter sixteen

Chapter seventeen

Chapter eighteen

Chapter nineteen

Chapter twenty

Chapter twenty-one

Chapter twenty-two

Chapter twenty-three

Chapter twenty-four

Chapter twenty-five

Chapter twenty-six

Chapter twenty-seven

Chapter twenty-eight

Chapter twenty-nine

Chapter thirty

Chapter thirty-one

Chapter thirty-two

Chapter thirty-three

Chapter thirty-four

Chapter thirty-five

Chapter thirty-six

Chapter thirty-seven

Chapter thirty-eight

Chapter thirty-nine

Chapter forty

Chapter forty-one

Chapter forty-two

Chapter forty-three

Chapter forty-four

Chapter forty-five

Chapter forty-six

Chapter forty-seven

Chapter forty-eight

Chapter forty-nine

Chapter fifty

Chapter fifty-one

For Tom and Pamela

Acknowledgments

Thank you to each and every one of you I conned into listening to just one short chapter. Your enthusiasm is what propelled me on to the next chapter. I did listen to your comments and appreciated them very much, however, if you don’t see all of the suggestions you made included, it is because I overruled you. It is my writing which means all mistakes are also mine. I especially want to thank Ken Sanders who was invaluable in editing my manuscript. Also, Barbara and Bruce Robinson gave me wonderful advice and I thank you. To my husband, Tom, who had to listen over and over as I made each revision, a very special thank you. He is the one who pushed me with his confidence and passion for my story.

And to those of you who cannot orient yourself in the town I have written about, don’t fret about it. This is all fiction. I made it all up. I even made up most of the locations. Other than the major highways, all other areas do not exist. I love the central coast and merely wanted to use it as a setting.

So, just enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the writing.

Chapter one

Clothed in dark color sweats with the hood of the jacket pulled low around his face, the man exits the black vehicle in the darkness just before early dawn. He pops the trunk, struggles with the dead weight of the bundle trying to get it up and out of the recessed area, then finally manages to sling it over his shoulder. The air is still and he looks around as his shoes crunch on the rocky soil. The ranch house across the road is dark and quiet. The pure-bred dogs sleeping inside, as their owners feel they are too valuable to leave out at night, and possibly have to fight the coyotes which roam the hillside.

He staggers down the slight slope to the base of a tree and lowers the bundle to the ground. He pulls the blue blanket tighter, hoping it covers everything, but then he thinks, What difference does it make? When he returns to his car to close the trunk he spots the remaining items, takes them out, walks only as far as the big rock, and then tosses them toward the large lump.

He quietly closes his car door, and leaving the headlights off drives back the way he came. Not wanting to take a chance that today the jogger might decide to start her run before daylight. He is fairly sure of her routine. Watched her every day for two weeks. And he plans to keep her on his radar.

Chapter two

I follow the same routine every day. When I reach the top of the hill I stop to catch my breath, bring down my heart rate, and then I sit on my favorite rock and look out at the sea. This particular rock is quite large and has a flat shelf area so when you sit you face the west, toward the ocean. It is several yards away from the road and I have often wondered if it naturally found this spot, or if someone purposely placed it here.

From this point it’s as though you can see north to San Francisco and south to Santa Barbara. I know that isn’t possible, but that’s what I tell myself I see. The view is spectacular. Although this hill is still probably two miles inland there is nothing to obstruct the view, and the height is enough to make me feel like this is the top of the world. Now, I’m not a mountain climber so you have to keep things in perspective. To me, this is the top of the world. It is incredibly peaceful here, and I seldom see anyone else except occasionally one of the ranchers or workers driving by, and a few jackrabbits and squirrels.

Looking out at the ocean, the waves crashing on the rocky coastline, the sky a beautiful sapphire blue, I am close to perfect peace within. There are a number of ground squirrels out this morning and they’re scampering from hole to hole. Over to my left is a pair of jackrabbits chasing each other, and I suppose there’ll soon be baby jackrabbits the way these two are going. Over to my right and down near a scrub oak tree is… What is that? Looks like someone has dumped an old rug and some trash here in this pristine place. How can people be such slobs?

But that isn’t a rug, it’s an old blanket. And is that a wig? Is it blonde hair, short curly blonde hair? And, is that a foot? I suddenly realize I am up from my rock and starting to move toward the large lump on the ground when it dawns on me, is that a body? I swear it’s a body wrapped in a blue blanket. I back up and look around but I see no one. I don’t even see any trucks at the ranch across the road. They must be gone. I’ve always been alone up here this early in the morning. I dig into my back pocket, pull out my cell phone, find I have two bars left, and I dial 911.

What is the nature of your emergency?

I’m at the top of Robinson Rd off Highway 1, and I think there’s a body wrapped in a blanket up here. I can see blonde hair at one end and at the other end I think it’s a foot, at least I see a shoe. Please hurry as I’m all alone here and I don’t see anyone at the ranch across the road.

We’ll get someone right out. Just stay where you are and don’t go any closer. We’ll have someone there as soon as possible. Now stay on the line with me until they arrive, okay? Tell me, how did you discover this? the dispatch operator asks.

Well, I jog up here every day and then I sit and look out over the ocean. I didn’t see this yesterday, I know. If it had been here I’d have seen it. Oh, Dear God, I know it’s a body. Either that or it’s someone’s sick joke. I can hear the sirens now; they’re coming up the road. Okay, the police are here. Thanks for staying on the line with me. The dispatcher clicks off and I close my cell phone.

The patrol car pulls in close to where I’m standing, and two officers in uniform get out and walk up to me. They introduce themselves and one asks, Are you the one who called and what did you see?

Yes, I called. It’s down there, by the base of that small tree. That blue blanket. Please tell me I’m just being wacky and it’s just a prank.

With that the two local cops walk down the slope to the bundle, and after putting on latex gloves cautiously pull back the edge of the blanket. And I see the face of a young girl with her eyes wide open in a vacant stare. Instantly, I feel my knees go weak and my head begins to swirl. I reach back for my rock and manage to sit before I fall.

Oh my God, what happened to her? I ask. Then I drop my head into my hands and try to block the image of death and horror.

And my daily routine has been forever changed.

Chapter three

I was never a jogger before and this is something I’m now forcing myself to do. It all came about one day when I was over at the university doing research for a project, and I looked around at all the young women and their youthful, toned bodies. As I did a mental comparison between my body and theirs, I told myself they’re only eighteen years old and I’m thirty-four. And when I was their age I looked that good. Actually, I’m a couple of weeks shy of thirty-five; however, I don’t intend to acknowledge that number. But I did decide to turn the three miles a day I had been walking for my cardio into a three mile jog. For my thighs and everything connected above and below them.

My favorite route for this daily jog starts down on Highway 1, at the corner of Robinson where I park my car. Robinson is flat for roughly half a mile and then it gradually starts to climb until it finally levels off again. Up here on the flat land are a number of small cattle ranches on the east side of the road. If you continue south on Robinson it starts to wander down to the valley below, and there you’ll find apple orchards. In the fall all the locals flock there to pick and buy Fuji, Macintosh, Delicious, and my favorite, the Pink Lady apples.

At the base of the hill on that side is an old barn which has been converted into a sales site for locally grown fruit, vegetables, and homemade pies. This is why I leave my car back on Robinson at Highway 1. This way I can’t even think of buying a pie. There is no way I could make my jog to the barn and back to my car carrying a luscious pie, without stopping to eat the whole pie. Then I would be so guilt ridden and filled with calories that I would have to run for the next twenty-four hours to burn off one scrumptious pie. Thinking about that makes a three-mile trot sound easy to me.

The dirt road is only two lanes, but the flat space is wide enough so if you had to move over for a big piece of equipment there wouldn’t be a problem. Directly across the road from my rock is a small ranch with a recently renovated large home. One day in talking with the owners they told me they have a twenty-acre site. About a quarter mile farther on this side of the road is a single home on a ten acre site, facing towards this amazing view. From where I perch those are the only homes I can see except for some far below on the ocean side. They can’t have any view from where they’re located.

This area looks like it would be a good place for goats. The land is covered with scrub brush, wild grasses, and occasionally a small scrub oak tree. In the early spring the wildflowers are out, but this time of year they have finished their season and only their faded blooms and scruffy plants are left. There are also a zillion rocks of all sizes here. Left over from some previous explosion of the earth millions of years ago, I suppose. This area is a volcanic chain and further inland there are five cone-shaped volcanic mountains. Not much grows well in this soil, as a result of all the rocks.

And why am I in this central coast of California? My name is Millie O’Donnell. Well, Millie is the short version of a name I have truly never liked and have never used. It was a family name from generations back and I was the one in our family who got stuck with it. The O’Donnell I like very much since that was my husband’s name. Paul O’Donnell is no longer here as he was a Special Agent with NCIS, working a criminal case which suddenly went sideways.

One night when he was late coming home from work, two other agents arrived on my doorstep instead to tell me there had been a shoot-out. They said it was supposed to have been just a normal interview of a witness, but it turned out the witness was involved in the crime and opened fire when the agents arrived. When there was finally silence, my husband was dead, the second agent was seriously wounded, and the witness was dead. After the distraught agents finished trying to console me, I was left to deal with funeral arrangements, and I moved in a robotic way. Even today I don’t remember much of what happened, what I did, who I saw or spoke to. When people say, It was a blur, that is truly what it was.

So there I was, a widow at thirty-one, and now four years later I’m trying to move on with my life. The first couple of years were unbearable until I realized I had to get my head on straight, so I packed up and moved to a completely different area. I have many wonderful memories and those are what I must focus on now. Forget that one horrible night and the long, sad days that followed.

I have taken a job at a small local newspaper, The San Luis Clarion, as an investigative reporter. I had to talk my way into this position since I have never done this type of work before. But I’ve made some great friends in the area. They have been here for most of their lives, and they are the ones who put in the good word for me with the publisher. Actually, I only get paid when I finally submit an article that gets published. But the job-title gives me a little status and I can pretty much do what I want and decide what I want to investigate. When my bank account starts to dwindle I work harder and dig deeper for something juicy to write about. This is a small, closed community, and being basically an outsider, I find I have to work at cultivating sources who will talk to me when I need information. But during this stage of my life I need both the pressure to push myself to my limits, and also the freedom to heal my broken heart.

So, this trek to my rock gives me a time to sit with my cherished memories. I am finding I have finally stopped feeling sorry for myself, and have stopped being so angry with society which created a situation ending my husband’s life. At last, I am now feeling as though I can once again see the good side of life. I have always been an optimist and I sense that slowly returning.

Chapter four

The police have now cordoned off a large crime scene area with their yellow tape, and have called for other officers and departments to assist them. One of the officers takes me to his patrol car, which is parked away from the scene, and asks me to wait until the detectives arrive to take my statement. He has been extremely kind and considerate and has tried to calm me. I have never seen anything like this before. It is shocking, to say the least. I had only a quick glimpse of the girl’s face and I was horrified at the look in her eyes. She still looked terrified, as though the horror of what she went through was frozen forever in her eyes. She appeared to be so young. Like those young girls at the university.

Sitting here and waiting, I remember hearing about a university student who disappeared about sixteen years ago. Even today, there is a large sign on the main street in our adjacent city, offering a $75,000 reward for information regarding her disappearance. This sign was placed about two blocks from the suspect’s family home; a location they have to pass each time they leave their home. Kristin Smart vanished in 1996, and though police feel certain she’s dead, her body has never been found. Kristin had been at a birthday party, had evidently been drinking and was being assisted home by two friends, when another student from the party offered to walk her the rest of the way to her dorm. This young man claims he walked Kristin only as far as his own dormitory, and then left her to walk to her dorm alone. That was the last sighting of Kristin; she has never been seen again. Her roommate says she never arrived at their room. Later when cadaver dogs were brought into the male student’s dormitory they made a hit only in his room. When the investigation was completed he was named as a suspect, but police were never able to develop enough incriminating evidence to charge him with murder. And without a body the case continues to remain unsolved.

In the last several days I haven’t heard of any other girls missing, and I was at The Clarion office yesterday. If they knew anything I’m sure I would have picked up on it. Thinking of The Clarion, I take out my cell phone and decide to take a couple of pictures, since chances are none of the photographers from the press will be allowed in the area. If I take one now while she is still covered, I’m sure I can get it in the paper. Surely the police won’t object, and I do have my press ID in my wallet. This is absolutely not the kind of scene I would ever want for my own personal album, and I will delete it as soon as I transfer it to the Clarion computer.

More police vehicles arrive. It appears someone from each department must be here now. Crime Scene Investigators, Medical Examiners, patrol cars, unmarked cars which look like they have plainclothes officers in them, and I even see the Chief of Police. I believe I’m the only non-police type here. They must have Robinson Rd. closed down at Highway 1.

A plainclothes officer finally starts walking over to where I’m sitting. Hopefully, this won’t take long and they’ll