The Girl in Acid Park Read Free Page A

through.
    As Deputy Reed pulled onto the gravel, I squinted into the trees, at the morning glories tangled around corrugated tin sheets. The most prominent feature, however, was right at the edge of the gravel shoulder: a VW Van, wrapped halfway around a pine tree--the ticket booth to this abandoned carnival. Saplings grew in through the open driver's side door, and the magenta rhododendron blossoms littered the ground around it. The paint job would have been a bright butter yellow once, but now its paint was cracked, old, and flaking.
    A girl had died in there.
    I shivered and was glad when we pulled down the dirt drive and left the van behind. The road was only wide enough for one car, and we bounced along over roots and pine needles, crushing spiky sweetgum balls into the dirt. Soon, the tunnel of pines led us to an ill-kempt yard.
    Straight ahead, a ramshackle building heaped high with scrap metal and car parts. On the left stood a farmhouse--a dingy thing that had once been white, with black shingled roof and black shutters.
    There's a feeling you get when you look at empty houses. I can't really explain it, but you know they're empty, as if their darkened windows were the eyes of someone whose mind has gone.
    We exited the car in front of the workshop. The scents of hot metal burned my nose, and I fought the urge to plug my ears against the shriek of a saw.
    Deputy Reid scowled. "They're not supposed to be working right now," she called, motioning me under the caution tape alongside the workshop. My stomach flipped as we ducked beneath it.
    I was in a crime scene. A real, fucking crime scene! It felt so badass.
    That was, until I saw the pasture beyond. Late afternoon sunlight poured onto a field that would have been idyllic if not for the giant craters where half the whirligigs had been uprooted and carried downtown, as if by giant hurricane. Now, two officers walked the perimeter of those holes, half-dragged by German Shepherds.
    The remaining devices stretched on grasshopper-long limbs, looking like grownup-sized tinker toys. Their whirling mechanisms and long boom-like arms would have been creepy and impressive, but atop each one sat a metal cutout. From this distance, the only one I could identify was a tractor, which wasn't terribly intimidating, even if it was atop a whirligig approximately the size of a water tower.
    Deputy Reid marched to the shack's rear and shot an annoyed look at the dude wielding a saw. He was cutting into a metal sheet, thick gloves maneuvering the sparking blade in a slow curve. An enormous green pinwheel leaned up against the door behind him, missing one of its petals.
    Deputy Reid waved, and the guy must have been keeping his eyes on us, because I swear he'd been staring too intently at his project to see that tiny little wave. He pushed up his goggles, revealing slightly bugled blue eyes, and wiped the back of a glove over his forehead. He had a whippet-like appearance to him. With his skin tight over his bones, he could have looked like the very kind of druggie the planned whirligig park was trying to avoid, but the "Bill Nye is my bro" tee shirt destroyed his street cred.
    "I thought your crew wasn't allowed on site today," Deputy Reid said.
    The man shrugged and nodded toward the K-9 unit. "They didn't say anything."
    His accent was local, and when he talked, his teeth showed as tobacco stained nubs. I gave his shirt a skeptical glance.
    "Your supervisor should have told you."
    "Supervisor? Hon, I own the place."
    Deputy Reid leaned back, looking him up and down. "You're the inheritor?"
    "Ee-yup," he said, tugging off his gloves and tossing them onto a pile of scrap. "Mr. Weir didn't have no more family. Reckon I helped him out."
    My fingers itched to pull out a notepad. "So why are you working on a whirligig?" I asked.
    The man looked at me, taking in my school uniform and spending just a moment too long on my hair. I forced myself not to wince as recognition dawned on his face,