At first glance, Main Street looked almost normal—until you realized in several cases only the front façade of the building was still standing. Most of the roofs were punctured with large holes. The black and gaping eyes and mouths of broken windows formed a line of shocked faces staring at the ruins of what had once been a small but thriving town.
Boxner and Dale waited with Kennedy, who was checking his phone.
Jason asked, “Are you getting a signal out here?”
“No.”
Gervase said, “George, me and you will take the houses down by the water. Boyd, you and Officer Dale go south, and Agents West and Kennedy can take the north part of town.”
“Got it,” Jason said.
“I can’t emphasize enough the need for caution. And if you do find anything…”
No need to spell that out.
Jason and Kennedy started north, going from building to building.
It was not a fast process. Each building had to be checked, room by room. In some cases that could be managed with a glance. In other cases, it meant walking up rickety stairs or crossing loudly creaking floors.
“Why would people just leave everything?” Jason studied a faded horsehair sofa that was now home to a family of rats.
“They’d wait too long, hoping for a reprieve,” Kennedy answered. “It’s what people do. And then some of them couldn’t afford to move everything. Some of them just gave up and walked away.”
It was a relief to step outside into fresh air and sunshine. The air inside the buildings was hot and humid and fetid.
Kennedy unscrewed the lid to his water bottle and took a drink. Jason did the same. His gaze fell on a white one-story building with pseudoclassical architectural elements.
“What is that? A theater?”
“I don’t think it’s large enough.”
They crossed the street. A faded sign read Lyceum of the Aquatic.
“A lyceum? In a village this size?” Jason asked.
“What’s the right size village for a lyceum?”
“I just mean, why would this be here?”
“Why would anything be anywhere?”
Uh. Okay, that was one way to look at it.
Kennedy went through the open square entrance framed between Ionic entablature and columns. A crumbling and weathered frieze offered images of sea creatures which would never have appeared in genuine classical architecture.
Jason followed.
A small entry hall with a boarded-up ticket kiosk opened onto a larger central room. In the wide doorway with its fake and chipped pillars sat an old-fashioned diving helmet perched on a pedestal as though someone had forgotten it on their way out of the lyceum.
Which was probably about right. Rexford had certainly experienced its share of looting and vandalism. The mystery was that it hadn’t been picked to its bones.
And speaking of bones…
“What the hell?” Jason murmured.
The lighter squares and rectangles on the floor spoke to exhibit cases safely removed to new and dryer locations. Embedded within the walls were what was left of four natural-history dioramas that must have been too complicated or too expensive to be relocated. Unfortunately, time, weather, and other predators had all but demolished the cases.
All that remained of the creatures within were bones and feathers scattered across peeling seascapes.