Under the Lake

17

Howell told Scotty about his conversation with Enda McCauliffe. They had finished dinner and were on coffee and brandy, having never entirely sobered up since their afternoon of drinking at Eric Sutherland’s.

“I’m damned if I know what’s going on around here, but I’m going to find out,” Howell said.

“The investigative reporter rears his ugly head,” she grinned.

“Yeah, I guess so. I think the whole thing that drove me when I was reporting was I couldn’t stand it when somebody knew something I didn’t. Now, I get the impression that everybody knows something I don’t. And I don’t like it.” He took a healthy swig of the brandy. “The funny thing is, I think I know something, and yet I can’t seem to figure out what it is.”

“You wanna run that by me again?”

“You got any department store charge cards?”

“Huh?”

“Not Mastercharge or any of those; department store cards.”

“Sure. A wallet full of them. You need some jockey shorts, or something?”

Howell got up and started toward the kitchen. “Dig ‘em out, let’s have a look at them.” He found a large flashlight, switched it on to see if the batteries were fresh, and dug a roll of black electrical tape from a drawer.

Scotty found her purse and plucked her credit cards from her wallet. Howell rummaged through them and chose one. “Neiman-Marcus, huh? They must be paying green newsies better these days.”

“Daddy helps out with clothes. And who’s green? What do you want with that, anyway?”

Howell picked up her American Express card and thumbed it. “Stiff as a board, right?” He did the same to the store card. “Nice and flexible.”

Scotty watched as Howell began winding black tape over the lens of the flashlight. She placed a hand on his forehead. “You running a fever?”

He pulled off his necktie and began to unbutton his white shirt. “Get changed. Put on some jeans and a dark sweater.”

“This is beginning to sound like some sort of commando raid.”

“It is.”

Howell throttled the engine back to an idle and let the boat glide toward the trees. There was a breeze from the shore; that was good, he reckoned; some of the noise would go with it. A few yards out, he cut the engine and let the boat drift until it touched bottom. He threw a leg over the side and eased into the water, which was knee deep, then pulled at the boat until it was held firmly on the bottom.

He turned to Scotty. “Now, listen. I shouldn’t be more than fifteen or twenty minutes. If I’m not back in twenty, start the engine and head slowly back to the cabin at the same speed as we came. If you hear any sort of commotion, go like hell, but not toward the cabin. Head down the lake toward Taylor’s Fish Camp, and when you’re halfway or so down there, cut toward shore and work your way back to the cabin at low speed, okay?”

“I want to go with you.”

“Godammit, do as I tell you. There’s no need of both of us taking the risk, and anyway, you’ve got to take care of the boat. We can’t get close enough to shore to tie up here, and we’re sure as hell not going to drive up to Eric Sutherland’s dock.”

Howell turned away without another word and waded ashore. Well into the trees, he cut toward Sutherland’s place and emerged a couple of minutes later at the edge of the long lawn. He walked up the slight hill, keeping just into the fringe of trees, until he came to the small building. No lights were on. Up at the house only an upstairs light, apparently Eric Sutherland’s bedroom, and a ground floor light, probably the kitchen, still burned. Howell looked at his watch; just past two. He’d reckoned Sutherland and the servants would have been asleep by now. There must have been a lot of cleaning up to do after the party.

Howell switched on his masked flashlight. He stepped onto the little raised porch, approached the french doors, and slipped on a pair of driving gloves. In the dim beam he had a closer look at the doors. He had been right; the lock was in the knob. The bolt would be spring-loaded. He fished Scotty’s charge card from his pocket, inserted it into the crack between the french doors, and felt for the bolt. He pressed the strong, flexible plastic card hard against it. Nothing. He pressed harder. The bolt gave and slipped back. The door opened an inch..

Then, behind him, there was the soft scrape of a footstep on the concrete steps. Howell froze, clenched his teeth. He didn’t want to jerk around and invite nervous gunfire. He slowly opened his hands, held them away from his body, and turned around.

“Hi,” she whispered.

He resisted a heartfelt urge to strangle her. “What did you do with the goddamned boat?” he asked her through teeth still clenched.

“It’s okay, don’t worry. It’s stuck on the mud; it won’t move.”

“If it’s not there when we get back, I’ll drown you, I swear.”

“Let’s get on with it, okay?”

“Wipe your feet,” he said, pointing at the doormat. He wiped his own feet, then entered the office. He went immediately to the wall covered with maps, and played his light over them.

“This is a larger scale version of the map I saw at the courthouse,” he said. There was a date in the corner: 1969. He turned the flashlight to the other maps. There was one of the state, one of the county, both recent – nothing else on the walls.

He shone the thin beam around the room: leather sofa, some steel chairs, the drawing table he had seen that afternoon. Next to the table, a tall, wide drawing cabinet. The drawers were unlocked and unlabeled. He began at the top: aerial photographs of the lake and dam. He worked his way down, drawer by drawer: engineering drawings of turbines; architect’s drawings of Sutherland’s house; more photographs of the lake and the town; a smaller-scale version of the 1969 map which hung on the wall. There were several copies; Howell slipped one out of the drawer. One more drawer; Howell prayed.

He saw the corner of the map before he had the drawer fully open. It was dated 1936. The topography was wholly unfamiliar to him; he could find no landmark. Finally, he looked back at the box containing the date. There was a set of coordinates. He quickly compared them to the 1969 map. Identical. He could have shouted with joy.

The door behind him slammed, hard. Scotty emitted an involuntary cry.

“What? What?” he said aloud, throwing the dim beam on the doors.

“The wind,” Scotty gasped. “There was a gust; sucked it shut, I guess. Oh, God, I think I wet my pants.”

Up the hill toward the house, a dog began to bark, a small dog, a yapper. Howell quickly folded the two maps and stuck them in the waist of his jeans, under his sweater. He played the light around briefly to see that everything was as he had found it. The dog sounded closer. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

Scotty opened the door and peered out. Howell jerked her hand from the knob and wiped it with his glove. “Sorry,” she said.

Now Howell could hear a man’s voice, calling the dog. It sounded like the butler, Alfred. They eased out the door and stepped around the corner of the building, then looked back. A flashlight was bobbing toward them from the direction of the house.

“Duchess? Duchess?” Alfred was closer, now. Howell couldn’t see the dog.

“Head for the boat through the woods,” he said to Scotty. “I’m right behind you.”

She started to run. Howell glanced back at the bobbing flashlight for a moment, then turned to follow. At that moment, there was a high-pitched snarl, and a small ball of fur hit him just below the knee and bounced off. Howell ran, but this time, his route was more directly toward where the boat lay, and there was brush to slow him down. It didn’t slow down Duchess.

The little dog was all over him as he moved, going for his throat. Fortunately, being a short dog, it couldn’t reach much above his ankles. Still, it was a damned nuisance. It boiled around his feet, tripping him, hanging onto his trousers when it could, slowing him all the way. Once, he stopped and threatened it with the flashlight, hoping to scare it away. It wouldn’t scare, and he couldn’t bring himself to hit it. It was Yorkshire Terrier. It was too cute.

Finally, he broke out of the trees at a point where he had estimated the boat would be. Neither the boat nor Scotty was there. It must be further up toward the town, he thought, and anyway, he didn’t want to go back toward Sutherland’s. He could hear Alfred calling the dog again.

Then he saw the boat, and he saw Scotty. The boat had been another hundred yards along the shore toward the town, but now it was a good thirty yards offshore, and drifting, and Scotty was in the water, half that distance from the shore, making for the boat. He began to run down the shore, the dog still, amazingly, with him every step of the way. At the closest point to the boat, he turned and hit the water running.

Scotty was three quarters of the way to the boat, now, and up to her chest in the cold water. But then, she was short and short-legged.

Howell yanked the maps out of his waistband and held them above his head as he plowed through the deepening water. Dutchess stood at the water’s edge, yapping still.

When Howell made the boat, Scotty was clinging to it, apparently too exhausted to climb aboard. Howell, who was swimming, now, as best he could with the handful of maps held out of the water, tossed them into the front seat, held onto the side of the boat with one hand, and with the other, grabbed Scotty by the seat of her pants and heaved. That got all but her legs into the boat, and Howell, with his last strength, gave a kick and hoisted himself in with her.

They lay in the bottom of the boat, gasping for air, too exhausted to move. Perhaps a minute later, Alfred’s voice, borne on the breeze, drifted out to them.

“Duchess, what’s the matter with you? Don’t you know how to mind anymore? You been after another rabbit? I keep telling you them rabbits bigger than you, they going to eat you up one of these days. Come here to me! What you barking at?” There was a silence. “Oh, somebody’s boat done gone adrift, huh? Well, it ain’t none of your business and ain’t none of mine, either. Come here to me.” Then, still talking to the Yorkie, his voice faded into the distance.

“You incredible jerk,” Howell wheezed, when he had a little of his breath back. He still could not move, and they lay tangled together in a heap. “When I get my health back, I’m gonna strangle you, if you aren’t already dead.” There was no response. “Scotty? You hear that? I’m going to strangle you with my bare hands.” Nothing. She was lying awfully still, he thought. He struggled up onto an elbow. “Scotty?” He wrestled himself into a sitting position. Over the gunwales of the boat, he could see Alfred’s flashlight moving jerkily toward the house, nearly there.

He got Scotty by the shoulders and shifted her limp form until her head was in his lap. He brushed the wet hair away from her face and felt for a pulse at her throat. “Say something, for Christ’s sake!”

“I can’t,” she said, suddenly. “You’ll strangle me.” Then she began to laugh. “Jesus, you should have seen yourself,” she managed to say. “Some cat burglar you are – not even a Doberman, either, a Yorkshire terrier! I couldn’t believe it!”

He laughed, in spite of himself, at the thought of the determined little dog. “Well, I’ll tell you this, sweetheart, it was the biggest fucking Yorkshire terrier I ever saw. Must’ve been a four pounder!”

It was another ten minutes before they could stop laughing enough to get the boat started.