Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 51, No. 7 & 8, July/August 2006

Redemption Cove by Brendan DuBois

On this weekend in August at Lake Benjamin, my younger brother Stan unrolled a chart on the wooden table in the front porch of our family cottage. His thick finger traced the outline of one of the scores of coves on the lake, as he said, “Here. This is where her body is. I’m sure of it.”

I nodded politely as Stan fastened one end of the chart down with an almost-empty bottle of Sam Adams beer and anchored the other end with a glass tumbler from the Polar Ice Caves, one of the many tourist attractions in this part of New Hampshire.

“Why’s that?” I asked. “No offense, Stan, but it’s been what... fifteen years? What makes you think this is the right cove?”

He sat down on one of the ill-painted wicker chairs that cluttered the porch. “Because of the water levels, that’s what.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t understand.”

Stan leaned over the table and again traced the outline of the cove, so small it didn’t even have a name. “When I found her in the water, it was about this time of year. We’d had almost two weeks of rainy weather, and the water level of the lake was higher than it’d been in a long, long time. That’s how I was able to get my canoe in there. Because the water level was so high. And that’s why, when you and Dad and Uncle Tom and me went out later, we couldn’t find that cove again. We had a spell of dry weather and the dam at the other end was opened up, dropping the water level. The cove was hidden by some boulders. I’m sure of it.”

“Oh,” I said, hoping Stan wasn’t detecting the tone of my voice, a tone that was used whenever Stan got into one of his moods. He looked up at me, his brown eyes tired, like he had not gotten a good night’s sleep in all the intervening years, when as a boy not even yet a teenager, he had come back late one afternoon to this cottage, just as we were getting ready to go home, eagerly shouting that he had found a girl’s body in a cove.

I felt a little tingle of shame, remembering how we had laughed and mocked him when he had come back with such a fantastic story. Poor Stan. Back about fifteen years ago, maybe if he had attended school in a better-funded district, something could have been done for him, some sort of special schooling or counseling. Stan had always been one for bursts of manic energy and beliefs. Like the time he had read a story about pirates along the New England seacoast, and during a week’s family vacation at Hampton Beach, he had gone out every day with a shovel, digging for buried treasure. His hands blistered, his skin peeled from sunburn, and his toes bled from the rough sand and rock, but he would not give up.

And there was the time he decided to build a hovercraft in which to travel to school so he wouldn’t be teased on the school bus. He had taken apart mother’s vacuum cleaner to do so, and could not understand why Mom had been so upset.

That was Stan. So when he announced fifteen years ago that he had found a young girl’s body, not only dumped in the cove, but chained to concrete blocks so that it would not float to the surface, well, he was teased and teased by me and our cousins, until he sat in the corner, crying. Dad had to drag him into the car so we could beat the traffic on the way home.

And my, he put up such a fuss that when we returned to our summer cottage the next weekend, me and Dad and Uncle Tom and Stan went out in our old power boat looking for that cove. But poor, young, flustered Stan could not remember which cove the supposed body had been in. And all that summer, and the summer after that, and the summer after that — and it still shames me to think about it — there would be whispered jokes about Stan and the mysterious body.

Now Stan looked across the table at me, the younger brother looking up at the older brother, and said cautiously, “The weather’s supposed to be nice tomorrow, Eric. The lake level is really, really high. And when the weekend is over — I read this in the local paper — they’re gonna drop the lake level. Maybe we can take the pontoon boat out there. Find that cove. Do some snorkeling. What do you think?”

I knew what I thought. I thought that we should just enjoy the weekend, maybe motor into one of the bigger coves and anchor and have a barbecue and sun ourselves, and play cribbage and use the binoculars to spy on loons and ospreys or bathing beauties sunning themselves on passing speedboats. Do anything but what he wanted to do.

But there was his hand again, resting on the unfurled chart. A rough hand, one used to tough work, and along the back of it, an odd spider web tattoo, the type of tattoo that one could only get inside a state prison. I thought of my younger brother and who he was and what he had gone through, and...

“Of course. After breakfast, we’ll pack a lunch and head right out, when the water’s nice and calm. We’ll spend all day there, if you’d like.”

He smiled, revealing bad teeth. Not much in the way of professional dentistry is offered in our state prison system. “Thanks, Eric... I mean it... thanks. That means a lot to me.”

“Good,” I said. “What do you say we grab another beer before turning in?”

He carefully rolled the chart up. “Okay. But I’ll do the dishes first. Deal?”

“Deal.”

While Stan washed the dishes in the small kitchen while listening to a Red Sox game on the radio, I went out to the entranceway and made a phone call home. The cottage phone was an actual rotary dial. Last year when my twin boys saw the phone, eyes agape at seeing such an antique, they couldn’t believe it actually worked. It was like I had traded in our Honda SUV for a hundred-year-old Stanley Steamer.

I dialed seven digits and my wife Marie picked up the phone on the third ring.

“Hi there,” I said.

“Hi right back,” she said. “How are you two doing?”

“Fine,” I said. “We’re doing fine.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, her voice a bit skeptical. “Your brother-to-brother bonding project going all right?”

I turned, made sure Stan was busy enough so that he couldn’t hear me. “I haven’t seen him this relaxed in years. Really. This place has a nice effect on him. It really does.”

“Sure,” she said. “You two off on that body hunt tomorrow?”

“As a matter of fact, we are.”

“Well, I guess that’s better than robbing a gas station. Or a liquor store.”

I took a breath. “He’s been doing well since his release. His parole officer said he’s one of the best he’s ever dealt with. He’s got an apartment, a job lined up. He’s paid his debt. He’s just... he’s just lost, that’s all.”

Marie said, “And it’s your job to get him un-lost?”

“That’s what brothers are for. I owe him.”

She sighed. “Okay, okay... Look, you coming back Sunday night?”

“Yeah,” I said. “How are Don and Hank doing?”

“Your sons are fine, doing a sleepover at the Harrisons, off to a baseball game in Manchester tomorrow.”

“Good.”

“Oh, and your page proofs arrived today.”

“Did you open them?”

“Of course,” she said.

“When are they due back?”

“Five days.”

I muttered something that would have made my twin boys giggle, and Marie said, “What I can’t understand is how they expect you to take almost two years to write a novel, then spend less than a week to make sure all the edits are in place before they get ready to publish.”

“If I ever understand that, I’ll let you know. Anything else?”

“Yes,” she said. “Another application came for your research and office assistant job. Eric, you sure you still want to do this?”

I said, “Hon, the first few novels, you went above and beyond helping me with research and fending off all those book clubs who wanted me to come speak to them in Michigan in exchange for a casserole dinner and a night on a pull-out couch. Now it’s time to hire somebody else to do that grunt work, so you can take a break.”

She laughed. “Okay, so you’ve twisted my arm. Or just gave it a slight tug. I have to admit I’m not going to miss rummaging through used book stores or the wilds of the Internet to dig up that odd bit of information about first century Roman marriage rites.”

I said, my voice light, “There’s no such thing as an obscure piece of information. All information is relevant. Some is just better hidden than others.”

“Sure, Mister Author, whatever you say. You call me before you head home, all right?”

“Of course.”

Later, Stan and I were out on the porch, another bottle of Sam Adams in our hands, and we listened to the Red Sox battle the Toronto Blue Jays. We both were in the old wicker furniture, feet propped up on the window sills, looking out over the dark waters of Lake Benjamin. When we had settled down, I was surprised to see Stan had a copy of my latest novel in his lap, Coliseum.

Stan looked over at me shyly. “I like this one the best, Eric. I really do.”

I raised my Sam Adams in a toast to my novel, my lucky, lucky novel. “So do you and a bunch of others. I’m glad to hear that.”

He rubbed the cover, touching my name, almost like it was a talisman. He said, his voice now tinged with just the slightest bit of anger, “Mom... Mom would always send me newspaper clippings about you. When your first novel got published. And your second and third... And when the fourth one really took off for you... I knew she was really, really proud of you, Eric. But damn it, I think she was rubbing it in, you know? Showing me just how lousy I was. One perfect son was on the bestseller list, the other loser son a convict...”

I said carefully, “She was just showing off. That’s all. That’s Mom.”

His eyes seemed to glisten in the dim light. “Yeah. I’m sure. And I’m sure she didn’t pass along those little newspaper stories about my arrests and convictions, right?”

“Right.”

Then he shook his head, like he was snapping out of it. “I read all your books in prison. Told guys I trusted, you know, guys who wouldn’t give me a hard time, told them that you were my brother. Some didn’t believe it, even when you dedicated the third book to me. I know I said it before, but I really, really appreciated that, Eric.”

“I was glad to do it.”

He looked down at the cover and said, “I still know all the titles. The Seven Hills. Appian Way. The Forum.Coliseum. What’s the next one going to be called?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” I said. “You have a name I could use?”

He laughed. “That’s a good one. That really is. Eric... After I read all of your books, I even started reading up on Roman history from books in the prison library. You made me think. I’m really, really proud of you, and... jealous. Okay? Just a bit jealous. You always knew what you wanted to do. Always knew you wanted to be a writer. Even up here in the cottage you read all those books and wrote stories on Uncle Tom’s old typewriter. And still found time for the girls. And me? A loser. Even then.”

“Not so,” I said.

He shook his head. “Don’t bother trying to make me feel good. It won’t work. You know what I think? I think finding that body ruined it all.”

“How’s that?”

“Because nobody believed me. Nobody. And I couldn’t find the cove again, or the dead girl. Everybody thought I was making it up. If I had found her... well, I’d be a hero. Sort of. And I’d get my name and picture in the paper. And people would believe me, and would think I was okay... but instead, it was just another crazy story from Stan. Stan who couldn’t finish school, couldn’t find a good job, who ended up doing bad things.”

“That was a long time ago, little brother,” I said, balancing my beer on the end of the armrest on my chair. “Not good to let something so long ago rule you.”

“Yeah, I know. Damn, I’m talking too much. Let’s see if the Sox can pull this one out and hit the sack, okay?”

“Sure.”

So we sat and finished our beers, and like so many times before, the Sox didn’t pull this one out, and so we went to bed.

Stan got the bedroom that Mom and Dad used — our parents were now gently slumbering away their retirement in Florida, since Dad got fed up with the snow and ice each winter — and I took one of the two smaller bedrooms. But the air was warm and still and dead, and I couldn’t fall asleep. Instead, I went out to the porch and stretched out on the couch, a light blanket over me, listening. There was a desperate hooh-hooh-hooh from an owl deep in the woods, the sound of frogs out in the shallow water in front of the cottage, and the far-off cries of loons out on the lake, cries that still made the back of my arms tingle, just like when I was a young boy, hearing them for the first time.

I rolled over on the musty-smelling couch, the old smell triggering scores of memories. Being here with Mom and Dad and Uncle Tom and other cousins and aunts and uncles, crowding around inside as a rainstorm roared outside. The quiet hiss of camp lanterns making light around the wide kitchen table as we played card games. Or long nights playing Monopoly or Scrabble, the young’uns against the oldsters. Big, brawling, drinking Uncle Tom, who worked in the woods as a lumberjack, joking with my dad, his brother, a slight man who worked his entire life as an accountant. Uncle Tom teaching me and Stan how to fish, how to build a fire, how to shoot a .22 rifle, and one memorable and secret night, how to drink our first beer. And of course, as Stan had mentioned, me before Uncle Tom’s old manual typewriter, writing my very first stories, feeling that burning power and energy, knowing what I was destined to do when I got older.

Oh, the memories... and that memory, of course, of Stan bursting in through the porch, late in the afternoon, breathing hard, almost screaming in the excitement that he had found a girl’s body, that we had to go right now, right now, to check it out... and how he was laughed at and ignored, up to the point when Dad had to pick him up and carry him out to the packed car for the drive south.

I thought about those times and was just beginning to drift off, when I heard something else.

Moaning.

Then a sharp yelp.

“Stan?” I called out.

I got off the couch and padded into the kitchen of the cottage to the open door that led into the main bedroom. Stan was there, on his side, breathing heavy. I could make out bits of words and sentences as he trembled in his sleep.

“No... don’t do it... I promise... please... it hurts too much... don’t force it... please... oh God... please make it quick... it hurts... God...”

My legs were shaking. I did not want to know what he was dreaming about, did not want to know what memories he was reliving, I just didn’t want to know. Stan had never said much of anything about his prison time. I knew I should go over and wake him up, to rouse him from his nightmare, but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to shame him by waking him up.

I turned and went back out to the porch, back to the couch, and when the blanket came back up on me, Stan’s nightmares seemed to have ended.

At least for a while.

I stared up at the bare rafters of the porch and waited. Just waited, to see if he would dream any more this night.

In the morning I was up first, and I let Stan sleep. God bless Stan. Just before going to bed, he had vowed that he would get up with the sunrise and that we would make an early start of it out on the lake, but he was snoring in the big bed and I let him be. I made us sandwiches for later and packed them in a cooler, and made a pot of coffee and had a cup, sitting out on the porch, watching the mist rise up from the flat waters, seeing a lone trout fisherman drift by on his boat, one of those specialty craft that cost more than my first car.

On the chair next to me was Coliseum. I picked it up and still felt that little shock of amazement that it had all really happened. Once out of college I had become a newspaperman at the state’s largest newspaper and had married Marie, a copy editor, and in spare moments here and there, I had written two mystery novels that had gotten me an agent and nothing else. Then my third book, which took place more than two thousand years ago, would tell the story of a prominent Roman family through a few centuries of Roman history.

The Seven Hills was my first published novel. It did okay. Later came Appian Way and then The Forum. For my fourth book, I took a risk, a different tack. I had decided to tell the story of early Christianity in Rome and had written about some controversial aspects of the first Christians, and much to my surprise, and that of my agent, editor, and publishing house, Coliseum had taken off like a rocket ship with a nuclear bomb up its ass. It was now in its twentieth printing. Last year I had quit my newspaper job, and at the going-away party held for me by my fellow editors and reporters, I could tell that every one of them was happy for me — and that every one of them hated me.

I put the book down.

Stan came in, yawning, scratching at his belly, his prison tattoos prominent on his hands and arms.

“Man, I’m sorry I overslept.”

“Not a problem, Stan. Not a problem.”

“Thanks.” He grinned. “Feel like making breakfast for me?”

I smiled back at him. “Absolutely.”

An hour later we made the short walk down a stone path to the dock, where the family’s pontoon boat was docked. Stan carried snorkeling gear and towels, while I carried the cooler and some bags of snacks. I looked off to the right, where a cottage squatted, collapsed and decaying, windows broken, center roof beam sagging in. The old Mulligan place. God, when I was a teenager, it was even called the old Mulligan place back then. Stan saw me looking at it and said, “Place still gives me the creeps.”

I almost shivered. “Me too. Think anyone will buy it, spruce it up?”

“Last I heard, relatives are still fighting over who gets what in old man Mulligan’s will. Fight’s been going on for twenty years. But when I talked to Mom last week, she said that the fight might be over. Hell, the Nature Conservancy might buy the land, finally tear that dump down.”

“Really? The Nature Conservancy?”

Stan made a face. “Yeah, but it don’t matter. The place still gives me the creeps. Remember rule one from Mom and Dad?”

“Sure,” I said. “Stay away from the old Mulligan place. Don’t go near there.”

Stan grinned. “Hey, maybe later, we can go over... just to say we did it.”

We both laughed and I followed him to the dock.

The pontoon boat was twenty-feet long and ten feet wide, with cushioned seats on both sides, a carpeted deck, and a small round table aft for lunches or games of cribbage. Yesterday, Stan had taken the boat’s cover off, a job that normally takes twenty minutes but had taken poor thumb-fingered Stan nearly an hour. Despite my old urge to lend him a hand, I let him be. We stowed the cooler and gear under the seats and Stan went back to the dock and undid the bow line and stern line.

From the pilot’s chair on the right — or starboard — I made sure the engine was in neutral, then I started her up. It took one twist of the key and the engine grumbled to life. Stan gently pushed the boat away from the dock, then leapt through the open side door. As I maneuvered our way out the channel to the main lake, he bustled around, stowing the bow and stern lines, and hauling in the three fenders that prevented the boat from getting damaged by hitting the dock. There was a throttle handle next to me that had three settings — forward, reverse, and neutral — and a switch at the side that lowered the engine up and down, very important when motoring through shallow waters, especially in keeping your propeller intact.

Stan sat across from me, breathing hard. “A beautiful day, brother. A beautiful day.”

“It sure is,” I said. It was warm without being oppressively hot, and there was no breeze, so the lake water was as smooth as glass. It was still early enough in the day that the lake wasn’t too crowded, though there were people out and about in the cottages that were on either side of the wide channel. I looked around, happy at the view. The distant peaks of the White Mountains, the still heavily forested shorelines of the lake, and the flat and clear water around us almost made me forget what we were trying to do today: find the remains of a young girl, supposedly murdered and drowned almost fifteen years ago.

The engine was running smoothly and slowly enough that Stan and I could talk without having to raise our voices. He grinned and said, “When I was in prison in Concord, this was what I missed most. Being outside. Feeling the air on my face. Being able to look for miles and miles and miles and not see a fence line or guard tower, or all that damn concrete. Brother, I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying this. God, I missed this. I really did.”

The channel made a sharp turn to the right and I gently moved the polished wood steering wheel, and off to the left — or port, if you’re being picky — was a cottage, larger than ours, and moored off their shoreline was a raft. Three young ladies — late teens or early twenties, it looked like — were sunning themselves as we motored by. Stan gave them a friendly look, and so did I, and though I would never admit it aloud, I was glad to see that the thong bathing suit revolution had finally established a beachhead at this remote New Hampshire lake. The young ladies gave us friendly waves, their tanned bodies already glistening with sun block, the tiny scraps of fabric from their suits barely holding in their young flesh.

Stan looked over at me. “Okay. There was something else I missed too. I’ll admit that.”

Once we were out of the channel, I increased the boat’s speed. Based on the chart, I knew we’d get there in just a while, and once we got there... well, it was out of my hands. I would do the best I could for my brother and leave it at that.

After about twenty or so minutes of motoring, I slowed the boat down to just above a crawl. I was glad for the lack of breeze, for we were moving so slowly that any errant wind could catch us and make us head off in another direction. We were in a narrow section of the lake called, for understandable reasons, The Narrows, because it had a number of small tree-covered islands and coves along the curving shore.

Stan was standing next to me, looking at the chart. He said, “You know, I could never understand why Uncle Tom never found out about this cove. Hell, he spent more time up here than anybody else. Practically lived here on weekends.”

“Maybe he had other things to do,” I said. “Like getting another six-pack in case he ran out.”

Stan shook his head, looked at the chart, and said, “Okay, round this point, Eric, and I’m sure it’ll be there. Positive.”

“All right,” I said, though I admit I was getting nervous. The pontoon boat was a wonderful craft for motoring out on the lake and anchoring at a place where you could swim and have lunch and read books and relax. But it was an ungainly, awkward craft, and I didn’t feel comfortable maneuvering about these islands and narrow waters. If I had been tougher or smarter, I wouldn’t have gone this far, but the eagerness on Stan’s face... it was like that of a ten-year-old Red Sox fan finally being told that yes, this weekend, he would get to go to Fenway Park for the first time.

We rounded the point, and Stan suddenly said, “There! See? I was right! The cove is right there!”

I put the engine in neutral, looked at where Stan was pointing. There was a cove there. I leaned over some and saw that the entrance was about twice as wide as the boat and curved off sharply to the right. The water level was high and I could make out boulders underneath the water. Any other time, with the water level at its normal height, the boulders would be exposed, blocking access and even the view of what might be in there. So Stan had been right.

Stan looked at me and I looked at him, and my hands were tight around the steering wheel.

“Okay,” I said. “We found it. Now what?”

“What? What do you mean, now what? We go in there, Eric! We go in there and look for her!”

I nodded and said, “All well and good, Stan, but the water’s pretty shallow. I don’t know if we’ll get over those boulders.”

“Hold on,” he said. He opened up one of the forward seats and pulled out a grappling pole that was used to grab wayward life jackets and hats sent overboard by the wind. He went to the front of the pontoon boat, leaned over, stuck the pole down, and then brought it up. “There’s at least a couple of feet clearance,” he said. “We should make it okay.”

The engine was still in neutral, grumbling patiently for me. I looked at the tall and quiet trees, the water, and the almost hidden boulders, thinking about how many boulders out on the lake I had seen with paint scrapings from errant boaters who didn’t know how to read a chart and had torn out the bottom of their high-priced boats in a matter of seconds.

“Stan,” I said. “Maybe so, but we’ve got a couple of hundred pounds of engine dragging us down by the stern. And you know what these pontoons are like. They’re hollow pieces of aluminum, like a big-ass beer can. We hit one of those rocks hard enough and we’re sunk. Literally.”

“Yeah?” he said, his face red. “You want to give up, do you?”

The look on his face was a familiar one, the one that came up when Stan felt angry, felt like nobody was listening to him, that the entire universe existed just to thwart him. I’m no psychologist or psychiatrist or mental health worker, just an older brother, but I knew this was what had gotten him into trouble so many times. When he had no job and no money, well, it made sense to hook up with others, others who would be with him as he robbed gas stations and liquor stores and broke into homes so he could have money. It had been that direct. He needed money and other people had it; what was the problem?

Oh, God, the problems...

“No,” I said. “I don’t want to give up. Look, we can go back to the cottage, get one of the canoes out of storage, paddle back here and—”

“Damn it, Eric,” he said, his face even more red. “That’ll take hours. Hours! I don’t want to waste any more time. I want to get in there right now.”

I looked again at that face, saw the years of anger and disappointment colored in there, and I slowly nodded. “Okay. We’ll go in.”

In a snap, his face changed, he was grinning, he looked years younger, and he started talking until I interrupted him. “Hold it. Just hold it. It’s going to be tricky, okay? I want you forward with the pole, to balance some of the weight and to fend us off if we’re going to hit anything. I’m going to back her up some and give her a quick goose forward. Once we start moving, I’m going to raise the engine. If we’re lucky, we’ll coast right over those boulders.”

“Yeah, that should do it,” he said. “Man, you are the smart one.”

I shook my head. “Not hardly. You got it? Go forward with the pole and we’ll give it a shot. And Stan...”

“Yeah?” He still had the pole in his hands.

“We sink the boat, you’re the one calling Dad.”

Stan looked fine with that. “That’s okay. He’d expect it anyways from me.”

So that’s what we did, and by then, even though it wasn’t hot at all, I was sweating so much that my polo shirt was sticking to me. I thanked all gods, past and future, that there was still no breeze, no blowing wind to drag us off track, and I lowered the throttle at my side, reversing us a dozen feet or so. Then I went into neutral as the engine shuddered some, and I aimed the square bow at the middle of the cove and gave the throttle a quick, heavy boost up, traveling us forward in a burst of speed. After that burst of speed, I slammed the throttle back down to neutral and toggled the side switch to raise up the engine. Behind me the electric motor whined harshly as the engine raised up, and Stan cheered “Yoo-hoo!” as we passed over the submerged boulders.

God, maybe we’re going to make it and—

I winced as the left pontoon rubbed up against a boulder and the screeching noise seemed to cut right through my head. I half-expected a sharp jolt as we ground to a halt, but I’d be damned, the screeching noise stopped and we were in a small cove. I lowered the engine to give us power and maneuverability and gave the throttle a gentle push forward. Stan looked back at me, triumphant.

I was still too nervous to say anything and quickly took in our new surroundings. The cove jogged right and was mostly hidden from view from the lake. It was wide in the center, but it was still plenty small. I yelled out, “Stan! The anchor! Right now!”

Stan trotted past me to the stern, where the anchor and its coiled rope rested, and he tossed it over the side with a heavy splash. I put the engine back into neutral, and Stan tugged at the rope and said, “It’s good. We’re good.”

“Glad to hear that,” I said, and I cut the engine off as Stan leaned over and tied off the excess anchor rope to a stern cleat.

It was now quiet. I looked around us some more and was startled when Stan hugged me from behind, his exuberant voice in my ear. “Oh God, it’s just like I remembered! Eric, this is the place. Look over there at that big boulder, split down the middle. Do you see it?”

It was hard to miss. At the far end of the cove, a large boulder squatted there, right at the water’s edge, with a huge crack down the center, like some bolt of lightning or otherworldly force had split it in two.

“Yeah, I see it.” I was cold at the realization that Stan had remembered this, had even mentioned this boulder during those fruitless weeks, years ago, looking for the lost cove.

“I remember that! I remember canoeing over and trying to put my hand in it... and it was just a few minutes later that I saw her, in the water, right over there... God, let’s get going!”

From a small digital clock on the console before me, I saw that it was getting close to lunchtime, but I knew getting Stan to relax and have a meal before going into the water wasn’t going to work, not by a long shot, and so I said, “Okay, let’s go.”

As we got ready I took in the small cove. The split boulder was a prominent fixture. Along the sides of the cove were heavy brush and saplings. Water bugs skittered on the flat surface of the water. I was feeling colder and colder at the thought of diving and finding... well, whatever we were going to find.

As he put on his black flippers, Stan said, “You’re the smart one, you tell me this. What are we going to see down there?”

I joined him on the long seat, putting on my own flippers. “It’s been a long time. There might be bones buried in the mud. And if her clothes were made of synthetic fibers, there might be something there. But Stan, please, be realistic. We’re probably not going to find anything.”

His eyes were bright with excitement, and I knew realism was taking a vacation today. “Maybe so, Eric, but I remember the concrete blocks. There were three of them... and it looked like yellow twine held them together. And then there was the chain, holding her feet down... the chain was black and red.”

Flipper number two was now successfully on. “Black and red?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Like the chain was enclosed in a plastic covering. One link was black, the other was red, so forth and so on. That I remember.”

I grabbed my mask and snorkel, but held it in my hands. “You remember a lot.”

“Yeah...” he said, and then he stopped for a moment, and I knew that in his mind, at least, he was now twelve years old. “You know, I should have been scared when I saw her. Really, really scared. But I wasn’t... I mean, I was upset and excited, but she was... even in the water, she looked pretty. Her hair floating around her, her face peaceful, like she was sleeping. She had on a T-shirt and black shorts, I remember. And I just wanted to get her out of there. To give her back to her family. That’s what I wanted to do. Just bring her back home.”

Then he suddenly stood up, no longer twelve years old. “Come on,” he said, going to the stern, where the swimming ladder was located. “Let’s go in.”

Stan, being younger and more energetic, I suppose, leapt right into the lake, while I took my time going down the stern ladder. The water was cold, damn cold, and seemed to suck the warmth and energy right from my skin. I gingerly lowered myself into the water, and inhaled sharply as the cold lake water hit that particular region dear to me that’s above my knees and below my waist.

Stan called out, “Come on, let’s go, Eric!” So into the water I went, gasping from the cold, rolling over to wet everything, and I paddled out away some from the moored pontoon boat. Stan had already gone underneath, so I joined him in his quest to find the remains of a dead girl and finally, after all these years, to make it right.

I’ve snorkeled in Hawaii and the British Virgin Islands and the Bahamas, where the water is warm and delicious, and where the places underneath the waters are a wonderful riot of colors and shapes, from the underwater plants and coral to the amazing variety of fish that swarm around in a kaleidoscope of form and color. Snorkeling in those tropical places had always been a pleasant and comfortable adventure, something to talk about years later.

I wish I could have said the same about snorkeling in Lake Benjamin.

The world was different. It was shades of brown. That’s it. Brown mud, brown rocks, brown plants, brown algae, and brown fish. Brown, brown, brown. Plus the cold. Oh yes, the cold, sucking away your enthusiasm and energy in a matter of seconds. I went down several feet and looked beneath me, at the mud and the rocks. Off to the left was the form of Stan, eagerly searching, like a hunting dog, going to and fro, desperately looking for a scent.

I shivered and went to the surface, spat out the snorkel, and looked around as I tread water. Stan surfaced about three feet away. “Anything?” he called out.

“No,” I said, and I was going to ask him something but he was gone.

Christ, it was cold.

I put the rubbery tasting mouthpiece of the snorkel back in my mouth and dove again.

Each subsequent dive of mine was shorter and shorter in duration as the cold worked its magic on me, but on my fifth dive, I thought I spotted something. Back on the surface, I treaded water for a moment, then waved over at Stan, also treading water, and then I went down to search again.

Yeah. Right there, nestled next to two boulders about the size of easy chairs, was something covered in mud, something with shape and form and sharp angles. Something that wasn’t natural. Something that didn’t belong there.

Back to the surface, breathing hard, legs and arms trembling from the cold. Stan was now next to me. “Anything?”

“Stan,” I said, “we’ve been at it for a while. Let’s climb back up, warm up, get something to eat. Okay?”

He looked over at me, his face mask pulled back on his head, his face showing the familiar racoon-eyes from having had the hard rubber press into him for such a time. Say yes, I thought, just say yes so we can get out and warm up and rest up, and maybe after a hearty lunch and some beers, we can just call it a day and go home.

Please, I thought. Just say yes.

“Sure,” he said. “Sounds good.”

I closed my eyes in thanks.

“After just one more,” he said, and then he was gone.

And I waited, my cold legs treading water, my arms moving in slow motion about me, hoping and hoping and—

The water next to me exploded. “Found it!” he yelled, his voice echoing in the cove. “I found the cement blocks! Come on, follow me!”

My younger brother went back under the water and I waited, and then I followed him. I had no other choice.

Stan was holding on to the blocks with one hand, sweeping away the years of mud with his other, making clouds of mud hang in the water. He worked and worked until it was hard to see, so I went back up and he joined me, both of us breathing hard.

He said, “It’s right there, Eric. Right there. Three blocks. Just as I remembered.”

“Stan,” I said, and then kept quiet.

“What? What is it?”

I looked at that face and I managed a smile. “Good job. Let’s just rest here for a bit, okay? Give a chance for the sediment and the dirt to settle down, and then we’ll go back. All right?”

He nodded. His face was wet, but not because of the lake water. His face was wet because of the tears.

Tears of joy, I’m sure.

We floated like that for a while, two brothers, not saying a word, until he put his snorkel mouthpiece back in and pulled his facemask down. When we went under, once again, I followed him, the older brother following the younger brother, chasing after... redemption, I guess. Yeah, that was the word.

Redemption.

Back at the concrete blocks, Stan made a jabbing motion and made sure I caught his eye, then he gave me a thumbs up and pointed back to the blocks. Yellow twine, just as he had remembered. My chest was pounding so hard it felt like it wanted to crawl up my throat. More gingerly now, he started working his fingers through the mud. I joined him, and we worked like this over the span of five surfacings and divings, working our fingers through the muck, searching.

The sixth time we surfaced, I said, “Stan, we’re not finding anything. No bones. No clothing. And you know what else?”

“What.”

“The chain.”

“Yeah.”

“Chain that heavy, covered in plastic, should be right there.”

“Yeah.” His face was almost blank with exhaustion.

I said carefully, “Stan. Your lips are blue. We’re both shivering. We’re tired. We’re gonna make a mistake and get hurt. Let’s take a break and warm up. Okay? Let’s just warm up.”

And I waited and I waited, and then, for once in his life, the younger brother listened to the older brother.

“Okay,” and he slowly made his way back to the boat.

For a long while neither one of us said anything. I was glad I had brought extra towels. Shivering and quivering from the cold, we dried ourselves off as best as we could and then we stretched out on the forward seating. The weather was in our favor; during our dives, the overhead sun had heated up the seat cushions, and we both sighed in pleasure as we stretched out on them. With the extra dry towels we covered ourselves and lay there and rested. I was going to talk some to Stan, but I was too damn tired and cold, so I stayed still, my hair wet, my hands and feet still chilled, and slowly warmed up. I stayed there for a long, comfortable time with eyes closed, sleeping maybe, but not dreaming and definitely not thinking.

Surprisingly enough, it was Stan who got up first, and it was his moving about that woke me. On the small round table at the stern he had set up the lunch I had prepared, and we sat and ate steak and cheese and onion sandwiches, and munched through some potato chips and carrot sticks, and drank some cold beers. Not so long ago, deep in that damnable lake water, I would have welcomed hot coffee, but we had both dried off and warmed up. We ate mostly in silence, save for one time when he said, “You know what? I think I hear music. Is that crazy or what?”

I shook my head as I opened another beer. “No, that’s not crazy. The Pinecrest Campground, it’s just over that rise. I’m sure that’s where it’s coming from.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

So we ate and drank and kept warm, and I looked at the still wet snorkel gear dumped in the middle of the boat, and to me, they looked like prison chains. I dreaded the thought of putting the gear back on and going back into the dark and cold water. But as I looked to Stan, for the second time that hour, he surprised me again.

“Eric?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s go back to the cottage and call it a day.”

I thought about trying to argue it out of him, but why? So instead I smiled and gently slapped him on the shoulder, and we got ready to head back.

On the way home, I took it slow and easy. Stan was beside me, towels wrapped around him. I looked at him again and again as we got closer to the cottage, and I said, “Stan?”

“Yeah?”

“Excuse me for saying this but... damn it, you look happy. You look really happy.”

The grin I had noticed on his face had gotten wider. “You bet I am. And why the hell not?”

“Okay, I’ll bite. Why in hell are you so happy?”

And then he came over and squatted next to me and hugged my shoulders and said, “Because I was right, damn it! I was right! She was there... those concrete blocks prove it. Three of them, tied together in yellow twine.”

“But we didn’t find anything else. The chain. Bones. Her clothing.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “What matters is that there’s evidence, Eric. Evidence that I wasn’t imagining things, wasn’t making it up. You see what I mean? Even without the chain or bones or clothing... it really happened. I wasn’t crazy. And now... now you believe me.”

I said carefully, “Always believed you, Stan.”

He hugged my shoulders again. “Nice try, Eric. Nobody believed me. Nobody. But now... now it’s for real. I feel... I feel good. I just wish, well, it’s been a long time. That’s all. Fifteen years. A hell of a long time.”

Stan sat back and hugged himself this time, still smiling, and I found myself smiling back. So there you go. Redemption, after all.

Poor Stan. He kept on grinning, but as we got closer to the cottage, he started wiping at his eyes, and I did the smart big brother thing and kept my mouth shut.

That night, our meal was take-out lobster dinners. Afterwards, we sat out on the porch and listened to the loons and watched lightning play in the distance. I was tired and tingly and couldn’t move much after the heavy meal and two glasses of wine. Stan looked tired but he still looked happy. He sat next to me in an old wicker chair, so tired, I think, that he didn’t bother to turn on the radio.

He said, “Ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“You’re the writer. Who do you think she was? I mean, one of the things working against me when I was a kid is that there was no report of a missing girl. No missing girl meant nobody could have been in the cove. But who was she?”

I sat there, the second glass of wine balancing on my full belly. “You know, I was thinking about that when we motored back. The way I see it, she had to be a transient. Someone not from around here. Someone who wouldn’t be missed.”

“So who killed her?”

I shrugged. “Who knows? I’m sure there’s a story there.”

He turned to me, smiled. “Come on, Eric. You’re the writer. Tell me a story.”

I stretched some. It felt good. Time for a tale, then. “Okay. Here’s a story. She’s up here with people she’s not related to. Maybe a group of guys. Bikers, maybe. Hell, they’ve been known to tear up the Pinecrest Campground on occasion. Up here, and something happens. Maybe she pisses somebody off. Or steals something. Or threatens to go to the cops about something criminal she’d witnessed. So she gets killed. Now there’s a body to dispose of, and quickly. What do you do? Spend a long time digging a hole? Or do you get some concrete blocks and dump her in an isolated cove? Which makes more sense?”

He nodded, eyes wide. “Yeah. That makes sense. You know... I wish Uncle Tom were still alive. He knew everybody on the lake, even the people who ran that campground. Bet he’d know something, if he started asking.”

“Maybe so,” I said.

Stan rubbed his hands together and said, “So, what happened to the body, do you think?”

“Fifteen years. A long time. Fish do their thing, the bones get moved around. Lake freezes up, opens up, and that’s repeated fifteen times. Ice shifts and moves, evidence gets scattered. And maybe that chain gets caught on the anchor of some trout fisherman and gets yanked and dropped someplace else. Lots of explanations. You know...” and then I stopped.

He looked at me. “What?”

I took a breath. “Stan, do you want to call the cops on this?”

“Huh?”

“Do you want to call the cops? I mean, there is some evidence there, though not much. The cops could get divers in there, start searching, and—”

He interrupted me, like I thought he would. “No. Good suggestion but... no. It’s been too long, you know? And if the cops get involved and nothing gets found, then it’s old nutso Stan, screwing up again. This way... this way, I know what happened. You and me. I just know that it really happened, that I wasn’t making it up.”

I reached over, just gently tapped the back of his hand. “Good for you Stan. And... you know what?”

“What?”

“I’m... I’m glad for you, Stan. Really am. I hope you can find some... hell, it sounds corny. I just hope you can find some peace or something.”

His face was the most relaxed I had seen in years. Or ever. He reached out and picked up the copy of Coliseum and placed it in his lap. Rubbed the cover. “You know, that sounds right, Eric. It really does.”

So then it came to me, as I looked at him and looked at the book and looked at his face, and looked at my brother, now different, now no longer haunted, and I said, “Stan?”

“Yeah?”

“The parole officer, he set you up with a job, right?”

He said, “Yeah. Stocking shelves at a Hannaford’s Supermarket. I start next week.”

“You interested in doing something else?”

“Like what?”

And I thought of what my wife Marie might say, would say, and thought, oh, what the hell.

“I need somebody,” I said. “Research assistant. Office assistant. Somebody to answer my snail mail, my e-mail, go to the library to look up stuff in books and such. Do some Internet research. Won’t pay much more than that grocery store, but you could set your own hours and—”

“Yes,” he said, eyes glistening yet again. “Yes... Eric, oh, shit, that’d be great. You sure? Are you really sure?”

I picked up my wineglass. “As sure as anything,” I said.

That night I woke up again on the porch, wondered what had disturbed me. So I lay there for a while and listened, and all I heard were the frogs and the haunting calls of the loon. I stayed like that for a while, waiting to hear a cry or a moan from my brother, but there was just a gentle snoring. My brother was sleeping well. Was sleeping quite well.

Then I remembered a suggestion Stan had made earlier, on our way down to the dock and the moored pontoon boat.

I got up from the couch and walked out of the porch, after slipping on a pair of deck shoes. I had on shorts and a T-shirt. Outside it was warm and still. A near full moon had risen up, illuminating everything like it was almost dawn.

I walked some more, off to the right, and smiled at the thought that I was now trespassing, now on the forbidden Mulligan property. I wondered what Mom would think of her perfect son if she knew that. Before me was the cottage and its decaying porch. I walked to it and knelt down and tugged at a loose board, and reached in and grabbed something, and strolled out to the dock. I stood there at the end of the dock, where the quiet pontoon boat was moored, and I looked out to the cottage, where my younger brother slept, where my younger brother was finally at peace, where my younger brother finally had a future.

I cleared my throat. “Time for another story, Stan. About a teenage boy who has his life planned out, knows where he’s going and what he’s doing. A boy who’s tempted by a girl from New York, a runaway working the summer at the campground, a girl he secretly sees all summer long, a girl who announces at the end of the summer that she’s pregnant and she wants to get married. Right away. And the boy is not going to let that happen, and he makes sure it’s taken care of, and later, he makes sure the evidence is moved. Just to be safe.”

So I hefted the heavy chain in my hand, the chain with the red and black color combination. Still tied about the chain, years later, are a pair of black shorts and a white T-shirt and a tan lace bra and matching panties. I take the chain and the clothing and throw it as far as I could, out into the lake, where it made a very satisfying splash.

Like I said before.

Redemption, after all.

Copyright 2006 Brendan DuBois