Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 104, Nos. 4 & 5. Whole Nos. 633 & 634, October 1994

Black Water by Doug Allyn

© 1994 by Doug Allyn

The protagonist of this new story by Michigan author Doug Allyn, Michelle “Mitch” Mitchell, started life as a man in the stories “The Puddle Diver” (AHMM10/86), “Night of the Grave Dancer” (AHMM 9/88), “Icewater Mansions” (EQMM 1/92), and “The Ten-Pound Parrott” (EQMM 2/92). It was only when Mr. Allyn expanded the story “Icewater Mansions” into a book that he decided a female protagonist would serve his series better, and so we find superimposed on the earlier “Mitch” a completely new character who shares some of the old Mitch’s history but otherwise has sprung fresh from the author’s pen...

I hate tending bar in the morning. People who drink before noon tend to be surly and sarcastic, especially to a woman. Or so I thought until I hired a male bartender. He quit after three days. And two fistfights. Apparently morning grumps are gender-neutral.

Bartending isn’t a trade I chose freely. I inherited The Crow’s Nest, a northern Michigan bar/restaurant with a tackle shop attached, from my father. We weren’t close, my father and I. I was surprised he left me the Nest, but not surprised its mortgage payments were four months behind. Still, the bar has a terrific view of Huron Harbor, I was ready for a change in my life, and as a single woman with a young son to support, I do what I have to.

Summers are best. I spend most days in the dive shop renting boats and scuba gear while Corey plays on the beach. Sometimes I pick up odd jobs skin diving for things tourists lose on the lake bottom. Outboard motors, tackle boxes. And sometimes bodies.

In the fall, the sunbirds fly south, my son returns to his private school, and I work myself half to death trying to ease the ache of missing him. Heck, I’ll even tend bar in the mornings.

And sometimes it gets interesting. A Wednesday morning in late fall, a young Hispanic guy in a black leather jacket and faded jeans wandered in. I’m tall for a woman, nearly five-ten, but he was taller, six foot plus. He was probably in his late twenties but didn’t look it. He had a pasty, junk-food complexion and a permanent pout hiding behind a scrubby goatee.

He took a seat at the bar, ordered a double shot of Wild Turkey, neat, knocked it back with a single gulp, then ordered another.

“Little early, isn’t it?” I said.

He eyed me a moment, and I braced myself for a blast of morning static, but he just shrugged. “Yes, ma’am, I guess it is. Do me a Coke instead. Do you know a guy named Walter McClain?”

“I know who he is,” I said, parking a Coke in front of him.

“In a little town like this, everybody knows everybody, right?”

“More or less,” I said.

He waited a beat. “So? What can you tell me about him?”

“Not much. In small towns folks kind of look out for each other. I know who Walter is, I even know some of his friends. I don’t know you.”

“Calderon,” he said. “Jimmy Calderon. You?”

“Michelle Mitchell,” I said. “People call me Mitch.”

“Okay, Mitch, I’m not a friend of Mr. McClain’s exactly. More like a... distant relative. So tell me what you know about him. Here’s something for your trouble.” He laid a five on the bar.

I was wearing my morning work scruffs, jeans and a Michigan State sweatshirt. I dug in my pocket, came up with a quarter, and dropped it on his five. “There’s a pay phone by the door,” I said. “If Walter’s in the book, I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear from a distant relative.” Again I waited for some guff. But he just smiled, slid off his barstool, and sauntered to the phone.

“Thunder Bay Drive?” he said, scanning the book. “Where’s that?”

“A mile or so down the lakeshore,” I said. “But I imagine he’ll be at the plant. McClain Hydraulics.”

“Yeah? He own the place, does he?”

“I really couldn’t say,” I said.

“Right,” he nodded. “Small towns. Thanks, Mitch. You been a big help. Maybe after I get settled in you and me can go out some time. Have dinner, a few laughs. I’ll see ya around.” And he strolled out, cocky as a goose the day after Christmas.

I walked to the end of the bar and watched him get into a tan Ford Escort with airport rental plates. Odd. He didn’t strike me as the tourist type. He gunned the Escort out of the lot like a teenybopper showing off for his buddies. I thought about giving Walt McClain a call, but what would I say? Somebody asked about you? The guy seemed harmless. And then business picked up and I forgot about him.

“What do you mean, he walked on water?” I asked.

“Exactly that,” Sheriff Bauer said blandly, leaning on the bar. “Hughie LeBlanc was fishing below the Narrows Dam. A flatlander from Toledo asked him where the bass were bitin’, so Hughie tells him to wade out in the channel till he feels the footing slope away, then drop a hook. Only the guy just kept walking, six, seven feet out. Water was barely over his ankles and the channel’s at least ten foot deep there. Hughie swears he thought it was the second coming. The guy was walking on water.”

“What’s the joke, Charlie?” I said. “You’d need stilts to walk more than a foot out from that bank.”

“It’s no joke, Mitch. There’s a car down there, jammed crossways in the channel. The guy from Toledo walked up the trunk and onto the roof and stood there. And old Hughie almost had a heart attack.”

“If the car’s near the surface, why didn’t Hughie spot it?”

“It’s black water there. River silt’s all roiled up from the dam spillway upstream. 1 couldn’t see the car even after Hughie showed me where it was. Had to poke around with a fishing rod to be sure he wasn’t pulling my leg. I need a diver to check out the vehicle and hook up a towline, Mitch, somebody who can work blind. Know anybody who can use a quick seventy-five bucks?”

I glanced around the Nest. There were a few scuba divers in the club, we do a good lakefront trade. But there was no one I’d send into black water. It’s an ugly, dangerous job, definitely not for amateurs. “I know a heckuva diver who’ll do it for a hundred,” I said.

“Thought you might,” Charlie said. “Get your gear.”

The sun was setting as Charlie Bauer guided his blue sheriff’s department Blazer carefully down the embankment to the narrow shelf of the Huron River’s floodplain. The wrecker was already there, backed up to the river’s edge. Biff Kowalski was stalking around his huge GMC 7500, stomping his greasy engineer’s boots into the soft clay of the bank. Biff’s built as solidly as his tow truck and weighs nearly as much. He’s usually an even-tempered sort, placid as a side of beef and only slightly brighter. But he knows trucks and winches and rivers. And he looked worried. Which made me worried.

“I don’t like this, Charlie,” Biff said, scowling at the river. “Current’s awful damn fast here. When the car comes outa the muck it’s gonna have one helluva lot of water leanin’ on it. Maybe enough to burn out my bull-winch or even drag my wrecker in if the car’s big enough. I’ve seen it happen.”

“Mitch’ll get the make and model while she’s down there,” Charlie said. “Now stand next to me, give a lady some privacy.”

Charlie and Biff stood together with their backs to the Blazer to shield me from the gawkers along the road as I slid out of my jeans and got ready for the river. Charlie’s courtesy wasn’t really necessary, I was wearing a swimsuit, but the people up on the shoulder wouldn’t know that, and Charlie Bauer is a very old-fashioned guy in many ways.

I put on a “woolly bear” suit of long underwear first, then a Farmer John-style foam-neoprene wet suit topped by a hooded vest. The kibitzers up by the road were probably making wisecracks about a woman overdressing, but working in river current is like standing in front of an air conditioner going full blast. Hypothermia can make you stupid and clumsy before you know it, and in black water, stupid and clumsy can kill you quicker than Bonnie and Clyde.

When I stepped out of the vehicle I got a smattering of applause from the peanut gallery along the road, and I gave ’em a quick bow. I popped open the Blazer’s tailgate, then hesitated.

Something was odd. I glanced back up at the motley line of spectators and spotted the young Latin I’d met in the Nest the week before. He’d cleaned himself up. He was wearing a dark blazer and tie and he’d lost the ratty goatee. Maybe he really was a relative and Walter took him in. Surprise, surprise.

Back to business. I strapped on a lightweight backpack with a single thirty-minute air tank, opting for maneuverability over dive time. My gear belt held a lifeline on a reel and two flashlights, and I had a helmet light as well, powered by a belt-mounted battery pack. I didn’t bother with flippers, I’d be wading down there, not swimming. I double-checked my regulator, then joined Charlie at the river’s edge and handed him the end of my lifeline.

“Three hard tugs if I’ve got trouble. Five if I want you to haul me out. How do you want to work this?”

“You know the drill. Check for a body first. If you find one, come on out and we’ll see about getting the spillways closed to get a better look at the scene. If the car’s empty, get the make and model and come up for the cable. And Mitch, be careful, okay? Biff’s right, last week’s rain has the river up and the current’s nasty here.”

“Right.” I waded a few steps downstream, then stepped away from the bank. Even with the water only waist deep, the pressure from the river was a living thing, tugging at my legs, trying to pull me out into the main thrust of the current. I felt a roller-coaster rush of adrenaline. Excitement, tempered by fear. This one would be interesting.

I moved cautiously upstream, groping blindly in the murk ahead until I touched metal. I ran my hands quickly over it, tracing its contours. It was the rounded edge of the trunk. The car was nose-down in the riverbed and I was on the driver’s side. I braced myself and pushed hard on the rear fender. Couldn’t budge it. Good. It was bedded firmly in the muck. The greatest danger in a dive like this is having the vehicle shift at a bad time and pin you under it. This one was solid as a stone elephant.

Using the car’s body to shield myself from the current, I slipped under the surface. Absolute blackness. Not a hint of light. I switched on my helmet lamp, but it only haloed off the turbid silt. Whiteout instead of blackout. No help. I switched it off and worked blind, feeling my way along the side of the car.

Roofline, rear window... And then a gap. The driver’s door was open. Damn. This would make it trickier. If the car had been closed up, the silt would have settled out of the water inside it and I could have checked the interior with a light. As it was, the only way to check for a body in there was by touch. I felt an icy chill that had nothing to do with the river current.

There was no other way. Grasping the steering wheel with my left hand, I quickly ran my right hand over the front seat, the ceiling, the dashboard, the floor. Nothing. I inched farther inside, reached around the front seat and groped blindly in the back. I began on the ceiling, slid my hand across until I felt the backseat, then down — something spongy moved beneath my hand!

I recoiled, banging the back of my head against the front door frame. Damn! My eyes felt like they were pressed against the Lexan lens of my face mask. But there was nothing to see. Black water. I tried to remember what... whatever I’d touched felt like. Cloth. A sleeve perhaps? With an arm in it? I wasn’t sure.

Dammit, dammit, dammit. I couldn’t even check my watch to find out how long I’d been down. Not long enough. Nowhere near thirty minutes. I had no excuse to surface. Pity. I had a memory flash of a comedian... George Carlin? Talking about being on an airplane and seeing flames coming out of an engine. But not telling the stewardess about it. Because he’d rather die than look like a schmuck.

It was funny because it was true. And the truth was, frightened or not, I wasn’t about to surface and tell Sheriff Bauer or Biff that there might be a body in this godforsaken car. Neither one would say anything. But they’d think it. Next time, get a man for the job.

I swallowed hard and reached into the rear passenger area. And brushed against the cloth. And felt it give. Too late to back off now. I squeezed, gently at first. Then harder. The fabric pinched together. Not a sleeve, or a coat... The material was too coarse. More like... Hell, it was carpet. The carpeting from the rear floor had bubbled up and I was holding a piece of it.

I ran my hand quickly over it, far enough to know there were no more surprises. And then I backed out and surfaced, letting Charlie pull me close enough to the bank to stand.

I spat out my mouthpiece. “Nobody home. Can’t tell what kind of a car it is, can’t see an inch. But I could reach clear across to the far door, so it must be a compact. Want me to hook it up?”

“You want a break first? You sound a little shaky.”

“It’s cold down there,” I said curtly. Biff handed me the hook on the end of the cable and reeled a few feet off the winch. I replaced my mouthpiece, stepped off the bank, and slid back down into the blackness. I felt along the car till I found the rear wheel, then beyond it to the frame. I looped the line around a solid cross member, hooked up, then backed out and surfaced again. Charlie gave me a hand up.

“You okay?”

I nodded, not trusting my voice yet. Biff already had the wrecker’s winch cranking, the big truck rocking on its tandem wheels as the reel drew the steel cable taut. It hesitated a minute when it hit dead level, then with a deep, liquid gurgle the river muck released its hold and the car began inching slowly out of the dark and up the bank. When the rear wheels crawled clear of the river and I was sure I wouldn’t have to go back down, I trudged over to Charlie’s Blazer and shed my air tank and tool belt. And took a moment to think about how ugly it had been to feel that carpet. And how good it felt not to quit. A little private “attagirl.” The best kind.

When I turned back, the car was already two thirds clear of the river. Coffee-colored water gushed out of the open door and river silt slid down the roof and the sides.

The steel cable had crushed part of the bumper assembly, popping the trunk. But the car was easily recognizable. And familiar. It was an airport rental Ford Escort. Tan.

Charlie was checking the license plate against his clipboard. “Gotcha,” he said.

“Were you looking for this one?” I asked.

“It was on the hot sheet,” he nodded. “Guy took it on a three-day rental at the airport ten days ago.”

“A young guy? Latin?” I asked.

He glanced at the sheet, then at me. “Yeah. Name was Calderon. What are you, a witch?”

“Sometimes,” I said. “But not this time. I met him last week. In fact, if you’d like to talk to him, he was standing with the rubbemeckers up on — there. See the tall guy on the end, the one in the blue sports jacket? That’s him.”

“No kidding?” Charlie said. “Hey! Excuse me, you, the guy on the end? Could you come down here a minute, please?”

Calderon hesitated, then stepped over the railing and clambered down the bank. He was carrying a flight bag, and as he entered the ring of light from the wrecker’s halogen roof rack I knew I was mistaken. There was a resemblance, but it wasn’t the same man. He was older, more solidly built. And better looking.

“My diver here thinks there’s a chance you know something about this car,” Charlie said.

“I don’t understand,” Calderon said.

“Sorry, my mistake,” I put in. “From a distance you looked a lot like the guy who rented this car.”

“Jimmy Calderon? Is this his car?”

“A James Calderon rented it,” Charlie nodded. “You know him?”

“I’m Ray Calderon. Jimmy’s my brother,” he said, stalking over to the dripping car. “How did it get in the river?”

“I was hoping you could tell us,” Charlie said.

“No, I don’t know anything about this. I just flew in. I told the airport cabby to take me to your office, but as we drove past he said it looked like the whole department was here, so we stopped.”

“Why were you looking for me?” Charlie asked.

“My brother came here on — business, last week. He was supposed to stay in touch. When he didn’t, I got worried.”

“Where are you from, Mr. Calderon?” Charlie asked.

“Virginia. Norfolk. I got out of the navy a few months ago.”

“A long way to come,” Charlie said. “Why didn’t you just phone?”

Calderon hesitated a moment, then shrugged. “Because if Jimmy was all right I didn’t want to cause any fuss.”

“You mean because your brother’s on parole,” Charlie said. “I ran a check on him when his car went overdue. Armed robbery, wasn’t it?”

“It sounds worse than it was,” Calderon said evenly. “He was young, he made some mistakes. He’s paid for them.”

“Not entirely, or he wouldn’t still be on parole. Let me ask you a question, Mr. Calderon, straight up. What are the chances your brother ditched this car on a whim and skipped?”

“No way,” Calderon said positively. “He only had six months of parole left and he had a job. He had no reason to run.”

“He didn’t have permission to leave Virginia either, but he did.”

“Charlie?” Biff interrupted. “I’m hooked up and ready to haul ’er to the yard. You want the stuff in the trunk?”

“What stuff?”

“Luggage,” Biff said. “A couple suitcases.”

“Suitcases?” Charlie said.

“They’re Jimmy’s all right,” Ray Calderon said grimly, sorting quickly through the sodden clothing. “This is a picture of my — our mother,” he said, handing a photograph in a K mart frame to Charlie. “You still think he dumped the car and took off? Without his clothes?”

“Probably not,” Charlie said honestly. “On the other hand, I can’t say I like the alternative any better.”

“What do you mean?”

“We had a hard rain most of last week, Mr. Calderon, and the riverbank’s so muddied up we can’t be sure where the car went in. See that area up there, just before the bridge? It’s a blind curve, a nasty one. People miss it sometimes, mostly out-of-towners who don’t know it’s there. It’s especially difficult to see in the rain. And with the bank muddy, a car’d go down it like a toboggan, hit the river, and the current would carry it to just about the point where we hauled it out.”

“And you think my brother missed a curve in the dark and wound up in the river?”

“No sir, I’m not saying that. We don’t know what occurred yet. I just want you to be aware of the possibility.”

“I see.” Calderon nodded. He walked away from us to the river’s edge, staring out into the dark, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunched slightly against the pain.

“But if... if that’s what happened, where’s the body?”

“The driver’s side door was open,” I said reluctantly.

“But dammit, Jimmy’s a strong swimmer and that car was only a few feet from the bank.”

“That’s where it came to rest,” Charlie said. “It would have gone in about fifty yards upstream. Maybe he was injured in the crash, or simply couldn’t find the bank in the rain.”

“Maybe,” Calderon said. “Where would a body end up, if it went into the water here?”

“The river empties into Lake Huron about four hundred yards downstream,” I said. “The thrust of the current continues more than a mile offshore. With the water this high, it might be closer to two miles.”

“Bodies surface after a day or so,” Calderon said, his voice barely audible. “Wouldn’t someone have found it?”

“In the summer, maybe,” Charlie said, “when we have a lot of boaters. But this time of year, especially with all the rain this past week, it’s quite possible it wouldn’t be seen. We can start an air search tomorrow, but it’s a big lake out there, Mr. Calderon, a hundred and fifty miles to the Canadian shore. And he might not be on the surface now. Meanwhile, why don’t we consider the other possibilities.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, but maybe you do. Why did your brother come up here to Huron Harbor?”

“It was — personal. He was — he was trying to locate his father.”

“His father?” I said, surprised.

“That’s right,” Calderon said, looking at me for the first time. “We’re only half brothers, Jimmy and me, same mother, different fathers. Jimmy never had any contact with his real father. He came up here to find him.”

“Who’s his father?” Charlie asked.

“A man named Walter McClain.”

“Then he made a trip for nothing,” Charlie said. “The only Walter McClain I know’s in his early thirties.”

“He did ask about Walter,” I put in.

“You talked to my brother?” Calderon asked, surprised. “When?”

“Last Wednesday,” I said, glancing at Charlie for an okay. “I own a little bar/restaurant and he stopped in for... information, mostly. I told him he’d probably find Walter at the plant. And he drove off in that direction when he left.”

“Well, we can’t do any more here tonight,” Charlie said. “Maybe we can get a line on his movements. The McClain place is on the way back to the station anyway. Where can I contact you, Mr. Calderon?”

“No place, I mean, I’m not staying anywhere yet. The cabby dropped me here. Can I catch a ride into town with you?”

“No problem,” Charlie said. “Climb aboard. Passenger side, please. Mitch needs the backseat to change.”

“That was a nice bit of diving you did back there,” Calderon said over his shoulder without turning his head. He was riding shotgun in Charlie Bauer’s county Blazer. I was in the backseat. I’d shucked my diving gear and climbed back into faded jeans and a sweatshirt.

“Just another day at the office,” I said.

“You learn in the military?”

“No, I grew up underwater. My dad owned the Crow’s Nest and rented boats and diving gear. He taught me. After high school I got a job with Exxon out on the Texas gulf for a while, doing underwater maintenance off the oil platforms.”

“I didn’t know they hired women for that kind of work.”

“They don’t hire women,” I said evenly. “They hire divers who can do the job. The money was good, but the platforms aren’t much of a life. My son was in boarding school, and I could only see him on weekends. So we moved back up here.”

“I can see why,” Calderon said absently, “it’s beautiful country, what I’ve seen of it.”

“What did you do in the navy, Mr. Calderon?” Charlie asked.

“Flight crew. The last few years I worked in an air/sea rescue squadron out of Norfolk. Which means I’m aware of the odds against recovering my brother’s... body. If he went into that river.”

And that chilled the conversation until we pulled into the long circular drive of the McClain estate. It’s a Tudor-style manor, three stories, twenty rooms or so, overlooking the north shore of Thunder Bay. In Detroit or Grosse Pointe it would have been surrounded by spear-tipped steel fencing, but up here neighbors are all you need.

I expected Charlie to tell us to wait in the car, but he didn’t. Calderon flanked him while he rang the buzzer. Chimes tinkled like Waterford crystal somewhere within.

The door was opened by an over-the-hill surfer, or at least that was my first impression. He was tall, tanned, a bodybuilder type, mid-fortyish with a shoulder-length mane of dark, tousled hair. He was wearing a white cable-knit sweater, white slacks, and deck shoes, no socks. No underwear either unless I was greatly mistaken. His sleepy gray eyes had all the intensity and intelligence of a cocker spaniel.

“Yes?”

“I’m Sheriff Bauer, to see Mr. McClain? I called ahead.”

“Of course, please come in.”

We followed the surfer down a tiled entry hall into a modest-sized living room, comfortably furnished with wine-toned leather sofas and a half-dozen chairs. The McClain family was all there, what there is of it. Walter, a pudgy jock-gone-to-seed with thinning sandy hair — he was wearing the vest and dress pants of a business suit, a Wall Street Journal on his lap. A solid citizen. But I noticed his fingertips were raw, nails chewed to the quick.

His wife, Hannah, stood behind his chair, wary as a doe in a rainstorm. She was a rangy blond stunner, half a head taller than Walter, a local girl, nee Luebner. Her family were woodcutters, cedar savages, a ragtag army of kids and dogs and pickup trucks and chain saws. I had vague memories of her from high school, a quiet girl, self-conscious about her diction, I think. But she got good grades and made the state finals as a distance runner. When she married Walter, the local gentry clucked that he’d married beneath himself. Personally, I thought he’d scored a terrific catch. I wasn’t so sure she had.

She was dressed casually in a teal designer sweater, slacks, and pumps, yet seemed uncomfortable, as if she feared Charlie’d come to haul her back to Shacktown where she belonged. Or maybe she hoped he would.

Walter’s mother, Audrey McClain, was in her wheelchair near the fire. She was tiny, and frail as smoke, probably fiftyish but her debility made her seem older. Her gleaming platinum hair contrasted with a simple blouse of raw silk, black, with matching skirt, a string of pearls at her throat.

Her finely sculpted face must have been truly lovely once. To me she still was. Her shoulders were humped from arthritis that forced her to cock her head when she looked at you, like a kitten listening. Her eyes were catlike too, curious and alert. Her body was bent, but her spirit was unbroken. Rumor said she had a tongue like a horsewhip when crossed. I didn’t doubt it.

“So, Charlie,” she said. “Come to haul me away for my sins at last, have you?”

“No, ma’am, there’s been an accident. A young fella’s gone missing. I’m trying to trace his movements hoping to get a line on him.”

“Who’s missing?” Walter frowned. “And why come here?”

“His name’s James Calderon. He’s this gentleman’s brother,” Charlie added nodding at Ray. “Thing is, he apparently came to town looking for you, Walt. May have gone out to the plant. Did you talk to him? Would have been last Wednesday, most likely.”

“Wednesday?” Walter blinked uneasily, glancing at his mother. “Yes, I talked to him a few minutes. He didn’t make much sense. Said something about being my brother, but one of the punch presses was down on the shop floor and I was busy as hell. Told him to take a walk, I didn’t have time for games. He got a little pushy, so my Uncle Gordon showed him out. That was about it.”

“He said he was your brother and you didn’t take time to talk to him?” Charlie said, his tone neutral.

“What was I supposed to do? Let fifty guys stand around at ten bucks an hour while I shoot the breeze with some clown I never heard of? It was all a crock anyway. He was looking for a handout.”

“Actually he wasn’t,” Audrey said, cocking her head to gauge Charlie’s reaction. “Or at least he didn’t ask me for anything. He just wanted to meet his father.”

“He came here to the house?” Charlie asked. “When was that, Mrs. McClain?”

“Wednesday afternoon, around two, I think. He apparently got our address out of the phone book.”

“Mother,” Walter began, but she cut him off with a wave.

“Don’t lecture me, Walter. I know I shouldn’t have let him in, but it was Ross’s day off and I was bored. And he seemed harmless enough.”

“What happened?” Charlie prompted.

“At first he said he was a friend of Walter’s from out of town, which I knew wasn’t true. He was far too interesting to be a friend of Walter’s. He asked a few questions about the family, to confirm things, I suppose, and then he told me straight out that he was Wally’s half brother. That my late husband had an affair with his mother, and he was the result. He even had pictures.”

“What kind of pictures?” Charlie asked.

“Nothing pornographic,” Audrey said drily. “Just snapshots of Walter and... a very pretty young woman, dark eyes, and dark hair. Walter always had excellent taste. One picture was a group shot with a young boy, this gentleman here, unless Tm greatly mistaken.”

Calderon nodded, but said nothing.

“When I explained that Walter senior died in Viet Nam, he... Well, he was very disappointed, naturally. We talked awhile, had a drink or two, and then Megan Lundy stopped by to talk about the Arts Council scholarships. And so I... gave Mr. Calderon some money, and he left.”

“You gave him money?” Walter echoed.

“Not a lot of money dear, a few hundred. His airfare, more or less. He’d come a long way for nothing. I felt it was the least I could do. We can afford it. Or rather I can,” she added pointedly.

“That’s not true,” Ray Calderon said slowly.

“Mr. Calderon,” Charlie began, “I know this isn’t easy for you, but—”

“Easy’s not the issue,” Calderon said coolly. “I don’t know how much of what this nice lady just told us is true, but I know the last part isn’t. Her husband didn’t die in Viet Nam. He was never there and Jimmy knew it. What’s going on here, lady? What are you trying to hide?”

“I’ve heard about enough of this,” Walter said, rising, his face flushing. “Charlie, you’re out of line bringing this man to my home. I want him gone, now. If you’ve got any more questions, call my office during business hours. Or talk to my attorney. Is that clear? Ross, would you see these people out, please.”

“There’s no need to be unpleasant, Walter,” Audrey McClain said sharply. “And since I’m the only one who can help, why don’t you and Hannah go on to your Chamber of Commerce meeting? I’ll be fine,” she said, waving off his objections. “If Charlie hauls out a rubber hose I’ll have Ross throw him out. Or try. It might be fun to watch. You go on. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Your mom’s right, Wally,” Hannah McClain said suddenly, speaking for the first time. “We’re already late, and you’re supposed to talk about the plant expansion. We’d better go.”

Walter hesitated, whipsawed between the two women in his life. “All right,” he said reluctantly. “But dammit, Charlie, keep this short, understand? Mom’s been known to overestimate her stamina.” He turned and stalked out without another word. Hannah and Audrey exchanged a wry glance of shared amusement and irritation. And then Hannah followed her husband out.

“Well,” Audrey said, taking a deep breath, “Ross, I think I’d like a whiskey sour. Anyone else? Coffee? Tea? Something to eat, perhaps?” No one spoke. “Then just get mine please, Ross. And Ross? Take your time. And knock before you enter, dear.” The weightlifter nodded mutely and trudged off. He left the door ajar. Charlie closed it.

“Please sit down, all of you,” Audrey said. “Looking up at you is giving me a stiff neck.”

“Mrs. McClain, perhaps tomorrow would be better,” Charlie said.

“No, I’d like to get this over with. To help this young man if I can. None of this is his fault, and he’s quite right, Walter didn’t die in Viet Nam. Wally’s a bit touchy on the subject of his father, as you may have gathered. It was only a minor scandal back then, lots of young men deserted to avoid the war. And later, when my father-in-law told people Walter died in Viet Nam, no one bothered to contradict him. Or dared to. Old Harvey was a formidable man. By now I imagine most people believe it actually happened. Wally may half believe it himself. But... you’re right, Mr. Calderon,” she said, swiveling her chair to face him. “Your brother didn’t buy the family cover story. He even showed me a photostat of an army warrant. Which surprised me. I thought President Carter’s amnesty took care of all that.”

“The amnesty was for draft resisters,” Calderon said. “Not deserters. Or thieves.”

“Thieves?” Charlie echoed.

“There was a — misunderstanding about some money Walter took from his unit when he left,” Audrey sighed. “Not much, a few thousand. And I believe a man was injured in a fight over it. My father-in-law offered to repay the money when the military police made inquiries. I was quite ill at the time. I don’t know if he actually did so.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered, ma’am,” Calderon said grimly. “It wasn’t just the money. When Captain McClain got orders for Viet Nam, he skipped out with his outfit’s payroll. A sergeant tried to stop him and got shot for his trouble. Nearly died. The army would still like to talk to your husband about it.”

“Then they’ll need a... channeler? Is that the word?” Audrey said. “Walter may not have died in Viet Nam, but he is dead. My late father-in-law tried very hard to locate him after the amnesty. Police, detectives, attorneys, the works. They found exactly nothing. In the end we took legal action to have Walter declared dead so Walter junior could inherit the business. And it was not a step we took lightly.”

“Having him declared dead may have simplified your situation,” Calderon said. “It wouldn’t matter to the military.”

“Your brother said something along those lines,” Audrey said, craning her neck to see him better. “He thought Walter came back here all those years ago. Is that what your mother told him?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, she may have thought so, but it simply wasn’t true. Wherever he ran to, it wasn’t here. He went off to the army and never came home. Like so many others.”

“There’s a big difference between those others and your husband, Mrs. McClain,” Calderon said. “He was never in combat. Why are you so sure he’s dead?”

“Because a small army of detectives found no trace of him. But also because of the money,” she said. “Walter was never any good with money. Never had to be. I wasn’t surprised when the investigators told me he took some. He probably meant to pay it back. The family could afford it. The point is, the few thousand he took wouldn’t have lasted him for long. But he never asked for more. We’ve never heard from him again. Ever.”

“Or so you say, ma’am. No offense, but he was your husband, after all.”

“You seem like an astute young man,” Audrey said, her voice chilling a bit. “Your brother showed me a picture of your mother. She was lovely. If you were Walter, would you have chosen to run off with her? Or come home to this?” she said, indicating herself and the chair with a flutter of her hand.

“But he... didn’t run off with my mother.”

“Well, perhaps we made the same mistake, she and I. We were apparently both pregnant when he left us, and I can tell you from my experience that Walter, like most men, had no patience with pregnancy. Perhaps he replaced your mother as she replaced me. Who can say? And I’m afraid that’s really all I can tell you, Mr. Calderon. Your brother left here late in the afternoon. It was raining hard, he was a bit upset, and we’d... well, we’d had several brandies together, drowning our sorrows. Perhaps I shouldn’t have let him go. But I was more than a little upset myself. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too, ma’am,” Calderon said. “For all of it. Thanks for... well, for telling me.”

“That’s quite all right,” Mrs. McClain said, “but if you don’t mind, I’m a bit tired now.”

“Of course,” Charlie said, rising. “We’ll see ourselves out.” He strode quickly to her chair, bent down, and gave her a peck on the forehead. “If you think of anything else that might help, anything at all, please give me a call.”

She nodded. “I will, dear. You take care. Miss?” she said suddenly, turning to me. “You’re Shannon Mitchell’s daughter, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I said, surprised that she knew.

“I wonder... could you stay a minute? I’d like to talk to you. Please.”

“I don’t know,” I said, glancing at Charlie for advice, but his square, freckled face was professionally neutral, unreadable. As usual.

“I’ll see that she gets home, Charles, you go ahead,” she said, waving him off. A woman used to being obeyed. Charlie nodded and walked out, pointedly motioning Calderon ahead of him. Ross the surfer came in a moment later, carrying a whiskey sour on a small silver tray.

“Thank you, dear,” she said, taking the glass, sipping the liquor greedily. “Now, would you please bring one of the cars around and wait out front? Miss Mitchell will need a lift into town shortly.”

Ross glanced at me a moment, then nodded and stalked off, closing the door after him.

“I knew your father,” she said, swiveling her chair to face me, cocking her head with that kittenish tilt to look me over. “You favor him a bit, tall and dark. Much prettier, of course, though he was no slouch in that department. Before my accident I used to sail a lot. I bought equipment from him and he gave me a few pointers. Though not the sort of pointers he gave a good many local girls. A pity.”

Surprise must have shown in my face.

“Oh, don’t look so shocked. At my age, I only regret the fun things I missed doing. Like your father. I understand you inherited his business. Are you with the sheriff’s department too?”

“No, I just dive for them occasionally.”

“Good, then there’ll be no conflict of interest if I hire you to do a small job for me.”

“What kind of a job?”

“Let’s call it babysitting, of a sort. Mr. Calderon is upset and he’ll be making inquiries. As an outsider, he’s liable to blunder around upsetting people. Frankly, I’d like to minimize any fuss, for my son’s sake. I sympathize with Mr. Calderon, of course, but I have my own family to think of. So I’d like you to help him with his inquiries, but try to see that he’s as... discreet as possible. You understand, I’m sure.”

“I think so,” I said. “You want to pay me to keep Calderon discreet. And I take it I’m supposed to be discreet too?”

She hesitated, trying to read my face.

“Actually,” I said, “I think I can save you some money, Mrs. McClain. I’ll help Calderon if he needs it because, as you said, none of this is his fault. And I won’t carry tales about what was said here because it’s no one else’s business, including mine. What’s more, it won’t cost you a dime.”

“My, my,” she said slowly, with a mischievous grin. “I believe I’ve pushed one of your hot buttons, as the kids say. I meant no offense, Miss Mitchell.”

“None taken,” I said. “Was there anything else?”

“Yes. Please come and see me again, just to talk. The only visitors I get nowadays are old friends, and I mean old friends, or people with their hands out. I could use a new friend.”

“Can’t we all,” I said.

“She’s at least half crazy, you know,” Ross said. We were in a Lincoln Town Car, gliding sedately along the lakeshore drive. I looked him over as he spoke. Up close, I revised my first impression of him. He was older than I thought, late fortyish, maybe more. His dark hair had the faint plum highlights of a rinse, and the skin around his eyes was a tad too taut across his cheekbones. Cosmetic surgery? He’d be the type, I suppose.

It must be grim to be in the paid-companion business and start noticing crow’s-feet and gray hairs. Heck, it’s pretty grim even if you’re not.

“She was sharp tonight, on top of things,” he continued, keeping his eyes on the road. “But on her bad days she can be a handful. Did she try to hire you for something or other?”

I glanced at him without answering.

“I’m just trying to do my job, lady,” he said, giving me a flash of too-perfect teeth in a practiced, professional grin. “Sometimes it includes being nosy.”

“And what is your job, exactly?”

“Rent-a-pal,” he said frankly. “I help her in and out of her chair, cook for her, try to keep her out of trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“All kinds. On her bad days she orders things over the phone, from mink coats to phony gold stocks, and then forgets about it. She gets agitated and wants to drive and I have to jolly her out of it before she kills somebody.”

“She can drive?”

“Sure. She’s got a little modified van minus a driver’s seat so she can control it from her chair. She handles it all right, when she’s herself. But on her bad days...”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Just trying to avoid problems. She gets upset when she forgets things and I hate to see her like that. I think this Calderon business upset her more than she let on. It’d be better if he didn’t come around again. A lot better.”

“Better for whom?” I asked.

“For Audrey. I really do like her, you know. She can be a real trip to be around. But if she’s hired you for anything, you’d better clear it with Wally or me if you expect to get paid. Next time you see her, she may not remember who you are. Or even who she is.”

“I see,” I said, considering it.

“So, did she offer you some kind of a job?” he asked.

“Is Ross your first name or your last?” I asked.

He glanced at me a moment, reading my eyes. “It’s Ross,” he said, with a vacant smile. “Just Ross.”

Charlie Bauer’s county Blazer was parked in The Crow’s Nest lot when Ross dropped me off. Charlie and Ray Calderon were alone at a corner table. Charlie, bear-sized in his brown uniform jacket, was stolidly munching one of our cheeseburger deluxes, a two-fisted dinner even with paws the size of Charlie’s. Calderon was sipping a straight whiskey, not his first, judging from the flush of his jaw. Maybe serious drinking ran in the family.

“Hi,” I said, easing down across from Charlie. “Any news?”

“Mr. Calderon here made a call, but nobody back home had heard from his brother, so I contacted the Coast Guard. We’ll start an air search of the lake tomorrow. How much area do you figure we should cover?”

“That’s hard to say,” I said, hesitant to speak openly with Calderon there.

“It’s all right,” Ray said as though he’d read my mind. “I know the drill. How far could a body drift in ten days?”

“The river current’s thrust is still palpable a good two miles from the mouth,” I explained. “Might be farther with all the rain we’ve had. Deep water’s temperature is roughly forty degrees and bodies rise fairly quickly, say twenty-four to forty-eight hours. The prevailing wind’s been from the northeast the past week, so the floater — excuse me, the body, would drift south once it surfaced. I doubt it could be more than five miles out, so an air search in an eight-mile arc from the river mouth should do it. Plus a ground search of the South Point shoreline.”

“You’re assuming the torso’s intact,” Calderon said quietly. “If it’s been punctured, the body may already have sunk. What about scavengers, gulls, or fish?”

“The Great Lakes don’t have any scavenger fish that work on the surface, at least no large ones. Gulls might attack a fl—”

“Go ahead and call it a floater,” Calderon snapped. “I’m familiar with the term.”

“Sorry, I’m just trying... In any case, your brother was wearing a leather jacket when I saw him. It wasn’t in the car, so if he was wearing it when he went in, it would protect his upper body from gulls. I think there’s a good chance the body’s still afloat, possibly already ashore.”

“Wouldn’t somebody have found it if it had washed up?”

“Maybe not. Tourist season’s over, and a lot of the houses along South Point are summer homes.”

“I see. And if the body’s already sunk?”

I glanced at Charlie, not wanting to say it.

“If that’s the case, the chances of a recovery drop off pretty sharply,” Charlie said calmly. “In the spring, when the ice breaks up, it might be carried ashore. But to be absolutely frank with you, Mr. Calderon, if we don’t recover the body in the next few days, it’s quite possible we may never find it. Of course, it’s also possible it isn’t in the lake at all.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, so far we’ve assumed the worst. We find the car in the river, suitcases in the trunk. Granted, it looks bad. But suppose your brother made it out of the car okay? He’d been drinking, he’d just had a big disappointment, in effect he’d lost his father for the second time. Maybe he just decided the hell with it all and took off. Young guys do that sometimes.”

“No,” Calderon said softly. “He didn’t run off. I think Jimmy’s dead. I’m almost certain of it.”

“Why do you say that?” Charlie asked.

“I know it here,” Calderon said, tapping his heart. “I’ve felt it for days. We were very close as kids. My mom remarried a few years after Jimmy was born. A sailor. So we grew up as navy brats, always on the move. All we had was each other. Then I went in the service and Jimmy... I think I need to take a walk,” he said abruptly, rising, his eyes misty. “Is there a motel around here?”

“A couple,” Charlie said. “Harbor Inn’s the best, half mile or so down the shore. I’ll be glad to drop you.”

“No, I’ll find it. You finish your dinner. There is one thing, though. The air search? I’d like to go along. I’m not an amateur. I won’t get in the way.”

“I can ask,” Charlie said. “Can’t guarantee anything. It’ll be up to the Coast Guard pilot.”

“Thanks,” Calderon said. “For everything. You too, ma’am. And I’m sorry if I’ve seemed rude.”

“No problem,” I said.

“Right. I’ll be at that motel if anything... Well, you know.” He turned and walked out without a backward glance. And I’m human. I couldn’t help noticing how well he carried himself, and the way his shoulders moved... Charlie was watching me.

“So,” I said, meeting his gaze. “Do you think he’s right? The feeling he’s got about his brother, I mean?”

“Hard to say,” Charlie said. “I’ve never experienced it myself, but I’ve run into it a few times over the years. People call the station, ask us to check on somebody, usually a parent, because they’ve had a dream or a bad feeling something’s happened to them.”

“And?” I prodded. “How does it turn out?”

Charlie shrugged. “It’s only happened a few times. It’s not like I’ve done a big scientific study or anything.”

“And you’re ducking the question. Are they ever right?”

“They’re always right,” he said sourly, pushing his plate aside. “Every damned time.”

Calderon went up with the Coast Guard chopper the next day. For nearly ten hours they crisscrossed an imaginary grid over roughly eighty square miles of open water. The weather was ideal for a search, a brassy, beautiful October day, light wind, waves less than a foot, visibility almost perfect. Charlie buzzed me at four to tell me they’d struck out completely, both in the air and the ground search along the shore, but when Calderon wandered into the Nest a little after seven that night, there was no disappointment in his face. Or much of anything else. He was a closed book, but one that might be interesting to read.

He was dressed semiformally for this part of the country, jeans with a jacket and tie. He took the same comer table he and Charlie had shared the night before, and I wandered over.

“Hi,” I said. “Charlie told me how the search went. I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “Maybe no news is good news. Can I buy you a drink?”

“No, thanks,” I said, sitting down across the table from him. “But I’m a good listener.”

“I don’t need a shoulder to cry on,” he said. “At least, not yet. I could use a little consultation though, if you wouldn’t mind?”

“Not at all. How can I help?”

“The Coast Guard pilot told me that this time of year, with the weather and water temperature so cold, a floater will stay on the surface for quite a while. Sometimes weeks.”

I nodded. “Sometimes.”

“Well, you couldn’t ask for a better look than we had up there today, so I’ve got to assume that either the body’s gone down, or... that maybe it’s somewhere else.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, we don’t know for a fact that my brother was in the car when it went in. The sheriff said there was no blood or interior damage to indicate he was injured. Maybe there’s some other explanation.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Are you a gambler, Miss Mitchell?”

“Call me Mitch,” I said. “And I’ve been known to drop a few bucks at poker, why?”

“Then you know about probabilities. The odds. My little brother comes to a town he’s never been in before, doesn’t know a soul. He makes some inquiries about a guy who supposedly died umpteen years ago. And then, poof, he’s gone,” he said, snapping his fingers. “Disappears, just like that. What do you figure the odds are that it’s a coincidence?”

“I couldn’t say,” I said carefully. “But that might be exactly what it is.”

“An accident?” he said. “That’s what you think? Okay, where’s the body?”

“Mr. Calderon, people do disappear in the big lake. Someone... very close to me went through the ice last year. We never found him.”

“But they usually turn up, right? More often than not?”

“More often than not, yes.”

“Then all I’m saying is, for Jimmy to die accidentally only a few hours after he arrived, and for his body to disappear too, strikes me as one heckuva long shot.”

“Long shots come in sometimes.”

“Sometimes the turtle beats the rabbit” — he nodded — “but you don’t bet that way. Or at least I don’t. Plus, I’ve been thinking about what Mrs. McClain told us last night. She lied to us until I called her on it, you know. And now I wonder how much of the rest of it was true.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know,” he said, exasperated. “I’m not saying she’s an archcriminal, but her health’s obviously pretty shaky. Maybe her memory is too. Maybe she forgot something.”

“Ross, her butler or whatever he is, says she has good and bad days,” I conceded. “He also suggested strongly that we stay away from her. And maybe he’s right. She seems in rough shape.”

“Fair enough, but what about the lady she mentioned, the one who stopped by?”

“Megan Lundy?”

“Right. Do you know her?”

“To say hello to. She’s an artist, teaches at the local community college.”

“I’d like to talk to her. But since she doesn’t know me from Adam, I wonder, could you give her a call and set it up?”

“Sure. I’ll come along if you like.”

“I’d appreciate that. It might help.”

“Not at all. But just so we understand each other, Mrs. McClain offered to pay me to be your... chaperone, I suppose. She’s afraid you might embarrass her family.”

“I’ve nothing against them. Hell, in a way we’re related. How much is she paying you?”

“Nothing. I turned her down.”

“You turned her down? Then why are you helping me?”

“I turned down the money,” I said. “I didn’t say I didn’t want the job.”

Megan Lundy’s home was only a mile or so up the shore from the McClains’. It was a converted summer retreat, an unremarkable two-story slate-gray clapboard salt-box with chocolate eaves and shutters. It was flanked by eyeless vacation cabins, closed for the season from the look of them.

I rang the buzzer and a voice from above yelled at us to come around back.

A broad redwood deck with balustered railings had been built out from the rear of the house at the second-story level to overlook the rocky beach and the bay. We climbed an ornate spiral stairway up to the deck. And stepped into Wonderland.

A barefoot young woman with stringy auburn hair was stirring an empty pot on a prop kitchen stove at the far corner of the deck. Her threadbare flannel bathrobe was open to the waist, revealing her breasts and the silky curve of her abdomen. She was twentyish, and seven months pregnant. And she was in chains.

Black iron manacles encircled her wrists and a heavy chain draped from them to the deck. She glanced up as Ray stepped onto the deck, then returned to her pseudo-labor.

Megan Lundy was working furiously at an easel that held a three-by-four-foot canvas, lost in her work, thrusting with her brush like a duelist. She was wearing a paint-spattered terry-cloth jumpsuit, a big-boned woman, forty-plus, squarish face, broad shoulders, a wide bottom, and no discernible waistline between. Her eyes were dark and intense, with heavy brows that matched her close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair.

“Make yourselves at home,” she said absently. “I’ll be done in a few minutes. Hate to lose the light. October...” Her voice trailed off as her consciousness disappeared into her art.

Ray strolled to the railing, politely giving his back to the half-dressed girl. He folded his arms and stared out over the water and I sensed a Do Not Disturb sign in his stance.

A pair of French doors opened into a studio and I wandered in. It was a huge room for the size of the house. All the inner partition walls had been removed, leaving naked steel jackposts to support the roof. The wall facing the lake and the two adjoining were glass, huge picture windows with an incredible view of the sky and the shore. The street-side wall was covered with paintings, some properly hung, but many just stacked one atop the other.

The subjects were similar to the scene outside, women of various ages and physiques, some pregnant, some not. They were all shown at tasks, typing, washing their hair, mopping a floor, bathing a child. And all were in shackles, though some of the chains were laced with flowers, and a few gleamed like precious metal. The colors were subtle, pastels that might be found on any morel wall, an understatement that lent the work a fiercer impact.

And they were powerful. Stark emotion that would have moved a stone. But there were too many. My eyes were drawn from one to the next so quickly I had to turn away to keep from being overwhelmed.

The window ledges were cluttered with half-squeezed tubes of paint, discarded pencils, charcoal stubs. And handcuffs and shackles. I picked a pair up, wondering if they were props. Nope. They were very real indeed. Odd. The shackles probably weighed no more than a pound or two each, yet the bondage they represented made them seem infinitely heavier,

A small table draped in gold velvet stood in one comer, a display of a different kind. They were ceramic replicas of what appeared to be primeval figures, rude clay earth-mothers with swollen bellies and breasts. One of them was so striking I actually caught my breath. A pregnant nude rising from water, her arms raised in victory. She looked ancient and familiar at the same time, as though I’d known her in another life. I was utterly enchanted. Without thinking, I reached out to her...

“Please don’t touch them, Mitch,” Megan Lundy said. “Some of them were never fired, so they’re quite fragile. From my Ashtoreth period.”

“Ashtoreth?” I said, glancing up. On the deck the model was pulling a pair of slacks on under her bathrobe. Ray was still watching the last of the light fade into the water.

“Ashtoreth, Phoenician goddess of fertility,” Megan said, tossing a gauze dustcover over the display. “I’ll bet I did a hundred different versions of her in college. And sold about two. I keep these around to remind me that there’s more to art than passion.”

“They’re very powerful,” I said. “The figure in the water...”

“That’s right, you’re the diver, aren’t you? Must be a tough field for a woman to break into,” she said briskly, taking my arm and leading me to the wall of art. “And what do you make of my current endeavor?”

“Stunning,” I said honestly.

“I’m outa here, Meg,” the model said, popping her head in the door. “Think you’ll stop by later?”

“I’ll call you,” Megan said, giving the girl a goodbye kiss that lingered a heartbeat too long to be sisterly. The girl whispered something to Megan, then waved goodbye in my general direction and wandered off.

“Oh, to be that young again,” Megan sighed. “You were saying about the paintings?”

“I really like this series. They’re rude and refined at the same time, and for somebody who gave up on passion, they nearly bleed it.”

“I didn’t say I lost any passion,” Megan said. “I just learned successful art requires more than youthful enthusiasm. I call this grouping Womyn in Chains, women spelled with a ‘y.’ Personally, I think they’re a shade too topical for pure art, but they sell like proverbial hotcakes in New York. I earn more for a couple of canvases now than my college salary for a year.”

“Shouldn’t you take some steps against break-ins?” Calderon asked, joining us. “I mean, this place is all glass and I didn’t notice an alarm.”

“You’re obviously an out-of-towner,” Megan said drily. “Nobody would steal art in Huron Harbor. I’d be lucky to get ten bucks a pop at the county fair. But in a chic gallery in the Apple, with suitable framing... You’re smiling. Do you find my work amusing?”

“Of course,” Calderon said, glancing at her. “It’s meant to be ironic, isn’t it?”

“In what way?”

“The chains,” he said. “They’re not attached to anything.”

“That’s it exactly,” Megan said, nodding in approval. “You’d be amazed how many politically correct types who babble about the meaning of my work miss that aspect of it completely. The truth is, the chains of our own making are heavier than any the world puts on us. Or at least it’s my truth.”

“It’s true, I think,” Ray said, “and not only for women.”

“No, not just women. We all shackle ourselves one way or another. You’re very perceptive. I take it you’re the Mr. Calderon Mitch phoned me about. Forgive me for rattling on. You two didn’t come to talk about art. How can I help you?”

“Mrs. McClain said you stopped by while my brother was visiting her. I was hoping you could tell me something that... Well, that might help.”

“I heard they found his car,” she said. “I’m very sorry, he seemed like a nice young man. But I don’t see how I can help you. He left a few minutes after I arrived.”

“Mrs. McClain said they’d been drinking,” I prompted.

“Yes, I think they’d both had a few, but... Look, I intended to be tactful, but I’ve got no talent for it. And considering what’s happened, maybe the truth flat out is better. And the truth is, your brother had a pretty fair buzz going, Mr. Calderon. He was flushed, and he was more than a little aggressive. In fact, I asked him to leave.”

“You asked him to leave? Why?” Ray asked.

“He was out of line,” Megan said bluntly. “He was going on about how he’d been cheated all his life, and part of this, which I took to mean Audrey’s home and whatever, should have been his. Audrey was upset and... Anyway, I asked him to leave and he did.”

“How drunk would you say he was? Too drunk to drive?”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Megan said, frowning. “I mean, he wasn’t staggering or anything. But since I don’t drive myself, it’s hard for me to judge.”

“You don’t drive?”

“I’m a New Yorker. I attended college here, then came back to live a dozen years or so ago. The town’s small, so I either ride my bike or walk. I was jogging that day. In any case, your brother left, and that’s really all I can tell you. I’m sorry. This must be awful for you. I wish I could help.”

“Perhaps you can. Did you know Mrs. McClain’s husband Walter?”

“Walter?” Megan said, surprised. “Not really. I met him once or twice when I was in school.”

“You were in school together?”

“No, he was a few years older, but Audrey was quite active in the arts when I was an undergrad, so I knew her. They came to fundraisers and things together. God, they were a gorgeous couple in those days. Life can be... Well, you know.”

“Actually I don’t. What happened to them?”

“Walt died in Viet Nam and Audrey had a fall. Lost her baby and the use of her legs. Lost everything, really.”

“Take a look at this,” he said, handing her the photograph. “Would you say this is a good likeness of Mr. McClain?”

She grimaced. “Doesn’t do him justice. He was quite a hunk back then.”

“And now?” Calderon said. “What would he look like now?”

“Now?” she echoed, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“The FBI has computers that can age a person’s photograph. You’re an artist, a very good one. Do you think you could sketch a likeness of Walter the way he might look today?”

“You want a sketch of Walter?” she said. “What on earth for? I don’t understand.”

“I’m not sure I do either. But my brother came to this town looking for a man and a few hours later he disappeared. Maybe it was an accident. But if it wasn’t, I can only think of one person who’d have a reason to harm him.”

“You mean Walter? But he’s dead.”

Calderon shrugged. “So people keep telling me. But suppose he isn’t?”

“Look, I’m very sorry for your trouble,” Megan said curtly, “but I couldn’t do what you ask even if I thought you might be right. Audrey McClain is an old friend who’s had more than her share of pain in her life. I wouldn’t risk hurting her for the world. I’m sorry.”

“No problem,” Calderon said. “I understand. Thank you for seeing me. And I really do like your work very much. If you think of anything that might help, I’m at the Harbor Inn.” He took the photo from her and walked across the deck and down the stairway.

“What an intriguing young man,” Megan said thoughtfully. “Have you known him long?”

“No ma’am,” I said. “I scarcely know him at all.”

“Do you have any idea how crazy that sounded?” I asked. We were in my Jeep, headed back to the Nest.

“Maybe it did,” he said quietly. “But it kept eating at me all day in the chopper, looking down at all that empty water. I kept asking myself how my brother could vanish so quickly. And the only answer I could come up with is Walter McClain.”

“But Mrs. McClain said he never came back here. They even had him declared dead.”

“Well, for openers, he wouldn’t have come back here right away, not with the army looking for him. But let’s say he showed up a few years later. Do you really think his father would turn him in to the army to do a long stretch in Leavenworth for attempted murder? Or would he help him start over? Buy him a new identity, maybe even cosmetic surgery? The family can obviously afford it.”

“But since he’s still wanted by the military, why would he risk staying here? He could be anywhere.”

“No, I think he’d be nearby. His people are here, his money’s here. But most of all, I think he’s here because my brother fell off the world the day he showed up looking for him.”

“I see,” I said slowly. “What are you going to do?”

“In the morning I’m going out with the Coast Guard again for another air search over the lake. If we come up empty, they’ll have done all they can and they’ll pack it in.”

“But you won’t?”

“No ma’am, I’ll just be getting started.”

“And will you be looking for your brother? Or Walter?”

“My brother’s the reason I came. But I may ask around about the possibly-not-so-late Mr. McClain while I’m at it.”

“You’ll be dredging up a lot of unhappiness the McClain family would rather forget, and probably for nothing.”

“Sorry about that. Sometimes the truth hurts.”

“You’re the one it could hurt, Ray. This is a small town. The McClains have a lot of friends and a fair amount of clout.”

“How much clout? Do they own Sheriff Bauer, for instance?”

“No, nobody owns Charlie. But even if you’re right and Walter is here, which I don’t believe for a second, won’t asking a lot of questions scare him off?”

“He didn’t run when my brother asked about him. He took him out. But Jimmy was really just a kid. I haven’t been a kid for a long, long time.”

“I see,” I said slowly, and I really did. “You think if he’s here he may try to kill you, don’t you? And you want him to.”

He looked over at me a moment, with eyes as empty as an Aztec mask. He didn’t answer me. He didn’t have to.

I did my best to put Ray Calderon and his problems out of my mind the next day. I left the cook and a waitress on their own in the Nest, locked myself in the dive shop, and began the post-summer inventory. Masks, snorkels, fins, lures, every display had to be checked against the stock lists. The diving season was over, but the hunting season was already on us, and soon I’d need to spend most of my time in the bar/restaurant half of the Nest.

I suppose taking inventory should be considered scut work, but the truth is I love doing it, love being alone in my own shop with the sweet-oily scent of new gear, the gumdrop colors of hyperthane fins and snorkels. I grew up in this shop, and some of the happiest times of my childhood were here. So I time-traveled as I worked, spending a few hours with the girl I’d been, and sometimes glimpsing the person I’ve become through her eyes. We get along quite well, that girl and I.

But we weren’t alone. Images of Ray and his brother kept intruding at odd moments. I grew up without siblings. When my son Corey was born I was young, single, and on my own. When I went to work on the platforms, I had no options but to place him in a private school. And when my father died and I moved up here, Corey asked if he could stay in school for the time being, with his friends.

Being away from Corey is an agony for me. But at least when we part I know I’ll see him again soon. I could only imagine what Jimmy’s death meant to Ray, and yet his pain seemed so real to me that it might have been my own.

Sympathy? Or were we connecting on a deeper, more intense level? I conceded that I found him attractive, and I sensed the same feelings in him. But at this point in my life...

A knock on the shop door snapped me out of it. I considered not answering, but whoever was knocking could read the Closed sign. Ray? I opened it cautiously.

“Hi,” Megan Lundy panted, “got a minute?” Her face was flushed and dewy from running and she was dressed for it, in a faded mauve sweat suit and high-mileage Nikes.

“Come on in,” I said. “Can I get you a drink? Water? Gatorade? Whatever?”

“No, thanks,” she said, glancing around the shop curiously. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about your friend Calderon. Are we alone?”

“Just us and the ghosts of summer,” I said. “What about Ray?”

“He’s been making me crazy. That little speech he made last night about Walter McClain, and what he might look like now? Mind you, I don’t think he’s right, but... I just couldn’t get the idea out of my head. So I did a few sketches, variations of the picture he showed me.” She gave me a sketch pad, but held my hand closed on it.

“Promise me you’ll be careful with this,” she said. “I want to help, but wouldn’t want Audrey McClain to think I was being disloyal.”

“Keeping Calderon discreet is becoming a second career for me lately,” I said, opening the book. The first two drawings showed Walter with various beards. The third made me pause.

“That one’s Walter plus a couple of metric tons,” she explained, watching my face.

“He seems familiar,” I said.

“Yes, I noticed it too,” she said. “He looks a bit like Wally’s Uncle Gordon. Probably just a family resemblance. Blubber tends to blur lines of distinction.”

“Too true,” I said, flipping through the others. They showed Walter bald, partially bald, and... with a bushy mane of hair and a seamed face. “This one could almost be Ross.”

“It could also be David Bowie on a bad hair day,” Megan said wryly. “That’s the problem. Once you start wondering about a thing like this, you start to see Walter’s ghost everywhere. I imagine that’s how conspiracy cults get started.”

“What’s this one?” I asked. It was a cartoon sketch of a crone, at least eighty.

“A cautionary reminder.”

“Of what? It’s an old woman.”

“Look again. For a young woman.”

“Ah,” I said, nodding, “right. I see her.” The two faces shared the same lines, but the women depicted were decades apart, facing in different directions.

“It’s a child’s game, but it might be a good thing for Ray to keep in mind. These are just sketches. They don’t prove anything, and by the way, I’m doing them as much for you as for your friend.”

“For me?”

“I enjoyed talking to you yesterday. You struck me as an interesting character. I love this town and the lake country, but sometimes, as a professional woman on my own, I feel like what’s-her-name in Clan of the Cave Bear. Ever get that feeling?”

“Sometimes,” I admitted. “Not often.”

“My life’s a shambles right now,” Megan said briskly. “I’m having a solo show in New York at the end of the month and I still have several paintings to finish. But afterwards? We should get together for an evening, just to get acquainted.”

“I’d like that,” I said. “I really like your work.”

“I’d say the same,” she said, glancing curiously around the shop, “if I had the vaguest idea of what it is you do. But I look forward to hearing about it. When the first snow flies?” She offered me her hand. “Deal?”

“Deal,” I agreed. “When the first snow flies.”

“Interesting,” Ray said, flipping through the sketches that night. Dinner at the Nest was becoming a habit, or perhaps I just hoped it would. He looked tired. He’d flown most of the day with the Coast Guard chopper. No luck. He paused a moment at the sketch that resembled Ross. Then flipped past it. “Last night she said she wouldn’t help. Why did she change her mind?”

“I don’t know. She said she couldn’t get the idea out of her head.”

“I know the feeling,” he said. “So. Other than what’s-his-name, Ross? Does anyone else look familiar?”

“I’m not sure. There are twelve thousand people in this town, thirty thousand in the county. That may be small potatoes compared to Detroit or Norfolk, but it’s still a lot of people.”

“My mother said Jimmy was taller than his father, but not as heavily built. That eliminates everybody who isn’t roughly six foot, say a hundred and seventy pounds minimum. Does that narrow it down any?”

The edge in Ray’s voice made me hesitant to mention the overweight Walter’s resemblance to Gordon McClain. And fortunately, Charlie Bauer interrupted us. He spotted us as soon as he stepped into the room, and came directly over. He may have looked normal to Ray, his brown county uniform slighty disheveled, his freckled face open as an apple pie. But something was up. I sensed it in the way he moved.

“Mitch, mind if I join you?” He took the chair beside me without waiting for an answer. “I heard the air search came up empty again today, Mr. Calderon. I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” Ray said. “The pilot was a good man, though. A stone pro. He did his best.”

“And so did we,” Charlie said. “My men extended their range today. We either checked with the owners or searched the beach ourselves for a full ten miles along the south shore. We found no sign of your brother, and I’m afraid that’s all we can do for the present. If anything develops, I’ll contact you, of course. Will you be heading back to Norfolk?”

“Not right away. I’ll be staying on awhile.”

“I see. To look for your brother?”

“For that. And maybe more. Let me ask you straight out, Charlie. The song and dance Mrs. McClain gave us about her husband being dead, legally and otherwise? Did you buy it?”

“I think she believes it,” Charlie said carefully. “Maybe she needs to. Which doesn’t necessarily make it true. On the other hand, even if she’s wrong and he is alive, which I seriously doubt, he’s not around here.”

“I understand there are thirty thousand people in this county. Do you know them all personally?”

“Nope, but I knew Walt. Played high school football with him, in fact. He was a few years older, but I knew him.”

“How long ago was that?”

“More years than I’d care to recall,” Charlie said, unoffended. “But I think I’d still know him if I met him.”

“Would you? How about these people?” he said, passing Charlie the sketch pad. “Do you know any of them?”

Charlie riffled through the pages, quickly at first, then again more slowly. He frowned at the cartoon of the old/young woman, then smiled. “Nice work. I’m impressed. Where’d you get this?”

“It doesn’t matter. Do any of them look familiar?”

“Sure. All of them. They’re all Walter. Plus they’re general enough to resemble a fair number of folks.”

“Good. So if I show them around enough, someone might recognize someone eventually.”

“Possibly. People still spot Elvis now and again. An identification from a sketch doesn’t prove anything.”

“I’m not interested in proving anything. But if he’s here, there’s a good chance he knows what happened to my brother. And I think he’ll tell me.”

“I see. You know, Mr. Calderon, I lost a brother once. In Viet Nam. I came back, he didn’t. And it still hurts. And because of that, I’m not unsympathetic to your situation. But I can’t have you crashin’ around the countryside on some vigilante manhunt. Nothing’d come of it but trouble.”

“I haven’t broken any laws, Sheriff. But Walter McClain has. He attempted murder once, and maybe he’s still at it. Aren’t you interested in finding him? Or does his family have a little too much... clout?”

Charlie eyed him for a moment without answering, but a rosy flush began to creep above his collar. “If Walter McClain was in my county, Mr. Calderon, I’d bust him like any other wanted felon, family or no. But I don’t believe that he is.”

“You think my brother just happened to have an accident a few hours after he showed up looking for Walter?”

“No sir, I didn’t say that. I don’t know what happened to your brother yet. Neither do you. And I’m not ignoring the fact that he disappeared very soon after he arrived here, or that foul play might have been involved.”

“No one here had a reason to harm him but Walter McClain.”

“That’s correct. No one here. But your brother was on parole. Maybe his problems followed him here. Or yours did.”

“Mine?”

“I took the liberty of doing a little checking on you, Mr. Calderon, nothing official, just a friendly phone call to my counterpart in Norfolk. He said you’re a colorful character. That since you got out of the navy you’ve been running with some rough people. Some of the same people your brother was mixed up with.”

“We have some of the same friends,” Calderon conceded. “Which is why I’m sure my brother’s disappearance isn’t connected to anything back home.”

“But it could be,” Charlie said. “And from where I’m sitting, it’s a helluva lot more likely than Walt McClain hiding out under my nose. So I’ll tell you what, Mr. Calderon, we’re gonna do a deal, you and me. I’ll run a quiet background check on anyone who even vaguely matches up with these sketches, work records, driver’s licenses, and fingerprints if anything seems even slightly hinky. If I turn up Walt, I’ll fall on him like a landslide. But if they all check out clean, I want your word you’ll go back to Norfolk and leave the McClain family alone. God knows they’ve had trouble enough because of him.”

“How do I know you’ll actually investigate anything?”

“Because I just said so. Do you think I’d lie about a thing like this?”

Ray eyed him a moment, then shook his head slowly. “No, I don’t believe you would. Fair enough. If you can’t shake anything loose, I’ll go.”

“Good. I’ll take your word for it. Especially since I can make damn sure you keep it. I’ll take the sketches and you take yourself a nice vacation. And I’d better not hear that you’re harassing anyone. Clear?”

“I’ll stay out of your way,” Ray said. “Good luck.”

“I’ll be in touch,” Charlie said, rising. “Mitch, you take care.” He hesitated, as if he wanted to say something, then turned abruptly and made his way out through the dinner crowd.

“A very tactful guy,” Calderon said, watching Charlie stalk off. “I think he wanted to warn you about me, but didn’t want to step over the line. Your line, not mine.”

“Warn me about what? That you’re a colorful character?”

“I plead guilty to being a character,” he said. “But color’s kind of in the eye of the beholder, don’t you think?”

“What I think is that you gave up that sketch book without much of an argument. And I’m wondering why.”

Calderon mulled the question over a moment, then shrugged. “The bottom line is, I believed him when he said he wants to nail this bastard as badly as I do. Plus, he knows the town and he can check out the people on that pad a lot more efficiently than I could.”

“True,” I said. “But there’s more to it, isn’t there? I can’t see you sitting around waiting for Charlie to turn something up. What are you going to do?”

“Since I’m technically on vacation, I think I’ll take in some of the countryside.”

“The countryside?”

“Right. The way I figure it, if Jimmy’s death wasn’t accidental, then there’s a reason why his body hasn’t turned up.”

“How do you mean?”

“The way I read McClain, he’s a headstrong, spoiled punk who turns violent when anyone crosses him. Let’s say he came on Jimmy after he left the house, maybe followed him, stopped him somewhere. They had words — and Walt killed him. Now he’s got a big problem. If the body turns up showing signs of violence, there’s a damned short list of suspects. But if Jimmy’s car is found in the river with no body in it, it’s an accident. Case closed. So maybe we didn’t find the body in the water because it was never there.”

“And where do you think it is?”

“I was hoping you could help me with that. I’d guess it would be somewhere nearby. He didn’t have time to do anything very complicated.”

“Even so, there’s a lot of open country around here, Ray, thousands of acres of state forest. Only...”

“Only what?”

“It’s bow-hunting season,” I said slowly. “Bow hunters are out in all kinds of weather, and most of them are pretty fair trackers. I don’t think he’d risk running into someone on open land or having a hunter stumble across the body. And he might not have to.”

“Why not?”

“Because the McClain family owns quite a lot of property in the area. Private land he’d probably be familiar with.”

“How much land?”

“A lot,” I said. “Hang on a moment, and I can tell you exactly how much.” I stepped into my office, rummaged through my desk and came up with a county plat-map pamphlet. I sat down beside Ray and flipped it open.

“These maps show property ownership for the county. According to this, the McClains own... several thousand acres.”

“Are you familiar with any of these places?”

“Some of them,” I said. “This twelve-hundred-acre section here is the plant. It’s fenced, well lighted, and runs three shifts, twenty-four hours a day.”

“Unlikely then. What’s this piece along the shoreline?”

“That’s the estate, where we were the first night. Possible, I suppose, but there are neighbors... I don’t think so.”

“What about this big area over here?”

“That’s hill country, southwest of the town,” I said. “It’s undeveloped, no houses. Loggers occasionally do some cutting up there, but that’s about it.”

“Fenced?”

“I’m not sure. I haven’t been up there in years. As I recall, there are old logging trails in and out of it.”

“Can I get in there with a car?”

“It would be difficult, the roads are pretty rough. A vehicle with higher suspension would be better, say a pickup or a van. But I don’t think you realize how big an area we’re talking about. It would take an army to search it all.”

“I won’t have to search it all. It was raining, remember, and Jimmy weighed one eighty. If he’s up there, he’ll be near a road. Where can I rent a pickup?”

“You won’t have to,” I said. “If you’re dead set on crashing around up there, you can borrow my Jeep.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“No problem. It just sits here all day when I’m working, and you may need the four-wheel drive. Besides, in a way I’ve been involved in this from the first. I’d like to see it through.”

“Then I gratefully accept.”

“Fine, I’m here every morning at eight, you can pick it up any time after that. There is one thing though. A lot of the trails up there are visible from the town. You^,ll almost certainly be noticed, so watch yourself. Oh, and wear a blaze orange vest. It’s bow-hunting season. It’d be a shame if a guy who’s trying so hard to get killed on purpose got shish-kebobbed by accident.”

“I’ll bear it in mind,” he said, smiling. “I insist on paying for the use of your vehicle, though. And I’d like to ask one other favor. A big one.”

“Which is?”

“Have dinner with me tonight. My treat. And let’s talk about something else. Anything.”

I hesitated. I’d been half expecting this. And I’d already decided to keep my distance. God knows my life was complicated enough without someone new in it. And yet...

I said yes. And we had dinner, and lingered, and talked. About everything. What it was like growing up a tomboy in a northwoods town, doing a man’s work from the time I was fifteen. And he told me about his boyhood on interchangeable naval bases with a stepfather who was always at sea. He had less to say about his present life, only that he’d been hoping to straighten Jimmy out.

Our tastes were markedly different, in music, movies, everything. All we seemed to have in common was a mutual lone-wolf wariness. And chemistry, of course. Serious chemistry. The kind that makes differences seem unimportant. At first. I think I felt it the first time I saw him at the river. I expected it to fade.

But it didn’t. Over the next few days, Ray borrowed my Jeep every morning and returned at dusk, tired, but not discouraged. And we had dinner. And talked. And we became... friends. Who might become lovers in time. I sensed it, and so did he. It didn’t need to be said. Or rushed. It would happen. And then too many things began to happen. Too fast.

I was in my office at the Nest finishing up the dive-shop inventory. Hannah McClain rapped once, sharply, then stalked in. “We need to talk,” she said curtly, closing the door behind her. She was dressed for shopping, an ankle-length muted tweed skirt and jacket. Her makeup was immaculate and I envied her. If I wear anything more complicated than lipstick and a trace of blush I look like a Halloween hooker. It must be a great comfort to know that first grim look in your morning mirror can be improved on.

But if marrying money had improved her clothes and her look, some things hadn’t changed. She’d always been working-girl direct with me. And she still was.

“I understand this guy Calderon’s been driving your wheels,” she said brusquely. “Have you two got something going?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Look, don’t play coy with me, Mitch, this is serious. If you care about him at all, you’ve got to get him to move on before he gets hurt.”

“Why should he get hurt? What’s wrong?”

“It’s... Wally,” she sighed, slumping down into the chair facing my desk. “Ever since Calderon’s brother showed up he’s been coming unglued. We had it out last night, and he told me he’d been waiting for something like this to happen all his life.”

“What do you mean, waiting for it?”

“Wally blames himself for his mom being crippled. He was four when she got pregnant the second time, and he was jealous, afraid the baby’d take his place. He wanted it to go away. He even prayed it would. So when Audrey fell and lost the kid, he figured it was his fault. And he’s been afraid ever since that she’d find out and dump him, I guess. Which may be why we’re married three years and still live with his mom and he’s afraid to have kids... Ah hell, what a mess.” She pressed her fingertips against her temples, massaging them.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I need your help. You were always decent to me in school when a lot of kids treated me like white trash. I know everyone in town figures I screwed Wally into marrying me. Well, maybe I did. Nothing ever came easy for me. But I didn’t do it just for the money. And right now I’m willing to drop a fair chunk of cash to avoid trouble. How much would Calderon want to back off? Just go away?”

“I’m not sure,” I said carefully.

“Well, the most I can scrape together’d be six, seven grand if I sell some things Wally gave me. It’ll have to be enough. It’s not like he’s entitled to anything, you know. His brother was, maybe, but not him. Anyway, that’s the best I can do.”

“Why do anything? Why do you want him to go?”

“Because I’m afraid of what Wally might do. He’s a terrific guy in a lot of ways, but on this one subject he’s as crazy as his old man ever was. And he’s not the only one. His fat-ass uncle Gordon, the ex-con? Ever since Audrey took him on at the plant he’s been looking for an angle, a way to buddy up to Wally, and he figures this is it. Calderon’s obviously checking things out up in the hills. And Gordon’s saying he’s sizing up the McClain property getting ready for a lawsuit that’ll throw everybody out of work.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“I know it, and maybe Wally even knows it. But some of the mouth-breathers that do scutwork at the plant don’t. And they can be dead serious when it comes to protecting their jobs. Mitch, you’ve got to call this guy off or he’s gonna end up like his brother.”

“What do you know about his brother?”

“Only what I heard the other night. He went to the plant, then the house, then apparently wound up in the river. That’s really all I know, except that I was surprised when Audrey said Ross wasn’t there.”

“You mean he was?”

“I don’t know, but he almost never leaves the house, even on his days off. He’s always suckin’ around Audrey, or me. God, I want to get out of that damned tomb and get a place of our own. But it’ll never happen if Wally winds up in jail for beating your pal half to death. How about it? Can we do a deal?”

“Maybe we could if it was up to me,” I said honestly, “but it’s not. Ray doesn’t want money, he’s trying to find his brother. And I don’t think he’ll leave until he does.”

“Then maybe he won’t leave at all,” she said coldly, rising to go. “Do me a favor. Tell Calderon if he’s so dead set on committing suicide to take a header off the Mackinac bridge. The view’s terrific and it’d be a lot less trouble for the rest of us. I’ll see you, Mitch.” And she stalked out. She had looks, money, and social position. But I didn’t envy her. Not even a little.

“What do you expect me to do?” Ray asked at dinner that night. “Pack it in because some local rednecks are getting antsy? Stirring up the locals was part of the plan, remember?”

“Wrong. The plan was to draw Walter into the open if he’s here. This is different. The people up here are different, Ray. Nobody lives in the north country because it’s a great career move. They stay here for the lakes, and the hills. And the hunting. This is gun country. NRA heaven.”

“The whole U.S. is gun country nowadays,” Ray said mildly. “But maybe it doesn’t matter. I’m nearly finished. I might’ve found something interesting today, though.”

“Interesting how?”

“It may be nothing. I came on it at dusk, and I’ll have to scout the area to see if there’s been any activity recently. But I’ve got a feeling... Do you work Sundays?”

“No, not usually. Why?”

“I might need a little help. If you’re free Sunday.”

“What kind of help? And why me and not Charlie?”

“Maybe I just prefer your company. In fact, I think I’d rather spend time with you than anyone else on the planet. Would that be so hard to understand?”

Our eyes met, and held. And suddenly we’d entered dangerous ground. And I wasn’t ready for it. Not yet. I didn’t know him well enough, and I knew Charlie didn’t trust him. And so I deftly changed the subject, and he was courteous enough to let me. I wish to God he hadn’t been.

I read it in Charlie Bauer’s face the moment he stepped into the Nest the next afternoon. Serious trouble. I was working in my office, but I rose involuntarily and walked out to meet him as he crossed the room. “What’s happened?” I said.

“Calderon,” he said simply. “He’s been shot.”

I felt as though someone had turned the volume down on the room. “Is he alive?” I asked. And suddenly my eyes were stinging.

“Yeah,” Charlie said, glancing away, “but he’s in rough shape. Real rough. He may not make it.”

“I’ll get my coat.”

“There’s no rush,” Charlie said, following me into the office and closing the door. “He’s still in surgery at County General and he’ll be in intensive care after that. No visitors. But maybe you can help. Do you know where he was today?”

“No, I... In the hills, I think. Why?”

“We’re trying to trace his movements. He cracked your Jeep up just outside the city limits on River Road. Sideswiped a parked car and spun broadside. A couple of Canadian tourists stopped to help. They said he was weaving before the crash but no other cars were near him, so apparently he was shot somewhere else and he was trying to make it to town.”

“How seriously is he hurt?”

“As bad as it gets. He was shot in the head, probably with a small-caliber handgun at close range. The wound showed powder burns. His skull’s fractured, his left eye is gone and the other one’s severely injured. So even if he survives the surgery...”

I sat down on the edge of my desk. Had to, or I would have fallen. “He’ll be blind?” I said, my voice barely a whisper. And for a moment I was in the river again, groping around in the rental car. Lost in black water. Forever.

“Maybe not,” Charlie said carefully. “But... Yeah, maybe. If he makes it at all.” He opened my liquor cabinet, poured a stiff brandy into a snifter, and held it out to me. “Here, you look like you need this.”

“No,” I said. “I’ll — I’ll be all right in a minute.”

Charlie hesitated, then knocked back half the brandy with a single swallow. And somehow seeing that snapped me out of the fog.

“You don’t drink,” I said. “I’ve never even seen you sip a beer.”

“That’s because you usually see me on duty.”

“You’re on duty now.”

“That’s right,” he said. He drank the rest of the brandy, baring his teeth against the sting. “God, Mitch, what the hell’s happening? We’ve got a quiet little town here, and all of a sudden I’ve got one man missing, probably dead, and now his brother’s been shot. Jesus, it was awful, blood all over...” His voice was trembling, and he stopped suddenly. “I’m sorry. I’ve seen bodies before. Maybe too many. You said he was up in the hills? What was he doing there?”

“Looking for his brother. He thought Walt might have hidden the body on land his family owns.”

“I see. Well, he couldn’t have been shot up there. There’s no way he could have driven those roads in the shape he was in. Maybe he can tell us when he comes around. If he does. I’d better get back to the hospital. Would you like to come along?”

“Yes,” I said.

County General was abustle, as usual. A harried intern in a blood-spattered smock told us Ray was still in surgery, still critical. They were trying to contact a specialist from the University of Michigan to do the surgery on his right eye. If Ray survived the night.

Charlie and I sat quietly on plastic chairs in the hall. I don’t know how long we waited. An hour or so. At some point I began to shiver uncontrollably and Charlie draped his jacket over my shoulders. And then his beeper went off. He used the phone at the nurse’s station.

“I’ve gotta go, Mitch,” he said, kneeling beside me. “Got a three-car pileup on south twenty-three. You gonna wait here?”

I nodded.

“Okay. If he regains consciousness, you ask him who shot him. Nothing else, at least not at first. Okay?”

I nodded again, and Charlie trotted off, grateful to be moving, I think. A half-hour later a nurse in surgical greens came out, holding a plastic packet at arm’s length in front of her.

“Dr. Kienzle said there’s no point in your waiting. They’re going to insert a cranial shunt to try to control the cerebral edema. The patient won’t regain consciousness for at least eight hours, maybe longer. These are his clothes. Do you have gloves?”

“Gloves?”

“The pants are wet,” she said briskly, placing the package on the seat beside me. “Apparently he soiled himself when he was shot. I have to get back. The doctor said he’ll call the station and brief you when we’ve finished. You can borrow a pair of gloves at the nurse’s station. You shouldn’t handle these without them.”

“Miss?” I said. But the door to the surgery was already closing behind her. She didn’t hear me.

I sat there a moment, eyeing the package of sodden clothing. And I realized she’d left it with me because I was wearing Charlie’s jacket. I unfolded the plastic wrapping.

Phew! I grimaced involuntarily at the stench. She was right, his jeans were sodden. But his pockets seemed to be dry, more or less. The hell with it. I went through them and retrieved his wallet, a pocketknife, and some loose change. I found what I was looking for in his shirt pocket. A plat map of the hill area, neatly divided into search grids with more than half of them X-ed out. At least we’d have some idea of where he’d been searching.

I started to close the sheet again, then hesitated. There was something wrong. His pants pockets were dry. But if he’d soiled himself... I picked up his jeans by the waistband and held them out. They were wet all right, but it couldn’t be urine. There was a neat waterline roughly halfway up the thighs. The waist area was bloodstained, but otherwise dry.

I raised the pants higher and sniffed the wet area. Definitely not urine. Similar though, and familiar. The rotten-egg stench the nurse had smelled was hydrogen sulfide, a mild chemical stew that sometimes seeps into groundwater near abandoned mines or quarries. It stinks, but it’s harmless. I’ve even dived in it a few times, exploring old mine shafts in the Upper Peninsula. Somewhere, Ray must have waded in water contaminated with sulfide.

But there aren’t any mines in the hills he’d been searching. I folded the jeans carefully and wrapped them up, then scanned the plat map again.

He’d been methodical, moving from the north, section by section. I’d been in those hills, of course, used to run in them when I was a girl. The section he’d apparently been working was in a valley, but he couldn’t have gotten in there. It was completely fenced off because of...

Sinkholes.

There were four or five of them back there, craters from sixty to a hundred and fifty yards across, roughly eighty feet deep, open pits carved out of the hills by an underground river. They’ve been fenced off for years because the footing’s dangerously unstable. It seemed an unlikely place to hide a body. If you threw it down, it’d be visible from the rim. And even if you risked your neck to climb down to bury it, the crater floor was mostly moss that’d show any disturbance.

Except for the largest of them. A branch of the river ran across the floor of the pit. And disappeared into the hillside.

Anything dropped into it would be swept underground for several miles until the river surfaced again south of the hills and emptied into Thunder Bay. Unless maybe it was weighted. In which case it might be carried underground. And would remain there.

That had to be it. The water was contaminated with sulfide. And Ray had said he might need my help. He’d intended to search the riverbed where it disappeared underground. He must have been wading around down there, scouting the area.

And someone had shot him.

But it hadn’t happened there. He was closer to town, Charlie said. Shot in the head at close range. But after Hannah’s warning, I doubted he would have stopped for a stranger who looked anything like Walter. Someone else then? Did Walter have help? A friend? Maybe a son? Or even... a cop? An old football buddy, say, or someone in his department?

I didn’t care for this last idea, but it would explain a lot. How Ray’s brother had disappeared so easily, and why the army hadn’t been able to find Walter. He could have been a step ahead of them all the way.

But if Walter was here, who was he now? I had no idea. Or perhaps too many. The only thing I was sure of was, he’d be off his guard now, thinking he’d solved his problem. And if I could find Jimmy Calderon’s body, it would flush Walter into the light like the cockroach he was.

The winds of autumn had been at work, covering the hills with a carpet of leaves, scarlet maples, and golden oak. Even the air up here was heady with the scent of fall, woodsmoke and wet pine. Hunting season.

I parked my dad’s old pickup truck at the end of the logging trail near the eight-foot chain-link fence that surrounded the sinkholes. The fence had been cut, years ago judging from the rusty ends of the severed wires. Kids, probably. You can’t fence off curiosity, and most adventurous local kids had been back here at least once. I’d explored the area myself when I was fifteen or so, with a gaggle of friends.

We’d been disappointed. The sinks were really just giant holes in the ground, so large and obviously natural that they didn’t seem particularly wondrous. The vegetation in them was the same as on the hills around them. Jack pines and aspen ringed the rims like sentries, and in a few spots trees clung like climbers on rocky ledges. The crater floors were a camouflage blend of moss and swamp grass, ochre and autumn gold.

The largest of them was different. A finger of the Thunder River surged to the surface roughly a third of the way across the floor of the crater, glittering like mercury in the afternoon sun. I guessed it was twenty feet across. It bisected the pit for seventy yards or so, then disappeared into the southwest wall of the hole.

I stepped carefully to the crater rim directly above the river’s exit, wary of the footing. The soil was red clay covered with a slippery layer of pine needles. I’m no tracker, but someone had obviously been here recently. Ray? Possibly.

The drop to the river was sheer, a free fall of a hundred and fifty feet. You wouldn’t have to carry a body down, you could just push it over the rim and let the current do the rest.

I’d brought along a three-hundred-foot coil of nylon rope, thinking I’d have to lower my diving gear to the crater floor, but it wasn’t necessary. A section of the rim had collapsed since I was here last, forming a ramp to the bottom of the pit, steep but walkable.

I strapped on my air-tank backpack, slung the duffle bag with the rest of my gear over one shoulder, the coil of nylon line over the other, and worked my way down.

It was a rough go. The footing was steeper than it appeared from above, especially since I was loaded down with what felt like a ton of gear. I paced myself, pausing several times to catch my breath and scan the area. The view was heart-stopping, cloud-castles scudding across the open bowl of the moss-draped cliffs. But its beauty was diminished for me because Ray might never see it again. Or anything else. If he survived.

And then I noticed the footprints. Slight depressions were visible in moss and clay. I knelt and examined them. The edges were sharp, unsoftened by the rain earlier in the week. Someone had definitely been down here. Ray. This was the place then. It had to be. I felt it to the core of my soul.

At the hospital I’d been numb, shocked by what had happened to him. But as I worked my way down into the pit, I felt my spirit and my energy level rekindling, fueled by an icy anger I’ve only felt a few times in my life. A killing rage.

The river roiled and eddied when it met the cliff face, forming a pool. It didn’t look deep, eight to ten feet. I couldn’t be sure because the water was the color of café au lait, clouded with sulfide seepage. The foul reek of it was much stronger down here, held close by the walls. It was a rank stench of decay, as though the sinkhole was an open wound in the earth, and gangrene had set in.

The current looked steady, but not too fast; working in it would be no problem. My dive plan was simple; I’d anchor the nylon cable to one of the stunted jack pines near the pool’s edge, then let the river carry me underground. If I was right, I shouldn’t have to go very far. This current would move a weighted body only twenty or thirty yards at most. Still, the idea of actually being beneath the earth was sobering. It would be like swimming down into a bottomless grave.

As I grimly pulled on my dry suit, tanks, and weight belt, I must have come up with a dozen perfectly sound reasons to quit, to get help, to come back another day. But each time I countered it with an image of Ray Calderon, smiling as we talked, looking into my eyes. Something he would never do again. And I knew if his brother was down here, I had to find him. I just had to.

I waded slowly into the river, chest deep, then knelt and double-checked my regulator. Everything was A-okay. I was wearing a double tank, so I had plenty of reserve air. There was no reason to delay, and yet I hesitated. I took a long last look at the sky and the stunted tree I’d lashed the nylon cable to. And then I sank slowly into the water and let the current take me.

It was like swimming in a mist. The sunlight reflected off the hazy water and set it aglow with a milky fluorescence, limiting visibility to a meter or less. But the light held no warmth, the water was icy, and the chill, steady current seemed to suck life from me. Or maybe it was fear that made me shiver.

I stayed down near the bottom, circling the pool a few feet above the riverbed, scanning the rocks, stumps, forest debris. No algae or reeds grew here, no fish swam. The sulfide made this stretch of river as dead as... the boy I was looking for.

But he wasn’t there. At least not in the hazy pool. If he was here, he must be farther on, in the darkness of the underworld beneath the hills. I could almost feel the weight of all that soil and stone crouched above the river, ready to collapse again, to form a larger sinkhole. With me beneath it. And I knew if I paused for even a moment now, I’d turn tail and swim for the light.

I didn’t. I couldn’t. Instead, cursing my luck and my own damned stubbornness, I switched on my helmet lamp and thrust forward into the shadowy mouth of the cave. Into the darkness. And then the earth fell away.

I’d been quartering back and forth across the riverbed, scanning literally almost every inch of it, seeing nothing but debris, stones, and a few river crabs skittering about. The sudden downward slope shouldn’t have surprised me; this river had already wreaked major havoc on the land about it. But the development did make me stop to reconsider my situation.

I’d assumed the river flowed beneath the hills more or less in a direct line to the lake, that my search would be restricted to a relatively narrow area. But the riverbed was dropping rapidly now, angling downward and widening out into a huge subterranean pool. A new sinkhole in the making.

My grip tightened involuntarily on my nylon lifeline. In a cavern this large I could no longer trust the current for my sense of direction. If I lost the line I could easily become disoriented and... and then I saw James Calderon’s corpse.

I should have guessed he was near. I’d been seeing the little river crabs scuttling below me without realizing what it meant. There was no prey for them to hunt down here. Nothing lived here. They could only be eating carrion.

Jimmy’d come to rest on his side in a wide depression in the riverbed, a natural trap. His body was moving, or seemed to be. It was seething with small river crabs, dozens of them, crawling over him and each other. Feeding.

I turned away, my mouth tasting a sudden surge of bile. I forced it down, composing myself, letting the current swing me away from him a little.

I checked my watch, trying to calculate how far I’d come from the cavern mouth. I’d been down eighteen minutes, but I’d been quartering back and forth rather than swimming in a straight line. I wasn’t sure how far I’d actually traveled. Thirty to forty yards, maybe more. Too far for me to haul the corpse against the current alone. I’d need help.

Or at least that’s what I decided. But even if I couldn’t recover the body, I would still have to examine it carefully where it lay to learn what I could about what had happened to him.

Sweet Jesus. I just couldn’t. But I had to. There was no one else.

I bit down hard on my mouthpiece, using the pain to focus my concentration. Then I kicked gently and floated slowly back to Jimmy’s corpse. The crabs were the worst part, crawling over him like submarine maggots. I couldn’t even brush them off without roiling the silt and reducing the little visibility I had. I’d have to look past them.

There was almost nothing left of the boy I’d met. His leather jacket protected his torso, but most of the skin of his hands and face had been chewed away. A few patches of his long dark hair were still attached, waving gently in the current. The rest of his skull was cleaned nearly to the bone, with only odd bits of tendon and gristle still adhering. His eye sockets were empty save for tiny crabs scrabbling over each other to get inside.

The cause of death was clear enough. His skull was crushed, fractured front and back by a series of powerful blows. So much for the auto accident theory. The body’d been wrapped in a covering of some sort, dark heavy cloth that trailed off behind it in the current. And there was something familiar about his shroud. The pattern? I couldn’t be sure. Something, though.

A single cinder block had been lashed to his legs with thin nylon cord to serve as an anchor...

Sash cord. The kind used to draw drapes. That’s what Jimmy’s shroud was, a section of curtain. In the milky murk, I couldn’t be positive, but I was fairly sure I’d seen the pattern before. In the McClain house.

But he couldn’t have been killed there. Both Megan and Audrey had seen him leave. But whoever’d killed him obviously had access to the house. And for a split second I heard Hannah saying she’d been surprised when Audrey said Ross was out. He’s always sucking around...

Ross. With his dyed hair and sculptured, weightlifter’s build.

I needed that curtain. At the very least it would connect Jimmy’s murder to the house. Fortunately, the river had already done much of the work for me. The current had tugged most of the material free, trailing it out along the floor of the trench. Only a corner of it was still connected to the body, trapped under the cord. I had my diving knife of course, but I couldn’t sever the cord that held the drape without cutting the body loose as well. Damn.

There was no other way. I’d have to pull it free. I hooked the lifeline to my belt, then grasped the tom remains of Jimmy’s calf with my left hand and tried to tug the drape from beneath the cord. Instantly the world closed in as the silt roiled up around me. I felt crabs scrabbling across my hands, but the damned drape wouldn’t move.

I jerked harder and everything disappeared. Black water. I couldn’t see anything at all.

I yanked furiously at the drape, tugging at it like a terrier. And suddenly I felt it give. I inched it from beneath the cord until finally it slipped free. Got it! I released Jimmy’s leg, took a firm grasp of my lifeline, and waited for the current to carry away enough of the silt so I could see again.

I was panting, shaking with exhaustion, more from the tension and fear than the effort involved. But gradually I got my breathing under control and the hazy silt slowly cleared away. And I was sorry it did.

My struggle with the drape had rolled Jimmy’s body over, and he faced me now, in all his ghastly horror. Lord of the crabs. Beast of black water.

Hell would be like this. I had to get out of here. I wrapped the end of the drape firmly around my wrist and yanked it free of the river bottom. And a second body exploded up at me out of the muck!

I ran! Or tried to. I scrambled frantically across the riverbed, banging off stumps, roiling the silt into a swirling tornado of black water. I forgot to swim, forgot everything in blind panic, fleeing like the hounds of hell were after me, trying to get away, trying to—

I slammed into something in the dark. A boulder? The cavern wall? I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t see anything but the swirling murk in front of my mask. And I was too afraid to grope, to reach out into the blackness, terrified I might be...

Might be what?

Grabbed? Clutched in the rotting arms of a corpse? No, not a corpse. It hadn’t been a corpse. It was a... skeleton. Bones. Not a ghost or a monster. Just bones.

So it couldn’t have lunged at me. I must’ve pulled it out of the silt with the damned drape. The drape. In my panic, I’d lost it. But it couldn’t have gone far. It would be near the... bodies. My God. The horror...

I closed my eyes, willing myself to calm down, to slow my breathing. Get a grip, girl, get a grip. Settle down.

All right, okay. First of all, where was I? I made myself feel tentatively around the rock I’d banged into. There seemed to be no wall beyond it. So I was still in the riverbed. And if I just sat tight a few minutes the current would carry the silt away and I’d be able to see.

I still had my lifeline. And twenty minutes of air. I was all right for now. No call for a coronary. I’d come down here looking for Jimmy Calderon. And I’d found someone else as well, that’s all. A second body. The question was, whose?

Enough of the silt I’d roiled up in my flight had cleared to let me see the river bottom again. So I sucked up every shred of determination I had left and worked my way back across to the bodies.

There wasn’t much left of the second corpse. It had fallen to pieces when I’d pulled it up. Many of the smaller bones had simply vanished into the ooze at the bottom of the trench. The skull seemed to be that of an adult, but beyond that I really couldn’t tell much, whether it was a man or a woman, how old, or even how tall. Perhaps it could be identified with dental records... If I brought the skull out with me.

I didn’t like the idea much, but I didn’t see any alternative. I felt gently around the base of the skull to see if it was still attached. And something icy crawled over my wrist. I recoiled, gasping. Then made myself try again. And then I saw it.

A strand of chain was tangled in the bones of the rib cage. Instantly recognizable. The older corpse was wearing a dog-tag chain. I traced the narrow wire into the silt with my fingertips and found the tabs in the mud. They were black in the pale glow of my headlamp, too corroded to be legible, pitted and discolored by the sulfide. An electrochemical bath might restore them. But it really didn’t matter. They’d obviously been down here a long time. And I was fairly sure I knew whose they were.

I took a last look at the trench where Jimmy Calderon and the other had come to rest. The drape lay just beyond them, tangled in some debris. Stable for now. The water was still too roiled to see much. I could search it more carefully when we came back to recover the bodies. It was time to go. But I didn’t.

I’d done all I could do for now, and God knows it was a terrible place to be. And yet I found myself oddly reluctant to depart. I think I just hated the idea of leaving Jimmy down here in this reeking pit under the earth.

I’d met him only once, briefly, and hadn’t liked him much. But God, he didn’t deserve to end like this. No one does. I’ll be back, I said to no one. I’ll get you out. And then I squared myself off with the current and began to work my way upstream.

Moving against the river was harder than I expected. River current is deceptive. You quickly adapt to the constant pressure and get on with what you’re doing. And you forget that every moment is a struggle. You unconsciously fight for balance and to maintain your position as the seemingly gentle current leaches away your strength and body heat. It happens so subtly that you don’t realize how much energy you’ve spent until you try to do something simple like swim upstream. It was all I could do to tug myself forward on the line a foot at a time.

It took me roughly ten minutes to make my way back to the mouth of the cave, and seeing the shimmer of diffused sunlight filtering into the milky water ahead was as fine as waking to a sunrise after a nightmare. I broke the surface and swam to the bank, clutched a trailing root, spat out my mouthpiece, and just hung on, head down, panting like a dog.

And when I looked up, Megan Lundy was there. Looking down at me. Her gaze as lifeless as one of her sculptures. She was dressed for running in her faded gray sweat suit and Nike headband. And she was holding an ugly, palm-sized automatic casually at her side. Not pointed at me. Just there.

“Come on,” she said. “You can’t stay there.”

I heaved myself up on the bank. She took a wary step back, but she needn’t have worried. I was physically drained and I was wearing nearly a hundred pounds of gear. I unsnapped my tank pack and eased it to the ground. She tossed a pair of handcuffs to me.

“Put these on.”

“A womyn in chains?” I said.

“Just do it.”

And I did. No alternative. She motioned me up the path with the gun.

“What about my gear?”

“Leave it. You can come back for it later. Let’s go.”

She followed me up the long earthen ramp to the rim of the hole, keeping a watchful distance between us. “Charlie will never buy another accident,” I said. “If something happens—”

“Shut up,” she said coolly. “I’m trying to think.”

“All I’m saying is—”

“If you don’t shut your mouth, I swear I’ll kill you, Mitch. I’ve got nothing to lose at this point.”

I couldn’t argue with that. But I decided that if she tried to push me over the edge of the hole, I wasn’t going down alone, gun or no gun.

But she didn’t. At the top she just motioned me toward the old pickup. “You drive,” she said. She waited for me to get behind the wheel, then eased onto the seat beside me. I couldn’t see the gun anymore. Nor did I have to.

“Where to?” I said, firing up the truck.

“My place, I think,” she said. She sounded distant, lost in thought. I dropped the pickup into gear and started down the hill.

We rode in silence for several miles. I tried to catch sight of the gun, but she must have been holding it next to her thigh. With my hands in cuffs I had no chance even to try for it.

“Did you find what you were looking for down there?” she said abruptly. Her voice had changed. It was forceful now. More at ease. As though she’d made a decision. About me? God only knew.

“Yes,” I said warily, “I did. More than I was looking for, in fact.”

“You mean Walter? He’s still there?”

“Sort of.”

“I see,” she said slowly. “I thought by now... Well, I guess it doesn’t matter. He was a pig, you know, as sorry a bastard as ever walked the earth.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“He found us together,” she said quietly. “Audrey and me. In bed. I was just a kid, really, twenty or so. In college. Unsure of my sexuality. And then I met her at a fund-raiser, and all my questions were answered. She was the first person I ever truly loved. She was married, and pregnant, and it didn’t matter. It was an incredibly sweet awakening, for both of us.

“Then Walter burst in on us in the middle of the night. He was on the run, half drunk, terrified. When he found us he went berserk. Attacked Audrey. She tried to get away, fell down the stairs. And I... killed him. Stabbed him with a pair of shears. Half a dozen times, probably, I don’t know.

“Audrey was badly hurt, bleeding. But she wouldn’t let me call an ambulance. She knew what would happen to me if I did. A gay woman, killing her lover’s husband? In those days I wouldn’t have had a chance. Or now either, for that matter. Not in this part of the country.

“I couldn’t drive, so she had to. Up into these hills. To a place she knew. And then all the way back to the house. And only then did she call an ambulance. She told them she’d fallen. And then she made me leave her.”

“My God,” I said softly.

“She did it for me,” she continued, as though I hadn’t spoken. “She lost her baby, nearly lost her life, to protect me. She sent me off to school in New York. And I went on to have a career, and she... stayed behind in her chair.”

“A woman in chains,” I said.

“Very perceptive,” she said. “I know when you look at her now, the chair is what you see. A frail old woman who’s getting drifty, can barely turn her head. But to me, she was everything, is everything, my love, my art, everything. So when she called last week, half out of her mind, and said Walter was back—”

“Walter?”

“She was distraught, not making sense. But I heard shouting in the background. I didn’t know what to think. I grabbed a golf club, the first thing that came to hand. And I ran down the beach to the McClain house. I could hear him roaring as I ran up the porch steps. God, he even sounded like Walter. He was yelling at her, only an inch from her face. And she was in tears. I hit him from behind with everything I had...”

“And killed him?”

“I’m not sure I meant to — I mean, I didn’t even know who he was. But seeing him screaming at Audrey like that — I hit him. Hard. And I’d do it again. And then I loaded him into his car, drove him up into the hills, and pushed him over. And I ran his damned car into the river afterward. And to hell with him.”

“And his brother? To hell with him too?”

“No,” she said slowly. “I regret what happened to him. I gave him those sketches hoping he’d either get discouraged or stir up the locals enough that someone would drive him off. But he wouldn’t quit. I’ve been running in the hills, keeping track of him from a distance. And when he found the pit I waited for him on the road out of the hills and waved him down.”

“And he stopped, because he thought you were a friend. And you shot him,” I said. “Just like that.”

“No, not just like that!” she snapped. “My God, do you think I wanted any of this! I have a life, my art is valued by a great many people. I couldn’t just throw it all away over a pig like Walter, or some sniveling little convict. So I did what I had to. To defend myself. And Audrey.”

“I guess I follow your logic, as far as it goes,” I said evenly. “I’m not sure Ray will find it much comfort. If he lives.”

“I said I regret that, and I do. The odd thing is, I think if I’d killed him outright, it wouldn’t trouble me as much as what happened.”

“Blinding him, you mean?”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “To lose your sight. I swear to God, Mitch, I don’t see how men do it.”

“Do what?”

“Slaughter each other over nothing: politics or territory or religion. Bomb cities, maim children. How can they possibly live with themselves afterwards?”

“You seem to be doing all right.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I suppose I am. Pull in here.”

We’d arrived at her home. I parked beside the house. “We’re going to walk around back up to the studio,” she said. “You first. Please don’t do anything stupid.”

“What are you going to do with me?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I need to think.”

She was lying. She’d decided my fate back on the road. I’d heard it in her voice. But she still had the gun. And obviously wasn’t afraid to use it. And I was still so exhausted it was all I could manage to climb the spiral staircase up to the deck.

She unlocked the studio, motioned me inside, then moved quickly around the room drawing the drapes. There was a portable phone on a table by the window. She picked it up.

“I’m going to lock you in,” she said quietly. “But I’ll be where I can see you. Just sit tight. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She backed out and closed the door. I heard the lock click shut. Heard her footsteps cross the deck. Then nothing.

Moving as quietly as I could, I frantically searched the studio, first for a weapon, then for the keys to my handcuffs. The weapon was easy, such as it was. I found a bag of golf clubs in a closet and grabbed a putter out of it. No match for a pistol, but better than nothing. But I couldn’t find the damned keys. There were chains and manacles everywhere, but no keys.

And then I saw the statue. Ashtoreth? Was that what she called it? But it wasn’t. This time I recognized it. It was Audrey. Young and beautiful and pregnant. And suddenly, everything that Megan had told me, and the things she hadn’t, crystallized. And I realized what would happen now.

I carefully lifted the comer of the blind and scanned the deck. It was empty. No one in sight. I used the club to smash open the French door and let myself out. I dropped to all fours, crawled to the railing, then carefully peered over the edge.

But there was no need for caution. Her sweat suit was folded neatly on the beach. The gun was lying on it. And Megan was nearly two hundred yards offshore, swimming steadily out toward... nothing. The nearest land was the Canadian shore, a hundred and fifty miles away.

“Megan!” I shouted.

She heard me and turned and faced me for a moment, treading water. Then she raised both hands in the air, her fists clenched. A salute? A goodbye? She turned and swam on.

I sprinted down the steps, smashed in her front door, and used the phone to call 911. Then I charged back to the beach, but...

There was nothing to see. Thunderclouds were rolling down from the north, roughing up a chop that was already a foot or so high. I didn’t need binoculars to know she was gone. There wasn’t even a ripple to show where she’d been. The bay stretched away, dark and empty. Black water, all the way to the horizon.

A helicopter picked up Ray Calderon the next day and flew him down to the U of M hospital. He was in surgery for nearly six hours. He’s going to live, and he may recover most of the vision in his right eye. I’ll go down to visit him in a few days. I hope he’ll be able to see me.

Megan left a letter behind which restated, more or less, what she’d told me, and Charlie accepted it at face value and closed the investigation. But we both know it wasn’t true. At least not all of it. Megan couldn’t have taken Jimmy’s body up into the hills in his rental car. She didn’t drive.

She may have been able to manage the short trip to the river, a child could do that much. But even if she’d been able to handle the difficult drive into the hills, the little Escort could never have made it over those trails.

Someone else took the body up there. And only one person could have. Audrey. In the van modified for her wheelchair that only she could drive.

Perhaps if Charlie’d checked her van, he would have found bloodstains in it. But he didn’t. Because it doesn’t matter now.

The night Megan disappeared Audrey had a stroke. Hannah says she’s just fading away, drifting into the murky depths of Alzheimer’s disease. Soon she’ll be in black water. Unable to find her way back.

I still have the Ashtoreth carving I took from Megan’s house. I meant to give it to Audrey. It’s hers by right. But in her present condition, I’m not sure how she’d react.

No. That’s only partly true.

The truth is, there’s something about this rude clay figure that haunts me. She’s rising from primordial waters, her belly is swollen and her breasts are full. Her eyes seem to meet mine, but they’re more implied than real. Her hands are upraised, fists clenched. In a victory salute of ultimate triumph. It was the gesture Megan Lundy made to me from the lake. A goodbye. And a final plea for understanding. Before she turned and swam away into forever.

The carving is deceptively crude, perhaps in homage to the countless Ashtoreth earth goddesses found in tombs all over the world. Or perhaps it’s simply unfinished. And now always will be.

The figure isn’t physically recognizable as Audrey, but I know it’s her. Free of her chair. And her body, and her years. Somehow Megan captured the image of her soul. A woman unchained.

And the truth is, I’m not sure now that I would give it to Audrey or anyone, even if I knew beyond a doubt that it was the right thing to do.

Because aside from my son, newborn, with afterbirth still matted in his hair, the goddess is simply the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.