Blue Lake

by Elizabeth Buhmann

“Not just my sister. Her own sister too.”

  Laura rocked back. She had stopped writing. “Whoa.”

  “It happened right here both times.”

  Laura said slowly, “The Wilcox girl who drowned when the nanny was asleep.”

  “Or drunk or with her boyfriend, or probably none of that. The poor girl was mercilessly blamed. Sophie told me all about it today.”

  “Who is Sophie?”

  Regina launched into the whole story about a spoiled child and a hated younger rival sibling, about slapping and pushing and what Sophie saw and didn’t see. “And only Alice’s word for it.”

  They all absorbed this in silence, then Regina continued, describing an affair between her father and Sophie.

  Mary’s eyes snapped up at that. “How do you know that? Sophie told you?”

  “She did after I told her I’d read the letters she wrote him.” Regina pointed at the dormered roof of the house. “In the attic. I could show them to you. Did you know?”

  Mary said quietly, “No, I didn’t. I knew there was something, but I didn’t know what.”

  “Well, Alice found out. She got hold of a letter.”

  Laura said, “And another little girl went out to the dock with Alice and drowned.”

  “A little girl who was the apple of her husband’s eye. And nobody saw anything and somebody innocent got blamed.”

  “Whew.” Laura shook her head, studying her notepad, on which she had recorded nothing of Regina’s explanations. “I see what you’re saying, but it’s all speculation. It makes sense, but I’d be crazy to go back to my boss and tell him I thought Alice Hannon murdered her daughter twenty years ago.”

  Regina ducked her head, acquiescent. “I understand.” Then she leveled her eyes at all of them. “But I know that’s what happened.”

  Something was bothering Al. “Where were you when your sister drowned?”

  “Was drowned. I was hiding. I thought I’d done something wrong. But now the way I see it, I must have run away from her because I thought she was punishing us. And she was. For her husband’s infidelity.” When no one spoke, she said, “That’s what I believe.”

  Laura said, “Yes, well, I see what you’re saying. But I don’t see how we reopen that case now. The question is, what do you want to do about what happened today?”

  “My point is, you keep saying it’s my word against hers, but this is the third time somebody has been out here alone with her and gone in the water. Two of them are dead. They were children.”

  “So it’s a pattern. I see your argument, but now you’re getting into legal issues, and I have to say it’s going to be a stretch for some people. How do you think your family will react? Because if they say you’re just making trouble—”

  Al reacted instantly. “Making trouble?” It seemed outrageous.

  But Regina cut him off. “Earlier, that’s what Robert said.” She grimaced, gave a grudging little laugh. “He made a pretty good case for it. I’ll fill you in later.” She turned back to Laura. “I don’t know. Some of them will believe me, others not.”

  She looked at Mary, who said quietly, “They’ll believe you. I’ll tell them.”

  “Bebe won’t believe me.”

  “Never mind Bebe.”

  Regina turned back to Laura. “They’ll think she’s sick. Doesn’t know what she’s doing. Maybe she doesn’t.”

  “So what do you want to do? For what she did today, you could try to have her charged with assault.”

  Mary said, “Oh my God.”

  “What would happen if I did that, not that I could do it?” She cut her eyes at Mary.

  “I’d have to take a more formal statement from you in town, talk to her, we’d take pictures of the scene. I can’t say how it would go from there, except I can’t imagine she’d be treated like a criminal. I’m sure she’d be evaluated by a doctor, a psychiatrist.”

  Regina said to Mary, “I can just imagine the hysterics.”

  “There’d be questions raised about you too,” Laura continued. “It’ll be the sheriff’s and the prosecutor’s decision whether they go forward. Frankly, I doubt they would.”

  “I don’t know if I want to do it anyway.”

  “What you can do is report what happened, which you’ve done, and that could be used in a civil action to have her placed in some sort of care. If she doesn’t just agree to be placed.”

  Mary spoke up. “We were prepared to move her into Westover Hall.” To Regina, she added, “I’ve tried to tell you we need to do that as quickly as possible.”

  Laura said, “Let’s get her out here and see what she says. Do you think she’s up to that?”

  Regina shrank back against Al, who pulled her up against him again.

  Mary’s face spasmed almost imperceptibly, but she spoke as calmly as ever. “I’ll go see if she’s awake.”

  “She’s awake,” Regina said. “I’ve seen the curtains move in her room. She’s been watching.” After Mary left, the three of them waited silently until Regina said, “I’ll tell you what I won’t do. I won’t spend another night in this house with her.”

  Laura said, “I don’t blame you.”

  “And I’m not going to leave.”

  Al said, “Good for you.”

  They fell silent again until Mary returned with Alice, who appeared exactly as usual, as if nothing had happened—an elegantly dressed older woman with a straight back and snowy hair and a lovely face, so much like Regina’s. She moved like Regina too, gracefully. But, he reflected, where Regina’s pretty face flashed through emotions and reactions, the quick smile, the searching of his eyes for his thoughts, warmth, fear, hurt, and doubt, Alice Hannon’s face was unreadably composed. For the first time, he found her not so much daunting as disquieting. Something about her, knowing what he now did, sent a creeping up the back of his neck.

  When they reached the water’s edge, Alice avoided looking at Regina, focusing her elegance and murmuring charm on Laura and Mary.

  “Mrs. Hannon,” Laura said without a trace of suspicion or accusation in her tone, “can you tell me what happened out here this afternoon? Your daughter has a lump on her head and a wound on her forehead. I understand you were both in the water.”

  “Yes, we certainly were!” She made a pretty, rueful sort of bow. “We both took quite a spill.” She made a delicate little gesture toward Regina as if indicating a person she hardly knew. “This little one was wading and I thought I’d take the boat out, but it’s a rocky old thing, and I suppose I didn’t step to the middle the way I should have. I grabbed at the oar.” She pantomimed reaching forward with both hands as if falling and trying to catch herself. “I don’t know what I did, but I’m afraid the oar hit her on the head. Then the boat rocked and swung around and it may have hit her again. Then…” She laughed as though she was now recounting an amusing anecdote. “Then she tried to climb in and I went overboard with her!”

  Al stole a glance at Regina, whose lips had parted. A slow flush rose up her neck to her face.

  Alice continued. “We were both fully dressed and got soaked through. Robert had to haul the boat back from clear over there.” She pointed down the waterline. Then she looked at Regina with what might have passed for concern if Al didn’t know as much about her as he did. “I’m afraid this poor child had a little scare. She’s not used to the lake the way I am. It can seem treacherous if you don’t know the way the bottom drops off.”

  Regina’s chest was rising and falling, and he felt her outrage as if it were his own.

  Then Alice let out a cry, eyes locked on the tree line behind them. They all swung around and saw a man. Tiberius Rawley, Al realized at once. Alice began to scream and flail.

  Laura said, “Hey, what’s wrong?”

  Mary, struggling to support and control her mother, said, “Who is that?”

  Laura told her, and Mary swung an incredulous glare at Regina, who said defensively, “I hired him to work in the garden.”

 
; “You hired him? Of all people?”

  Alice was shrieking, “Keep him away from me! Get him away!” She was cowering and clinging to Mary.

  Regina said, “Mary, she didn’t even know he was here. He’s been working in the rose garden.”

  Al first looked at Alice, in the throes of hysteria that he didn’t quite believe, screaming accusations. You could see it as a tantrum, if you knew what Regina had repeated from Sophie. He looked back at Tiberius, who had stopped in his tracks, then headed for his blue truck.

  “Didn’t know he was here,” Al repeated. Then he broke into a run.

  Regina called after him, “Al?”

  He caught Tiberius opening the door to his truck, keys in hand. “Wait.” Al was panting.

  “I’ve got nothing to do with whatever is going on down there.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “I need to get away from that crazy old lady before she tries to say I pushed that girl in the water.”

  “I know, I know.” He caught his breath. “I know you didn’t do anything. Did you see her do anything?”

  Tiberius said nothing, looked down at the group by the dock, seeming to consider. As they watched, Mary led Alice back to the house.

  “Regina reported what happened today to Laura. Laura believes her, but it’s just her word.” When Tiberius didn’t move or speak, Al added, “You can clear your name. She already told Laura she thinks Old Lady Hannon drowned her own daughter.”

  The other man’s eyes widened momentarily. After another long moment, he said, “Okay.”

  When they reached her, Laura said. “Hey, Tiberius. Al, did you tell him what Regina said?”

  Al shook his head emphatically. “I told him only that Regina has spoken to you, and I haven’t heard his story yet. But he saw it.”

  “Wait.” Laura turned over pages on her clipboard and uncapped her pen and made notes. “Okay, where were you exactly?”

  He’d been in the rose garden, out of sight, didn’t think either of them was aware of him. Although Regina would have known he was there, he had not encountered or seen the old lady since he’d started working at Blue Lake. He saw them go down to the lake. Saw Regina wade in. Curious, he’d watched the old lady untie the boat and get in. He described the whole scene in minute detail and in complete agreement with Regina’s version.

  When he was finished, Laura continued writing for a few more minutes, checking details, making sure she had it right. Then she capped her pen and asked Tiberius, “So was it clear to you that she didn’t fall so the oar hit Regina accidentally? That she deliberately hit her?”

  Tiberius gave a little laugh, hmph. “Yes, ma’am.” He looked at Regina, Al, back to Laura. “Swung it like a baseball bat.”

  Regina burst into tears.

  An hour later, Al and Regina stood in the driveway next to Laura’s car.

  She rolled down the driver’s side window, and Regina said, “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “Let me know what you find out.” At her recommendation, Mary had taken Alice to the same hospital where her husband had died not a week earlier. “If she can be persuaded to accept an appropriate placement, you may not need legal intervention.”

  In a few minutes, the sound of Laura’s tires faded to nothing. Quiet descended. Bird songs resumed. Leaves rustled in the trees with the fall of evening.

  Regina rubbed her arms, looked down at her clothes, and touched her hair with a shaky little laugh that quickly died. “Look at me. I look like a crazy person.”

  “No.”

  She turned a little left and right, seeming at a loss for what to say or do.

  Al took her hands. “Do you want to go somewhere? Stay here? Walk around? Sit down somewhere?”

  “I don’t know. I’m a little shook up.”

  “Of course you are.”

  They settled on returning to the house.

  “I’m sorry about all this,” she said as he followed her into the entryway. “I can’t believe it was tonight you were coming to dinner. I was so happy. I was wondering how you and Alice would get along. I pictured…” Her chest rose and fell, eyes darted without seeming to see.

  “I think you need to clean up and try to eat something. I’ll make it.” He added, hoping for a spark, “I’m a pretty good cook, you know.”

  No response. To show him the kitchen, she led him through the dining room, where he paused in front of a portrait of Alice and her children. It could easily have been a portrait of Regina, so much did the two look alike, except that he had never seen the older woman’s dreamy, self-satisfied expression on Regina’s face.

  She stood, looking stunned, in the middle of the kitchen.

  “Are you okay? Come on. You need a hot bath. Change your clothes.”

  At the top of the spiral staircase, her eyes locked on the room in the southwest corner. Alice’s room, he guessed, from the clothes draped over a chair. Regina hung back, turning her face away. He followed her down the hall, taking in four other large bedrooms, furnished in the style of a bygone era, all neatly made up and apparently unoccupied.

  “Where’s your room?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  Surprised, he asked, “Where are you staying?”

  “Up there.” She pointed at the ceiling.

  He blinked, looked for a staircase. “Can I see?”

  She led him through a door in a recess at the far end of the hall and up steep, narrow, bare pine steps to a small landing with a closed door on the left and the depths of an unfinished attic on the right. “Here.”

  Increasingly puzzled, he followed her around an old linen press, a wardrobe, and a china cabinet, then they ducked under rafters to an open area where, by the light of a row of dormer windows, he could see a desk, an old rocking chair, and a large, rough-hewn work table.

  “Here?”

  He looked at a single-size mattress on the floor and felt his jaw go slack. She had gone to the window, and he went to look out over her shoulder. Recognized the view she had drawn and painted when they were in high school. The world through her eyes.

  “Aw, Ree.” He wrapped his arms around her. “This is going to change. It’s all over now, I promise you. Your life is going to change.”

  THE END

  Acknowledgments

  I am so grateful for my wonderful, talented, and generous writer friends. Without their encouragement and insight I would never be able to pull a novel together. Kimberly Giarratano, Kate Moretti, Brenda Vicars, and Claire Ashby, thank you so much! My friend Carla Searcy has been my reader of first resort for some years now, bravely plowing through muddled first drafts and egging me on. Cassie Robertson is a wonderful editor, precise and perceptive. Thanks to all of you for whatever merit this book may have.

  About the Author

  Elizabeth Buhmann is originally from Virginia, where both of her novels are set. Growing up as the daughter of an Army officer, she lived in France, Germany, New York, Japan, and Saint Louis. She graduated magna cum laude from Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, and has a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh. For twenty years she worked for the Texas Attorney General as a researcher and writer on criminal justice and crime victim issues. Her first murder mystery, Lay Death at Her Door, earned a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly and twice reached the Amazon Top 100 (paid Kindle). Elizabeth lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and dog. She is an avid gardener, loves murder mysteries, and is a long-time student of Tai Chi.

  Lay Death At Her Door

  If you enjoyed Blue Lake, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. You may also enjoy reading…

  LAY DEATH AT HER DOOR

  Twenty years ago, Kate Cranbrook’s eyewitness testimony sent the wrong man to prison for rape and murder. When new evidence exonerates him, Kate says that in the darkness and confusion, she must have mistaken her attacker’s identity.

  She is lying.

  Kate would like nothing better than to turn her back on the
past, but she is trapped in a stand-off with the real killer. When a body turns up on her doorstep, she resorts to desperate measures to free herself once and for all from a secret that is ruining her life.

  From Publishers Weekly

  Starred Review: The bill for lies told decades earlier comes due for Kate Cranbrook, the complex narrator of Buhmann’s superior debut. In 1986, while Kate was a college student at Sweet Briar in western Virginia, she was raped and witnessed a murder. Kate’s eyewitness testimony convicts a man who’s released more than 20 years later based on DNA evidence. The development isn’t a complete surprise to Kate, who has lived with the knowledge that she perjured herself. Her life since the trial has been a disappointment, and her social life is limited by her possessive and creepy father, Pop, who keeps her on a tight leash. That constraint becomes even more difficult to bear when Kate, who works as a landscaper, falls for a gardener, Tony, and hopes she has found the love of her life. Things don’t go smoothly, and more blood is shed along the way to a jaw-dropping, but logical, climax that will make veteran mystery readers eager for more of Buhmann’s work.

  Review of Lay Death at Her Door:

  "Buhmann does a superb job of letting Kate peel away layer after layer of the façade she's spent her lifetime creating...The last twenty pages of the book have more twists than a bag of pretzels. The true appeal of the book, though, is in witnessing the disintegration of an obsessive personality...like the train wreck you can't help but watch. In that regard, Buhmann's storytelling is in a class with Lolita." --The Chaotic Reader