Under the Lake

by Stuart Woods

  “Where is everybody?” she asked. There was usually at least one other clerk or deputy in the office besides herself.

  “Sally called in sick; I got the rest of ‘em out patrolling,” Bo replied, waving the furniture men into his office and pointing out a place for the file cabinet. “Eric Sutherland’s been bitching about speeders. I thought we’d have a little push, hand out a few tickets.” He signed for the furniture and the two delivery-men left his office and walked through the squad room, past Scotty, to the front door. One of them turned and dug into his pocket.

  “Oh… nearly forgot; here’s the keys.” He tossed them across the squad room to Scotty. She caught them and thought they were very heavy for file cabinet keys. She glanced again at the cabinet and saw for the first time that it was equipped with a thick steel bar that ran the length of the cabinet, through the heavy handles. This was no ordinary file cabinet; this was practically a safe. There was already a safe in Bo’s office, but she and Sally both knew the combination. There were three keys on the ring; she slipped one off and palmed it.

  “Here are your keys,” she said, holding up the ring with the remaining two. Bo was already transferring files from his old cabinet to the new one. “You want me to keep one in my desk?”

  “Nah,” Scully replied. “I’ll keep them both.”

  She tossed him the ring, and he put it into his pocket. She turned and slipped the third key into her bra. It couldn’t hurt, having that key. She wanted to know what Bo wanted to lock away from his clerks and deputies.

  Scully shifted files for most of the morning, occasionally discarding a few papers, putting some of what he kept into the new cabinet and returning others to the old one. Finally, he slid the steel bar through the handles and snapped the lock into place. “I’m going out for a while. You know how to handle the radio?”

  “Sure.” He had taught her himself. He really was tanked.

  “Hold the fort, then,” he said, jamming his Stetson onto his head.

  Then he was gone, and she was alone in the office.

  Howell woke to a roomful of sunlight. For a few seconds he was afraid to move at all; finally, he rolled carefully onto his side and looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table. Half past ten. Scotty was long gone. Still carefully, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. He stood. He was joyfully aware of the absence of pain; it had happened, it had worked, this laying on of hands. He could move without fear of agony.

  He should be exhausted, he thought, but he was not. He felt rested, relaxed, and eager for the new day. What was happening to him? Was he having, in what he liked to think of as his late youth, some sort of reawakening? Was he emerging, after a couple of years of sexual numbness, from some peculiar, midlife change? He felt oddly youthful. And hungry. He pulled on a pair of jeans and headed for the kitchen.

  Howell made himself a huge breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausages, grits, and toast and put on a pot of coffee. He felt like working today, and the coffee would help him along. He had not written a word of Lurton Pitts’s autobiography, and it was time he got his ass in gear. He was just mopping up the last of the eggs, washing them down with orange juice when he heard the crunch of tires on gravel and the slamming of a heavy car door. He opened the front door before Bo Scully had a chance to knock.

  “Hey, Bo, come on in,” he said, genuinely glad to see the sheriff.

  “How you doin‘, John?” Scully asked, walking carefully into the cabin, looking warily about him.

  Howell thought he looked a little drunk, but it was awfully early in the day for that. “I’ve got a pot of coffee on the stove. Want some?”

  “Sure, I could use it.”

  Howell poured the coffee and set it on the table with the cream and sugar. To his surprise, Scully pulled a pint bottle of bourbon from his hip pocket and poured a generous slug into the coffee.

  “Gotta get my heart started,” Scully grinned. “Join me?”

  “No thanks, I’ve got to get some work done today. You taking the day off?” It surprised Howell that he hadn’t wanted the drink. First time for a while he hadn’t wanted a drink.

  “Ah, well, my time’s pretty much my own. I’m sort of in business for myself, you might say.”

  “Well, I guess a sheriffs more his own boss than most men,” Howell said. “Who does a sheriff report to, anyway?”

  “Not a damn soul, if he’s smart. Oh, to the judge on some things, to the county council on others.” He grinned wryly: “ ‘Course, we got a slightly different hierarchy in Sutherland County.”

  “Old man Sutherland takes an interest, does he?”

  “Damn right he does.” Scully knocked back a swig of the spiked coffee. “Oh, not every day and not usually on small things, but he keeps his hand in. Right now, it’s speeders he’s worried about. Watch your ass driving into town. Mike’s sitting down there on the road with the radar on. He’ll take your picture, and I’d have to fine you.”

  “Thanks for the advice; I’ll do that.” Howell felt himself automatically shifting into his reporter mode. It was too good to pass up, a chance to quiz a sheriff with a couple of drinks inside him. “I guess those fines make a nice little retirement fund, huh?”

  Scully looked at him sharply. “You kidding? Shoot, I could take you down there to the station and show you a record of every traffic ticket since I been sheriff, and which account the money went into. My operation’s as clean as a hound’s tooth, boy, let me tell you. Some asshole wants to haul me or one of my people in front of a grand jury, I’ll have him armpit deep in records of every penny that’s passed through my office. I believe in records, boy. The fuckin‘ FBI don’t have any better records than I do. I’m gonna buy a computer and computerize ’em when the machinery comes down a little bit. Next year, maybe. We already got a word processor. I’ve got the most modern operation in the state of Georgia, maybe the whole South.” Scully pulled at the coffee again. “Let me tell you something, John, you better not do business in Eric Sutherland’s county ‘less you back yourself up every which way. He thinks he sees a crack in your dam, and whoomp! You’re treadin’ water ‘fore you know what hit you.”

  Howell thought the metaphor appropriate, considering the source of Sutherland’s power. Suddenly, before he had time to think why, he asked, “Bo, does anybody around here have a 1940 Lincoln Continental convertible?”

  “Nan,” Scully answered without hesitation, “not anymore. Eric Sutherland used to have one, but that was a long time…” The sheriff turned and looked at him oddly. “That’s a weird question.”

  “Oh, I just saw one on the road yesterday. Hadn’t seen one since I was a kid. I thought if somebody local owned it I’d like to have a closer look.”

  The sheriff looked relieved. “Oh. Well, nobody around here has one I know of. Sutherland sold his in the fifties some time. I remember, it was still in perfect shape. I’d of bought it myself if I’d had the money.” He glanced at his watch. “Hey, I gotta get going. Just thought I’d drop in and say hello.”

  Howell nodded, then, for reasons he couldn’t fathom, leaped again. “Bo, do you ever have dreams?”

  Scully emptied his coffee cup and looked out over the lake, his eyes red and cloudy. “Nah,” he said, getting to his feet and shuffling toward the door. “Just nightmares.”

  From the cabin door, Howell watched the sheriff drive away. Last night, he remembered, he had been another man. He wondered if he had been Bo Scully. Or, perhaps, just having Bo’s nightmare.

  For the better part of the morning, Scotty was busy with the phone, the radio and with visitors to the office. Finally, near lunch time, the place was empty and quiet. She went to the door and looked up and down the street. No sign of Bo or a patrol car. She fished the key from her bra, walked quickly into Scully’s office and unlocked the new filing cabinet. She tucked the key back into her bra, then lifted out the steel bar and leaned it against the door, glancing every few moments through the glass partition for visitors.


  For ten minutes she combed through the drawers, file by file. By the time she got to the third drawer, her excitement was turning to exasperation. There was nothing but old department files – old traffic tickets, old payroll forms, old everything. She opened the bottom drawer and started on that. More of the same. Why the hell would he order an elaborate, security file cabinet and then shift useless old files into it that nobody would be interested in anyway? She finished flipping through the last of the files, and closed the drawer. Then she glanced across the street and saw, over the tops of parked cars, the blue lights of a patrol car gliding to a halt across the street.

  Scotty quickly threaded the steel bar through the file drawer handles, mated the lock to its closure, and pressed. Nothing happened, the bolt of the lock, instead of retracting and snapping into the closure, remained rigid. The goddamned thing had to be locked with the key. She looked around in time to see Bo Scully starting across the street toward the office, looking both ways at traffic. Panicked, she dug a hand into her bra for the key, but just as her fingers reached it, it fell through the elastic to her waist, under her blouse. There was no time to pull out her shirttail and dig for the key. She dived sideways out of Bo’s office toward the coffee maker. As Bo came through the door, she was shakily pouring a cup.

  “Hi,” she said, brightly. “Want some coffee?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I think I need some.” He went into his office. “I only got as far as John’s place on my rounds, then I didn’t feel so good.”

  She took her time fixing the coffee, trying to get her breathing back to normal. Then she realized that he was in there with the unlocked file cabinet and she should be in there distracting him until she could find a way to get the thing locked again. She hurried into his office with the coffee.

  She set down his cup. “I think I’ll join you,” she said. She took her own cup across the room and leaned against the file cabinet, the lock behind her.

  “Have a seat,” Scully said.

  “Oh, I’ve been sitting all morning. Do me good to stretch.”

  “I like that blouse,” he said, finally. He grinned. “How does it come off?”

  “With great difficulty.” They both laughed. Scotty realized it was the first time she’d ever been alone in the office with him. She still found him attractive in a bearlike way. She wondered for a moment what it would be like to have that great weight on top of her, and her breathing grew a little quicker.

  “Well,” he said. “You been up here, what… a month, now. How do you like us?”

  “I like you all right,” she smiled.

  “You know, if I didn’t have a rule about fooling around in the office, I’d of asked you out by now.”

  “Oh? I never paid too much attention to rules, myself.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say. He really was quite good looking; she thought he knew it, too.

  “You’ve been seeing a good bit of John Howell, right?”

  She nodded. She’d rather he hadn’t known that, but what the hell, it was a small town.

  “Well, John’s a friend of mine, and I’m not going to go tracking up his territory. But if that cools off, I’d like to know about it. Okay?”

  She smiled. “Okay.” She meant it, too. Then, Bo reached for his coffee; his hand struck the edge of the desk blotter, which bumped against a paperweight, which fell onto the floor and rolled toward her. Instinctively, she bent to catch it, and before she could straighten she heard him say “Shit,” and knew he had seen the lock. As she straightened, the heavy paperweight in her hand, he was coming around the desk toward her. She could hit him with the paperweight, she thought, and run. But run where? She’d have to talk her way out.

  “Damn lock,” he said, brushing past her. He fished in his pocket and brought out the keys. “I guess I haven’t learned how to work the damn thing right.” He inserted the key, banged on the lock with his fist a couple of times and jangled it to make sure it was closed.

  At that moment a deputy walked into the station waving a fist full of traffic summonses, Scully went out to talk with him, and Scotty was left standing in his office, breathing deep breaths.

  14

  Howell sat at the desk and let the droning voice of Lurton Pitts wash over him. He searched through the self-serving mush for a way to begin, and just as he thought he might have an idea, there was a soft rap on the door. He quickly switched off the tape recorder. Pitts’s voice was familiar to millions from his television commercials for the fried chicken chain, and he wanted no one to hear it. He walked to the door, wondering who it might be. He had not heard a car. He opened the door and found Leonie Kelly standing on his doorstep.

  She looked quite different today, more contemporary. She was wearing jeans instead of the rather dowdy dress of the day before, and a blue man’s workshirt was tied in a knot above her waist, showing three or four inches of powdery, freckled skin. She wore newish sneakers without socks, and her hair was pulled back into a pony tail.

  She gave a little laugh. “Well, you did invite me to drop by, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, sure,” he replied, suddenly aware that he had been standing, staring at her. “Come on in.”

  “Here’s your mail,” she said, handing him some letters.

  He winced. The top one was from Elizabeth. “Thanks,” he said, tossing them on his desk.

  She wandered about the room, looking carefully at things. “I’ve never been inside here,” she said, poking her head into the kitchen, then lingering for a longer look at the bedroom.

  “Don’t you know Denham White? He’s been coming up here for years.”

  “I’ve seen him in town a couple of times, I guess.” She strolled out onto the deck, and he followed. The midday sun was hot. She motioned toward the broken railing. “That looks kind of dangerous. You better fix it.”

  Howell stared at the railing. “Yes, I’d better take a hammer and a nail to that, I guess,” he said.

  “I remember this place from a long time ago,” she said. “When I was a little girl.” She seemed about to say something else, but then suddenly blurted out, “It’s a gorgeous day, how about a swim?”

  “Sure,” he said, while she was already untying the knot of her shirt. She ran down the stairs to the dock, leaving her shirt, jeans, and shoes in a trail behind her. There was no underwear. Struggling with his own clothes, he saw only a flash of the tall, full body before she was into the water. A moment later, he dove in and surfaced, shouting, gasping. He had forgotten how cold the water was. She still had not come up, and he looked around for her. Ten seconds passed, then another ten. She must have been under for nearly a minute, he thought. He forgot the cold and started to worry.

  Something brushed his thigh, then she was on his back, ducking him under the water. He’d had no chance to draw a deep breath, and he struggled to free himself from her and get to the surface. She pushed away, and he thrashed upwards, gasping at air. “Jesus!” he shouted. “You want to drown me?”

  “No, I don’t want to drown you,” she said, swimming over and putting her arms around, his neck. She kissed him; he put his arms around her and held onto her buttocks. They sank together from a lack of swimming, and he was the first to break free and return to the surface. She came up a moment later. “You’ve got to learn to hold your breath longer if you’re going to have any fun in the water,” she shouted, then made for the dock.

  She pulled herself up and sat, trembling, rubbing at the chill bumps on her body. He climbed out beside her. “I’ll get some towels,” he said. When he came back, she was on the deck, still naked, piling their clothes on a chair. She took the large towel, dried herself thoroughly, did the best she could with her hair, then wrapped the towel about her and flopped down into a reclining deck chair. He dragged up another.

  “How’s the back today?” she asked.

  “Terrific,” he replied. “That was some sort of miracle, you know. How did you do it?”

  “I don’t know. I’d never done
it before. I think Mama did it through me, somehow. She says her powers will come to me when she’s gone – that it’s already started to happen. I guess it has. It’s more than the healing, too. I get flashes of thoughts, sometimes, from lots of people. I can nearly always tell what the other kids in the family are thinking. Never with Mama, though. She can be as much a mystery to me as to everybody else. Only Dermot seems to read her easily.”

  “It’s hard to believe that you… well, that you’re all brothers and sisters,” Howell said.

  Her face clouded briefly. “I don’t want to talk about that, please.” Then her expression changed, became laughing, mischievous. “You know, I think I enjoyed your backrub yesterday as much as you did.”

  “You couldn’t possibly have liked it as much as I did,” he said.

  She laughed aloud. “Well, nearly as much.” She reached over and kissed him, gently. “I wanted to do that yesterday, but I might have forgotten myself.”

  He kissed her back. Oh, God, he thought to himself. What is going on here? There were a couple of times in his life when he had been seduced by a girl, but never as directly as this. He felt himself drifting into a soft haze. Whatever it was, they were both experiencing it. He slipped a hand under her towel, parted her, and stroked gently for a moment. She sighed and opened her legs slightly. He kissed her again, then moved slowly down her body with his lips and tongue, pulling away her towel. She was fresh from the lake water, and he was amazed at the sweetness of her.

  In what seemed to be one long motion, she took his head in her hands, pressed him back in the reclining chair, threw a leg over his body, and drew him inside her. She had moved so gracefully, aimed so perfectly that she had not even needed her hands. She began to move slowly up and down him in long, smooth movements.

  Howell lay back and looked up at her, her head thrown back to receive the sunlight, her pale, red hair stroking her shoulders as she rolled her head, an expression on her face that seemed as much acute thought and concern as passion. She opened her eyes and looked at him with surprise, moving faster, silently opening and closing her mouth, her eyes going in and out of focus. “It’s happening,” she said, huskily. “Come with me! You must, you must!”