by Jack Parker
After rubbing some sunscreen on himself, he just sat back in the white guard tower and put on a pair of sunglasses, mostly just because he thought it would make him look cooler and more professional.
He sighed lightly to himself as he looked at everything going on around him, and just a short while later, he was almost immediately bored with the job. If he was tired of it after just ten or fifteen minutes, he had no idea how annoying it would be after an eight hour shift.
Luckily for him, Christine, the girl who was around the same age as him who he had only talked to the day before his first day on the job, started walking up to the tower and had a pleasant smile on her face.
"Hey, Collin," she said cheerfully. "How's it feel to have all these peoples' lives in your hands?"
"You know, truly and honestly, it doesn't feel like it's as big of a responsibility as it's cranked up to be," he dully replied as he kept his attention on what was going on in front of him.
"That's what Ian told me. He must have a lot of confidence in you if he's letting you be a lifeguard after just a few days working here."
"Nah, it really doesn't sound that hard based on what Ian's told me. All I…hey!"
Collin furiously blew into a whistle hanging around his neck, causing everyone on the lake to turn to him to see what the big deal was. While everyone was looking at him, Collin was staring at a small boy who looked like he was repeatedly trying to tackle his sister into the water just as she got up from being submerged. All Collin had to do to get his point across was give him a stern look and shake his head.
Just as quickly as it all happened, everyone went about their business as they had been before Collin briefly disturbed it.
"There. Twenty bucks says that'll be the most exciting and difficult thing I'll have to do all day."
Christine laughed. "Yeah, Ian never said anything about this job that made it seem hard or dangerous."
"I'm kinda surprised. He seems like kind of a self-absorbed guy…don't tell him I said that."
"Don't worry. I won't. And you're right; Ian can have the biggest ego sometimes. But he's a cool guy, I guess."
"Yeah. At least that's what he seems like."
"Trust me, if you can get used to him and how he thinks he's a chick-magnet, then he's a great guy."
"I'll take your word for it. You were here last year, right?"
"Yup. Believe me, everyone around here is great."
"That's cool."
"So, what do you like to do on your time off from work?"
"Huh?" She must be trying to make small talk… "Uh…I dunno. Hang out with friends. Maybe ride my bike a little bit. Read. That kinda stuff."
Christine almost looked delighted. "You like to read, too?!"
"Yeah. Why, do you?"
"I love to read! It's a lot better than that crap people call movies and video games these days. Honestly, where's the fun in storytelling if you can't picture everything for yourself?!"
"Uh…I guess there isn't?" Collin nervously answered. Saying the wrong thing was the last thing he wanted to do if he was to be friends with any of his workers.
"Exactly! I mean, really! Someone can get a terrific story across without fancy computer animations and overpaid snobby actors who are just gonna get caught in some drug scandal two years from now, right?!"
"Hey, what do you like to do besides reading?" he quickly retorted, doing his best to avert the conversation entirely. He could tell already that Christine wouldn't be the kind of person he would want to irritate.
"Oh, go to the mall with some friends and get my nails done…I can see that look on your face. You're probably thinking, 'Oh, boy, another girl who obsesses over her nails and hair."
As she said this, she started laughing, and promptly continued. "I know, I need a life."
Wow…that's almost EXACTLY what I was thinking. She's good.
"So, whatcha think of this place so far?"
"It's great. Really."
"Glad to hear it. So, why'd you decide to come work here anyway?"
Why do I keep getting asked this? "Uh…I like working outdoors, and…yeah. I guess I just like working outdoors."
"Well, I wouldn't call what you're doing now 'work'."
"Neither would I," he bluntly accepted. "But you shoulda seen me yesterday. I was helping Nick cut up some trees yesterday and…"
As he was explaining this, Collin remembered hearing about the fight that Ian had told him about the day before. From what he recalled, Ian said that he and Nick had a fight over something really small, but he wouldn't talk much about it. Considering that Christine had been there the year before, Collin would have figured that she had to have known about the fight and would be a bit more willing to talk about it than Ian was.
"Oh, speaking of Nick, Ian told me something very interesting about him yesterday."
"Oh, boy," Christine said as she rolled her eyes. "What did he say this time?"
"He said that he and Nick had a fight last year."
She looked annoyed that this was even being brought up at all. "It's not important, all right? It was just some stupid argument they had, one of them threw a punch at the other, and it call got worse from there."
Collin was almost disappointed that it seemed so simple, but he wanted to keep pressing her to make sure that that was really all there was to the fight. After all, he couldn't help but think the fight was somehow tied to the murder, and figuring out the murder was his real reason for working at the forest that summer.
"That's it?"
"Yeah," Christine said, sighing a little. "Ian, being the great, awesome guy he is, still won't talk to Nick after that fight. He insists Nick 'started it'."
Wow, that guy can really be pathetic. "But, that fight didn't have anything to do with anyone working here last summer, right? Like…Scott? Or…"
Christine sighed. "I'm still really sad about what happened to Scott. He was a great guy. Please, I don't want to talk about him right now."
"Oh, all right. Sorry." Dang! Guess I can't learn anything about how Scott got killed if she doesn't want to talk about him. Maybe if I could find something else to talk about that would give me a hint?... "Uh…anyone else who was here last summer who's not here now?"
"Nah, no one else really had anything to do with it. Well, unless you count the guy who they both had to answer to."
"Which was?..."
"Randy, of course…oh, that's right. You wouldn't know him, would you? Sorry. Randy was the guy who was the boss here last summer."
Play dumb and pretend you don't know what she's talking about, Collin. "Oh, yeah. How was it working under Randy instead of Lisa?"
"Eh…it was all right. Pretty close to the same, actually. Lisa runs things almost the same way he did."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Hmmm…and why'd Randy quit again?"
Christine sighed. "I'm really not supposed to talk about this, but it was because of that murder that happened here last year when Scott wound up dead."
"Yeah, I think I remember hearing about that from 'some place'. But did Randy leave because of that?"
"Uh…I guess you could say that. He left because of all the stress that it caused him. Investigators, people in the media, the police, other campers…no one would let him forget what happened while he was boss. A couple weeks after it happened, he resigned as park manager."
"I…see," Collin answered, pretending to sound a little sad. In truth, he was slightly depressed-not about why Randy left, but from how little new information he was getting.
"I actually feel kind of bad for him," Christine added. "He was such a nice guy. But those stupid reporters wouldn't give him a moment's peace and did everything they could to make him look bad. Some of them even accused him of being the killer. They didn't flat out say it, of course, but you could tell that was what they were getting at."
"So he left because of all the negative media attention and all the stress from the police that he was gett
ing?"
"That…and the rumors probably had something to do with it."
"Rumors?" Collin asked. "I didn't hear anything about rumors."
Suddenly, he thought that maybe he could get something useful out of this conversation with Christine, after all. Out of all the things he had heard at the police station a year before, he never once heard anything about rumors going around.
"Oh, yeah. There were rumors floating around at work that Randy was a bit of a dirty guy."
"Dirty? Waddaya mean?"
"People were saying he had dirty magazines lying around in his desk at work. Others said that he was being even cheaper with the money and not always paying the guys who worked here all the money that they deserved."
"Even cheaper? Randy was cheap?"
"Oh. BIG time," Christine answered. "I overheard him talking with Lisa about why he hired a ton of teenagers to work here during summers."
"Was he great friends with Lisa?"
"He was more than just friends with her; he seriously had a crush on her."
"A crush?"
"Oh, yeah. He never told her, but it was so obvious to everyone."
"Wow. Never woulda guessed." I'm getting more juicy stuff from this girl than I thought I would. I wonder how long it'll be before she says something that'll give me a BIG lead?... "Hey, did you say you overheard Randy talking to her about something?"
"Yeah-about why he always hired teenagers during the summer and never hired anyone older than twenty if he could help it."
"Why's that?"
"Randy had an interesting way of looking at hiring teenagers. He saw them as kids who needed a job like this who could put more energy into their work for longer hours for smaller pay."
"So he got mostly teenagers to work here just so he could cut down on spending?"
"Yeah. After a couple years of using that strategy, the Board noticed that the amount of spending really cut down and they encouraged Randy to keep doing whatever it was that was keeping the money in check."
"Sounded like a smart guy. Maybe he'd have been better off as a businessman. Hey, where'd you hear all this stuff, anyway? Did you learn all of this just from eavesdropping on what he was saying to Lisa?"
"Yeah, pretty much. Except Lisa told me a lot of this stuff, too. She and I are pretty good friends."
"Yeah, I can really picture you guys as being good friends." I guess… "So, that's why a lot of the people who work here are young?"
"Yeah. Most of the ones who are in their late twenties or older started working here when they were teens, and if Randy was impressed with the job they did, he let'em come back to work during the summers for the same pay. Basically, he was just giving them the same work he gave teenagers, except he was giving it to adults."
"Hmmmm…well, like I said, he'd probably be better off as a businessman. So he just gave most of the job openings to teenagers and took advantage of them?"
"Yeah. Pretty much. But he didn't just hire any teenager off the street."
"What do you mean?"
"If Lisa wasn't lying when she told me this, Randy became pretty popular with the State Forest Board after cutting down on the spending, and that caused everyone's expectations of him to go up."
"Their expectations of him?"
"Yeah. They thought he was a great park manager after a couple years, and I guess he wanted to live up to that reputation. So he was pretty careful when getting those kids to work here. He wanted to make sure only the 'best' teenagers got jobs here."
"Oookaaaay…and what exactly are the 'best' teenagers?" Collin asked, slightly unclear on where this was going.
"Ones with a clean record. Kids who didn't have any police chargers, or didn't get suspended or expelled from school, and all that other good stuff. He didn't like kids smoking or drinking or doing drugs, either. Actually, I'm pretty sure that if he caught them doing any of those things anywhere, he'd automatically fire them."
"So if he just caught one of'em taking a sip of beer on the streets when he wasn't even working, he'd still fire the kid?"
"Yup. He was real strict."
"Sounds it."
"Hey, Collin, you don't drink or smoke or do any of that, do ya?"
Collin pressed his lips together and shook his head. "Nah. If I got caught doing that, I'd get expelled from that 20,000 dollar-per-year school my parents sent me to. Besides, it's dumb stuff anyway. Why, do you do that?"
"No. I don't either."
"That's cool."
"Yeah. Well, I'd better get going right about now. I've got some work to do."
"Wait!" Collin yelled. He was just realizing that if he didn't get much more information from her now, he might not be able to get another opportunity to learn more without someone eavesdropping or without there being other distractions.
Christine froze in a split second. "What is it?"
"Uh…um…" Gee, what should I ask?...uh… "Do you know anything else about Scott?"
Collin didn't know what else to ask or what would get him anywhere, especially without making it too obvious he was just trying to figure out what happened about a year earlier above all else.
"Uh…why are you asking that?"
"Just, you know, I never got to work with the guy, and I just want to know what it was like working with him, I guess."
"Uh…all right," Christine agreed. It was obvious she could sense something was weird about how Collin was asking her to describe Scott. "I guess he was like a kid at heart, even though he was probably the oldest one who worked here. Even older than Randy."
"Really? How was he like a kid?"
"He just was pretty laid back. He didn't like anything with violence in it, even if it was cartoon violence that was unrealistic and was supposed to be funny. And he even sounded like he was a fan of fantasy stories where the good guys and bad guys were clear cut."
"Wow, and he was open about all that?"
"Yeah."
"Guess he really must not have cared what other people thought of him."
"Why do you say that?"
"Well, if I liked fantasy stories like that-which I don't-I definitely wouldn't be going around telling everyone about it."
Christine laughed. "Hey, loosen up a little. You shouldn't worry about what other people think of you."
"I don't. I just wouldn't want to make myself look or sound dumb, is all."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Anyway, Scott was pretty laid back and cool. He even had a NetPub account."
"Really? He had an account for a teen online hangout thing?"
"Yeah. Why, you have one?"
"Yeah, but I've never seen one adult on it."
"Well, it IS a 'teen' hangout site."
"Do you have one?"
"No!" Christine assertively replied almost like she was offended. "If I want to hang out with my friends, I'll go to the mall for a hair appointment, not sit at a computer and type messages to someone and wait for them to write something back!"
"Okay, okay. Sorry."
"Ah, it's no big deal. Anyway, I'd better get back to work. See ya, Collin."
"Bye."
He watched as Christine walked away from the lifeguard tower and away from the lake. When she was almost completely out of eyesight, he turned his attention back to the crowd near the water. Everything was in order, just as it was at the start of the conversation.
I HAD to have killed a lot of time talking with Christine just now…Collin thought to himself as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He checked the clock on it and saw, to his dismay, that he had only succeeded in taking roughly nine minutes from his shift.
Great. Still got a long way to go before I even have a lunch break. Sheesh, how does Ian put up with this kind of boring work day in and day out? Ugh…looks like I've got about another seven and a half hours of boredom.
But something happened about an hour afterwards that Collin hadn't anticipated. As he was fighting himself to stay awake, (the boredom and the hot sun were
making it very difficult for him to do this) he heard a woman yelling, "Excuse me! Lifeguard!"
Collin looked over the side of the tower and saw a middle aged woman wearing a bathing suit that looked a size or two too small for her standing at the foot of the guard tower. Although she was wearing sunglasses, her voice suggested that her eyes revealed how panicked she was.
"Something the matter?" Collin tried to ask politely.
"Yes, I've lost my car keys."
"You lost your car keys?"
"Yes. I'm sure I brought them with me down here, but I think they fell out of my pocket somewhere and are now buried in the sand."
Collin did his best not to groan as he sat back in the chair and pulled one of the walkie-talkies out of his pocket. He pressed down a button on the side and said, "Winslow-Seven to Headquarters."
A few seconds later, Lisa's voice was heard amongst static saying, "Loud and clear, Winslow-Seven."
"Yeah, there's a lady here who says she lost her car keys and thinks they're buried somewhere in the sand. Uh…could you bring that metal detector from the warehouse up?"
"Sure thing, Winslow-Seven. I'll be there in ten minutes."
"Great. Thanks. Over and out."
Collin discarded the walkie-talkie back into his pocket and said, "It's all right. They're bringing a metal detector here now. We'll find those keys if they're here."
"Oh, thank you," the woman said with the relief making itself evident.
"You're welcome."
From that moment on, all Collin had to do was sit and wait for Lisa to arrive with the metal detector. He never thought that he'd have to use it so soon; when Nick showed it to him when he (Collin) was just meeting everyone for the first time, Collin never imagined he would have to use it so soon.
Chapter 5
Breakthrough
"All right, ma'am, here it is," Collin said with the metal detector in his hand. "Hopefully we'll be able to find your keys."
The woman watched hopefully as he fumbled with the metal detector, making himself look slightly foolish while trying to figure out how to turn it on. After hitting some random buttons, he finally was able to start the machine.
"Okay, here we go…"
Collin started lightly tapping the detector very close to the sand, but was careful not to get too much on the underside. A series of small beeps were heard every few seconds just to show that the device was functioning properly, but for almost a minute, nothing else happened.
