The Best American Mystery Stories 2017

by John Sandford

  The clerk was a pretty young girl about twenty or so, with tattoos of flowers on her neck and a pierced ring through her left nostril, wearing a black T-shirt and blue jeans. He passed the map over. “Ma’am, I’d like to purchase this map, but I want to make sure it’s a good one.”

  She smiled but looked puzzled. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.”

  Amos prodded the map with a finger that had black dirt encrusted under the fingernail. “Sorry, I guess I didn’t speak clearly. You think this map has what it says? Every single street?”

  “I’m sure it does,” she said. “Of course, if you want to be really sure, you should just check out Google Street View. You can even see what the buildings look like.”

  Amos took out his wallet. “I suppose you’re right, but I don’t own a computer. Wouldn’t even know how to use one. But I sure know how to look at maps.”

  A month earlier, Amos Wilson had stopped at the Leah Hardware store to pick up some washers to fix a leaking faucet. Jimmy Stark, the store’s owner, greeted Amos as he made his way to the cluttered checkout.

  Jimmy wore blue-jean overalls with the front bib pocket stuffed with pencils, pens, and a folding ruler. He had big ears and a big nose, black-rimmed glasses, and thick black hair parted to one side. He weighed nearly three hundred pounds and sat on a stool, and he knew where everything in the store was located down to the half-inch, which is why he was still thriving in the age of Lowe’s and Home Depot superstores.

  He squinted as Amos put the washers down. “Faucet problems?”

  “Yep.”

  “At the lake house?”

  “The same.”

  Jimmy shook his head as he rung up the purchase. “I don’t know why you stick with Jennifer.”

  “She’s my wife.”

  “That’ll be a dollar nine cents. Amos, please, she kicked you out.”

  He shrugged, having heard these same words about a dozen times before. “She said she wanted to take a break.”

  “It’s been a year.”

  “She might change her mind.”

  “No, because she doesn’t like to think she’s wrong. Like she made a mistake when she agreed to marry you. Amos, you’re a good man, but you’re gullible.”

  “Jimmy . . .”

  With his thick fingers, Jimmy deftly put the purchase in a small paper sack. “You were the star high school quarterback, good with your hands, your dad was rich and ailing . . . and she thought when he passed on she’d be the richest gal in the county. Poor dear, she had no idea he was gonna leave his entire estate to charity.”

  “Not the whole thing. We get an annuity.”

  “Yeah, but not enough for Jennifer to live above her means. Course, now that she’s in the lake house and you’re in your dad’s hunting cabin, I’d say she’s got what she wants.”

  “Maybe.”

  “But she sure is lucky, still having you as a husband. Any other man would have filed divorce papers, would have gotten half that annuity back.”

  Amos picked up the bag. “Guess I’m not any other man.”

  Outside in the small parking lot, Amos went to one of the very few pay phones still operating in Leah. He dialed the lake-house number and Jennifer answered on the second ring.

  “It’s Amos,” he said. “I’ve got the washers, I’ll be over there in twenty minutes.”

  “You’ll have to come back later,” she said. “I’m having lunch with Marie and the girls. Won’t be back for a couple of hours.”

  “I could do it while you’re away.”

  “No offense, Amos, I don’t want you at the house when I’m not there.”

  The phone receiver was cool in his hand. “My name’s still on the deed. Still my house.”

  “Legally, I’m sure, but let’s not make a fuss, all right? I’ll see you at two p.m. Don’t be early.”

  She hung up the phone.

  Amos drove away from the lake where he had grown up, going to where he was currently hanging his hat. It was a simple one-story cottage deep in the woods, shingled roof, rough wooden sides. It was a place where Dad had taken him years back, when he had turned twelve. This was where he sipped his first beer, first stayed up past midnight, and shot his first white-tailed deer. One of Dad’s cousins had presented him with a sharp knife that he had used to gut his first kill, and, years later, he still always carried that knife.

  He got out of the truck, ambled over to the camp. Overhead was a mix of maples and birches. The place got its hot water and heat from propane tanks, but it was still Christly cold in the winter. Not to mention that the dirt road became a sloppy mess every mud season.

  Amos took a wicker rocking chair on the creaking porch and settled in. It was a nice sunny day.

  He remembered what Jennifer had said, just over a year ago.

  I don’t know what I want, but right now I don’t want you. Amos, it’s time for you to go up to your dad’s place.

  Are you sure?

  Damn it, of course I’m sure. I’m unhappy and I don’t want you here.

  But what about me? My . . . happiness?

  She had snorted. It’s all about you, isn’t it?

  He didn’t know what to say to that, so he had quietly packed up a duffel bag and driven up to this cabin, and here he remained.

  Amos stayed on the porch until it was near two o’clock before leaving for the lake house.

  When he walked in, Jennifer called out from the bedroom, “Damn it, Amos, I told you I wanted you to knock! I don’t want you surprising me like this.”

  He said, “I didn’t think I was surprising you. You said come back at two o’clock. It’s two o’clock.”

  “Oh,” came her voice again. “Looking for a fight, are we?”

  What to say about that? He pretended not to hear her and went to the kitchen, the spare washers in one hand, his toolkit in the other. He drew out a length of paper towel and put it on the floor, so no grease or dirt from the toolkit would mark up the shiny tiles.

  “Hey.”

  He turned around. His wife was standing there in the living room, looking right at him, and his heart went thump-a-lump, just like it had a number of years back when she had said yes after he first asked her out. She had on tight black Spandex shorts, black rubber boat shoes, a black sports bra, and a white baseball cap that she had pulled her blond ponytail through. She was putting lip moisturizer on and smelled of sunscreen.

  “I’m going out for a paddle, work off some of that lunch. Let’s go.”

  He put the toolkit down, followed her outside to the small lawn that bordered the lakeshore and to the tiny boathouse. She opened the door and he walked in, past the lawn mower, some piled-up lawn furniture, and other odds and ends. The light-blue kayak hung from a web cradle, and he got on one end while she got on the other.

  The two of them marched in silence down to the water’s edge. Once upon a time, before his dad passed on, she’d talk about who she lunched with, whose kid was acting up, whose hubby was coming home drunk every other night. The silence stayed firm all the way to the lake. He held the kayak steady while she clambered in, and then he passed over a plastic canteen of water, her paddle, and a life preserver that was on the grass. Jennifer was an excellent swimmer, but the law was the law: there had to be a PFD aboard.

  He stood back. “How long will you be gone?”

  “As long as I want.”

  “Oh.”

  She adjusted her sunglasses and he paused, took a breath. “Jennifer?”

  “What?” she said, staring out at the open lake, still fiddling with the sunglass cord.

  “Do you think I’m gullible?”

  A smile slowly spread across her face and then was just as quickly erased. She turned, and he couldn’t see her eyes because of the sunglasses. “Of course not . . .”

  “Oh.”

  She pushed off and said, “Oh, if you could. Check the refrigerator. I think I’m low on one-percent milk. Will you take care of that before you
leave?”

  “Sure.”

  He watched her paddle out to the channel leading to the main lake. Williams Lake was shaped like a pair of spectacles, two wide bodies of water separated by the channel. The only place to put in your speedboat or canoe or Jet Ski was on the north body of water, which had lots of small islands and barely concealed boulders. Most boaters preferred the south end of the lake, which was deeper and relatively empty, so they could raise hell and tow water-skiers. Which meant that there was always a steady stream of boats and such traveling through the channel.

  Another memory came to him.

  I can’t live like this. We don’t have enough money.

  Yes we do, hon. The annuity pays all of our bills and I can pick up extra money doing handyman work and—

  Do you think I married you because I wanted a handyman? Do you? I want more, and you can’t provide it, Amos. You just can’t.

  But . . . I love you, Jennifer. I’ll take care of you.

  No, she had said. If you really love me, you’d fight your dad’s will, get the money that belongs to us. That’s what you would do if you really loved me.

  Amos watched her paddle for another minute or two and then headed back to the lake house.

  About two yards later there was the sudden roar of engines and the slamming sound of something being shattered.

  Amos started running to shore even before he knew what was going on. There were two Jet Skis going around in circles, throwing up waves and water spouts from the exhausts. Each Jet Ski had one driver—a young guy with a PFD and wearing sunglasses—and one Jet Ski was bright red and the other was dark blue with yellow lightning bolts along the side.

  One driver shouted to the other—he had a long nose and was on the Jet Ski with the lightning bolts—and then the two of them sped back down the channel, heading to the north end of Williams Lake, where the put-in was located.

  They moved fast, ignoring the NO WAKE buoys, engines roaring.

  Jennifer’s kayak floated in the channel, overturned, split in half.

  He got to the lake’s edge before remembering his heavy Timberland boots. He stood on one foot while trying to get the boot off the other. Waves slapped and crisscrossed over the channel. Other residents were coming to the end of their docks. Amos worked and worked at the boots, and called out “Jennifer!”

  No answer.

  Boots off, he stripped off his blue jeans, knowing the lake water would make them sopping wet and heavy in seconds, slow him down. He wasn’t much of a swimmer and hated going into the lake when it was cold, but he didn’t hesitate. He thrashed his way in, started swimming, wearing his T-shirt, underwear, white tube socks, and nothing else.

  “Jennifer!”

  In his peripheral vision he saw motorboats and even two canoes coming his way. His neighbors, his friends, his townspeople.

  “Jennifer!”

  He reached one end of the kayak. It was smashed through, the fiberglass end as sharp as a saw. Her paddle was floating by, and her life jacket, and her water bottle. He breathed hard, swam over to the other floating part of the kayak.

  She was there, tangled up in her seat, her face barely out of water.

  “Jennifer!”

  Her eyes fluttered open. Her face was gray. Her hat was gone. Her blond hair was floating behind her like an opened Chinese fan.

  “Amos . . .”

  “Don’t you worry, I’ll get you out.”

  “Amos . . . I’m so cold . . . do something, will you?”

  She closed her eyes. He managed to get her free, and he treaded water as he looked and looked at what had happened to her.

  “Hey!” came a voice from the near canoeist. “Me and the missus, we called 911. Can we help?”

  Amos took a breath, kept treading water, tried to speak plainly without choking up. “Her arm,” he said. “Can you help me find her arm?”

  Three days later he was at the lake house, going through his closet in the master bedroom—the smallest one, of course, since Jennifer had wanted the bigger one—and he took out a black two-piece suit, which he had only worn three times before: for his Uncle John, for Mom, and for Dad.

  The funeral took place at the Congregational church, just past the town common, and a couple of friends of Jennifer set up a get-together at the American Legion Hall afterward. There was an open bar and a glass bowl with a mix of ginger ale and Hawaiian Punch, and some chicken salad and tuna salad finger sandwiches. Amos was an only child, so there wasn’t much in the way of relations to talk to him, which was fine. He had a Sam Adams beer and stayed away from the sandwiches.

  He hated finger sandwiches.

  Amos was halfway through his second beer when Chief Bobby Makem came up to him.

  “Wish I had better news, Amos, but I don’t,” Makem said. He was a slim fellow, with bright red hair, about five years older than Amos, married with two kids. His wife, Erin, was working the punch bowl. He had on his dark-blue police chief uniform with two stars on each side of his collar.

  “I understand.”

  “Them fellows were from away, we’re sure, but nobody remembers them much from when they put their Jet Skis in at the town beach. You know how the place gets so crowded with sunbathers and swimmers and people dropping off boats, it’s like that Times Square place each New Year’s.”

  “Yeah,” Amos said.

  “All we know is that they’re from Massachusetts. We talked to stores up and down Route 16 near here, see if anybody remembers seeing them stopping by to pick up gas or beer, but nope, nothing.”

  “Sounds pretty thorough.”

  Chief Makem sighed, gave him a gentle slap on the shoulder. “Don’t you worry none, we’ll keep working this case. You can count on it.”

  Amos said, “I’m not going to worry about that.”

  At some point the air inside got stifling, so he went outside. By the rear dumpsters a few guys were hanging around, smoking, and there was Jimmy Stark from the hardware store, Bob Junson from Junson’s Funeral Parlor, Trent Gage—who was in Amos’s class all through twelve years of school—and a bunch of others. They nodded respectfully to him as he came over, and he said to Bob, “That was a right fine service you did, Bob. I appreciate it.”

  Bob had the brown eyes and saggy jowls of a bloodhound, and his black suit was finely cut. “Just so sorry I had to do it, Amos. She was too young to be taken away so quickly.”

  At that everybody nodded and murmured some words, and after a few minutes they went back to talking about the weather, the Red Sox, and those damn tourists. When Amos decided to step back in and thank the ladies for the spread they had put on in Jennifer’s memory, Trent Gage spoke up. Trent owned a card and gift shop that was rumored to be selling a lot of nontobacco cigarettes under the table, which wasn’t Amos’s concern.

  “Amos, you always hate to speak ill of the dead, but . . . well, I wish you the best in your new life.”

  Amos turned back. “What do you mean by that?”

  Trent grinned at the other guys like he was looking for support. “You know . . . you’re a fine fellow, Amos, but you’re gullible. Jennifer just took advantage of you, always did.”

  “I don’t know about that,” he said. “She was my wife.”

  Trent kept on smiling. “Maybe so, but c’mon . . . she could be a bitch on wheels most times. Now that she’s gone . . . well, you got a new life.”

  Amos strolled over and punched hard, breaking Trent Gage’s nose. His right hand stung and was suddenly numb. Trent fell flat on the ground, and when he stopped moaning, Amos leaned over. “Thanks for the kind wishes.”

  A couple of weeks passed and Amos didn’t feel right moving back into the lake house. So he stayed at the hunting camp and did a job for Paul Sytek, who needed some fine oak logs cut into four-foot lengths. He spent three weeks up there, working hard, hard enough so he could sleep well during the night. Every other day he called Chief Makem, and every other day he got the same answer. Nothing new to report.


  After the third week had passed, the chief had one more thing to add.

  “Amos . . . in an investigation when someone gets killed, the first forty-eight hours are the most important.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that.”

  “We’ve gone way beyond those forty-eight hours. I don’t want to sugarcoat it none.”

  “I know, Chief.”

  “So unless we get a break in the case, a new witness, somebody confessing, I don’t know how much we can do. And even if we do make some progress, I’m not sure what the operator could be charged with. Manslaughter, possibly, and leaving the scene of an accident, but even then, a crafty lawyer, he could say, Prove it, prove the owner of that Jet Ski was the guy driving that day.”

  Amos kept his mouth shut. He could hear the chief breathing on the other end.

  “So,” the chief said. “That’s how it is.”

  “Appreciate the heads-up,” Amos said, and he hung up the phone.

  The next day he went to the town hall, where sweet Pam Grissom, the town clerk, fussed over him and gave him copies of tax records and survey maps for free. Amos gave her his deep thanks and went to the lake house. There were some dead floral arrangements in the screened-in porch from Jennifer’s school friends and the local beauty parlor.

  Amos sat at the end of the dock. A beautiful day. Up a ways, some kids were screeching with joy as they jumped in the water. A man in a high-powered trout-fishing boat rumbled by, gave Amos a wave, and he waved back. A pontoon boat also slowly motored through, and a couple of bikinied cuties out front gave him a shout and a wave, and Amos blushed and lowered his head.

  He studied the survey map and noted the names of everyone who lived on property abutting this channel and the north end of the lake. Lots of names. That was okay. He double-checked the list and then triple-checked the list, and then he was done.

  Amos went into the lake house one last time, and took the dead floral arrangements and tossed them into the woods.