But here he was again, at the beach, sticking to the dream, though the swimming part of the habit wouldn’t be happening today. And probably never again. Certainly not in this ocean. Not unless Danny got some very satisfactory answers to the questions he had about what had erupted from the water the day before.
He kept his clothes and shoes on and walked to the bottom of the overlook on the beach side, and then sat on the second to bottom step, staring off toward the section of the water where his sighting had occurred. Every wave looked like a head in the darkness. Every lap on the shoreline sounded like the eruption he’d heard just before its arrival.
Danny sat there for several minutes until the sun rose above the horizon and the first of the beachgoers arrived, an elderly couple who Danny thought he vaguely recognized. It was Friday. If the weather held, the beach would be crowded by nine.
Danny nodded to the couple and jogged back up the stairs and headed towards home. The creature hadn’t come today, and he had a phone call to make.
“HELLO?” THE WOMAN ON the other end of the line answered on the first ring, her voice gruff and hurried. Danny was caught off guard, and for a moment considered hanging up.
“May I please speak with Sarah Needler?”
“Speaking.”
Sarah Needler no longer worked full time for the Rover, but according to the news desk at the paper, she still freelanced on occasion, though it had been almost a year since her last story was published. But they had a phone number for her and were, at least in Danny’s opinion, a little too willing to give it out. He expected the number to be old or out of service.
“Hi Ms. Needler, my name is Danny Lynch. I was wondering if I could ask you a question or two about a story you wrote several years ago.”
There was no reply on the other end, and Danny realized he hadn’t asked a question. Must be a reporter thing, he thought. They were probably used to people keeping their thoughts to themselves and not speaking unless queried directly.
“Would that be okay?”
“I can’t stop you from asking the questions. Whether or not I answer them only time will tell.”
Danny had now formed an image of the woman, and it wasn’t what he’d expected. She sounded older than he’d calculated—mid to late sixties—with a heavy dose of something New York and Jewish.
“You know I don’t work for that paper anymore, right?”
“Yes, ma’am. And I’m sorry to track you down like this.”
“Honey, all I’ve done for the last forty years is track people down and ask them questions. So a piece of advice: once you’ve got ‘em on the line, don’t waste time with apologies. Now what’ve you got for me?”
Danny got to the point. “In 2007 you covered a story about a drowning. And I realize that drownings probably aren’t all that unusual here, and it was a long time ago, but I thought you might...”
“Bradford. Lyle Bradford.”
Danny’s body chilled at his shoulders. “Why do you remember that?” And then, as if the words were spoken by some inner force, he added. “Or are you just one of those people who remembers everything?”
Sarah laughed long and fully, chuckling a few more times at the end before trailing off into a fit of long-time-smoker cough. “I remember the names of my grandchildren, everyone I voted for for president, and the date my brother died. Other than that, it’s a crap shoot. But I remember the drowning of Lyle Bradford.”
“Okay, but, if I may ask: why? Was there something unusual about it?”
There was a recollecting pause on the line. “I don’t suppose it was anything that would have held up in the Court of the Unusual, it was just a hunch really. I’m old enough to remember when people relied on those. Anyway, I had a hunch about the girlfriend, that’s all. She was lying. The story she told to me was a lie.”
The story Danny read had no quotes from Lynn Shields, or anyone else for that matter, but he saved that fact for later. “How can you be sure?”
“It’s a clichéd answer, Danny, especially coming from a reporter, but I’m going to give it to you anyway.” Danny liked that she remembered his name. He liked this woman instinctively. “In my business, people lie to you all the time. And after a while, you get very good at being able to tell the difference between a lie and a truth.”
“Do you have any idea why she would have lied?”
There was silence on the other end that lasted almost ten seconds.
“Ms. Needler?”
“Can you talk in person, Danny?”
“Sure, of course, whenever.”
“How about in an hour. Reefside Bar on Archimedes. I’ll be on a stool at the end.”
“I’ll be there.”
“And Danny,” the woman said, “call me Sarah.”
SARAH WAS INDEED AT the end of the bar, and Danny noted that his phone-call-based image of the woman wasn’t that far off. She was thinner than he’d expected, maybe a few years younger looking, but the attitude and years he’d pictured in his mind were all over her face.
“Sarah?”
The woman continued staring straight to the bar back as she exhaled a long plume of cigarette smoke. She crushed out the butt and looked at the stool beside her, patting it once in invitation.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Danny said, maneuvering his way between the seat and the bar. “Thanks for meeting me.”
“I invited you.” Sarah replied.
“Yes, but...anyway.”
“Do you want a drink?”
It was 11:30 in the morning, but the bar was open, so why not? “Sure.” Danny nodded toward the bartender. “When you can, I’ll have that IPA.” He pointed toward the end tap which was adorned with wheat stalks and citrus fruit.
The bartender spun a pint glass from the cooler and tipped the faucet handle toward himself. He filled the glass to the brim and then laid a cocktail napkin in front of Danny and the glass on top.
“Thanks.” Danny sipped the head and then picked up the glass, taking in a full swallow.
“Better?” Sarah asked.
Danny grinned. “Do I seem on edge?”
“You look like you’ve got something on your mind. Something more than your condolences about a guy you never met who drowned ten years ago.”
Danny let the words settle, but he didn’t take the bait. He pivoted back to the phone call. “So this woman, this Lyle guy’s girlfriend who you said lied to you back in 2007, I met her niece on the beach yesterday.”
“Is that why we’re talking? You met the niece of someone who dated a guy I wrote a story about during the Bush administration?”
“No, I...” Danny trailed off, irritated with himself for not collecting his thoughts better before this meeting, for not having a clear strategy on navigating the current conversation. The woman beside him was sharp; charm and bullshit weren’t going to get him far. He took another sip of his beer.
“Look Danny, you can keep to yourself whatever secret you’re hiding. I’m not going to press you on anything. Just ask me whatever you want about her. Lynn Shields, right? That’s who you want to know about?”
Danny took out his phone and looked at it for a moment, and then laid it on the bar top, staring at it for another beat.
“Is there something you want to show me?”
The woman was observant, that was for sure. “Maybe. But not yet.”
Sarah gave an understanding nod and took a long sip of what appeared to Danny to be a gimlet.
“Why did you want to meet me in person? What was so important that you couldn’t tell me on the phone?”
Sarah looked at Danny for the first time, her brow furrowed. “Nothing. I just wanted a drink.”
Danny smiled weakly and shook his head once, as if he’d been duped.
“And I don’t like to drink alone. Though I will if I have to.” The woman dropped Danny’s eyes and paused, and then said, “You wanted to know why I remember the Lyle Bradford drowning?”
“Yes.”
Danny laughed out loud, the beer presenting the first signs of its effect.
“So when the drowning happened, and I had plenty of time on my hands, I asked my editor if he would hold the story for another day so I could maybe try to get a little something more out of it.”
“Like an interview with the bereaved?” Danny wasn’t judging, just acknowledging that he was following along.
“An interview with a witness,” Sarah corrected without an ounce of coyness. “I wasn’t looking for blood, just more depth to the story.”
“I didn’t mean...”
Sarah waved off Danny’s introduction to an apology. “Anyway, my editor agreed, so I jumped on it. I got the address where Lynn and Lyle lived—well, where she lived alone after that day—and I headed toward the story. But before I went to see this Lynn Shields person, to ask her if she’d be willing to talk with me, I decided to go to the spot on the beach where the tragedy happened, just to try to get a better picture of the Where and How of the whole thing.”
“Is that standard?”
Sarah shrugged. “Not really. But I figured whatever story I’d end up writing would have something to do, at least in part, with how Rove needed to increase safety at the beaches. Adding lifeguard stands or flotation device stations. I don’t know, I was just trying to get a feel for the place to inspire the direction of the piece.”
“I didn’t see any interview in the piece you wrote.”
“That’s because it was never published.” Sarah guzzled the last of her drink and held the glass up, flicking her head once toward the bartender. “You gotta let me finish talking, Danny, or I’m going to be too sloshed to get to the end.”
Danny tipped his head deferentially, holding up his IPA to indicate he’d let her go on. He didn’t want to come across as being too eager or prosecutorial, but he was gripped by the story, and he was hoping that whatever had prevented Sarah Needler from writing that follow-up story had something to do with the thing he’d seen at the beach yesterday.
“I went there, to the beach, right to the spot where Bradford had supposedly drowned. It was a miserable day. Rainy and cold. Even the heartiest of beachgoers weren’t coming out on that day. The whole week had been like that if I recall.”
The bartender gracefully slid another gimlet between Sarah’s arms and then pointed at Danny’s empty beer glass with eyebrows raised, expertly asking if he needed another, careful not to interrupt the conversation. Two beers before noon? Danny thought. On a Friday? Technically a weekday, but not really. What the hell? he decided, and then gave an assertive nod, lips pursed, as if the refill should go without asking.
“Atta boy,” Sarah said, obviously noting Danny’s internal conflict. “Anyway, she was there. On the beach. Right on the water’s edge near the spot where the drowning had evidently taken place. I had never seen the woman before, but I knew instantly it was her. Wind and rain be damned.”
“That makes sense though, right? Her boyfriend drowned at that spot the day before. I wouldn’t think it all that unusual for someone to mourn that way. Even in bad weather.”
“Not at all,” Sarah agreed. “It was my first reaction too. So I stood there on the overlook watching her and I felt really sorry for her. And honestly, if she had just been standing there, or even sitting in the sand watching the waves crash up onto the shore, crying and screaming at the water, I’d have thought nothing at all of it. Other than sympathy, of course.”
“So there was more?” Danny obviously knew there was, but he wanted to lead Sarah to the point.
Sarah looked up at Danny and frowned, a look of irritation at the superfluousness of the question. “I started down the steps to the beach, to get closer, to make sure I was seeing things correctly.” She paused. “And I was. The woman was on her knees, her arms raised straight above her head, and she was leaning forward toward the water and then back up straight. Over and over she did this. It must have been a dozen times.”
“She was bowing? Bowing to the ocean?”
“Right. Exactly. Bowing. The way someone begging for mercy at the foot of some medieval king might do.”
Danny let this information process, feeling unsettled by the second. But he continued playing the pragmatist. “I guess I could maybe see that. Not knowing her religious leanings, I could imagine someone who was grieving making that kind of gesture. Some form of prayer maybe.”
Sarah smiled up at Danny. “You’d make a good reporter, sport. You’ve got a knack for skepticism.”
Danny blushed foolishly at the compliment.
“And you’re right; I considered the exact same thing as I walked down those steps and on to the sand. I kept my eyes on her the whole time. I was riveted. Like I said though, it was cold and rainy that day, and I was downwind from her, so she never heard me coming. If I had been calling her name the entire way she wouldn’t have heard me. The wind was that strong. But as I got nearer to her, I could start to hear her.” Sarah stopped and took another swallow of her drink, teasing the story just right.
Danny let the silence do its work and waited for her to continue.
“She was laughing.” Sarah nodded at her own words, as if she needed to hear this part of the story aloud to be convinced of its accuracy. “But I know what your skeptical mind is thinking, Danny boy; you’re thinking that laughing isn’t so unusual either after a tragedy, right? You hear about people laughing hysterically at funerals or whatever, as some kind of built-in emotional barrier?”
Danny hadn’t formed an opinion on the laughter yet, but now that Sarah mentioned it, it made sense.
“But it wasn’t like that. This laughter was...gleeful. Joyous. But also...” Sarah stopped, as if her years of writing only the facts were preventing her from too much editorializing about the nature of Lynn Shields’ laughter.
“Also what?” Danny prodded.
Sarah looked at Danny and shrugged. “‘Maniacal,’ I guess is the word. ‘Demented’ maybe.”
Danny felt a chill, but hid it. “So what did you do?”
“I’m a reporter, and I still wanted the interview, so I kept moving in closer. And as I did, I could hear that she was also shouting out some barrage of words between the laughter. From where I was, I couldn’t understand what she was saying, so I kept moving closer, hoping to at least gather a little of the content before she knew I was there.”
“For what reason though? Did you suspect her of something at that point? Did you think she was confessing or something?” Danny immediately thought his question sounded a bit too aggressive, like he was accusing Sarah of being some type of spy or voyeur.
Sarah thought for a moment and then furrowed her brow and nodded. “You know, I’d never really thought about it that way, but I think that might have been it.”
“And did you hear anything like that? A confession?”
“Only when I was a few feet away could I really understand the words, and it was only the last part of a sentence I caught before she noticed I was there. But this is the weird thing: when she did notice, she didn’t look at me right away. She didn’t turn toward me at all, made no physical gesture that indicated she’d detected me, other than that she stopped bowing. That’s weird right?”
It was, Danny thought, but that went without saying.
“But I knew she knew I was there, because she suddenly
got real quiet and still, and I was close enough to her now that I could see a calm smile form along the side of her face. And it was that smile that, you know, in the context of the words I had heard, terrified me.”
“What...what did she say?”
Sarah looked up at Danny and frowned. “I heard nine words, Danny, and I have no idea what they meant. But they scared the shit out of me.”
Danny waited, his breath held.
‘There’s always more. I can always give you more.’”
Danny kept a straight face, trying to stay sensible and non-judgemental, but the truth was the words scared the shit out of him too.
“So are you ready to tell me your story yet, Dan, or should I just keep talking?”
Danny had to make an on-the-spot decision: he could show his semi-conclusive photos of the thing he now suspected was responsible for the death of Lyle Bradford, or he could extract more from Sarah, get the full scoop about Lynn Shields, and then investigate the rest himself.
“There’s not really any secret story,” he lied, choosing the latter of his two options. “Like I said, I met Lynn Shields’ niece on the beach today and she made the woman sound very interesting. So I did a little research on her and found your story about the drowning.”
“So why are we having this conversation then, Danny?”
Danny paused. “Okay, listen,” he started, speaking in a way designed to give the impression that he was ready to give up his ruse. “There was a line in your piece. It said, ‘Foul play is not suspected.’ It jarred me a bit. Like you were implying there was some reason that foul play could have been a possibility. It just intrigued me, that’s all.”
“And you call every reporter who writes something you find intriguing?”
“Only about seventy-five percent of them.”
Sarah gave a doubtful smile, and Danny knew she didn’t believe any of what he’d told her regarding his motives for contacting her. It was true, of course, that he was intrigued by the line, but he was also leaving out the main component of his tale.
The Sighting Page 4
