Lake Country

by Sean Doolittle

  “Sounds like an exciting time for you.”

  “Don’t it, though?” He handed her a business card. Maya shone her volunteer-issue flashlight on it. The card said Morningside Media Corp. in embossed lettering and featured a studio head shot of Morningside himself, Stetson, mustache, and all. “Just had these printed. Like ’em?”

  Maya clicked off the flashlight. “They’re something.”

  “I could order some with your name on ’em.” He touched his brim again. “Give it some thought.”

  Before she could answer, he’d peeled away, leaving her to marvel at the notion that this patch of woods might well stand forever in her memory as the setting where Maya Lamb’s career in television ended and where Buck Morningside’s began.

  Every so often, her phone rang in the front pocket of her hoodie, as it had been doing since she’d piled all her regular clothes into the back of the news van. Each time, she pulled the phone out and looked at the screen, hoping for word from Roger Barnhill; each time, she found the same name waiting for her.

  Rose Ann calling.

  Maya had switched off the ringer after a while, leaving the phone to buzz in her pocket like an irritated dragonfly.

  Finally, at about half past three in the morning, while Maya and her group broke for coffee and a rest break at the picnic shelters, her phone buzzed again. A short zap against her belly button. Not a call this time but an incoming text message, also from Rose Ann. The message said:

  Fine, screw you then. See if I lose any more sleep at my age.

  Five minutes later, the phone resumed its regular pattern.

  Maya finally gave in. “Hey, Rose Ann,” she said. “Sorry. I had my phone off.”

  “Bullshit,” Rose Ann said. There came a heavy silence, then: “So. I hear you’ve gone off and joined the natives, is that right?”

  “Something like that,” Maya said.

  Rose Ann humphed. “Find the girl yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  Another pause. “Are you smoking?”

  Maya felt like she’d been caught by a parent. She ground out the butt she’d just finished under the heel of her sandal and said, “They’re Deon’s.”

  “What the hell am I going to do with you?” Maya heard sheets rustling and imagined Rose Ann sitting up in bed, putting on her glasses. “Actually, check that. What the hell are you going to do with yourself? You’re too young to retire, unless you hit the lottery and didn’t mention it. Did you hit the lottery?”

  “No,” Maya said. “I didn’t hit the lottery.”

  “So what, then? By all means, do tell.”

  “I don’t know,” Maya said, and it was the truth. “I’ve got some money saved. I can take a few months to figure it out.”

  “That’s your plan? Take a few months and ‘figure it out’?”

  “Maybe I’ll write a book.”

  “Oh, God save your soul.”

  “If nothing else, Buck Morningside offered me a job.” Maya couldn’t resist. “Have you seen anything on this American Manhunter show they’re doing over at TPT?”

  “No,” Rose Ann said. “I can’t say that I have.”

  “Well. It’s an option.”

  “It’d serve you right too.”

  Rose Ann sounded honestly peeved. Maya didn’t know what else to say. “I’m sorry, Rose Ann. I guess I haven’t handled my departure with a whole lot of class, have I?”

  “What departure? As far as I’m concerned, you just started your vacation early.”

  “Rose Ann—”

  “You don’t get off the hook that easy. I’m not finished with you.”

  Maya started to tell her that, with all due respect, she didn’t necessarily have any choice in the matter. But then she realized she was only talking tough to a bunch of dead air. Rose Ann had already hung up the phone.

  The group mustered for duty again over by the footbridge to the lower side of the creek. Maya rubbed her hands and stretched her aching back and joined the others. As the young state trooper assigned to their detail started giving instructions, her pocket buzzed again.

  Maya grabbed out the phone and said, “Rose Ann, I love you, but I’m not talking about this anymore tonight. I’ll be in touch. After I’ve slept for about a week.”

  “Miss Lamb,” a male voice said in her ear. “This is Roger Barnhill.”

  Maya straightened, groping automatically for her pen and notebook. She thought, Quit that, stepped away from the group, and said, “Detective. What’s the news?”

  “We traced that tag number you gave me,” Barnhill said.

  Af first Maya didn’t know what he was talking about. Then it came to her: the white pickup, back on Front Avenue. She’d forgotten all about it.

  “Oh. Right,” she said. “And?”

  “The truck is registered to a neighborhood business owner named Harold Macklin,” Barnhill said. He sounded very, very tired. “Macklin is in critical care at United Hospital in St. Paul with a skull fracture. And related issues.”

  Maya didn’t understand. “What happened to him?”

  “We’re trying to sort that out,” Barnhill said. “In the meantime I’d like to hear more about that vehicle you saw. Where are you now?”

  “Still in the park,” she said. “The picnic shelters. Where are you?”

  “Command,” Barnhill said. “Parking lot of the mall. When can you be here?”

  Maya watched the search group moving off from the footbridge, heading into the trees along the west bank of the river, spreading out into a line as it moved.

  “On my way now,” she said.

  25

  A couple of miles south of Nisswa, they found a roadside bait shop with a sign out front that read:

  Early Crappie/Stream Trout Season Hours

  4:30 a.m.–Dusk or So

  M–Su

  “You’ve got to hand it to these lake people,” Bryce said, as they pulled into the gravel lot and parked. “They do get up early in the morning.”

  “Uh-huh,” Toby said. He killed the engine and shut off the headlights. It was 4:05, according to the readout on the stereo. He leaned his head back. Closed his eyes.

  “Aw,” Bryce said. “You’re mad. I can tell.”

  Toby said nothing.

  “Let’s look at the map some more while we wait,” Bryce said. “Keep our eyes on the prize. My prediction, by sunup we’ll both be about eighteen grand richer. And heroes to boot. That’ll chase those frowns away.”

  Heroes, Toby thought grimly. What the hell planet did this nutcase call home?

  He heard thin paper crinkling as Bryce unfolded the map, which he’d marked up with the pen and the highlighter back at the diner in Brainerd. Through his eyelids, Toby sensed the overhead dome light come on.

  He opened his eyes. Bryce folded the map back down into sections and smoothed what was left on the console between them. He studied it a minute, humming to himself. Then he pointed to a spot and said, “I’m guessing somewhere in here.” He pointed to another spot. “Or here.” He paused, tilted his head, moved his finger in a loose circle. “Or maybe right around in this area here. What do you think that is, all told? Ten miles square?”

  Toby didn’t know how many miles square it was. He didn’t know how to make sense of what he was looking at. On paper, Bryce had filled up this section of Minnesota with circles and radiating lines, highlighting routes this way and that until the whole thing looked like a bunch of cave drawings.

  “Sure,” he said. Whatever.

  “Yep.” Bryce nodded. “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “So what?” Toby said. “Dude, you’re only guessing around anyway.”

  Bryce raised a finger. “Educated guessing, kid. There’s a difference.”

  “Doesn’t look like much of a difference to me.”

  “That’s because you’re not educated yet,” Bryce said. “It’s not your fault. Stick with me.”

  I’d rather kill myself, Toby thought.

 
Of course, it was a ridiculous thing to think, him still sitting there behind the wheel of the Navigator, miles and miles from home, waiting for some bait shop to open on the side of the road in the middle of the night. Still driving this freak everywhere he said to go, imagining he had the sack to do something about it. But he didn’t, and both of them knew it.

  And Toby had been lying anyway. Bryce seemed to know exactly what he was doing. Which, frankly, seemed about as scary to Toby as anything else he’d seen out of the guy so far.

  “First thing we have to do is try to think like a bartender from St. Paul,” Bryce said. “We own the bar, but, let’s face it, the place ain’t much. We are not a rich guy. We manage to get up here, what, two, three times a year?”

  “I don’t know how to think like a bartender from St. Paul,” Toby said.

  “I know you don’t,” Bryce said. “That’s what I’m trying to help you learn. So pay attention, okay?”

  I don’t want to learn how to think like a bartender from St. Paul, Toby thought. For the second time, he asked, “If the guy lied about the address, how do you know he has a place up here at all?”

  “He knew the bogus address, didn’t he?”

  Toby hated that he saw the guy’s logic.

  “That’s the key, really,” Bryce said. “Think about it with me: If I get up here only a couple three times a year, but I can throw this bogus address off the top of my head? Under duress? It’s got to be a place I’ve seen enough times to remember.” He pointed to the X he’d marked on the map in red pen. Like they were pirates. “Here’s Mussel Shores. Nearest town here. Main highway here, paved county road here. Follow?”

  The longer Toby looked at the map with Bryce’s guidance, the more all the markings started to make sense. It was just a probability graph, sort of. The places where the lines overlapped were the same spots Bryce had pointed out before. It was sort of impressive, actually.

  “So if I’m up here at my lake place that I get to use only two or three times a year,” Bryce said, “how am I most likely spending my time?”

  Toby knew the answer, but he didn’t want to give Bryce the satisfaction.

  “Oh, come on,” Bryce said. “Play along. It’s fun.”

  Toby sighed. “Probably fishing.”

  “Probably fishing. Which means I probably need a place to buy bait and tackle.” Bryce gestured toward the windshield. “Here we have a bait shop.” He went back to the map, pointing around at the various areas he’d indicated previously, tracing routes with his fingers. “Could be I’ve driven past glorious Mussel Shores on my way to this very bait shop.”

  “Could be there’s a million other bait shops around here.”

  “Probably not a million.”

  “Lots.”

  “Might as well start with this one though, huh?” Bryce reached up and turned off the dome light. Map class was over. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter if this is the right bait shop or if it isn’t. I’ll bet whoever runs this particular bait shop knows a thing or two about who owns what in these parts. If we ask him nice, who knows what he might be able to tell us?”

  You mean like you asked the last guy? Toby thought. He looked at Bryce and said, “This is all a game to you, isn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t say game,” Bryce said. “But it is a challenge. I like challenges.”

  “Yeah? How you planning to explain that bartender from St. Paul?” Toby felt himself growing bolder all of a sudden. He liked the feeling. “Bet that’ll be a challenge.”

  “What’s to explain?” Bryce said. “We find that girl, he’ll be the one with some explaining to do.”

  “Guess he’ll have a hard time doing that though, huh?”

  “How’s that?”

  Toby looked away, out his window. The light outside the bait shop threw long shadows that disappeared into the darkness.

  “All right,” Bryce said. “You obviously have something you want to get off your chest. Why don’t you go ahead and lay it on me?”

  “You didn’t have to do him like that,” Toby muttered.

  “Sorry? Didn’t hear you.”

  Toby raised his voice. “I said you didn’t have to do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “You know what.”

  Bryce was silent a moment.

  “Ah,” he finally said. “Is that what’s been hanging you up? Seriously?”

  Toby’s newfound confidence slipped away. He kept his trap shut.

  “You think, what? I killed the guy?” Bryce said it like he’d just heard a joke. “Come on, kid. What do you think I am? Some kind of psychopath?”

  “You said it, not me.”

  Bryce laughed. “Well, hell, partner. You can rest easy. We haven’t started leaving corpses behind us yet.”

  “I heard the shot, man.”

  “Yeah, I heard it too,” Bryce said. “I was the one getting shot at.”

  Toby looked at him. “You’re telling me the guy isn’t dead.”

  “Hell of a headache, probably. Dead? Come on.”

  Toby didn’t know whether to believe him or not. He didn’t know if he was relieved or not. He didn’t know what to think or what to feel. In a way he only felt more confused than ever. He said, “Then what the hell, man?”

  “What the hell what?”

  “What the hell are we supposed to do when the guy tells the cops about us?”

  “So you think I should have killed him?”

  “No! Jesus. I mean …”

  “Easy. I’m just messing with you.” Bryce reached out and clapped him on the knee. Toby jumped at his touch. “Believe me, our bartender from St. Paul isn’t going to be telling the cops anything about you. And he sure as hell isn’t going to be telling the cops anything about me.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I supplied him with appropriate motivation, that’s how.”

  “Motivation?”

  “In addition to being a handsome devil,” Bryce said, “I’m also an effective communicator.”

  “Dude, what does that even mean?”

  “It means you can relax,” Bryce said. “I’m the ideas guy, remember?”

  Toby felt like his brain was cooking.

  “You have questions,” Bryce said.

  “Jesus, man. Yeah, I have questions.” He didn’t know where to start. “How do we explain … I mean, what do we tell the … dude, we’re gonna get—”

  “Kid, let me tell you a story,” Bryce said. “I think it’ll help put all this into perspective. Okay?”

  Toby closed his mouth.

  “I used to be an Airborne Ranger,” Bryce said. “By the look on your face I guess you didn’t know that.”

  “No,” Toby said. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Well,” Bryce said. “When I was with the Rangers, we did a little business in Honduras and Costa Rica that’d cure your eyesight if you knew about it.” He propped an elbow on his door. “After I was out of the Rangers, I spent sixteen weeks on my own in Thailand at this camp in the mountains. Learned some hand-to-hand shit that ain’t what you’d call ring-legal even in Thailand. The only other westerner I met there ended up with spinal fluid leaking out his nose. You with me so far?”

  Toby didn’t say anything. He heard the leather upholstery squeak as Bryce shifted position.

  “Then one pretty fall day a couple years ago,” Bryce said, “up in the northwoods, I hit a moose on my bike doing about ninety. Nothing but clear road ahead of me, then all at once out of nowhere, boom. Spent a month in the hospital, came out with a slightly different profile than I had when I went in. The moose didn’t make it, sadly.”

  In the semidarkness, that profile of his looked like buckled pavement. Poor moose, Toby couldn’t help thinking.

  Bryce said, “Do you know what I learned from those experiences?”

  Toby took off his glasses and rubbed his face with his hands. “You learned that life doesn’t always go as planned,” he said. “I get it.”

/>   “No,” Bryce said. “No, I knew that already. What I learned is that even though life is unpredictable, things generally seem to work out in my favor.” He shrugged. “I’d rather be with me than against me, I guess is what I’m saying.”

  Toby put his glasses back on and lowered his hands.

  “So,” Bryce said. “How about it?”

  “How about what?”

  “Are you with me or against me?”

  And just like that, Toby realized he’d wandered onto thin ice again. Bryce hadn’t changed his tone in the least, but Toby could almost hear the cracks forming under his feet.

  At that moment, before he could gather himself, more lights came on outside the bait shop, spilling across the gravel lot.

  “Tell you what,” Bryce said. He reached across the console, pulled the keys from the ignition. He grabbed Toby’s mobile out of its cradle on the dash. “Why don’t you take a little time and think about it. I’ll be right back.”

  The bait shop’s paint-flaked front door shimmied, then screeched open. An old guy in a flannel jacket stepped out on the stoop and gave them a wave. Come on in.

  “And, hey. Don’t worry,” Bryce said, opening his door. “I won’t shoot this one either, if I can help it.”

  26

  Mike needed to get Juliet Benson out of her cold, wet clothes, but that was a can of worms he wasn’t sure how to open. The dunk in the lake had capped off a long night in the cold woods, and considering the stress her system had already sustained, he knew that she was probably suffering at least a mild case of hypothermia. But she was conscious and more or less lucid, at least capable of answering questions, and by the time he got the fire roaring along under its own power, she’d ceased her uncontrolled shivering.

  By the time he brought down a quilt from upstairs to add to the blanket he’d already wrapped her in, the girl had fallen asleep on the couch where she sat.

  He wasn’t surprised. Mike had seen enough different kinds of fatigue in his time to imagine that not even Juliet Benson’s formidable self-preservation instincts could keep her online now that she’d stopped moving. In front of a crackling fire, no less. Either that or she’d slipped into a coma.