Deep North (A Brenda Contay Novel Of Suspense Book 2)

by Barry Knister

Inside, Heather Reese, in a powder-blue nightgown, was closing a cabinet, holding a glass. She stepped from behind the sink, reached to the liquor bottles next to the galley’s side window, and got the vodka. She began working off the plastic seal. A nightcap, Brenda thought, until Heather began pouring. And pouring. At last she set down the bottle and reached for the jug of drinking water. Popping off the cap, she raised the jug with both hands. With practiced skill, she topped up the vodka bottle, checking twice to get it right. She set down the jug, got her glass and drank.

  Watering the liquor. It would figure back home, too, in suburban la la land. Brenda watched as Heather now took a magazine from the counter. In slippers that matched her robe, she crossed to the couch under the port-side windows and flopped down. She snapped on a lamp, opened her magazine, and began leafing through. Glass in hand, she stopped to study pictures. Turned pages. She crossed her legs, and a slippered foot began wagging.

  Watching the slipper, Brenda felt trapped. It was impossible to turn away and enjoy the silent river. If she said nothing, it could go on a long time. Or Heather would hear something, make her own discovery, and feel spied on.

  She looked at the woman’s youthful face, her girlish hair, the engagement ring and wedding band. Brenda decided it would be better to make herself known. Besides, it might help to improve things. During the trip, Heather had sniped several times from the back seat about single women and their careers. What’s it like? she asked. All that praise and fame as a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist? All that freedom? It’s a job, Brenda said, driving. I talk in front of a camera once or twice a month. I write articles for magazines. Heather had not looked convinced in the rearview. Whatever you call it, those of us holding the fort at parent-teacher meetings don’t see much of it.

  She reached out and tapped the glass door wall. Heather looked up quickly, staring at what would be her own reflection. She dropped the magazine and stood. Brenda swung off the chaise and pulled opened the door wall.

  “Oh my God—” Drink in hand, Heather closed her eyes. She began patting her chest. “You scared me, I thought…I don’t know what.”

  “It’s just your local insomniac journalist.”

  Heather looked up, still patting, shaking her head. “You have no idea how jumpy I get in strange places,” she whispered. “Whooh. My heart’s going a mile a minute.”

  “I couldn’t sleep. I came down for a smoke.”

  Heather stopped patting. “How long have you been there?”

  “Not long. Ten or fifteen minutes.”

  “Why didn’t you say something? God—” She took a drink, eyeing Brenda over the glass. “You were spying on me.”

  “I was spying on the river.”

  “Uh huh.” She set down the glass and held herself. “What you saw, it’s not what you think.”

  “Get your coat,” Brenda said. “It’s nice out here, we’ll talk.”

  “I hate bugs.”

  “It’s too early for bugs, come on.”

  “That man, Gus. He said bears sometimes come right on these boats.”

  Little Girl Lost. “He was talking about garbage. If you don’t want to talk, that’s fine. But I’m pretty sure this is a low-risk area for bears. We’re in camp, only a bear out of Marlboros is going to attack under these conditions.” She held up the cigarettes. “Come on, get your coat. Keep me company.”

  Looking trapped, Heather turned away. Brenda lit another smoke before stepping back to her chaise. She stretched out again, determined to admire the river in the seconds left to her alone. Then would come disclaimers about booze, about how leaving home always gave Heather Reese the jitters. But there was more to her than collectibles and Shaker hutches. First, though, would come layers of boilerplate armor. Some people had so much of it that weeks could pass, months or even years with nothing more. It was one way of understanding others: how quickly they could let go of safe talk about children or jobs, and be intimate with someone outside their known world.

  Heather stepped out, gray parka over her nightgown. Holding herself, she looked at the water. “I shouldn’t have come.”

  “No, Heather. We’re going to have a great time. Your friend needs it, we all do.”

  “Tina’s really the reason I’m here,” she said. “In that house with Sonny all day.

  Alone, dependent. Imagine being married to someone for thirty-one years. You’re diagnosed with MS. When you get to be a ‘problem,’ he leaves you. Then he dies, leaving you wondering if it’s your fault. It’s sickening.”

  “Tina thinks her husband died because of her?”

  “As far as I’m concerned it was his own fault, and he had it coming.”

  Tina didn’t seem like the self-blaming type. “Is that what she says?”

  Heather glanced down at her glass and back to the river. “Of course not, she’s too classy. Too proud. Tina doesn’t talk about it at all. I’ve never known anyone so strong, so—” She shook her head. “Besides, it doesn’t matter what she says. He was a bastard any way you slice it.”

  Here was passion. Anger and outrage at a friend having been betrayed.

  Heather drank, and now sat gingerly on the second chaise. Knees pressed together, she cupped the glass. “What you saw in there, with the water, I want to explain.”

  “There’s no need.”

  “Yes, there is. People see things, they come to conclusions. I didn’t want anyone finding the vodka and wondering.”

  Brenda got her own glass of water, and took a drink to be communal. Here we go, she thought.

  “Do you see what I mean?” Heather said. “A little toddy when you can’t sleep. A little something, and before you know it you’re getting sidelong glances. Raised eyebrows.”

  The hubby. Brenda saw Brian Senior’s eyebrows, lightly powdered with sawdust.

  “You don’t believe me.” Heather swung her legs up and sat back, facing the river. “I could tell what you were thinking at dinner last night. All the wine I drank. The simple truth is, you made me nervous.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You really did. The way you looked at the house. The collections. I knew you were making mental notes for a story. The daffy wifey in la la land.” Heather drank and lowered the glass to her lap. Looking out at the river, she barked a soft laugh. “The ultimate product of patriarchy, I think they call it. That’s what people like this Susan Faludi would say.”

  The Faludi reference came as a surprise. Heather Reese didn’t seem likely to read high-profile feminists. “You’re right. I think your house is nutty and compulsive.”

  “I knew it.” Heather smiled grimly. “Hummel figurines aren’t great art, but they’re charming and valuable. So are Hallmark Christmas ornaments.”

  “It was the Beanie Babies. I was managing pretty well until we got to those. But it doesn’t matter, Heather, because people really are nuts. I know this with great certainty. If you saw the space I occupy in Michigan, you’d know for sure I include myself.”

  She waited for Heather to look at her.

  “My condo has almost no furniture. Nothing on the walls. No plants, no pet. No collections. And it isn’t because I’m too famous to have time for decorating. Too busy with my Pulitzer winner’s life. It’s because I have no sense of…I don’t know, call it environment. No sense of spatial occasion. I’ve thought about this a lot, and I still can’t explain it. I just have this paralysis about…things. Sometimes when I come through the door, I can’t believe someone thirty-three years old lives like this. I think it’s because I’m not really responsible to anyone but myself. I should be, but I’m not. And don’t bother bringing up your backyard. I’m sure you saw me out there this morning before we left, gathering material.”

  During this monologue, Heather had stopped twitching her foot. She gave a laugh and drank. “Yes, I did. I could see the wheels turning out there.”

  “Are you talking about the Dutch windmill or me? The windmill was going at gale speed.”

  Heat
her laughed again, then covered her mouth.

  “Listen, I’m serious,” Brenda said. “I want you to tell me how it works, what it’s about. The cement squirrels and frogs. The geese with bow ties.”

  Mouth still covered, Heather was shaking her head.

  “No, I am being serious, Heather. Because you’re not alone. I see it everywhere. Disney characters, Bugs and Mickey, the Seven Dwarfs. When I see that sort of thing, at first I think it’s for the kids. But kids aren’t the ones buying it.”

  Composed again, Heather took a drink. “Oh, it’s not so hard to figure out. People are lonely. They need company, something besides themselves. Something to love. It’s pathetic, actually. Grownups buying little elves and bunnies to peek out from the shrubbery. Maybe your place is empty because you have enough love, being by yourself.”

  Heather took another drink. She lowered the glass and nodded. “Or maybe something or someone was taken from you. So you can’t risk losing anything else.”

  As it still did, even after twenty years, and never when Brenda saw it coming, the image of her dead father snapped into place. He lay on his back, on a beach. She was next to him, rocking on her haunches. Nervously she was patting the back of his hand with the tips of her fingers, too afraid of him to hold his hand. It was summer and night in South Truro, on Cape Cod.

  The river restored itself, black and shiny like the coiling Atlantic waves in her memory. Insight from a woman in powder-blue slippers. Who would have guessed? It made Brenda feel gratified. And exposed. Intimate in the moment with another.

  Heather Reese, she thought. Welcome aboard.

  SUNDAY, MAY 6

  8:10 A.M.

  Lomak woke hung over. Stiff and funky-smelling, he rolled over and stared at the ceiling. A wagon wheel hung from the rafters. You could do that kind of thing with cathedral ceilings, and he pictured the wheel hanging at Doreen’s, between the addition’s two skylights.

  Then he remembered the fire.

  A truck engine revved outside, followed by the squeak of brakes. Stop-and-go, stop-and-go. They must be launching Schmidt’s boat. He sat up. Jesus, just put the fucker in.

  Schmidt’s place was old and big, like a barn. Snowshoes hung on the wall, family pictures. There was an old photo blowup of an Indian over the fireplace. Big Chief Slopehead. Got his headdress on. Got his peace pipe, his wampum mojo pole. In the plane, Louis had said Indians fished the lake, that they were allowed by treaty to use gill nets. He said Schmidt’s family history included an Indian somewhere. Maybe that was him, the dude in the blanket.

  Lomak stood and crossed the kitchen to the glass door wall. A hundred feet to the right, Schmidt stood at the water’s edge. He was watching the ass end of a trailer hitched to a pickup, motioning come on, come on. The cover was off the boat, a nice one. The big outboard was tipped up for launching. Schmidt didn’t look Indian. Fifty-plus, big in the shoulders, with a cap. He held up a hand, another squeak of brakes. Now the boat lifted free in the water and floated off the trailer.

  Lomak turned from the window. He went into the bathroom, snapped on the light and leaned over the sink to study himself. He parted his hair. The weave had been re-knotted last week, the ties still new and tight. They would be good for a month or better. Plenty of time to find someone in Costa Rica to take the place of his regular technician. The hair feathered down perfectly to blend with his own. Older women said it made him look like Jerry Vale, the singer. Vale was old but in good shape. A Golden Oldies favorite on TV specials. He still did Vegas, the women said. Vale’s hair was white, not blond like his own, but the matching first name gave them the idea.

  He smoothed it back with both hands. Righteous. Hair you could swim in, fuck in, stick your head in a wind tunnel. First thing after Doreen started skimming, she’d had her ears done at the Straith Clinic. She thought they stuck out, which they did, but not that much. Not like Will Smith, the darky actor. Still, she had them done.

  It had been good then, early on. Doreen had gone back later for permanent eye liner they tattooed on. Then her tits. The titties were solid after, serious tits she said were for him. But mostly she had them done because Doreen didn’t think much of herself. Lomak had gone to Hair’s the Point, first reading up on options. You had your traditional transplants, or this deal where they took out skin, pulled both sides on top and sewed them together. They showed him pictures, said the new micrografts were individual hairs you couldn’t see any difference from, compared to the original part in your own hair. Nothing like the old hair plugs that gave every guy the pegboard look. Like it fooled anybody, seeing you that way. In the end he’d gone with the hair weave, something you could change if you got tired of it. You should get one, he told Rohmer in the plane. Take ten years off. Who’s your cue-ball role model, Michael Jordan? Bruce Willis?

  He smelled himself and decided to shower. Outside, the big outboard came to life, revving hard. He undressed as the sound moved away from shore. Being hung over always did something weird to his mind—anything loud gave him a hard-on. He stepped out of his pants and saw one in progress. He pulled back the shower curtain, inspecting the stall. Clean, anyway. Soap in the dish, a bottle of Head & Shoulders.

  He turned on the water and adjusted it, seeing the waitress from Brownie’s. She had nice ones that bounced when she walked. Definitely her own, you could tell from the way they moved. Not the Twin Peaks on Doreen. The waitress—Connie? Gail?—she had commented on his hair. And Louis was all wrong about the spilled drink. Just a mistake from her being flustered. Jerry Vale’s younger brother coming on to you. Getting you nervous.

  When the water was right, he stepped in and got the soap. Eyes closed, he got himself soapy and worked the hard-on, seeing the waitress doing a little number as she undressed for him. In a thong bikini, looking over her shoulder, wagging her ass. Some day after Costa Rica he would come back. Just like now, the waitress would be slipping down, falling forward on a desk or table. They would be in her place, whatever, falling over and holding on, spreading her legs—

  “Jerry.”

  “Yeah?” Still holding himself, he stuck his head around the curtain. Louis stood in the open door.

  “He’s out testing the boat. We have a few minutes.”

  “For what?”

  “He met them on the road. Marion’s party. He stopped and changed a flat tire for them. There are four, and he knows where they’re going.”

  “Close the door, it’s cold.”

  “We have to get this straight before he comes back.” Louis stepped in and closed the door. “Tell him you’re sick. Make an excuse why you don’t want to go out. He says they invited him to dinner, and he wants me to go with him. This is perfect. I’ll meet them, make contact with Marion. But she mustn’t know you’re here. If she sees you before Monday, we’ll have to abort.”

  “Oh she’s going to see me,” Lomak said. “You can take it to the bank, absofuckinglutely, she’s—”

  “Yes, yes, but not before Monday. And remember, please. We don’t know what they have out there. Phones, computers. The houseboat will have ship-to-shore. Until we have a read on their setup, you have to stay out of sight. Follow me?”

  Remember, please— That kind of bogus being polite, it pissed you off. “What’s there to follow, Louis? We worked it out, remember?”

  “Don’t forget your name.”

  Jerry stared at him, shiny-headed, the beard some kind of compensation for being bald. “You’re pissing me off,” he said. “We’re going to Costa Rica, who gives a fuck?”

  “We aren’t there yet, and your own name leaves a paper trail.”

  “I’m Jerry Rizzo, from Flint. I worked for MichCon, now I snake your buildings. Okay?”

  “Once we know what we’re facing, this will go down as planned.” Steam now filled the bathroom. “I can’t do it alone, you’re crucial.”

  “Yeah, I’m crucial. That’s good to know. Now leave.”

  “I just want you to understand,” Rohmer said. �
�Nothing on this end can go wrong. We have a window on Monday, and it won’t be open long. The Rosses’ brokerage opens at nine, the market opens at nine-thirty. We will have one or two hours, no more. After that, the Northern Lights people will know the ship-to-shore is out. That means we need to be finished and gone by noon.”

  “Tell me this again, you can do it yourself,” Lomak said. “Which you can’t.”

  “I know I can’t. That’s why you’re here. Just follow the script.” Rohmer backed out and closed the door.

  The hard-on was gone, along with the waitress from Brownie’s. Lomak slapped the curtain back in place. He began soaping his armpits. It was Rohmer, always fucking with other people’s minds. In Costa Rica, he would definitely get some of that shit himself.

  By seven Sunday morning, Gus Gustofson had launched Brian Reese’s boat. He tied it to the stern of the houseboat, then moved the Surburban to the incline leading to the dock.

  Marion and Brenda dressed quickly and went below. They began toting tackle boxes, rods and coolers down the ramp as Gus handled the Styrofoam lockers full of dry ice, frozen steaks, shrimp and chicken.

  By eight, everything was on board, and Gus left the boat. Moments later, he appeared on the river, guiding the skiff he would use to return. He reached the transom, jumped on and tied the bowline. “Want a canoe?”

  The idea made Brenda think of Micronesia. “Yes, please.”

  He went ashore, came back with one over his head, and set it gently in Brian’s boat. Minutes later, they were underway.

  Standing next to him as he steered, she listened carefully as he described the boat’s operation. Marion actually took notes. Compass, sonar, controls for the two outboards. “On-Off switch here for your ship-to-shore,” Gus said. “Just set it on channel 1 or 2.” Marion wrote everything down as he worked the wheel. “They had the dam open at Kettle Falls. To regulate the lake. Water’s low now.”

  “What’s that mean?” Marion kept writing.

  “Not much. It won’t matter once we get through the river. Not a problem with the other boats, just this one.”