But otherwise, looking at each other would be impossible. Every time, forever, they would remind each other of Carrie. Of something too awful. Too dark.
Balled socks lay in the bunk’s open drawer. Brenda got them and tossed them on the bed. She set her friend’s leather duffle on the bed, spread it, and placed the folded clothes side by side in two stacks. A plastic shoe bag with drawstring had been stuffed into one of the pouches. She tugged it out and shoved in the wet bathing suit. She wedged the bag in the corner, the socks, Marion’s running shoes, her robe. She zipped it closed, then looked around for more to do.
Heather’s things, she thought. That’s why you’re taking so long up here.
Brenda moved the duffle bag, and sat on the bed. She braced with her hands, feeling the bunk’s rigid wooden frame behind her knees. Beside her, Heather Reese sat clumsily. Her pants were down around her ankles. Her eyes were pinched shut, and she was laughing.
◆◆◆◆◆
“So many. Where’d they come from?”
The stern door slapped shut as Tina angled her chair and locked the wheels. On the right, men and children were standing on docks, women with arms crossed outside cottage door walls. All were watching the houseboat slip past, a crowded tableau vivant of figures frozen in the moment.
Brenda stepped to the starboard catwalk, and looked ahead to the landing. Patrol-car lights flashed in the parking lot. Now she saw Janey Gustofson. She was standing alone on the dock’s broad loading area, smoking. If anything, she looked even less believably the mother of three. She was wearing an oversized sweatshirt and a cap, and kept flicking her cigarette.
“Where’s Marion?” Tina asked.
“Probably on a plane.”
A police car pulled away as a man in coveralls came around the lodge. Then another. As the giant houseboat slowed, the two men reached Janey. She said something, and they moved to ready lines at either end of the platform.
Brenda looked again to Gustofson’s wife. She kept dragging on the cigarette, raising and lowering it. There was something else. She wasn’t waiting on the dock out of courtesy, it was something else.
The big outboards growled and the boat’s forward motion slowed to a stop. One of the men secured his line. He backed away and lifted the loading ramp as his partner slipped the second rope over a piling. The first man dragged the ramp to the stern and dropped it in place with a loud thud. He walked on board and swung open the gate. Sonny trotted across.
“Ready?”
Tina nodded and unlocked her wheels. He moved behind her and shoved her ashore.
Janey had grabbed Sonny’s collar. “Are you all right?” Holding the dog, she knelt beside the wheelchair, her child’s face shadowed by the cap, thick blond hair tucked behind her ears.
“I am, thank you.”
She stood and the man pushed the chair up the incline. Sonny strained, but Janey held him close. She looked to the boat. “Your friend had to go back.”
“I know.” Brenda came down the ramp.
“It’s not her, it’s back home. Her daughter. I didn’t get it all, but she went to her family’s house, and there’s something wrong there.”
Fucking space station—
Brenda looked to Tina as someone inside swung open the shop’s door. She was wheeled in, the door fell shut.
“Your friend—”
She faced Janey. “Marion Ross.”
“Marion, that’s it. The troopers drove her to I Falls—International Falls. To catch the plane to Milwaukee.” Still holding the dog, Janey dropped her cigarette and stepped on it. “I wish, you know, I could help. She was really, you know—” She spun a finger. “I would be the same, that’s for sure. She doesn’t know where her daughter is. Carrie? She called this…” Janey snapped her fingers, closed her eyes.
“Brittany Remnick.”
“Called Brittany, and Brittany said Carrie still didn’t come back. So Marion was really concerned on that. I think she wants you to keep calling the police in Birmingham.” Janey stuffed her free hand in her hip pocket and waited.
All at once, Brenda felt disoriented and dizzy. Maybe it had to do with stepping on land. More than anything, she realized she was starving. “My friend hasn’t eaten today,” she said. “Neither have I.”
“Pardon?” Janey took her hand from her pocket. “Oh, sure, no problem. We can order out or I can get you something like soup. There’s leftover spaghetti.”
“It must sound crazy to you, after what’s happened. I’m sorry.”
“No, I don’t think that at all. Not after everything out there. You come with me.” Back on solid ground, Janey Gustofson and Sonny led the way up the incline. “Or we can grill some brats, I could make a salad.”
“You have customers,” Brenda said. “Just show me where things are, we’ll manage.”
As the family business grew, the Gustofsons had added on to the original lodge. Convenience store, tackle and gift shop, a dormitory for summer employees. Their own rooms were reached through a narrow passage leading from the store.
Brenda made her call to the Birmingham police from the all-purpose kitchen-family room. Tina was there in her chair, looking out, Sonny lying next to her. A big picture window framed the dock and river.
“Please hold.”
Below the loading incline, the huge houseboat stood motionless. Brenda paced, phone clamped to her ear, watching as the two workers continued unloading, stacking everything on a handcart.
The desk officer came on. “Yes, I’m calling on behalf of Marion Ross, I’m Brenda Contay, a friend of the family. I need to know whether you’ve gone into the Ross house.”’
“Hold on… Okay, I see your name here. You’re in Minnesota?”
“Yes.”
“The bomb unit didn’t go in yet,” he said. “The mayor and chief decided to hold off—”
“God, Why?” No, Brenda thought, and pinched her eyes shut. Never challenge cops.
“If you give me a chance, I’ll tell you,” he said. “We’re waiting on two MichCon technicians, coming from Flint. The mayor and chief decided the gas company techs can better assess the risk before we start making people leave their houses.”
Local politics. Before making people leave their houses in upscale Birmingham, the mayor wanted to be sure it was necessary. Brenda hung up as Janey Gustofson pushed buttons to microwave leftover spaghetti. She opened a bread box and pulled out a plastic bag of rolls, then pointed to the overhead cabinets. Brenda nodded and Janey left.
The microwave shut down. Starving again, she found a potholder and got out the spaghetti. She opened an overhead cabinet, got down plates and plastic glasses. Tina turned from the window to watch. She looked very tired.
“Nothing new on Carrie?” she asked.
“Nothing. They haven’t gone inside yet. No one knows where she is.” Brenda opened the refrigerator, hoping to see wine.
“Brenda.” She looked over the refrigerator door. “Carrie will be all right.”
She nodded, wanting to believe it. But didn’t. During the delay for the MichCon technicians, somewhere in the Ross house a clock or timer or cell phone hooked up to a bomb would tick from 71 to 72. Carrie would be up in her room, happy to be alone after three days with crazy Brittany.
She looked back in the refrigerator. “The choices are milk or orange juice.” She spotted a canister of grated cheese and got it out.
“Milk, thanks.”
She got out the carton and brought it with glasses to the table.
“Do you like to cook?” Tina asked, trying to distract her. “I used to be quite the baker.”
“Baking’s too hard,” Brenda said, pouring milk. “Pastry chefs are supposed to be the most highly paid, and most bad-tempered. My college roommate taught me whatever I know. She’s Italian.”
“That’s comfort food,” Tina said. “Tuscan, Sicilian. I do a good tetrazzini.”
Brenda returned to the counter, opened a drawer, then another. She found a larg
e spoon. Unable to wait, she put it down and opened the bag of rolls. She got one out and began eating. It had to do with Carrie, starving this way, shoving bread into her mouth to stifle fear. Still chewing, she now used the spoon to scoop spaghetti onto the plates. She brought them to the table, and the cheese. Ravenous, she sat and forked in pasta. It was meaty and bland, just right for kids, and a hard-working husband who needed plenty of carbs.
“Lots of sausage,” Tina said.
“I’m used to more seasoning and garlic, but it’s good.”
For more than a minute they ate without talking. Hearing the distant sounds of customers and A.M. radio, Brenda drank milk, seeing the men had finished unloading. Canvas bags, rod cases, coolers, and suitcases rested on the handcart. The houseboat now looked invulnerable, indifferent. Today or tomorrow, someone would install a new window, then it would be ready for the next contest winner or corporate bigwig.
“Bert loved his garlic.”
Tina was using her napkin to wipe at something in her lap. That had happened several times last night at dinner. It would be related to the MS. “In all forms,” she said, still wiping. “I sometimes want to write these experts pushing garlic as the heart-smart cure-all. If it was really good for the ticker, Bert would still be here.”
Personal history, she thought. Little details. They were the meaning of life. What details figured for the man she had killed? When she learned what they were, that’s when what she’d done would have its own full meaning.
“Your husband,” she said.
“I never told you, did I?” Tina smoothed out her napkin and took up her fork. “Bertrand Glen Bostwick. He ate garlic cloves the way you eat olives. I never understood it, it was just his way. About now he’d be saying, ‘Tina, what gives?’” She sprinkled on more cheese. “You wouldn’t think someone dealing with the public could get away with it—he managed a savings-and-loan. There were Certs in every coat pocket when I went through his things for the Purple Heart.”
Brenda was about to ask whether they’d had lots in common when Tina said, “Bert had many fine qualities.”
That’s all you needed to know. She took another roll. Because if you weren’t bitter or angry about your marriage, that’s what you might say. Not we had little in common, but he had many fine qualities. It’s what Brenda thought her mother would say. Her parents had had little in common, but Reva Contay had never expected more than Many Fine Qualities. If you ate well, didn’t fight much, could shop whenever you wanted, and rely on the summer rental on Cape Cod, good enough.
“Brenda?”
She glanced from her plate to see Tina looking out the window. There, just at that moment, slipping behind the big boat she saw Charlie standing up in a runabout with Lester Gertz.
She set down her fork. Eyes locked on the bow of the houseboat, Brenda waited. There he was finally, nosing past, the two of them still standing. Sheriff Gertz was again using his phone, Charlie at the controls. He spun the wheel and brought the boat at right angles to the wharf. Still talking, the sheriff stepped forward. When Charlie jumped on shore, Gertz threw him a line. He seemed himself to her. She had already grown used to the missing eyebrow. Gertz now came ashore. He pocketed the phone, turned and said something. Charlie nodded, they parted. Charlie began walking toward the office.
“Go talk to him,” Tina said.
He looked to the house, but would not see them in the picture window. “Janey will send him back here,” Brenda said.
“No, go outside to him. “It’s better. Mary Oliver would agree.”
Brenda used her napkin, pushed back the chair and crossed to the passage. It was dark, covered in wood-grain paneling, with a corny, light-at-the-end-of-tunnel effect. The store’s radio grew louder with Frank Sinatra’s “All The Way.” That was perfect for Charlie Schmidt. Her hunger was gone, and with it her sense of fear. He had come back with Gertz, and driven the boat. She did not think he had changed the story.
She heard the door open. “Hi, Charlie, they’re—”
When Brenda stepped out, he looked at her, and back to Janey. “You have their keys.”
She turned to a pegboard and handed him a ring.
He held it out to Brenda. “I want to trailer the boat. Lester got a call. A relative is coming.”
“Heather’s?”
“A sister-in-law. If they have a trailer hitch, we might as well have it ready for them.”
Practical in all things, she thought. It was just his way. Like someone popping garlic instead of olives or peanuts.
“If you back the Suburban up, I’ll attach the trailer.” He waited, holding the door, then followed her out. They walked toward the lot. The plaid jacket was gone, his shirt collar buttoned. He looked cold.
“I hope you didn’t say anything.” It was overcast now. She wished she had pulled on the rain parka.
“It’s all right,” he said.
“Tell me you didn’t—”
A worker came from the side of the building. He nodded and passed, trailing the smell of solvent or glue.
“I didn’t have to,” Charlie said. “Lester’s no fool, and he didn’t ask. Leave it alone.”
She understood. Thank you. And then, as they walked side by side, the knowledge shocked her. No, she thought. No. Others would see and understand. Even a county sheriff.
They reached the gravel parking lot. The Suburban was parked alongside the Gustofsons’ pickup, and a pontoon boat. The patrol cars were gone.
“Lester got calls from police in Birmingham, and the EMS crew,” Charlie said. “Marion’s in the air. But I guess you know that.” She nodded, walking, waiting for more, sure he and Gertz knew something else. Something that had happened while she was eating. “She was still…you know. Lester said the EMS guys gave her a shot.”
They neared the Suburban. He had more information, but was not telling her. The Ross house was gone and he was not telling her, protecting them both, because Charlie Schmidt knew what it would mean for them. Practical in all things, including her.
“If you back it in over there, the third from your left—”
He pointed to a row of boat trailers at the end of the parking lot, then left her. She watched him. Ask, Brenda thought. Call to him, learn the truth. But she couldn’t. Readying the keys, she stepped to Marion’s Suburban, climbed up and used the key. The engine turned over. She buzzed down the window and looked back to the row of trailers. Charlie had already pulled one out and was wheeling it. A piece of duct tape still clung to his shoulder.
“Come on back—”
Knowing he was cold, she put the truck in gear and twisted around, seeing that the workers had already neatly packed the gear. She sat straight and guided the truck in reverse, using both outside mirrors.
She slowed, foot on the brake. “A little more—” She eased up, the truck creeping. “There!” She stopped and set the hand brake.
The hitch dropped in place with a solid chunk. “Cut the motor.” She did this, then swung down and walked to the back. He was kneeling just as he had to fix the flat tire, using a wrench. He looked up at her. “If you ever have to do this, it’s a little tricky backing down the ramp. I’ll do it this time. After I float the boat, it will help if you pull back up.”
I’ll do it this time.
“You show me, I’ll do it.”
She was sure again that he was protecting her—but also schooling her for life here. Life with boats. He was hopeful, but there was no hope, because Carrie Ross was gone and without her, nothing could be saved or recovered. Not after such darkness.
He refitted the wrench and turned. “I like that about you.”
“What? That I do what I’m told?”
“No. That you like to learn.”
Still working, he was waiting for something from her, something she liked about him, a signal. Again full of fear, Brenda said nothing.
He tightened the hitch bolt with a last turn and leaned down on an elbow. Maybe good news was all it would take.
Carrie alive—maybe that alone would be enough. People made choices in the wildest ways. Who to love, what toothpaste to buy. She remembered the broken, praying figure on the floor of Charlie’s boat.
He got up, knees cracking, and wiped his hands on his pants. “You never saw my house. Maybe in the morning.”
Giving her no chance to answer, he stepped clear of the trailer and started toward the river. She thought to call after, to say no, it’s not possible, not now. Do it, she told herself. Even if Carrie’s alive, you killed someone. Make a clean break.
She couldn’t, watching his back, touched by the sound his knees had made. Because she wanted to think she could face it here next year, and the year after. Wanted to think that was the answer, his house at the other end of the lake, miles from Kettle Falls. A different world, different everything.
“Brenda?”
Janey was crossing from the lodge, marching fast. “It’s the daughter. She wanted her mom, I told her you were here—”
Charlie had heard. He waved to her—go, I can manage.
Carrie Ross was on the phone. Sixteen this past March, and on the phone. Flooded with gratitude, exultant, Brenda watched Charlie move toward the boat slips. He hadn’t known—and all at once it troubled her, her own darkness, the way she had assumed the worst. It was something about her own nature to think that way. Even now, she thought. Because Charlie Schmidt had turned away without waiting for an answer. As though moments ago, with nothing from her, he was giving up, giving her back to those with better claim.
She jogged for the lodge, Janey next to her. “She only had the office number,” Janey said. “She’s in the house next door.”
Next door would be the Heanys.
“I went back to check on your friend. She was tired. I put her in the kids’ room for now.”
“Thank you.”
“Gus says the police are making you stay through to tomorrow. I can get you something if you want, but we’ve got room. The kids like the dorm better anyway. There’s a hideabed in front.”
Deep North (A Brenda Contay Novel Of Suspense Book 2) Page 26
