Eye Contact

by Michael Craft

  Ah, the rigors of astrophysical research.

  Manning and David are running a few minutes late. They had no difficulty finding their way to Baileys Harbor, a little town on the lake side, the quiet east side, of the Door County peninsula, but they took a wrong turn in search of the road that leads them miles beyond town to the secluded resort. They think they’ve got their bearings now, but it’s difficult to be sure—the winding road provides no sense of direction, and there’s nothing in sight but pine trees. “There’s a sign,” says David, leaning forward to peer over the wheel. “We made it.”

  As they turn onto the property, the dashboard clock flashes noon. The long, narrow driveway, deeply shaded by the towering pines, leads at last to a clearing. There are tennis courts to one side, the lodge ahead, water beyond. Everything has a rather dated/modern look—its heyday must have been in the fifties—but the grounds and buildings have been meticulously maintained. And the place seems to draw a well-heeled clientele, judging by the caliber of cars parked here and there. Not among those cars, however, is Carl Creighton’s new roadster, so Roxanne predicted correctly—he’s gone.

  The main lodge is situated on a point of land that juts into the water. Lake Michigan laps against the outer shore, while a smaller inlet, a bay, forms the inner shore. Cabins are tucked among the trees along both shores. At a glance, they appear comfortable, slightly rustic, and totally private.

  While checking in at the main desk in the lodge, Manning asks David, “Should we phone Roxanne here and now, or do you want to get settled first?”

  “Excuse me,” says the clerk, “but Miss Exner isn’t in her cabin at the moment. She asked me to tell you that she’s arranged for lunch. She’ll stop by for you.”

  David shrugs. “That answers that. Let’s check out the cabin and put away our stuff.”

  The clerk points the way—they’ll be on the bay side—and within a few minutes, Manning’s car pulls into a shady clearing just a few feet from the cabin’s door. David bounds from the car, his steps cushioned by a mat of fallen pine needles, and unlocks the door with a key that’s attached to a well-worn plastic hotel fob. There are none of those newfangled magnetic-strip key cards with blinking doorknobs up here. Security just isn’t much of an issue.

  “Hey,” David calls from inside as Manning grabs their duffles and a garment bag from the trunk, “you’ve gotta see this.” David returns to the door and takes the baggage from Manning, who then enters the cabin.

  Stepping into the first bedroom is like stepping into a time warp, replete with knotty-pine paneling, white chenille bedspreads, and woven rag rugs. David has rushed ahead to the living room. “Too cool!”

  Joining him there, Manning silently shares David’s reaction. There’s a stone fireplace in the corner, its grate freshly heaped with logs, kindling, and newspaper, ready for the match. There’s comfortable stuffed furniture, all vaguely “colonial,” and the obligatory television, fly swatter, bar setup, and a clunky beige phone with a domed red light for messages. But the focal point of the room is its oversized picture window, which looks onto the water, only a few yards away. The uninterrupted curve of forest around the bay, the overhead sweep of cloudless sapphire sky, the balsams framing the view just outside the window—it’s almost absurdly cliché and postcard-perfect, but there it is. Right on cue, a family of ducks paddles past. “God,” Manning muses, “now I understand why people are willing to make the drive.”

  David is near the bar, squinting at a framed map of the area. “That water out there—guess what they call it.” He laughs. “Moonlight Bay.”

  Manning turns to him. “Not terribly original.”

  “No,” David agrees, “but very romantic.”

  “So,” says Manning, ignoring David’s comments, “let’s see the rest.”

  There’s another bedroom, identical to the first but on the opposite end of the cabin, which they arbitrarily decide will be David’s. In a center hall there’s a closet and a door that leads to the bathroom, which is bigger and more modern (there’s a whirlpool) than Manning would have expected, surely a recent upgrade intended to lure jaded city folk.

  Someone raps at the screen door. “Hey, guys. Anybody home?”

  “Back here, Roxanne,” Manning calls to her. “Come on in.”

  Roxanne waltzes into the cabin, meeting Manning and David in the living room. “Welcome to Wisconsin,” she singsongs, kissing Manning’s cheek. She turns to David. “David Bosch, correct?” He looks surprised. She explains, “I remember you from the party Saturday.”

  Chagrined, David tells her, “I’m afraid I don’t remember much of that party, but I hear it was a blast.” He shakes her hand. “Miss Exner, I presume?”

  “Roxanne,” she insists. Her demure tone, Manning notes with wry amusement, reveals that her thoughts of the young reporter have already turned torrid.

  “You’re certainly in a chipper mood,” Manning tells her. “After that message you left, I was braced for the worst.”

  “I apologize for all the theatrics, but I do have some serious concerns. I’m anxious to share them—you’ll understand why I was so rattled.”

  “But you said you were afraid.”

  “Oh, that.” She tosses her hands in the air, dismissing some imagined bugaboo. “I had a rather sudden, severe reaction to all the pollen or sap or whatever up here. Luckily, I brought my antihistamines, and they’ve got me back in shape, but I guess I overdid it. They can really wack you out—I got paranoid.”

  “Then you’re not in danger?” David asks.

  “No.” She pauses in thought. “I don’t think so. Certainly not at the moment.”

  “I’m relieved to hear that,” Manning tells her, “but we’ve traveled a long way. So: What’s the story? And it better be juicy.”

  “I can’t tell you here,” she says, as if he should know better.

  “We’ve already driven two hundred miles.” He sounds testy. “Where, then?”

  She jerks her head toward the window. “Out there.”

  In unison, the guys turn their heads, looking out over the bay. They exchange a quizzical glance.

  “On the water,” she amplifies. “I’ve arranged for a charming little lunch on this adorable little boat—I think it’s a punt or something. It’ll be totally private, and we can talk dirt in detail.”

  David breaks into a broad smile and wraps an arm around her shoulder. He tells Manning, “Story or no story, I like the way this woman thinks.”

  Manning allows a smile as well. It’s been a long morning, and he’s hungry. “Were you able to arrange for a decent bottle of wine?” he asks her.

  “Of course,” she snorts, nettled that he would even ask. “I’ll stick to iced tea, but you boys can lap it up.”

  Manning tells David, “Hope you brought your sea legs, matey.” And the three head out the door, not bothering to lock up. As they walk past the car, Manning remembers, “Dessert.” He opens the back door and retrieves the fudge and cherries.

  The resort dock isn’t far. Strolling toward the main lodge, they pass the dining building. Across from it, on the upper floor of a boathouse, there’s a cocktail lounge called the Top Deck. “It draws a pretty old crowd,” laments Roxanne, “more like the Poop Deck.” They walk past a swimming pool and a shuffleboard area, toward the water. Even though it’s the height of vacation season, there aren’t many people around—during the day, guests of the lodge usually drive over to the more active villages on the Green Bay side of the peninsula or perhaps drive up to the tip and ferry out to Washington Island.

  Ahead, moored along a cement pier, the rented boat bobs on the placid surface of Moonlight Bay. It’s not a punt, but a lavishly appointed pontoon boat, sporting a circus-striped canopy. Roxanne’s arrangements have been carried out to the letter, and an attendant fusses with something on board. “Ahoy!” she calls to him.

  “All set, Miss Exner,” he tells her as the threesome steps aboard. “Who wants to play captain?”

/>   David readily volunteers, ever-eager to drive—and in fact, the controls resemble those of a car. The boatman explains their operation, which seems simple enough, and cautions them to stay inside the bay, avoiding the choppier waters of Lake Michigan itself. He reviews with Roxanne details of their catered lunch, which is stored in several Styrofoam chests. “Have fun,” he tells them. “Stay out as long as you like. I’ll be back to help you dock when I see you heading in.” And he saunters off down the pier toward the lodge.

  Donning a pair of big white-framed sunglasses, Roxanne asks the guys, “Am I good, or what?”

  “Damn,” Manning concedes, “you are good.”

  As Roxanne strikes a self-satisfied pose, reclining on a canvas-upholstered chaise longue, David gets the feel of the controls, and they shove off, headed straight for the center of the bay.

  It’s a perfect summer day with a brilliant noontide sun. Deep waters surrounding the peninsula cool the breeze that waggles the fringe of the boat’s canopy. The drone of the engine seems restful and comforting, adding to the scene’s pervasive, almost palpable serenity—a stunning contrast to the heat, grime, and tensions of the city they have left behind. Manning wishes that Neil could have made the trip with him, that they could share this sublime experience. For the moment, Manning couldn’t care less about Nolan’s murder, Zarnik’s ruse, or Roxanne’s mysterious discovery.

  As the boat reaches the middle of the bay, David cuts the engine, and they begin drifting in a silence broken only by the distant call of a loon. Water plays beneath the two long, sausage-shaped pontoons—the boat lifts and falls, lifts and falls, rocked like a cradle at sea. They are perhaps a half mile from land, with the mouth of the bay and the grounds of the lodge behind them. The shore is otherwise undeveloped. Nothing stirs in the woods that surround them. The sweep of trees is interrupted only by the occasional protrusion of rickety fishing piers, probably abandoned.

  Manning tells Roxanne, “If your idea was to provide absolute seclusion for the telling of your tale, you’ve succeeded. No ‘ears to the keyhole’ out here.”

  She feigns a serious tone. “One can’t be too cautious.” Then she laughs. “I just thought this would be … nice.”

  “That it is,” David assures her, moving from the captain’s chair and sitting next to Manning at a low table across from Roxanne’s chaise. He’s within reach of one of the coolers, so he asks, “Shall I serve?”

  Roxanne suggests, “Let’s just relax over a drink first, and I’ll tell you why I dragged you up here.” She turns to Manning. “It’s all rather troubling. I hate to spoil such a pleasant afternoon, but you do need to know about this.”

  “That’s what we’re here for,” Manning tells her. David sets glasses on the table, pours iced tea for Roxanne, and hands Manning the bottle of wine—Far Niente, a first-rate chardonnay. Manning is impressed. He sets to work with the corkscrew, saying to Roxanne, “Let’s hear your story.”

  She sits up on the chaise and leans toward them, as if to tighten their circle of conversation. She tastes the tea, swallows, pauses. Then she begins: “Carl Creighton and I have know each other for five or six years, since I entered the law firm. He had some say in hiring me, and it was on the basis of his recommendation three years ago that I got an early promotion to partner—the first woman to hold that rank in an esteemed (and I daresay crusty) old firm. I’ve always had profound respect for his skills and intelligence, his ethics and good nature. It’s safe to say that the admiration was mutual.”

  She pauses. Manning has the wine open, and he pours a glass for David and himself. The three exchange a silent toast.

  Roxanne continues, “From the start, then, our relationship had always been friendly, but it was strictly professional—till last year, when his marriage broke up. Shortly after the divorce, he asked me to dinner one night. His manner was bashful and self-conscious that evening, which is totally out of character for him, so I knew something was up, something personal. And it was. He asked if we might begin to ‘see each other socially.’ If that worked out, we might ‘move on to the next phase.’

  “I was floored. Carl had been something of a father figure to me. The notion of ‘dating Dad’ had never crossed my mind, but it had a certain appeal. After all, we already liked each other, and we had everything in common professionally. We were—what?—simpatico. And if I had any reservations about his being twelve years older, that was more than compensated for by his middle-age charm, his good looks, and—I confess it—his wealth.”

  Manning sips his wine, saying, “Calculating broad.” He smiles.

  She throws a napkin at him. “And it did work out. We’re great together. The office doesn’t seem to mind; neither do the clients. We’re practically living together now, which brings us to the next phase. …”

  “The m-word,” Manning volunteers.

  “We’re openly discussing it, yes. Carl’s ready. I need some time to get more comfortable with the idea, but it’s clear enough where we’re headed—unless, of course, something throws a wrench in the works.”

  Manning sets down his glass, leaning forward. “Your phone message sounded as though you may have found that wrench.”

  David also leans forward, closing their circle. “How does this relate to Zarnik?”

  She tells him, “Patience, my young friend. We’re getting there. The point, so far, is that I have come to know this man intimately, not only in the carnal sense, but in every facet of his life—his work, his past, his views, his politics, you name it. I know Carl Creighton inside out. Or at least I thought I did, till yesterday.”

  “After breakfast,” recalls Manning, “when he got that phone message.”

  “Right. That, I’m afraid, was the turning point. Whoever it was, Carl returned the call from the car so I wouldn’t hear it, then at lunch, he announced that he had to run back to the city today—with overblown apologies, but without a word of explanation.”

  Manning absentmindedly rubs the tip of his middle finger around the rim of his wineglass. “That’s when I would have asked what was going on.”

  “Well, I didn’t. Naturally, I expected him to offer some sort of reason, however lame, but his manner was so baldly evasive, it was clear that I was supposed to play along and not ask questions. As it turns out, I didn’t need to. Soon enough, I made a startling discovery.”

  “What?” asks David. He, too, rubs the rim of his glass, more earnestly than Manning, and manages to make it chime—an eerie sound that rings out over the hushed bay. Manning gives him a look that tells him to stop horsing around.

  Roxanne continues her story: “After lunch, we spent some quiet time in the cabin. I lay down, resting, though of course my brain was in a spin, wondering what the hell was happening. Carl unpacked his laptop and booted it up on a desk there in the bedroom. It was only a few feet from the bed, but he was sitting at an angle that made it impossible for me to see the computer screen.

  “He seemed engrossed in what he was doing and worked at it for nearly an hour, typing away at the keyboard. I was lying still, and he may have thought I was asleep. Eventually, he got up and went to the bathroom. There’s a turn in the hall, and you can’t see the bedroom from there.”

  Manning grins. “Your big break.”

  “Yup. I tiptoed over to the desk to get a look at his screen, and guess what I found.” She pauses for effect. “Solitaire.”

  “Huh?” David flops back in his seat.

  “There was a card game on the screen. That struck me as fishy—he’d been typing too much. So I moused up to the button that minimizes the solitaire program, wondering if something else was open in the window underneath. And sure enough, there was a page of a document in WordPerfect.”

  “Aha!” David leans forward again.

  “But it was just a memo updating a personnel issue at the office—a tedious matter, but by no means clandestine, involving nothing that Carl would bother to conceal from me. I heard the toilet flush, and assuming I’d str
uck out, was about to call up the solitaire window. But I knew I had a few more seconds—Carl always washes his hands—so I decided to check beneath the WordPerfect window to see if anything else was open. And there it was, his day planner: Tuesday, June twenty-ninth.”

  She sits back, looks at her watch, then asks, “Do you know where Carl will be this afternoon at three o’clock?”

  “Where?” the guys ask together.

  “To quote Carl’s own notation: ‘Gethsemane—CFC Board—Zarnik.’”

  “What?” Manning’s mouth gapes.

  “You heard it.” Roxanne crosses her arms.

  “Sorry,” says David, “I don’t understand.”

  Manning tells him, “The Gethsemane Arms is that new hotel built to profit the work of the Christian Family Crusade. It’s their temporary headquarters while they try to save Chicago—and the nation—from the forces of perversion.”

  Roxanne adds, “Carl Creighton, the man whom I’ve recently decided I love, is obviously a legal advisor to their board, or maybe he’s even on their board. And the whole movement is somehow tied to Zarnik, whom you’ve determined to be a fraud.”

  Manning sounds a cautionary note. “There are a couple of leaps in your logic, Roxanne, but I admit that you’ve drawn some compelling assumptions.”

  “It’s the best theory we’ve heard yet,” David says. “In fact, it’s the only theory.”

  David has a point, Manning knows. So far, his investigation of Zarnik has only raised questions. Roxanne has at least pieced together the beginnings of a plausible answer. “Has Carl ever mentioned contacts within the CFC?”

  “Never,” Roxanne answers.

  Their discussion of the CFC reminds Manning of Cliff Nolan’s neighbor, Dora Lee Fields, who watches the Christian Family Network day and night. Manning asks Roxanne, “Can you recall if Carl has ever spoken of the CFC, even in passing?”

  “No, I can’t recall. I’d surely remember if he ever indicated that he was a sympathizer. I mean, he’s a conservative guy fiscally, but I’ve always found him surprisingly open-minded on social issues—he readily accepted you and Neil as friends, for instance. Or so I presumed.”