“Maybe that’s our answer,” said Stephen.
“Maybe so,” said Joe.
Elizabet and Mary exchanged glances.
“Dad told me last night that he caught a glimpse of something out there near Greg’s kayak. Something that looked gray and dead and had wrapped around the front of the kayak. I can understand it…how that would freak a boy out.”
Joe nodded once. “Might’ve sunk as I approached in the Alumacraft. It was rough out there, whitecaps, the lot. Maybe she sank again and resurfaced later after the storm.”
Mary glanced out the large bay window at the lake, and at her son who lay in the hammock reading a book. “My poor baby,” she whispered.
Elizabet patted her arm. “Children are much more resilient than we give them credit for.”
“That’s true, honey,” said Stephen. “You watch. He’ll bounce back from this before the week’s out.”
Mary said nothing, only nodded in an absent way.
John motioned toward the kitchen with his head, and Stephen followed him. When they got there, Stephen turned, and Joe glanced over his shoulder. “I’m going to go into town and try to talk to Tom Walton. You should stay here.”
“Think there might be trouble?”
Joe’s eyes slipped to the bay window and his grandson beyond. “Nah. But still…the body of a young kid like that.” He met his son's gaze and shrugged. “Why take chances?”
Stephen nodded, his eyes never leaving his father’s. “Rifle still in the same place?”
“Ammunition, too. Do you remember the code? Not that I expect you’ll need it.”
“Yes, I’ve got it. You go talk to Tom; I’ll hold down the fort.”
“Good boy. Make sure somebody keeps an eye on Greg. At least until I’ve spoken with Tom.”
Joe turned to go, but Stephen’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. “Ask Tom what measures we need to take.”
“Absolutely. Tom’s a good man, and he’ll tell me the right of it.”
“Make sure he knows we have a boy about the same age here right now.”
“First thing on my list.”
Together, father and son nodded. Joe turned and strode out to the freestanding garage that stood behind the lake house. Inside he kept a cherry-red 1965 Pontiac GTO. He’d bought it brand new and had maintained it himself.
The car fired up with a roar, and he pulled away, big tires crunching over the gravel road. As he hit the highway, he fed it the gas, enjoying the brisk wind caused by his passage. For a twenty-one-year-old car, it was still a screaming demon.
He hit the Genosgwa town limits a short time later. The lake house was the perfect distance away from town—far enough he didn’t want to go for every little thing, but close enough he could get there in a hurry when he wanted to. Especially as the owner of a 1965 Goat.
Joe wheeled into the parking lot of the Genosgwa Police Department and raised his eyebrows at the Cottonwood Vale police car parked up front. Joe took a spot far from the door, angling the car so no one parked next to him. He left the windows down—Genosgwa was that sort of a town.
They knew him there, and they greeted him with smiles and waves as he walked through the Police Department’s front doors. It was just past twelve forty-five, but he didn’t believe Tom would be at lunch—not with a new body sitting in his morgue.
“Ho, there, Joe.”
Joe turned to find Gary Dennis striding toward him, hand already out. Gary was one of the senior police officers with the Genosgwa Police Department, and a friendly sort—especially in the Legion Hall’s bar. “Hello there, Gary. You mean to tell me they haven’t found you out yet?”
Gary made a show of shushing Joe, wrapping a conspiratorial arm around his shoulders. “Now, now, Joe. We promised to keep all that to ourselves.”
Joe smiled, but it didn’t last for long.
Gary sobered and nodded. “I know why you’re here. Tom’s in with John Morton from Cottonwood Vale, but I’ll stick my head in and find out how long he’ll be.”
“I don’t want to be a bother, but…” Joe sighed scratched his head. “My grandson and I may have seen this body the other day—right as that storm rolled in.”
Gary looked at him somberly. “Might have?”
Joe looked him right in the eye. “Might have. I’m an old man, and my grandson is a young one. Between his fright and my eyesight, I can’t do better than ‘might have.’”
Gary nodded. “Hold here a minute, Joe. I’m sure Tom will want to talk to you.” Gary turned on his heel and walked toward the chief’s office.
A few minutes later, Gary was back with Tom in tow. “Through here, Joe,” said Tom.
“Chief,” Joe said with a nod.
“I’ve got John Morton in my office, and we’d both appreciate hearing what you and your grandson saw—er, might have seen.”
Joe nodded once and followed the chief down the hall and into his office. John Morton lounged in the other chair but got to his feet as Joe came in. He held out his hand. “John Morton,” he said.
“Joe Canton.” He shook the big man’s hand, and everyone sat down.
“John’s the chief of the Cottonwood Vale Police Department,” said Tom. “The body we found might belong to Cottonwood Vale.”
John sighed and nodded. “Not that that information will do anybody any good.”
Joe looked back and forth between the two police chiefs. “Tom, I…” Joe pursed his lips and looked Tom in the eye.
“It’s okay, John’s good people.”
“I don’t doubt it. It’s only that I…” Joe let the words trail off, embarrassed.
“I can step out,” said John, though he didn’t stand.
“No, no. I’ve got something a little embarrassing to tell, and I need to ask Tom something. And, Tom, I will need a straight answer.”
Tom nodded. “No worry about that, Joe. Anything you can tell me, you can tell John with absolute confidence.”
Joe nodded once, as was his way. “I slid my grandson a five-dollar bill a few days ago. Told him he could row across the lake in his kayak and buy as much candy as he could get with a Franklin.”
Tom nodded and twirled his fingers for Joe to go on.
“You remember the storm the other day? The one that rolled in so quick? Well, that was the day, and Greg—my grandson—set out ten minutes before that storm hit. He was right out in the middle of the lake when it got rough and—”
“Lake Genosgwa?” asked Chief Morton.
“Ayup. We got a lake house there.”
Morton nodded and repeated Tom’s finger twirling motion.
“Well, Elizabet let me know that I should go out and check on the boy in the fishing boat. I don’t mind telling you, she was right. But by the time I got out on the water, the storm was coming in with a bit of fury.” Joe held up a hand palm out. “Now, it was choppy, and there were whitecaps everywhere, but given what you folks found this morning, certain things about what happened next make more sense.”
Tom’s gaze zipped toward Chief Morton but came right back. “Joe, if you’re about to tell us what I expect you are about to…”
“I already told Gary—I don’t know anything for sure.”
Tom nodded. “Go on, then.”
“By the time I got close enough to see anything, little Greg was in a state. There was something across the front of the kayak. From where I sat, it could’ve been an innertube from a bicycle or anything like it. It was gray, and it stretched from one side to the other. But the kayak was jigging back and forth in the water and teetering up and down as if someone wanted to capsize it. Greg was hitting at the thing draped over the front with his paddle—and I mean swinging to beat all. After that, he laid into the water with the same paddle, and everything stopped for a while. As I got closer, Greg was staring into the water off to the right, but there was…” Joe closed his mouth, feeling his cheeks heat up.
“Nobody here but us men,” said John Morton.
Joe
nodded once and cleared his throat. “I thought I saw an arm sticking straight up out of the water, the same color gray as whatever was on the front of the kayak. It looked as if it were…reaching…for Greg. I hollered, but it was the wind and the storm and my Mercury that Greggy heard.”
“Sticking straight up, you say?” asked Tom.
“Ayup. Straight up. Elbow locked, as you would if you were reaching to pull something over.”
Tom nodded and twirled his fingers.
“Greg started to…slide backward as though he were going into the water. I don’t… I didn’t know what else to do, so I kept that old Mercury pinned and I cut a tight circle with my Alumacraft. You know how you would do to drive something off.”
“Sure.”
“Well, Greg was really shaken up—still is, truth to tell. His mother worries he might have suffered a breakdown, but I…”
“But you saw it, too.”
“Perhaps I did. I wasn’t sure, and I doubted myself until I watched the Sheriff’s boat dragging the lake this morning.” He cocked his eyebrow at Tom. “As deep as that lake is, I wouldn’t think dragging would be productive. Must be a ton of junk down there, to boot.”
Tom and John exchanged a quick glance, and both men smiled. “The new sheriff is from down south. He thinks ten feet is a deep lake.”
John Morton cleared his throat and leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. “You believe you and your grandson saw the body?”
“Maybe, though Greg swears the thing attacked him, and I thought I saw its arm sticking straight up out of the water, as I said. Could’ve been an old branch or something such as that…”
“But an old branch wouldn’t have scared your grandson—not after it was all over, right?” asked Tom.
“I guess that’s right.”
“And you, Joe?” asked Morton.
Joe turned sideways in his chair to look at the man face-to-face. “And me what?”
“After it was all over, after everything had calmed down… Did you revisit the idea that an arm reached out of the water and tried to grab your grandson?”
“Well, that’s the embarrassing part, ain’t it?”
Morton chuckled. “I guess so.”
Joe gave his slow, single nod yet again. “I tracked back and forth on it, to tell the truth. It might’ve been a branch, but…Greg…he was going over backward into the water, and I’ve never seen a branch get scared off by a fishing boat.”
Tom’s office rang with silence after that. The clock that adorned the credenza behind the desk spoke to all three of the men in the room, but that was it. Joe shifted his gaze between the two police chiefs, who stared at one another. After a few moments, Morton nodded, and Tom turned to Joe.
“The body we found…we think it’s a girl who disappeared in Cottonwood Vale in 1979.”
Joe let his eyes slide shut. “When all those kids disappeared over to Oneka Falls? With that crazy Marine sniper?”
“Around that time, yeah.”
“And didn’t we lose a couple?”
Tom sighed. “Yes.”
“Never found them?” asked Joe.
“Not even a clue. It was the same with all of them, even after old Reg Thorndike hiked into Thousand Acre Wood and brought that little boy and girl out. Besides the first boy who somehow escaped on his own, that little boy and girl were the only ones ever found.”
John leaned forward. “And if the body in the morgue is the little girl from my town, this will be the first body, the first anything, that we’ve found.”
Joe shook his head. “Sad.”
“It is that,” said John.
“If I understand what you’re telling us, Joe, you think it’s possible that your grandson panicked when he saw this body surface on the lake. And that—”
“Could’ve gotten the little girl’s arm hooked over the kayak.”
“It’s possible. And you think the arm you saw was in rigor?”
Joe shrugged. “I turned wrenches and sold gas, Tom. What do I know about forensics?”
Tom nodded, looking weary and nearly worn through. “Appreciate you coming in to tell us, but she couldn’t have been in rigor. Not if she is the girl who disappeared in 1979.”
“No, I don’t imagine she would be.”
“But it’s still possible you and your grandson both mistook our body for something…alive. It was a hectic situation—the storm, your grandson—and sometimes, the eye can play tricks on a man.”
“Ayup. I considered that.”
Tom’s old wooden office chair creaked as he leaned back in it.” You said you had something to ask me?”
“I did. And I guess I still will on the off chance that this little girl isn’t the one from Cottonwood Vale. My grandson’s up to my lake house, along with Elizabet and my daughter-in-law.”
“And you want to know if it’s safe?”
“Ayup.”
Tom leaned forward to put his arms on the desk. “You’re a straight shooter, Joe, so I’ll give it to you straight. We don’t know for a fact that that little girl is who we think she is. If she is, she’s remarkably preserved. It could be, however, that her…mishap occurred more recently. If it were my grandson up there on the lake, I’d think to myself that it couldn’t hurt to keep an extra sharp eye on the goings-on around the house.”
“My thoughts, exactly.”
“You know you can always call us, and we will get a car cranking out to you. But that may take ten minutes, plus or minus a few, given how far out you are. It wouldn’t hurt to prepare yourself.”
Joe nodded once. “I thank you for your directness, Tom.” He turned to John Morton. “Nice to meet you, Chief Morton. I don’t know if my story is any help or not, but if I can help, Tom, here, has my phone number and address.”
John stood, towering over Joe. He held out a meaty hand. “As Tom said, we appreciate you coming in.”
8
Greg lay in the hammock, listening to the soft, soothing sounds of the lake caressing the shore. He pretended to read, but really, his mind worked on the problem of the Lady in the Lake. He heard his grandfather’s old muscle car roar to life and pull away from the lake house, its tires crunching the gravel in that way that Greg liked.
His parents and grandparents were worried about him, and in truth, he was a little concerned himself. It made little sense to him. “Zombies and junk like that aren’t real,” he murmured.
Oh no? Then what happened the other day?
Greg sighed and shook his head. “I just want to think.”
So why are you talking?
He looked out at the lake, making sure to avoid looking toward the Harper’s cottage. His gaze followed the Sheriff’s skiff as it pursued its pattern back and forth across the deep water. Maybe…maybe she will come to them.
I doubt it, boyo. She seemed to run away when your gramps showed up. I’ll bet she does that when any adult comes around.
But why? Greg thought. Why only come after kids?
How would I know, sport? I’m only a voice in your head, remember? A what-did-you-call-me…an imaginary friend.
Greg shook his head and blew out a breath. Possibly, he was misremembering, but it seemed as though his invisible friend was much friendlier back in Florida. Why are you so mad at me all the time?
Mad at you? Who said I’m mad at you?
You’re so…so angry sounding, so bitter. My mom would say “snappish” and ground you if you talked to her as you’ve been talking to me.
Well, it’s a good thing she can’t hear me, isn’t it? But all this…none of it matters, champ.
To Greg’s mind, his invisible friend sounded amused at the idea of being scolded. What is it that matters?
Here are two questions for you to consider, boyo. What did you really see? And if you saw what you think you did; how can you be safe lying in that hammock?
Greg’s gaze left the boat zigzagging across the lake and rapidly scanned across the shoreline. From there, hi
s gaze tracked down the cove to where a patch of flowering rush grew off the point. Safe?
Sure, sport. If what you saw was real, what’s stopping it from coming after you?
Her, not it. Greg shivered at the thought of that arm coming up out of the water and grabbing him by the shoulder. Where her fingers had touched his skin, he was still numb, and the skin felt odd.
Are you now an expert on things that live beneath the waves?
What? What are you talking about?
I said “it,” you said “her, not it,” so what makes you such an expert?
Greg scoffed. I guess the same thing that makes you such an expert.
A harsh cackle rang inside his mind. You are funny, boyo. I wish we could play together in the woods, but I bet your friend in the lake might object.
Greg shook his head, bewildered. What are you talking about?
Oh, nothing. Just thinking aloud.
Uh, you’re not doing anything out loud. Imaginary friend, remember?
For a moment, the voice in his head didn’t reply, but when it did, Greg had the sense of a bitter anger, barely contained behind the words. Back to that, sport? Didn’t we discuss the fact that I am not imaginary? If you could only come to play with me in the woods, I could prove it to you in ways you would never forget. Never.
Yeah, sorry. The phrase all the adults use when they talk about you is “imaginary” friend. It kind of sticks in my brain.
Well, UNSTICK it!
Greg recoiled at the volume of the mental voice, setting the hammock swinging. I said I was sorry. You don’t have to yell.
Greg’s gaze continued to traverse a pattern between the shore in front of him, to the strand of rush, to the rocks on the opposite point of the cove. His stomach felt strange, almost the way he felt when he did something bad. He felt…sneaky.
The sheriff’s boat throttled up, and Greg watched it race longways up the finger-shaped lake. The wake behind the boat made waves slapping against the shore with noisy violence. It almost sounded as though someone was coming up out of the water.
He snapped up in the hammock, swinging his bare feet into the rich black earth beneath it. His heart hammered in his chest, but there was nothing on the shore, nothing standing in the plants at one end of the cove, nothing crouching on the rocks at the other. Greg heaved a sigh of relief and settled back into the hammock, sitting in it as he would a swing, rocking himself with one foot in the black earth.
The Hag Page 9
