But Parks had already turned, pushing open the glass
door, and gone out to a big black car parked in front.
And suddenly Feely wasn’t all that sleepy. No, all he
wanted was another beer, maybe a quick check to see if The
Honeymooners was on. Watch Ralphie boy for a while.
He picked up the registration card.
Martin Parks was all it said.
“Damn peculiar,” Feely said. “Damn peculiar.” And he
flipped the card into his desk and padded back to the re-
frigerator and TV.
The house couldn’t have been more unapproachable.
Sure, there was a road of sorts leading up to it, but a
normal car would probably break an axle on the holes and
rubble.
Even Dan’s Land Rover would have a tough climb.
He shifted into first gear, alternating between front and
rear traction, gently climbing the steep, curving path lead-
ing to what the local gas jockey had told him was Billy
Leeper’s house.
What a bitch, he thought. Most of Montauk was flat—
another part of the terminal moraine called Long Island,
which had been formed by one hell of a bulldozer glacier a
hundred thousand years or so ago. Except somehow this one
spot was built up to a pointy, almost jagged hill.
As the Land Rover climbed, more and more of the
Montauk beach below came into view—too early to play
b e n e a t h s t i l l w a t e r s
129
host to the swimming crowd but dotted with surf casters
trolling the waters for striped bass and blues.
The house had to have been a real monster to build.
Half of it was on stilts, thick chunks of telephone poles that
held it level. The front half was surrounded by chunks of
grayish rock, seemingly tumbled around at random.
No one would try to build a house here . . . not nor-
mally. Not unless they were looking for something really
difficult to get to—with a good view all around.
The Rover lurched forward, then slipped back, digging
into a massive hole. The rear wheels whined, spraying sand
and chunks of rock into the air.
“C’mon, get moving,” he said, quickly shifting traction
to the front wheels, and the Rover pulled forward again.
As he got closer, Dan could see the house more clearly.
Small, a dark little house with a black tile roof, painted a
deep brown. The curtains were shut, and a small battered
jeep—army-surplus, maybe—was parked to the side.
If cheery Captain Ahab had a summer cottage, this
might have been it.
He stopped the Rover.
No sign of anyone stirring inside.
Well, Billy Leeper, if you’re dead, this is where we find
out.
He made sure that his Rover was in gear, and the park-
ing brake as tight as possible. Then he opened the door and
strolled, almost casually, up to Leeper’s house.
Nine a.m. A respectable time for a surprise visit.
Sort of. There was no bell—nor any electricity, from the
looks of things. He knocked again. Then again.
“Mr. Leeper!” he called. He strained, trying to hear if
anyone was coming to the door.
“Mr. Leeper. Mr—”
The door opened. It was dark inside, gloomy, and then
there was someone there, halfway between the shadowy in-
terior and the early-morning sunlight.
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m a t t h e w j . c o s t e l l o
“Mr. Leeper, my name is—”
“Just go away, son. I’m still asleep. I haven’t been . . .
well lately.”
He started to shut the door.
“I’ve come about the town, Mr. Leeper. About Gouldens
Falls . . . about the dam.”
The door stopped.
A reprieve, Dan thought. For a moment, at least.
“What about the town?”
It was a harsh voice, filled with the scratchy, rumbling
sound caused by age and work.
Dan didn’t know what to say. Tell him he’s a writer, or
maybe talk about the celebration, or . . . or . . .
(I’m a gambler, he thought. A fuckin’ risk taker. So gamble—)
“A boy has died in the reservoir, Billy . . . drowned. They
can’t find the body. And someone else, the engineer . . .”
The door opened a crack more.
Dan felt the man scrutinize him, checking him carefully.
“You can come in . . . but only for a few minutes.”
Then Leeper opened the door and let Dan enter.
They sat at a small wooden table filled with the countless
crisscrossing marks of countless meals. Leeper had pushed
away an assortment of dirty plates and glasses to make
room for a pair of just rinsed cups.
“The tea water will be ready in a minute.”
Dan had quickly told him about his article as Leeper
had pushed away the curtain covering the small kitchen
window, letting some light into the room. Dan could see
him clearly now. His face was rough, weather-beaten, and
he had big, gnarled hands. They were strong hands. Power-
ful. Leeper grabbed the edge of the sink.
“What’s really on your mind, Mr. Elliot? Why’d you
drive all the way out here to see me?”
b e n e a t h s t i l l w a t e r s
131
He looked at Leeper, trying to decide how best to win
his confidence. If Leeper had secrets—and there was no
way to tell if he did or not—how could he get at them?
When in doubt, he finally decided, jump in feetfirst.
“I’d like to know about that day, the last day, before the
town disappeared. About you . . . and Jackie Weeks.”
Billy Leeper turned toward the teakettle and moved it,
as if trying to hurry it along. And Dan tried to see the
young boy, from fifty years ago, hidden now in this old
man.
“You know, Mr. Elliot, I’ve got a pile of letters over
there . . . some of them inviting me to the celebration. Af-
ter a while I didn’t even open them. You see,” he said, turn-
ing back to Dan, “I’ve no intention of going to that town, or
seeing that reservoir, or getting anywhere near that
damned—”
His voice rose with each word, his eyes gleaming even
in the shadows, spittle spraying from his mouth, landing
on the table, hitting Dan.
“—town!” he yelled. “I came here . . . to this rock . . . to
get away.”
The kettle started whistling, faint, tentative, then insis-
tent, high-pitched.
Leeper let it shriek. “So you see . . . I’m not the person
you want to talk to. Not at all.”
He turned away slowly, took the kettle off.
“Still want your tea?”
“Sure do. It’s been a long time since breakfast for me.”
Leeper grinned and poured. “Sorry for the noise level,
Dan, but . . .”
He looked up at him. “I think I understand. My parents
came from that town . . . they were just kids, too, a bit
younger than you.”
Leeper paused. “Elliot? Elliot . . . from Gouldens Falls?
Oh, wait a minute. There was an Elliot fami
ly that lived on
Lakeview Drive.”
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m a t t h e w j . c o s t e l l o
“That’s them.”
Leeper seemed to study Dan for a moment, then sat
down. “So you want to know about that last day . . . what I
remember of it, anyway?”
“I think I need to know about it. There’s just too much
I don’t understand.”
Leeper laughed, a loud, almost manic sound, and it star-
tled Dan. It was the kind of laugh you’d make looking at a
fool, an idiot.
“Some things you don’t understand, huh? That, my
friend, is putting it mildly.”
Leeper took a sip of his tea. “Well, then, I’ll start at the
beginning, Dan Elliot, the beginning. Which should have
been the end. Yes. But it wasn’t.”
Dan gingerly took a sip of his scalding tea. It burned
his tongue. And he listened.
Leeper laughed. “Not by a long shot.”
E L E V E N
“Joshua, Joshua!” Claire barked, trying to copy the not to be
denied sound of an adult order. “Come away from there!”
Joshua, though, was five years old and took a gleeful joy
in doing just the opposite of what he was asked. He kept
walking into the woods, his small sneakers padding off the
closely cropped grass onto the thick underbrush.
“Oh, brother.” Claire moaned to herself. Not five min-
utes in charge and already she was totally losing control of
the situation. The girl, Samantha, was peacefully playing
on the Benny family’s massive swing set, waiting for the
promised time when just she and Claire could play Barbie.
Except that now Joshua—horrible creature—was already
making this baby-sitting job an even bigger headache than
camp.
And if there was one thing Mrs. Benny had said—at
least a half dozen times—it was to keep the kids out of the
woods. No matter what.
Because the woods led to the fence. And on the other
side of the fence was a reservoir.
And she’s so worried about the children.
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m a t t h e w j . c o s t e l l o
(“Especially little Joshua,” Claire could mimic. “Little
Joshua, the monster.”)
Though, come to think of it, drowning would suit the lit-
tle beast perfectly.
“Joshua, you stop right now, you hear me?”
“He won’t stop,” Samantha said, and Claire turned to
look at her. She didn’t seem to care what happened to her
brother. “He does what he wants to do. Even Daddy—”
But Claire darted off, giving up on orders and ready to
rely on her two hands.
It took her only a few seconds to catch up with him and
grab his shoulders. (Not too tightly, she knew. Couldn’t
have him moaning and groaning to his mom about the
“mean baby-sitter.”)
“Hold it right there, Josh.”
“Leggo,” he said, pulling ahead like some goofy puppy
on a leash. “I want to see the water. There was a boat—”
“And you can see it just fine from your living room. You
get a real nice view.”
“But I want to be close to the boat. C’mon, Claire,” he
said, turning to her, beginning to plead. “Just a look, okay?”
“No way, Jay. Your mom said you stay on your property,
and that’s what you’re going to do.” She was trying to
make her voice sound like that crazy lady on Mr. Rogers’
Neighborhood, the young woman always talking so nice
and understanding to all the dumb puppets.
And to believe she actually thought she’d get some read-
ing done today. “So back we go, it’s almost lunchtime.”
Lunch would give her a break. The two kids would be
inside, and Mrs. Benny told her that they could watch some
TV after lunch. Which meant they could watch as much as
they wanted, until twenty minutes before old Mom was due
back.
After preparing them some quickly made peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches (during which Samantha told her that
b e n e a t h s t i l l w a t e r s
135
she’s seven, and she doesn’t like the crust cut off anymore), Claire guided them down to the family room and turned on
the tube.
There, she thought. Finally she could curl up some-
where and read.
At first she plopped on the ratty downstairs sofa. But the
crazy sounds of screeching feet putting on their cartoon
brakes, and heads vibrating like bells after being bonked
by enormous mallets, made it impossible to concentrate.
So she left them to Tom and Jerry, and crept away up-
stairs to the modern living room, where an enormous over-
stuffed couch awaited her.
Besides, she thought, I can hear them downstairs. And she started reading.
Max Wiley reluctantly had taken the morning off to make
one of his infrequent visits to the mayor’s office, a tiny,
depressing cubicle in Town Hall.
If he spent more than fifteen minutes a week there, it
bugged him. But that morning he was going to be a busy
little public official, with three people already booked to
meet him.
Damn, this wasn’t what he’d bargained for. The job was
supposed to be no real headache—that’s how Tom Farrell,
his predecessor, had described it to him. “No real headache,
Max. And it can be a nice little stepping-stone.”
Except this week he seemed to have stepped onto some-
thing other than a stone. Paddy Rogers had popped in to
give him the bad news bright and early.
“Best to think about canceling the celebration, Max,”
the old fart had said.
Max stood up, the two of them already making the
small office seemed cramped.
“What the hell for?” he asked.
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m a t t h e w j . c o s t e l l o
And Rogers told him. “You’ve got a missing body . . .
and a possible—make that a likely—homicide. One that
we know of, at least. And to top it off, the dam itself is
damaged. Structurally it’s—”
“Bullshit. Structurally that thing will be standing here
long after half the houses in this town have been torn down.”
Rogers stepped closer, pressing Max (who was, dammit,
a bit intimidated by the old cop). “That, Max, will be for
the state engineer to decide. What you and I know about
dams wouldn’t fill—”
“I’m not canceling anything . . . not now.”
Rogers started to talk, but Max raised his hand. “Not till
the engineer’s report, and if your people and the state po-
lice still haven’t found out anything—”
Max could see his name now, in headlines, permanently
linked to two dead people. No, he reminded himself, one
dismembered person. The other—ha, ha—was still missing.
Rogers shook his head in disgust, then walked out with-
out another word.
Next up, the chairman of the celebration was due in—
and he had sounded mighty nervous on the phone, seeing
his months of planning and ba
lloons and parades go right
out the window.
I’ll need to calm him down, that’s for sure. Calm him
down and keep the ball rolling. By tomorrow all this trouble
might be over. Tell him to go on and set up the platforms.
Decorated, of course, with the red, white, and blue bunting,
the tripod loudspeakers designed to carry the music and
speeches all the way down to the plaza behind the dam. And
the enormous sign, cooked up by the diligent housewives
of the Junior League, proclaiming, kenicut dam—fifty
years with ellerton on one side and gouldens falls
on the other.
And there was another meeting, just this morning. Some-
one interested in Ellerton—apparently with a good deal of
b e n e a t h s t i l l w a t e r s
137
cash to spend in town. He’d meet the businessman and then
try to get back to running his own shop.
He looked at the guy’s name—nice and Waspy. Martin
Parks.
Sounded just like the kind of guy they wanted in Eller-
ton. Rich and Waspy.
“The dunes are ‘forbidden territory,’ you know,” Leeper
said. “Everyone worries about the precious beach, the nest-
ing birds, everything, except your freedom to walk wher-
ever the hell you want.”
He led Dan down the twisting road, then along a
makeshift path that cut through the phragmites and other
tall grasses that swayed with the ocean breeze.
“I guess they’re afraid of losing Montauk.”
Leeper didn’t laugh. “So they lose it. Nature’s always
changing things, anyway, blowing mountains away, wash-
ing out bridges.” He looked right at Dan. “We’re always
pretending we’re in charge. And that’s a joke, a real joke.
Here, head up to that hill there,” he said, pointing. “I’d like
to get some good climbing in.”
He was strong, a squat, compact man not nearly ready
to yield to old age. Dan felt the sand suck at his feet, caus-
ing them to slip. It was hard keeping up with Leeper.
But Leeper said he didn’t want to talk about it in the
house. Not about that day. He led Dan over a small hill,
then down to a narrow depression, and over an oval bowl
dug into the sand, girded by scrubby grass.
Leeper stopped walking.
“This here was made eight years ago. Hurricane Doris.
Waves went right past the beach, over that hill there, and
came down right where we’re standing. Took the damn hill
clear away, then the receding waves rebuilt the shoreline.
Beneath Still Waters Page 14
