Beneath Still Waters

by Matthew Costello

  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

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  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?”

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  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

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  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

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  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.