Summer People (15 page)

“There’s one more thing I want to get your advice on.”

“What’s that?” asked Tyrrell.

“Grimstock, Roger. That’s the man who was killed when his car went off the road.”

“What about him?”

“We couldn’t find anything at the scene to suggest foul play. I’ve inspected the car carefully, but it’s so banged up I can’t prove anything. Still, something doesn’t seem right.”

“So?” said Tyrrell rocking forward.

“I’d like to go through his cottage and see if there is anything that might tell us something. Do I need a search warrant?”

“Is there anyone there?”

“No. In fact, we haven’t found any relatives or friends.”

“Well, just go and do it. You’re investigating a possible crime. If there’s no one around to object, get it done. But Ray, it’s summer. Lighten up, you’re making work for yourself.”

“ I can’t read you the whole autopsy report in a moving car, unless you don’t mind my getting car sick.” said Sue.

“You’ve read it?” asked Ray

“Yes.”

“Just give me a summary, then.”

“The two main points are that Grimstock died from a severed spinal cord. The C1 and C2 vertebra were crushed. And his blood alcohol,” she continued, “was .21. Given that he was habituated to alcohol, he probably wasn’t falling down drunk, but he shouldn’t have been driving.”

It was beginning to rain and get dark as Ray pulled off the pavement and started down the narrow two-track. The area was low and swampy; tall cattails grew on both sides. The trail rose out of the swamp and ended in a clearing at the edge of a small lake. Ray parked next to the side of the old summerhouse, a square two-story frame building. The exterior was painted a dark green, with white trim around the windows and doors. The building was clad in cedar shingles, rounded at the bottom, in a fish scale design. As he and Sue climbed from the car, he had a sense of desolation and decay. Gutters, rotten and collapsing, hung at the sides of the building. The centers of the screens covering the windows and porches had rusted away. The shutters that were still attached hung at odd angles.

Ray reached back into his car and grabbed a long flashlight. “Let’s check the garage first.”

Sue followed him to a flat roofed building behind the cottage; its two sets of doors stood open. Ray turned on his flashlight. He found a switch, one of a very old style that turned clockwise and was mounted in a round ceramic fixture. He twisted the switch, nothing happened.

He held the light on the switch. “Look at this,” he said to Sue. “This wiring is from the twenties or before. It’s called knob and tube. The wires are run separately.” He followed the wiring up the wall and along the ceiling joists.

“And it doesn’t work,” she said in a tone that suggested disinterest.

Ray traced the wires back to a fuse box on the wall at the back of the building. He could see that the main disconnect switch was off. He pushed it into the “on” position. Two bulbs, mounted to the joists above, came on. A late model Audi stood on one side of the garage, the other side was empty. Two bikes, tires flat and covered with rust and cobwebs, leaned against the back wall. Assorted garden tools were piled in a corner near an old, reel-type lawn mower. A golf bag, filled with clubs, slouched against the corner walls.

“This is where he must have parked the Triumph.” said Ray looking at the empty stall. “Leaked a lot of oil.”

“What exactly are we looking for?” asked Sue.

“I don’t know,” Ray responded. “I’ve just got this feeling. Something doesn’t seem….”

“What doesn’t seem right?”

“He was on the wrong road. Here’s a man who gets smashed every night. You’d think that he’d take the shortest way home. He was going way out of his way.”

“You’re putting yourself in this. If you had too much to drink—if you drove at all, and you probably wouldn’t—you would take the most direct route home. What you’d do and what this guy did are two different things….”

Ray protested, “But I’ve known lots of drunks, and they have a homing tendency. It may be at odds with their other selfdestructive tendencies, but most of them head for home at the end of the evening. If they don’t make it, they’re at least going in the right direction. Let’s check the house.”

Ray turned off the lights. The back door of the cottage was only a few yards from the garage, and they ran through the rain, now falling heavily. Ray turned the handle; the door was unlocked. He pushed the door open and felt for the switch. The harsh light from a single bulb illuminated the room. Stacks of empty pizza boxes were spread about the kitchen. Empty beer cans and whiskey bottles were strewn across the counter tops; a large porcelain sink was filled with dirty dishes, glasses, and silverware, and the kitchen table was piled with mail.

“Doesn’t look like he did trash or dishes,” said Sue.

“Or mail,” said Ray. “Look at this, none of it has been opened. Like he really didn’t care.”

“Look at this kitchen,” said Sue, “if you need evidence of not caring.”

Ray started sorting and stacking the mail.

“Finding anything?” asked Sue.

“Not much, just junk, bills, and this one letter. It’s from a bank in Grand Rapids.” Ray tore the envelope along the edge and removed the letter. “It’s a statement of his trust giving the amount of money currently available from the trust’s income.” Ray handed her the letter. “Would you call these people, inform them of his death, and see what you can find out about him. Maybe they know if he has an attorney. Let’s look through the rest of the place.”

They wandered around the old cottage along a narrow trail that ran through the debris. The chaos and decay found in the kitchen continued throughout the house. In the one bedroom that appeared to be in use, the periodic beeping of an answering machine attracted their attention. Ray pushed the “Calls” button; the playback started. It only ran a few seconds. The only sound on the recording was that of a phone being hung up. Ray opened the machine and removed the small tape cassette. He handed it to Sue. “Will you have this tape checked to see if there is anything of interest on it?”

“What do you hope to find?” Sue asked.

“Don’t know. But I was able to solve a case because of one of these, years ago when they were a lot less common. It was a murder, much like the Holden murder. Other than the body, we didn’t have anything, no motive, no weapon, no physical evidence. On my fifth or sixth trip through the house, I went through the tape and found, buried in a pile of messages, a death threat. The killer was nice enough to give his name.”

“You know what Skinner would say?” asked Sue with a smile.

“What?”

“Something about how our behavior is shaped by positive reinforcement. And it’s true; I proved it to myself running rats in the psych lab.”

“Are you comparing me to a rat? I can remember when you used to be nice. Let’s get out of here; this place is depressing.” Ray turned off the lights as they worked their way out of the cottage. He took a key ring off a hook by the door and tried the keys until he found one that opened the back door. He locked the door and handed the key to Sue. “Just in case we need to come back in here.”

They dashed through the heavy rain to the car. As Ray dried his glasses he asked, “What did you think?”

“That was awful. I’m not used to looking through other people’s things after they are dead. We did this at the Holden’s and now here. I almost feel guilty of voyeurism.” She paused, “I’m surprised that a building can go for years without maintenance and remain standing. And I guess that I’m equally surprised that Grimstock seemed to get on without taking care of anything.”

“It’s the Peter Pan approach to life. If you never become an adult, you don’t have to take responsibility for anything, The fact that he had a trust fund obviously helped,” said Ray, “He didn’t have to trouble himself with making a living. He had enough cash for liquor, cigarettes, and whatever.”

“But it doesn’t look like he lived there. I mean, in spite of the garbage and empty bottles and mail, it doesn’t look like he had what you’d call a life.”

“That’s the tragedy,” said Ray, pausing to start the engine. “Most alcoholics will tell you, they just live to drink.” Robert Arden was drunk, drunk and angry. He felt the wet grass against his legs as he shuffled toward the beach. The cool wind off the lake stirred the birches overhead; moonlight—variegated, green-gray—came through the clouds and trees to light his way.

The wind surged off Lake Michigan, across the few hundred yards of hemlock and pine, onto Loon Lake. The waves on the big lake, widely spaced, tall, and powerful, became short, tight chop on the smaller lake. Whitecaps raced across Loon Lake and broke on its eastern shore.

He dragged the canoe across grass. A scraping sound resonated along its skin as he pulled it over the sand and gravel beach to the water’s edge. He pushed the canoe into the water, the waves splashed over the bow and forced the craft sideways. With one foot in the canoe and the other on shore, leaning over, each arm holding tight to a side, he shoved off. His weight was off center, the canoe rocked and almost capsized.

He tried paddling from the back, but he couldn’t control the canoe in the chop and wind.He carefully crawled forward from the seat, over the cross member, and knelt near the center of the canoe in the cold wash on the bottom. Paddling furiously, he tried to get control of the canoe, turning the bow into the wind, working to hold it there as he made for the small island in the middle of the lake. In spite of his wild stabbing at the water, his progress was slow, strong gusts of wind and the constant surge of the dense chop pushed the canoe off course.

As he finally neared the island, only fifty or sixty yards out, he heard the whine of a starter motor and the snarl of an outboard coming to life on the leeward side of the island. A dark form raced out from the shadows, the wake thrown from each side picking up the moonlight as it approached. The first pass was distant, he could only see the silhouette of the driver, dark, small, leaning close to the wheel. The boat came around in a wide circle and slowing, made a close pass. As he watched he could make out the figure; he could see the face clearly in the moonlight; he understood what was happening.

The boat moved away and advanced again at a high speed, veering off at the last second, almost swamping the canoe in its wake. He panicked. For the first time in his life he felt utter and complete terror. He flailed at the water with useless strokes. The canoe was wiped sideways by the wind, and a wave rolled over the side, followed by a second and third. He floated out of the halfsubmerged canoe. Disoriented, he swam under water, struggling in the dark to find the surface. Once on the surface, he swam for the canoe, but the boat cut him off. Then he could see the canoe being pulled away by the wind and current. Fighting the waves, he started swimming toward the island, only to be cut off by the boat, much larger now that he was in the water. In panic, he swam furiously, sucking water as he tried to breathe.

He felt the pain first in his left arm. He battled to stay on the surface. Then he felt it in his chest, like a huge fist being driven into him. He stopped struggling and slipped from the moonlight into the dark, cold depths.

Ray found Marc on the beach, shirtless in the late morning sun, working on his sailboat. Ray tossed him a small plastic cube. “Here are the Hexagena flies I promised you. The hatch has started, but I don’t know when I’m going to get free to go fishing with you and Lisa.”

“You don’t look like you’ve seen bed yet.”

“At the rate things are going, it doesn’t look like I’ll get a good night’s sleep until the summer is over.”

“What kept you up?”

“I spent part of the night helping break up a party. Just when I thought I might be able to go home and get some sleep, I got called to investigate a possible drowning.”

“Why didn’t you send someone else?”

“I left two men out at the scene of the party to make sure it didn’t start again, and I had just sent the deputies home we got out of bed to help handle the situation. We need people on the day shift who have had some sleep.”

“Big party?”

“Big party, real big party. Hard to tell how many for sure— probably a hundred or more, high school and college kids. Bob was the first on the scene; he came in with siren and lights. He said as soon as the kids saw him, they were running in every direction. The only ones left when I got there were too drunk or stoned to run.”

“Where was the party, out at the point?”

“No, but not far from there. It was at one of those expensive new summer homes south of the lighthouse. Some trusting parents left their sweet, little daughter and a friend alone for a few days, two sixteen-year-olds. I got Mom and Dad out of bed, they live in Evanston, told them their daughter had hosted a party, and that we had arrested more than a dozen minors. They were less than thrilled to get the call, especially when I told them a lot of damage had been done to their place.”

“What kind of damage?”

“Almost anything that would break—chairs, tables, glasses, even some windows. And barf all over the house. The living room and kitchen are really destroyed. I bet there’s ten, fifteen thousand in damage, maybe a lot more. The house is filled with expensive things. This will not be one of the kid’s happier memories.” Ray paused. “We don’t have the manpower to handle this kind of thing: I only have two cars on the road from midnight to seven, and we don’t have any place to lock up dozens of drunk, nasty kids.”

“So what did you do?”

“The place is on a cul de sac, so after Bob got a sense of what was happening, he blocked off the exit. Most of the cars parked beyond him along the highway quickly disappeared. I was able to get four cars there fairly quickly and we got some help from a state police trooper who was in the area. We ended up sending five kids out by ambulance, three were too intoxicated to talk, and two budding pugilists had nasty facial lacerations and needed stitches. We called in phone numbers to the dispatcher. He got parents out of bed and had them come and pick up their little darlings. We’ve also got seventeen cars impounded. Before they get their cars back, they’ll have to come and talk to us. I imagine some poor bastard tried to go fishing this morning and found that his kid didn’t bring the car home last night. There’ll be some explaining to do.”