The Secrets of Lake Road (10 page)

The trap could just about hold the two snappers. One looked to be the size of a Frisbee and the other was much larger, almost twice the size of the first. The big one stretched its neck and snapped. She and Adam jumped and dropped the line. They both watched as the trap sank to the bottom. The water was shallow enough for the turtles to come up through the holes in the trap to get air, to keep them alive.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said, and picked up the jug.

They jogged along the path beside the dock, dodging fresh droppings left by the ducks. The sun burned the tops of their shoulders and backs as the morning wore on. Adam’s face was flushed. Caroline’s T-shirt was wet under her arms. She had caught a whiff of her own body odor when she had pulled on the fishing line. She had started shaving under her arms a few months back, but sometimes she plain forgot to put on deodorant.

Once they were a safe distance from Stimpy’s pier, they slowed to a steady walk.

“What are they going to do with those snappers anyway? Eat them?” Adam scrunched up his face as though he had bitten down on something tart.

“No, I don’t think they want to eat them.” She switched the full jug to her other hand. “I think they want to tie lines to them and see where they lead.” She was giving him a roundabout answer. The dreams from the night before were still fresh in her mind, and the idea of the snappers feasting on little Sara’s body made her shiver.

“Oh.” He kept his head down. After a few moments he said, “You mean, they think they can find that little girl’s body by following the snappers.”

She paused, thinking about how to answer. She hated when adults held back the truth because they thought she was too young to hear it. Like the time she had overheard her father and mother talking about a procedure, a V-something or other. Her mother had been the one pressing for him to get one, and Caroline believed her mother was trying to hurt him. She had been worried and imagined all kinds of horrible outcomes of what this V-thing would do to her father, when she finally broke down and asked. Her mother had said it was none of her business and she wouldn’t understand anyway. So Caroline turned to Johnny. He had laughed at her, of course, but he had explained what a vasectomy was and why their father was getting one. She endured Johnny’s relentless ribbing and teasing for weeks after, and she chastised herself for always thinking the worst when it came to her mother. For once, she had been on her mother’s side, not wanting a baby brother or sister. Johnny was enough.

Adam looked up at her, his eyes round and innocent, but in them Caroline could see he wanted the truth, as all kids do. “Yes,” she said. “They’re hoping the snappers will lead them to Sara.”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “That’s what I figured.”

A few more steps and they reached the parking lot where the recovery team gathered in what appeared to be a break in the search. Their watercraft was docked. They drank soda pop and ate sandwiches. Caroline looked toward the Pavilion and, sure enough, one of the doors was flung open. Maybe the snack stand had opened to feed the men. Sara’s parents were positioned on the hood of the car in the same position Caroline had found them hours earlier. A man dressed in recovery gear was talking with them. But other than the team and Sara’s parents, there wasn’t anyone else around.

“I better get home,” Adam said. “See you later.” He walked on the outer rim of the parking lot, staying far away from the scene.

Caroline took the same path through the woods to avoid the recovery team as well. Cougar announced her presence with a round of barking. She vowed to bring him a treat on her next time through.

When she reached
The Pop-Inn,
jug full of lake water in hand, she spied her father’s blue pickup truck parked alongside the cabin. She raced around back. He was sitting on the steps, wearing blue jeans and a gray T-shirt. His messy brown hair fell haphazardly across his forehead. Her mother was sitting next to him, her hands folded in her lap.

“Daddy!” she squealed, and dropped the jug to the ground as she launched herself into his arms.

“Hey there, Caroline.” He laughed and gave her one of his bear hugs. “I missed you, too,” he whispered into her ear.

She pulled back to look at him just in time to see her mother point to the jug at the bottom of the steps.

“What’s that?” her mother asked.

Caroline lifted her chin. “Water from the well.”

Anger flickered across her mother’s face but disappeared as quickly as it came. “Of course it is,” she said, and stood.

Caroline watched her mother cross the yard, walking like a person who had lost her way, drifting without any purpose. Her mother dropped into the hammock under the apricot tree. And Caroline found herself wondering if the trip to the well had been worth it, made purely out of spite, making her mother angry for a brief moment, and in the end, only pushing her mother further away.

She turned toward her father. “When did you get in?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Kevin watched Jo walk away. It seemed to him, she was forever walking away. Even after all these years, the sway of her hips and the toss of her long dark hair jump-started his heart and stirred him below. He often had to remind himself that she was no longer sixteen, young and free, that she was a grown woman and she was his. Well, legally she was his wife, but although she had been loyal as far as he knew, she would never really be his. Her heart and soul seemed to be elsewhere, and he didn’t let himself think too hard or too long about where that might be.

They were kids when they first met, barely thirteen, about the same age as Caroline was now. Jo had the same lanky arms and legs as his daughter, but that was where the likeness ended. Caroline had his brown hair and deep brown eyes where Johnny looked more like his mother with his hair as dark as night.

But Jo at thirteen was a sight to be seen with her hazel doe eyes, dark hair, and golden sun-kissed skin. She had been attached to Billy’s side even then, following his lead, hanging on his every word. She was smitten, and Kevin had hated him for it. The way she had looked at Billy had soured Kevin’s stomach until he had tasted bile on his tongue. What he wanted more than anything back then was for her to look at him that way.

But in the end he had never blamed her.

There was something about Billy that even Kevin had found irresistible. Billy had that “it” factor, whatever “it” was. He was charming with the girls and laugh-out-loud funny with the guys. He was quick with a joke and a smile. His pale blue eyes penetrated you when you had his attention, making you feel as if you were the only person in the world who existed. And to gain Billy’s interest, to have his eye-locking stare directed at you, made you feel special, made you feel like you mattered, like whatever you had to say was important. How was Kevin ever supposed to compete with that?

One night they had been standing alone under the steps of the bar at the Pavilion drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. Jo had taken off to pee in the woods across the parking lot. Eddie and Sheila had wandered to the pier, their silhouettes visible in the sliver of moonlight. And Billy, well, he had directed those piercing blue eyes at Kevin.

“Do you have a thing for my girl?” he had asked.

“What?” Kevin had shuffled his feet, swaying a little on his drunken legs. “What makes you think that?”

“I see the way you look at her.” Billy’s voice had had an edge Kevin had never heard before, and it had made him uneasy. He had immediately wanted to make things right between them, to put his best friend’s mind at ease, no matter if what he had said was a blatant lie.

“No way, Billy,” he had said. “You’re wrong.” He hadn’t known whether Billy had believed him that night, but looking back, it hadn’t mattered. In the end Billy’s suspicions had been confirmed.

When Jo was settled on the hammock, head turned away, he looked back at his daughter. “So, what have you been doing with yourself?” he asked.

Before Caroline could answer, Gram appeared behind the screen door. “Are you three hungry? I’ve got pork barbeque on the stove.”

“None for me,” Jo mumbled.

Kevin rubbed his stomach and elbowed his daughter. “How about you?” He hadn’t had a home-cooked meal in a long time, even if it was only pork sandwiches. On the occasional nights when he was home and not on the road, Jo rarely cooked. She was more of the takeout or frozen dinner kind of wife. She didn’t think too much of slaving over an oven, preparing meals for her family, when the fast food place down the street could do the job for her. “Besides,” she had reasoned. “I spend an hour making dinner, we sit at the table all of ten minutes, and then we’re finished. Everyone gets up and leaves, and I have to spend another hour cleaning dishes. What’s the point?”

Gram felt differently, however, and Kevin supposed it was a generational thing. Gram believed her position was to take care of the home and her family. She walked around with an apron tied at her waist most of the time, cooking and baking, cleaning up after the kids. She was happy in her role.

But Jo was a different breed of woman, questioning society’s ideals about who she should be, challenging everything from sexuality to family to the work force. If Jo hadn’t gotten pregnant at sixteen, Kevin firmly believed her life would look much different than it did today. He often felt he was to blame for proposing, for holding her back, and for being the very reason she didn’t become the woman she was meant to be.

She often wore a retro red T-shirt with the Virginia Slim cigarette slogan, her favorite brand that read
YOU’VE COME A LONG WAY, BABY
. She’d stomp around the house complaining about picking up dirty laundry and vacuuming crumbs off the living room carpet, cursing that she hadn’t come a long way at all. Kevin attributed these occasional outbursts to PMS, but that was a sexist thought and one he wouldn’t dare say out loud. The truth was, he wouldn’t mind if she quit her housecleaning job—at least the one outside their home. It wasn’t like she was good at the whole cleaning lady thing anyway, but they needed the extra cash. Why Jo didn’t bother to look for a better job or think about some kind of a career was beyond his understanding. And in the end, sexist or not, he liked to imagine her wearing a little French maid’s uniform while he was hauling freight across country alone in his rig even though her work attire was really jeans and T-shirts.

Sitting at the kitchen table in front of a steaming pulled pork sandwich and homemade potato salad made his stomach rumble. “This looks amazing.”

Gram beamed. “Then eat,” she said.

During lunch Caroline remained unusually quiet, but every now and again she stole quick glances back and forth with Gram. Kevin attacked his sandwich, waiting for one of them to bring up the news from the lake. Jo had told him again about the bones and the drowning before he had both feet out of the pickup truck and on the ground. They had been discussing it right before Caroline had turned the corner and thrown herself into his arms. At the time all he could think about was that at least one of his girls was happy to see him.

When he finished eating, he wiped his fingers on his napkin. “Well, I already heard about what happened,” he said, figuring he’d make it easier on them. “I’ll head down to the lake and see what I can find out.”

“Can I come with you?” Caroline asked.

“Why don’t you stay here and help Gram clean up?” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll let you know if there’s any news.”

Caroline looked disappointed, but she nodded and reluctantly said, “Okay.” Gram kept her thoughts on the matter to herself. He wondered what she might’ve said to him about the bones if they had been alone.

*   *   *

Kevin followed the dirt road down the hill. He crossed onto Lake Road and continued downward toward the Pavilion. The doors were closed and the place looked deserted. The sight gave him pause. There was only one time in sixteen years that he remembered the Pavilion closing its doors to the public. He hadn’t expected all the memories the scene would conjure. All the emotions he had kept in check for so long stacked up inside him. His chest tightened, and he was having a hard time breathing. He wiped the back of his neck where moisture had gathered. The sun was hotter than usual, maybe because cooling off in the lake was no longer an option. The thought made him shiver despite the heat.

Pull yourself together,
he told himself. But now he understood the look in Jo’s eyes when he had first stepped out of the truck. She looked haunted, much more than usual. He stared at the
CLOSED
sign on the door. He suspected Heil planned on opening tomorrow no matter the outcome of the search. He couldn’t believe he had kept the Pavilion closed for three days as it was, and he couldn’t fathom the amount of money he had to be losing. Heil loved his money.

Kevin gathered himself and willed his legs to keep moving. Each step he took around the building felt as though he were stepping back in time and what awaited on the other side would seize his heart all over again. When he turned the corner, he half expected to see Billy’s parents and sister, Dee Dee, crying, cursing, and a sixteen-year-old Jo, face drained of color, paralyzed by the scene unfolding in front her. But instead he saw the underwater recovery team standing around the watercraft. He recognized one of the men and slowly walked toward him.

His tongue felt thick and clumsy, but he managed to say “Jim” in his normal voice, and he extended his hand. He had known Jim through Eddie; he was one of the regulars who frequented Eddie’s bar whenever he wasn’t volunteering for the local fire department.

“What’s the situation?” Kevin asked.

“We think she went down near the diving boards. It’s a fifty-foot drop. There’s so much muck at the bottom, it makes searching difficult even for the best divers. You can’t see shit.” He glanced at Kevin. “But you know that. Damn near impossible.”

And yet, Kevin wanted to add, they were able to find bones in all that muck, but Jo had warned that Heil meant to keep that quiet, not wanting to remind people of past drownings. For once, Kevin agreed with Heil. “What’s the next step?” he asked instead.