The Secrets of Lake Road (4 page)

*   *   *

Inside the Pavilion, Heil was standing in-between two pinball machines, hanging a sign that read
PLAY MACHINES AT YOUR OWN RISK
. Although the space between the two machines was wide enough for two people to stand side by side, he was wedged in tightly, his large stomach hanging over the waist of his shorts. His tube socks were pulled high on his calves, covering the lower half of his pasty, tree-trunk legs.

“What do you have there?” he asked, talking through the nail pinched between his lips. With some effort, he got himself out from between the two machines. Adam handed him the bit.

“He found it in the lake,” Ted said.

Heil turned the metal over in his hands. “What is it?”

No one spoke. Not even Megan.

“Well?” he asked. “It looks like a piece of garbage. People shouldn’t litter in our waters. It’s a crime.” He tried to sound authoritative, but the waver in his voice confirmed he was just as anxious as they were about their treasure. “I’ll just hang onto this. It’s not something you kids should be playing with.”

“If it’s garbage,” Adam said, “why can’t I have it back?”

Heil took a step toward Adam, who shrank under Heil’s large belly. “You shouldn’t be playing with a scrap of metal. And don’t you kids be telling tall tales. Do you hear?” He pushed through the center of their circle, taking the horse’s bit with him.

Adam’s shoulders drooped. “Now what?”

“It was nothing but junk anyway,” Ted said.

“But what if it wasn’t junk? And there’s other stuff out there,” Ned said to his brother.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Ned said. “Other things like an old saddle or horseshoe or maybe even a horse’s skull.” He then turned to Adam, excited. “Show us again where you found it.”

“I don’t know,” Adam said. They went around in circles this way for several minutes, trying to coax Adam into showing them the exact spot where he had found the horse’s bit.

Megan took off her sunglasses and inspected her face in the lens. “Can you still see my eye shadow?” she asked Caroline.

“What? No,” Caroline said absently, not paying attention. She could’ve sworn she heard someone scream. By this time, the twins had convinced Adam to show them where he had found the metal. The boys started heading back outside.

“You didn’t even look,” Megan protested.

“Shhh,” she said, bringing her pointer finger to her lips. “Listen.”

The second shriek had both she and Megan turned toward the open doors that led to the beach and lake. The twins disappeared outside. Adam was a step behind them and still in the Pavilion. He turned back and looked at Caroline as if he was asking if she heard it too.

Two guys shooting pool put their sticks down. A family at the snack stand looked over their shoulders. There was another scream, this one higher pitched and more frantic. A man standing near the counter touched his wife’s arm before jogging toward the open doors that led to the swimming area. The guys shooting pool quickly followed.

There was more hollering, followed by another screech that pierced Caroline’s ears. Terror pounded inside her chest. She was afraid to move.

She was too afraid not to move.

*   *   *

Caroline grabbed Megan’s arm and pulled her through the Pavilion, down the stairs, and onto the beach. They joined Adam and the twins. A crowd had gathered—men, women, kids, toddlers. Through the crowd, she saw the woman in the wide-brimmed sun hat—Sara’s mother—wading in the water up to her waist. She was screaming a name at first Caroline couldn’t understand. Adam’s mother stood on the pier near the high dive, also calling a name. It sounded like “Sara.”

The man from the snack stand reached Sara’s mother in the water. Her arms flailed as she talked with him. He nodded a few times before he also started calling Sara’s name.

Caroline searched the beach, weaving in and out of the crowd, stepping over blankets, scurrying past beach chairs, and looking for the little girl with the blond braids and bright blue eyes. Her gaze stopped on the sign posted on the chain-link fence:
SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK
. She glanced at the empty lifeguard stand, where someone should’ve been sitting, watching. But of course no one was, and an overwhelming feeling of guilt backed up in her throat. She shouldn’t have left the little girl alone. She should’ve stayed with her. She should’ve been watching.

Johnny and his friends stormed onto the beach. Chris ran straight for the lake, shouting at the hysterical woman, “How old?”

“Seven,” Sara’s mother cried out. “She’s seven.”

Caroline watched as Chris dove under. Johnny bumped into her arm as he pushed past her through the crowd. He ran into the lake, diving into the water near Chris. The hair on her arms stood up, and a chill climbed up her spine even as moisture gathered on her forehead in the hot sun.

“Johnny!” she yelled, suddenly terrified for her brother’s safety.

A woman in the crowd asked, “What’s the girl’s name?”

“Sara,” another man said.

Someone called out, “I’ll check the Pavilion. Maybe she wandered off inside.”

Other men in the crowd began peeling off their shirts and rushing into the lake. Some did a surface sweep, looking for signs of the girl above the water. Others dove like seals, plunging into the murky depths, popping up to the surface, only to plummet once again. Bystanders collectively held their breath. When either Johnny’s or Chris’s head emerged from the dark ripples, Caroline allowed herself to breathe with them.

Heil joined the group on the beach. “Help is on the way,” he said to the few adults nearby. His face was grim. Sweat stained the navy blue T-shirt pulled tight across his expansive stomach. He wiped his brow.

Caroline stared at the lake and laced her arm through Megan’s, needing to hold onto something, someone. The sun glared, scorching the top of her head. Sweat trickled down her back. She made a promise to herself that if Sara was found, she would play with her, swim with her, watch over her, and never let her out of her sight for the rest of the summer.

“Pavilion’s empty,” a woman said.

Caroline recognized the woman as one of the cabin owners in the colony. She had two boys, four and six years old. Caroline had watched them learn to swim in the shallow end of the lake last summer. Now their mother wrapped her arms around their shoulders and pulled them close. She kissed the tops of their heads, and Caroline imagined she was grateful they were safe by her side.

Several long minutes passed.

Some of the men who had started out strong in their search slowly swam toward the beach. Their breathing was heavy, and their faces lined with defeat. Johnny and Chris were still out there, diving down, trying to reach bottom. Searching. But too much time had gone by. Sara had been under too long. The crowd had grown quiet. Caroline’s entire body shook from the inside out.

A siren cut the silence. The sheriff’s vehicle pulled into the parking lot. In the next few seconds an underwater rescue and recovery truck pulled into the lot, towing a boat. The spectators parted as Heil opened the gate for the sheriff and the recovery team to enter the beach area. A diving crew worked hard to unload the watercraft. More sirens shattered the air, and an ambulance pulled alongside the truck. Medics jumped out carrying first aid gear.

The man from the snack stand grabbed ahold of Sara’s mother and led her to shore. Medics rushed to her side. She rocked back and forth, back and forth. A shrill moan escaped from her lips. One of the medics guided her to sit in the sand and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. A man from the recovery team, the one who looked to be in charge, asked her questions about Sara, trying to determine the last time she had seen her, the possible location in the water where she could have disappeared.

Two other members on the recovery team asked the crowd to back up. Johnny emerged from the water and dropped onto the beach. Chris followed a few seconds later and collapsed next to Johnny. Some of Johnny and Chris’s friends joined them. “Man, that was brave,” one of them said. Tank-top girl hugged Johnny.

A part of Caroline wanted to hug him too, tell him he was stupid and brave and how proud she was to be his little sister. The other part knew he’d only blow her off in front of his friends. And still, another part, a deep down unreasonable part, felt as if he had somehow failed her for not finding Sara alive.

*   *   *

The sheriff and the underwater recovery team talked with parents and potential witnesses. A man stood at the top of the high dive, surveying the lake. Four men on the recovery team, two in dry suits, loaded the boat and began searching the swimming area around the pier and diving boards. The process was slow, methodical. Caroline knew they had to search with zero visibility. And Sara was small, so small.

She had told the man from underwater recovery, the one who appeared to be in charge, she had last seen Sara on the pier. What she had wanted to tell him but somehow couldn’t, was to search deep where the diving boards were located, where Sara had overheard the boys daring each other to try to touch the bottom of the lake. But how could she tell him what she was afraid had happened without sounding guilty? When had adults ever listened to kids?

An hour passed.

The crowd gradually dispersed, or at least the regular crowd who had witnessed a similar scene in summer’s past. First-timers to the lake hung around, never having seen a drowning before. It sounded cruel, but sometimes it was hard to look away from something so horrifying. No one passed judgment on the onlookers. Let them look. Let them know what could happen. Let them understand that these were the dues collected by the lake in its splendor.

Megan pulled on Caroline’s wrist in an attempt to lead her back into the Pavilion. Caroline yanked her hand free. She wasn’t going anywhere. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the divers. After twenty minute shifts they’d surface, shaking their heads. She wondered if they could even reach the bottom. She didn’t believe anyone could.

She had witnessed a drowning three years prior, the man’s body gray and gorged in death. It had been a boating accident. He had fallen and hit his head on the side of the fishing boat when he went overboard. He was knocked unconscious and drowned. It was awful and sad, but this was different. This was a young girl swimming near the beach where other kids swim. People were around. Parents were watching. And bad things weren’t supposed to happen to kids.

Another hour passed.

Skillfully, the underwater recovery team continued their systematic search in the area where they believed Sara most likely went under. With zero visibility, they used a side scanner for the localized search, but it became apparent they would have to branch out and cover more territory.

Caroline’s stomach dropped and swayed with their every movement. From the gossip on the beach, no one could say for sure exactly when Sara had entered the water. No one had been paying attention. The part-time lifeguard had been on break.

Johnny and Chris and friends retreated to the beach steps to watch and smoke their cigarettes. No one talked. Megan stayed with Caroline as the
whop, whop, whop
of a helicopter sounded overhead. It circled the length of the lake a half dozen times. And then it was gone. The sun’s rays faded. Storm clouds had started gathering over the mountain, growing increasingly darker, blacker. The wind started to blow. But otherwise, the lake was silent except for the occasional splash from a diver emerging from what lay hidden below, coming up empty.

Megan’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Roberts, appeared. Mrs. Roberts placed a hand on Megan’s shoulder. “Come on, honey. It’s time to go.”

“Are you coming?” Megan asked Caroline.

“No,” Caroline said, and kept her eyes on the watercraft. She wasn’t ready to make the walk back to the colony where the news was sure to have traveled. The gossip would start as early as this evening, and she would learn more about the family who had lost a daughter to the lake than she had known about her own family. It seemed wrong. All of it was wrong, and she felt a deep sadness that left a dark and empty space inside her heart.

Perhaps this was how her mother felt, how it felt to be a grown-up. And she wanted no part of it.

CHAPTER FOUR

Jo stood next to Eddie on the balcony of the bar overlooking the beach and lake. After hearing the screaming and rushing outside, they had remained quiet in the hours they had watched the scene unfold, unable to turn away, knowing the intimate details of each practiced step of underwater recovery by heart.

Shadows moved across the water, typical and somehow remarkable at the same time. A warm wind blew, and in the near distance thunder rolled. Eddie untied the red bandanna from around his head and replaced it with a black one.

“Look at him down there,” Jo said about Heil. “He acts like he’s king of the lake.”

Heil was directing his staff to clean up now that most of the onlookers had fled the beach when the storm clouds started moving in. Earlier he had ordered two of his workers to cook hotdogs and hamburgers for the underwater recovery team. No charge. He took care of the men as they had gone about their job, making sure to offer an endless supply of food and drink. A drowning wasn’t good for business, but it was even worse for business if Heil failed to show compassion and cooperation. He was president of the lake association and made damn sure everyone knew it. He walked around as though the entire lake community’s survival rested upon his shoulders. He was a large man, a fat man, an ever-so-loud man. It was impossible to ignore him.

Maybe Jo didn’t like him for these reasons, but she believed it had more to do with a gut feeling telling her not to trust what others deemed were his good intentions.

Eddie looked down at Heil and shrugged. After all, Heil was his boss.

“They should be coming in off the water,” he said of the underwater recovery team. It was too risky for divers to search in the dark, particularly with the threat of a storm looming. But at the last minute there was activity on the boat and another diver went under.