Lake Silence

CHAPTER 6

Vicki

Sunsday, Juin 13

Ineke Xavier ran the boardinghouse in Sproing. She was a tall woman—at least compared to me—and wore black-framed glasses. What made her stand out was her hair. It was a dark brown that was almost black, streaked with bright burgundy and teal.

There had been a lot of rumors flying around Hubb NE last year about the terra indigene and some of their deadliest forms. One rumor was that there was a form of terra indigene that could kill with just a look and it could be recognized by its multicolored hair. So it was understandable that guests, when first seeing Ineke, might wonder what they were walking into. And, in truth, there were some who looked at Ineke and walked back out, preferring to stay in the camper park at the edge of town, renting a camper that didn’t have its own toilet instead of staying in a clean room at the boardinghouse—an en suite room if you were willing to pay extra for one of the boardinghouse’s deluxe suites.

Ineke was a good cook, but she wasn’t much interested in baking. She left that to Dominique, one of the two young women who were somehow related to her and also worked for her. So when she showed up at The Jumble as soon as she finished serving breakfast at the boardinghouse, set a large bag on my kitchen table, and pulled out tins of chocolate chip cookies, cinnamon muffins, double-fudge brownies, and pecan-caramel rolls, I didn’t need to be a blood prophet to know she wanted something.

“Is this a bribe?” I asked.

“Of course it’s a bribe.” She sounded insulted that I had to ask. “Do you think I would bring this many treats for anything less?”

Not when sugar and flour were still limited items that weren’t always available.

I selected a chocolate chip cookie from the tin and took a bite. Delicious. Wonderful. And I flashed to the memory of Yorick giving me that smile and a little finger shake whenever I wanted to enjoy a sweet. Not gorge, mind you, just have an end-of-the-meal sweet—a family tradition he insisted on, claiming that none of the members of his family had ever gotten fat by having a small sweet after dinner. But I still got that smile and finger shake at the end of every meal—or a mild scold about being wasteful when I turned down the sweet.

I pushed aside memories that still soured my enjoyment of food most of the time while triggering a need to stuff my face. Feeling rebellious, I took another bite of the cookie. “Why the bribe?”

“People need time to get away from routine and relax. Now more than ever. And the Finger Lakes region has always been a popular destination. But the businesses in Sproing need something more than the Sproingers to give people a reason to stay here for a long weekend instead of spending time at one of the other lakes. I’ve been thinking about ways to hook the tourists, and I have a proposal for you.” Ineke helped herself to a brownie. “I have an arrangement with the stable that adjoins the boardinghouse land.”

Horses for hire and boarding for privately owned animals. I used to love to ride when I was younger, but I hadn’t gone over to see about hiring a horse for an hour or two. Too much to do and not enough money for indulgences.

“Okay,” I said, just to show I was listening, because Ineke wasn’t someone you wanted to annoy. I had boarded with her while the repairs and upgrades were being done on The Jumble’s main house. She usually gave her boarders a couple of prunes in the morning “to keep the plumbing clear,” and you didn’t get the rest of your breakfast until you ate them.

Feeding them to Ineke’s dog, Maxwell, who was a border collie with a touch of OCD when it came to locating and herding his people-sheep, was a no-no. Maxwell loved prunes but did not need to have his plumbing cleared, and the result of feeding him prunes was a messy eviction. Ineke was a lovely woman most of the time, but cross her and she wouldn’t hesitate to open a window and chuck your suitcase—and everything else you owned—onto the front lawn. And her aim was so good that at least half of what you owned landed in the dog’s diarrhea.

While I stayed with her, I ate my prunes and never, ever fed Maxwell table scraps of any kind.

“I thought the stable closed,” I said.

“Well, the previous owner was eaten, and the hands ran off to wherever people were running last year, but it was taken over shortly afterward by Horace and Hector Adams. They’re Simple Life folk. Cousins, I think.” She shrugged to indicate their actual relationship was none of her business. “They aren’t as strict about following Simple Life customs as some of their people, so they were willing to take over a business in a village that’s a mix of people and customs.”

“What does that mean? They use electricity for their appliances and lights but don’t own a television?”

“Pretty much. They have a radio, but only listen to the news in the morning and an hour of music at night. They have a telephone because they’re running a business but don’t have mobile phones. And they wear the traditional Simple Life style of clothes.”

Ineke knew more about who was doing what and where than anyone else in the village, including Jane Argyle, the postmistress, which was saying something. But while Jane might pass on gossip or a rumor indiscriminately, Ineke passed on information only if she thought it was something someone needed to know.

“Last fall, we offered guided trail rides around Sproing, visiting a couple of the boutique wineries in the area and giving visitors a chance to see some wildlife that wasn’t looking for lunch. Even after the Great Predation, there were people who wanted to get away from home for a day or two but didn’t want to travel very far.”

“People went to these wineries and sampled wines and then rode horses? Tall horses?”

“Dominique or Paige looked after the riders. Well, the horses mostly looked after the riders and knew enough to ignore the people on their backs and follow the girls. Anyway, I was thinking that, now that we’re into the summer months and the heat is coming on, maybe we could arrange a guided trail ride through The Jumble. There are plenty of bridle paths. We could start out at my place, ride for an hour or so, and end up at your place, where guests could enjoy a swim in the lake or just enjoy the quiet of your private beach. You’ve got that big screened porch across the back of the main house, so we would offer lunch there before my guests were guided back to the boardinghouse, passing the Milfords’ fruit stand on the way. I would supply the lunch—bringing enough for you and your lodgers—and would pay you twenty percent of the fee for the outing.”

“You’re charging for this?”

“Of course I’m charging. Hiring the horses and making the meal isn’t free. And access to your beach is part of the package, not something that can be had separately. Unless you decide to open the beach on your own, but if you do, you’d better charge enough for the privilege and have someone around who can enforce who gets in and who doesn’t or you’ll be overrun.”

“I’m not planning to make the beach available to anyone but my lodgers.” I’d had enough trouble convincing people that The Jumble, and its beach, was private property. I wasn’t going to encourage people to think otherwise. On the other hand, this sort of setup would bring in a little money. It might even bring a guest or two if someone wanted to spend time on the lake and had to rent one of my little cabins to do it.

“I’m willing to give it a try,” I said.

“I’ll be sure to put a disclaimer on the sign-up sheet, warning everyone that we aren’t responsible for any injuries or accidents that are a result of anyone upsetting the Lady of the Lake.” Ineke finished her brownie and licked the frosting off her fingers.

“The Lady of the Lake?”

Silence.

“No one told you about her?” Ineke finally asked.

I shook my head. “She’s terra indigene?”

Ineke nodded. “It’s one of the smaller Finger Lakes, being barely five miles long and less than a mile across, but Silence is one of the deepest. No one knows what the Lady is—people who might have seen her don’t live to tell about it.”

“Are you sure it’s not just a story? I’ve been swimming out there—well, taking a quick dip since the water isn’t warm enough yet to do more—and haven’t seen anything. Not even a ripple.”

“She’s out there.”

“Golly.”

“Let’s pick a couple of dates. Then I’ll talk to Horace and Hector to make sure we can rent the horses,” Ineke said.

I fetched my scheduling calendar and we chose a couple of days.

“I’m limiting it to six guests,” she said. “We may not get that many the first time out since my current boarders are police officers of one sort or another, but they shouldn’t be around much longer. If I don’t fill all the slots, I’ll open it up to Sproing residents, like the new owners of some of the stores. Julian Farrow is kind of dishy, don’t you think?” She looked at me and waggled her eyebrows.

He certainly was dishy, and I liked him a lot, liked talking to him about books. Except for Ineke, he was the only close friend I had in Sproing, but I didn’t want more than friendship from anyone who had a vigorous appendage, no matter how dishy he might be.

Shortly after coming to Sproing, I had read an article in an old magazine about “What Men Expect When They’re Dating.” It said men expected to have sex by the third date, which I found thoroughly intimidating because how could you know someone well enough in such a short amount of time to do something that intimate?

Anyway, I was staying at Ineke’s when another guest, who was there for only a night, suggested we walk outside and take a look at the moon. Julian had loaned me a book about astronomy and I had planned to go out to the back of the property that evening and see if I could identify a few constellations, so going out to look at the moon didn’t seem odd. And when the man hinted that a kiss or two would be a lovely way to end the evening . . . Well, that did seem a little pushy, but he’d been kind during dinner and had sounded interested in my opinions about a book we’d both read, and somehow the way he’d phrased the hint made it sound like everyone would think I was being mean and selfish if I said no after he’d been so kind to me during dinner. I didn’t want Ineke, or anyone else, thinking I was mean and selfish, so I thought, He’s only here for the night and only asking for a kiss. We’ll never reach third-date expectations. Why not see how it feels to kiss a man who isn’t Yorick? But I found out too late that he thought my agreeing to a kiss meant I had agreed to do a lot more, and when I pushed him away because he started to do more, he said I should be grateful anyone wanted to give me a fuck, and suddenly he sounded so much like Yorick that . . .

I don’t remember much after that except Maxwell barking and snapping at the man and Ineke yelling. Then I was back in my room, hugging Maxwell, and Dr. Wallace was talking to Ineke—and the man was gone.

Before that night, I had daydreamed, just a little, about Julian maybe someday becoming more than a friend. After that night . . . I wasn’t going to risk ruining the friendship I had in order to find out that wanting sex turned every man into a Yorick.

When I didn’t respond, Ineke patted my hand and pushed away from the kitchen table. I walked her to her car. She looked around, scanning the trees.

No sign of Aggie or any other Crow.

“The crime investigators are at the boardinghouse, and not just as guests,” Ineke said. “The man who was killed was staying in one of my rooms. The investigators searched the room yesterday and they’re doing it again this morning. It seems they can’t find something they expected to find.”

“So they know who he is.” I breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good.”

“I’m not so sure it’s good.” She sounded grim. “Listen, Vicki. I heard something that makes me think that they think the man knew you, was coming to see you.”

“I didn’t know him.” Okay, I hadn’t taken a good look at him since he had the missing eyeballs and I felt a bit squeamish. “I didn’t have an appointment with anyone, wasn’t expecting anyone.”

She studied me. “All the same, if the investigators want to have a chat with you, I’d be real careful about what I said—and I would think hard about having a lawyer present before saying anything to them.”

Ineke drove away, and I was left wondering where I would find a lawyer if I needed one.

As I went back to the house, I noticed the Crow on the ground near a tree. “Aggie?”

“Caw.”

A soft sound. A troubled sound.

Just how much had she heard?

Around noon, two unmarked cars drove up to the house and I wondered if I should have paid more attention to Ineke’s quiet warning and spent some time looking for a lawyer who would represent me if I needed one.

“Ms. DeVine?”

Two men got out of the first car. The older man had an insincere, oil-slick smile that reminded me too much of Yorick when he was talking “a chump” into some kind of deal. The younger one, who introduced himself as Officer Osgood, seemed uncomfortable with his partner or superior or whatever Mr. Oil Slick was in the CIU hierarchy.

Or was that Detective Oil Slick? Since he hadn’t introduced himself, that name would do.

“We’d like you to come down to the station and answer a few questions,” Oil Slick said.

“Why?” I stayed where I was, within reach of my front door. My heart pounded and I was getting that feeling in my arms and legs, like I was suddenly wrapped in another skin that was two sizes too small— a warning sign of excessive stress. “I already told Officer Grimshaw everything I knew. My lodger found the body yesterday, and I called the police.”

“It appears the victim was here to discuss your squatting on land that belongs to your ex-husband’s family.”

“I beg your pardon?” That anxiety skin wrap tightened a little more. “I am not squatting. The Jumble was part of my divorce settlement. Whether it used to be family land or not, my ex-husband was happy to unload it on me.” Then it clicked. “Oh. Did he send that man to see if I’d sunk enough money into the place and made enough improvements to make it worth his while to try to get it back?”

Typical Yorick. And typical me that it took me ten years to see his true nature. Of course, he’d been very good at making me believe that what I knew was true was really me making things up and getting confused.

Four other men stepped out of the second vehicle.

“You don’t mind if my men look around, do you?” Oil Slick asked.

In another minute I was going to break down into uncontrollable weeping and Oil Slick would be able to push me into agreeing with whatever he wanted to do. But until that moment . . . “You think you can come into my house and look around? Maybe paw through cupboards and drawers and ‘find’ things to substantiate your allegations?”

“You’ve become overexcited, Ms. DeVine,” Oil Slick warned. “Pretending to have hysterics isn’t going to change anything. You are coming to the station with us to answer some questions.”

“Exactly where is this station?” Okay, I like reading thrillers, so I had this sudden image of me being driven away to some unknown destination and questioned until I confessed to whatever they wanted to hang on me.

“In Sproing.” Oil Slick looked past me. “In the meantime . . .”

A hand latched onto my wrist, and Aggie pressed against my back and whispered, “Tell them what they are not allowed to do at your house. Say it really loud.”

I didn’t see how saying something really loud was any better than speaking in a normal volume, but I did what she suggested—if for no other reason than it seemed like a way to relieve a bit of stress. “No one is allowed to enter my house until I return. No one can open my car and look for alleged evidence. No one can enter the cabins and look around. No one is allowed to leave anything on my property. You can all stand outside and look at the trees, but that is all you are allowed to do.”

Oil Slick lost even the veneer of courtesy as I listed, loudly, the things he and his men could not do.

“We can get a warrant to search your place,” he said. “If we have to get a warrant it will look like you have something to hide.”

“Until you have that warrant, you don’t set a toe inside any of these buildings.” I felt very brave—or very light-headed. It was hard to tell. “Now. I’ll get my purse and lock up. Then I’ll follow you to the station.”

“You’ll be riding with us, and you’re not entering the house to destroy evidence while you’re ‘looking’ for your purse.”

“I could stand just outside the door,” Officer Osgood said. “If Ms. DeVine leaves the door open . . .”

Then things got strange.

“Caw!”

“Caw!” “Caw!” “Caw!”

“My friends are here,” Aggie whispered.

One Crow. Then three more. Then a dozen flew into the trees around the house. A dozen more took up position on the roof. The biggest hawk, or Hawk, I had ever seen landed on the roof of Oil Slick’s car—and I’m sure it deliberately scraped its talons over the surface in a bird version of keying a car to put gouges in the paint. As I looked at the Hawk, it occurred to me that, until the car was repainted, those gouges would be so easy to spot from a bird’s view of the roads.

A gust of air blew through the trees, making the leaves sound like sinister tambourines.

And something nearby and unseen growled.

“Miss Vicki told you the rules,” Aggie said. She sounded a lot less like a teenager who was on her own than she usually did. “Everyone will make sure you humans follow the rules.”

You humans. Battle line drawn.

“Get your purse,” Oil Slick said.

I expected Aggie to keep holding on to my wrist, but she turned and ran to the back of the house. I got a glimpse of her clothing and would need to talk to her about wearing something more than a sheer cotton nightie when there were visitors. Especially when there were male visitors.

I fetched my purse, made sure the back porch’s screen door was properly latched and the kitchen door was locked. While I was far enough into the house not to be heard, I pulled out my mobile phone and called Ineke, leaving a message on her answering machine, telling her the CIU investigators were taking me to the Sproing Police Station. Or so they claimed. I finished the message with the time, so she would know exactly when I had left. If Oil Slick was taking me somewhere else, maybe the time of departure would be useful. Assuming anyone tried to find me.

I made sure Officer Osgood saw me lock the front door, both regular lock and dead bolt. I made sure Oil Slick saw me tuck the keys into the big purse I used when I figured I would need everything.

“I have copies of the divorce papers, the settlement, and the deed to The Jumble in my safe-deposit box at the bank. And, no, I won’t give you my safe-deposit key so that you can fetch the papers.” It was finally sinking in that something was far from right about all of this, including the presence of the man who had died on my land.

“Then we’ll stop there first,” Oil Slick said.

He made it sound like he was going to have to go miles out of his way when the bank was right next door to the police station. If he parked anywhere on Main Street, he wouldn’t have to move his car in order to get from one place to the other.

“Caw!”

“Caw!” “Caw!” “Caw!”

Whether the Crows were acknowledging the destination or issuing a warning didn’t matter. There were close to two dozen feathered witnesses who knew where I was supposed to be a few minutes from now.

As I was escorted to the first unmarked car by Oil Slick and one of the unnamed detectives who had been in the second car, I looked around. But I couldn’t tell if Aggie was among the Crows watching us. If she hadn’t rented one of the cabins, I wouldn’t have had even this much support—and no one around to see what might happen.