Page 26

Howling girlfriends aside, Jon proved to be an easy houseguest and a near perfect fit for my father’s clothes.

We disappeared into our respective bedrooms—the “guest”

bedroom was actually what had once been my parents’ bedroom—after Devon left and I didn’t hear a peep out of Jon until morning.

When I came out of my room at my usual six o’clock waking time, I was greeted with the enticing aroma of fresh-brewed coffee.

Jon was busy at the stove.

“I’m making cheese omelets and rye toast for breakfast,”

he said.

“My way of saying thanks for putting me up for the night.”

I don’t normally eat breakfast first thing in the morning (I know, I know, most important meal of the day and all), but I didn’t have the heart to tell Jon that, at least not yet.

And to be honest, I was kind of hungry.

“Sounds good.

I need to go let Newt out.

I’ll be right back.”

I fixed myself a cup of coffee and carried it downstairs and through the store to the back door to let Newt outside.

When I got back upstairs, Jon was on his cell phone, first talking to someone I assumed was one of his officers and then to Haggerty about going out in the patrol boat.

He put two pieces of buttered rye toast on a plate next to a fluffy cheese omelet and set it in front of me while he was on the phone with Haggerty.

From the sound of things, I deduced that we were on for our boat trip to Poverty Island at ten o’clock, something Jon confirmed once he disconnected the call.

“If it’s okay with you, we can drive to Baileys Harbor in my car, and I’ll bring you back here once we return,” he said.

“That’s fine, as long as Newt goes, too.”

“Of course.”

The way he said that, as if it was a given, warmed my heart.

Judging from the enthusiastic thumping of Newt’s tail, his heart was pleased, as well.

When we were done eating, I gave Jon a towel and a washcloth and told him he was welcome to use the shower in my bathroom if he wanted, but he said he’d be fine with a sink scrub.

I offered him a razor, but he declined it, letting his blond stubble stay for the day.

It was a good look on him.

After showering and rummaging around in the closet in my parents’ office for something I’d need later in the day, I went downstairs to see to the opening of the store even though I trusted Rita and Devon to handle things on their own.

I was a little concerned about whether Devon would make it on time, given the late hours he’d kept the night before, but he arrived minutes before opening time, raring to go.

Jon, Newt—his flotation vest on this time—and I were on the road at nine thirty, and we pulled up to the boat launch ten minutes early.

Jon eyed the small duffel bag I’d brought along.

“Is that something for Newt?” he asked.

“Nope.”

I set the bag down and opened it, removing the device inside.

“This is an underwater camera,”

I said, showing him the device, which looked like a mini yellow submarine.

“It can go to a depth of one hundred and fifty feet and shoot four-K video or take pictures.

The lens has nearly one hundred and eighty degrees of view and the device can swim in any direction using six thrusters that can be controlled remotely.

My parents bought it to use for hunting underwater creatures and habitats.

They only got to use it twice.”

“Wow,”

Jon said, looking duly impressed.

He held his hands out and I gave the camera to him.

“It’s so light.

I thought it would be heavier,”

he said, hefting it a couple of times.

“It’s around ten pounds, I think.”

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll lose it down there?”

I reached into the bag and pulled out one end of a cable.

“It has one hundred and sixty four feet of tether,”

I said.

“And a pair of two-thousand-lumen lights for keeping track of things in those murky depths.”

“It runs on a battery?”

I nodded.

“I plugged it in last night to make sure it’s fully charged.

It should go for four, maybe five hours and has a max speed of three knots.

It recharges pretty quickly.”

“Well, this trip just got a whole lot more interesting,”

Jon said, eyeing the device with an eager glint in his eye.

“My department could use one of these.

Is it expensive?”

“I think it was around two grand.”

He looked pleased with that answer.

“I might be able to swing that in the next budget,”

he said.

“I can’t wait to see it in action.

Wouldn’t it be something if you were able to get proof of your creature’s existence with it?”

“It would, but don’t get your hopes up too high.

The odds of finding Nessie here are long ones, I fear.”

Jon frowned.

“We can’t call it Nessie, given where we are, can we?”

he said.

“And referring to it simply as ‘the creature’ seems too .

.

.

generic.

It needs its own name.”

I couldn’t help but be amused by his sudden investment in the possible existence of a lake monster.

There was something endearingly childlike in his excitement.

“Well,”

I said, “when there have been sightings in other places, the creature has been named after that body of water.

Nessie for Loch Ness, Champ for Lake Champlain, Chessie for Chesapeake Bay, and so on.”

Now it was my turn to frown.

“Though that doesn’t work for Ogopogo, given that its home is Lake Okanogan.”

I shrugged.

“Anyway, we could call our creature Messy or Michie for Lake Michigan if you like.

That last one is a name my mother used from time to time whenever there was a reported sighting.

Though if such a creature does exist, I suspect it doesn’t use Lake Michigan as its permanent home.”

Jon considered this for a moment and then flashed what I can only describe as an evil grin.

“What if we call it Chomp? That seems apt if perhaps a bit inappropriate.”

I bit back a smile because, while I found his dark humor amusing, I was reluctant to show it.

“Chief Flanders!”

I said in my best chastising tone.

It was a tone Newt knew well and it got his attention.

He gave Jon a look that said, You’re in the doghouse now, buddy!

Fortunately, any further discussion on the topic was waylaid by the arrival of Haggerty and the boat.

Jon helped him dock, and once we were onboard, Haggerty eyed the contents of my duffel with keen interest.

“I see we have toys for today’s excursion,”

he said.

“How delightful.”

That was the most I’d ever heard from Haggerty, though he uttered the words in a monotone that belied the meaning of the final two.

Even so, there was a hint of something in his eyes that made me suspect he really was secretly delighted.

Boys and their toys.

We got underway after Haggerty and Newt reacquainted themselves.

Haggerty made quick work of getting us past Death’s Door, motoring around the eastern side of Detroit, Washington, and Rock islands and then cutting into the Rock Island Passage.

We could see St.

Martin Island off to the north, a now deserted isle though it had been occupied by lighthouse keepers in the past.

Nowadays the lighthouse was automated, and while the old lighthouse keeper’s cottage and the original lighthouse were still there, the cottage had long since fallen into disrepair and ruin.

As we drew closer to St.

Martin, Haggerty slowed the boat down to a trolling speed.

The treacherous shoals of rock that encircled the island lurked only a few feet below the surface in broad plateaus of stone that could ground a ship in a matter of minutes.

Haggerty kept a close eye on his depth gauge and the sonar display, occasionally consulting a navigation chart that showed the water depths.

Since we were currently moving at a snail’s pace, I said, “This might be a good spot to test out the camera.

Give us a chance to play with the controls and get a feel for it.”

Jon perked up visibly at the mention of “us”

playing with the controls, and he nodded at Haggerty, who cut the engines back to an idle.

As we bobbed along on the water, Jon and I spent several minutes testing the camera controls before letting it drop over the side.

Once it was in the water, I steered it back and forth, up and down, side to side, getting a feel for it.

Jon watched me with eager anticipation, licking his lips several times, and I knew he was itching to get a crack at it.

His fingers were opening and closing, grasping at air even though his hands hung at his sides.

“Want to give it a try?”

I said finally, putting him out of his misery.

He snatched the remote out of my hand so fast that Newt hopped up and came to my side, hackles raised.

“Sorry,”

Jon said, though I wasn’t sure whom he was apologizing to, me or Newt.

He had eyes only for the remote and its display screen.

“It’s okay,”

I said to Newt, putting a hand on his head.

Haggerty came out of the pilothouse and peered at the image on the remote as Jon attempted to steer the device.

“You want me to drop anchor here? Might make it easier.”

“Yeah, why don’t you?”

Jon said.

“At least for now.”

Half an hour later, Jon had the device well under control and he got excited when he found a tiny underwater cave.

It was an area where layers of rock deeper down had collapsed, creating a small void with a rock ceiling above.

The opening extended back into the rock wall for several feet and there were a few fish hanging out in there.

The clarity of the image and the ability to maneuver the camera just inside the void had Jon enthralled.

Even Haggerty looked enthused.

“Let’s bring it up and save the battery for looking around Poverty and Gull Islands,” I said.

That elicited groans of disappointment from both men.

It didn’t take long to reach Gull Island, as it sits in the shadow of St.

Martin to the east on the Michigan side, and southwest of Poverty Island.

Like St.

Martin Island, it is surrounded by rocky shoals that extend around its entire circumference, covering a much bigger area than the island itself.

At one point, the water depth rose rapidly to only a little over two feet, and then dropped just as dramatically to more than eighty.

For the next five hours, we slowly circled the tiny island, expanding out with each round and drawing ever closer to Poverty Island.

We stopped at various points to launch the camera and explore the depths beneath when Haggerty saw something of interest on his sonar display, but all we found was lots of trash that had been dumped: tires, a rusted and broken motorcycle (which sparked a lively discussion on how it had come to be there, including lots of speculative suggestions involving Evel Knievel), an open steel drum, cinder blocks, and lots of timber, whether from wrecks or nature it was sometimes hard to tell.

We did discover the remains of three boats.

One was a metal rowboat, one was a speedboat missing part of its hull, and the third was the planks and boards of a hull from an older ship that had likely been there for decades, maybe longer.

“Well, this has been fun, but I think it’s time to call it a day,”

Jon said when the battery life on the camera was down to almost nothing.

“I have things I need to catch up on.

Maybe we’ll have better luck another time.”

“To be honest, I doubt it,”

I said.

“If there was gold down there, it isn’t there any longer.

Too many people know about the legend and I’m sure these waters have been thoroughly searched already.

Plus, I find it hard to believe that Oliver would have come this far in his kayak, no matter how experienced he was.”

Haggerty stood by listening to us but said nothing.

When I was done talking, he arched his rather shaggy eyebrows at Jon, who merely nodded.

Five minutes later, we were on our way back to Baileys Harbor.

It was a silent trip with nary a word spoken.

Once we docked, I took Newt for a quick walk to let him relieve himself and then I waited next to Jon’s car for my ride back.

Seeing the somber expression on Jon’s face once we were in his car and underway, I said, “Sorry this didn’t pan out.”

He looked surprised.

“Why are you apologizing to me?”

he said.

“You’re the one whose expectations weren’t met.”

“You mean because we didn’t find Chomp?”

He gave me a nod and half a smile.

“I never expected to.

I was thinking we’d be far more likely to find something that led us back to Oliver, but in hindsight that was a silly notion.

Like I said earlier, I can’t believe he would have kayaked all that way, particularly if he was looking for gold.

He would have been the most ill-equipped treasure hunter ever and he struck me as someone too smart for that.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,”

Jon said.

“I doubt he came out here with an underwater camera.”

He smiled and sighed.

“I have to admit, that thing is a lot of fun.”

“Yeah, my parents loved gadgets, particularly anything they thought might help them hunt for cryptids.”

I shook my head and chuckled.

“A few of them are quite bizarre.

I’ll have to show you some of the things in their collection one of these days.

You might look at me differently once you see what the people who raised me thought was fun.”

“I look at you differently now,”

he said with a wink.

“It’s one of the reasons I like you.”

We rode the rest of the way in companionable silence except for Jon’s offer to stop somewhere and get us something to eat.

“I’ve got stuff in my apartment for sandwiches,” I said.

He smiled.

“I know.

I saw all your stores last night while I was fixing dinner.

But I don’t want to overstay my welcome.”

“Nonsense.

It’s the least I can do after you cooked me dinner last night.”

“Okay.

It’s a date.”

Scary words, those.

Jon Flanders was slowly tipping open the door on the closed part of my life.

I resisted an urge to slam it shut again.