Page 19

CHAPTER 19

Thus did I by the water’s brink

Another world beneath me think;

And while the lofty spacious skies

Reversèd there, abused mine eyes,

I fancied other feet

Came mine to touch or meet;

As by some puddle I did play

Another world within it lay.

—Thomas Traherne, “Shadows in the Water”

WHITNEY

My epiphany about the pond—that it might have hidden more than beer—had me simmering with anticipation. I could be wrong, of course. After all, although the pond was murky now, I didn’t know what it had looked like back then. They might have dredged it regularly to keep it clean and clear, or it might have contained clusters of cattails, which are one of the best plants at filtering water and protecting a shoreline.

Most of the laborers’ cars were gone when I arrived back at the boarding school property at half past five that evening. Buck’s van remained, but there was no sign of him outside. He was probably wrapping things up inside so he could get home to his wife and daughter.

I strode down to the pond and surveyed the bog. On closer inspection, I noticed that not all of the cloudiness in the water was due to silt. Some of it was greenish-gray algae.

I suppose I could have bought an inflatable raft to use in searching the pond, but I hadn’t had the forethought to stop and get one. I debated wading into the swamp, but I’d ruin my work boots. They didn’t come cheap. I wasn’t about to take off my boots and wade in barefoot, either. There could be broken glass or rocks or other debris that could cut my feet. Hmm.

I’d heard of people making rafts out of plastic soda or water bottles. Two dozen or more bottles were in a recycling bin just inside the door to the school, but I wasn’t sure they would be enough to support my weight. Rather than stand there speculating, I decided to go see what things I might find in the girls’ dormitory that I could put to use.

I entered the dorm and slowly made my way down the hall, glancing into the rooms. I’d only use tools and materials that belonged to Whitaker Woodworking. Borrowing another contractor’s tools and supplies on jobsites was a big no-no. There was no shortage of five-gallon paint buckets with WW , shorthand for my uncle’s business, written in bright red permanent marker on the sides. Not surprising. The lightweight but sturdy buckets were versatile pieces of equipment. They could hold paint, of course, but they were also useful in corralling small tools, screws, and nails. They made mini dumpsters for small debris. They could be turned upside down to serve as stools. Heck, on remote jobs, they could even serve as makeshift sinks and toilets. Not that I’d ever used a bucket that way myself, but you hear things.

I retrieved a tape measure from my tool belt and measured the buckets. They were slightly over fourteen inches high and a foot in diameter. I gathered eight of them and a standard piece of plywood that was three-quarters inch thick, four feet wide, and eight feet long, small enough for me to take down to the pond, but big enough that I could sit or lie on it. I placed the plywood sideways on a dolly so I could see over it, stacked the buckets, and situated them on the nose of the dolly in front of the plywood. After rounding up a spool of heavy-duty rope and the longest pry bar I could find—a fifty-six incher—I set out the back door of the dorm. As I made my way the quarter mile through the woods to the pond, the dolly bounced over the uneven ground, jostling the paint buckets. Birds twittered at me and squirrels darted out of my path as I went along. With sundown not too far away, the air was cool and comfortable. A few of the trees had changed colors early, and had hints of reds, gold, and orange among their leaves.

When I reached the edge of the pond, I parked the dolly and removed the buckets, lining them up in two rows of four. I wrapped rope tightly around the perimeter to hold them together. I carried the contraption over to the water to test it. Sure enough, it floated high in the water, the empty buckets quite buoyant.

I placed the plywood on top of them. Though the buckets sank three inches farther into the water, I did some quick mental math. A standard piece of plywood weighed about sixty pounds. I weighed a little over double that. Though I wasn’t certain about the weight of the pry bar, I figured the makeshift raft should hold me. Once I was atop the plywood, I should have around four inches of clearance to spare before the buckets began taking on water. I’ll have to move smoothly. I hoped I hadn’t miscalculated or I might end up with a frog in my coveralls.

Slowly and gently, I walked my hands forward on the plywood until they reached the far end. I lowered myself onto the wood, bringing the pry bar with me. I lowered the pole into the water until it hit bottom with about a foot to spare. I used the bar to pull myself along, while also poking it around on the bottom of the pond to see if it hit anything other than muck. The water seemed to be a fairly uniform depth of around three and a half feet, though occasionally I’d hit a spot that was slightly deeper or shallower.

I made my way back and forth across the pond, imaginary grid lines in my mind, making sure I didn’t miss any part of the bottom as I poked around. I was nearing the northern edge on my third go-round, when my pole hit something solid and flat. My heart rate rocketed. What is it? I poked around carefully until I found the edge of the mystery object, then eased the curved end of the pry bar under it and lifted. The item floated free, invisible in the murk. I reached into the water and felt around. My hands touched something and I grabbed it, raising it to the surface. It was a cracked plastic Frisbee with WHAM-O printed on it. Argh!

I laid the toy on the plywood next to my knee and continued on. I’d been right. The pond had indeed been hiding things. Unfortunately, none of them had anything to do with a homicide. A broken fishing pole. A tennis shoe with a hole in the toe. A busted toy boat. A kite that must have crashed into the water.

“Whitney!” Buck hollered from the shore. “Have you lost your ever-loving mind? That’s the most ridiculous contraption I’ve ever seen. I don’t even want to know what you’re doing out there!”

“Suit yourself!” I hollered back, continuing on.

He was quiet for a moment, then called, “What are you doing out there?”

I called back. “I thought you didn’t want to know!”

“I changed my mind!”

“I’m looking for clues!”

“Shoes?”

For Pete’s sake. “No! Clues! ”

“Oh. Find any yet?”

“No!”

The hook on the pry bar caught on something malleable. I attempted to leverage the item out of the muck, but it was too solidly stuck to lift it straight up. Instead, I attempted to wiggle it free by moving the hook back and forth and jerking on it. After eight or nine tugs, I felt the item break loose. Success!

Slowly and carefully, I raised it to the surface. It was a muddy backpack. The hook on the pry bar was under a shoulder strap. I reached out with a hand and tried to lift it by the strap, but with all the water and mud it retained, the bag was much too heavy, at least from this angle. I grabbed the small nylon loop at the top and raised it slowly, inch by inch, swishing it around in the water to clear off as much mud as possible. Finally, I was able to wrangle the backpack aboard my plywood vessel.

I gave the bag a pat down, attempting to determine what was inside. The bulk of the contents felt soft. Gym clothes, maybe? But I felt something small, rectangular, and hard, too. A box of some sort? Rather than risk the items tumbling out into the water, I used the pole to move myself back to shore.

I came aground with my face at the toe of Buck’s boots. “Grab the backpack for me.”

He reached down and hoisted the dripping backpack into the air. He grimaced. “Ew! It smells mucky.”

“That shouldn’t be a surprise.” The raft wobbled as I raised myself up onto my hands and knees, and crawled off it onto dry land. Sitting back on my heels, I reached up to take the backpack from Buck. I laid it flat on the ground in front of me and began to unzip it. The teeth were clogged with mud and the zipper caught a few times, but with a few hard tugs I eventually managed to get it open.

I reached in and pulled out the items one by one. The first thing was a stained, muddy dish towel printed with red roses.

“That’s weird,” Buck said.

“Maybe the student used it in art class.” The stains could be paint.

The next thing I pulled out was a Ridgetop Preparatory Academy official uniform blazer. I checked the tag. Men’s medium. With teenagers still growing, I supposed it made sense that the blazers came in general sizes rather than specific measurements like a men’s suit. There was no name written on the white size tag inside the blazer. I might have thought students would write their names, or at least their initials, so that they didn’t get their blazers mixed up. Or maybe they didn’t care. One medium-sized blazer was as good as any other, I supposed. A waterlogged spiral notebook was in the backpack, too, the cover and pages hardly more than mush now, the metal spiral binding bent and flattened in places. I attempted to open the notebook, but it was too damaged. It disintegrated in my hands.

The small box turned out to be a Sony Walkman cassette player, complete with headphones with foam earpieces. I used my finger to swipe the mud from the clear plastic window. The cassette was the High ’n’ Dry album by Def Leppard. I turned the device over. Unlike the blazer, the Walkman had a name neatly written on it in thick block letters in black permanent marker: ELI CLEMSON .

I checked inside the backpack, having to wipe away the mud that had accumulated in the top. Sure enough, the same name was written in black laundry marker inside the backpack: ELI CLEMSON .

I spread the items in front of me and looked them over. Had Eli hurled his backpack into the pond after being expelled? He might have been angry enough. But would he have been allowed to roam the property unescorted after Dr. Finster rendered his decision? It seemed unlikely. To prevent theft, vandalism, or destruction of company property, many businesses had a member of their security team escort employees out the door after they’d been terminated. It seemed a reasonable assumption that a boarding school would do the same for a student.

“Check the pockets on the blazer,” Buck suggested. “Maybe there’s money in them. The kids who could afford to attend this school were probably trust fund babies. I call dibs if you find any cash. I’ll put it in Mari’s college fund.”

I stuck two fingers into the open breast pocket, but felt nothing inside. I lifted the flap on the left front pocket and reached inside to find a single key on a simple metal ring. The pattern on the key looked familiar. Two deep cuts near the end, with three pronounced points near the top. Wait. Is this a key to the Victorian? I looked up at Buck. “Do you have your key to the headmaster’s house?”

“Yup.” Buck reached into his pocket and pulled out a key ring. He fingered through them and held up a single key.

I placed the key I’d found in the jacket pocket up against it. The grooves lined up perfectly. “They’re the same.” I laid the key atop the left lapel of the blazer and raised the flap on the right front pocket. I stuck my hand inside and felt around. The instant my fingers touched the small metal sheath, I cried out. “Oh, my gosh!”

I pulled the shell casing from the pocket. Was it the missing shell from the bullet that ended up in the porch post? Did this prove that the bullet I’d retrieved from the post was fired the night the Finsters died? It must. After all, why else would someone try to hide the shell casing here?

Had Elijah Clemson killed the Finsters?

Did I just solve the case?

I lay the shell atop the jacket pocket where I’d found it, and snapped photos of everything. I turned the Walkman over so that Detective Macedo could see Elijah’s name written on it. I’d entered Macedo’s number into my cell phone after he’d given me his business card. I texted him the pics along with a message that read Just found this backpack and contents at the bottom of the pond at Ridgetop Prep. Please advise .

I had sat there for two minutes, awaiting a reply, when Detective Macedo called. “How did you find the backpack?” I gave him the rundown, and he asked me to stay put. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Half an hour, tops.”

“I’ll send my cousin to the parking lot to meet you.” Macedo might have a hard time locating the pond on the expansive property otherwise.

Buck set off for the parking lot while I remained by the pond. As I waited, dusk set in, along with a swarm of hungry mosquitos. I slapped at the buzzing bloodsuckers, wishing I’d thought to bring bug spray. Frogs croaked, singing their pond song. Crickets joined in with a harmony. Before long, the sun had fully set and I was sitting alone in a noisy darkness. I wouldn’t be able to hear if someone crept up on me. It was disconcerting. But who’d be creeping up on me, anyway? All the thoughts of death and murder had made me paranoid.

Eventually, I saw the beams of two flashlights bouncing through the woods. Buck and Detective Macedo emerged and walked my way. I stood to greet the detective.

As he said hello, he must have spotted my ramshackle raft. He turned his flashlight on it. “You went treasure hunting on that thing?”

“Necessity is the mother of invention.”

“Well, that’s one mother of a raft. I’m impressed.”

Buck had ridiculed my craftsmanship earlier. I turned to my cousin and stuck out my tongue. Ha!

Macedo knelt down and grimaced, turning his head and waving a hand in front of it. “Boy, does this stuff reek!”

I no longer smelled the muck. I supposed I’d gotten used to it.

He shined his flashlight over my find, reaching out to examine each piece. He deemed the soggy remains of the spiral notebook useless. Like me, he looked to see which cassette tape was in the Walkman, as if Elijah Clemson’s musical taste might tell us something about him. “This could be a critical discovery.” Macedo looked up at me. “What made you think to check the pond?”

I gave him an update, telling him what I’d learned from Dwight Nabors. I pointed to the dilapidated dock. “He’d leave the beer under the dock for Elijah to retrieve. I read over the student discipline files and knew Elijah had gotten in trouble for swimming in the pond. I suppose all of that drew my attention to the spot and I figured Why not? ”

He picked up the items one by one and placed them in evidence bags, noting the date, time, and place he’d taken possession of them. He also noted my name on the tag as the person from whom the evidence had been acquired. When he finished, he looked back up at me. “I’ll have our ballistics guy check the shell to see if it came from Irving Finster’s gun. Regardless of whether it did or didn’t, I want to talk to Elijah Clemson. He needs to explain how the headmaster’s housekey ended up in his jacket pocket.” He tucked his pen into his breast pocket before returning his focus to me. “I’d like to take a look at the headmaster’s house.”

We left the frogs and crickets to their evening chorus. It was about a ten-minute walk over the boarding school property to the Victorian. The darkness slowed us down. Lest we twist an ankle stepping into a gopher hole, we had to carefully pick our way with only our flashlights for light.

I made use of the time to inform Detective Macedo about my visits to Frank McMahon’s office and Terry Thorne’s salon. “Terry is being held without bail.”

“Good,” he said. “You’re lucky you got out of that salon unscathed.”

I’d emerged looking like a three-year-old had cut my hair with safety scissors, but he had a point. I’d incurred no significant injuries. In fact, thanks to the seaweed facial, my skin had been radiant when I’d left.

The first thing Macedo did when we arrived at the Victorian was test the key we’d found in the deadbolt to ensure that it was, in fact, a key to the house. As expected, it worked just fine.

He stepped inside and glanced around, taking everything in. “Show me the study.”

Buck trailed behind us as I led the detective through the French doors. I pointed out the bloodstains on the wood floor and the tiny hole in the window frame. He bent down to take a look. “You’ve got a keen eye.”

Although I was proud of my sleuthing skills, I had to give some credit to sheer dumb luck. “I would’ve just taken it for a knothole if I hadn’t found the bullet in the post first.”

Macedo stood and turned to me. “What are you doing Friday?”

“You tell me.” Whatever he needed, I’d be happy to help.

“You found Dwight Nabors, obviously,” Macedo said. “Any chance you also know where Clemson lives?”

“No. I searched online, but had no luck.”

“I’ll track him down,” Macedo said. “Depending on where he lives, I’ll want you to go with me to interview him or join us on a phone call. Questions might come up about the pond or the house that only you might know the answer to.”

“No problem.”

With that, we stepped out onto the porch and I locked up the house. I could swear I saw a shadow in my peripheral vision, a human form at a window in the parlor. But when I looked directly at the wavy glass, there was nothing there but a reflection of the crescent moon. It was just my imagination running away with me again. Or was it?

We strode back through the woods to the school’s parking lot and parted ways. I could hardly wait to be part of Detective Macedo’s conversation with Eli Clemson! Finally, we might get some real answers.