Page 103 of It Happened on the Lake

W ith Chelle looking over his shoulder, Rand stared at a new set of photographs laid out across his desk in his office.

They had been at it for hours. It was late, the day shift having been replaced by the night crew hours before, the office illuminated only by overheads and desk lamps, the station quiet except for an occasional phone ringing or the undertones of a conversation, but at this hour, closing in on midnight, only a few officers were in the building.

The pictures they were viewing had been developed from the stash of old film canisters and cameras they had discovered in the Musgraves’ cabin.

The film was primarily black and white, the shots grainy, but he and Chelle had pored over the developed still pictures while the film from the old movie cameras was still being processed.

No, he expected the film from the movie cameras would prove to be moving images of what happened on the lake, the secrets of people in their private lives, secrets they would pay to keep hidden, secrets never meant to be exposed.

For now, though, until those movies were available, he and Chelle looked over the photographs.

There had been mountains of pictures to sort through, day and night shots, mostly of the activity on the lake.

Nothing that meant anything. There were other photographs as well, of people who had come and gone to the Musgraves’ home, shots taken from the peephole cut into the floor of the attic.

Images of drug deals going down or couples or threesomes engaging in sex.

Rand figured some of the photographs were used for blackmail.

Others Trick might have seen as insurance so that no one would complain about activity at the house if they themselves realized they’d been caught on camera.

It had taken hours, but Rand and Chelle had sorted through them to come up with shots from the night Chase Hunt had disappeared. They had arranged them in sequence, according to the negatives, which showed each photo taken in succession.

Those photos were spread in a time line across the wide surface of his desk.

The interesting thing, he noted, was that Trick had been busy that night.

Many of the images were of the Hunts’ dock, pictures snapped of the fight between Chase and his father.

There had been just enough illumination from the street light and through the window of the Hunts’ house to make out what happened, though some of the images on the pictures were blurry and useless. Those were set aside.

That night, Trick hadn’t confined his spying to the Hunt family. His expensive equipment had captured images of people in houses across the lake and, more specifically, on Dixon Island.

And those images told a story.

It started with shots of the fight between Chase and Tom. Though some of them were blurred, there were photos of Tom and Gerald loading Chase’s body into the boat, then leaving the boat adrift in the middle of the lake.

“These confirm your dad’s statement,” Chelle said, pointing to the pictures of Chase and Tom on the Hunts’ dock. That much was true, and Rand only hoped that his father had truly and completely come clean. She said, “It’s amazing that Trick got them.”

“He was always on the lookout for something to use to get a buck ahead, and he was lucky that the Musgraves’ dock was the largest so he could get an angle on the other houses on the point.”

“Especially the Hunts’ property as it sticks out farther into the lake,” she observed. “The real point of Fox Point.”

But there were other photos that bothered him. Photographs taken that night, most likely with a telephoto lens, possibly taken from a boat or some other watercraft. They were shots of Dixon Island, the manor house, and the people within.

He recognized Harper.

And her image was caught on the island’s dock. Wrestling with a canoe.

Then another couple of pictures of her near Tom Hunt’s empty boat in the middle of the lake.

“He was there,” Rand said. “On the lake. He had to have been.”

There were more pictures of the huge house on the island.

Images of someone in Harper’s grandmother’s room while Harper herself was in the canoe looking for Chase.

Someone who could have doctored the old woman’s drink.

Someone he recognized.

And in that second the jagged pieces of what happened that night began to tumble into place. As he double-checked the time, an icy dread began to take hold. He was vaguely aware of the phone ringing but let Chelle answer it.

“That’s right,” she said after a short conversation, and when he started to reach for his jacket she held up a finger, her face going somber.

“. . . the next of kin? I believe he has a daughter,” she was saying, her gaze locked with Rand’s as she reached for a pad and pen and held the phone between her ear and shoulder.

“. . . No. Divorced as I understand it . . . Yes, we’ll let her know.

Where is the body?” she asked. “Mercy General? Yeah, Got it.” She wrote across the top of the note so that Rand could read: HOMICIDE, JOEL PRESCOTT.

“Okay, we’re on it.” She hung up and explained as she grabbed her coat.

“Portland PD. It looks like Joel Prescott fell, jumped, or was pushed off a rooftop in Portland. He had ID on him and info with Harper Prescott’s name.

At first look, it was suspected suicide, but the bartender said he had a friend with him, someone he knew. ”

“Jesus.” He felt sick inside. He picked up the phone and dialed a number he’d remembered, the number for the house on Dixon Island. He needed to tell Harper about her ex, and more than that, he felt an urgency.

Two people dead in as many days.

Who knew how far this would go?

And then there were the photographs of the intruder who, he believed, may have sent Olivia Dixon to an early grave and let Harper take the fall for it.

He waited, phone to his ear, sliding his arms into his jacket. “Come on,” he said, willing her to answer.

Chelle, too, was slipping into her coat.

On the other end of the line the answering machine picked up.

“Shit!” He slammed the phone down. “Let’s go!” he said to Chelle, who was zipping her jacket. “And bring your gun.”