Page 127 of It Happened on the Lake

“The prison guards look the other way. Hell, they come out here and join us for a smoke now and again.” The small garden area was fenced, with benches, standing ashtrays, and a gate that led to the side parking lot. A man who’d been smoking beneath the overhang stubbed out the butt of his cigar, and as Levi held the door, he slipped back inside. “The thing is, the doorislocked. You can get out, but you can’t get back in.”

“So someone has to let you inside.”

Ed stared at him as if he were a moron, and Levi understood why. A brick lay next to the door, and just before the door closed behind the mustachioed cigar smoker, Ed toed the brick into the opening and the door stayed ajar. “So what happened—with Mom, I mean?” Levi asked as they stood beneath the portico and watched the drizzle turn to rain, the afternoon so gloomy as to be nearly dark.

With a shrug, Ed said, “I gave a lady a lift home. She asked and I couldn’t say no.”

“You have a car?”

“Not exactly.” Ed looked over the chain-link to the lot where a row of vehicles was parked in the resident and employee lot. He smiled as Levi focused on the old rusting Volkswagen Microbus, its hippie art faded, the same vehicle he’d seen parked at the house at the end of the street when he was a kid.

“That thing’s still around?” he said.

“And runs like a top. Bought it off one of the kids who lived there, about the same time your brother went missing. They all wanted to split, and I bought the van for a song,” he said proudly. “Helluva deal.”

Levi’s mind was spinning. He watched Jake nose around some of the small bushes near the patio before lifting a leg. “So wait. You drove my mom back to the lake in her housecoat and just dropped her off? You didn’t think to tell anyone what she was planning?”

“I didn’t know what she was planning, son. I just gave her a ride.” He nodded toward the envelope still in Levi’s hand. “Maybe that will explain it all. I doubt it, but maybe. Come on, Jake,” he said to the dog and turned to go back inside.

“Wait. Who did you buy the van from again? I mean, you said the kids but surely one of them had their name on the title.”

Sievers halted and looked over his shoulder. “The kid’s name was Trick. That’s what he went by, but the name on the paperwork was different. Real name was Tristan something or other.” He bit his lower lip. “I think it started with a B, no wait, a V—Geez, what the hell was it?” He thought for a second, scratching his chin. “Uh, Vargas, I think it was. Yeah, that was it. Tristan Vargas. Does it matter?”

“Probably not,” Levi said, still piecing things together. Any information was worthwhile. “Did you ever have the van cleaned?”

Sievers snorted, “Why would I?”

“You didn’t find anything in it?”

“For what?” the old man asked. “I bought it, no questions asked. That’s the way I do things.”

Sievers had made his way to the door, Jake leading the way.

“Hey, hold up a sec!” Levi said.

Sievers paused, the dog inside, he and his walker out. “What now?”

“Why didn’t you tell the police? About taking Mom to the house at the lake? About this?” He held up the note.

“No one asked.”

“But you could have volunteered.”

“Don’t think so.” The old man’s smile twisted. “Your mom asked me to keep it to myself.”

“But that was before she . . .”

“Look, son, I don’t trust cops,” Ed said, shooing his little dog ahead of him. “Never have. Never will. Your mother asked me to keep her secret and I have. ’Til now.”

“But Detective Watkins was here.”

He snorted. “The neighbor? Never liked him. Didn’t trust him. Duke didn’t neither. Duke, he was my dog. Lost him a year or two after all the hubbub about your brother.”

“I remember Duke. But that was years ago. That was a different Detective Watkins.”

“Gerry. Yeah, I remember.”

“His son, Rand, is the detective in charge now. He was just here. I saw him on my way in.”