Page 192 of It Happened on the Lake

Rand stood, his back to the fire, his legs warming while his dad sat on the couch, a cigarette burning in an ashtray on a side table, a short glass of rye whiskey nearby. Spread on the coffee table was the damning evidence, such as it was: Cynthia Hunt’s note, Tom Hunt’s bank statement, and part of the registration for the Volkswagen van once owned by Trick Vargas or Larry Smith or whoever the hell he was now.

Gerald Watkins looked suddenly old. He winced as he picked up his glass, ice cubes clinking. Taking a long swallow, he studied the papers in front of him.

“Let’s start with Chase.” Rand skewered his father with his gaze. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“No surprise there,” Gerald said, nodding, finally giving up the secret that he’d carried for two decades. “But Cynthia got it all wrong. I had no part in killing him.”

“His father did?”

“Yeah, but an accident.” He set his drink down, then took a long draw on his cigarette. “Chase came home that night, all hopped up on who knows what, but out of his mind. He’d flunked out of school. Lost his scholarship. Was aimless, into drugs and all sorts of things, I guess. He was going to be drafted and was talking all crazy about getting his girlfriend, Harper Reed, pregnant and getting married to avoid the draft or go to Canada or whatever. He was a mess.”

So far, that lined up.

Gerald took another pull on his smoke and looked past Rand and into the fire, as if lost in the flames. “That night they got into it. A big fight, the way Tom told it. Physical. Even Levi got involved, but anyway, Tom was not about to let his son become a draft dodger.”

Rand was wary, but it seemed his dad was finally telling the truth.

“Anyway,” Gerald said, turning away from the fireplace. “Tom thought it had all calmed down when he heard the kid sneak out.”

“Sneak out? Chase wasn’t a kid.”

“Yeah, I know, but you get it. So Tom goes to confront him outside, and they get into it again. This time, Tom clocks the kid and, like I said, Chase is out of control and drunk and—anyway, Chase slips, goes down, and hits his head on the rail. And that’s it.”

“He dies?”

“Yeah. Tom tries CPR, but it’s too late. The kid’s gone. Tom came over to the house, here, and was out of his mind. Didn’t want to call for an ambulance cuz it was too late and Tom would pay the price. Levi and Cindy, they had seen the fight earlier. As I understand it, Levi even got caught in the crossfire.”

Rand remembered Levi’s bandaged face. Remembered his own aching shoulder.

“Tom would’ve been up for manslaughter at the least. His wife and kid saw the fight, heard the threats, and both Chase and Tom had the bruises to prove it. If they testified, and maybe if they didn’t, Tom was looking at going to prison.”

Rand waited as his father nursed his drink.

Finally Gerald spoke again. “The long and the short of it is we came up with a plan. Tom said he knew what to do with the body, and he wanted to make it look like Chase disappeared, so all I ever knew is that he took Chase out in the boat and twenty minutes later, I met him in the middle of the lake in mine—ours. He climbed out of his boat, and I brought us back to shore.”

“So what happened to Chase’s body?”

Gerald scratched at the stubble on his jaw. “I don’t know, son, and that’s the God’s honest truth. Tom stashed him somewhere around the lake or in the water and told me he would take care of it later. By that I think he meant dispose of the body. He was pretty broken up about it all.”

But not broken up enough to come clean.

“Hold on a second. You don’t know where he hid his son’s body?” For the first time tonight, Rand doubted his father. “But the lake was searched. Dredged. People combed the shoreline as well as the town.”

“You forget that Olivia Dixon died that night, too. Almsville was rocked by both deaths, and the department was stretched thin. And Tom knew this lake better than anyone. Had grown up here.” Gerald looked pointedly at Rand. “My guess? He stashed the body in a place only he knew about, then, in the next week or so, once things had died down a bit, he took his boat, loaded the body into it, and towed it to the coast. Maybe Astoria, there at the mouth of the Columbia, or some other spot where the tide would wash it into the open sea.” He took another thoughtful drag, then added in a puff of smoke, “But whatever Tom did with the body, he never said a word to me or anyone else that I know of. He took that information to his grave.” Gerald hesitated, thinking, and finally said, “For the record, I never bought the whole idea that Tom had an accident on the lake.”

“You think he committed suicide?” Rand asked.

“And covered it up, so that Cindy could still collect the insurance money.”

“Jesus,” Rand said under his breath. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was too bizarre, too far-fetched, and yet on the other hand it made perfect sense. Explained a lot. Except as to where Chase’s body ultimately ended up. That part was still a mystery.

But now he knew Chase was dead. He remembered promising his friend that he would “take care” of Harper. He hadn’t. Now, though, he could inform her, and Levi as well, that Chase was truly gone. He paced to the stairs and back again, and more questions arose. “So you think Cynthia blamed you and Tom for Chase’s death?”

Gerald picked up the note she’d sent and winced at the pain in his shoulder. “Not originally. She wouldn’t have spent so much time trying to find him if she had. And I don’t think she would cover up for Tom or me.” He took another long draw on his cigarette, then jabbed it out in the tray. “Doesn’t make sense. No. She must’ve put two and two together when she saw this bank statement. Why else would she include it with the note?”

Rand walked into the kitchen, found a bag of frozen peas in the freezer, and took the package back to the living room. “What do you make of the bank statement?” he asked, handing the frozen peas to his father, just as the old man had offered a similar bag to him after particularly rough games on the football field.

Gerald placed the makeshift ice pack on his shoulder. “Looks like a shakedown to me.”