Page 21 of It Happened on the Lake

F inishing his coffee, Rand was about to head to the cold case files when Ned Gunderson, wearing a heavy jacket, walked from the outside and entered the break room.

A heavy-set old-timer with close-cropped hair that was more salt than pepper, Gunn was only a couple of years from retirement, one of the few cops that had been on the force for over twenty years.

“Jesus, it’s wet as hell outside and pretty damned cold, too.

You’d think it was the middle of January.

” Gunn rubbed his hands together before pouring himself a cup of coffee, emptying the pot just as his partner, Eleanor Brady, joined him.

Half his age and half his size, Brady was petite, blond, and a divorced mother of two who was blessed with a razor sharp tongue and had earned a black belt in karate.

“You gonna refill that?” she asked, eyeing the empty pot.

Gunn sent her an are-you-kidding look before tearing open several packets of Equal.

Adding the sugar substitute to his cup before he doctored his brew with a shot of Coffee-Mate.

“Looks like it’s on you.” Using a stir stick to mix the concoction, he took a chair at a round table where newspapers had been scattered while his partner sent him a dirty look.

“Fine. I’m doing it because I want a fresh cup, not because it’s ‘woman’s work,’” she told him. “You got that?”

“I didn’t say anything like that. Geez!” Gunn wasn’t the least bit abashed as he glanced at Rand, as if expecting backup.

No way was Rand going to step into that dog fight.

Gunn muttered, “It’s got nothin’ to do with sex.”

“You mean in my being a woman.”

“Jesus. Word games.” Tossing his stir stick into the trash, he grumbled under his breath. “Damned libbers. Everybody’s so damned touchy these days.”

“You got that right.” A pissy frown in place, Brady swabbed the pot in a nearby sink and refilled the water chamber. She measured out fresh coffee for the basket, pushed a button, and waited, arms crossed over her chest.

Gunn shed his jacket, letting it fall against the back of his chair, and slid a pair of reading glasses onto his nose.

After pushing aside a basket of sugar packets, he sifted through the scattered sections of The Oregonian , the state-wide newspaper.

“Where the hell is the sports section?” he muttered.

“If that goddamned Fellows took it—oh! Hello. Here we go.” Snapping open the pages, he glanced up at Rand.

“If you ask me, it looks like the Dodgers are gonna sweep the series. Got a good shot at it. The A’s?

Not so much. And don’t talk to me about Canseco and McGwire.

” He shook his head. “Bash Brothers, my ass.” He looked over the tops of his reading glasses.

“Wait a sec. Don’t tell me you’re an Oakland fan. ”

Rand lifted a shoulder. “They’ve got a shot.”

“Wanna bet?”

“Give it a rest, Gunn.” Brady was still waiting on the coffeemaker as it heated. Empty cup in hand, she asked Rand, “So how’s it going with the Cynthia Hunt case?”

“Looks cut and dried,” Rand said.

The coffeemaker started growling and gurgling, scenting the air with the warm aroma of some kind of roast.

“Ya think?” Gunn said. “Word all over town is about Cynthia Hunt becoming a human torch.”

Rand winced at the description. “We’re still sorting things out.”

Chelle had entered the break room and was slipping coins into the soda vending machine.

“Hi there, cutie!” Gunderson said as she retrieved a bottle of Coke from the machine. “What’s a young thing like you doing working in a place like this?”

“Exactly that. Working,” Chelle shot back, and if looks could kill, Gunderson would already be six feet under, even though he was still chuckling at his time-worn line. She headed for the door, and Gunderson watched her backside as she left.

“Oh, for the love of God, give it up, Gunn! Put your eyes back in their sockets,” his partner said sharply. “No one wants what you’re selling.” The coffeepot gurgled a last gasp.

“You never know.”

“Trust me, I do.” Eleanor poured herself a cup, sat at the table near Gunn, and took a long sip. She sorted through a section of the newspaper, found the page she wanted, and smoothed it onto the table. After retrieving a pen from her pocket, she clicked it and started in on the crossword puzzle.

“In ink?” her partner asked.

“Always.” Then she grinned at him. “What’s a nine-letter word for dick? Oh, I’ve got it. G-U-N-D—”

“Very funny,” Gunderson muttered.

“I thought so.”

Gunderson scoffed and sipped from his cup.

“So what about Cynthia Hunt? What’s going on there?” Brady asked Rand without looking up.

“Couldn’t survive the trauma of the burns, I guess,” Rand replied. “We’ll know more once we see the autopsy.”

“And Harper Reed? She’s okay, right? I heard she was admitted to the hospital but was released and came in and gave a statement.”

“Right.” He didn’t elaborate as he noticed Chelle loitering near the doorway, half hidden by a bank of lockers in the hallway but obviously listening to the conversation. He couldn’t explain why her doggedness concerning Harper’s family bothered him, but it did.

“Bet you had to twist her arm,” Gunn said, not looking up as he scanned the headlines.

“She came of her own volition.”

“Riiiight,” he mocked. “You know that family, they have a habit of getting into trouble and skirting the law.”

“The Reeds?” Eleanor asked.

“Dixons.” Gunderson ran his finger down the sports page, checking scores.

“Started with the old man. George. Piece of work, that one. Made his fortune during the Depression selling land to people who couldn’t afford it, taking their money until they ran out, then foreclosed and sold the same piece to the next sucker who came along. ”

Rand had heard rumors to the same effect.

Gunderson added, “Old George ended up the richest man in town with a lot of property, including that island. Rumor was that he was some kind of sex freak. Is it okay to say that, or does that offend you?”

Brady scowled. “Get real.”

“Anyway, he was a con man’s con man, if you know what I mean.

” Gunn thought for a second, then added, “You know what? I’ll give odds ten to one that his old lady did him in.

” Eleanor was about to interrupt, but Gunn said quickly, “Oh, I know all about the results of his autopsy report. That he died from something that gave him a heart attack or whatever. In a car crash. And he did have a bad heart. Once before, an ambulance was called for a heart attack, and the guys who took him to the hospital said his pants were at his ankles and there was—how should I say this? Uh. Evidence. Yeah, there was evidence that he’d been jack—” He caught his partner’s sharp stare.

“Uh. Pleasuring himself at the time. He survived that, but it was mortifying for his wife, you know. I’m thinking the old lady did something to induce the heart attack.

So, later when he did cash in his chips, maybe he was driving and got himself so—uh—excited, you might say—that he gave himself another attack and crashed that fancy car of his.

” His lips curved at the thought. “Helluva way to go.”

“While he was driving?” Brady said. “Oh sure. Gross, Gunn. And was it a heart attack at the wheel?” She didn’t seem sure about it, but she shrugged it off. “It was before my time here. Anyway, what does this have to do with Harper Prescott?”

“Just that her family has a history of strange deaths,” Gunn said.

“Strange how?” Brady asked, though she was carrying on the conversation while filling in the squares of her crossword puzzle.

“Unusual deaths. First the woman, Harper’s mother.”

“Anna,” Rand said.

“Right, Anna. Then her old man and then a couple of years later, her kid. The son. Harper’s brother.” Gunn scowled and rubbed his head. “What the hell was his name?”

“Evan,” Rand supplied.

“Yeah, that was it.” Gunn nodded.

Rand asked, “What does that have to do with Cynthia Hunt?”

“Nothin’, probably.” Gunn took a long sip from his cup. “It’s just that damned lake. You know what I mean. You live there. Lots of weird stuff goes on there, if you ask me.”

“No one did,” Brady said, shooting him a glance.

Rand heard muffled voices in the hallway just before two female officers walked to the locker area. The clang of metal doors shutting and locks clicking interrupted Gunn for a second.

As the women retreated into the hallway, Gunn picked up where he’d left off. “Money does weird things to people, you know.”

“I’d like a little of that weirdness,” Brady said.

“Try raising a couple of teenage boys as a single mother. I swear they’re gonna eat me out of house and home.

When they’re not eating, they’re sleeping, but somehow they make insane piles of laundry and never leave gas in the car.

That weird money you were talking about would help. ”

“So take your ex to court. Or play the damned lottery,” Gunderson suggested.

As Rand refilled his cup, he noticed Chelle still lingering in the hallway. Sipping her drink, she was listening hard, not even trying to disguise her interest.

“You knew the Reed kid, Evan. Right? Aren’t you about his age?”

Rand nodded. “I knew him.” But he didn’t elaborate on just how close they had been.

Gunderson actually sighed and shook his head, looking up from his paper.

“God, that was a tough one. I was the cop on duty.” His expression turned thoughtful.

“It looked like suicide, but I never felt right about it.” Gunn’s gaze shifted to a middle distance only he could view as the memory caught him. “His sister found him.”

“Harper?” Brady asked.

“Uh-huh. Just like she found her grandma. She has a way of doing that, doesn’t she?” Gunderson said as Chuck Fellows wandered in and helped himself to a cup of coffee. Fellows was a big, athletic man with thick white hair and a bulbous nose.

Gunderson made his point. “I just think it’s quite a coincidence that she was the one who discovered her brother, her grandma, and now Cynthia Hunt.”

Even Brady had stopped working on the puzzle. “Was she with her mother, too, when she died?”

“No. She wasn’t with Anna Reed, thank God. But she’d been outside.”

“I remember,” Chuck Fellows said as he cradled his cup and walked closer. He was one of the few cops who had been around at the time. “Halloween night. That poor little kid was traumatized. Ended up in the hospital, if I remember right. Had pneumonia or something.”

“Right,” Gunn agreed.

“And wasn’t she involved with Tom’s boy?” Fellows asked before taking a swallow of coffee. “You remember, the older son who went missing.”

“Chase.” Gunn nodded as he poured himself a fresh cup.

“Yep. McKenna and I caught the two of them once, parked up at Lookout Point, while we were on patrol. They were, you know . . . doing what teenagers do up there. You remember—Chase Hunt—yeah, ’course you do,” he said to Rand as he took his spot back at the table. “You were his friend, right?”

“Right.”

“Anyway, the girl—Harper—claimed he was supposed to meet her the night he vanished. God, what a shit show that was,” Gunderson said, nodding to himself before taking a sip and pulling a face.

“The whole damned department was down there on the lake searching for the kid.” He found another packet of Equal in the basket on the table, opened it, and added the crystals to his cup.

Brady said, “That stuff’ll be the death of ya.”

“Not yet.” Gunn took a sip. “Chase and Tom were like oil and water, ya know. Couldn’t get along.

Not since the kid went off to college and got involved with the antiwar movement or whatever.

Tom, he was a World War II vet, decorated and all, survived Normandy, but his kid didn’t want to go to Vietnam, had a thing against that war, but flunked out of college, so was up for the draft.

If you ask me, Chase Hunt turned tail and ran. Just took off.”

Brady eyed him. “And left his family to wonder about him?”

Gunn shrugged as he drank from his cup. “Been known to happen.”

“Maybe,” Rand said, “No one knows for sure.”

“That’s right, but what I do know is that the boy was missing. Never heard from again.” Gunderson’s face crumpled, his lips pursing, his eyebrows nearly touching. “It just about killed his father, maybe did in the long run.”

“Ancient history, Gunn,” Eleanor Brady said as she turned her attention back to the open page in front of her, then glanced up quickly to pin Rand in her uncompromising stare. “But your dad should know all about it. He lived through it. Tom and he were tight, right? Isn’t that what I heard?”

“Yeah.”

“Had to be tough on all of them. All of you.”

Amen , Rand thought, more than anyone knows. He kicked his chair back then topped off his cup.

Chelle had slipped away.

Good. Carrying his cup, he left the break room.

In his office, he found Chelle already at her desk. She was working busily on the contents of an old case file, as if she’d been at it for the entire time he’d been gone.

Yeah, right.

He caught a glimpse of Harper’s name on a note pad and his gut twisted.

Chelle didn’t know the half of what happened that night, he thought as he settled into his desk chair.

But she would. He read the determination in the set of her jaw.

What’s the old saying? The truth will set you free?

Maybe, in this case, it was just the opposite.