Page 38 of It Happened on the Lake

R and was facing a firing squad of one.

The bald guy was dressed in army fatigues and pointing a machine gun at him.

He couldn’t move!

“Got you, you little shit!”

“No!” he yelled, but no sound came out. He was gagged! And tied to some stake.

With a nasty chuckle, Chrome Dome pulled the trigger.

Rat-a-tat-tat!

Bullets sprayed all around him, hitting hard and fast and loud.

Rapid-fire explosions.

Rand’s eyes flew open.

The sound of the bullets striking furiously didn’t abate.

He bit back the urge to yell.

Then he realized he was in his own bed. The plaid comforter was on the floor. His sheets were twisted all around him.

But the sound of the bullets striking continued.

A woodpecker rat-a-tat-tatting noisily against the house. “Oh man,” he whispered, blinking, his racing pulse finally beginning to slow. He glanced at the nightstand near his bed. Five after seven, according to the clock radio.

Feeling sore all over, he remembered the night before and closed his eyes, trying to block it out, hoping for a few more minutes of sleep. But the alarm blared before he could doze off. He groaned and rolled over, then forced himself to get up. It was Tuesday. A school day.

Yawning, he carried clothes down the stairs and went into the bathroom, where he got ready, stepping through the shower and brushing his teeth, tossing water into his dark hair and slicking it away from his face.

His battered face. He was bruised where his nose and cheeks had hit the rough bark of the tree, and one of his eyes was already red, a shiner on its way.

There was no way to hide it.

No lie he could think of that would explain it.

Crossing his fingers, he hoped his parents would sleep in.

No such luck.

Mom was in the bathroom. Rand heard the water running in the sink.

And his dad had already poured himself a cup of coffee.

He was standing at the back door, staring out at the mist-shrouded lake as he sipped from his mug.

His T-shirt stretched tight over his shoulders, his slacks still without a belt, the worn moccasins he used as slippers on his feet.

The newspaper already open on the table, his pack of Pall Malls near the ashtray.

Dad barely glanced over his shoulder as Rand stepped into the room. “Mornin’.” Holding his coffee cup in one hand, he opened an overhead cupboard with the other, pulled out a box of Trix, and shook the box. “Not much left, probably just a bowlful. That do?”

“Sure.” Rand, face averted, walked to the refrigerator, opened the door, and found a jug of milk. It, too, was nearly empty, but he grabbed a bowl from the shelves, a spoon from a drawer, then poured himself cereal as Gerald lit a cigarette and sat at the table, perusing the morning paper.

Rand barely looked up as he dug in, though he wasn’t really hungry. He placed the cereal box between himself and his dad and, keeping his face down-turned, pretended to be fascinated by his tricolored breakfast.

The woodpecker went to work again, rat-a-tat-tatting against the siding.

“Holy Kee-Rist! Do you hear that? Damned woodpecker! You got your slingshot?”

Automatically, Rand glanced up.

And Gerald Watkins got a look at his son for the first time that morning. He zeroed in on Rand’s bruised face. “What the hell happened to you?” Cigarette dangling from his lips, he was out of his chair in a second, examining his son’s face. “You get in a fight or something?”

“No, I just fell off my bike, into the gravel and rocks.”

Gerald noticed a scrape on the side of Rand’s hand. “Holy Mother of—” He didn’t ask, just rolled up his son’s sleeve and looked at the slight abrasions. Pall Mall clenched between his teeth, he said, “That’s one hell of a raspberry. You sure you didn’t get into a fight?”

“I told you, I just fell off my bike.”

“Really?” His dad gave him the stink eye and sucked hard on the cigarette. That was the problem with his old man being a cop. He was always suspicious. Frowning, Gerald asked, “You okay?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

Still unconvinced but not able to call Rand a liar, he said, “Well, put some Mercurochrome on all the cuts, okay? I think there’s some in the medicine cabinet.

If not, we’ve got iodine.” He backed up and sat down, leaned back in his chair, and squinted at his son through the smoke.

It was as if he was sizing Rand up and weighing how much he could believe his son.

And just how much BS was being shoveled his way.

“No need for infection to set in.” Still seeming unconvinced, he took a sip of his coffee. “You be careful on that bike.”

“I will.”

“Is it okay?” he asked, suddenly, his eyes dark with a new concern. “The Schwinn, it’s not wrecked, is it?”

“No. No. It’s good.” The three-speed had been last year’s Christmas present, and Rand had overheard his dad claim it had cost “a pretty penny” in more than one conversation.

Rand scraped back his chair, left his bowl in the sink, and quickly started for the bathroom.

The less he said to his father—and mother, for that matter—the better.

If the old man ever got wind of what he’d done with his friends and then lied about it, there would be hell to pay. He wouldn’t be able to sit for a week.

“Election’s next week, you know.” Dad rapped his fist on the newspaper. “You know about it, right?”

“Heard about it in school.”

“It’s a big one. Kennedy, he might just beat old Tricky Dick.”

Like he cared. “Who?” Rand asked.

“Nixon. The vice president. Never liked the guy, not when he was a senator from California and not as Ike’s V.P. Just don’t trust him. Kennedy’s young, and he’s Irish Catholic. And ya know what? He might just beat Nixon.”

“Good,” Rand said, though he didn’t care. Right now, he had bigger worries. What if Craig Alexander’s father had recognized him? The old guy had been drunk last night, yeah, but maybe when he sobered up, he’d put two and two together.

“Don’t they teach you this stuff in school?”

“What?” Oh, his dad was still talking about that boring election stuff. “I guess.” Who cared? Stomach in knots, he met his mother in the living area as she was coming out of the bathroom.

“Good morning—hey, what happened to you?” she asked, catching him by the sleeve as he tried to pass. “My God, Rand.” Her gaze moved across his face, and she tried to touch his cheek, but he jerked away.

“I’m okay. I just fell off my bike.”

“How?”

“Hit some gravel last night. It’s no big deal. Dad told me to take care of it.”

“You were riding in the dark? I thought you went trick or treating.”

“We did. This was after. Just here on the street. Slid on some gravel. Old Ma . . . Mr. Sievers had a pile of it in his yard. I mean, I guess that’s where it came from. Don’t know.”

“But your face.”

“It’s okay.”

“Doesn’t look okay,” she said, still viewing him with a critical eye. “Let me help you bandage it up.”

“Nah, I’m good.” He yanked his arm away, slipped into the small bathroom, and locked the door. He didn’t want to answer any more questions. He didn’t want to lie.

In the medicine cabinet, he found the Mercurochrome bottle, opened it, pulled out the stopper, and swiped the glass applicator over the cut above his eye.

Then he attended to the scrapes on his arms and hands.

The medicine stung. Not like iodine, but still.

He sucked in his breath with each application until the burn slowed.

Now he really looked like shit, his cuts discolored.

Great.

When the pain subsided a bit, he recapped the bottle and jammed it onto the shelf next to the tin of Band-Aids and Mom’s jar of night cream.

Just as Old Man Sievers’s dog started barking his fool head off.

Again.

“That miserable mutt!” his father muttered, scraping his chair back loudly on the linoleum as Rand came out of the bedroom and headed for the stairs.

“It’s irritating, but just a dog,” Mom countered, as Rand started up the steps.

Gerald scoffed. “Been a helluva morning. First the damned woodpecker and now—”

A frantic pounding on the front door stopped him short.

Bam. Bam. Bam!

“Watkins! You in there?” a gruff male voice yelled as the dog kept up his crazed barking. The incessant pounding continued.

Rand paused midway up the flight.

The voice came again. Insistent. “Watkins!”

“Yeah, yeah! Hold your horses.” Irritated, Gerald walked straight to the front door and opened it wide.

Old Man Sievers stood wild-eyed on the doorstep. He was unkempt as usual in camo pants and a battered army jacket, his graying hair standing straight up, his face white, his eyes wild.

“Can’t you get your damned dog to shut up?” Gerald said.

“No!”

“There are laws—”

“She’s dead!”

“What?” Gerald Watkins froze. “Who?”

“Don’t know,” Sievers said. “But she’s out in the lake.”

“What?”

Mom had come out of the kitchen. “Gerald?” she said weakly. “What’s going on?” She eyed the wild-eyed man and clutched the tie of her bathrobe.

“I’m tellin’ ya,” Sievers said to Rand’s father. “There’s a dead woman in the lake! Jesus H. Christ! You’re a damned cop, right? Go look for yourself!” Through the still open front door, Sievers’s dog kept up the incessant barking and growling against the fence.

“Oh dear God,” Mom said as Rand came slowly down the stairs.

The whole scene was surreal. Never had Sievers shown up at their door. The way everyone told it, the old man held a grudge against the police and had a reputation for hating cops. But that didn’t matter now.

Dad was already sprinting to the back door and flying outside. Rand was right on his heels, the cold air hitting him hard in the face. Then Rand saw it—the body—a woman—floating face down.

Rand’s stomach turned over.

“Shit!” Kicking off his slippers, Gerald yelled over his shoulder, “Rand! Get Tom. Go get Tom! Tell him we need backup! And transportation to the hospital! Go!” Fully clothed, he dived into the cold water, then swam toward the body lying face down thirty yards from shore.

Rand stood frozen for a second. He thought he might puke.

A dead woman?

Holy shit! He blinked, then took off, nearly bowling over Sievers, who had followed them to the yard.

He pushed past Mom, who stood, hands to her mouth, in the doorway.

She was pale as death herself as she kept her eyes on the body in the water.

“What—who? Oh dear Lord.” Rand didn’t stop.

Just raced through the house and out the open front door, not bothering to close it.

He darted across the yard and jumped the creek without breaking stride.

He reached the Hunts’ house within seconds.

Lights burned bright through the windows. As he pounded on the door, it swung open. Levi, pale-faced, hair disheveled, stood in his pajamas.

“I need to see your dad—”

“He’s outside,” Levi told him. “Out back.”

Rand brushed past his friend, running fast down the hallway to the back of the house and the open sliding door off the kitchen.

Levi followed him, stride for stride. Outside, Chase, in boxer shorts, was leaning over the rail of the deck, staring into the water.

Cynthia stood closer to the house. Her hair was wrapped in brush rollers, her bathrobe cinched tight, her face pale as death as she tried to light a cigarette with shaking fingers.

Rand skidded to a stop, his gaze glued on the lake.

Levi didn’t slow down. He leaped over the few steps to the dock. “Dad? You need help?”

But Thomas Hunt was too busy to answer. He was already swimming to aid Rand’s dad, who was dragging the woman’s body to shore.

“Did you—did you call for an ambulance?” Rand asked.

Eyes wide in horror, Cynthia nodded blankly. But she was finally able to put the flame from her lighter against the tip of her trembling cigarette.

From the other side of Rand’s house, Sievers’s shepherd was still barking and growling, pacing on the old man’s deck, sending up a racket.

Other dogs around the lake joined in, a cacophony of barks and yips.

Beyond the point, lights from other houses flicked to life.

In neighboring yards, neighbors appeared, some in jackets, some in pajamas, all serious and huddled in family groups.

All eyes were trained on the drama unfolding on the lake.

Together, holding the woman’s head above the surface of the water, Dad and Tom swam toward the Hunts’ dock.

The woman floating between them was dressed in a long white nightgown that floated around her.

Her eyes were wide, seeming to stare at the charcoal sky, her dark hair drifting around her head.

“Who is it?” Levi asked. He was standing next to his mother on the deck, Rand a few feet away.

Cynthia Hunt whispered, “No . . . oh God, no.” She dropped her cigarette.

Chase was staring at the woman as his father hauled her onto the dock and Tom Hunt yelled, “Stand back! For Christ’s sake, Cyn, get the kids inside!”

“It’s Evan’s mom,” Chase said, dumbstruck as Cynthia began to sob.

“Cynthia! Go inside! Take the kids!” Tom ordered as he dragged himself out of the water, his hair plastered to his head, his breathing labored. “Did you hear me? Get the boys inside!”

“Oh no . . . oh no, no,” Chase said as the two men hauled the woman onto the dock and her ashen face was visible, her features defined, her blue, blue eyes lifeless.

“What?” Shocked, Rand didn’t want to believe it. And yet he knew Chase was right. It was Anna Reed.

Not just Evan’s mom but Harper’s as well. His stomach revolted.

“Anna?” Cynthia gasped, disbelieving.

“Go inside!” Tom bellowed.

Rand doubled over at the edge of the dock and heaved, vomiting into the dark impenetrable water, his body cramping.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Cynthia shepherding her sons inside the house while his dad and Tom tried feverishly to revive the woman on the dock.

But it was too late.

They knew it.

Old Man Sievers knew it.

And, Rand, only eleven years old, knew it.

But, he guessed, Evan didn’t yet know his mother was gone.

Nor Harper.

But they would.

And when they found out, Rand surmised, everything would change.

Everything.