Page 51 of It Happened on the Lake

“Y ou helped my mother escape?” Levi asked as he held the cream-colored envelope in his hand.

“Shh. Keep your voice down.” Sievers glanced around his small apartment furtively. “The walls have ears.”

“You think Serenity Acres is bugged?”

The old man placed a finger to his lips, then reached into the junk drawer again and came out with a folding knife. With a press of his finger, the blade shot out.

“They let you have a switchblade?”

“Contraband.” He held the knife out to Levi as the dog danced near the door. “Open it,” he said to Levi. “I gotta take Jake out for a piss.”

Heart in his throat, Levi used the sharp blade to slice open the envelope.

“Wait. Maybe you want your privacy,” the old guy said. “Seeing as your mom’s gone and all.”

“How did you help her get out?”

Sievers’s gaze darted around the room, as if, again, he was searching for a tiny listening device.

“Let’s go outside,” he suggested and snagged a leash from a hook by the door before snapping it onto the dog’s collar. Jake started straining to get out, paws scratching the door.

“Hold on, hold on,” Sievers said as he slipped on an oversized parka, then led the way out of his room, pausing to lock the door and say to Levi, “You can never be too careful.” With Jake leading the way, and Sievers pushing his walker, they made the long trek to the end of the hall.

They passed other residents, a man in a plaid bathrobe and using a cane, and two women, both gray-haired, one in a prim suit, the other a housedress, both fussing over Jake as he tugged on the leash.

As the women went on their way, the old man whispered to Levi, “Damned dog’s a chick magnet.”

If you say so , Levi thought but held his tongue.

It took several minutes to make it out through a door at the end of the hall. “Never locked,” Ed said, “and no alarm bells, neither.”

Levi frowned at the lack of security.

“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 door is locked. 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.”

“Did ya now? Well, let me tell you somethin’.

In my experience, the apple don’t fall far from the tree.

” He gave Levi a hard look. “And you’re Tom Hunt’s boy, now, aren’t ya?

I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, and I think your mom was a good, decent woman.

But your old man? The cop? Not so much. So, that’s all I got to say to you.

Come along, Jake.” He turned away and slipped through the door, leaving the brick steadfastly in place.

Levi saw that he was tarred by the same brush as his father, just like Rand was.

But there was no arguing with Sievers, who’d said all he was going to say.

Levi left through the unlocked gate rather than going through the interior and dealing with Patty and all her sign-in sheets.

He’d take the cold October rain instead.

He dashed along a sidewalk that curved sharply to the front of the building and the visitors’ parking lot.

And ran into a woman holding an umbrella, a woman in a long coat who seemed to be scrutinizing the building. “Levi,” she said, and his stomach dropped as he recognized Rhonda DeAngelo or whatever her name was now.

She happily supplied it. “It’s Rhonda. Rhonda Simms. You remember me, from high school. Way back when, when I was Rhonda DeAngelo.”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“I had such a crush on you,” she admitted, rain dripping from her umbrella.

What do you say to that? Was there anything? “Oh, I didn’t know.”

She waved his embarrassment away and turned the conversation on a dime. “Look, I’d like to talk to you. I’m a reporter with The Twilight Tribune now . . .”

That much he did know.

“And I’m doing a piece on your brother’s disappearance and your mother’s demise. Oh, I’m so, so sorry for your loss.”

A little too late. An afterthought. But then he knew Rhonda, or he had in high school.

She’d been a sneak who idled around corners listening to gossip and always turning on a thousand-watt smile for the teachers.

What they’d called a kiss-ass back then.

But that had been twenty years ago. People changed as they became adults. At least some did.

“Thanks,” he said blandly. He didn’t want to think about dredging up all the scandal. He’d lived through it. And once was enough. He started for his car, but she kept step with him. “I’d like to know what you think.”

“What?”

“You know, about your mother’s . . . accident and your father . . . I mean he died on the lake, too. And Chase disappeared there.”

He decided to cut to the chase. “You want to interview me for a story, is that right? And you want to put my family’s tragedies in the paper?” Before she could answer, he asked, “What’re you doing here, Rhonda? Why did you come to Serenity Acres?”

“This is where your mother lived.”

He thought about Ed Sievers and his little dog.

Ed had just been doing his mother a favor, but if the truth came out, no doubt he’d be kicked out of the facility, and not only would other reporters pick up the story but the police would come calling.

What would happen to him then? Yeah, Levi was pissed that the old guy had snuck Mom to the lake house, but what was done was done.

“So, I’d love to buy you a cup of coffee or a beer or whatever, if we could talk about what happened.”

From beneath the canopy of her umbrella, she smiled up at him. Friendly. Kind. Compassionate. At least that’s the aura she wanted to convey.

“I’m busy.”

“Later, then. You pick the time.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Sensing she was getting the brush-off, she persisted. “Well, the sooner the better.”

“I told you I’m busy.”

“And I think you’re trying to avoid me.”

He didn’t argue, sensed her anger, but kept walking.

She grabbed his arm, and he paused, rain collecting on his bare head.

“Consider this a heads-up. I’m writing this story, Levi.

With or without talking to you. In fact, it’s going to press tonight, but I still have a little time.

I would think you would want to give me your perspective, your side of what happened.

” Beneath the empathetic facade, he heard a glimmer of steel and noted that there were still just a smattering of cars in the lot, one of which was a dark Toyota sedan, the car that had rolled into the parking lot right after he arrived.

“Did you follow me here?” he asked.

“No!”

He thought of all the messages she’d left on his recorder, messages he hadn’t returned, and he kicked himself for not realizing she’d been tailing him.

He was a PI, for God’s sake, and knew all the tricks of the trade.

It was one of the reasons he’d bought this car, big and boxy, several of them in the town of Almsville alone, thousands across the nation, a family sedan that would blend in, not be noticed.

Unless you were looking. Like Rhonda Simms. And not only had he not been expecting her, but he’d been caught in the web of his own thoughts.

About his mother. About his brother. And about Harper.

He’d let his guard down.

“You did,” he accused. “You followed me.”

“Of course not . . .” She started to argue, then backed off. “Okay, fine. I did. You weren’t returning my calls.”

“Because I have nothing to say. Mom is dead. It’s awful, all right? A horrible tragedy. And I would appreciate my privacy in my time of grief.”

She blinked.

“You can quote me on that.”

“Anything else?”

“No.” He stood in the rain, water dripping down his nose as he stared at her. She finally got the message, let go of his wet jacket sleeve, and backed up a step.

“If you change your mind,” she said, “give me a call.”

He didn’t respond, and she finally backed off, droplets of water flinging from her umbrella as she turned away. She strode to her car, the navy Toyota parked on the far side of the lot.

He couldn’t believe he’d missed the fact that she was tailing him and he didn’t catch her. But then, usually he was the hunter, not the prey. In the future, he’d be more vigilant.

He walked to his car and sat behind the wheel. He waited until he saw her headlights wink on and then watched through the fogging windshield as she drove out of the lot, her taillights disappearing as the car crested the small rise.

Only when he was certain she was not returning did he start the engine, letting the car warm, before he slid the two sheets of paper out of the embossed envelope.

He read the short note on the stationery in his mother’s flowery script:

They killed him. They killed Chase. Make him pay.

“What the devil?” he said, not understanding.

He unfolded the second piece of paper. It was a cumulative bank statement showing cash deposits and withdrawals, all in the name of T.

C. Hunt. “Thomas Calhoun Hunt.” His father.

The deposits had accumulated until February 1968.

Then, abruptly, in March things turned around, and monthly withdrawals were made.

Sometimes when the account was getting low, a deposit was made, but the withdrawals continued until May 1986, when the balance was zero, the account closed.

That was two years ago, the month of the fishing accident that took his father’s life and just about the time his mother had started her ever-increasing descent into dementia.