Page 60 of It Happened on the Lake

H is pre-dawn run cleared Rand’s head. As his Nikes slapped the wet pavement and the bracing air filled his lungs, he found some much needed perspective.

He thought about the embossed card that Levi had given him along with the bank statement and bit of paper that had led Levi to find out a little more about Tristan Vargas aka Larry Smith aka Conrad Nelson.

Then there was the cryptic note. They killed him. They killed Chase. Make him pay.

He turned the words over and over in his mind as he ran, sweating up the steep road of Southway and down to the bridge before he turned sharply and headed back, halfway home, veering off the road to the deer trail that cut sharply down the hillside.

He had to slow to a jog through the fir trees and ferns, using his small flashlight and wending his way along the path.

Who were “they,” and who was “he”? Why didn’t she give names?

Was Cynthia’s note the fantasy of a woman who had lost touch with reality?

The results of a grief-addled mind? Or was she sane when she penned it but didn’t name names for fear of repercussions?

And how, if at all, was Tristan Vargas involved?

He hit the curb at the end of the street and slowed to a walk, past the rental house which had been dark for weeks, then the Alexanders’. It, too, was dark, as was the Hunts’, where Levi’s car sat in the drive.

He wondered about the relationship between Levi and Chase, always strained.

Levi had never quite lived up to his older brother’s achievements while they were in school.

He had never been as brilliant in the classroom or as athletic on the football field, though he had been an ace pitcher, his fast ball swift enough to gain him a walk-on position at Oregon State.

But Chase, at one time the favored son, the golden boy, had always considered his younger brother a pain in the ass.

“Baseball,” he’d sneered when Levi made the high school varsity team as a freshman.

Then again, Chase had never trusted Levi.

Why? Just the male rivalry thing?

Rand, who had no brother or sister, never really understood the acrimony between them.

From the outside Levi appeared to be a stand-up guy. But Chase’s warning about having Levi watch over Harper still rang in his ears: “Not Levi . . . he can’t be trusted.”

Once home, Rand showered, shaved, and dressed. He made certain he had Cynthia’s note along with the other information Levi had given him in his pocket, then drove to the station.

It was early when he got to the office, long before his shift officially started.

Waiting for him on his desk was the autopsy report on the woman who he’d seen floating face down in Lake Twilight nearly thirty years earlier.

He remembered witnessing his father and Thomas Hunt trying to revive her.

Gerald Watkins kneeling beside her body, water dripping from his hair as he gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

All to no avail.

Her cold blue lips never moved.

Her open eyes never blinked.

Anna Reed was dead.

His jaw tightened at the memory. He’d gotten sick, Cynthia Hunt had screamed, Chase had turned away from the horrid spectacle, and Levi had just stared, his own face ashen.

And the sounds. The dog barking, others joining in, sirens splitting the night, and the horrid beating of his own heart.

All thoughts of the night before when he’d been out on his bike, plastering Martin Alexander’s truck with eggs, had been forgotten.

According to the toxicology report, Anna Reed’s blood-alcohol level had been sky-high and there had been excessive amounts of diazepam in her bloodstream.

Anna had been prescribed Valium for anxiety and insomnia, and she’d somehow overdosed, either accidentally or intentionally.

The combination of booze and medications had caused intense drowsiness, and in the end, she’d drowned.

The cause of death on the death certificate was listed as accidental drowning.

But why had she been in the lake?

At the time, he’d never questioned why she’d ended up in Lake Twilight. But then he’d been a kid at the time, only eleven. As best friends with Evan, Harper’s brother, another one of “the Three Musketeers,” Rand had always known Anna Reed was different. Distant and a little out of it.

With Anna’s death everything had changed. Evan, once cocky and irreverent, had turned quiet. Dark. Introspective. He’d become a different person after losing his mother, but then who wouldn’t? Hadn’t Rand, himself, suffered a different kind of loss when his own mother had taken off?

But back to Anna Reed’s death.

The question that had been on everyone in Almsville’s lips that cold November morning—had Anna Reed accidentally taken too many sleeping pills and somehow ended up on the dock and fallen into Lake Twilight?

Or had her death been intentional? No one understood why the heiress to Dixon Island would take her own life.

Wasn’t it perfect? A husband, two healthy children, and eventually enough money for herself, her children, grandchildren, and generations to come?

Had she been mentally unbalanced? Emotionally unstable?

Or had she been the victim of homicide?

Had someone taken advantage of her drugged state and tossed her into the lake to drown, or even loaded her up with pills and then dropped her into the dark water? Or had she, for some private, unknown reason, taken her own life?

He wondered, clicking his pen and thinking back.

The gossip had been rampant, burning through the town.

That much Rand remembered.

But the subsequent investigation of Anna Reed’s death had turned up no evidence of either suicide or homicide.

No suicide note left at her bedside.

No calls to loved ones to say goodbye.

No evidence of recent depression.

No suspicious activity by anyone close to her.

No witness to anything untoward.

Ergo, he remembered the conclusion based on the autopsy report: accidental death by drowning.

He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes.

Like it or not, he’d look into it again.

As he would Olivia Dixon’s death and Chase Hunt’s disappearance, all part of a twenty-year-old mystery.

He didn’t expect there to be anything unusual about Harper’s grandmother’s death; the woman was old, with health issues, and as he looked over the yellowed paperwork, he found that the department had come to the same conclusion.

Yes, the granddaughter had been negligent with her medication by allowing the older woman to drink, but Harper had not been found culpable.

No charges had been leveled.

He read the names of the officers who had filed the report: Detective Thomas Hunt and Detective Gerald Watkins. He recognized each man’s signature, though the ink had faded over time.

Rubbing the back of his neck, he eyed the report. He would never forget seeing a dead person emerge from the lake.

Even now, thinking about it, he felt his stomach twitch.

So he turned his mind away from that disturbing image.

He glanced at the clock. Almost eight in the morning, and the station was coming to life.

Over the rumble of the furnace and chunk of some printer disgorging papers, the sound of ringing phones, fax machines, and footsteps were audible.

Several conversations were going at once with occasional bursts of laughter.

Rand kicked out his desk chair, then headed for the break room for a cup of coffee before they convened the short morning meeting run by Sergeant Katz, who was fortyish, on the uptight side, and a stickler for detail.

Several cops had gathered, some shrugging out of jackets, others filling cups.

Gunderson looked over Brady’s shoulder as she was already working on the crossword puzzle at one of the tables.

“You could give me some space,” she said, scowling up at her partner, “or make yourself useful and grab me a fresh cup.”

“I got it,” Rand said as he was already at the coffeemaker.

He poured two cups from the glass carafe and was carrying them to the table when he saw Chelle arriving.

After coming through the back door, she unbuttoned her jean jacket and hung it in her locker, one of the few visible from the break room.

She found her way to the coffeepot and poured herself a cup.

Of course Gunderson was watching her.

“Put your eyeballs back in their sockets, Gunn,” Eleanor advised, glancing up from her puzzle and accepting the steaming cup from Rand. “Thanks.” She blew across the rim and took a sip. “What’s a twelve-letter word for wife?” she asked loudly. “Maybe more than one word. Second letter is an a.”

Gunderson smiled at Chelle and raised his eyebrows. “How about ball and chain?”

“Just stop,” Brady said. But Gunderson didn’t.

Chelle didn’t bat an eye, just said, “Don’t know, but maybe another name for husband is dick and wad.”

“Ouch,” Eleanor said as Chelle breezed out of the room, Gunderson still watching. “That’s gotta burn.”

“She’s a sassy one,” he said, his eyes glinting as he nodded at Rand. “Lucky you. I like my women with a little spark.”

“You’d better like being kicked to the curb,” his partner said, “because women are tired of putting up with your kind of crap. There’s a thing called sexual harassment these days, you know.”

He shrugged. “I was just flirting. She likes it.”

“Does she?” his partner asked. “Don’t think so. And she’s not the kind to put up with your shit, so knock it off.”

Rand took it all in but pointed to the paper. “Married woman. I think that’s the answer to the wife clue.”

“By God, you’re right,” she said and filled in the letters while Rand said to Gunderson, “Listen to Eleanor. Times are changing. You can’t get away with that kind of crap.”

“Oh, so now you’re the authority on what was it called—sexual harassment? Yeah, right.” He snorted, then drained his cup. “It’s all bullshit if you ask me.”