Page 79 of It Happened on the Lake

R and 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.”

Rand had come to the same conclusion. “By this guy?” he asked, pushing the bit of the registration toward his father.

Gerald glowered at the name. “Vargas? I wouldn’t put it past him.

He was a snake if there ever was one.” Gerald’s eyebrows slammed together as he eyed the old papers again.

“The shakedown happened right after Chase died.”

“Until Tom’s death,” Rand said, his thoughts spinning. “I’m thinking Vargas knew something or saw something and he was holding it over Tom’s head.”

“Possibly. Tom said something about that. Pictures or some kind of home movie. But he wasn’t clear, and I really don’t know.”

Rand looked hard at his father. “What about you? Did Vargas get to you, too?”

“What?” Gerald was taken aback. “You mean did he try to blackmail me?” He shook his head. “Nah.”

“You think he knows where the body is?”

Ice pack balanced on his shoulder, Gerald was reaching into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes but stopped. “Don’t know.”

“But you do know that they were dealing out of the house down the street?”

His father’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah. An open secret. Mainly just marijuana. Maybe some speed.”

“More than that. Coke and acid, and whatever. Why didn’t you bust Vargas and the rest of them back in the day?” Rand asked. “Why did you and Tom turn a blind eye?”

Gerald plucked the last bent cigarette from the pack. He lit up, drawing hard and letting out a cloud of smoke. “Because we were told not to.”

“By whom? The captain?” and when his father didn’t respond, he said, “Wait, the chief? You’re kidding me!” Rand dropped into a side chair.

“The way I heard it, the word came down from the mayor, but who knows?” Cigarette clamped between his teeth, he shifted the icy bag on his shoulder. “Chilcote. He was the mayor back then, and the word in the department was that was where he got his supply.”

“The mayor?” Roger Chilcote was long gone but had been the mayor of Almsville for nearly a decade during the sixties. “He was what? A pothead?”

“As I heard it. He lived right across the lake on Northway. Could’ve boated across in the dark of night.

No one would be the wiser, so we—Tom and I—were advised to let sleeping dogs lie.

So to speak. As long as the peace was kept.

If anyone ever got out of line down there, any kind of serious disturbance, then we would deal with it, but, as far as that went, all those hippies kept their noses clean. Except for what they were snorting.”

Rand didn’t say a word, just let his father go on. Now that he’d admitted the truth, Gerald Watkins seemed eager to unload.

“And that Vargas,” Gerald said. “He was a smart one, just slippery as hell. He knew a good thing when he had it and milked it for all it was worth.” He finished his drink and found his son staring at him.

“What? Don’t look so shocked. You think you kids had the corner on getting high?” Gerald scoffed. “I saw people of all ages going in and out of that place.” He grinned without any joy. “So now you know Almsville’s dirty little secret.”

Gerald crumpled his empty pack and tossed it into the fire, igniting the glowing coals in a short burst of flame. “If there’s nothing else, no more sins you want me to confess, then I’d better get goin’. Dorie will be looking for me.” He stood and dropped the package of peas onto the couch.

“There is one more thing,” Rand said before his father reached the door. “What do you know about a missing gun from the evidence room?”

“What?”

“The revolver Evan Reed used when he died in the tram on Dixon Island. What happened to it?”

His father’s spine stiffened, and for a second Rand thought he was going to lie. Then he released a tired breath. “That’s on Tom, too,” he admitted. “I caught him with it and asked him about it. All he said was that it was better off if I didn’t know.”

“And you let it go.”

“Yeah, son,” Gerald said, his jaw set. “I did.”

“You think Evan killed himself?”

“Open and shut.”

“What about Anna Reed, his mother?” Harper’s mother. “You think that was suicide, too?”

Gerald frowned, his dark eyes sober. “You were there, Rand. You saw Tom and me haul her out of the water. Do I think she killed herself? Yeah, I sure do. Do I think it was intentional? No, probably not.”

“An accident then.”

“As far as I know.” And with that he was out the door.