Page 87 of It Happened on the Lake

O n the way to Camille Musgrave’s home, Rand filled Chelle in on his conversation with his father. She listened from the passenger seat of his Jeep, for once not peppering him with questions.

They passed an accident, cops and ambulance already on the scene, a Toyota’s hood and quarter panel crumpled, headlight dangling, a service van with smashed rear doors on the shoulder. Traffic was routed to one slow-moving lane while officers interviewed several agitated people.

Finally the snarl opened up and Chelle asked, “So you believe your dad, that Chase Hunt is dead, his body hidden by his father who killed him by accident.”

“That’s what Dad believes.”

“And Tom Hunt committed suicide because the guilt finally got to him.”

“Right.”

“And maybe that happened when Cynthia finally discovered the truth.”

“The time line fits.”

“Huh.” Chelle was digesting the information, turning it over in her mind. “So then here’s a question: Why did Tom Hunt want the gun used to kill Evan Reed?”

“Don’t know,” Rand admitted, driving along a county road before he found the entrance to a sprawling 1970s subdivision of look-alike ranch homes.

“But I think it might be tied up with Tristan Vargas or Larry Smith or whoever he is. He was blackmailing Tom, he was a known criminal, so I’m guessing there’s a connection.

Hopefully Camille Musgrave can help us.”

“Or Janet Van Arsdale Collins. Moonbeam. She may have kept up with him.”

“Let’s see her later today,” he said as he took a final corner, then parked on the curb in front of the tan Rambler with wine-red trim and a faded Ford Pinto parked in the driveway.

“This looks like my Aunt Zena lives here,” Chelle remarked as they walked past a patchy lawn decorated with all kinds of yard art. Everything from pink flamingos to garden gnomes and ceramic frogs peeked out from overgrown vegetation.

They stepped onto a porch covered with gourds, pumpkins, and a scarecrow that had definitely seen better days.

Rand pressed on a doorbell and heard chimes pealing from within.

“Coming,” a woman’s voice called just before a chain clinked, and the door opened a crack. A slip of a woman with thick Coke-bottle glasses and a house coat peered through the screen door. Her gray hair was wrapped in rollers, and she wore a medical boot on one foot.

“I’m Detective Watkins, Almsville Police Department, and this is my partner, Detective Brown.” He produced his ID, as did Chelle. “We’re looking for Camille Musgrave.”

“Well, you found her.” She sized him up. “Your dad is Gerald, right? Man, oh man, you look just like him. I remember him. He was a cop, too. Lived down the street from our cabin.” Her gray eyebrows drew together. “So, what’s this about?”

“Chase Hunt’s disappearance.”

“Oh, that.” She scoffed and waved a hand. “Yesterday’s news.”

Chelle said, “We’d just like to talk to you for a few minutes.”

“Well, come in then. It’s miserable out there.”

She unlocked the screen and opened the door.

They followed her inside as she, using a cane, hobbled into the living area while the smell of roasting chicken emanated from the back of the house. Camille passed by a stone fireplace, flipped a switch, and flames immediately flickered over the gas logs in the firebox.

“Sit, sit!” she said, motioning to a couple of side chairs in the living room while she plopped onto a small floral recliner and cranked up the footrest. “Damn this thing,” she grumbled, adjusting the boot.

“Twisted my ankle last week, and this is what they gave me. A pain. That’s what it is.

” She eyed them both. “I’m afraid you made the trip out here for nothing.

I can’t tell you anything about that Hunt boy.

When it all happened, I told the police the same thing. Nothing has changed since.”

Rand and Chelle sat in separate chairs in front of a large picture window overlooking the front porch. Between them was a bird cage on a stand, a little blue budgie jumping excitedly from one perch to the other.

Chelle took out a recorder and notebook and asked, “Do you mind if we record this?”

“Knock yourself out. It won’t do any good. As I said, nothing’s changed.”

“Mom?” a female voice called. “Was that the door?” A fiftyish woman walked into the living room from the hallway.

“Oh! Uh . . . who are you?” She, too, was short, but fuller-figured than Camille and twenty or so years younger.

In jeans and a sweatshirt, her mop of brown curls held away from her face with a headband, she hesitated in the archway to the living room.

Rand got to his feet and pulled out his ID. Introductions were hastily made, she being Camille’s daughter, Lynette Decker.

Lynette wasn’t just surprised that there were cops in her living room, she was downright skeptical of why they’d come.

“You think Mom can help you?” she asked, and before he could answer said, “It’s been, what?

Twenty years? I saw the write-up in the Tribune this morning because Mom still gets the Almsville paper, but really?

She and Dad didn’t even live in Almsville at the time. They rented out the cabin on the lake.”

“To those hooligans,” Camille interjected bitterly. “Hippie scum.”

Lynette rolled her eyes and stepped in front of the fire to warm the back of her legs. “They ripped Mom off. Skipped out on the last month’s rent and trashed the place.”

“More than that,” the older woman interjected as the bird whistled.

“They were selling drugs and doing who knows what else down there. Ticked me off, let me tell you. My father built that cabin and that dock, the biggest on the damned point, and he’d be rolling over in his grave if he ever found out what had happened there! ”

“Water under the bridge, Mom,” Lynette reminded her.

But the older woman wasn’t listening. Agitated, she said, “Renting the place out was Victor’s idea, and if he wasn’t already dead, I’d wring his scrawny neck!”

“Victor was my dad,” Lynette explained with a sigh. “We probably should have sold that place ages ago, but—”

“Over my dead body! Didn’t I just say that your grandpa, he built the cabin, and the boat slip and the damned dock? It’s not leaving this family, not while I’m still kicking.” Camille’s chin jutted out, and she sent her daughter a warning glare.

“I know, I know,” Lynette said, as if she’d heard it all a dozen times over. “Mom, just tell them what you know. Oh God, is the chicken burning? You were supposed to watch it and let me know if it was done.”

“Well, I got busy now, didn’t I?” With lips pursed, she hitched her chin toward Rand and Chelle.

“Holy crap!” Lynette was already hurrying around the fireplace, presumably in the direction of the kitchen.

“Anyway,” Camille said, drawing out the word.

“I can’t tell you anything. And I’m surprised you’re asking.

Those other cops who were on duty then? They didn’t care a lick about what went on down there, and if they questioned any of those hooligans, I didn’t hear about it.

As a matter of fact, they all tore out the day after that boy went missing. Just left the place a pigsty!”

“She’s right,” Lynette agreed, wiping her hands on a dish towel as she returned.

“The chicken?” her mother asked.

“Crispy. But it’ll be okay.”

Chelle brought the woman back to the topic at hand. “Were any of the people you rented to friends of Chase Hunt?”

“How would I know? Was he into drugs?” Camille asked, shifting her booted foot again. “If he was, then, by God, he was there with that lot.”

“Mom, please.” Lynette sighed and dropped the towel onto the raised hearth. “I think it was just pot and—”

“There is no such thing as ‘just pot.’ We’re talking about marijuana, Lynnie! Have you ever seen Reefer Madness ?”

“Oh, Mom, stop!” Lynette sat on the sofa next to her mother’s recliner. She took Camille’s hand. “The police are busy. So let’s just keep to the topic.” Turning to face Rand, she said, “It was a bad scene, and as I said, the people who lived there just took off.”

“Scattered like leaves in the goddamned wind,” Camille interjected as the budgie hung upside down for a second, before saying, “Pretty boy,” clear as a bell.

“Mom taught Enos a few words. Right, buddy?”

He repeated, “Pretty boy,” and Lynette went on, “I don’t even know if they talked to the police. A lot of their things were just abandoned.”

Camille interjected, “As I said, it was a frickin’ pigsty!”

“She’s right, a real mess.” Lynette patted her mother’s thin shoulder.

“Do you have forwarding addresses or phone numbers where they might be reached?”

“What do you think?” Camille snorted. “Those little sons of bitches left us with all the bills. Phone included. Electricity. Gas. All fell back on Victor and me. You think they’d leave us any way to contact them? Hell no, they didn’t! Hippie scum, that’s what they were!”

“Mom!” Her daughter warned.

“It’s true.” Camille shifted away from Lynette’s touch, and her chin jutted more sharply.

“Fine, I know,” Lynette conceded and explained. “Mom’s right. We couldn’t locate any of them, and we tried.”

“Poof!” Camille threw open her palms “Vanished. You tell me they’re not guilty!”

Lynette said, “The person who signed the lease was Tristan Van Something.”

“No, no. That was the girl’s name. The one he was with.

Van Arsdale. Janet Van Arsdale,” Camille interjected and scowled at her daughter.

“You’re as bad as your father with names.

The person who signed the lease was Tristan Vargas.

” Camille’s lips pursed. She took off her glasses and began cleaning the lenses with the cuff of her sleeve.

“I’ll never forget that little snake in the grass with his long hair and round glasses. Mr. Cool.”

“That’s right.” Lynette was nodding. “He went by a nickname.”

Rand nodded. “Trick.”

Chelle asked, “Did you know him by any other name?”

“No. Just Trick. Dumb name if you ask me.” Camille seemed certain.

“Like I said, we never heard from him again,” Lynette interjected. “Oh, we tried. But Dad wasn’t well even then. He had a stroke soon after and, well, we didn’t rent the place for a while.”

“Just locked it up.” Camille was nodding, adjusting her glasses.

“If you ask me, the police were in on it. That would be your father,” she said, glaring at Rand.

“They knew drugs were being peddled out of there. For the love of Christ, you’d have thought they’d do something about it.

But did they? No. Just looked the other way. ”

“Mom,” Lynette said in a cautionary voice, “Detective Watkins’s father was on the—”

“I know who he was! Didn’t I say so? Don’t treat me like I’m a half-wit!

” Camille snorted, then motioning toward Rand, said, “They came here poking the bear, asking questions, didn’t they?

Well, they’re gonna get the truth from me.

I’m not sugarcoating anything.” She folded her arms over her chest defiantly.

“It’s fine,” Rand said.

“Okay.” Lynette seemed mollified. “So, later, when it was obvious no one was coming back to the cabin,” she explained, getting the conversation back on track, “we cleaned the place up and started renting it again.”

Chelle asked, “What happened to their belongings?”

“Got rid of ’em,” Camille said. “This was after Victor passed, mind you, but we junked everything. Well, except what was in that attic space.”

“They left things in the attic?”

Lynette’s eyes slid away, and she rubbed her chin nervously. “Well, yes, and . . . well, we just locked it up. Actually sealed the door closed. No one’s been up there in years.”

Rand asked, “Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Mom was paranoid about it,” Lynette said.

Camille chimed in, “Didn’t really know what was up there.”

Lynette nodded nervously. “She thought we might get in trouble.”

“With?” Chelle prodded.

Lynette sighed. “The authorities, or possibly some drug kingpin, or even the renters themselves if they ever returned.”

“About what? What’s up there?” Chelle was leaning closer.

“Spy stuff!” Camille spat out the words. “And dope and who knows what else!”

“Spy stuff like what?” Rand asked.

“Cameras. Listening devices, you know ‘bugs’ like in the spy movies,” Camille said, her eyebrows arching over her glasses.

“Tape recorders and movie cameras and binoculars—like they have in the army, high powered.” Camille picked at the lace at the edge of her sleeve, pulling at a loose thread.

“Victor, when he was alive, he thought maybe it was some kind of government operation—a sting and that Trick or one of the others was a spy. Maybe even a Ruskie.”

“On Lake Twilight?” Chelle asked but managed to keep the skepticism from her voice.

Still toying with the loose thread, Camille shot her a damning are-you-stupid look. “We’re not that far from Portland. And don’t you think there aren’t spies there!”

Lynette explained, “When he was alive, Dad thought that the cops might be planning some kind of undercover drug bust or something. But he was into all kinds of conspiracy theories. And then his stroke.” Lynette offered a weak smile. “It was a lot to deal with so . . .”

Chelle asked, “Any chance that stuff is still in the attic?”

“Don’t see why not.” Camille snapped the thread in her fingers. “I suppose you want to take a look, eh?”

Chelle was nodding. “Yes. It might help.”

The budgie bird gave off another high-pitched whistle before pecking rapidly at his hanging mirror.

“Don’t count on it.” Camille winced as she moved her booted ankle again. “Damned thing. Weighs a ton.”

Lynette was on her feet, ready to end the visit. “Okay. Good. The house is empty now. We’re between renters.”

“Because you want to sell it,” her mother charged, a pissy look on her face.

“I can meet you over there in a couple of hours,” she said.

Rand nodded. “That would be great.”

“But you’ll need a crowbar and possibly a hacksaw—something to get the door to the attic open.

I’ve got a key, but it won’t do much good.

” Nonetheless, she went into the kitchen area and returned with a key ring with two keys, one tarnished.

She held the ring by the brighter-looking key.

“We changed the locks again after the last tenants. This one is for the front door. And the other one is for the attic.”

From behind her thick glasses, Camille skewered him with a knowing glare. “Big waste of time if you ask me. If you’re looking for Chase Hunt, thinking he might be up in that attic?” She snorted and shook her head. “I hate to disappoint you, but he’s not there.”