“Every kid that drives mules for one season can name the levels, Cumberland to Georgetown, and tell you how long each one is. You get plenty of time to think about it walking the towpath every day.”
“So you were a mule driver when you were a boy?”
“For four summers. When I was eleven, my father quit boating and started tending lock.”
They headed back to collect the mules and got moving up the towpath. Jake pointed out the thigh-high cement post planted alongside the towpath, painted green and marked with the number 20 in white paint.
“You walked by here at least once, coming up from Swains after the flood. Maybe you boated on the canal as a kid. Do you recognize anything?”
“It’s funny,” April said. “Everything looks familiar, but I can’t remember ever being here.”
A mile later the cliffs of Blockhouse Point rose from the berm as the canal began bending clockwise and the apron thinned to ten paces wide. Jake was surprised when April asked him to stop the mules just short of the 21-mile marker. She hopped down from the towpath onto a short trail to a cove-shaped eddy in the river. The eddy was framed by old sycamores leaning out over the water, and its sandy beach was half-covered in driftwood that had piled up against a massive downed trunk. Jake dropped Bertie’s lead and followed her down to the beach.
“I was here with someone,” she said with a distant look in her eyes. “Sitting on a log like that and curling my toes in the sand. He was telling me about climbing that hill to scout the river, like soldiers did during the war. And finding an old bayonet in the woods.” Jake noticed that April’s right hand had drifted to the skin exposed by the unfastened buttons at the neck of her cardigan. “And I told him about something I found. A necklace. Somewhere along the river.”
“Something you were wearing at the time?”
“I don’t remember.”
Jake studied the smooth and lightly freckled skin between her clavicles, following it down to the neckline of the simple dress she’d been wearing when he met her. If she’d worn a necklace before the flood, it hadn’t left a mark.
“Do you remember anything about the fellow you were with? How old, or what he looked like? Was he someone in your family?”
“I just remember thinking he was nice… and clean and honest. And that something bad might happen to him.”
Jake looked away and bit his lip, suddenly aware of the contrast between what he’d been two years ago and what he was now. He hid his expression from April by turning up the trail toward the towpath. “The world eats nice guys up,” he said.
Violettes Lock and the adjacent guard lock had been hit hard by the flood; they were at the end of a short level and the river had been steered into them by Dam 2 and its feeder canal. All the gates were closed, but someone had opened the downstream wickets. It didn’t take Jake long to conclude the toolbox hadn’t fallen into either of the locks.
“Who was Violet,” April asked as he poled through the muck, “and how did she get a lock named after her?”
“Not Violet, Ap Violette. This was his lock when I was a kid. He used to be a stone-cutter at Seneca. Had a big old mutt named Curly with thick brown fur and ears that hung halfway to the ground. You could blow your horn all you wanted, but Ap never knew you were coming until Curly ran up to him and started barking. Too much noise from the water spilling over the dam.”
Rileys Lock was less than fifteen minutes upstream. Here the river was free of islands, so even though the aqueduct was only eight feet above Seneca Creek, it hadn’t been overtopped by the flood. But the aqueduct’s central arch had been damaged by debris, and now a four-man crew had anchored a raft alongside it in the creek to do repair work. The men could only see Jake’s head and shoulders, and they didn’t seem to notice or care about him.
As he poled the lock, Jake’s confidence in April’s vision was ebbing. He found nothing but clots of driftwood and a few mud-filled bottles in the shallow water of Rileys Lock. Maybe the image of a toolbox falling into a lock was something she’d come up with on the scow to buy herself a reprieve from Cole’s inquisition. Cole had fished Swains and now Jake had checked Pennyfield, Violettes, and Rileys. And he’d already cleared trash and sticks from the chamber at Edwards Ferry, so he was pretty sure it wasn’t there. That accounted for all of the locks April would have passed between the flood and her emergence at Edwards Ferry ten days ago.
As he pulled the pole-hook out of the lock, another possibility occurred to him. Maybe April’s vision was accurate but incomplete – maybe someone had already retrieved the toolbox. Maybe April herself. If she had, she wouldn’t have carried it fourteen miles to Edwards Ferry. She might have hidden it somewhere near Swains Lock.
Jake sighed as this explanation began to seem plausible. The toolbox could be anywhere along the ground they’d traveled the last two days – Great Falls to Pennyfield to Seneca Creek. They’d only find it if April recovered another shard of memory, one that provided a definitive clue. Until that happened they might as well be searching a meadow for a four-leaf clover. And there was no use hoping Cole would find it and slink back to where he came from, since he wasn’t really looking for it now that he’d found April. Cole was convinced April knew where the toolbox was, so getting it meant capturing her and then thrashing her until she coughed it up.
April had led the mules across the walkway on the aqueduct so they could graze in a clearing beside the towpath.
“I guess you didn’t catch anything,” she said as Jake approached carrying only the pole-hook.
“The lock-dwelling toolbox-fish isn’t biting today.”
“Maybe we need to start using bait.”
“Now you’re making me hungrier, and there’s no lunch in sight. Eight more miles to Edwards Ferry, and when we get there you can bait a rod and take it to the river. Or we can eat smoked pork and stewed tomatoes for dinner.”
He hitched Gladys behind Bertie and they started up the towpath.
“Besides,” he said, “the only bait that will catch us the toolbox is locked away in Katie Elgin’s mind. That’s what Cole thinks, and I agree with him now. The problem is that he thinks it’s in your conscious memory, and we both know it’s somewhere else.”
Chapter 22
Postscript
Monday, April 14, 1924
The towpath from Rileys Lock to Edwards Ferry was greening up fast, the river on one side and fields on the other disappearing behind interlaced screens of leaves. This level was almost inaccessible by automobile, just a single dirt road reaching the canal near its middle at Sycamore Landing. Jake doubted Cole would know about it. Even if he did, he’d have to cross the swampy canal prism on foot.
After two and a half hours they reached a deserted campground at Chisel Branch. Jake led them to a shady corner of the clearing, where he and April drank from his bottle while sitting on sawn-off stumps that ringed a fire-pit. He told her Edwards Ferry was only a half-mile further, and that she could rest and water the mules while he ran up for a look.
“Do you think he’ll be waiting for us?”
“He might be. That’s where he found you, and we haven’t seen him anywhere else.”
“What do we do if he is?”
“Blindfold and gag him, tie his hands behind his back. Then we can shove him into the walls, like he did with you.”
April smiled and gently touched the bruise that encircled her swollen eyelid. “That sounds amusing,” she said, “but I might have forgot to mention he has a gun.”
Jake had assumed as much. “Then we’ll have to outsmart him again.” He stood and hoisted the pole-hook. “Keep an eye on the towpath while I’m gone. If you see anyone coming, take the mules into the woods.”
A quarter-mile along he came to the lock for the Goose Creek feeder canal. Goose Creek was a navigable tributary that entered the Potomac just upriver on the Virginia side, and the feeder in front of him gave boats descending the creek from Leesburg an entryway into the canal. The lock was set to
the height of the river and littered with deadwood. He poled the bottom long enough to convince himself the toolbox wasn’t submerged in it. April wouldn’t have carried it this far only to drop it here. He crossed on the swing-bridge and kept going.
Near the end of a long straightaway, the lock took shape in the late afternoon light. To its right, the clearing on the berm below the end of Edwards Ferry Road. To the left, set back a few paces from the towpath, the gloomy brick shell of Jarboe’s Store. The lockhouse across the dirt road to the river from Jarboe’s was the last familiar landmark to emerge.
He studied the end of Edwards Ferry Road as he drew near but there was no sign of Cole’s truck. Approaching the lockhouse cautiously, he saw a pole-hook lying in the dirt near the entrance. The closest window was broken and the door slightly ajar. Cole must have been here. But if he was hiding inside and hoping to surprise them, he would have cleaned up the shards of glass on the landing and closed the front door. Jake pushed the door open with his pole-hook and stepped inside.
Even from the central hallway, a quick glance into the adjoining rooms told him the place had been ransacked. Furniture was tipped over, cushions scattered, cabinet doors opened. But two glove-drawers in the sideboard looked undisturbed, so the intruder wasn’t searching for something small. Not finding what he’d come for, he left a note on the hallway floor. Jake knew it was from Cole before picking it up.
Katie Elgin –
You took what dont belong to you and I want it back. Leave the Emorys toolbox under the basement stairs. Hang something on the clothesline when you done that and you wont see me no more. If you stole anything, put it back in the box or I’ll finish what I started and nobody will find whats left of you when I’m done.
D. Cole
PS: Go to the sheriff and he will arrest you. A witness seen you cut Lee Fisher’s neck at Swains Lock.
Jake felt something tighten in his chest as he read the last line again. Could it be true? It would explain the posters in Poolesville and Potomac, and the fifty dollar reward for information leading to Katie Elgin’s apprehension. But Cole was willing to tell any lie that would serve his purposes. Jess Swain had confirmed that yesterday. And it was hard to imagine April fatally slicing someone’s neck.
Maybe it was the other way round – maybe she’d seen this “witness” kill Lee Fisher. Maybe she’d stumbled upon the scene or been forced to watch. Could a terrifying experience like that have been enough to make her forget everything? And now the killer might be using her memory loss against her. If April had passed out at the site of the killing, could he have put a bloody knife in her hands before fleeing the scene?
Jake’s thoughts ran in circles as he laid the note on the sideboard and absently climbed the stairs to check the bedrooms, then came back down to assess the kitchen. April’s clothes had been scattered but not taken, and most of the food in the cupboards was still there. Cole must not have been in a mood to carry off anything he hadn’t planned on taking.
Still wondering if April had been a witness, a killer, or neither, he folded and pocketed the note. He didn’t trust Cole to wait for a shirt to be hung on the clothesline out back. That benign instruction might be his way of lulling them into a false comfort. Unless April could suddenly produce the toolbox, they couldn’t stay here. They had to keep moving, and the safest direction was upriver. There was enough daylight left to pack up and gain a few more miles, spend the night in a meadow where the mules could graze. Heartbeat quickening as he thought through what needed to be done, he grabbed his pole-hook on his way out the door and fished the bottom of the lock to confirm what he’d been convinced of already – the toolbox wasn’t there. He slung the pole-hook aside, turned down the towpath, and started running.
Who was the witness? He kept tripping over that question as he ran, now that he’d begun to think this person might be Lee Fisher’s real killer, and that April might have observed the attack herself. If Lee had been killed at Swains Lock, maybe the Emory brothers were responsible, since it sounded like they’d been tied up at Swains before the flood. Maybe they sliced Lee’s neck and threw him in the river before ending up in the floodwaters themselves.
Who else had been at Swains? April said that Cole claimed her two brothers were there. The older brother Cy, who also drowned in the flood, and the little brother Pete, who escaped it. Pete couldn’t have been involved. And if Cy was the killer, maybe April had been his accomplice. That didn’t feel right. But then Jake remembered her disquieting vision: two men sleeping on a boat deck with their hats over their eyes while she stood nearby with shackles.
Another possibility floated in front of him for a second, and it took a few strides to remember the name he’d heard from Jess Swain. Zimmerman – the old miner who was spending time on the scow with Cole. Maybe he’d been lurking around Swains Lock during the flood and saw who killed Lee Fisher. Or maybe he’d done it himself.
Jake slowed to cross the swing-bridge at the Goose Creek feeder lock. The air had cooled as the afternoon wore down, but his lungs ached and his neck and back were dripping from the run. He wiped his forehead and reminded himself that there wasn’t much use in speculating about whether or how April was involved in Lee Fisher’s death. Right now they couldn’t trust anything they heard from Cole, couldn’t risk going to the sheriff, and April didn’t know. As with the toolbox, they’d have to hope another shard of memory resurfaced. One or more vignettes that would unify the mosaic and tell her story. Until that happened, they needed to buy time and stay safe.
“Is he chasing you?” April said when Jake trotted back into the campground at Chisel Branch. He shook his head while catching his breath.
“No, but he’s been there. Turned the lockhouse inside out looking for the toolbox, same as he did at Swains. I got the feeling he expects us to come back, so we need to get our things and leave.”
“And go where?”
“Out to Sharpsburg. The sooner the better.”
“You mean you’re going home, like you planned.”
“I’m taking the mules back to my father’s house, but not like I planned. You’re coming with me.”
He saw her eyebrows press lower as her eyes teared up. She sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand as the bruise around her eye reddened.
“You don’t have to take me along,” she said. “I’ve caused you enough trouble already.”
He stood in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders, waiting until her eyes lifted. “Look,” he said. “You’re not safe here, not until your memory comes back. I don’t think you can trust anybody. So you’re coming with me.”
She nodded, “I can trust you.”
“That’s right,” he said, sweeping her hair back from her forehead with one hand. It was true, and it felt good to hear her say it. “So let’s go.”
Chapter 23
Vapors
Monday, April 14, 1924
In the fading twilight, Zimmerman pulled into the parking area of the Cabin John Bridge Hotel. It had been decades since the fanciful building, with its pediments and balustrades, and the adjacent bridge, soaring over Cabin John Creek on the world’s largest stone arch, attracted affluent visitors on all-day outings from the city. Years since the hotel’s dining room was filled with patrons dipping silver spoons into oyster cocktails as waiters delivered sweetbreads, asparagus, and potted grouse on china plates.
Flags still flew from the turrets, and ornate gazebos still adorned the hillside down to the canal, but the crowds had diminished to a trickle and the hotel looked tired, inside and out. In the backyard, the entrance to the hotel basement drew a subdued procession of working men. For years the rathskeller behind the unmarked door had quietly thumbed its nose at Prohibition.
Zimmerman banged the knocker twice, struck the kick plate twice – twice again and once – then waited as someone assessed him through the peephole. The door opened and Werner ushered him in. The dimly-lit room was narrow but deep, with a makeshift plank ba
r along the internal wall and barrelhead tables flanked by easy chairs pushed up against the bricks. Zimmerman didn’t recognize any of the half-dozen men inside. The two nearest the door glanced at him indifferently then went back to their conversation. He headed for an empty barstool while Werner locked the deadbolt.
“Got something besides whiskey?” Zimmerman asked as Werner returned to his station.
“Gin. Over ice with a dried peach. Hasn’t killed anyone yet, far as I know.” Zimmerman raised a finger and Werner reached for a clean glass.
“Can’t be any worse than what we drank in the Yukon in the 90s. You was lucky when the gin tasted like spruce bark.”
“At least you had plenty of ice.”
Zimmerman cracked a grin as Werner handed him his drink.
“Ice and snow eight months a year, swamps and skeeters for the rest. But you always knowed what to expect. Didn’t get floods coming out of nowhere.”
“We were past due for a flood, even if nobody saw it coming. Someone told me there’s repair crews patching breaks through Seven Locks. Feels like things are getting back to normal.”
Zimmerman shook his head. “It don’t feel normal to me. We’re in the middle of it. Something else is going to happen.”
Werner stopped wrapping the ice block to look at him. “Something else like what, a plague?”
“I don’t know, but I been seeing northern lights in my sleep again. It’s never good.”
Werner put the ice away and came back with an impish smile and a twitching eyebrow animating his beefy face. “Here’s something good I almost forgot to tell you. A young lady came by here yesterday afternoon, just when I was opening up. She knew the code, so I let her in.” He leaned forward, elbows on the bar, and lowered his voice. “She said she didn’t want a drink, she wanted to buy an ounce of heroin, and did I know anyone who would sell it to her.
“I told her she wanted to talk to Cy Elgin, but he drowned two weeks ago in the flood. That didn’t scare her off. Then she asked about you – did I know a man named Henry Zimmerman? I said I knew a man by that name, but I didn’t reckon he was dealing heroin. If I saw him, I’d ask about it. She could come by again at the end of the week.”
If It Is April Page 15