Lake Silence

by Anne Bishop

  There was tut-tutting from Dr. Wallace about the bruised toe and comments about me being lucky I didn’t hit my eye, which I had figured out for myself. Otherwise, he didn’t have much to say. The wound above my eye was minor and already healing. The area would be sore for a while, and I should be prepared for soreness and secondary bruises that would show up in another day or two. Goody.

  He sounded more like a doctor assuring an anxious parent that the child hadn’t seriously damaged herself. I resented the tone but understood the reasoning. After all, Dr. Wallace wasn’t really talking to me.

  A few minutes later, we were back in the car and heading for the Xavier boardinghouse.

  “You’ll tell everyone that this happened because I had a bad dream, all right?”

  Ilya gave me a curious look. “Does it matter?”

  When we left the office, the women looked at my face and then looked away, some with sympathy and a couple with recognition. If humans made a mistaken assumption because it was true more often than not . . . “I don’t want anyone to be blamed for something that was no one’s fault.”

  A weighted silence. Then Ilya said, “I’ll pass along the message.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Grimshaw

  Firesday, Juin 16

  Grimshaw had never wanted to be an investigator. He didn’t want a desk job or to expend energy on being nice to a small pool of citizens who would comment on or criticize the fact that he was not, and never would be, a people person who knew how to glad-hand and grease the wheel. He wanted to serve and protect. He wanted to be a cop. He accepted that being on highway patrol wasn’t the way to move up the promotion ladder, but he had made that choice because he liked highway patrol. He liked helping people who needed help or apprehending people who broke the law—and he liked that he rarely had to see them again. But like it or not, he was now in league with the Sanguinati and wouldn’t extricate himself from this place or problem anytime soon.

  He wanted Ineke at this meeting but had enough political savvy and survival instinct to ask Ilya Sanguinati if that was all right. Getting the vampire’s agreement, he and Ilya settled in the boardinghouse’s parlor with Ineke and Vicki, all of them waiting for Julian to finish a phone call and join them.

  Julian entered the parlor, holding a worn box that contained some kind of kids’ game. He closed the door, set the box to one side, and looked at Grimshaw. “I have an answer to your question. You owe someone a favor.”

  “I’m good for it.”

  “I know.”

  “Perhaps we should begin with the dream so that Ms. Xavier can appreciate why we asked her to participate in this meeting,” Ilya Sanguinati suggested.

  Vicki DeVine looked a little pale, but that could have been her normal skin tone in contrast to the dark bruises above her left eye. Either way, Grimshaw pulled out his notebook and recounted the dream to spare Vicki from having to repeat it.

  “Well, gods,” Ineke said, taking Vicki’s hand. “If I’d had a dream like that, I would have done my best to run away too.”

  Vicki wrinkled her face, then winced, telling all of them that even that much movement hurt. “Bed to floor. Not much room to run.”

  “I find it interesting that Victoria’s dream included three other women,” Ilya said.

  “That struck me too,” Julian said.

  Grimshaw looked at the other men and blew out a breath. So he wasn’t the only one who thought that was significant.

  Vicki shook her head. “It’s not a big thing. In thrillers, a lot more women are running from the bad thing. The men in those stories are more inclined to look for a pipe or a big stick to whack the bad thing than run away—especially when the men are a group of friends.”

  “But one or two still get mauled or slashed or eviscerated before the rest run away,” Ineke said.

  “True.”

  “Regardless of what happens in thrillers, I think Vicki unconsciously recognized that Ineke could also be a target and was in equal danger,” Julian said with strained patience.

  “From Mr. Paperhead.” Vicki’s tone was a swipe at Julian—something Grimshaw didn’t appreciate but was willing to overlook since it could be defensive rather than intentionally hurtful.

  “Victoria.” Ilya imbued that single word with disapproval. Didn’t sound like he was willing to overlook the tone. “The shape of the monster that frightened you may be symbolic, but I think the paper head and the business suit are significant. You are embarrassed and are, therefore, trying to diminish the experience by snapping at Mr. Farrow and dismissing his opinion. You should not. Instead you should ask what you and Ms. Xavier have in common.”

  “They run their own businesses,” Grimshaw said.

  “Other women run businesses in Sproing,” Ineke said. “Sheridan Ames owns the funeral home, and Helen Hearse runs Come and Get It.”

  “Necessary businesses in a community, but you two have the only properties that provide accommodations for visitors or short-term residents,” Julian said. “The campers that are available to rent at the far end of the village are old and seedy, without running water. There are toilets and pay showers on the grounds, and a couple of pipes where you can fill your own jugs with potable water. I know because I considered renting one of those campers when I first relocated to Sproing and was looking for a temporary place to live.”

  “But you stayed here at the boardinghouse,” Ineke said.

  “You bet I did. Given a choice between a clean room with its own bathroom and a musty camper with access to public toilets and showers, it was an easy decision.”

  “I have three cabins that have been updated and nine that are serviceable if primitive, with the same kind of sanitary facilities as the camper area,” Vicki said.

  “You have rustic cabins on the lake,” Julian countered. “You have a large main house with all kinds of extras for your lodgers, including shower facilities, kitchen privileges, and several common rooms where people can read or watch television or socialize. And you have a private beach that is equal in size to the public beach on the southern end of the lake.” He leaned forward. “When it comes to desirable accommodations in Sproing or around Lake Silence, you two are the only game in town.”

  There was a look in Ineke’s eyes that helped Grimshaw remember the tattoos he’d seen yesterday morning—and wonder if he should mention them to Julian. Instead he asked, “Do you have a mortgage on this place?”

  “No.” Ineke said the word fiercely, but a moment later she looked uncertain. “Not a mortgage, but there are a couple of liens on the house and other buildings—money I borrowed for repairs and improvements.”

  “The bank holds the liens?”

  “Yes.” She aborted a glance at Ilya when she said it, which told Grimshaw that she wasn’t paying a loan back to the bank and knew it.

  “No,” Ilya Sanguinati said. “The bank had a few cash-flow problems a few years ago due to . . . I believe humans refer to it as having one’s hand in the till. Or maybe this was the creative bookkeeping that is mentioned in some crime stories.” He moved his shoulders enough that the movement could be translated as a shrug. “Since the bank was privately owned, and since we saw advantages to preventing its collapse, Silence Lodge bought all of the bank’s paper, including liens like the ones on Ms. Xavier’s boardinghouse. We did not want to upset Sproing’s human residents, so the Lake Silence Mortgage and Loan Company came into being and worked through the bank, an invisible but vital part of the bank’s health—and the Sanguinati interested in the banking and investment business became the bank’s officers, allowing the president to keep his title as the human figurehead in exchange for a modest salary. And, technically, he still owned the bank. One of his last independent acts was to hire the recently removed bank manager to run the bank. Since the man had the education and credentials for such a position, we did not object.”

&nb
sp; “Does the bank’s president live here?” Grimshaw asked.

  Ilya shook his head. “He relocated to Putney. My kin who are interested in banking informed me last evening that the recently removed bank manager had lived in Putney before coming to Sproing. That had not been significant until now, when too many humans from Putney are showing too much interest in The Jumble.”

  Putney was the human town on Prong Lake—and the Putney Police Station was home base for Detective Marmaduke Swinn and his team. Like Ilya said, the connection to Putney was a little too strong to be coincidence.

  “I wonder if your figurehead president has a particular tie clip,” Julian said.

  Ilya smiled, showing a hint of fang. “An interesting thing to wonder. I can tell you that, one way or another, we are acquiring his remaining shares in the bank.”

  “One way or another?” Grimshaw asked.

  “The house he purchased in Putney was far beyond his means, and has continued to be more than he could afford.”

  Vicki pointed at Ilya. “The Sanguinati hold the mortgage on his house?”

  Ilya’s smiled widened. “The first and the second mortgages. The documents he signed when we provided the second mortgage—for terms that were far more forgiving than the human moneylenders he had considered when he ran into financial trouble again—gave us an option of demanding immediate payment in full of all that he owed us. The papers were served the morning after Detective Swinn brought Miss Vicki to the station for a chat. The difference between what he owed us and the current worth of his shares in the bank was petty cash.”

  “So he had to choose between giving up what was left of the bank or losing his home in a way that would tell the rest of his creditors that he’s bankrupt,” Julian said. “One is a silent transaction up here, and the other would be public humiliation—worse if you make it obvious who is evicting him and his family.”

  “The bank will close at its usual time today. It will reopen sometime next week as Lake Silence Bank.” Ilya looked at Ineke and Vicki. “We will, of course, retain any of the human employees who want to continue working for the bank. The honest ones, anyway.”

  And the people in Sproing could do business with the Sanguinati knowingly or drive to Bristol or Crystalton, which were the closest human communities. That meant they would have to choose between holding their receipts until morning and then driving along those two-lane roads in the wild country to reach another human town to make their deposits, or keeping money in the store’s safe and hoping they wouldn’t be robbed.

  Grimshaw almost felt sorry for his own people, but the Sanguinati would have learned cutthroat business practices by observing humans—or having been burned themselves because they had believed the humans would deal with them honestly.

  “What’s that got to do with Vicki’s dream and my boardinghouse?” Ineke demanded.

  “Someone who thinks he can force Ms. DeVine out of The Jumble might also think he can buy the liens from the bank and call them in, forcing you to sell or forfeit this place when you can’t pay the debt,” Grimshaw said.

  “I don’t think Yorick has the business savvy to plan this kind of hostile takeover,” Vicki said.

  Julian looked at Grimshaw. “Which brings us to the phone call and the answer to a question.” He looked at each of them. “I contacted Steve Ferryman. He’s the mayor of Ferryman’s Landing, which is an Intuit village on Great Island. He knows some . . . people . . . in Lakeside.”

  “The Sanguinati at Silence Lodge know about the sweet blood who lives in the Lakeside Courtyard,” Ilya said quietly.

  “Do they?” Grimshaw asked just as quietly. What did “sweet blood” mean to a vampire?

  “She has friends among the Sanguinati who live in that Courtyard—and we are all entertained by stories about Broomstick Girl.” The vampire’s smiled sharpened. “What did she say?”

  “I e-mailed a picture of the tie clip to Steve and briefly explained what was happening in Sproing,” Julian said. “The question that was sent to Lakeside was this: besides this tie clip, what do detectives working in Putney, a bank manager in Sproing, and a businessman living in Hubb NE have in common?”

  “And the answer?” Grimshaw asked.

  “Schools and . . .” Julian retrieved the box and set it on the table in front of the sofa. “Somehow this is part of the answer. Big wheels and little wheels.”

  Judging by the picture on the cover, the box held sticks and wheels that children could put together to form different shapes.

  “Is this the literal answer or a symbolic one?” Vicki asked.

  “Difficult to say,” Julian replied. “I don’t know exactly how blood prophets see the future.”

  “But you didn’t ask about the future.”

  “No, but the girl who answered the question is working with a prototype deck of prophecy cards, which is making it possible to ask questions that aren’t specifically about the future. However, I was warned that this is a new skill that is still being learned, and the answer depends as much on the person interpreting the information as on the person who is guided to selecting particular images.”

  “May I . . . ?” Vicki waved a hand at the box.

  Julian shrugged. “Go ahead.”

  Vicki opened the box and smiled. “I had a set of these when I was a child. I loved playing with them, putting the sticks and wheels into all kinds of odd shapes or structures. My mother disapproved because I built shelters for my little stuffed animals instead of building a proper home for the dollies I didn’t want to play with.”

  “Why didn’t you want to play with them?” Ilya asked.

  “Dollies are creepy,” Vicki and Ineke said. They shuddered. Then they began taking pieces out of the box.

  Grimshaw looked at Ilya Sanguinati, who was looking at the women as if he’d just discovered a hitherto-unknown predator and wasn’t sure what to think about that. Well, Grimshaw knew what to think about it. He was certain he could subdue Vicki DeVine if he had to. After all, she was short and plump and didn’t have the kind of muscle mass that indicated that she routinely worked out. Ineke, on the other hand, advertised that she buried trouble—and he still wasn’t sure if that was figurative or literal.

  It made him glad he was the only person in the room carrying a real gun.

  Vicki cocked her head. She set three small wheels on the table, equally spaced, then waited for Ineke to connect the wheels with short colored sticks before she pointed to each one in turn. “The first dead man. Detective Swinn and his team. The bank manager.” She placed a larger wheel below those three. “The bank president now living in Putney.” She placed another large wheel up and away from the others. “Yorick up in Hubb NE.”

  “Big wheels and little wheels,” Grimshaw said as Ineke attached long colored sticks to the wheel representing Vicki’s ex-husband, connecting him to the three small wheels and the bank president’s wheel.

  “Social status,” Ineke said before Vicki could respond. “Odds are better that the businessman and bank president would move in the same social circles—circles that would not include minions like detectives and employees.” She smiled at him. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” Grimshaw replied. “The blood prophet had said ‘schools.’ Ms. DeVine, where did your ex-husband go to school?”

  “Yorick’s family has lived in Hubb NE for generations,” Vicki replied. “He went to Smythe and Blake, the private college in the city.”

  “It may be a private college where the future movers and shakers are sent to learn how to take over the family businesses, but land constriction made it necessary to share some things with the University of Hubb NE as well as the technical college and the police academy located in that city,” Julian said.

  “Like the athletic fields and some of the general-use buildings,” Grimshaw said. “I remember how, at the dances, there would be four di
stinct groups holding their own piece of the room, and may the gods help anyone who dared to cross into another territory to ask a girl for a dance.”

  Julian tapped one of the connected wheels. “But there were clubs and societies that crossed those lines. I never paid attention to them because I wasn’t interested in joining.”

  No, Grimshaw thought, Julian wouldn’t have joined a club. That would have been an additional risk of someone figuring out what he was. “So what are we saying? That a secret club has been working out of the schools around Hubbney, recruiting members?”

  “Probably working out of the private college and spreading out from there,” Julian said. “Think of the announcements on the bulletin board at the academy. Clubs like the chess club and drama club were obvious, but some groups had names that sounded so dumb you couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to join.”

  Like a group that claimed to be interested in tie clips? Had they been operating when he and Julian had been at the academy? Must have been, but he hadn’t noticed. “Hiding in plain sight.”

  Julian nodded. “And promising that all the members would benefit from a helping hand. So a man comes to The Jumble to pressure Vicki to give up the property. When he is killed, someone alerts Swinn so that he makes sure he takes the case and can try to apply a different kind of pressure, along with the bank manager removing any paperwork that would prove Vicki’s claim that she was the rightful owner of the property.”

  “Even if there is a conspiracy to take The Jumble, the terms of the original agreement are clear,” Vicki protested. “As far as having access to the land that makes up The Jumble, humans keep it as it is, which is some cultivated land and limited dwellings and outbuildings. If they don’t, the deal is off and the whole thing is reclaimed by the terra indigene. That’s the biggest reason Yorick pawned it off on me—he knew there wasn’t any commercial use for the land. Why would he try to get it back?”