"You all right?" she said, dusty blonde hair matted to her head. Her face was tanned, and the heavy lids gave her eyes a look of perpetual sadness.
Owen coughed up bile. It splattered on the surface of the lake where the rest of his vomit lay in a disgusting froth, the water calmed now, looking like glass. He was too dazed and queasy to appreciate it. "I think so."
She was scowling at him when he plopped down on his ass. "What the hell were you doing in that house?"
"Nothing, I…"
She prompted him to go on with her dark, sad eyes.
"I just thought I saw something."
"Saw what?" she asked, more suspicious than curious.
"I don't know. Nothing, I guess." He spat into the water again. "I guess I must have caught my hose on something."
She looked at the hose, severed clean and hanging from the tank. "I guess so," she said, seemingly unconvinced. She started peeling off her flippers. "You think you'll be okay to drive? I could give you a tow if—"
"I'm okay," he said.
"You sure?"
He nodded, catching a deep breath. "Yeah. And thanks. If you hadn't helped me…"
"You would have drowned?"
He thought of Sophie Huang, her embarrassment when he'd mentioned her heroics. "Yeah," he said, smiling genuinely for the first time in as long as he could remember. "My name's Owen, by the way."
"I know what your name is. Everyone in town knows who you are." Her right fin sucked against her bare foot as she pulled it free. "Owen Saddler, brother of the dead girl."
He flinched. The smile fell from his face as swiftly as if he'd been slapped. "That's a harsh way to put it."
"It's true, isn't it? You spend your whole life tiptoeing around death, it won't make it any easier when you lose someone else you care about."
"True, I suppose," he said—not wanting to concede, but she had just saved his life. "What's your name? Just so I know who saved my ass."
"It doesn't matter," she said, wringing out her hair onto the dock. "You won't see me again."
"You seem pretty sure of that."
"I am. 'Cause even you can't be stupid enough to come back out here and try this again."
"Even me?"
"Yeah." She held his gaze. "The guy whose sister drowned maybe ten feet from where he's sitting? Even you."
The blow struck hard. He didn't know how to respond without expressing his anger. The cold, unidentified bitch stood and crossed the dock to her boat, the tin Bumble Bee. He was glad he hadn't told her about the Shepherd, nor the watch he'd found, despite her assurance he'd find nothing down there. She stepped in, the boat wobbling, and sat down in front of the motor.
"Nice talking to you," Owen called to her as she started the motor and pushed the boat away from the dock. He watched her drive away, cutting west across the lake until she disappeared from sight.
He stood up on weary legs, wiped his lips again, and peered over the edge into the water. Somewhere down there, the house with the child's room lay silent. His deadly hallucinations had followed him all the way to Chapel Lake. He'd caught on something in the wall and had imagined the Shepherd holding him down. Easy enough to make himself believe it, considering he'd only seen the dead man in an old, worn mirror covered in sludge.
"Left my knife down there, too," he said. "Probably still stuck in the wall."
Even I wouldn't be stupid enough to go back down there and get it, he thought. Would I…?
CHAPTER 7
Salvage
1
OWEN SAT ON THE BACK deck of the house with a root beer in his hand and Lori's journal on his lap, enjoying the gorgeous afternoon, looking down at the lake every so often to remind himself how lucky he was just to be alive.
Chickadees twittered in the trees above, and while he was reading, the chipmunk had climbed onto the deck near him to nibble at a pile of peanuts Lori must have left, mostly little bits of shells now. The sun was hot, but he'd moved the chair to a place in the shade. As he read, the tree's shadow moved across the deck, and Owen moved with it.
She had tried to go out on the lake one morning, only to find that the boat motor had been "tampered with," according to the marina mechanic; and the power seemed to flicker and sometimes go out entirely at the least convenient times, like when she was showering or standing in front of the mirror brushing her teeth in the sink. Her investigations had come to a standstill, too; nobody in town wanted to talk to her, and Dink Deakins and Peter Jebson had both stopped returning her calls, shunning her when she'd gone to visit their houses.
In her June 20th entry, the same day she'd sent the postcard—GREETINGS FROM CHAPEL LAKE!—Lori was describing the seemingly indestructible and impenetrable church, when she finally revealed her true motivation:
I said before I sometimes think you're like a kid's sandcastle built too close to shore, and you sure didn't get it from Mom. She's as solid as a rock, except for that one time I caught her crying over her lost shoes. I think you've been quick to become depressed for as long as I've known you, but it didn't hit me until a few years back, when you were in that funk after you and Allison split, that it might be clinical.
I asked Mom about it, if there was any history of mental illness in the family. Grandma and Granddad always seemed pretty well-adjusted, aside from being WASPs, but you never know, and Uncle Ralph has his problem with pills. Mom looked at me like she'd seen a ghost. "What are you implying?" she said, and tried desperately to change the subject. You know how she is: Mom kept mum.
But I wasn't going to drop it just like that, and when I asked about your dad, she got upset. Said her spiel about him being a "great mind who'd wandered away." But her mouth slammed shut like a castle drawbridge all of the sudden, and that's when it finally clicked what she'd meant all that time about wandering away.
It wasn't your father who'd wandered away, Owns, it was his great mind. All that time she'd been dropping hints to the Terrible Truth and neither of us knew it.
Your father didn't leave you and Mom. He went crazy.
Owen read those final three words for a second, then a third time, then let the journal settle in his lap. A horn sounded out in the bay, loud and long, like a ferry horn calling its passengers, like a church bell calling to the flock.
If his father had been crazy—whatever that meant—it could have been hereditary. Clinical depression was one thing, but seeing dead preachers intent on choking the life from him could mean schizophrenia, and if left untreated, it could be very bad for both himself and, possibly, others.
He closed Lori's journal with finality and tucked it under his arm. The sun had begun to sink behind the trees, still far from setting, but cooling the air considerably. At the edge of the deck the chipmunk nibbled greedily at scraps of shell. High above them both, a gull cried in the clear, pale blue sky.
His mother would be no help. Like Lori wrote, Mom would keep mum. But somewhere in town, someone had to know who his father was, and what had happened to him. Owen determined to find that someone tonight.
If not the man himself.
2
His car had been idling at the intersection of the cottage road and the paved county road, when the Howie Haul-It truck stopped in front of him and Howie laid on the horn.
Owen snapped out of his daze, wondering how long he'd been sitting at this lonely intersection staring out at a stretch of empty farmland, worrying about his predicament.
Howie leaned over the passenger seat and peered out the window. "Find any tweasure?" he said, waggling his eyebrows in heavy sarcasm.
"I did, actually," Owen said, startling the trash man. With brash eagerness, he took the pocket watch from the change tray and dangled it for Howie to see. Its double-circle reflection swung in an arc across Howie's truck, momentarily blinding the man. Howie threw up a hand to protect his eyes.
"What the jeepers! Wight in my peepers!"
"Sorry," Owen said, palming the watch like a yo-yo.
Howie blinke
d hard, and with his eyebrows waggling, it was almost comical. "You found that down there?"
"Yessir."
Howie rolled his head on his shoulders in a gesture that seemed to indicate that, all this time, he'd been missing out. "You gotta be kidding me!"
"I kid you not."
"Well, cwipes on a cwacker. Nice find, Indiana. I guess it ain't loon shit, but it still pwoves my theowy."
"What theory is that?"
"You can find just as much in the twash as you do in the lake." He began to rummage. "Check out this puppy," he said, and held up a small metallic object. It glinted in the sun, but was too small to make out.
"What is it?"
"A cross," Howie said, though it sounded more like cwoss. "I found it in your wefuse."
Owen started. "Can I see it?"
Howie pocketed it greedily. "Tell ya what: why don't you follow me to the Pony? You can meet my dad, and maybe he'll give you a few bucks for that watch, if it isn't a piece a junk."
Owen didn't want to get rid of the watch, didn't think Howie's father would be interested in it even if he did, with its large crack and dead hands. He'd wound it and changed the time, but the thing still refused to work. He was interested to meet the man, though, and if anyone knew what had been taken out of that lake, a man who paid top-dollar for salvage likely would. "Do they have food?" he asked, suddenly realizing he was starving.
The question mystified Howie. "Sheah!" he said. "Only the best damn hot wings in town!"
"Then let's go."
"Coolio. Follow me."
Howie threw the truck into gear and took off with a grunt of his hemi. Owen zipped behind him in the hybrid, hoping like hell he could keep up.
3
They met again in the parking lot, a mess of weeds and crumbled paving blocks. Two rat-shit pickups were already parked, one with a Union Jack covering its back windows. Howie got away from him on one of the residential streets, but once Owen found King Street it wasn't difficult to find the Red Pony, as it appeared to be the only bar in town. At four in the afternoon, it had already gathered a decent crowd on the front patio. A neon sign advertised Labatt Ice on tap; a handwritten sign announced Karaoke Thursdays.
"You caught up," Howie said, pulling off his gloves and tossing them into the open passenger window.
"Yeah, sorry. Didn't want to speed in a school zone."
"Kids are in class," Howie said dismissively.
"So, let's see what you got."
Howie grinned wide and dug into his big grimy pockets. He held the shiny trinket out between them. A single word cried out in Owen's mind—Lori!—and he grabbed at it. Howie closed and retracted his hand, looking wounded. "Hey, now. Haven't you ever heard of finders keepers?"
"That belongs to my sister," Owen said, certain it was the crucifix from her necklace. It had been at the house—and in the trash, of all places.
What was it doing in the garbage? he wondered.
Maybe seeing her ghost again turned her off religion for good, he answered, aware that a man so worried about late-onset schizophrenia should be careful how he talked to himself.
Howie gave Owen a suspicious glare from behind his tinted glasses. "Are you pulling my leg?"
Owen heaved a sigh. "My sister Lori stayed at Fisherman's Wharf for a while. She must have swept it into the trash before she—what?" Reacting to Howie's vacant stare, he corrected himself, "Refuse, sorry."
"That girl was your sister? The one that…" He nodded in a vague direction. "In the lake?"
Owen nodded.
Howie looked hangdog down at his dirty boots. "Sorry for what I said about ghosts in the house. I didn't know she was your sister."
"It's all right," he said, remembering the woman who'd saved his life this morning. As far as callous comments went, hers would be hard to top.
"Here," Howie said, holding out the necklace. "Take it."
"You sure? What about finders keepers?"
"You want me to change my mind, or what? Finders keepers is a buncha bullcwap, anyhow."
Owen took the crucifix, surprised—and glad—Howie had managed to find the missing piece of her necklace. She could've easily snapped the chain with her camera strap around her neck, but why would she throw it out? That's what I need to figure out.
Another mystery, he thought miserably. Wouldn't Brother Woodrow be glad.
"Thanks for finding it," he said to Howie, tucking it into the watch slot in his right pocket. He brought out the Jamaican coin he'd found for Howie to see. "I found this under the dock, if you want it."
Howie glanced at it. He rolled his eyes. "Oh, big whoop. I've got hundreds of quarters in a jar at home."
"Look closer," Owen said with a sly grin.
Howie did. He blinked comically at it, then raised his glasses from his nose to get a good close look. "Holy jeez! Lemme look at that thing."
"How 'bout I give it to you instead?"
Howie looked up from the coin, uncertain whether Owen was "pulling his leg" or not. "Give it to me?"
"Yup."
Howie gave him another suspicious look. "Are you sure?" When Owen nodded, Howie said, "Well, okay then!" He took the coin and brought it very close to his face. Then his lips peeled back in a big goofy grin. "Let's go show my dad!" he said cheerily.
Just as Howie had said, a sign by the door of the Red Pony proclaimed: TRY THE BEST DAMN HOT WINGS IN TOWN! The tavern had been named after the miniature dive tank, Howie said on their way to the front door, not the miniature horse, and it wasn't just a literal dive bar, it was also a place where likeminded men and women got together to get blitzed to the gills and shoot the shit about their favorite pastime.
Stained glass lampshades threw multicolored light on what was basically a long room with a bar and tables along either side, and with the typical product signage along the walls: the Bud, the Keith's, the Johnnie Walker Red. The air had a smoky quality to it, despite no one smoking. A jukebox stood near the doors, illuminated with bright colors, with an ancient cigarette machine beside it, empty and dark.
The bartender, a plump woman with a perpetual smile, her dark eyebrows drawn or tattooed on her brow beneath a mound of dyed-blonde hair and dark roots, was chatting up a couple of scruffy-looking trucker types at the far end of the bar when Owen stepped in behind Howie. The guy sitting beside them looked out of place, a man with mussed gray hair and a wildly colored cravat under a tweed jacket, his suede elbows resting on the bar in front of an amber liquid on ice, probably scotch. He looked to Owen like a scotch man.
"Heya, Howie!" the bartender called out. Her belly, under a tight-fitting black T-shirt, had folded over her money belt, and she had to shift it out of the way to get change for one of the guys in a trucker hat and plaid jacket.
"What's shakin', Tina?"
"Just my ass," Tina said, and jiggled a little. This made Howie and the trucker fellas laugh raucously. Professor Scotch only glowered over his drink. The guy looked pretty plastered. "Who's your friend?" Tina asked.
"This is Owen. Fancies himself a tweasure hunter."
The woman sized Owen up, seemed to see something worth a second look around the back of him. "Don't they all?" she said suggestively. "Well, what can I get ya, Indiana?"
Howie said, "That's what I called him," as he slipped by behind Owen.
Owen shrugged. "What's on tap?"
Tina nodded at the row of taps directly in front of Owen. Feeling a bit stupid, Owen called out a random beer. He'd never been much of a drinker, let alone a connoisseur; had always felt that the choice of poison didn't so much matter as the company. The occupants of the Red Pony had a sort of small town repartee he took to immediately, like a small town Cheers, where everybody knew everyone's name. And though the diver from this morning had said everyone already knew his, these people didn't seem to have gotten the memo.
Howie plopped down beside the professor. "Heya, Pops," Howie said, laying a hand on the old man's shoulder. The professor's head rose waveringly. His
eyes twinkled when he saw his son sitting next to him.
"Howie!" he said, pasting on a crooked smile and kissing Howie on the forehead. Howie pretended to wipe it off as the old man seemed to grow confused, his bushy gray eyebrows knitting together. "What time is it?"
One of the truckers, the one wearing blue plaid, as opposed to his friend who wore the standard red, smiled and said, "Happy hour. Drink up, Lansall!" Howie's Dad looked surprised. "You're early," he said.
"Got a fwiend here I want you to meet," Howie said by way of explaining.
Owen guessed that was his cue to come over. He'd gotten his beer and paid for it, and sipped it through the foam as he approached father and son.
"Owen, this is my dad."
The old man swallowed an apparently bitter sip of scotch before offering a hand that trembled in Owen's grip. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance," he said with a British burr. Whether it was authentic or a put-on, Owen couldn't tell, but it explained Howie's use of the word refuse for trash. "Howard James Lansall, the Second," the old man said, which would make Howie Howard Lansall, the Third—a pretty highfalutin name for a refuse collector, in Owen's opinion.
"Good to meet ya," Owen said, suppressing a grin. "Owen Saddler."
Howie's father perked up at this. "Saddler, hmm?" He gave Owen a brief inquisitive look, and then seemed undecided whether to glower or smile. His face settled somewhere between an awkward grin and sympathy, but the expression looked as phony as his accent, as if he were trying to mask an altogether different emotion.
Pretty awful poker face, Owen thought. Whatever Howie's father did for a living, the man had all the characteristics of a career alcoholic: palsy, halitosis, bloodshot eyes, ruddy complexion. "Howie said you pay top dollar for salvage," Owen told the man.
Salvage Page 13