by Scott Carson
In the days when the Catskill reservoirs were being constructed, the Board of Water Supply police, as they were known at the time, had moved in to keep rule on the thousands of workers who’d come to the mountain villages and to pacify the locals who were in the midst of being evicted from them. Not surprisingly, the BWS force was regarded as an antagonistic presence.
The legacy lingered. More than a century later Gillian still encountered bumper stickers that said DEP get off my back! Even Gillian’s cruiser drew hostile attention. It was a Ford Explorer with a garish blue-and-green-on-white paint job, the letters DEP emblazoned on the side in a size more appropriate for an interstate billboard than an SUV. Beyond being ugly, it incited anger. The sheriff and the state police were viewed as protecting and serving the community; the DEP police were viewed as pokers, prodders, and pesterers. The friction had reached such a head that in 2014 the state removed the authority of the DEP police to make traffic stops, citing complaints about a culture of harassment and the need for a friendlier image in the Catskill communities. If Detective Sergeant Gillian Mathers saw a local barreling down Route 5 at one hundred miles per hour, she was invited to call the sheriff’s department or the state police.
She was on her way back to the counter for a coffee refill when her phone chimed again. Another email. This time she checked it.
The messages were from a sender she didn’t recognize, no name attached, just the email address, which was a collection of initials and numbers, standard fare for someone with a common name trying to find a Gmail account handle that wasn’t already taken. She opened the first message and saw that it was a photograph of a car. A white Honda SUV parked in dark woods, skeletal tree limbs reaching out for it.
What in the hell was this?
She scrolled to the second message.
Dear Detective Mathers:
I know I should apologize to you for what happened yesterday. A few hours ago, I meant to. But then I saw something that I would like to talk with you about. I heard something, too. I know you’re probably wishing that I would just talk to my dad and keep you out of this, but there are a few problems with that. Some of them you might understand, and some of them you might not. If you decide you need to make contact with him, I won’t blame you. But I also want to request that you give me one chance to explain it to you first.
I will send a photo next. I took it last night, just after midnight, in the woods above the Chill. I believe I know whose car it is, but I can’t run a license plate. You could do that.
I think you might be interested in what I heard last night. He said your name. Your last name, I mean. He was down there in the middle of the night in the water and he said your last name and talked about a sacrifice.
If you think I’m crazy, that’s understandable. Maybe it’s even right. But I do have the photograph. I think that’s enough to ask a few questions. I hope you agree.
Sincerely,
Aaron J. Ellsworth
Gillian had been out of her seat on the way for more coffee, but now she sank slowly back into the chair and whispered, “Holy shit.”
The coffee shop chatter swirled around her. Everyone relaxed and cheerful. Unaware of her.
He said your name. Your last name, I mean. He was down there in the middle of the night in the water and he said your last name and talked about a sacrifice.
She stared at the text, and a soft voice in her head chided her. He’s making some damn good guesses, isn’t he?
Gillian wanted to ignore this email. Wanted to forward it to Steve Ellsworth and wish him good luck with his son.
There was only one problem with that approach.
If Aaron told Steve the story first, then Gillian might never hear it. Steve wasn’t the most extroverted guy in Torrance County, and when it came to personal problems, Gillian had the sense that his lips would seal even tighter.
She didn’t need to hear the story, of course. She had absolutely no need to hear the crazy kid’s crazy story.
How’d he guess about Haupring?
He hadn’t. She’d put those words in his mouth.
She slid the phone into her pocket, gathered her paperwork and coffee, and left the café, walking out into the misting rain.
Even in the rain and against the nickel-colored sky, downtown Torrance was beautiful. Brick buildings and clean sidewalks and trees, all framed by the fog-shrouded mountains just beyond. The only thing missing right now was the color. This time of year, the landscape should have been electric. It was monochromatic and dull, though, as if the endless rains had washed autumn away and rolled out a bleak gray carpet in anticipation of winter’s arrival.
She walked to her Explorer, slid behind the wheel, and started the engine but didn’t put it into gear. Sat there and sipped her coffee and debated. Call Steve? Call Aaron? Ignore it all?
In the end she didn’t take any of those options. Instead, she called the operations center at the Chilewaukee. Arthur Brady answered.
“Hiya, Sergeant,” he said, cheerful enough. He was always pleasant. Of course, Arthur Brady also took his paycheck from watershed protection. Different gig, same mission, and thus a natural bond. People talked about town-and-gown divides in college communities, but in Torrance it was town and water.
“How you doing, Arthur?”
“Better than yesterday, at least.”
“Yeah. That was… that was something, wasn’t it?”
“I never heard such craziness. And poor Steve. He’s been through plenty already, but that had to land a different kind of punch, you know?”
“Right.” Gillian turned her coffee cup in her palm, soaking in the warmth. “Say, Arthur, you mind if I stop by the dam for a few minutes?”
“Of course not. What’s up?”
“I’d like to see the surveillance footage.”
Arthur was quiet. When he spoke again, his surprise was evident. “You don’t think anything Aaron said actually happened, do you?”
“Do I think he murdered the man who walked up to chat with us? No, Arthur. But I’ve got to write a report regardless, and I want to do it right.”
Brady sounded nonplussed. “It’s a busy day. Flood stage and rising. We’re closing in on twenty feet above pool level. This damned rain.”
“I’ll make it quick.”
“Look, I didn’t know what-all was going to happen,” Arthur said. “I would’ve thrown the kid outta here if not for him being the sheriff’s son.”
“I’m not worried about that. It’s my job to police the place; it’s your job to handle the dam. I won’t confuse the two.”
“Okay. Good. I don’t know what you think you’re gonna see, though.”
“I’m not expecting a thriller,” Gillian said. “I just need to see the videos so I can say that I did my due diligence.”
“I suppose you’ve got to. Although it’s just foolishness at this point.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” Gillian said, and Arthur chuckled. “I’ll be out there in fifteen or twenty, if that’s okay.”
“Sure.”
“Great. Thanks. Oh, you mind doing one more thing?”
“What’s that?”
“Can you pull up the videos from last night, too? Midnight to one?”
“What’s that about?”
“Hopefully nothing,” she said, setting the coffee into the cupholder and shifting the transmission into drive. “But I’ve been asked to give it a look.”
She headed out of town, into the hills, and into an intensifying rain.
25
They still hadn’t spoken of Peaceful Passages.
Aaron declined breakfast, saying that he needed a good, hot shower first. Then he went back upstairs and the shower ran, and ran, and ran. There was no way the water heater could be keeping pace.
What’s he doing up there? Steve wondered, picturing pills and needles, then feeling guilty. It was hard to shower with only one good leg. If he was lying up there unconscious, blood seeping out of h
is skull while Steve sat here sipping coffee…
“Aaron?” he called.
The water was shut off, and Steve’s chest loosened.
“Yeah!” Aaron hollered back. “I’m coming down. Took me a while to figure out how to keep my foot dry!”
Clear words, reasonable excuse. Steve exhaled again.
“Just making sure,” he shouted up, and then his phone rang. Sarah Burroughs, his chief deputy.
“Can’t run this county without me, can you?” he said.
“Steve, I hate to do this to you, because I know you really need the day, but the guy from the dam at the Chill called. Arthur Brady, the operations guy?”
“Yeah? What’d old Arthur want?”
Already Steve had a bad feeling. Any reference to what had happened out there the previous day was troubling.
“You, and you alone. He wouldn’t talk to me. Said he needed to speak to you. Said it was important, and about Aaron.”
Steve sat with the phone to his ear and his untouched cereal in front of him and watched the fire his son had started in the woodstove.
“Steve?” Sarah nudged.
“Yeah. Okay, I’ll give him a call. He leave his number?”
“Yes.”
Steve wrote it down, thanked her, and told her to call him if there was anything serious in play.
“I hope it’s quiet,” she said. “Always do, but especially today. I know that you…” She hesitated, then settled for “Good luck today, Steve. That’s all.”
“Thanks, Sarah.”
He hung up, then called Arthur, who answered immediately.
“Sarah said you had something to say about the mess down there yesterday,” Steve began. “I’m happy to listen, but first I want you to know that I’m going to be getting Aaron the help he needs. Okay?”
“Okay, Sheriff. But I’d appreciate it if you could get out here. I’ve got to deal with the DEP detective and I don’t know exactly what she’s angling for. She wants to review surveillance videos.”
Steve frowned. “Surveillance videos for what?”
“I got no idea, and that’s why I want you here. If she’s got ideas about charging Aaron for trespassing or false informing, whatever, it’s going to be a mess I certainly don’t need. I always let him swim down here. After yesterday, I’m thinking that could cost me my job.”
“Nobody’s firing you, Arthur.”
“I sure as hell hope not! But I’d like to have you here.”
Steve sighed. “When’s she coming out?”
“Now! She didn’t give me much warning at all. I don’t see the need. We all saw that man yesterday and we all know that Aaron didn’t—”
“I’m on my way,” Steve said, cutting him off. He’d thought yesterday was done and today would be a fresh start. Apparently, Gillian Mathers had other ideas. He hung up, dumped his coffee into the sink, and shouted up to Aaron once more.
“Hey! I’ve gotta go out. Just for a quick run. You’re not leaving, right? Because we need to… we’ve got to discuss things.”
From behind the closed bathroom door: “I’ll be here. Don’t worry. I’m good.”
He sounded good, too. He really did. Last night he’d come and gone in an hour, as promised. This morning he’d been the closest thing to his old self that Steve had seen in months, if not years. Extend the trust, then.
“Thank you!” Steve hollered. “I’ll be back quick.”
“Where you headed?”
Steve had his jacket in one hand, the doorknob in the other. He hesitated.
“Some quick BS with Sarah Burroughs,” he shouted, and then he left to drive back to the Chilewaukee, having just lied to the son he was wondering if he could trust.
26
The misting rain had matured into another downpour by the time Gillian reached the dam and discovered that Steve Ellsworth was already there.
What was this? She wanted to watch the videos in privacy.
She pulled in beside the sheriff’s car. Up above, a door opened in the gatehouse and Arthur Brady waved a hand, indicating that she should come up the steps.
She’d been in the gatehouse only once, and that was on a tour when she was first assigned to the Ashokan Precinct. It sat like a discarded medieval tower atop the dam, and just above the spillway. Beneath it were the gates that controlled the outflow of water into the stepped-stone chute of the spillway, which was a deluge today, thundering down the spillway and into the stilling basin, where the energy dissipated before carrying on down Cresap Creek and alongside the town of Torrance.
The gatehouse had seemed imposing and bleak to her then, and it did again today. The room was cold and filled with gauges and monitors and iron wheels. There were traces of new technology, but for the most part it felt like the machine room of an ancient ship. It was big and yet felt confining, like being inside a mausoleum. In one corner stood a pair of massive red lights, as big as traffic flashers, that would illuminate in the event of a breach and send the sound of sirens echoing down the floodplain, giving residents in its path a precious few minutes of warning.
“Nice view,” she said. The view wasn’t actually so great. The windows were narrow and showed little of the surrounding mountains. Arthur Brady spent a lot of hours staring out at gray water on one side and gray concrete on the other and waiting for trouble, lonely as a lighthouse keeper.
He also had cameras. There was a bank of monitors on the eastern wall showing livestreams from different angles. Security cameras had been installed around all of the New York City water system facilities following 9/11.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here, Sheriff,” Gillian said.
Steve Ellsworth wasn’t in uniform, but he wore a sheriff’s department windbreaker over an untucked flannel shirt, his face shielded by a New York Giants baseball cap. He met Gillian’s eyes reluctantly.
“Thanks for your help yesterday,” he said.
“Of course.” She started to add Sorry about Aaron but stopped herself, unsure of how to finish that thought without making them both more uncomfortable. “May I ask what brings you here today, though?”
“Arthur called.”
Gillian shot a hard look at Arthur, who made an apologetic face.
“It’s his jurisdiction and his son,” he said.
“Actually, it’s not his jurisdiction. As for it being his son…” She let her words trail off and waved her hand. The hell with it. “If we see anything unusual involving his son, I trust Steve to make the right decisions. Let’s take a look at the night action first.”
Steve frowned. “Night action?”
“Yeah. I got a tip that some folks came back around midnight.”
Steve’s broad chest filled and his jaw tightened. “He came back to get my truck. That’s all. In and out in an hour. I can promise you that because I timed it.”
Gillian held up a calming hand. “It’s not even Aaron that I’m interested in. May I just watch?”
Arthur Brady was sitting on a stool below them, a remote control in his weathered hand. He looked from Gillian to Steve. He was rubbing his thumb over the side of his index finger in a nervous, fidgeting fashion.
“I never granted Aaron any access,” he said. “I just want everybody to know, on camera it might look like I gave him a free pass, but I didn’t. He wasn’t listening, and—”
“We get it, Arthur. Play the videos of the parking lot, starting at midnight?”
Arthur sighed, pointed the remote at one of the monitors and initiated playback, then scrolled through time stamps until he reached 23:58 and pressed PLAY. The video feed of the parking lot showed Steve Ellsworth’s pickup truck sitting alone.
“Go ahead and speed it up a little?” Arthur asked.
“Just slow enough that we won’t miss anything.”
He advanced the frames, and the time stamp changed but the frame did not: Steve’s truck, an empty lot, darkness beyond.
At 12:18 a new truck entered the frame. This one was an over
sized pickup on massive tires. The passenger door opened, a man climbed out, and the big truck drove away.
“That’s Aaron,” Steve confirmed. “Coming to get…”
His voice trailed off when Aaron began to move. Gillian leaned forward, curious. Aaron was limping downstream and his head was tilted forward and to the side, as if peering at something just off the frame.
He stopped walking. Stood frozen as the seconds ticked by. Suddenly leaned forward again as if he’d heard something he didn’t want to miss… and then he began to shuffle backward. His right foot caught on a rock and he stumbled but regained his balance. When that happened, he broke from the cautious steps, pivoted to face the truck, and began to run. It was an uneven, halting stride that had to be painful, but he ran. Hard.
As if something were pursuing him.
Gillian inched closed to the monitor, staring at the corner of the screen, waiting to see what had spooked him, fully expecting that something was coming.
Nothing appeared. Aaron Ellsworth made it to the truck, fumbled the door open, and started the engine. Lights glowed harshly and then the Silverado was in motion as Aaron sped up the lane and out of sight.
It was 12:24 a.m. He’d stood staring into the darkness for a full five minutes before running.
Gillian glanced at Steve. His face was as gray as the hair that stuck out from beneath his Giants cap. She knew what he was thinking: they’d just had a live-action look at his son’s hallucinations.
“I know he needs help,” Steve said softly. “He knows he needs—”
The video was still playing, and Gillian was the only one facing it, because she’d taken her eyes off Steve, embarrassed for him. A flash of white appeared in the upper left-hand corner.
“Stop,” Gillian said.
“I’m not going to stop, damn it. He’s my son and I’ll defend him until—”
“Stop the video!”
Steve and Arthur looked back at the monitor. Arthur pointed the remote, pressed a button, and brought the feed to a halt. The white blur took shape. It was at the far end of the camera’s reach, but the outline of a white SUV was clear.