The Secrets of Lake Road: A Novel

by Karen Katchur

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I’m looking for something.” He shrugged.

  Caroline smiled. “You’re still hoping to find the horse’s bit, aren’t you?” she said. “I’m sure Heil got rid of it. And even if he didn’t, I doubt he’d hide it behind a pinball machine.”

  “I know.” Adam shrugged again. “But it was worth a shot,” he said. “Besides, I’m not going out there.” He pointed outside. “My folks are sitting on the beach. Heil made them. But he can’t make me. Not with that girl still out there. No way.”

  Megan stomped through the open doors. “God, it’s hot,” she said, and smoothed her blond hair. She was in full makeup, but it looked subdued in the dim lights or perhaps most of it had melted in the heat. “This sucks. What are we going to do?” she asked.

  It didn’t matter that Heil had opened the beach. The kids had made an unspoken rule that you didn’t swim in the lake while Sara was still out there somewhere. Sara had been one of them, whether they had known her well or not. An invisible line had been drawn separating them, the kids, from the adult world. It had always been there since the day Caroline was born, but she never felt it more sharply than now.

  And those same adults using the snappers to find Sara seemed cruel, although she couldn’t say what they should be doing to make it right. She just knew the way they were going about it was wrong. Opening the beach and expecting people to swim was wrong.

  She looked at Megan and Adam. She couldn’t do anything about the heat or the fact the lake was off-limits, but maybe she could talk her friends into going for a bike ride.

  “I know what we could do,” she said. “Let’s go to the Country Store.” She searched her pockets for change. Megan pulled a couple of dollars from her back pocket.

  Adam stared at the folded bills. “Did you rob a bank?”

  Megan shrugged. “Babysitting,” she said.

  They pooled their money. Adam contributed a couple of pennies and a nickel. Caroline had two dollars in quarters. Together with Megan’s stash, they had almost nine bucks.

  “Get your bikes and I’ll meet you by the steps.”

  Adam took off running. Megan held Caroline back. “Let’s ditch Adam,” she said. “And ride our bikes past Jeff’s cabin.”

  “What for?” she asked.

  Megan rolled her eyes. “God, Caroline. You know what for. To see if he’s around. Maybe he wants to hang out with us.”

  Megan looked so hopeful, Caroline couldn’t say no. “Fine. We can ride past his cabin, but Adam’s coming with us.”

  “But he’s a baby,” Megan whined.

  Who was the baby? she thought but didn’t say. She should want to do the things Megan wanted to do, but deep down all she wanted was to ride her bike and buy candy at the Country Store, same as Adam. Oh, and read a newspaper or two. “Adam’s coming with us. I’m not going to ditch him.”

  Once they all had their bikes, they pedaled toward the colony. Adam kept asking where they were going, why they weren’t going to the store.

  “We have to do something first,” Megan said in a snotty voice.

  Caroline dropped back to ride next to Adam and let him know she didn’t feel the same toward him as Megan did. Megan stopped and waited for them to catch up when they were close to Jeff’s place.

  “You go first,” Megan said to Caroline.

  “Why? It was your idea. You go first,” she said.

  “What are we doing?” Adam asked.

  Megan sighed heavily. “Let’s ride past together.”

  And off they went, riding their bikes past Jeff’s cabin. Caroline couldn’t believe she had agreed to this, feeling more stupid as each second passed. It didn’t look like anyone was around much to her relief. Megan made a sudden U-turn and rode past again. Caroline and Adam followed.

  “What are we doing?” Adam asked for a third time. “Aren’t we going to the Country Store?”

  “Yes,” Caroline said. “We are.” And she sped past Megan, heading straight out of the colony and onto Lake Road. Adam’s little legs pedaled fast behind her. Megan reluctantly took up the rear.

  Lake Road dipped and turned. The old oak and maple trees provided shady patches in-between long stretches of sunny hot macadam. Within fifteen minutes they reached the Country Store. The bell jingled above the screen door. Mrs. Nester looked over the top of her spectacles when they stepped inside. Adam headed straight for the candy aisle. Megan reached for a cola.

  Caroline swiped her forehead with the back of her arm and pulled her baseball cap down to hide her eyes. She walked over to the newspaper stand feeling guilty and conspicuous, which was silly. It wasn’t like she was going to steal anything. She plucked the latest Lake Reporter from the rack and read the front-page news about Sara. Very little was mentioned about her family other than her mother’s name, Patricia Starr, and how it was Sara’s first time vacationing at the lake. The article went on to mention the warning signs posted about swimming, and the lengths the community was going through to bring closure to the family, but the details about how the community was going about it were noticeably left out.

  “Can I help with you something?” Mrs. Nester asked.

  “Oh no, thank you.” Caroline returned the paper to the rack.

  Megan wandered down the makeup aisle. Caroline joined Adam in the candy aisle. Together they picked out bubble gum with the baseball cards, butterscotch suckers, and jelly candies. The entire time Caroline kept thinking about the article in the paper and Mrs. Starr. She looked over her shoulder at Mrs. Nester. Hidden behind her spectacles were sharp beady eyes watching every movement they made. Caroline didn’t know what made her turn around and approach the woman. Courage? She doubted it. More like an annoying itch she couldn’t help but scratch.

  “Do you have any old Lake Reporters?” she asked. “Maybe ones from other important events that happened around the lake?”

  Mrs. Nester narrowed her eyes. “I might. Anything specific you’re looking for?”

  By this time both Adam and Megan had approached the counter and stood next to Caroline. It seemed she had garnered everyone’s attention. She pulled the visor of her baseball cap down a little more.

  “I was wondering about other lake drownings.”

  Mrs. Nester peered at Caroline over the top of her spectacles. “Now what would you want with that information? Are you looking to cause trouble? Because that’s exactly what you’ll get, poking around in that kind of news.” She glanced over Caroline’s shoulder as though she was making sure they were the only customers in the store.

  Mrs. Nester continued. “Folks around here don’t like to talk about certain things. It’s bad for business.”

  Caroline put the candy she was holding onto the counter in front of her. “Yes, ma’am. I don’t want to cause any trouble. It’s just—” She stopped, thinking how to explain.

  Megan and Adam dumped their loot onto the counter too. Everyone waited for Caroline to continue, but she didn’t know how to tell them it had to do with her mother. She had to know why her mother kept running away from her. It made no sense when she put it this way, but she knew her mother had a secret, and it had something to do with Billy and drownings. If she could figure it out, maybe she could help her mother and she would stop running.

  Mrs. Nester rang up their order. When she finished, she told Caroline to wait. She must’ve seen something on Caroline’s face—perhaps pity. Whatever it was, she disappeared behind a door at the back of the store, returning a few minutes later with a pile of newspapers.

  “Take these around back. I’ve got a couple of chairs on the patio. Leave the papers on the table when you’re done. If anyone asks, you didn’t get them from me.”

  Caroline took the papers and thanked Mrs. Nester repeatedly.

  “Go on now, get, before I change my mind,” Mrs. Nester said.

  As soon as they were outside, Megan complained. She didn’t want to read old newspapers. She didn’t see the point. It
was like doing homework, and it was summertime. She wasn’t going to read anything she didn’t have to. And Adam was more interested in the bubblegum and baseball cards.

  They settled on Mrs. Nester’s back patio. The sun blared, but at least they were in the shade under the trees. Megan took out her new lip gloss and smacked her lips while Caroline sifted through the papers. The black print rubbed off on her fingertips. She scanned the article about the boating accident and the man who had drowned, the one she had witnessed three summers ago. She dug farther into the pile and pulled out the last paper in the stack, dated July 1997.

  With trembling hands, she shook the paper open, the headline reading: Sixteen-Year-Old Local Boy Drowns. She held the paper inches from her nose and inspected the blurry black-and-white photo of a teenage boy. There was something she recognized in him, a look or coolness she sensed in some boys, definitely Chris, maybe Johnny. But it was hard to gauge something like that from just a grainy photo. She continued to read.

  Sixteen-year-old William J. Hawke disappeared late Monday night after last being seen on the beach outside the lake Pavilion by his friend Kevin Knowles police said. After an extensive search lasting five days, his body was recovered near the floating pier in the middle of the lake. It is speculated William “Billy” Hawke went swimming alone that night after his friend had gone home. The drowning was ruled an accident. Memorial services to be announced.

  The mention of her father’s name came as a complete surprise, and Caroline immediately shoved the paper under the pile. She wiped her blackened fingertips on her shorts.

  “Are you finished now?” Megan asked, irritated about having to wait.

  Caroline nodded, her thoughts reeling.

  “What did you find?” Adam asked.

  “Nothing,” she said, not wanting to talk about it. “Let’s go.” She left the papers on the table like Mrs. Nester had asked, and walked to the front of the store, where their bikes lay on the ground.

  Adam handed her a couple of baseball cards. “Here,” he said. “I already have these.”

  “Thanks.” She took them absently and climbed onto her bike.

  She did the math and yes, both her parents would’ve been sixteen in 1997, the same age as Billy. Her father had known Billy all along. They were friends.

  A heavy weight settled onto her shoulders, and a sense of betrayal swarmed her chest. Was her father in on her mother’s secret too? What were her parents hiding and why?

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Dee Dee stepped outside and gazed at the frenzy of fishing boats dragging the lake. Goddamn Heil, she thought, and bent down to pick up the empty beer cans from the night before. There were at least a dozen or more scattered across the porch floor. She dropped the first armful into the recycling bin, catching sight of the sheriff making his way across the yard.

  He tipped his hat in greeting. “It must have been some party,” he said, eying the cans still on the floor at her feet.

  “Hardly.” She picked up several more empties, not caring whether he believed she had had a party of twenty or the truth, a party of one.

  “Well, I’m glad I caught you.” He motioned to her white scrubs. She worked in one of the few hospitals where the nurses still wore white. Most wore different colors—maroon, blue, green, hideous flowered prints. She preferred the crisp, clean look of white. No muss. No fuss.

  “What brings you by?” she asked. “I hope you’re here to give me some good news.”

  The sun showed the lines on the sheriff’s face. He was older than her by at least fifteen years, but not that old that he didn’t cross her mind in ways that maybe he shouldn’t. And yet, it wasn’t so strange for her to think of him in a romantic way. After all, he was as much of an outsider here as she was, him being the sheriff and her being the woman whose brother had drowned. She supposed it was only natural for the two of them to seek each other out.

  “I was able to get my hands on a preliminary report,” he said, getting straight to business, which she appreciated. “It’s what we thought. The snappers took the bones. But they did find something I think is curious.” His hand was resting on his sidearm. His hat was pulled low to shade his eyes against the sun.

  Her body stilled. The muscle in her right bicep twitched.

  He continued. “Did your brother hurt his arm that you know of? Or mention anything to you about injuring it?”

  “No,” she said, and then took a moment to think. “No.” She was certain. “He wasn’t hurt. He would’ve told me if he were. He didn’t keep anything from me. Why? What’s this about?”

  “They found a fracture on the ulna. They’re calling it a nightstick fracture. It happens when something hits the forearm, say in a hard fall or when the forearm strikes something with a lot of force. Either way, it was enough to limit the use of his arm.”

  Her heart tumbled, rolling over inside her chest. “What does this mean? Does this prove it wasn’t an accident?”

  “It’s hard to say at this point, but I think it’s worth looking into.”

  She crushed one of the empty cans still in her hand. She had waited so long for something, anything to prove her brother’s drowning wasn’t his own doing. He didn’t just slip and fall and crack his head like everyone wanted to believe. And now to discover he had a fractured arm, too. “And you think this contributed to his death?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I think the question we need to ask is how he fractured it,” he said. “I wanted to confirm with you first that he didn’t injure it prior to that night.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “All right, I’ll start asking around and see if anybody knows anything about how he might’ve hurt it.”

  “What makes you think someone is going to talk now?” She tossed the crushed can into the bin and folded her arms, hiding the large knuckles of her fists.

  “Maybe someone knew something then and didn’t think it was relevant at the time.”

  “But it is relevant.”

  “I think so.”

  “Will you question Jo?” If Dee Dee trusted anything, it was her instincts. She had sensed something was wrong between Billy and Jo before they had ever left the cabin that night. Did they have a bad fight? Was that how he fractured his arm? She had always believed Jo knew more about what had happened than she was saying.

  “I’ll talk with everyone who had contact with him,” he said. “But you have to understand, it’s only a preliminary report. I’m still waiting for the DNA results. Once I have that final report, I’ll make the decision whether or not to officially reopen the case.”

  She looked away from him, not wanting him to see the agitation, the anger she was sure showed on her face. She was sick to death of waiting.

  Perhaps he knew what she was thinking because he said, “I’ll poke around to see what I can find out, but I’ll need those results to make it official.”

  “What do you think happened to his arm?”

  “I have a few guesses, but I can’t build a case on conjecture.”

  “Right.” She didn’t like what he was telling her, where this was going. “So what happens if no one opens up?” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm from her tone.

  “Then we’re back where we started more or less.”

  “So you’re saying that finding my brother’s bones only raises more questions about what happened to him.”

  “Yes and no. It’s more information than we had previously.” He hesitated. “Listen,” he said. “Just be patient a little longer. Let me do my job. I’ve been doing this long enough to know that sooner or later the truth has a way of surfacing.”

  There was a ruckus on one of the fishing boats. Both Dee Dee and the sheriff turned to the sound.

  “Nothing.” Stimpy’s voice carried across the water.

  “What a goddamn mess,” the sheriff said.

  “Yes, it is.” She checked her phone. “I have to get to work. Is there
anything else?”

  “That’s all for now.” The sheriff tipped his hat again and turned to walk away.

  She started picking up the rest of the cans from the floor and stopped. “You’ll let me know as soon as you hear anything,” she called.

  “You’ll be the first.”

  Most people at the lake thought she was paranoid, delusional. A drunk. She never believed the sheriff was one of them. “Thank you, Sheriff.”

  He paused and looked back at her. “Do you think there will ever be a day when you call me Dave?”

  She couldn’t see his eyes under the shade of the hat, but she felt his stare through to her insides. She shook her head. “I doubt it.”

  * * *

  After grabbing the keys from the cabin, Dee Dee got in the car and started the engine. If she didn’t get moving, she was going to be late for work. She punched the steering wheel with her palm. What the hell happened to you, Billy? She threw the car in reverse and backed out of the parking space, catching sight of the sheriff’s broad shoulders and lean stature. He was standing on the docks next to Heil waiting for the fishermen to come in off the water.

  Dave. She quickly pushed the thought away. There was no point in daydreaming. It only led to disappointment when reality set in. And yet she couldn’t help but think maybe, just maybe, the day would come when she would learn the truth about her brother, a day when she would be able to let go of all the anger she carried.

  But until that day the sheriff would be the sheriff. And that was all that he would be.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Jo slipped past the kitchen door and skirted through the living room, making as little noise as possible. She hoped to escape without bumping into anyone. She woke with a nagging feeling, and it had to do with Patricia, Sara’s mother. She sensed it last night while talking with her on the beach. The feeling, or thought, of a memory was there, it was close, but still too far to grasp.

  She paused outside the entranceway to the screened-in porch, brushed her hair with her fingers, thinking the back door was the quickest exit to get away, just away, without getting caught. She took two steps into the room and stopped next to a wicker rocking chair.