Under the Lake

by Stuart Woods

  “Oh, yeah? You think he’d buy that? Bo’s a lot more careful than that. He wouldn’t be happy until you were out of the way.”

  “Scotty, please, know when you’re licked. Go.”

  Scotty stood up. “I’m going to work,” she said, emphatically.

  “You’re going to get blown away, Scotty.”

  She rummaged deeply in her handbag. “Oh, no, I’m not,” she replied, pulling out a small revolver and waving it above her head. “I’ll defend myself if I have to.”

  “Oh, no, no, no,” Howell howled.

  “And I know how to use it, too,” she said, triumphantly. “I took a course.”

  “Yeah? What gun did you shoot with?”

  “A police thirty-eight.”

  “Well, what you’ve got there is a.25 Saturday night special with a two-inch barrel. Just remember that you won’t be able to hit anything more than a few feet away, and that it probably won’t stop what you hit. All that will do is just help you get killed faster.” He reached for it. “Give me that.”

  She snatched it away and dropped it into her purse again. “No, sir. I’m hanging onto it, and I’ll use it if I have to.” She started for the door.

  Howell felt totally helpless. “Scotty.”

  She turned. “Yeah?”

  “Bo knows. You know Bo knows, but Bo doesn’t know you know he knows.” Howell shook his head to clear it. “I think that’s right. Anyway, that’s all you’ve got going for you, that he doesn’t know you know he knows.”

  “This is starting to sound like an Abbot and Costello routine.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Don’t back him into a corner, Scotty. Let him think he’s in control. And for God’s sake, don’t let yourself end up alone with him, okay?”

  Scotty nodded. “Okay. That’s good advice. That’s what I need from you, now, John, good advice. See you later.”

  Howell watched her walk down the steps to her car, then he closed the door and leaned on it. They were in a whole new ball game, now, and he didn’t like it at all.

  28

  Howell paid for the groceries at the supermarket and waited while a teenager bagged them. His eye wandered about the store and stopped. A glass partition separated the modern grocery store from its equally modern drug department a few steps away. On the other side of the glass, he saw Leonie Kelly paying for something at the prescription counter. He turned to the boy bagging the groceries and handed him half a dollar. “Just put them in the green station wagon over there,” he said, pointing toward the parking lot.

  He started toward the door, glancing through the glass again to see if Leonie had left, then he saw something he had not bargained for. She was walking toward the front of the drugstore, her back to the clerk at the prescription counter; as she passed near a shelf, she reached out, took a packet of something, and dropped it into her handbag.

  Howell watched her leave the store without paying for it, then hurried to catch up with her. “Leonie!” he called out.

  When she turned, she did not look glad to see him. “Sorry, I can’t stop to talk right now. I’ve got to get back to the house. Mama needs some medicine. I’ve just had her prescription filled.”

  “I’ll walk you to your car, then,” he said, falling into step with her. She said nothing. “Listen, I could grow old waiting for you to call me. Why don’t we get together the next day or two?”

  “I can’t. Mama needs me all the time, now. I just can’t get away.”

  She seemed very cool and distant. They had reached the Kelly truck, and she climbed into the driver’s seat. Her sister, Mary, waited patiently for her. “Hey, John,” the girl said.

  “Hey, Mary.” He turned to Leonie. “Listen, things must be pretty rough for you right now. Can I lend you a few hundred bucks to help get you through this?”

  She looked at him, surprised. “Why on earth do you think I would take any money from you?” She seemed insulted by the idea.

  “Well, look,” he said, lowering his voice so that Mary wouldn’t hear him, “taking a few bucks from a friend beats shoplifting, any day.” She looked taken aback. “I saw you in the drugstore,” he said, feeling immediately guilty, as if he had been deliberately spying on her.

  She flushed angrily and turned to start the truck. “I think it would be better if you just minded your own business,” she said and drove quickly away, nearly knocking him down.

  Howell watched the truck disappear, then walked to his own car. The grocery boy was putting the last bags into the rear of the wagon. He started the car and drove toward the Kellys’ house. Leonie and her family, he was now beginning to realize, were people he had become fond of, indeed, the best people he had met in this town. He felt particularly for her, an attractive and intelligent woman, trapped in circumstances that were not of her making, who had paid him the compliment of wanting to make love to him. He had given precious little back, and he felt badly about it. He wanted to help. He didn’t want Leonie stealing in order to make ends meet for her family while her mother was dying a slow and painful death.

  But by the time he was nearing the Kelly house, he was reconsidering. A direct approach when she was embarrassed and angry might not be the best way. Perhaps he should wait and talk with her later, instead. When he came to the Kelly driveway he drove on past, idly following the road.

  He had driven only a couple of hundred yards when an enormous roar from above made him duck reflexively. He leaned forward and looked up to see a light airplane passing over very low, gaining altitude slowly. Where the hell had that come from? A moment later, he knew. He stopped the car and stared at the sign in front of him. It read:

  SUTHERLAND COUNTY AIRPORT

  Howell knew where to find Bo at this hour of the day. He tapped the sheriff lightly on the shoulder as he slid into the booth with him. “Join you, Bo?”

  “Sure thing, John. Make yourself at home.” Bo seemed just a bit cooler than his usual self.

  “Cheeseburger and a beer, Bubba,” Howell called across the room. Bubba nodded.

  They traded idle chat until the food arrived. Then Howell took a deep breath. “Bo, there’s something we have to talk about.”

  Bo looked wary. “What’s on your mind?”

  “It’s been bothering me ever since we had the conversation about the credit card.”

  “Yeah?” Bo sipped his coffee and waited.

  “The credit card is Scotty’s, Bo.”

  Bo lifted an eyebrow, set down his coffee cup and looked at Howell for a moment. “Tell me about it,” he said, finally.

  He was good, Howell thought, Academy Award good. “Scotty’s name is MacDonald, not Miller. Heather MacDonald. She’s a reporter at the Constitution, or at least, she was until recently.”

  Bo sat back and looked at Howell, all amazement. “You kidding me, John?”

  “Nope, afraid not. She heard some rumor or other about your being dirty…”

  “Where did she hear that?” Bo interrupted. His curiosity was not feigned.

  “I’m not sure, from somebody at the capitol, I think. Anyway, there was nothing to back it up. Scotty just got a wild hair up her ass about it. There can’t have been much to it, because the paper wouldn’t send her up here to work on it. In fact, they fired her for being a pain in the ass.”

  “Then what’s she doing here?”

  “Oh, she had grand visions of breaking a big story all on her own, so she quit her job, got together some tame job references, and just came on up here. She reckoned if it panned out, they’d welcome her back with open arms.”

  “Well, that’s the damndest thing I ever heard,” Bo laughed, slapping the table. “She sure had me for supper.”

  “Oh, you’d have figured it out already, but she swiped the reply to your letter to Neiman’s.”

  “Funny you should mention that; I was getting ready to call that guy in Dallas.”

  “I figured you would, eventually. That�
�s why I wanted to tell you this now.”

  Bo wrinkled his brow. “Why is that? Why are you telling me about it?”

  “Well, I didn’t want you to fly off the handle when you heard about it. She hasn’t really done any harm, and she’s on the point of giving up the whole thing and going back to Atlanta. She’ll be coming in any day, now, telling you her mother’s sick or something, and that she has to leave.”

  “You been working on this with her? Is that why you’re up here?”

  “Oh, hell, no. I’m up here to work on a book, just like I told you. Well, not exactly like I told you.” Howell looked around and lowered his voice. “I’m not working on a novel. I’m ghost writing an autobiography for Lurton Pitts.”

  “Fried chicken Lurton Pitts?” Bo looked skeptical.

  “The same, and if you ever tell anybody about it, I’ll kill you, Bo. It’s hack work for some fast money, and I don’t want anybody ever to know I did it. Neither does Pitts, for that matter.”

  Bo still was unconvinced. “Listen, John, it’s time you were straight with me all the way.”

  “Denham White is Pitts’s lawyer. He got me the job. I kid you not, Bo, come on out to the cabin and I’ll play you the tapes and show you the manuscript. Wouldn’t you like to hear from the horse’s mouth how ol‘ Lurton found God?”

  Bo laughed and shook his head. “No thanks, I’ll take your word for it.” His laughter faded. “How long you known Scotty?”

  “I recognized her the first time I walked into your office – she started on the paper a few months before I left, and I’d seen her around the newsroom – so I went along with her.” Howell chuckled. “I can tell you she’s been going nuts and getting nowhere.”

  “Well, of course not,” Bo laughed. “I told you I’m as clean as a hound’s tooth, didn’t I? What was she hoping to find out?”

  “I don’t know – fixing speeding tickets, taking bribes – half the sheriffs in Georgia are into that sort of stuff, I guess.”

  Bo looked vastly relieved. “Well, she could grow old trying to pin any of that shit on me.”

  “Look, Bo, I don’t want you mad at her. I mean, she’s harmless. She’s gotten to like you a lot, and I think she’s pretty much ashamed of herself.”

  “Well, I ought to kick her little ass, I guess, but I’m not mad.”

  “Well, look, can you just let it ride? She’s already given up, really; she’s just hanging on because of her pride – you know how she is.”

  “Yeah, she’s pretty cocky, all right.”

  “She really thinks she’s pulled the wool over your eyes. Leave her that, anyway. She’ll go back to Atlanta and beg her job back thinking she’s the ace undercover reporter; that there just wasn’t anything to find. And if your name ever comes up again at the Capitol or at the paper, she’ll defend you to the death on the grounds that if she couldn’t pin anything on you, nobody could. Anyway, if she ever knew I told you, she’d kill me in my sleep.”

  Bo roared. “Oh, Jesus, she sure would, wouldn’t she?” He laughed until the tears ran down his face.

  He was biting, Howell thought. Hoped. “We got a deal then? Not a word to her? Not ever?”

  “All right, buddy. She’ll never know I knew. But you realize, I’ve got something on you, now. You ever cross me, and I’ll tell her you told me. You wouldn’t live another twenty-four hours!” He dissolved in laughter again.

  Howell left Bubba’s a few minutes later thinking he’d done the right thing. After all, he hadn’t told Bo much of anything he didn’t already know. If things worked the way he hoped they would, most of the heat would be off Scotty, and Bo might think he was home free.

  He’d be damned if Bo would be home free. With what Howell knew, now, he and Scotty had a chance of taking him. Just a chance. Howell didn’t feel as good about that as he should have, he thought. He genuinely liked Bo; he wished the man were as clean as he said he was.

  29

  Howell was in gear, now, with Lurton Pitts’s autobiography. He had outlined a book which was close to the order in which Pitts had placed things in his tape recordings, and he could sit for three or four hours at a time, marshalling all the skills that his newspaper career had earned him, typing words into the word processor as fast as he could think them. It would be a short book, he reckoned; no more than a hundred and fifty or sixty pages when set in type, an ideal length, Howell thought. It was bad enough feeling the hack; he would have felt a criminal if he had needlessly prolonged the agony of a reader who, for whatever reason, felt he had to get through the book.

  He stopped for a moment and searched his mind for a reference. Unable to come up with it, he flipped through the boxes of tape for the reel onto which he had dictated his original notes. He threaded the tape and fast-forwarded half way through it, then listened. To his surprise, not his own voice, but that of Bo Scully came out, talking about the O’Coineens, of having received a letter from Joyce, written for her by Kathleen. He remembered that he had been using the recorder in its voice-activated mode on the day of that visit from Bo. He listened to Bo’s story again, then stopped the tape and rewound it. He wasn’t sure why, but he thought it might be a good idea to hang onto that recording.

  He heard Scotty’s car outside, and shortly, she bustled in. “What’s for dinner? Anything left to eat around here?”

  “I went to the grocery store this morning,” Howell said, filing the tape away. “We’ve got everything.”

  “Terrific. I’m starved.”

  “The down side is, you have to cook. I’m bushed. Been working like a dog all afternoon.”

  “Drink?”

  “Sure, bourbon. I deserve it.”

  “Come on,” she said, handing him his drink, “I can’t believe you’ve been working to hard.”

  “Oh, not just the book. I’ve been at the deduction game today, too. I’ve figured some things out, I think.” He opened a desk drawer and got out the sheets copied from Bo’s schedule.

  “What you got?”

  “Before I tell you, I think you ought to know I had lunch with Bo today and blew whatever little cover you might have left.”

  Scotty stared at him. “You did what?”

  “I told him everything. How you were a silly little cub reporter who, when her paper wouldn’t go along with her, left her job – got canned, actually – to work on an unsubstantiated rumor; how you beat your brains out and found nothing; how you’ll probably cave in before long and go back to Atlanta with your tail between your legs.”

  “The hell I will.”

  “Yeah, but I’d rather Bo thinks you will. It might help keep you… both of us, alive.”

  Scotty’s eyebrows went up. “I see, I see. Good move. What can it hurt?”

  “Us, if you get cocky. I’m not at all sure Bo bought it. The best thing we can do for ourselves is act as though he didn’t.”

  “I get your point. Now, what did you deduce today?”

  “Actually, I got lucky. There wasn’t much deduction to it.” Howell spread out the ledger sheets. “I figured out what LSCA is.”

  Scotty hunched over his shoulder. “What? What?”

  “Well, SCA is Sutherland County Airport.”

  “What? I didn’t even know there was a Sutherland County Airport.”

  “There almost isn’t. It’s a grass strip less than a mile from here, just past the Kelly place. There are a couple of light aircraft up there that don’t look much used. There’s a disused shack – apparently there used to be a local flying club – a wind sock, and – most important – runway lights.”

  “Landing, Sutherland County Airport,” Scotty read out, looking at the sheets. “LSCA”.

  “What else?”

  “And we know what day and what time,” she shouted, gleefully.

  "We do, unless it’s changed,“ Howell said. That’s why I told all to Bo; I don’t want him getting nervous and making new arrangements. Still, you better keep a sharp eye on the teletype, okay?”

&nbs
p; “Sure thing. And I want to go up there and take a look at this landing field.”

  “Absolutely not. I don’t want you anywhere near the place. We don’t know who’s in this with Bo. He might have the place staked out for days ahead of time. I only hope nobody saw me poking around.”

  Scotty nodded. “I see what you mean. Well, do we have enough to go to the GBI or the Feds, now?”

  “Yeah, we might have, but I don’t think we’d better do that just yet.”

  “How come? We’re going to need a stakeout at the airfield on the night. I don’t much fancy trying to arrest Bo ourselves; like you say, we don’t know how many others are involved.”

  “Don’t worry, we’re not going to try that. But I don’t think we can just telephone the law, either. Bo’s getting his schedule on a statewide, law enforcement teletype. His messages could be coming from any state, county, local, or federal office hooked up to it. If we yell cop now, there’s no telling who might hear us. If somebody cancels the landing, then what have we got?”

  “A phony passport charge. Apart from that, zip.”

  “Right. So I think our best bet is to go up to the landing strip on the night and get some substantiation of our charges. If we can prove it’s happening and, maybe, place Bo there, then the law will have to move on it. Certainly the newspaper will.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Scotty crowed, “they’ll jump a mile high when I come in with this.”

  “Well, if you want them to jump that high, you’d better come in with some pictures, I think. You’ve got a camera up here, haven’t you?”

  “A Nikon and five lenses.”

  “Good. I called a fellow I know, and he’s sending us half a dozen rolls of some extremely light-sensitive film. We’ll be able to get faces and numbers on an aircraft in nothing more than starlight.” Howell turned and pulled her around to face him. “Now look, Scotty, we’ve only got a few days to go. Don’t get too eager around the office, okay? If we blow this, somebody could get hurt, and it would almost certainly be us.”

  “I’ll be cool, I promise,” she said.