Green Lake

by S. K. Epperson

  Dale had been a good boy ever since, buying reams of kiddie porn and forcing himself to be satisfied with paper images.

  But temptation had finally called in the form of Kayla Michelle Lyman, handed to him like a present, and before Dale ever touched her he knew he would never let her go. It was the only way to make sure no one ever knew.

  There had been a moment of terror when his aunt called, because Dale knew she remembered what he had done at fourteen but that had been well over a dozen years ago, and he had been in no trouble since, so he was not surprised, although still relieved, to hear no trace of suspicion in her voice. He was so grateful he felt confident saying, “Whoever it is, he needs the same kind of help I got all those years ago. I don't know where I'd be now if you hadn't stepped in to help me.”

  His aunt praised him all over again, and Dale hung up feeling pretty good about himself.

  The feeling had waned, of course, with the memory of actually killing the little girl. Drowning her had taken much longer than he believed it would, certainly much longer than when someone drowned on television. She clawed and bit and kicked with every ounce of strength in her body, and Dale was virtually exhausted when the bubbles stopped coming up and her body went still.

  When he realized he had taken a life, that he had actually robbed a child of a future and ended all things for her forever more, he started to cry. With his orgasm had gone the desire to be slick and sneaky and remain undetected in his role as pedophile. He wanted only to be away from the body and the evidence of what he had done. Killing her didn't turn him on in the least, but it was the only way to hide what he had done so no one would ever know.

  Dale cried the whole time he waded through the water with her. He took her to a dock at Diamond Bay and stuck her underneath, wedging her with a board so she would stay.

  He wouldn't do it again, he promised himself. Never. Not if he was presented with ten lost little girls and no one looking.

  It was time to act like a normal man and copulate with something over the age of eleven.

  As he looked around himself at the dance, he realized he could have his pick of at least three.

  But he wasn't remotely interested. If they wanted it, he didn't. He had to feel like he was taking something forbidden, like what he was doing was wrong in some way. It seemed to be the only thing that aroused him, shoving it in where he knew it wasn't wanted and seeing an agonized expression before him as he did it.

  Dale didn't think he was necessarily bad for feeling this way. Lots of people had perverted streaks he told himself, people who worked in banks, discount stores, factories, even people who held office.

  He had slipped, but it would never happen again. He made a solemn promise to himself, and he had made a promise to the Lyman’s the day Renard brought the girl's body back to shore. But it wasn't as if the couple was left completely childless. They still had two other little girls.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Manuel took Jacqueline and Madeleine on the fishing boat Saturday and instructed both women to pray for a good-sized bass for supper. The girls rubbed in sunscreen and took out a deck of cards. They were playing War and laughing when Dale Russell motored up to them in his boat and called out to Madeleine.

  “I missed you at the dance Thursday night.”

  “I didn't go,” she responded.

  “Must be why I missed you. What are you doing tonight?”

  “I have plans for the weekend,” she said, cutting off the possibility of doing anything the next night. She could feel Jacqueline's eyes on her.

  “Keep a night open for me next week?” Dale asked, and Madeleine smiled and waved him on.

  He smiled back, provoking a sigh from Jacqueline, and then he motored away again, the waves from his wake rocking them in the fishing boat.

  “He is not so handsome,” said Manuel.

  Jacqueline winked at her husband. “I wouldn't kick him out of bed.”

  “Be careful, Jacqueline,” her husband warned. “You know my jealous temper.”

  “Your turn,” Jacqueline said to Madeleine, getting back to the game.

  “Thank you,” said Madeleine.

  “For what?”

  “For not bugging me about going out with him.”

  Jacqueline brushed a strand of hair out of her sister's eyes. “Only when you're ready.”

  Madeleine shook her head. “I lied to you about that. It's not really a matter of being ready, because it wasn't as if I loved Sam at the end.”

  Jacqueline looked up. “Yes, I know. You felt a lot of anger.”

  “Apathy, Jacqueline. There was no feeling for him. No caring. In those last two years he killed everything I ever felt for him.”

  Jacqueline's voice lowered. “Then it must be the guilt you feel over his death that prevents you from looking at anyone else.”

  But I have been looking, Madeleine wanted to say. Just not at whom you'd think.

  She shuffled the cards and continued the game.

  Sunday evening after Jacqueline and Manuel left, Madeleine's stomach began to rumble. She blinked in surprise at the discomfort and thought immediately of the supposedly fresh shrimp they had purchased from a truck at Diamond Bay. A minute later she was up and running to the bathroom, her bowels cramping.

  The diarrhea was terrible, leaving her weak and unsteady as she left the bathroom. Five minutes later she lunged for the kitchen sink, where she threw up the contents of her stomach and held onto the counter with all her strength to keep from sagging down to the floor.

  When she could stand without nausea she returned to the bathroom and opened the cabinets in a desperate search for something to stem the sickness. There was nothing.

  Before she left the bathroom she had to heave again, and she sank to the floor and hung on with both arms while fluid gushed from her body.

  When it was over she could do nothing but sit down by the bathtub and hang her head over the edge. She nodded off, only to be awakened again minutes later by another insistent urge from her bowels. While she was sitting on the toilet she felt herself momentarily black out and go sliding off to the floor. When she regained control she was on her hands and knees, ready to retch.

  After the heaving ended, Madeleine felt so weak she began to cry.

  Two of the kittens came in to look at her, and one of them sniffed at the mess on the floor while the other gave her toe a tentative lick.

  She spent the night in the bathroom being sick, and never had she felt more alone, having no one to help her and no one to call. She would not bother Jacqueline and Manuel at such a distance.

  Nor would she allow herself to call Renard, whom she would most definitely be using and whom she had no wish to see in her present condition.

  She took sips of water from the tap when she could, and then watched it gush out of her again.

  By morning she was able to crawl to the kitchen, where she opened the refrigerator and took out one of Manuel's Diet Sprites. The first taste felt like heaven. The second was dangerous, and the third caused instant rumbling. Madeleine put the can back in the refrigerator and heard the three kittens crying noisily to be fed. She wished she could help them, but she couldn't seem to stand, and her arms felt exhausted simply from lifting the can to her mouth.

  She took the Diet Sprite from the refrigerator again and crawled back to the bathroom, where within the hour she gave up the lemon-lime liquid to the toilet.

  During the night she crawled out of her clothes and left them in a smelly pile in the corner of the bathroom. She left her bra and panties on and promptly began to shiver with the fever that burned in her.

  She hugged herself and closed her eyes.

  Sometime the next day she heard heavy knocking on her door, but all Madeleine could do was moan. The fever had her in its grip and she was curled into a ball on the floor of the bathroom, her mouth caked with vomit and her undergarments soiled. The knocking stopped after a while and the person went away, leaving Madeleine to her fitful, fev
erish sleep.

  Later she awakened to tiny claws digging trenches in the tender skin of her thigh, but she was too disoriented to do anything about it. The chills were worse and all she could hear was the sound of her teeth chattering in her head. Her throat was parched, and in her delirium she believed she was back on that deserted highway, painted white, bleeding, and burning, burning, burning.

  The pounding she heard was the slow steady thud of her own heart that went on and on and on and would not let her rest it was so loud. Sam added to the noise, whining how he could use a little understanding, and Madeleine pointed one white arm and told him he hadn't stopped the burning or the bleeding, and to please get her someone who could.

  Suddenly she felt herself being lifted up, high into the air, and when she opened her eyes she saw a scarred brown cheek and a straight nose. The mouth she recognized. She said his name.

  He looked down at her with dark, worried eyes, and she heard herself ask in a croaking voice for a drink of water.

  He put her down on a mattress with cool sheets and covered her up.

  She drifted in and out, opening her eyes to find him washing her face and arms with a warm, damp washcloth, and opening her mouth to take whatever liquids he poured in. Once she heard him on the phone to someone, and another time she woke up to find him sitting on the bed beside her, reading the back of a bottle of medicine.

  It was morning again before she was able to open her eyes and keep them open. She looked around herself and saw him lying asleep beside her, his feet hanging over the end of the bed. He came awake while she was staring at him, and he instantly left the mattress and came around to look at her.

  “Do you want something to drink?” he asked. His hair was half out of its band and hanging over his shoulder.

  “Yes,” she said, and he disappeared. She could hear him in the kitchen, and then he was back again, carrying a glass of fruit juice. He put the glass down on the night stand and picked up the pillow he had been using to put it behind her head and prop her up.

  “You need to take as much as you can,” he told her.

  Madeleine nodded and picked up the glass to sip. “Did I hear you on the phone with someone? Who did you call?”

  “Ortiz. Your sister wanted to come, but she's been ill herself. She said to tell you it was the shrimp.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “I came at noon yesterday when I noticed you hadn't picked up the papers. I knocked, and there was no answer. I tried again last night and heard you yelling. I came in and found you on the floor in the bathroom.”

  “I was yelling?”

  “Fever,” said Eris, and saying the word, he touched her forehead with the inside of his arm. “Still warm.”

  Madeleine closed her eyes. “I don't think I've ever been so sick.” Then her lids came up and she looked at him in dismay. “I'm sorry I keep being a nuisance. You can go on to work now, Eris. I'll be all right.”

  He pointed to his belt and his beeper on top of her dresser. “I told your sister I'd take care of you.”

  “That was nice, but you don't have to. I'll get up and get some broth later.”

  “I don't think you can,” he said in a patient voice. “You're weak, Madeleine, and if you try to get up you'll be dizzy.”

  “I'll be fine. Really. I will ask you to feed the kittens before you go.”

  “I already did.”

  “Thanks.”

  He went on looking at her, concern still apparent in his features, and finally he asked, “Why didn't you call someone?”

  “I should have,” she said, her lids closing again. “It was awful being so sick and having no one here.”

  Eris didn't speak, only continued to watch her, and Madeleine suddenly thought to lift the sheets and look at herself.

  “Ugh,” she said. She was still wearing the soiled things. Eris had stopped washing at her waist, apparently.

  “I need a bath,” she said.

  “I'll get you a washcloth and a pan of water.”

  “No, I want to get in the tub. Can you run the water and bring me a towel?”

  “Don't you want to eat something first?”

  “No. I've got to get out of these things.” She gestured weakly at the bra she wore.

  Eris drew a breath and disappeared. Madeleine heard the sound of the taps being turned, then running water. He came back into the bedroom with a large towel and handed it to her.

  “Thank you. Can you go out for a minute? I'll call when I'm ready.”

  He went out and she removed her bra and panties and wrapped the towel around her as best she could before telling him to come in again. He came and stood beside the bed while she gingerly put her legs over the side. He bent over to help her stand, and after only two steps she was sagging against him and losing the towel, her vision gone black and her equilibrium lost. She heard herself moan and she felt his hands come under her legs to swing her up into his arms. The towel came away completely and he kicked it away with his foot as he carried her across the hall to the bathroom and lowered her as gently as he could into the warm water of the still filling bathtub.

  Madeleine's hands gripped the sides of the tub until her vision cleared, and then she delicately covered herself until he was out of the bathroom and in the hall. Her head was still spinning, and she lowered it, eyes closed, until she felt stable again.

  She stayed in the water until it cooled, soaping herself and rinsing over and over again to rid herself of the smell of sickness. He came to the door once and asked if she was ready to get out. She said no, not yet, and thought of how carefully expressionless was his face as he helped her.

  When she finally called to him she twisted herself around in the tub until her back was to him as he came in. He put a towel around her shoulders and carefully lifted, helping her up until she could wrap the towel securely around herself.

  “Let me try walking again,” she said, and he allowed her to lean against him as they entered the hall. She did well, feeling only moderately dizzy as they reached the bed, which she was surprised to discover had fresh sheets.

  “Do you have pajamas?” he asked.

  ”A T-shirt,” she said. “In the right-hand drawer.”

  He took out the T-shirt and laid it on the bed, his eyes moving over her small shivering frame in concern.

  “You need to eat something,” he said. “I'll get the broth.”

  She nodded and gestured for him to go and leave her to get dressed. When her T-shirt was over her head and she was under the fresh sheets, he brought in a cup of hot chicken broth and sat down on the edge of the mattress while she tried it. Madeleine drained the whole cup and asked for another. He brought her another and she drained it same as the first. He gave her some crackers then, and watched as she made crumbs on the clean sheets.

  “You really can go,” she said. “What time is it?”

  He looked at his watch. “One-thirty.”

  “No beeps yet?”

  His mouth twisted and he took the empty cup to the kitchen and came back with a glass of water.

  “I'm sorry,” she said. “I know your job is more than answering calls.”

  “You should take some aspirin while you're awake, try to keep your fever down. Right beside you on the stand.”

  “Okay,” she said, and as he handed her the glass of water, she looked at him and said, “It was chicken pox, wasn't it?”

  Eris went still as the question registered. Then he said, “Yes, it was chicken pox.”

  “I've seen it before,” Madeleine explained. “You were a teenager?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “How were you exposed?”

  “Sick kids in Oklahoma.”

  “You traveled there with your parents?”

  “No.”

  She waited for him to go on, and when he didn't, she said, “Am I correct in assuming you left your adoptive parents at a relatively young age?”

  “I was thirteen.” He took the glass fro
m her after she had swallowed the aspirin and said, “Sam was your husband?”

  Madeleine blinked in shocked, uncomfortable surprise, and it was her turn to ask, “How did you know?”

  “It was him you were yelling at when I found you. I mentioned it to Manuel, and he told me your husband shot himself several months ago. He said you found him, and that you're still dealing with the trauma, even in your sickness.”

  Madeleine snorted and looked away.

  Eris said, “I'll stop asking about your life if you stop asking about mine.”

  “Are you ashamed of your life?” she asked, angry at Manuel for painting such a tragic picture of her.

  “Not with any part of it,” he said. “I just don't need any misplaced sympathy.”

  “Neither do I. If I'm ashamed of anything it's the fact that Sam Craven is dead and I don't care.”

  Once the words were out she paused in alarm. She had said it. The first time she had spoken it aloud. Madeleine waited for lightning to strike. She waited for the god of wedding vows to come and punish her for lying on her wedding day. She waited to be chastised and berated for admitting such a thing about a man whose bed she had slept in, whose life she had shared. Another human being.

  Eris took a deep breath and said, “I can see why he shot himself.”

  Madeleine's head came up.

  “If you were my wife,” he went on in a quiet voice, “it would kill me to know you didn't care.”

  She stared at him, and her throat thickened. Her eyes grew moist and she withdrew from him, turning her face into the pillow and pulling the sheet over her shoulder. She had never expected to hear Eris Renard say such a thing. Her weakened heart pounded in her chest as she clutched at the sheet.

  A moment later she heard him leave the room.

  The next time she awakened she rolled over and found a plate with a sandwich on her night stand. A note said Eris would come to check on her in the morning.

  Madeleine crumpled the note in her hand and picked up the sandwich. She didn't know why, but she had the feeling he wouldn't be back. Not after what she had admitted, and not after what he had said.