“Those are part of the steering system,” Charlie explained. “There are wire cables that run from the steering wheel up on the deck, then down here, where they change direction and connect to this thingie that’s attached to the top of the rudder.”
“Ohhhh. Yeah. That’s pretty cool. Hey, how do you know so much about stuff like this?”
“Helping my dad fix old tractors, I guess,” said Charlie. “You know, this probably worked pretty well … until somebody cut this cable.”
“What?”
Charlie managed to reach one hand into the compartment, where she took the two ends of the cable and held them up for Nicholas to see. “This cable was cut. On purpose. If it had broken, it would be frayed at the ends.”
Nicholas brought one end closer to get a better look.
“You’re right. But … why? Who?”
“Good questions,” said Charlie, reaching farther into the compartment. “I can’t answer those, but I can tell you how. With these.” She handed him a pair of wire cutters—the kind electricians use—rusted but still lethal-looking.
Back up on the deck, Nicholas stood behind the steering wheel, trying to imagine what must have been going through his father’s head as he helplessly saw the boat headed for the rocks. Nicholas ran his hand around the stainless-steel wheel, bent forward where the young Will Mettleson had slammed into it.
“One more thing before we leave,” Charlie said. “Let’s see if the mast is here someplace. I want to check something out.”
They found it on a rack with several other aluminum masts and booms. It, too, was not hard to spot. Unlike all the others, which were all arrow-straight, this one had a definite kink about two-thirds along its length, where it suddenly veered off at a quite noticeable angle.
Nicholas tried to lift one end; it was heavier than he thought. “Man. I can’t believe your mom got hit in the head with this thing. And survived. No wonder her parents were freaked out.”
Charlie was more interested in the four wire stays that had supported the mast than in the mast itself. She followed each down from the top, paying especially close attention to the backstay, which ended abruptly in a tangle of sharp strands of wire.
She turned to Nicholas. “Can you do me a favor? Go back up on the boat and see if the rest of the backstay is still attached. I forgot to look.”
He climbed up the ladder and went to the stern of the boat. “Yep. It’s here. It looks just like that end.” Using the wire cutters that Charlie found in the cabin, he cut through the rusty cotter pin that secured the backstay turnbuckle to the hull and lifted it free.
Back on the ground, he and Charlie held the two broken ends of the wire together like two pieces of a puzzle.
“You seein’ what I’m seein’?” Nicholas asked.
“Yep. This was no accident.” She pointed to a group of strands on both halves, all severed at exactly the same place. “It’s pretty obvious that somebody used a saw to cut at least halfway through the backstay.”
“Yeah, there’s no way they would break like that,” Nicholas agreed. “Especially when you see how the rest of the strands look—all jagged and twisted.”
“So, somebody cut the steering cable and sawed most of the way through the backstay to make sure the mast would come down.”
“Which brings us back to the same two questions: Who? And why?”
Charlie adjusted her baseball cap. “Let’s find out. Race you back to Nick’s.”
CHAPTER NINE
It wasn’t exactly a fair race. Charlie rode a modern lightweight twenty-seven-speed mountain bike, while Nicholas chugged away on his old-fashioned heavyweight cruiser. Once she made the turn onto Lake Road, Charlie slowed down and let Nicholas catch up. They switched bikes for the homestretch to Nick’s house, racing neck and neck the whole way. Nicholas turned into the driveway a few feet ahead and swung around the house, heading for the front-porch screen door. He leaned Charlie’s bike against the house while she skidded to a stop, set the kickstand, and ran into the house ahead of him.
“I win! Again!” she shouted.
Pistol, sharing the porch swing with Nick, barked his approval and jumped to the floor. He pressed his nose against Charlie, insisting on some behind-the-ears scratching in return for his enthusiastic support.
“Totally. Not. Fair,” said Nicholas, between gulps of air.
Hetty and Hayley, squeezed into a chair and reading Black Beauty together, clapped loudly. “Yay, Charlie!”
Nicholas shook his head at them. “Thanks a lot. My own sisters are against me. Family support—ha!”
“What have you two been up to all morning?” Nick asked. “Hope you don’t mind—I gave the Heron a light sanding while you were out. She’s ready for another coat of paint whenever you are.”
Charlie poked Nicholas in his side. “Show him what we found.”
Nicholas held out the remains of the backstay he had removed from the wrecked boat.
Nick took it from him and put on his reading glasses to get a better look. “What do we have here?”
“It’s from the boat my dad wrecked,” said Nicholas. “The backstay.”
“Uh-hmmmmm. What’d you do, climb over the fence?”
Charlie and Nicholas stared at him, openmouthed.
“How did you …”
Nick winked in the twins’ direction. “The twins and I know everything that goes on here at Forsaken Lake. Don’t we, girls?”
Hetty and Hayley nodded enthusiastically.
“That’s right, Uncle Nick,” said Hayley.
“Even that time you and Charlie got stuck in Goblin,” added Hetty. As soon as she said it, her hand flew up to her mouth. “Oops. I wasn’t supposed to say anything about that.”
Nicholas felt his face reddening as he turned to look at Nick again. “Wait—you knew about that? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“One, because it wasn’t your fault, and two, no harm done.”
“Okay, that one I can understand,” said Charlie. “You must have been watching us with binoculars. But this morning …”
“I ran into Ken Dulman the other day at the filling station. He said something about Joe Tressler’s kid getting arrested down in West Virginia, and that Joe was heading down there to try to get him out of jail. And then when I drove by, I didn’t see any cars in the lot, so I figured the place must be closed up for a few days. Was I right?”
Nicholas and Charlie nodded.
“You should be a detective, Uncle Nick,” said Hayley.
Nick returned to his examination of the backstay. “I don’t know about that, Hale. I think these two are doing just fine without me. Looks like somebody took a hacksaw to this, don’t you think?”
“Uh-huh,” said Charlie. “That’s exactly what we said. And that’s not all we found. You know how that boat has a steering wheel? Well, we went down in the cabin and figured out how it all worked—when you turn the wheel, it pulls on cables that move the rudder—but guess what? Somebody cut the cable!”
“With these,” said Nicholas, handing Nick the wire cutters.
Nick whistled. “Well, I’ll be dogged.”
“It couldn’t have been Daddy,” said Hayley. “He was going to use a model boat, remember? And besides, he loved Franny. He felt terrible when she got hurt.”
Nick, Charlie, and Nicholas all turned to face Hayley; it would be hard to say which of the three was most surprised by what she’d said.
“Hey, I thought you were watching TV in the other room when we were talking about all that stuff,” Nicholas said.
The twins shared a conspiratorial smile and shrug.
“We don’t always do what we say we’re going to, Nicholas,” said Hayley. “Even you should be smart enough to know that by now.”
“You little sneaks,” Charlie said. “I’m impressed.”
Nicholas scoffed. “Don’t encourage them. They know they’re not supposed to do that.”
“Well, it’s just not cricket�
��keeping secrets from us,” sniffed Hetty.
“Not cricket? Do you even know what that means?” asked Nicholas.
Nick held up his hand, signaling a truce. “What’s done is done; there’s no going back. Now, back to this boat. You’re certain about the steering cable, are you?”
“Positive,” said Charlie.
“I have to hand it to you two,” Nick said. “Somebody should have caught this. And a broken—or cut—steering cable. Doggone it, I should have caught it.”
“So, what do we do now?” Nicholas asked. “I mean—does all this really prove anything?”
“No, I don’t suppose it does,” said Nick. “Even if somebody had noticed this way back when, folks still would have blamed your dad. They’d have said he had plenty of time alone on the boat, and then they’d have pointed at those pictures he drew.”
“Motive and opportunity,” said Hayley, which made everyone turn and stare at her. “What? Can I help it if I’ve been reading a lot of detective stories?”
“If only we knew what happened to Dad’s camera,” said Nicholas. “And the film they shot that day. It must show something.”
Charlie nodded in agreement. “Maybe that’s why we haven’t found it. Maybe somebody was afraid of what was on it.”
“So, where do you want us to start?” Hayley asked.
Nicholas knew that the only way to keep the twins out of his hair was to give them a job. Besides, they had proven themselves to be plenty sneaky; who knew what they might find if they put their minds to the task.
“I’ve checked every inch of the tower room, so stay out of there. I want you two to start with your room,” he said. “You need to check every crack, every gap, every board in the floor, every piece of molding, behind pictures, under furniture—everywhere. Pretend you have a search warrant to look anyplace you want—except my room, and Uncle Nick’s room. Those are out-of-bounds. Got it?”
“Got it,” they said, running up the stairs together.
“Do you think they’ll find anything?” Charlie asked.
“Who knows? But at least they won’t bug us for a while.”
They went out to the barn, and while Nicholas wiped the dust from the Heron, Charlie stirred the paint and used a rag to squeeze the excess paint thinner from the brushes.
“Only two more coats,” she said. “Then we flip her over and start on the varnish. I can’t wait.”
“I can’t wait to take her sailing,” said Nicholas as he dipped his brush into the paint for the first time. He looked out at the lake, which was as smooth as glass for the third day in a row. “If the wind ever blows again, that is.”
“It always looks like that when it gets hot. Mom says it’s going to be cooler next week, so it’ll be better for sailing.”
Nicholas considered for a few seconds what he was about to say, and then proceeded carefully. “About your mom. I was thinking.”
Charlie looked up from her painting. “Oh?”
“Yeah. Do you think she’d be willing to, um, go back in time?”
With eyebrows raised, Charlie said, “Nicholas Mettleson, did you invent a time machine? That is so cool! It’ll be just like in all those books.” She set her brush down and stood up straight, hands on hips. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t mean literally,” he said. “Okay, I know you know that. I’m talking about re-creating the scene of the crime, sort of. Just to see if she remembers anything else.”
Charlie dropped her hands from her hips. “I see what you mean. It always works on TV.”
“You think she’d do it?”
“I’ll ask her tonight. I think she’ll go along with it. All we have to do is remind her about that letter she wrote to your dad. She kind of owes it to herself—and him—to find out the truth.”
* * *
July 17
Dear Dad,
My first drive-in movie! REALLY dumb movie, but I think the whole town was there. Nick drove in his pickup and we brought lawn chairs. Met a bunch of Charlie’s friends from school—they can’t believe I really live in New York. They keep asking me if I ever saw anyone get murdered. Or if I know anybody famous.
Nicholas
PS Do you ever wish you could go back in time, to when you were a kid? Uncle Nick said he wouldn’t do it even if he could. He said that someday I would understand why.
* * *
Later in the afternoon, Nicholas was earning some extra money from his uncle by mowing the lawn. As he pushed the mower back and forth across the front yard, he thought about what his dad had told him before he got into the taxi for the airport and the long flight to Africa.
“Nick—and Lillie—and the summers I spent in Deming helped make me the person I am today. New York is amazing, and I love it, make no mistake, but I don’t want you to grow up thinking that it’s the only place, the only way to live. You need to get a taste of another way of life, and I can’t think of a better place to start. Give it a chance. It’ll be good for you to get your hands a little dirty.”
Nicholas looked at his hands—callused, grease-stained, and tan—and smiled. It did feel good. And even though he wasn’t crazy about lawn mowing, the money he earned seemed very different from the spending money his parents had given him for the summer. A moment later, he stopped in his tracks, startled to hear the twins screaming his name over the sound of the noisy engine. He hit the kill switch and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the bottom of his T-shirt.
“Did you bring me something to drink?” he asked.
Hetty shook her head vehemently. “No. Something much better.”
“Pictures,” said Hayley. “Of Daddy. And Charlie’s mom, we think. At least it looks like her.”
Nicholas took a plain white envelope with no writing on the outside from Hayley. Inside were five pictures, all of their father and Franny, taken from far enough away that it seemed likely to Nicholas that they didn’t know someone was taking their picture.
“Where did you find these?” he asked.
Hetty looked worriedly at Hayley, who backed up a step from her older brother. “I know you said not to go in your room—”
“Hetty!” Nicholas shook his fist at her. “I can’t believe you found them in there. I looked everyplace.”
“Not behind the pictures,” Hayley said. “They were inside the paper that’s stuck on the back of one of Aunt Lillie’s paintings. Not the Seaweed Strangler one. The other one, with the house in it.”
“We heard something when we shook it,” said Hetty.
“Why were you shaking paintings?”
Hayley rolled her eyes at him. “You said to look everywhere.”
“Well, anyway, I don’t know what good they are,” said Nicholas. “You can barely see their faces, let alone anything else that might be helpful. You can’t even tell where they were taken.”
“Then why did Daddy hide them like that?” Hayley asked.
That’s a really good question. Maybe there is something to all those detective stories she’s reading.
Nicholas shrugged, not giving away how impressed he was with Hayley’s thought process. “Maybe he, uh … Actually, I have no idea. But hold on to these—I might need them later. Now be good little sisters and bring me something to drink.”
He pulled the starter cord, and the engine roared to life, almost, but not quite, drowning out the twins’ laughter as they ran away—with absolutely no intention of returning with a cold drink for their brother.
* * *
Franny expertly speared another green bean with her fork and looked across the table at her daughter. “Explain it to me again. Why do you want me to take this little stroll down memory lane? Because, I have to tell you, I usually reserve those trips for good memories.”
“I know, but this could be important,” Charlie replied. “You’re always talking to me about standing up and doing something when I see injustice, and this is one of those times.”
“Just to be clear, O little one
, I was referring to real injustices in the world. Racism. Discrimination of any kind. Poverty. Not two teenagers who had a bad breakup.”
“It wasn’t a bad breakup, Mom. I’m not saying you would have married Nicholas’s dad, but at least you would have had a chance.”
“And you think by doing this I’m going to get that chance? Sweetie, it just doesn’t work like that in real life. I love that you think it does—I don’t want you to stop being so … hopeful, I suppose, but in this case, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed.”
Charlie wasn’t ready to give up yet, though. Without a word, she pulled out the pictures of her mom and Will that the twins had found earlier in the day and set them on the table.
“What’s this?” Franny picked up the first of the pictures, a puzzled look on her face. “Where on earth did you get these?”
“Over at Nick’s.”
“But these were taken at … Nobody knew about that place. Who took these?”
“So you’ve never seen these before?”
“No, absolutely no.”
Charlie looked closely at one of the photos. “Where did you say this is? It looks nice.”
Franny smiled secretively. “I didn’t say.”
“Ohhhh, I get it. This is the secret place you wrote about in the letter. You’re really not going to tell me?”
Franny shook her head. “Maybe someday. But my guess is, when you’re in need of a special place, you’ll find it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Mom, you’re being very mysterious all of a sudden.”
“A mother’s prerogative,” said Franny with a sly smile.
“So you won’t do it? Go over to the marina with us to re-create the scene on the day of the wreck?”
“Oh, I’ll do that. I just wanted you to explain it better. And now I want you to tell me more about Nicholas.”
Charlie smiled at the mention of his name. “What about him?”
“Well, you two are spending a lot of time together this summer.”
“Are you asking if history is repeating itself, Mom? If Nicholas and I are, you know …”
“Something like that, yeah.”
It was Charlie’s turn to be secretive. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Summer at Forsaken Lake Page 10