I jerked Katie. We had to go see.
Dust from the cabin and old things gritted and smeared our faces. We held each other by the hand, stumbling as if someone were pushing us ahead with a gun at our backs. Down, down between boards and in dirt, we found ourselves on our knees, clawing in the dirt, oblivious to splinters and small shards of glass. Clawing, digging through, for what we didn’t exactly know. Yet, somehow, we knew. We raked up a hammer, a plane, and the sledge we used to break the lock.
“We’ve got to test all of it. Bring them in.”
“Get the drops,” said Katie.
We went through the same process of mixing and stirring, smearing water, chemicals, rust, and dirt. Our hands and faces were soon coated in this mixture. We looked as if we were being tested.
“Yup. All three,” I said as the results appeared.
“Holy…!” Katie said, putting her hand to her mouth. She made tiny, retching sounds when she heard everything was covered in blood.
“Gross!”
“Yeah, you said it, Kat.”
“So…who…what? Were they used as…weapons?” Katie stepped away from the tools.
I saw Katie blanch through the smears of dirt and grime on her face. I tried to think fast so we could get outside – now.
“The B.L. finger…cut or removed; the shirt slashed; and the bone?” I was frantic. Katie had split. I was alone with the empty sound of my voice asking, “Why?”
Chapter Eleven
MORE THROUGH A LOOKING GLASS DARKLY
After our discoveries, we tried to lay low for a while. Hanging out in her cabin, we pretended to be just goofy sixteen-year-olds who didn’t have a real thought in our heads. It wasn’t difficult; both of us knew tons of girls like that at school. We spread cold cream on our faces and made big lips with Hazel Bishop lipstick. Three hours of this stuff, and we started to avoid each other so we didn’t have to ask those hard questions.
“What the heck, Katie, we can’t just let this be!” I jabbed at her with some blood red lipstick. I was half joking, but we had just uncovered major clues.
“Don’t you dare!” Katie pushed back with a hand full of cold cream. “I’m sorry, I really am.” She turned so I wouldn’t see her tears.
“It’s okay. It was a joke.” I gently wiped the lipstick off Katie’s face.
“No, I mean…I’m kinda chicken about the case.” She held onto my goopy hand. “Just give me some time.”
I looked into her eyes and read fear. But there was something more: a glimmer of curiosity. I would soon find out this was one of Katie’s winning character traits. She had a deep desire to know the truth.
Several hours later, we both noticed my father quietly pulling Katie’s father, Ron McGuilvry, aside. We both perked up. We snuck out of the cabin and wandered around the nearby pine trees, pretending to look for stray kittens that roamed around the grounds. We slithered and slid into earshot and saw my father unrolling the handkerchief. We heard the clink of the signet ring against my father’s own bloodstone ring. The doc cleared his throat with a strange cough. Katie frowned.
“Barney, where’d that come from?” Dr. McGuilvry must have been sucking on his pipe. We could smell the smoke.
“Fishing,” said my father. “Pulled it from an old tire. What do you make of it?”
“It’s a finger, all right. Old one, too. Maybe fifteen or twenty years in the water.”
“And?”
“And what?” asked Dr. McGuilvry, pulling at his button-down collar. “Maybe belonged to an adolescent. It’s a bit small for a grown man. The ring is smallish too.”
“Was it cut, caught in a motor blade?”
“Hold on. I’d have to examine it better to see if there are marks on the bone. Would you let me have it a bit?”
“Should I notify the police?” My father asked.
“I wouldn’t bother them. There’s no indication of anything foul. I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks a million, Ron.” My father clapped Doc on the shoulder and walked off, a Raleigh cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth.
Katie wore a glazed look.
“We could go to your cabin and see what he’s doing,” I suggested.
“I don’t believe my father’s bad.” Katie stomped the pine-cushioned ground.
“I didn’t say that,” I soothed. “I just want to see what he does and what he finds out.”
We watched from the window outside her cabin as her dad spent a great deal of time twisting the ring from hand to hand. He turned it over and over, as if looking for answers. He put his hand to his brow and leaned on his elbow. Again, that strange cough. Then, he took the bones, and he pulled over the microscope. Katie’s father played with the focus and shook his head. He put everything away and sat himself down heavily on the edge of the bed. Katie’s mother entered the room, and he barked at her to leave him some peace. He propped himself up by the pillows, legs up, and hugged his legs.
Beside me, Katie whimpered. It was a strange position to see your father in.
Now, her dad was up. He rolled up the handkerchief with the bone and left the cabin, walking with a robot-like determination toward the Lodge’s main house.
We followed behind quietly. We followed his movements through the lace-curtained windows to the living room and hid underneath the window by the phone. We watched him pick up the receiver and heard him ask the operator for a number in New Jersey.
We overheard him talking, but it was muffled. Just a few words here and there came through.
“Your cousin…ring…get your bottom up here.”
Katie’s dad slammed the phone down and coughed that strange cough. He threw the ring across the floor, muttering under his breath, but immediately retrieved it and shoved it in his pants.
Tears were streaming down Katie’s face, and she let out a little whimper. I had to drag her away from the window before her father heard us.
“What did he do? Is he really involved?” Katie asked.
“We don’t know he did anything.”
“He knows something,” Katie said.
“We have to find out more. We could try to get to the tire and maybe to the girls’ camp, you know, where Regina was a camper back then. I just have a feeling there’s a connection there. Maybe I could pick up something about Regina.”
Chapter Twelve
AT SEA
Katie and I knew we had to be cool and not jump to too many conclusions. Just paddling and splashing around in the lake usually calmed us down, so we decided to take a break. We suited up and stumbled along the rocky path to the beach. We took the last hill running and sprinted for the beached canoes.
“Let’s take the small canoe.”
“Stern!” called Katie.
The gentle lapping of water against the bow and Katie’s irregular J-stroke carried the small canoe forward, closer to the girls’ camp. The rhythm lulled me and I faded. The smell of Canoe Cologne helped me drift deeper.
I began to hear things. Sounds from another time.
“Ring” – and then – “Regina” and again “Regina,” and finally, with kind of a question at the end “Regina?”
My whole body lit up with pain.
I screamed. My wild tossing shook the boat. Something else was shaking me.
Katie leaned over me, her paddle pulled in so she could shake me awake. “Are you crazy? Do you want to tip us?”
I said, “Someone was attacking me! It was a dream…another dream! Like the one in the cabin.”
“Who?” shouted Katie above the rumble of a nearby outboard. “Who was attacking you?”
“The same guy. The ring was his. He was wearing it.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, but I feel like puking. I think I have blood on me. It felt like a blade was slicing me open. I felt ripped apart. Oh, God, there’s more blood on my dungarees on my thighs. God. My grandmother…it’s happening…”
“What? What’d’ya mean? God. Let me take a
look,” said Katie.
“My grandmother. She’s the source of the dreams. She sends them to me, like visions. She wants me to pay attention and do something.”
“Here, let me help. I’ll wash you off,” Katie said. She drizzled some cool water on my forehead too, holding me close to her.
I continued to tell her what he said. “He kept on calling me ‘Regina,’ and I remember saying ‘Regina?’ And he said, ‘Yes, o saintly one, Regina Coeli—’”
“Like the church song?” said Katie.
“Yes, but his face was twisted and ugly. He was so close to me, with this look in his eyes. Like he was mocking.”
“What were the initials on the ring?” Katie asked.
“B.L. The same as the ring we found.”
“In the latrine, ‘Regina and Ron’ was crossed out for ‘Regina and Butch.’” Katie recalled, “Was it Butch, the man in your dream I mean?”
“I’m going to be sick.” I vomited over the side of the canoe. I washed my mouth and sat in a fog for what seemed forever. “Remember what we heard your dad say on the telephone? ‘Your cousin’s ring!’”
“Whose cousin? Who’s Regina? I thought she was my dad’s girlfriend.” Katie was almost whining. “We can’t very well ask my dad.”
“You want us to stay stuck?” I snapped back. “You don’t care about what’s happening to me?” I’d been feeling anxious about this for a while, and it finally came out.
“Wait a minute. You’re just so sure my father’s done things—”
“If I thought he had done something wrong, I wouldn’t be talking to him.” I started to whimper. “I’m hurt, Katie. Can’t you pay attention to me?”
“Stop. I’m sorry.” Katie gave me a quick hug. “I’m so confused.”
We stayed quiet for a little while.
Then Katie popped her head up, as if she had realized something. “You know what? Claudia! She owns the cabin down the road, and she went to the girls’ camp. She’s the same age as my dad. She might have a yearbook.”
“A Maidenfern Yearbook?” I asked, getting caught up in this new possibility.
“Yes.” Katie took a shaky breath. “Do you always have to push my nose in things before I’m ready?”
“You’re not ready for me or your dad?” Oops, I didn’t mean to say that. I might have given my growing feelings for Katie away.
I tried to backtrack, hoping Katie wouldn’t notice. “But you always want to know things.”
Katie flashed me a strange look. Her look went deep into me. I felt my whole body go soft. She hugged me hard, but I was still afraid I’d gone too far. We paddled back in complicit silence.
****
After we had returned to our cabins and gotten cleaned up for dinner, Katie and I met by the shuffleboard court in front of the dining hall. A crowd of people was already milling about.
Katie looked nervous. She tugged on my shirt and pointed to the porch on “Shawnee,” her cabin, located across from mine, in the better “neighborhood.” Soft patio furniture coddled those in need of coddling. Katie’s parents and some other folks were enjoying drinks over there, clinking ice cubes in their glasses. I smelled whiskey and cigar smoke.
Katie put a finger to her lips and motioned for me to follow her. She hid me under her cabin’s porch overhang so that I could eavesdrop without being spotted. Katie joined her parents on the porch, begging for an olive from her mother’s drink. The adults’ alcohol-coated voices carried as they introduced Katie to her old “Aunt and Uncle, Sandra and Bud Lawyer” whom she hadn’t seen since she was two years old.
I guessed this Bud had gone to camp with her father! Bud Lawyer, his initials would be B.L. – or maybe B.C.L., which would explain the initials on the knife. Butch and Bud…were they cousins?
Chapter Thirteen
CLAUDIA’S “CAMP”
The next morning was a bit chilly and damp. We exchanged only a few words before going into the toasty dining hall to eat. Katie’s blue eyes were downcast and dark.
She whispered, “So Bud and Butch are cousins,” as she slipped past me on the steps.
Right after breakfast, I put my arm around Katie’s shoulder. She quietly said she heard her father refer to Bud’s cousin Butch. She would say nothing more about the cousins. Her tense body said it all. I led her along the path to Claudia’s “camp,” what year-round residents called their summer cottages.
At Claudia’s red, rustic door, we changed our attitudes into the regular girls everyone wanted us to be. We became all smiley and giddy. Claudia liked us this way. Upon opening the door, she burst into a big grin, welcoming us in, as we knew she would.
Inside the cabin, I looked around. I loved the feel of the Maine artifacts, the Hudson Bay blankets and the smell of balsam as you leaned on them. This incense really made my head dizzy, I guess like drunk, even if I didn’t know what that felt like. It was better for me than church. This time, though, we had important things to focus on.
We chatted with Claudia and told her we just loved Camp Maidenfern. I knew she would want us to see photos of her in her glory days. Claudia showed us the Yearbook, offering narration and commentary on all the girls as she flipped through the pages.
“Of course I knew Regina Gallo. Everyone did, and how!” Claudia shot us a coy smirk. “I’m surprised your father never said anything, Katie. After all, he was crazy about her. Swore he’d go to whatever college she did, that they’d get married. But then…” Claudia licked her lips, as if she was savoring the taste of a big, juicy story to impress us, or scare us. She lowered her voice to a gossipy whisper, “The scandal! Regina Gallo was whisked away. A tragedy, everyone said. Some people thought she was only sick. The story was, someone snuck into her cabin. If you ask me, maybe she invited them in. Who knows, it could have been your father.”
Katie turned pure white and shouted, “No!” Katie shook her head back and forth, “No way. My father never talks about other girls he dated. It’s one of the rare things mother teases him about! She calls him her late bloomer.”
We were spooked. We said hasty goodbyes to Claudia, who looked a little proud to have rattled us like that, and left the cabin as fast as we could. We headed for the shade of the big yellow pine. We threw ourselves down on the ground, burying our faces in the dirt and pine needles, like maybe we didn’t want to see any more of the outer world.
“I think I get my dreams,” I said after a while.
“What happened to you in the dreams? You mean it really happened to Regina?” Katie said. She turned away from me and started to pound the ground with her fist.
I touched her shoulder and turned her back around. “It’s not your dad, Katie; it’s Butch.” I rubbed my chin, trying out my theory. “Okay, Katie, here’s what I think. Yeah, your dad and Regina were going out. Butch was jealous, a real creep. Not just a creep but crazy. Let’s see. He tried to flirt with Regina, but she told him to get lost. He got drunk and decided to get even. He snuck into her camp and tried to assault her. It’s gotta be.”
The clearer some things got, the harder the rest was to understand.
Katie’s jaw dropped. She muttered, “And my father? Didn’t he know? Or protect her?”
I rocked her a bit and finally risked saying, “But your dad does seem awfully nervous about the ring.”
“I’m not liking this very much,” Katie mumbled before sitting straight up. Her eyes were set, her body tense.
After Claudia’s, Katie wanted more answers. We would shadow her father and Bud. The early morning crispness had already turned muggy and warm. Despite the heat, we crawled under the screened porch and sat in a pile of sticky sand in the small, cramped area created by the cabin’s support stilts.
We caught Doc and Bud reminiscing, reclining on the cushy rockers on the porch above our heads while their wives played bridge in the main house.
They were drinking from a bottle of whisky, and after a few swigs, decided to go over to the old crafts cabin flanking the rec hall.
Katie and I couldn’t remember everything we had stowed away there, and in an effort to prevent the inevitable, followed them over there.
Bud and Katie’s dad moved as if they were already a bit tipsy. They crossed the road in an older man’s rolling jog. The volume of their laughter was up a few decibels, so we trailed behind, hidden by the trees. I stroked Katie on the head, sensing her delicate state.
Katie and I slipped under the scaffolding into the basement space beneath the main floor of the crafts cabin. Down here, we could hear Bud and Katie’s father better, and there was less risk of being caught.
At first, the only noise they made were guffaws and gloo-gloo, gulping whiskey straight from the bottle. Then, slurred conversation, but loud and telling.
“Damn!” said Bud, “it’s good to be here. Seeing you, my old pal. And, b’jesus, that girl of yours, sure something!”
“Dunno, Bud…too many memories.” Doc coughed. “Gimme the bottle, will ya?”
The floor creaked with the heavy movement above our heads.
Doc continued, “Yup! Katie…I darn near jumped down her throat the other day. She was singing that church song, you know the one.” Doc hummed a few bars of Regina Coeli.
“Regina was all I had to hear. I snapped, ‘be quiet’ at my poor daughter. Tell you the truth, Bud, I haven’t thought about Regina Gallo in ages. Too ashamed, I guess.”
Katie looked at me and nodded in recognition.
“R – E – G – I – N- A! Wow!” Bud whistled, “You fell hard.”
“Not hard enough. I never got the whole story, didn’t have the stomach.”
“C’mon, guy, you said yourself your old man wouldn’t let you,” Bud said.
“Hah! No one let me…She-it! I was a coward. I did try to phone her at home once. Put on a phony voice and all. Got her Mafioso father, Fifi Gallo. He cussed me out but good.”
Death and Love at the Old Summer Camp Page 6