SWAINS LOCK (The River Trilogy, book 1)

by Edward A. Stabler

  In the entryway she stopped in front of a payphone on the wall and dialed the phone number she’d looked up at home. After several unanswered rings she heard a recorded voice. That was the outcome she’d been hoping for, since it foreclosed the possibility she’d be questioned. She left a message, hung up, and drove across the street to her studio.

  ***

  Vin entered the house and carried the dog-food up to the kitchen, greeting Randy on the way. On the kitchen counter, the answering machine’s green message light was flashing. He poured himself a glass of water and pushed the play button.

  “Hi, this is the Potomac Library calling for Vincent Illick,” the woman’s voice said. “We’re calling to notify you that a book you requested has been returned. The book is called The Level Trade: Lock-Tenders and Merchants on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, by Wesley Vieira. If you’re still interested, we’ll be happy to reserve it for you. Thanks and we look forward to your next visit.”

  He listened to the message twice; the woman’s voice seemed familiar but he couldn’t place it. He thought about his trip to the library last fall. That was before his illness. Before the fever, fatigue, and strange dreams that accompanied his battle with mycobacterium abscessus. The infection had started in March when he’d fallen on the little wooden crosses he’d found on Bear Island. After the pus was drained from his wound and his diagnosis confirmed, the antibiotics had helped his hip begin healing within a few weeks. But his loss of appetite and energy had lasted much longer, and it was mid-June before he’d been able to work for more than an hour or two or leave the house for any length of time. During his weeks of enervation, Nicky had called his condition “Vin’s 1924 flu.”

  As the symptoms diminished and disappeared, he’d been able to start moving forward with work again, launching phase two of the Rottweiler project. And last month he and Nicky had finally mailed the invitations to their October 19th wedding. The venue – Goose Creek Vineyards, across the Potomac near Leesburg – was nailed down, and they had a celebrant to perform the service. They had a band, the same one he and Nicky had heard at the New Year’s party at the Spanish Ballroom. And a photographer, Joel Bettancourt. They’d both liked the wedding pictures that Kelsey Ainge had shown them, but Vin couldn’t shake the suspicion that she was shadowing him, that she had somehow infiltrated his search for Lee Fisher’s buried money and truth.

  On the heels of his illness, progress with Rottweiler and the wedding had eroded his attachment to that search. By now Lee Fisher, K. Elgin, and the 1924 mystery almost seemed like an antique snow globe sitting on a mental shelf of curios and puzzles, the snowflakes drifting over a young couple in period dress and a mule-team pulling a canal boat.

  And yet… He’d enjoyed reading the books he’d found about the history of the canal and the old newspaper articles chronicling the flood of 1924, even if they’d provided no references to Lee Fisher or K. Elgin and no leads to Charlie Pennyfield or Emmert Reed. He remembered the Vieira book he’d found listed in the catalog but missing from the shelf. Hadn’t the librarian told him it wasn’t checked out? She’d suggested it was probably stolen and wouldn’t reappear.

  Yet here it was behind the flashing green light on his answering machine, trying to get his attention. He felt a dormant flame flare up, like a furnace triggered by the season’s first cold breaths. During the spring and summer the pilot light had flickered but never gone out. Just to gain closure it made sense to get the book. Like the others it would offer no leads, and after reading it he could bequeath Lee Fisher’s 1924 to the past.

  Chapter 29

  Edwards Ferry

  Wednesday, August 28, 1996

  The following afternoon Vin stood on a dirt ramp that led from the towpath to the river, examining a display sign that offered historical perspective on Edwards Ferry.

  An Ideal Crossing

  The Potomac River is calm and narrow here, making it an ideal location for a ferry crossing. In 1791 Edwards Ferry began to operate here, connecting Maryland farmers to the Goose Creek Canal in Virginia and to Leesburg markets. The ferry closed in 1836 but the community that grew around it continued, carrying on the name. Over time, a general store, a warehouse, and 36 residents composed the Edwards Ferry community. With the coming of the C&O Canal the small village prospered from the increase in commerce.

  The text was arrayed above two old images of Edwards Ferry. The uppermost was an illustration of foot soldiers and horse-drawn caissons marching down a broad dirt avenue and passing a cluster of houses on their way to the river, visible in the distance beyond. The caption read “General Stone’s Division at Edwards Ferry” and the sign elaborated:

  During the Civil War, Edwards Ferry connected Union Maryland with Confederate Virginia. Harper’s Weekly depicted Union troops passing through Edwards Ferry in October 1861. Many troops and supplies from both sides crossed the river here throughout the war.

  The Harper’s Weekly illustration was superimposed on an enlarged photograph from the early 1900s, taken from the vantage point Vin occupied now. It showed leafless trees flanking a deserted path leading down to a wooden boat ramp. Presiding over the path was a brick building with tall windows on both stories. Vin looked at the gutted shell to his left. All that remained now were its side walls and a portion of the back wall. The sign explained its fate.

  The crumbling Jarboe’s Store remains here today. It was a general store and post office operated by Eugene E. Jarboe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Flood damage forced the National Park Service to partially tear down the unstable structure.

  He opened the book in his hand to the bookmark he’d inserted an hour ago at the library. Author Wesley Vieira provided a more detailed account of the proprietors and times of Jarboe’s Store, but from Vin’s perspective those times ended too soon. After the ferry stopped running in 1836, Jarboe’s relied on the canal for both customers and supplies. Diminishing canal traffic undermined the store, and Jarboe’s closed in 1906.

  It was a passing reference Vieira made to a denizen of Edwards Ferry during the last decade of canal operations that caught Vin’s attention at the library.

  Emmert “M-Street” Reed tended Lock 25 at Edwards Ferry from 1913 until the canal’s demise in 1924. To help fill the void left by Jarboe’s, Reed built a smokehouse and sold smoked pork and turtle to boatmen and local residents. Reed’s nickname reportedly derived from his affinity as a younger man for the Georgetown taverns at the terminus of the canal. During Prohibition, rumors held that thirsty boatmen could sidestep the law and purchase pints of moonshine whiskey from Reed while transiting Lock 25.

  A penciled arc extended from the space between the words “Reed” and “tended” in the first line. The arc curved to an annotation in the right margin that read “and his albino mule?”, and was written in a woman’s hand that he’d seen before – in the Kytle book, on his trip to the library last fall. He had smiled grimly while connecting the dots. His encounter with Kelsey Ainge at the New Year’s party, with her disingenuous comment about joined sycamores. The words he’d found under the snow, etched into the railings that joined the sycamores at Carderock. “Killers.” “Dead.” “Why are you here?” The visit to her studio with Nicky, when he’d seen the photo of the mason’s mark on her wall. And the little crosses planted on top of the stop-gate at Bear Island, directly above the mark. Then yesterday’s message from the library in a voice that sounded familiar. And now this handwritten reference to Emmert Reed’s albino mule. She was playing a cryptic game with him using excerpts from Lee Fisher’s note. The game had lost its momentum during his illness, but now it seemed to be starting again.

  There was no other mention of Emmert Reed in Vieira’s book, but after reading the annotated passage, Vin had been unable to leave the book behind at the library and abandon Lee Fisher’s puzzle and Kelsey Ainge’s game for good. Though he had been drifting toward obsession last winter, he’d started swimming toward shore when his fever broke. Each stroke represented f
orward progress on his Rottweiler project or the wedding plans and pulled him closer to the limen. But now with one foot on terra firma and one in the water, he felt he was falling back in. He had checked the book out at the circulation desk and headed home.

  And driving out River Road from Potomac, he found himself passing the turn for Ridge Line Court. Then passing Pennyfield Lock Road. And Seneca Road, three miles beyond, after which River Road turned to gravel and zigzagged through seemingly-deserted sod farms before ending at an unmarked intersection with a forgettable county lane. Two more miles brought him to Edwards Ferry Road, which led through tangled trees to the canal. There was an unpaved parking area, a wooden bridge across the lock, and the dirt path down to the river. This setting must have been known well by Emmert Reed’s albino mule. As he approached the bridge, he’d scouted the nearby trees for sycamores joined at the base.

  ***

  He closed Vieira’s book and climbed the dirt incline toward the towpath. The lockhouse stood boarded up to his left, flanked on three sides by lush grass. He detoured onto the back lawn. The two upper stories were whitewashed bricks but the foundation was made of rough-hewn stone from which the paint had worn away. Because the house was built on a downslope from the towpath, the rear half of this foundation was above ground. It featured generous windows and two doors, all boarded up with green-painted wooden partitions that were screwed into the frames. He circled to the far side of the house and climbed the grassy pitch to the towpath. The front door and windows were sealed the same way.

  He looked up and down the towpath and saw no one. On a weekday one or two cyclists, joggers or birdwatchers might pass Edwards Ferry on the towpath every few hours, but the site was far enough from major roads that it received a small fraction of the traffic that swarmed over the towpath every day around Great Falls.

  Feeling a stab of dejection, he returned to his car. What had he expected to find here? A plaque next to the lockhouse detailing the exploits of famous locktender Emmert Reed? Unless his memoirs were stashed somewhere inside the lockhouse, old M-Street had left no trace of his tenure at Edwards Ferry. Grasping at straws, Vin decided to drive home through Poolesville, the closest real town on the Maryland side of the river. Vieira’s book mentioned that Charlie Poole had tended lock and managed Jarboe’s store in the years before Emmert’s tenure at Lock 25, so Vin guessed that old M-Street Reed might also be a local product. If he’d lived in Poolesville while not tending lock, maybe his grandchildren lived there today.

  At the Poolesville post office he thumbed the community phone book and found listings for Ben Reed, D Reed, and Thomas H. Reed. He copied the names and numbers into a spiral notepad he kept in the car and drove back toward Potomac.

  It was almost five by the time he got home and he had no enthusiasm for diving into the Rottweiler project as he stood and tapped a finger on his desk. Nicky wouldn’t be home for at least half an hour, so… he jogged upstairs, retrieved the cordless phone and a cluster of red grapes, and settled on the living room couch. From his pocket he pulled the notepad. The first number was for Ben Reed. He waited for the answering machine, then spoke deliberately but cheerfully into the handset.

  “Hi, Ben. This is Vin Illick calling. I’m researching an article for the Maryland Historical Society about the last decade of commerce on the C&O Canal. I’m interested in a man named Emmert Reed who worked as a locktender at Edwards Ferry in the early 1920s. If you or anyone you know has any information about him, I’d love to talk to you.” He thanked Ben and left his work phone number, then ate a few grapes and studied the second name. D. Reed – a woman? He dialed and again reached a recording, this time in Diane Reed’s voice. He left the same message he’d left for Ben.

  On the next call he was startled to hear the voice of a live person. Thomas Reed confirmed his identity with a raspy, unmodulated voice that gave Vin hope he might be over sixty – maybe old enough to be Emmert Reed’s grandson. But after Vin recited his pitch, Thomas responded abruptly. “There’s no Emmert Reed around here.”

  “Well,” Vin said deferentially, “the man I’m researching worked as a locktender in 1913. So I’m actually hoping to talk to one of his relatives. Perhaps a grandson or a great niece.”

  “You won’t find one in Poolesville. I was born and raised here and I know every Reed in town. For four generations. I never heard of an Emmert Reed.”

  “Some people may have known him as M-Street Reed.”

  The old man paused. “Did you say M-Street? What the hell kind of name is that?”

  “It was just a nickname… from his canal days.” Vin’s confident tone wavered as the doubt he’d felt at Edwards Ferry resurfaced.

  “You want information about the canal days, maybe you should go to the library and ask a librarian… instead of calling people just ‘cause they got a certain name.”

  Vin thanked Thomas Reed for his time and hung up, then slumped back into the couch. Labor Day weekend was only two days away. Nicky was working through Saturday morning, after which she’d be off until Tuesday. Saturday afternoon they were meeting friends from New Jersey at Cool Aid, an expansive pastoral party at a defunct farm bordered by rolling hills and the Gunpowder River, a half-hour north of Baltimore. Their friends had attended Cool Aid weekends for years, pitching their tent alongside others on the far-flung lawn, listening to live music, wading in the shallow, tree-fringed river, and drinking beer from an endless supply of refrigerated kegs. It sounded like a nice escape. Between now and the weekend, Vin had to extend a program feature and upload the new version of his project to Rottweiler’s Boston office; there was no avoiding it, regardless of the tedium involved. But during the next two days there might also be time to grasp another straw from 1924.

  Chapter 30

  Emmert’s Lockhouse

  Thursday, August 29, 1996

  Vin lifted Lee Fisher’s old drill to eye level and set the bit against the head of the wood-screw. It was too small and spun uselessly. He selected a larger screwdriver bit and twisted the chuck open, admiring the eggbeater-style drill once more. The auburn handle and knob were dense and smooth – maybe cherry or rosewood. He’d cleaned and oiled the drill this morning, and now when he tightened the chuck and spun the crank, the gears and bit turned without friction or noise.

  The silence reminded him to check for observers. His position behind the lockhouse was screened from the closest portions of the towpath and he couldn’t see anyone approaching from the distance in either direction. He’d already confirmed that there was nobody behind him on the path to the boat ramp. So he just had to listen for the idling of an engine or a slammed car door, which seemed less likely now that a light rain was falling.

  When he applied the bit again, resistance from the crank arm confirmed the fit. The black screw groaned in protest with its first rotation, then conceded. It was two inches long and his arms burned after extracting it. Fifteen minutes more dislodged the remaining screws. He struggled to pull the heavy partition away from the window frame and prop it against the foundation wall, then stared into the dark cavity of the basement. The frame of the double-hung window was invitingly empty. He’d hoped he wouldn’t have to negotiate broken glass to get inside. Cool air that smelled like an old junkyard seeped from the darkness. He tapped the pocket of his windbreaker to find his flashlight.

  I must look like a thief, he thought, smiling at the notion. Black jeans and a drab pullover on a humid summer morning. A thief here to steal what? All he could hope to find was a finger pointing into the past. He extended a leg through the orifice into the gloom, ducking and shifting to follow it in. Looking out, the overcast day seemed impossibly bright. I should really put the partition back in place while I’m in here, he thought. Right now it looks conspicuous. But it’s too heavy to maneuver from inside, so I’ll just have to be quick and hope nobody notices.

  Light streamed into the basement as he turned to examine the space. To his surprise, the ceiling was high enough for him to stand upright
. He swung his beam across the room. To his left, a fireplace was built into the stone foundation. Straight ahead he saw the exposed stones of the windowless front wall – the lower part of this wall was underground. Ahead and right was a staircase, and a partition wall bisected the basement from its underside to the rear wall. Overhead were thick wooden beams and joists that formed the bones of the lockhouse. It’s small, he thought, but built to last a century or two.

  The fireplace held soot-covered andirons, a blackened pot-lid, and a broken pint-bottle. He followed the beam to the front wall and brushed dust from a stack of doors and shutters leaning against the stones. The front wall led to a landing at the foot of the stairs, beyond which was the other half of the basement.

  Steering the beam up the stairs revealed a closed door, which he climbed toward carefully, the worn wood creaking under his weight. At the top he turned an old doorknob. The door held fast as he pushed gently, then harder. He realized with frustration that it was locked with a deadbolt or a latch, so he went downstairs to try the far side of the basement. With its apertures still boarded up, this parallel room was much darker.

  He panned the periphery. There was no fireplace on the exterior side wall, so it must be on the first floor instead. In its place was an old dresser with two drawers missing. He painted it with the rays – scars and dust, rough edges. Unworthy of an antique dealer, he thought, tugging at the bottom drawers in turn. They were hard to open and held nothing. Along the rear wall, cracks of light filtered through the boarded window and door. Nothing of interest. In this darker chamber, the partition wall emanating from the underside of the stairwell supported a set of bed springs and a disassembled frame. He brushed dust from a portion of the headboard. Crude and simple like the dresser, not the work of a craftsman.