Down in the Lake

by Shianne Minekime

  James finished with the last screw on the bolt and dropped the screwdriver with a muttered curse and Annie saw with concern that his hands were shaking. She touched him on the shoulder.

  “Let’s take a walk,” she said gently.

  They didn’t walk far, just walked the tree line in the yard. Annie stopped by her car and dug something out of the glove compartment. She shook a little strawberry cigar out of the box and offered it to James. He looked as surprised as though she had pulled out a pair of ladies underwear and offered them to him.

  “Just for times of stress,” she said with a smile.

  He took one and stopped to let her light it.

  “I quit smoking over ten years ago, when Tina got pregnant,” he said.

  “Cigars aren’t the same thing,” she said “You don’t really inhale them and they don’t have all that rat poison and nonsense in them anyway.”

  He nodded at her rationalization and blew out a cloud of smoke, filling the air briefly with the fragrant scent of strawberries before the wind caught it and carried it away.

  “The smell of cigarettes made Tina sick but I wanted to quit anyway,” he said in a quiet voice. “I didn’t want my baby smelling it and I wanted to stick around to be a grandpa.”

  Annie nodded. “It’s a scary thing, having kids.”

  He stared at the lake and a muscle in his cheek jumped. “I just don’t know how he came in and took her out of our yard, right out of the yard and nobody saw a thing.”

  Annie stood beside him and stared out at the lake and watched the wind blow ever widening ripples on the water.

  “It makes you feel pretty helpless, I know,” she said quietly. “That’s the worst thing about any kind of crime, the violation of it and knowing that you really have no control over the world or even your life and that all you can do is keep on going.”

  She patted him on the shoulder. “You did nothing wrong, you couldn’t have known what to look for. He won’t get anywhere near you guys again, I promise you.”

  “I was so pissed she went without me,” he said with the pain and helplessness in his voice. Annie knew he meant Tina. “But I guess I can understand why she couldn’t wait, I guess I wouldn’t have waited either.”

  His eyes filled up with tears. “I got here and she was gone too and I thought I lost them both and there wasn’t anything I could do about it,” he said in a choky voice.

  Annie nodded again but didn’t speak. She figured he just needed someone to listen. This was the hardest part about her job. They had brought Hailey home and that was a miracle in itself but the family would never have that sense of security quite the same again. Time would make it better though.

  “Just give it time,” she said, something her mom had said many times to her growing up. They stood together and watched the lake in silence and smoked their cigars. Tina stood in the window and watched them. She couldn’t hear what was being said but she understood the gist of it. She was glad that he had found someone to talk to who could understand.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The time stretched out. No sign was seen of the good Reverend McCallister but hundreds of tips poured in. One woman claimed the Reverend was actually her next door neighbor and that he had killed her cat. Another claimed he was actually her husband of forty years, living a double life. There were sightings at gas stations, restaurants, supermarkets, and hotels. All had to checked out and all turned out to be nothing. The Reverend seemingly had vanished off the face of the earth. The mood in Patterson lightened briefly when Hailey was found but the town was stunned and sickened. Not only had there been a killer living among them for years but hidden as a man they all trusted, a cornerstone of the town. A man who preached to them every Sunday, helped them through family crisis, a spiritual leader. If he could be a monster then anyone could be. People shifted from disbelief to embarrassment to outrage and to anger. It was only aggravated by the national attention the town was getting and it added to the feeling of humiliation. As time wore on and he was not caught to answer for his deeds, the fear and panic thickened, cloaking the town like the pall of smoke from a forest fire. The schools stayed open but only about half the students actually came. Teachers guarded every door and several parents took turns sitting in their cars and keeping watch. The children enjoyed the extra attention for a time but the fear and tension seeped through to them. The church sat, empty and sad and the people had nowhere to turn in the time that they needed their faith in God the most. There was even talk of tearing the church down and rebuilding it, fresh and clean of the dark soul that had preached from its pulpit for so many years. Some people even worried than the preaching could have affected them somehow, like the fumes from paint. A group decided to burn it down but word got out and they were shut down before they could accomplish their mission. The town council got together and found another minister for their pulpit, the nephew of a friend of one of theirs. It was rumored that he should arrive in a few days. People were skeptical of a new minister that could come in amidst all this mess and turn it around. Research produced no properties or homes registered to Reverend McCallister where he could have holed up. Every known friend of his was questioned, and that seemed like half the town. Not that anyone was wanting to admit having been a friend of his anyway. It was guessed that he must have properties in a false name. Every empty property for miles and miles was searched to no avail. Neither did he make any kind of a move, toward Hailey or anyone else.

  On a beautiful Sunday almost a week after Hailey came home, Annie decided to make a trip to visit the family of Joseph Harper. There was no real rationalization for it, no light that they could possibly shed on the case but she wanted to anyway. She had the files of all of the interviews with them before and after Joseph’s arrest and his death. They were detailed and lengthy and no doubt portrayed the worst days of his family’s life but Annie was drawn to them. She had no desire to hurt them further but hoped that she could be of a comfort to them somehow. They had lived through hell, not only losing their son but being branded as the family of a monster. She was surprised that they still lived here, she would have thought they would have wanted to be far away from all of this but she admired their tenacity. They lived on the outskirts of Patterson, almost over the line of Summerset. The city lines of Patterson ended in mostly farmland. This area was home to lots of farmers struggling against the rising prices of feed and fuel, not offset enough by the rising prices of beef. There were lots of small homesteads, too, and trailer homes.

  Annie told Tina and James at breakfast where she was going and Tina immediately asked to go with her. She felt sorry for the family of the young man who had been just as much a victim of the Reverend as her own daughter had. Whether he actually took Joseph’s life or not, he was certainly responsible for ending it. Annie could think of no reason for Tina not to go. Maybe Joseph’s mother could find comfort from talking to her, maybe. This wasn’t official police business anyway. Joseph’s family had already been called by Jamison after Hailey had been brought home. Annie didn’t know how that conversation had gone because she hadn’t asked and he hadn’t offered details. No doubt it had not been fun for him. None of them at the lake house had really seen much of Jamison since their return. He had his hands full with the man hunt going on. Annie helped coordinate with the FBI for resources but by unspoken agreement she had stayed with Hailey. Not normally how she ran a case but then nothing about this case had gone normally anyway. Annie figured Jamison was probably still put out with her for not waiting at the house for him that day but he hadn’t said much. She had gotten no chewing out by her superiors for not following protocol so that must mean he hadn’t called to complain about her. He would have been fully in his rights to do so but she was nonetheless grateful that he hadn’t. She had done what had seemed right at the time and she wouldn’t apologize for it. She had not a single doubt that Tina would have gone out there without her if she hadn’t, and God only knew how that could have ended. Maybe with Haile
y and her mother dead and the Reverend still missing, who knew. It was a testament to her standing in the Bureau that they hadn’t sent someone out to take over for her or at least to watch over her shoulder.

  “I’m going to fly home Tuesday afternoon,” she said as she spread jelly on toast.

  Both Tina and James froze over their plates and looked at her. Hailey was still sleeping and Trey and Ellie had gone home the day before.

  “I guess you’re anxious to get home,” Tina said, pushing her scrambled eggs around her plate and staring at them fixedly.

  Annie nodded.

  “I need to,” she said. “Jamison will be keeping a close watch on you guys. Do you think you want to go stay somewhere else for a while?”

  James shook his head.

  “No, we talked about it but it doesn’t seem like we’d be any safer anywhere else. Why, do you think we would?”

  “No, I don’t suppose so,” Annie said slowly. She didn’t want to leave them without the Reverend safely behind bars but she knew cases were piling up with her being gone so long. She had already decided she was taking time off to be with her family when she got home and that would probably not go over well but she knew that a case like this would warrant her some R and R. She didn’t care if it didn’t, she was taking it anyway.

  She and Tina left after breakfast. James decided to stay with Hailey. It wouldn’t be a good outing for her and of course she wasn’t going to be left without either James or Tina with her. James had crawled into bed with her on the first night, unable to bear her out of reach. He had woken to find Tina sleeping on the floor on the other side of her bed. By unspoken agreement they were all sleeping together in James and Tina’s bed now. The guard remained watching their house in spite of the passing days and they were grateful for that, however Jamison had managed to get the budget for it approved. Jamison did not mention it or volunteer information and they didn’t ask. Chief of police in a small town for that long and you built up plenty of favors you could call in and he had used a few of them. That and the fact that no one else would touch his job with a ten foot pole in the middle of all this mess, was protecting him for the moment. Knowing that he would take care of Hailey and her family made Annie feel better about having to leave.

  The day was clear and cool, the road winding through the reds and oranges and yellows that had begun to spring up. At a distance it almost looked as though the countryside had caught fire. They rode in silence as the town slowly dwindled out of sight and the farms began to spring up. Every house or empty old barn made them wonder if it couldn’t be the hiding place Hailey’s kidnapper had chosen. Annie even made a mental note of a couple of them to have checked out later, although Jamison probably already had and it would probably be after she was gone anyway. She felt the weight for having to leave and the frustration of wanting the man responsible to be caught. She almost missed the turn at Valley road. Annie wished not for the first time for her own squad car back home with its GPS system and On Star. The GPS had been installed a few years earlier by the department and On Star she had paid for herself. It had been well worth the money already. Rental cars did not come equipped with either luxury.

  The sign was bent and folded half way into the ditch, the victim of a drunken teenager and his father’s pickup. The boy had to leave the truck where it sat and walk the six miles home. He was sober enough by the time he got home anyway. Tina caught the V on the sign as they went past so Annie stopped to let her get out and look closer at it.

  The dirt road was dry and Tina’s steps made little puffs of dust as she walked.

  “Yep, it’s Valley road,” she said as she got back in the car.

  Annie reversed and turned right on Valley. It didn’t even warrant the term ‘road’ more just a path a couple hundred feet long and only wide enough for one car really. The Harper home was the only house on it, at the end.

  They parked out front and got out. It was a two story house, worn and faded but retaining most of its former glory in an area where most homes were old double wide trailers or dilapidated shacks. An old Ford pickup was parked out front, a shining example of the craftsmanship of the sixties. It gleamed with new cherry red paint and chrome and spoke silently of the many, many hours of loving restoration. Annie led the way up the steps with Tina following slowly. She was suddenly reluctant and sorry she had come. What was she supposed to say to these people anyway, sorry your child is dead and aren’t you glad that mine isn’t? She had an overpowering urge to run back to the car but that seemed childish and rude so she fought it off. Annie knocked on the front door seeing no door bell. The sound echoed loudly and the door swung open so fast that she knew the woman opening it must have been watching them walk up.

  She was slim, dressed in jeans and a worn T-shirt, brown hair streaked with gray piled up on her head. She was probably in her fifties and still strikingly beautiful. She was also clearly very angry.

  “I’ve told you people I have nothing to say,” she said in a low and angry voice.

  “It isn’t enough to keep calling and bugging the crap out of us but now you’re gonna just start showing up?”

  She slammed the door shut behind her with enough force to rattle the front window and advanced on Annie. Annie suddenly thought of a tiger stalking its prey.

  “I said, no interviews, no pictures, and no Comment,” she boomed!

  Tina had stopped on one of the steps and stood frozen.

  Annie pulled out her wallet wordlessly and flipped it open exposing her shield. She held it out like a peace offering.

  “Mrs. Harper?” She asked.

  The woman sagged a little, drooping as the anger whistled out of her. She stared at the shield and then looked at Annie and then to Tina. Her eyes widened as she recognized Tina.

  “You’re Hailey Hanson’s mother, I saw your pictures on TV,” she said.

  Tina nodded and slowly mounted the stairs. She started to offer her hand then pulled it back then thought better of it and offered it again.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Harper” she said softly and sincerely.

  The woman shrugged slightly. “It was a long time ago,” she said wearily. “I’m glad your little girl is all right though. I prayed for you when I heard she was missing.” She opened the door and stood to the side.

  “I don’t know what you guys want but you may as well come in.”

  At times we are all forced to live with the dark

  To sleep with the snake and to swim with the shark

  Growing too comfortable in it will take a serious toll

  Learn to love the dark and you could lose your soul