Twisted Creek

by Jodi Thomas

  If Jefferson’s Crossing wasn’t really mine? I was beginning to think it could be. I had stopped watching for the lawyer to show up. My name had been in the will and all the Nesters seemed to know I was coming. Maybe for once Nana and I wouldn’t have to pack up and leave.

  I almost swore. I was dreaming again. You’d think at some point I’d learn. Where had the dreams ever gotten me? Like all people, I was a prisoner living in a tiny cell. My view of the world was only a small window and the most I could hope for in a lifetime was maybe to see one or two perfect days. Not a winter. Not a year. Happiness doesn’t pile up that long. Maybe I should just be thankful for tonight and the fire dancing before me.

  “You look like you got the weight of the world on those shoulders.”

  Willie moved closer. I could smell him before I could see him clearly.

  “No, I was just thinking.” I tried not to act like he made me nervous. The man had never done anything out of line toward me or Nana that I knew of, but I couldn’t shake the warning Micki had given me. She’d delivered a caution along with the snacks that first day, a caution I thought of every time I saw the old man.

  “Thinking only leads to trouble, girl. I gave it up for Lent once and found out I could live without it, so I never went back.” Without being asked, he sat down a few feet away on one of the rocks.

  I smiled at him for his effort to cheer me up.

  “Have you seen Luke?” he asked. “I need to talk to him.”

  For a moment, I thought he’d read my mind. “No. I haven’t seen him but Nana said he came by this morning.”

  Willie stuck his hands out toward the fire as if the night were cold.

  I fought the urge to move farther away. “You wouldn’t happen to know where Luke stays out here?”

  “Sure,” he answered, pointing with his head to the left. “He’s not yelling close, but his cabin is on the other side of that stand of trees.”

  “Really?” I’d walked along that beach a few times when the lake was down a few feet and saw no sign of a cabin. “Are you sure?”

  Willie looked like he was thinking about whether to tell me more or not, but finally, he said, “I took supplies to his place with Jefferson once when Luke was laid up.”

  “Sick?” I couldn’t imagine Luke with even a cold.

  “No. Shot.”

  If he hadn’t smelled so bad I would have jumped over and choked more out of the man, but I figured the air at a closer proximity would kill me before I could cut off his windpipe. “How’d he get shot?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but I had to ask.

  “Don’t know.” Willie shrugged as if he’d never thought to ask. “You got any of that bar-be-qued jerky in the store? I like the one that says ‘hot and chewy’ on the front.”

  I’d talked to him enough to know it was unlikely I’d get much more out of him. His mind was like a roulette wheel, not likely to circle round to the same topic anytime soon.

  A rumble thundered across the lake like a faraway cannon shot.

  We both stood up, knowing what we heard wasn’t natural. A heartbeat later, flames shot as high as the trees along the far north shore.

  “Trouble,” Willie whispered. “Big trouble.” He turned and hurried down the dock as fast as his short legs would carry him.

  I shouted for Nana to stay inside and ran down the dock in time to jump into Willie’s boat just as he shoved off. We headed toward the fire that grew brighter by the second.

  Little wind stirred the water, but we were going across the current. I held on tight as the boat bucked what felt like speed bumps in our path.

  “Who lives over there?” I yelled at Willie over the motor.

  “No one that I know of. That property by the dam has been for sale so long the sign’s rotted away. Mary Lynn’s place is half a mile down the shore away from the dam. She’s the closest neighbor. I’ve seen a few campers set up near there in the summer, but the road’s too bad to bother with when there are better places south.”

  “Then what is burning?” I leaned over the front of the boat as if I could see better by being a foot nearer. The closer we got, the bigger the fire seemed. This was no campfire.

  He shook his head. “There’s an old lodge up there by the dam. It’s been closed for twenty years or more. I’ve never been up close, but I’ve seen the roofs of several cabins surrounding it.”

  “Should we turn back and call the fire department?”

  He laughed. “They won’t come all the way out here. And even if they would, by the time we’d get to the gas station on the highway, whatever is on fire up in those trees will be burned to the ground.”

  We bumped a sandy shoreline. I jumped into knee-deep water and helped him pull the boat to shore. By the time we stood on dry sand, I saw headlights jumping along a trail from the dam road. Judging from the way the lights were bobbing, nothing but a four-wheel drive would make it from the main road.

  Willie and I moved closer.

  “Smells terrible,” he mumbled.

  I had to agree. Something more than wood burned.

  Paul arrived next, jumping out of an old Jeep. “What happened?”

  Willie paid little attention to the cabin burning so hot someone must have set the fire with gasoline. He rushed to Paul and patted the Jeep’s fender. “Where’d you get this old relic?”

  “It came with the place I bought. Took me all day to get it running.”

  I stormed up the bank, frustrated they’d stopped to talk cars in the middle of a crisis. “What happened here? Was anyone hurt?”

  Both men seemed to remember this was not a midnight picnic and joined me as we cautiously moved closer to the tiny square cabin. The rock front was still standing; a door and two windows had blown open. The roof and other walls had caved into the fire. The flames blazing behind the wall and across the wooden porch made the front of the cabin look evil, almost as if it grinned at us with fiery eyes and a flaming smile.

  I stood, staring, hypnotized by the beauty of its horror.

  Other men arrived in boats and on off-road bikes. They stomped around the cabin looking for something that might have started a fire on a clear night.

  One yelled, “Circle as close as you can, boys. We want to make sure there’s no brush that might catch fire.”

  Another complained that the place stank.

  Paul pulled me back to reality. “No sign of life around the place, Allie. If someone started this, they got out fast.” He leaned closer to me. “Something’s not right, though. I heard the explosion, then saw the flames. Why would anyone want to blow up this place?”

  I ran toward the fire, realizing for the first time that someone might have been inside. Maybe it was someone’s crazy way of committing suicide.

  Willie grabbed my arm and pulled me back. “Careful there, girl.”

  “But someone…”

  He shook his head. “No one is in there. No one alive.” He walked me back to where the others stood. “But I agree with Paul. I worked construction a few years. I seen a house burn like this once that had a gas leak.”

  The smoke decreased Willie’s fishy smell so I held my ground. “You think it was a gas fire.”

  Willie shook his head. “These are primitive cabins. No gas, no electricity.”

  “But could someone have been in there?” I stared at the fire, feeling the heat on my skin through my clothes from fifteen feet away. If someone had been inside, their skin would have melted away in seconds.

  “Maybe.” Paul put his hand on my shoulder. “But if anyone was closer than we are now, they’re gone, so no use worrying.” He lifted a flashlight. “I’ll circle one more time to make sure it doesn’t catch anything else on fire. I don’t like a fire being this close to Mary Lynn’s place.”

  Willie shook his head. “The ground and trees are still wet. It’s not likely to spread.”

  We heard other boats pulling to shore. Shouts came from the water as more arrived. Paul, being the first on the scene,
took charge. Willie wanted to stay and talk to newcomers, telling all he didn’t know to each person who docked.

  The fire roared for a while, then having eaten away the rotting boards quickly, began to die. The fiery monster made of rock wall seemed to be closing his eyes.

  We all stood around guessing at how, on a cloudless night, the fire could have started. No one had the answer, but we all agreed that Willie should stay until it was completely out.

  The old man puffed up at his new appointment.

  Paul offered to drive me home and the night’s excitement was over.

  Chapter 19

  Saturday

  September 28

  0100 hours

  North Shore

  Luke lowered his field glasses and swore. His lead to the drug business had disappeared into smoke; all the evidence was burning up and any clues were being stomped on by curious campers and Allie.

  He’d been sitting at this spot, watching the drug dealers for two days. He’d even made up names for each of them as they’d unloaded their supplies and set up a lab.

  Sneezy, a little guy whose drug habit was so bad his nose dripped constantly.

  Tanker, a big man in black, who wore a shoulder holster and a huge cannon of a gun. He never bothered to talk to the other two unless he had to.

  The third Luke called Skidder, for he was constantly in motion. Skidder’s clothes hung loose on his thin frame as if he’d lost a great deal of weight in a short period of time. Meth could do that. Unfortunately the teeth and hair disappear along with the weight.

  Luke hadn’t moved in on them because he knew none was the boss and he’d love to catch the head man. If he didn’t, the boss would find three more losers to do his dirty work within days. Luke had too many questions and none of these clowns would know the answers. He had to stay put and watch. Eventually, the main guy would show up to make sure they’d set everything up right.

  After sleeping against a tree, Luke was tired and hungry when the three came back to work the second day. Still no boss.

  He watched as they hauled all the supplies from an SUV and finished the setup. About sunset, Tanker drove off and returned an hour later with burgers in a bag, and beer. To Luke’s surprise, they sat down on the slip of dry sand by the water and ate. He could see them plainly, thanks to the moon and his field glasses. He could almost make out what they were saying. Skidder and Sneezy seemed far more interested in shooting up than in food. While they sampled drugs from their last batch, Tanker ate all three hamburgers, drank most of the beer, and lay out like a beached whale on the warm sand.

  Skidder and Sneezy laughed and pointed as Tanker began to snore, and then must have decided to have another round of meth for dessert with their beer.

  The night cooled. The druggies left their fat friend on the beach and went inside their newest lab. They had their heads together, obviously plotting something as they walked away. Skidder opened the back of the SUV and took out something before he went inside, but Luke couldn’t tell if it was a small suitcase or a can of gasoline.

  Luke waited. He knew the rules. His next step was to call in backup. He’d wait a little longer to make sure they were all asleep, then canoe back to his place. From there he’d climb into the car he hadn’t used in two weeks and drive until his cell phone could pick up a signal. He’d have a team out in an hour. They’d clear out the three losers and wait for the big boss to show up.

  Only he hadn’t had time to carry out any plan. Five minutes after Sneezy and Skidder went inside, Luke heard an explosion. Fire exploded across the inside walls of the cabin. He heard screams, and a car door slammed.

  “Shit,” Luke swore. The two fools must have added sniffing gas to their collection of drugs.

  He ran along the shoreline toward the cabin, trying to see past the cloud of smoke that seemed to be doubling by the second. When he reached the spot where their partner had been sleeping on the beach, the big guy was gone.

  As Luke rubbed his eyes, trying to see through the smoke, Tanker disappeared near the SUV.

  Luke moved closer, trying not to breathe. The sound of cussing and crying circled in the smoke as the SUV’s engine roared.

  By the time Luke reached for his Glock, the SUV was in the trees heading out. He ran, taking a shortcut to intersect Tanker at the dam road, but the big guy was driving like a madman.

  Luke only got one shot off before the SUV was out of range.

  Since then, he’d done nothing but watch from the trees. He could have stepped out and made everyone keep clear of the scene, but dressed in his camouflage everyone wouldn’t take long to figure him for some kind of cop.

  He wouldn’t have minded if the Nesters knew, but there was a good chance the boss of this infestation of meth labs would be among the folks standing around. Whoever picked the spots had known which cabins were abandoned. And that person might guess that a senior ATF agent wouldn’t be here just taking a vacation.

  They might figure out that Luke was looking into Old Man Jefferson’s death, too. If someone had killed Jefferson, and knew he was looking, the killer would go so far underground Luke would never find him.

  Luke slipped into the night, moving silently to his canoe. No one watching the fire saw him slice into the water and disappear.

  Chapter 20

  I tried to talk to Paul as I hung on to the side of his Jeep for dear life. He bumped his way along the back road to the bridge, crossed over, and headed for Jefferson’s Crossing.

  “You think someone set the fire?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You think it might be drifters? I guess it could be kids.” The thought crossed my mind that the only drifter I knew was Luke.

  “Willie said sometimes kids come out to get drunk. I guess they could have picked that place.” I’d seen a few beer bottles along the beach, but not enough for a party.

  I glanced at him. Though too dark to see his face, his body was rigid. “You worried that someone might be inside?”

  “No,” he almost snapped. “I don’t like the idea of the fire being so close to Mary Lynn’s place. Think about it: If the wind had been up, the conditions dry, it could have spread, and she doesn’t even have a phone.”

  I agreed without asking how Paul Madison knew Mary Lynn didn’t have a phone. If I were a cop, I might have also asked how he got there so fast. That first day when he’d come in with his wife, he’d said their cabin was on the south shore. That would make him farther away from the fire than Willie and I had been, and traveling by road around here was far slower than by boat.

  We turned onto the highway, passing the sheriff’s car with light flashing. Paul slowed. I could hear him breathing like a man forcing himself to calm. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was a man new to emotion of any kind. He reminded me of one of those rich fraternity guys who thought life would always come easy for them. This week, the letter from his wife and the fire seemed to knock the starch out of both the man and his clothes.

  “So”-I tried to think of something other than the fire to talk about-“what do you do when you’re not fishing?”

  He smiled then. We both knew he had yet to buy a pole or bait.

  “I work for Wells Fargo. Mostly handling stocks for companies who want to diversify.”

  I had little idea what he was talking about so I remained silent.

  “This is the first vacation I’ve had in almost ten years.” He seemed to calm as he talked. “Since we worked together, Lillian and I traveled together, but it was always business related. I thought we’d buy the place and take some time off for once.” His laughter came cruel, like a hard hiccup. “It seems the only time off she wanted was time off from me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged. “Since I’ve pretty much given up sleep, I’ve had some time to analyze my life. I think our marriage starved to death over the years. I guess I was just more comfortable living with the corpse than she was.”

  I nodded, trying to understand.


  “I’m taking a few months off. I think Lillian will get my job in the settlement. She was always better at it than me anyway.”

  He didn’t sound bitter, only hurt. The kind of hurt that runs all the way to the bone.

  When we turned into my drive, I said, “Thanks for dropping me off.”

  “You’re welcome.” He pulled near the dock and cut the engine. “You sell any cigarettes?”

  “No.” I wouldn’t have guessed him for a smoker. “But I could make coffee.”

  “All right.” He climbed from the Jeep.

  Coffee was probably the last thing Paul Madison needed. He seemed wound tighter than a thin rubber band on a hot day. I got out and followed him up the porch. “Lights on in the kitchen, which means Nana is still up.”

  “Mary Lynn’s car is over by the campsite. She’s probably inside, too. When we saw the fire she said she’d drive over and check to make sure Mrs. Deals called the sheriff.” He didn’t look like he planned to add any more information, but as he held the door for me, he did. “She said whenever there’s any kind of trouble, the locals gather here.”

  I stepped inside. Paul was right: Several of the Nesters were there already. Mary Lynn with her tiny dog, Timothy, and Mrs. Deals. They’d pushed two tables together as if expecting others.

  Mary Lynn made room for Paul and asked, “What’s happening over there?”

  Paul gave everyone the facts while I poured more coffee. Nana must have brought out the leftover fried pies from this morning, but she was nowhere in sight. I sat down guessing she’d be putting on more coffee by now.

  “Are you all right?” I heard Paul ask Mary Lynn.

  She nodded, but she looked like she’d been crying.

  “Things frighten her,” Mrs. Deals said matter-of-factly. Then, with a gesture as awkward as if an amateur puppeteer were controlling her movements, Mrs. Deals jerked forward and patted Mary Lynn’s hand. “Everything will be fine come morning, you’ll see.”

  “Scared the hell out of me,” Timothy added. “I’d fallen asleep out on the deck and for a moment I woke not remembering where I was. I’ve never heard a sound like that out here.”