Whiskey and Water

by Nina Wright

  By the time MacArthur dropped me off by in front of Mattimoe Realty, I had a plan: to bypass the office altogether, get in my car, and drive home. It was mid-afternoon on one of those nearly perfect late June days. The sky was azure blue, the winds light, and the humidity low. Best of all, the recent rash of riptides had ended. Or at least we hadn’t had one since Wednesday. I wanted to wash the stress of the week away with a quick swim from my own patch of beach. I wouldn’t tempt fate by paddling farther than the end of my dock. Just far enough to shake off those landlubber blues and remind myself how good it felt to get wet and physical on a beautiful summer day.

  After all, that’s why I lived where I did: to swim in the warm months and enjoy the lake view year round. Summers at this latitude slipped by too fast. Invariably, Labor Day rolled around before I realized I’d missed many swimming days in June, July, and August. Maybe Jeb had been right when he said I let a lot of the good stuff get away. Although I wouldn’t include our relationship under that heading, I could grudgingly concede his point. I wouldn’t concede it to him, of course. Never to him.

  I arrived home to find a note from Chester. He had slipped in through the window above my kitchen sink to tend Velcro. Written in back-slanting elementary-school cursive and marked “2 PM”, the message read

  Whiskey--I’ll be ready to move Velcro to the Castle on Sunday. I fed him and took him out to do his business. He’s getting all the exercise he needs from his personal-trainer toy, Floozy. You might want to run her through a wash cycle. --Chester

  I groaned. Suddenly the dog that nobody in their right mind would want was the dog that two people thought they needed. And I owed them both: Fenton because my other dog had corrupted and abducted his dog, and Chester because . . . well, I was still trying to make up for almost letting him drown.

  My overheated brain needed the kind of cooling only a dunk in the lake could provide. After slipping into my basic black swimsuit, I jogged down to the beach and right out into the water.

  Anybody familiar with Lake Michigan knows that the wet stuff stays chilly till after the Fourth of July. My skin prickled, especially as the water reached groin level. But I forced myself to push through it almost all the way up to my waist. Then I inhaled and dove under, the liquid cold striking me like a body slap.

  In a continuous smooth motion, I switched to the crawl, stroking easily, rhythmically toward the end of my fishing dock, about fifty feet out. There I would tuck and turn back, then repeat. A few dozen brisk laps should clear my head.

  I was still on my first lap when the water roared, the sound rolling in like muffled thunder. My first thought was riptide, but I felt no undertow. And riptides, as far as I knew, didn’t make noise. Nor did they come in the V-shape of a high-performance speedboat hull. Mid-stroke, I blinked at the gleaming white craft bearing down on me.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  My brain required a few precious seconds to process what was happening: I was in the direct path of a speeding boat, and I had nowhere to go.

  Swimming parallel to my dock, which stood about a few yards to my right, I was in about eight feet of water. I didn’t need a degree in physics to know that the boat was traveling faster than I could, and it was nearly upon me.

  Either I was about to be part of a tragic accident, or I was somebody’s target. The angle of the sun and my perspective from the water made it impossible to see who was driving the boat. There was a chance that he or she was either sick or distracted. But maybe the captain intended to kill me, injure me, or scare me senseless. If the last option was the goal, the mission was already accomplished.

  My first response was to tuck and turn back toward shore, so that’s what I did. But not straight back. Crafts like the one racing up behind me were agile enough to swerve easily. And they had at most a three-foot draft, so they could zoom within fifteen feet of the beach.

  Stroking and kicking so hard that that every muscle screamed, I angled toward the dock. If this was an attack, I didn’t think the captain would risk a collision with all that wood. But my dock lacked a ladder. Assuming I got that far, and assuming the boat was still after me, I would have nothing to grab, no way to pull myself out of the water. I briefly considered diving under the dock and swimming for the other side. But there was no sanctuary there. Skillfully captained, the boat could keep looping until it exhausted me. And if I hovered near the dock, I’d be tossed about in the wake: heaved into a post or sucked under and against the platform. On the other hand, if I swam for shore, I could certainly be run down.

  All risks considered, I liked the dock, so that’s where I aimed. Gulping air for the energy needed to propel myself, I heard as well as felt the boat veer toward me. So this was no accident. The captain knew exactly how close he or she could cut it. And that point seemed to be where I was now, within a yard of the dock. The roar behind me was like an erupting volcano. Without another thought, I inhaled deeply and dove. I opened my eyes—not recommended amid churning silt, but I needed to know where the dock posts were. Despite sharp pain in my eyes and thick haze in the water, I spotted something vertical and tried to slide past it. As I pushed ahead, a sudden lurch of roiling water flipped me sideways or maybe all the way over. I couldn’t tell which direction was up because I couldn’t see. And I couldn’t control anything but my breath, which I was determined to hold until it burst from me.

  I tumbled rather than swam, pebbles loosened from the lake bottom stinging my face. My lungs begged for release. As confusion merged with pain in what seemed like perfect agony, my brain received a dim signal: the boat’s roar had become a whine. Or was that something else?

  Shards of light, like crystalline teardrops, glittered in the center of my vision. Sunlight sparkling through silt? Or my optic nerve misfiring from lack of oxygen? Suddenly I understood. I was breaking free from under the dock and rising fast toward the dappled surface on the other side. The whine came again, louder—not from a boat engine but from a familiar canine chorus. On the dock Abra and Norman howled.

  I broke the surface gasping and coughing but strong enough to stay afloat. When I stopped choking, I rotated in the water to face the pier. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw: ten feet away was a man in his thirties wearing cowboy boots, tight jeans, a snap-button shirt, and a black Stetson.

  Gil Gruen. Our mayor. Alongside whose corpse, five months ago, I had slid into this very lake. He had my dog and her Golden boyfriend with him.

  Abra barked at the departing boat; Norman woofed at me. Little did the dogs know that the real show wasn’t in or on the water. The real show was Gil Gruen, who miraculously hadn’t died. He’d brought home two missing canines. Best of all, he’d arrived in time to ward off my would-be killer.

  Incredible? You bet. Since middle school, Gil Gruen hadn’t liked one thing about me.

  Now he leaned down and extended a hand to pull me out of the water. I stayed where I was, hyperventilating as I kicked in place. No way I was ready to touch a man who’d returned from the dead. Or an optical illusion. My brain was having a hard time accepting this scene.

  “Whitney Houston Halloran Mattimoe,” the man said in a monotone. “You got enemies. That guy in the boat tried to kill you.”

  The voice wasn’t Gil’s. Deep and slow, he spoke like a man waking from a long sleep. A man who’d almost forgotten how to talk. I had to squint into the sun to see him, and my eyes weren’t working well after all that silt.

  He continued, “My brother didn’t like you. But you seem nice. And you got nice doggies.”

  I smiled. “Only one of the doggies is mine, and she’s not the nice one. I didn’t know Gil had a brother. . . .”

  “Gil was my half-brother. Same father, different mother. My mother died when I was four. And I went to live at my special school.”

  Ahh. “I’m so sorry—. What’s your name?”

  “My name is Hal Gruen. I’m thirty-nine years old. I live at the Hayworth Home. My address is 4156 Donnelly Street, Grand Rapid
s, Michigan . . . “

  I was swimming toward him then, suddenly eager to get out of the water and on with my life, which would include wrapping up the Mystery of Gone-in-the-Lake Gruen and his special half-brother Hal. And maybe also figuring out who was trying to kill me before they succeeded.

  Hal Gruen liked to talk about TV and the things he’d learned by watching it. For instance, he knew that someone who had nearly drowned would be in shock and need a blanket, or at least a whole lot of towels. He wanted to get me some. So I directed him to the cedar chest on my deck, and he lumbered purposefully away. The two dogs stayed by my side, Abra still fixated on the fading boat, Norman apparently concerned with my well-being. When he sniffed my pulse points, I assumed he’d been trained to check vital signs. But maybe he was just being a dog.

  I felt the full effects of my trauma: chills, dizziness, nausea, and general weakness—in addition to the silt that was still scratching my eyes.

  Hal concentrated hard on wrapping me in every beach towel he could find. He liked to follow directions. When I asked him to fetch my cell phone from the kitchen, he did so more quickly than I had dared hope.

  Still fiercely shaking, I managed to reach Jenx and stammer, “Somebody tried to kill me. Gil’s half-brother Hal saved me. Tell Fenton his dog is back. Tell everybody Gil’s still dead.”

  As soon as Jenx ascertained where I was, she said she’d be there in ten minutes. Or less. Within five minutes, Chester had arrived, breathless, Prince Harry bobbing along behind him. My young neighbor had been listening to the police scanner at the Castle and heard that Jenx was on her way here. When he was sure I was all right, he gave Hal his attention.

  “Hello. I’m Chester. You look like our dead mayor, but I’m sure you’re not.”

  Hal recited the same introduction he’d offered me. When Chester extended his hand, Hal knew it wasn’t because he needed help getting out of the water. This was Hal’s chance to demonstrate hand-shaking skills. Although he overdid it, pumping away for a full minute, Chester kept a polite smile on his face. Then Hal asked if he could pet Prince Harry. Even in my post-traumatic haze, I could see that Hal and Chester had something in common: they both loved dogs. And dogs loved them.

  * * *

  After Jenx took my statement, she sent me upstairs for a long hot shower. I emerged from my vapory bathroom to find a steaming mug of tea, brewed and delivered by Chester, no doubt. I was slipping into my robe when somebody knocked on my bedroom door.

  ”Yo, Whiskey,” Jenx said. “Are you decent? Not that I care.”

  When I let her in, she collapsed in my Morris chair like she was the one who’d been traumatized.

  “Yeah, you almost died, but I haven’t had any sleep since Tuesday,” she yawned. “And this attempted murder won’t make my life any easier. About Hal . . . “

  Jenx flipped through her note pad and ticked off the facts she’d verified by phoning the Hayworth Home. Hal Gruen had been a cooperative, helpful resident until he’d learned of his brother’s death. Then he’d begun slipping out after curfew. The administrator’s theory was that Hal missed his brother’s visits and had somehow got it in his head to go see the people and places Gil used to talk about. Over the years, Gil had brought Hal an extensive cowboy wardrobe, which Hal loved to wear.

  “Gil visited Hal?” I echoed.

  “Like clockwork, every Monday night.”

  Our former mayor had never told anyone he had a half-brother, let alone that he cared enough to visit him.

  “Back to what happened here today,” Jenx said. “Hal got a pretty good look at the boat that nearly killed you.”

  “How about at the captain? Did he get a good look at him?”

  “The guy was sitting down, so it’s hard to say how tall he was. And he was wearing sunglasses. But Abra sure didn’t like him.”

  “Maybe because he missed.”

  Jenx said, “Chester seems to think Abra recognized the captain.”

  “Is he translating for her again?” I said. “Don’t let him ask her what she’s been doing with Norman. They’re just into sex.”

  Jenx explained that Hal had memorized the Michigan registration number of the craft that nearly killed me. She was waiting now for Brady to get back to her with the owner’s name.

  “Aren’t there like eight digits in those licenses?” I said. “How could Hal get all the numbers right?”

  “He recovered Norman and Abra and got back to your house in time to save your life, didn’t he?”

  I lowered my gaze, ashamed.

  “Hal never goes anywhere without a notebook and pencil,” Jenx said, fluttering her own pad at me. “He writes everything down. That’s how he gets where he’s going. Hal got the name of the boat, too: VLM 8.”

  Jenx’s cell phone rang. She grunted a few times and disconnected. “Wanna guess what VLM stands for?”

  “Don’t you mean who?” I felt sick again because I knew those initials; I’d seen them on contracts.

  “Vivika Leigh Major owns that craft, and a whole lot of other ones,” Jenx said. “Hal said he saw the same boat near Vanderzee Park the morning he talked with a nice lady who was real upset. She was waiting for somebody—the guy driving that boat.”

  “Hal talked with Twyla before she died.” I suddenly got it. “All those witnesses who thought they saw her with Gil really saw her with Hal.”

  “And Hal saw her talk with the cleaner-driver,” Jenx said, “like other witnesses claimed. But MacArthur didn’t arrive in a boat, and Twyla left with the guy who did.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Somebody connected to Vivika Major.”

  My mind flashed on García, the security guard and dog wrangler whose phone number Twyla had dialed last.

  “Was he Hispanic?” I asked. “Can Hal or Abra tell us?”

  Jenx leaned forward, her face deadly earnest. “We don’t know. But Vivika Major is your client. Unfortunately, Druin is way out of my jurisdiction. So we gotta make a choice. We can turn this over to County now . . . or we can turn it over to County later . . . after we learn a few things. Whatever we do is unofficial. But I’d sure like a crack at finding the guy who killed Twyla.”

  And I needed to know what had happened to all those kids.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  By the time I threw some clothes on, Chester was concluding Hal’s tour of Vestige. He sounded like a seasoned real estate pro.

  “This is the kitchen, where Whiskey comes and goes but never cooks. Note the convenient doggie-door feature. It provides controlled access to and from the exercise pen.”

  Chester demonstrated by removing the panel so that Abra, Norman, Prince Harry and even Velcro—with Floozy in his mouth—could exit the kitchen. Velcro’s splints slowed him down but not enough to keep him from being part of the group. Or to distract him from his ho. As long as Floozy was handy, that boy was calm. No camisoles required. No Animal Lullabies, either. For Jeb’s sake, I hoped Fleggers didn’t sell too many Floozies.

  “Show Hal what I usually do next,” I told Chester, who took his cue and re-inserted the partition.

  “But now they can’t come back in,” Hal said.

  “Exactly.”

  I smiled at the cowboy-wannabe, who was nervously squeezing his black Stetson. Someone, or some TV show, had taught him to remove his hat indoors.

  Jenx, who had stepped out on the porch to use her phone, reentered accompanied by Brady and Roscoe. Hal’s eyes widened with delight at the sight of one more dog.

  “Brady’s here to take Hal home to Grand Rapids,” the chief announced.

  “But we have things to do,” Chester objected. “Hal’s going to help me retrofit my wing of the Castle for Velcro. And I’m going to show him how I’m training Prince Harry.”

  “Another time, bud,” Brady said amiably.

  Hal stroked Canine Officer Roscoe, who had apparently recovered from Abra’s back attack. Usually aloof while on duty, the German shepherd wagged his tail. He looked hopef
ully at Brady.

  “You can pet him all the way back to Grand Rapids, if you like,” Officer Swancott said. I wasn’t sure if that was for Hal’s benefit or for Roscoe’s.

  “Can I come, too?” Chester asked. “With Prince Harry?”

  Unauthorized passengers are usually a no-no in a police cruiser, especially ones with four legs. But Brady agreed to make an exception. Chester removed the doggie-door partition, and one by one the other four dogs scrambled in, Abra first. Eyeing the motley crew with his usual professional detachment, Roscoe seemed particularly disdainful of Floozy. He’d probably busted her type before.

  * * *

  After Brady left with his entourage, Jenx informed me that Fenton knew about Norman’s safe return. The New Age guru would come by that evening to reclaim him. Since Abra and Norman were material witnesses to my attempted murder, Jenx insisted that we take them with us to Druin.

  “Too bad you can’t translate canine the way Chester can,” the chief sighed. “We’ll have to guess what the dogs are telling us.”

  So our mission was not only unauthorized and illegal but ludicrous. Still, I was up for it . . . till Jenx announced that we were taking my car. When I balked, she reminded me that our mission was unauthorized and illegal; we sure as hell couldn’t use a police cruiser. She couldn’t wear her uniform, either, and changed into the T-shirt and overalls she kept in her trunk. I stared so long at her new ensemble that Jenx jokingly accused me of lust. The truth was almost nobody ever saw her in civvies.

  With Abra and Norman together in the backseat, we headed north on Coastal Highway. I cranked up the radio. Not to drown out whining this time, but rather the sounds of two dogs in love loudly sniffing each other’s private parts.

  Jenx and I didn’t have much of a plan. She suggested I pretend to be following up on Odette’s earlier visit. That’s not how we play the real estate game, but I couldn’t think of a better idea.