Bitterroot Lake

by Alicia Beckman

  Sarah bent to pick up the white cotton dish towel her mother had dropped. Tuesday, it read in neat black stitches beneath the outline of a little Dutch girl in a pink and blue skirt, yellow braids flying as she leapt across the corner of the towel, the arms of a windmill behind her. Mary Mac had embroidered set after set of these towels. If her grandmother wasn’t in her sewing room working on a quilt, she’d been sitting in the oak rocker facing the lake, or on the deck under the deep overhang, handwork in her lap. Most of it she’d given away. Trust her mother to dig out the right day of the week.

  “No point putting anything in the cupboards until we’ve wiped them out,” Peggy said a few minutes later as Sarah set the last bag of groceries on the kitchen counter. “This whole place is full of dust and cobwebs. I didn’t realize until …”

  “Until what, Mom?” It wasn’t like her mother to leave a job unfinished.

  Peggy sank against the counter, the rag in her hand dripping on to the floor. “Sometimes, it’s just too much.”

  The size of the place? The grime? The memories? Sarah took the wet rag and wrung it into the sink.

  Abby would be home for the summer in a few weeks, Noah a week or two later. She’d told them, before they went back to school, that she wanted them to come to the lake with her to spread some of Jeremy’s ashes, but they hadn’t made firm plans. So much up in the air.

  A spasm of anger tore through her chest. At Jeremy, at the cancer. It wasn’t right to blame him; she knew that. But sometimes she did.

  The kettle whistled, bringing Sarah back to the present. She rummaged in a grocery bag for the tea they’d bought—Earl Grey, permanently linked to the lodge in her memory—then plopped bags in the white ironstone mugs and Janine filled them.

  “I can’t believe all this dust.” Sarah dug for a box of tissues before taking her seat.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were coming,” Peggy said as Sarah blew her nose. “I’d have picked you up at the train and taken you home. To a clean house and a clean bed.”

  This, this is why I didn’t tell you. “You don’t drive at night, Mom.”

  “I’d have asked your brother to take me.”

  “Connor’s busy, Mom. He already took time away from the business to come to the funeral.” McCaskill Land and Lumber, the family business for more than a hundred years. “He didn’t need to be traipsing all the way into Whitefish last night to pick me up.”

  “Of course he came to your husband’s funeral, and he would have driven me to the station.”

  “Besides,” Janine said, “if she hadn’t come to the lodge, I don’t know what I’d have done.”

  Peggy turned to her. “And what are you doing here, dear?”

  Janine flicked her dark eyes toward Sarah, who set down her tea and cleared her throat.

  “Mom, you heard about Lucas Erickson, right? That he was killed, sometime yesterday afternoon.”

  “Yes, it’s tragic. But what …”

  Sarah poked her tongue over her bottom lip and exhaled. “Janine found him.”

  For a long moment, the only sound was the cat, scrabbling in the bowl of dry food they’d set in the corner.

  “I didn’t kill him, Peggy,” Janine said. “I swear. After I found him, I came out here. To think. Make a plan. Then Sarah showed up.”

  “That’s why you called Leo,” Peggy said to her daughter, “and why you were in town this morning. Becca Smalley told her mother she saw you at the Blue Spruce, and her mother mentioned it to me when she stopped by to return a book. That’s when I dropped everything and came out here.”

  What had her father always said about small towns? Everyone knows everything about you, whether it’s true or not. People you don’t know, know you. And his warning when they were teenagers, testing their wings: someone will see everything you do.

  “We went in to give statements,” Sarah said. “And pick up a few things. We stopped by the house, but you’d already left.”

  “I still don’t understand why you came up here,” Peggy said to Janine. “And why would anyone think you killed Lucas Erickson? Ohhh. But—but that was twenty-five years ago.”

  The crash had made headlines. A small town now, despite its discovery by tourists and wealthy snowbirds, Deer Park had been almost claustrophobic back then. The McCaskills were well known, and the death of a guest at their lake house was big news. Michael Brown had been a star on the basketball court and people up here were Griz fans. And Lucas had grown up in Whitefish, the next town over.

  The assault, though, had been kept quiet. After Janine decided not to press charges, what would have been the point? They’d all expected that Lucas would be charged with negligent homicide, along with other charges for the injuries to Jeremy, and pay his debt to society. They’d all been shocked when nothing happened. Sarah had told her parents about the assault—she’d never asked what Janine told her mother—and if Peggy and JP thought it a mistake not to pursue Lucas in court, they’d never said so.

  But she hadn’t told them the part that kept up her up at night.

  “I’ve never understood,” Sarah said, “why Lucas settled in Deer Park. Wouldn’t it have bothered him? To remember what he did here, to be stared at, whispered about?”

  “I never heard anyone say a thing,” Peggy replied. “Maybe when he and Misty first moved here—five years? More? It was all so long ago. And people understand. Accidents happen.”

  Sarah felt Janine’s eyes boring into her.

  “Misty,” she said. “Should I know Misty?”

  “Misty Calhoun. Calhoun Sporting Goods. She was a year behind your sister, I think.”

  “Ohmygosh, we stopped there this morning.”

  “She took over when her father died—expanded the Deer Park store and opened one in Whitefish. That’s where she moved when she and Lucas got divorced last year.”

  “The wife’s always a suspect,” Sarah said, “at least on TV. Double that for ex-wives.”

  Peggy put a hand on Janine’s arm. “No matter what he did, finding him must have been terrible. You poor thing. I’m glad you and Sarah ran into each other. Stay here as long as you want. Treat the lodge like your home.”

  Janine didn’t say anything about running from the scene, or forcing her way into the cabin. She didn’t mention the letter Lucas had sent her, or Leo’s suspicions. So Sarah bit her tongue.

  The cat rubbed against her leg. “You like that food? Or were you so hungry you’d eat anything?” She ran a hand down the cat’s back, the spine and ribs too close to the surface, and the cat twitched. “We’ll fatten you up.”

  “I can’t imagine where he came from,” Peggy said. “Ask around. Or call the vet, or the animal shelter. He might be lost.”

  “She. Janine found her sitting on the front porch last night. And ask who? There are no neighbors out here.”

  Peggy waved a hand vaguely but Janine interrupted before she could answer.

  “When I called the bakery this morning, I promised to check in later and let my boss know when I’d be back. Mind if I borrow your phone?”

  Sarah took her phone out of her pocket and handed it over. Janine left through the mudroom.

  “I’m trying to understand,” Peggy said. “I really am.”

  “When you figure it out, let me know.” Sarah pushed back her chair and stood. At the stove, she picked up the kettle, then put it down without refilling her mug. She stared at the burners and the red kettle, not seeing anything, then spoke, her back to her mother. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me lately.”

  “You’re allowed to be off-center, honey. It happens to all of us.”

  “This might sound odd, but is there a group of volunteers that decorates the roadside crosses?”

  “The American Legion puts them up. Every few years, you see a crew out sanding and repainting, straightening posts the snowplows bent. But decorating, no. That’s up to the family. Why?”

  “The cross on the highway, by th
e marsh,” Sarah said. “Michael Brown’s cross. Someone’s tied fresh ribbon to it, hung a little UM grizzly. And now Lucas …”

  Peggy pressed her hands together in prayer position, held them to her lips. “I didn’t even notice. I was so worried about you. Do you think there’s a connection?”

  “I don’t know what to think. About Lucas. About Janine being here. She called Nic—Nicole, who’s on her way from Billings, for God’s sake. That’s more than four hundred miles. Why does she need a lawyer? Why is this all coming up now? Just when Jeremy …” She couldn’t say it. Sometimes she could say her husband died; at other times, the words wouldn’t form, as if her brain were refusing to admit reality. And she had no patience for the euphemisms—passed, lost. But right now, she had lost all words.

  “Do you think I did it?” Janine asked from the doorway. “Tell me now. If you think I shot Lucas, tell me now and I’ll go. I’ll be out of your life for good.”

  “No!” Sarah said. “Janine, no! Why would you think—I thought you went—”

  “I wasn’t sure how far I’d have to go to get a signal, so I decided to drive and came back for my keys. Why is it that Lucas Erickson can come back to the town where he tried to rape me and drove so recklessly he killed his own roommate and he gets a free pass, like he did all those years ago? And I—I didn’t do anything, not then and not now. But you wonder, don’t you? You know me, and you wonder. Because of my mother.”

  The accusation stung the air. After a long moment, Peggy broke the silence.

  “You are not your mother,” she said, the firmness of her tone surprising Sarah.

  “So you both keep reminding me,” Janine replied. “Why don’t I believe you?”

  Sarah had completely forgotten about the cat until she heard a sharp yowl followed by a short yip. All three women looked to the little furball, sitting on the floor, swatting at something none of them could see.

  I know the feeling, kitty-cat. I know the feeling.

  6

  This time, Janine let the screen door slam behind her.

  “Wonder if she’ll come back,” Peggy said.

  “Hope so. She’s got my phone.” Sarah dumped her cold tea down the drain. The pipes gurgled, unaccustomed to use. “You don’t mean to wash every dish in every cabinet right now, do you?”

  “At the risk of making generations of McCaskill women roll over in their graves, no. We’ll wash up what you’ll need for now, then get to the nitty-gritty when we have more time.”

  “It’s a plan. I’ll start making an inventory then.”

  Windows, counters, the oven and stove. They washed one cabinet’s worth of dishes, a mix of Great Northern Railway designs. She smiled at a plate in the mountains and wildflowers pattern that had always been her favorite. Then they cleared another cabinet for a makeshift pantry. Gave the linoleum floor a good sweep. Sarah poked the broom into a corner cobweb, the threads stiff and sticky, and sent the spiders a silent apology.

  “At this rate,” she said mid-afternoon, “even a lick and a promise will take days.”

  “Your grandmother always said you should start cleaning at the top of the house and work your way down. Your great-grandmother, too.” Peggy rinsed her washrag and wrung it out. “But Caro had live-in servants, and Mary Mac hired household help.”

  Three full stories and a cellar, linked by a narrow back staircase tucked behind the kitchen and a grand staircase that opened into the entry, the walls log, the ceilings tongue-and-groove. Plus the cabins and the carriage house, with its upstairs apartment. When her father and uncle, Leo’s dad, were kids in the 1950s and ’60s, the entire clan had summered here, even relatives who lived in town. Each family had its own cabin, the grandparents and strays sleeping in the lodge. By the time Sarah, Holly, and Connor came along, the extended family had dispersed. It had mainly been the three of them, along with Leo and his brother, who spent summers here, swimming in the lake and jumping off the long dock built in the steamboat era. Exploring in the woods. And on rainy days, playing board games or hide-and-seek, though she’d often taken refuge in the carriage house to read or play with the old dollhouse.

  “I’ll tackle a bathroom, if you want to finish up here,” Sarah said.

  “What about bedrooms? There’s only two couches, and you’ll need a place for Nicole. Besides, those couches aren’t very comfortable.” Peggy wriggled, as though the mere thought of a night on them made her back hurt.

  “We’ll manage,” she said, and kissed the top of her mother’s head. “But not without a bathroom.”

  She decided on the second-floor bath, since it had a tub and shower. She’d used it this morning, grateful that the claw-foot tub had never been replaced. In her design work, she’d witnessed too many of the hideous things people did to classic homes in the name of modernization. Hard water had trickled down from the faucet, forming a line of rust and a blue-green ring around the drain, but that was the only visible damage.

  She knelt to scrub the porcelain, and through the thin fabric of her leggings felt the black-and-white hex floor tiles making tiny indentations in the tender skin below her knee caps. An hour later, tub and toilet too old and worn to sparkle but clean enough, the walls and wainscoting wiped down, the lights, the wavy mirror, and the classic white cabinets washed, she extended one leg, then the other, unkinking her joints. Plucked at her T-shirt where it stuck to her skin and ran her fingers through her hair, damp at the roots. Picked up her bucket of cleaning supplies and damp rags, but instead of heading back down, as she’d intended, she set the bucket on the floor outside her grandmother’s sewing room and went upstairs.

  The third-floor rooms were shaped by the gables and the steep pitch of the roof line. At the far end were the servants’ rooms, a small bath between them. In her childhood, these had been the boys’ bunk rooms, but they were empty now. Where had the furniture gone?

  In the middle, overlooking the lake, was a large space her grandmother had called the ballroom and her grandfather the billiard room. The heavy oak billiard table with its woven leather pockets stood at one end. But what had happened to the poker tables and the marvelous velvet couches that once sat along the walls, waiting for dancers to rest their feet?

  She paused, half-hearing a waltz play from the old cabinet Victrola that had stood in the corner. She’d coerced the other kids into holding pretend parties in the grand space, dancing with Leo, as the two eldest, and pairing Holly with his younger brother, who hadn’t protested too much. Connor had hopped around the older kids until he got too tired, or bored.

  Her mother hadn’t mentioned clearing this space. Must have been a while ago, though, judging from the dust on the light fixtures and a cobweb in the door frame.

  On her way back to the stairs, she peeked into the storeroom at the far end. Empty, the extra furniture, trunks, and odds and ends gone.

  Curious.

  Back on the second floor, she steeled herself at the door of the girls’ room, where she and Holly had slept.

  It was virtually untouched. Three iron bed frames, each a different design, separated by pine nightstands. A quilt lay folded over the end of each twin mattress, an old crate or a flat-top trunk at the foot. Hers had been the Flying Geese, Holly’s a classic Starflower.

  Untouched by a dustcloth too. She sneezed and closed the door behind her. Grabbed her cleaning supplies and gripped the pine banister as she descended to the main floor. In those same pretend dance days, she’d preened her way down the grand staircase, swishing imaginary skirts and flirting with phantom beaux, the belle of the ball that wasn’t.

  A sweet memory.

  To her surprise, her mother wasn’t washing windows or banishing cobwebs from corners. Instead, Peggy sat on one of the lumpy leather couches, staring out at the lake. Or whatever it was she saw.

  Sarah set her bucket down and sat next to her mother. Flecks of green and red paint dotted her mother’s nails and knuckles.

  “After your grandmother died,” Peggy said, “yo
ur father and I talked about moving out here. He wanted to live on the lake and wake up to this view. I’m sorry I disappointed him by saying no.”

  “Why did you?” Sarah had been busy with two small children then, and not paying a lot of attention.

  “It just—it just didn’t feel right. I never could explain.”

  “Well, sure. It was your mother-in-law’s house.”

  “No. I adored Mary Mac. And I do love the place. It was almost as if—oh, never mind. Too hard to explain.” Peggy started to get up but Sarah pulled her back.

  “Try, Mom.”

  “It was as though the house wanted something from me that I couldn’t give it. See? Now you think I’m nuts.”

  No, she didn’t. Not at all.

  Peggy stood. “But I know what the house wants right now. It wants a good cleaning.”

  * * *

  They decided to wait on the windows until the sun wasn’t shining directly on them, and moved up to the second floor, to her grandparents’ bedroom. After all these years, it still held faint scents of cedar and lavender. A milk glass lamp sat on a simple oak dresser with cut-glass knobs, and Peggy switched it on. “This lamp is one of my favorite pieces in the entire house.”

  “Speaking of which, where’s all the stuff from the third floor?”

  “Don’t you remember?” Peggy asked. “Brooke had visions of turning this into a luxury rental. They started clearing, but didn’t get very far—Connor got too busy with work.”

  “Oh, right. I completely forgot.” Her memory had become a sieve, another casualty of Jeremy’s illness. Not a bad idea. Except that she hated it. Strangers in their house.

  “By the way, your brother has something to discuss with you.”

  “That sounds ominous.” Connor hadn’t mentioned anything in Seattle. He and Brooke, a bubbly brunette who barely reached his shoulder, had brought the kids out for the funeral, but it had been a quick trip, so the kids didn’t miss much school. Not much time to talk.