Beneath the Lake Read online

  ‘If so they mightn’t uh passed it on to you,’ Andie says. She is refilling a silverware tray, puttering as she continues to offload the bad news with repressed delight. ‘I know ’cause my brother and his dipstick buddies used to go out every weekend, but not no more.’

  Megan looks to Ray. ‘Maybe we can call someone.’

  ‘How far away is it?’ Ray asks Andie, ignoring Megan.

  ‘’Bout forty minutes, right up the road. Won’t do you no good, though, unless you plan on gettin’ fined out the kazoo.’ Why does this sound like a threat? Why would this middle-aged waitress care?

  ‘Why did they close it?’ Megan says.

  Andie lines up the nearest three napkin dispensers and begins to stuff them with freshies. She looks at them again, considering something.

  ‘Come on,’ Ray says to Megan. ‘This is silly. We’ll take our chances.’

  Clank. The waitress bangs one of the napkin dispensers on the counter.

  Ray and Megan jump, glancing at one another.

  ‘It’s not silly,’ Andie says. ‘Big-B used to be a decent place for families. Safe, clean, affordable recreation. Then all the idiots from Colorado, Wyoming, and them college kids from over Lincoln come along. Seems people can’t just appreciate something nice in nature. They got to ruin it with their trash and reckless behavior.’

  ‘Is there more?’ he says. ‘Or is your moral outrage the only thing keeping us from enjoying our vacation?’

  Andie sighs, leaning against the counter. ‘You know what, young fella? Maybe you’d be better off headin’ right on over to that lake. Have yourself a real good time and see what comes of it.’

  Ray holds her contemptuous gaze with his own. He knows he’s being a jerk, but he’s tired of driving, tired of being lost and tired of this woman. Something in her corn-pone delivery feels too over the top, even for rural Nebraska, as if she is putting on an act for no other reason than she doesn’t like their Colorado license plates. Something in her eyes… not so much anger as a deep coldness. A deadness. He wonders what made her this way.

  Megan clears her throat. ‘Don’t listen to him, Andie. We’re just tired from being on the road all day. It would help us to know if there’s some kind of danger. Ray’s family might already be out there and we need to make sure they’re okay.’

  ‘Some kind of trouble,’ Andie says to Megan, smirking. ‘How about drownin’s, boats sinkin’, campfires out of control. Sand cliffs eroded, fallin’ in on kids. People with too many firearms, shootin’ each other over a missing beer cooler. Date-rapers. Fishermen goin’ out, never heard from again. That do it for ya?’

  ‘More than most lakes and state parks, is what you’re saying,’ Ray adds, his curiosity piqued.

  ‘Bill Parson was here he could tell ya. He’s been sheriff this county goin’ on forty years, seen a lot of grief over that lake. Hunnert and fifty or more is what he says.’

  ‘That sounds like a bit of —’ Ray manages before Andie cuts him off.

  ‘Reported. Those are jus’ the ones reported dead or missing. Not counting unreported and injuries.’ Andie busses the ketchup and mustard bottles. ‘Water is tainted. Wind like the devil. Too much sand. Who’s idea was it to put so much sand all the way in here, in Nebraska? We don’t need it, I tell ya. Makes decent people act out.’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, what are we talking about here?’ Ray says. ‘Spring break hooligans? Alcohol and general stupidity make decent people act out, not sand.’

  Andie turns to Ray, and her expression suggests she has just about had it with his smart mouth. ‘Tell you a story. My niece was out there with her fiancé years ago. They decided to go swimming in the middle of the lake. Was a calm day, not a cloud in the sky. She hadn’t been drinkin’, nor her beau. They turned the motor off and dropped anchor. Wind come up fierce, boat got turned around. Somehow the outboard got started up, which shoulda been impossible because the ignition key was in her fiancé’s swimsuit pocket. All but cut Lila in half, the prop did. Teddy had to make two trips to get all of her back into the boat.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ Megan says.

  Andie’s not finished. ‘Storm picked up fast on the heels of that, he’s screaming back to Daley’s, the full service camp ground on the east side because that’s the nearest way to get her out to a hospital, but the boat capsized less than a quarter mile from the docks. And this on the side of the lake where the wind’s at its weakest, hardly ever see whitecaps that close to the land. Lila went back in the drink. Teddy got caught in the bowline and drowned. The whole mess wash up at the dam two hours later.’

  It takes Ray a moment to process this. What’s missing.

  ‘Someone else was with them,’ he says. A survivor. Or else how would anyone know the whole story?

  ‘Their son,’ Andie says. ‘David. He was seven. He hung onto the boat and rode the storm out, by the grace of God, though there ain’t much God left out there.’

  ‘Was David hurt?’ Megan’s hands are clutching at her chest.

  ‘Doctors can’t find a thing wrong, except he hasn’t spoken a word since they found him. He’s legal age now, still won’t make a peep.’

  All at once, Ray’s legs feel weak. That’s why you get irritated, he hears Pam saying, long ago during one of their arguments. Because you know I’m telling the truth and it scares you. I get it. You don’t need to apologize. I just wish you could recognize it and save us the bickering.

  ‘— sorry to have taken your time, and for your family,’ Megan says.

  ‘There’s a hundred stories just like that one,’ Andie says. ‘Go on home now, honey, with or without this one.’ She thumbs in Ray’s direction. ‘Keep away from that ugly puddle.’

  Ray flips a ten-dollar bill on the counter. The two of them return to the Bronco in subdued introspection. Megan looks satisfied in some way, her curiosity tantalized. Ray wonders where his father is right now, and how much of this the old man has heard before. What he knows, what they all know and never told him.

  Outside, the sunset has marbled the sky deep purple, soon to be black.

  The Gate

  Megan agrees to drive so that Ray can dial various family members, all of whom should be on the road or at the lake by now. He has mobile numbers for Colt and Leonard, but no idea if they are current. He won’t bother trying his parents. Francine and Warren rarely answer calls, reaching out only through one of the company exchanges. Besides, Gaspar Riko is the one who put Ray on this mission which is quickly evolving into a goose chase, and Ray is anxious to give the family’s consigliere an earful.

  Ray’s phone shows three signal bars of reception. He dials Leonard and gets nine rings before cutoff, with no voicemail, only a dead disconnect. He dials his sister. Before it can ring, a mechanized voice informs him the number is no longer in service.

  Gaspar is up next. The lawyer’s mobile rings through to voicemail, and Ray says, ‘Gaspar, we’re lost, but that’s my fault. We just talked to some locals who seemed pretty sure Blundstone is closed, and has been for two years. If that’s true, guess what? That’s your fault. Call me back immediately.’

  Ray dials Gaspar’s home office and leaves a similar message on the lawyer’s service there, capping this one off with, ‘I find it hard to believe no one knew about this, the way you and my dad like to plan ahead, so what the hell? No one else is answering their phones. You better hope my ailing father isn’t lost too. If something happens to him, that’s on you.’

  Stabbing the phone off, Ray opens another beer. Megan is sipping another as well. They have not seen a police car or any other car since leaving the truck stop and things are looking darker and more barren than ever. He is angry and in another way relieved. Now they can blow this whole thing off and go home.

  ‘You okay?’ Megan asks.

  ‘You think I went too far, throwing my dad’s illness in Gaspar’s face? Or, I guess, the voicemail version of his face?’

  ‘I couldn’t say. I don’t know what your relati
onship with him is like. From what you said earlier, I thought he was this kindly old uncle figure. But that didn’t sound like you trust him very much.’

  This observation catches Ray off guard. ‘No, I do. At least, I can’t think of a reason not to trust him. There’s just something about the way he’s been hovering around my family for so long. It’s an old friendship thing with my dad, and business, but there’s some other piece I’ve never understood. Sometimes Gaspar acts like my dad works for him, not the other way around.’

  ‘But he wouldn’t purposely send everyone to a lake he knew was closed, right?’

  Ray stares at the deep gray strip unfolding before them. It’s not a highway, just a straight and narrow country road. A chubby pile of gray and black fur comes up on the right shoulder. A raccoon. He decides against pointing it out, since most women in his experience don’t like to see or hear about roadkill.

  ‘I don’t know why I took it out on him,’ he says. ‘Why I’m so agitated. It’s like I spent the past ten days preparing myself for this trip, sucking it up and trying to take it for what it is. Probably my last chance to spend time with my dad, and a nice chance to be with you, if nothing else. But soon as I get my head around it all and feel ready to embrace it? We’re lost and no one’s answering the phone. It’s standard dysfunctional Mercer operating procedure all over again.’

  ‘I think I found the last road in,’ Megan says, looking adorably gung-ho behind the Bronco’s thick, leather-wrapped wheel. She tucks her clutch foot under her other leg to raise herself higher in the deep captain’s chair. ‘We’re like fifteen minutes away from your camp ground, or at least the point thing you mentioned.’

  ‘Admiral’s Point? Really?’ There is no sign of the lake in any direction, though of course it’s hard to tell now that night has fallen.

  ‘You guys probably would have come in from the west, not being lost like we are,’ she says. ‘We went around the lake’s north end and now we’ve circled back. Unless your dad got lost once or twice, this wouldn’t look familiar to you.’

  ‘You really want to do this?’ Ray asks. ‘Or are we doing it just to say we tried?’

  Megan gives him a sympathetic look. ‘I think you let that woman in the diner get a little too far under your skin.’

  Ray is beginning to think his traveling companion knows him better than he ever suspected.

  ‘I could tell you didn’t believe her at first,’ Megan says. ‘But something near the end got to you. The thing about the boy who lost his parents?’

  ‘That, and her whole song and dance, warning us to stay away. She was bullshitting us, obviously. Probably has nothing better to do with her life.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I thought, at first,’ Megan says. ‘But why make all that up?’

  ‘What she said at the beginning, before she launched into the accident,’ Ray says. ‘Idiots from Colorado, Wyoming, people spoiling nature, getting drunk and naked. Typical locals. Half of them feed off tourism, take pride in their attractions, and the other half resent outsiders and want everybody to go back where they came from. It’s not logical. It’s just human nature. Some people are more territorial than others.’

  Megan doesn’t seem convinced. ‘I agree that there was an element of that. But that’s what bothered me. The whole locals versus outsider thing felt too rehearsed. Something we would expect. But what if it’s kind of a double-fake?’

  ‘I’m not following you,’ Ray says.

  ‘Tell the truth in such a cornball way, it feels like a ruse, the thing we’ve come to expect. We scoff, keep on going. Meanwhile, it also happens to be true.’

  Ray shakes his head. ‘That sounds like a lot of conspiracy and performance art for an ordinary waitress at some truck stop. More likely, she hates the lake because something did happen to her family. It was their fault, but they’re dead, so who can she blame? Outsiders. Spring-breakers. Whoever happens to remind her of the pain it caused.’

  ‘Do you think…’ Megan begins, ‘I’m not trying to play psychologist, but maybe that’s why you two didn’t like each other. We reminded her of that bad time in her life, and she reminded you of whatever happened with your family?’

  ‘God, I must sound like such a traumatized little brat,’ Ray says.

  ‘I think you love your family, and whatever happened that night, and in the years that followed, hurt you. Not so much because of what actually happened, but because it pushed you all apart. There’s nothing bratty in that, Ray.’

  He sighs at length. ‘So, what do you think? Two hundred deaths at some lake. Boats gone wild. Wouldn’t that have been some kind of national news?’

  The speed with which she responds suggests she began formulating her theory miles ago. ‘Not if they were spread out over the years. Say the accidents seemed unusual to the locals, but not enough for the bigger trend to catch the attention of CNN. Also, if there was some kind of weird angle to worst ones, you know how that plays. Some hysterical guy calls the newsroom and tells a story about how aliens stole his wife, he kind of ruins any chance of someone believing the woman disappeared, even she did.’

  ‘Right,’ Ray says. ‘They think he’s a crank and move on.’

  ‘And he is a crank, because there are no aliens, but what if he killed her himself?’

  ‘Eventually people notice she’s gone missing, they investigate, the husband gets the murder rap, case closed.’

  ‘And, meanwhile, no one ever bothers to look into that other thing, the extra detail, the unexplained whatever. If that can happen once, why can’t it happen a hundred times?’

  ‘Why does it matter?’ Ray says. ‘Aliens don’t exist.’

  ‘Do we really know that?’

  ‘Are we talking about aliens?’

  ‘I’m making a point,’ she says.

  Ray has another pull at his beer. Up ahead, closer to the lane paint than before, another dead raccoon appears. It’s the country. Not much traffic. Lots more wildlife. Ray can’t decide if the math makes sense.

  ‘Then what is it?’ he says.

  ‘My point is —’

  ‘No. I mean it sounds like you actually believed her,’ Ray says. ‘So, fine. Let’s pretend something is out here. What could it be?’

  ‘Oh God, that’s gross,’ Megan says.

  Another raccoon appears, this time in the middle of the opposite lane, stretched out on his belly, little forepaws aimed ahead, a smear of black fluid from the head pooled over the white line.

  ‘Third one I’ve seen in the past twenty minutes,’ Ray says. Whatever was attempting to breach the surface of his memory has vanished again. He checks his phone. No messages. No reception bars. How often does that happen anymore? The whole country has been networked. Most of Nebraska’s hog farmers probably have smartphones by now, and demand solid reception.

  ‘Okay, this is getting sick.’ Megan points across the dashboard, to Ray’s side of the road. One, two, three, and some fifty feet ahead, a fourth dead raccoon.

  ‘What is this? Raccoon town?’ he says. ‘Aren’t there any other animals out here?’

  ‘Why hasn’t someone cleaned them up by now?’

  ‘We haven’t seen a police car for hours. No road crews, no other cars since we left that town. I’m thinking no manpower out here means one very closed lake.’ He pauses. ‘But that doesn’t mean the waitress was telling the truth.’

  ‘Do you see something out there?’ she asks, rolling down her window.

  Night air blows over him, warm and thick. The scent of grass and trees and something fainter, dryer, like hot pavement. Or sand. There would have to be a lot of sand for someone to smell it, right? Across the field, a density in the darkness suggests a tree line. For the first time, he experiences a tingle of the familiar.