3. Chapter Three
Chapter Three
Remington James
W ell, this is a lot to take in at eight in the morning. Rubbing my eyes, I look over the mess before me, spread all over the living room area of the cabin. Droolius sits panting on the couch, with the insides of the throw pillows along with the shredded fabric strewn all over the place, only one intact inside his mouth. “What did you do? Oh my God.” Groaning, I start to pick up the tufts of cotton.
Laughter comes from the screen door at the front of the cabin. “I’m not sure, but it looks like your dog caught whoever was responsible in the act and saved one of the pillows. Honestly, he’s a hero.” Wilder leans against the doorframe, holding out a cup of coffee.
It’s impossible to stay irritated with my furball, all it takes is one doggy smile with his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth and I fold in spectacular fashion. “I guess if he can’t escape from the cabin, he’ll just destroy the contents.” I plunk down on the couch next to him where he’s excitedly wagging his tail at the sight of Wilder. Which I would do too, if I had one.
“Hmmm… well as Droolius’ attorney at paw, I claim that the pillows attacked first. Totally self-defense. He should be completely exonerated of these horrific claims,” Wilder states sitting on the other side of him, hugging him to his side.
No one in this world should look that good in just a pair of well-worn gray sweatpants. When he passed me, the smell of his cologne caused all my systems to go haywire. Now, I just want to find a place to drag him for me to maul his body. Horny much? Get a damn grip, Remi. He doesn’t pay visits often, there must be a reason other than saying hi or being adorable. “To what do I owe this morning cup of coffee?”
“Truitt called me to check on you. He’s worried you’re avoiding him. Are you?” Nuzzling into Droolius’ side, he sets his coffee cup on the low-lying coffee table.
My mind won’t let go of Katie’s words. I want to forget about it. Scrub it from my brain, but instead it’s consuming all my time. I keep telling myself that I just need a little breathing room, and I’ll sort it out. What though? How does someone sort a mystery of this magnitude out? “What did you tell him?” Wilder still has no idea what I found or how I’ve backed away from Cal and Charlie.
“There, there, it’ll be alright?” he quips before rolling his eyes and adding, “I agreed to talk to you. And… I may or may not have made fun of him. He used to be the most unbothered human, back when I knew him, but it appears that you’ve gotten to him. Nice work.”
Keep it short… keep it innocuous. “Things are fine. I’m… grand.”
He smirks at me. “You’re a terrible liar.”
Uncle Skip clomps his way into the room. “Now what? Every day there’s a dilemma. What happened here?” He’s aghast looking at the mess I had abandoned in favor of staring at Wilder. Droolius cocks his head looking at Skip who, might I add, looks like he slept in the winds of a hurricane.
“What’s up with this…” I point at his patchy facial hair, wayward clothing, and dark circles. “You look vaguely homeless.” Our issues just keep piling up between us, with no resolution. We seem to have a pact to carry on without any real talk. Healing. Maybe ignoring it all is the best we can do, because I won’t apologize for being hurt. I won’t apologize for expecting him to care about me as his niece.
He nods Wilder’s way. “You were right about the computer glitch.” Rubbing a hand through the hair already sticking up on the side of his head, he continues, “Thank you for the tip. I’m not the least bit technologically inclined. Hopefully, we’ll catch the vandalism culprit now.”
Confused I look between them. “What are you talking about?” Jumping down, Droolius runs to the front door with a little yip when he hears a knock on it. “What was wrong with the security system?”
“Spyware. Either the system was compromised with spyware when it was downloaded, or someone knew what they were doing and put a bug in it. It appeared to work, and maybe it had been, but the footage was going somewhere other than the online account your uncle has.” I forget sometimes that Wilder is a numbers guy, who likes to dabble in computer things. “It should be fine now. You should limit access to the account though. Who can get into it now?”
“It’s just the employees, the maintenance guy Carlotta contracted, Charlie, and Mitchell.” That means both Cal and Charlie could be behind the vandalism. The growing unease inside me is threatening to invoke a full-blown panic. Wilder said it could’ve been on the computer already. Just one more check mark next to suspicious.
Opening the door for Keenan, I put a hand over my mouth as he shoves a tabloid magazine into my other hand. The front-page features none other than Grady Marlow in a badly photoshopped picture from the boat on the Fourth of July, making it look like he was having a romantic get away with Charlie and Cal. “Oh, they’ll love this.” I can’t help giggling. Since he came out publicly… in not so many words, media rumors are all over the place.
Wilder grabs the magazine to look at it. “Who believes this garbage?”
Following us into the cabin, griping about how unfair it is that Grady is so close, but he chooses to keep to himself, Keenan stops short at the sight of the living space filled with pillow stuffing, Droolius, sitting proudly in the middle of the mess. “Wow. Was this Winifred?”
Really? “Keenan, I know he looks innocent, but this wasn’t our invisible friend.” Crossing my arms, I address my little imp, “Somebody got bored last night.”
“Nooo… he just found it that way. Look at him. He’d never.” Wilder winks at us. “Never.”
While I grab a banana from the left-over stock for Ceily’s baking expedition, Keenan smacks his head. “Mee-maw could not find her glasses after the Fourth of July. She baked the damn things into one of the loaves of banana bread the two of you made.”
That isn’t a surprise. She’s baked other artifacts from her kitchen into things when she gets busy talking about something. A potholder in a chicken pot pie, a serving spoon in a baked spaghetti.
Wilder starts to laugh. “I found a pair of her cheaters swimming in the chili she made me once.”
Talk of Ceily reminds me that I promised I’d help her this afternoon. “Are you coming with, to the boys and girls club event? She had promised Carlotta to help, now that she’s…” Gone. She’s gone now, but the words get caught in my throat. Admitting it out loud, even more than before, feels harsh. I now believe that Carlotta Marlow met the same fate as Katie. Father Lowe has put together a dunk tank, carnival games, and a basketball scrimmage between the kids and their parents. It was an event that Carlotta sponsored with her property management company annually.
“Who me?” Keenan points at his chest with his eyes wide. “No, thank you. It’s a church sanctioned event. If the Catholic church has things to say about the way I live my life, I will pass. That’s all you and mee-maw. I did come by to walk with you though, there’s something I want to discuss.”
“That took a dark turn.” I’m not familiar with what the Catholic church believes, but I have some questions I want to ask Father Lowe.
With the help of Wilder and Keenan we manage to rid the living room of all the fuzzy pillow filling and fabric. Then the little massacre artist makes his departure with my neighbor. Hell, Wilder is more than that, even if we’re not acting on it since the country club. My imagination goes there every night. He’s become one of my most trusted confidants. The nagging feeling that I should tell him about finding the missing pages is stifled only by the fact once I’ve told someone. Anyone. I have to accept it. I just can’t do that.
Determined to walk to St. James earlier than the event starts, I drag Keenan out the door while Uncle Skip is still bitching about Nat oversleeping. “Why do I get the feeling that what you’re about to drop on me isn’t going to make my head any less scrambled?”
He pulls my hand into his, tracing over the birds I drew in detail. “Shhh… let me admire this masterpiece. Then once we’re clear of this place…” He looks over his shoulder as we cut through the trees to a side street that leads up the hill to St. James church. “Okay, so listen up. I overheard Mee-maw on the phone with one of the detectives. He asked her about the necklace, and about Lakeside Park.”
“He? I thought Hemminger was investigating the Ross drowning?”
Trudging up the side of the hill, I kick at a pebble concentrating on the road in front of me while Keenan answers, “According to mee-maw, her husband investigated all the drownings the first time around. Carlotta met with him a couple of times, and he was going to talk with his wife. She grew up here and originally stayed out of it because she knows the Gibsons.”
It seems like everyone in Lake Hollow ‘knows’ the Gibson family. “Okay. But Ceily said she wasn’t sure where the necklace came from or how it ended up in Hidden Treasures, right?” We’re a couple blocks from the church and I can already hear the noise of the kids, piped in carnival music, and the muffled sound of a voice giving announcements on a loudspeaker. “But what’s up with Lakeside Park?”
“Hmm, girly pop, that is what I want to know. If Susanna Ross drowned in front of the Bends, why are the police interested in Lakeside Park?” The only thing I can be sure of anymore is that I have no idea what’s going on. Not with the direction the detectives are heading, not with the creepy things that have been happening, the threatening vandalism, not even with my warring heart over Cal and Charlie.
I’m lost. Drowning? I hate to make the analogy, but I’m in over my head. Growing up I was forced to become good at sussing out people with shady motives. Mom’s boyfriend, whose hand lingered a little too long on my lower back or leg, or the landlord that would key in and rifle through mom’s jewelry. As far back as I remember, I could pick up on the signs. But now I’m forced to admit that if Cal or Charlie have been playing me, I’ve been completely unaware.
We find Ceily engaged in a lively conversation with Father Lowe over Grady Marlow and the salacious ‘rumors’. That’s Keenan’s cue to cut out after a murmured ‘hello there’. My bestie is gone in a flash. I’m interested in the fact that Father Lowe doesn’t make disparaging comments about Grady.
“I’d welcome a conversation with him. I’ve known Grady since he was eight.” Father Lowe pivots to greet me. “Ah, the more hands the merrier.” He claps his hands together. I can’t help but notice as he shows me to the dunk tank where I’ll be facilitating people trying to hit the target and send him into the water, that everyone wants some of his time or attention.
We have half an hour before the carnival is under way, feeling pressed for answers, I start my inquiry, “Father Lowe, can I ask you something. Uh, as a priest?”
His congenial smile widens. “You can call me Father Chris, and yes, ask me anything you’d like.”
“Do you believe in ghosts?” I carefully set the roll of tickets down next to the large bucket of tennis balls. “I mean… do you think they exist?” I grimace slightly at the frog with a middle finger up, that I had drawn on the side of my hand. Should’ve considered the audience I’d have today. I discreetly spit on my hand and rub at it, smearing it enough to cover.
He sits back against the tank, folding his arms, “The Catholic Church urges extreme prudence before ascribing any phenomena to a supernatural force, warning that being too quick to attribute divine origin to explainable occurrences can damage faith and warp belief. However, this is one of the few times where the popular secular perception of something lines up with the accepted position of Catholic theologians and experts. The Catholic Church has no official doctrine regarding “ghosts,” so Catholics are free to have different opinions on the questions, so long as their opinion is in line with Catholic doctrine on the body, soul, and what happens when we die. It is a matter of doctrine that when we die, our soul separates from our body and arrives in Hell, Heaven, or Purgatory. What is unclear is what God permits for souls, as far as appearing to the living, once a soul is in one of these three places. Sorry, that’s a lot… sometimes I get going.” He shakes his head. “Personally speaking, I do believe in spirits here on earth. I see it as a sign from God that more exists for our souls beyond our human forms. Belief in all that is visible and invisible is a tenet of our faith, and in the end, spirits are part of our holy tradition.”
I wasn’t expecting that. I’d figured he’d call it crazy talk, admonish me for such silly ideas, and I could play off everything that I’ve experienced at The Bends since being in Lake Hollow. I find myself almost speechless. My mouth opens and closes a couple of times before I say, “I think our cabin is haunted.” No. I know it is. Even when I told myself that I didn’t believe in ghosts or spirits, I couldn’t explain any of it away.
He raises an eyebrow. “Would you like me to visit and do a blessing? It’s been my experience that some souls linger because they feel a pull here. Tragic unnatural deaths can cause something like that. According to Catholic experts in this area, the way to distinguish between a soul that desires prayers and a demonic spirit, is that souls do not do things that are scary or destructive. While their presence may fill an area with a sense of sadness, they do not illicit fear, although seeing a soul may cause a very natural reaction of fright. Any activity a soul is causing will cease once prayers or Masses are offered for them.”
Sounds about right. I bite my lip before saying, “I’m not Catholic though. I’m not even sure that I believe in ‘God’.” Which seems stupid to say now that I’ve asked his opinion on ghosts. I must believe in some way. A tendril of fear slips through me over what he differentiates between a spirit at unrest and a demonic presence. I’ve experienced both sensations in the cabin, and so has Wilder.
Scary or destructive. That second feeling that has caused me to feel like I’m being smothered, felt threatened. Is there more to all the curses talk in Lake Hollow or am I losing my ever-loving mind?
We continue to set the dunk tank up, as Father Chris says, “Doubt is a normal part of human existence and nothing which we need to be afraid of or run away from, rather it is an opportunity to explore what it means. It’s often children who are more open to religion, than adults who are naturally more skeptical of all things.”
Maybe I should continue to grill him over his mention of a demonic spirit, but I’m terrified of what else he’ll say. There were two very distinctly different energies in the cabin. One, I strongly believe could be Katie Gibson, and the other I have no idea. Plus, sometimes I can’t help my mouth, “You do know that saying kids are impressionable sounds like cult programming, right?”
Father Lowe chuckles. “Any belief system can be compared to a cult, I imagine. What I would encourage any young person to do is study. I can recommend great works by some famous skeptics and theologians alike. Ultimately the relationship you choose to have with the Lord is a personal one.”
It’s easy to forget that Father Lowe is a priest. Dressed in a pair of khaki shorts, a polo, and wearing a backwards baseball cap, he looks interchangeable with any of the dads arriving with their kids. He tosses me the tape for our sign. “How do you like Lake Hollow so far? Aside from the spooky cabin?”
“It has its charms.” Like the four men who call this their hometown. “And characters.” Like my new friends with loud personalities. Leaving for art school will be difficult, the decision made spontaneously, now feels short sighted. But I will come back. My heart will be here in Minnesota and on the road with Romantic Ruin. If our separate lives don’t tear us apart.
Slipping his sneakers and socks off, Father Chris says in a saddened tone, “Yeah… it has its characters. Like Carlotta Marlow. You know her nephew Grady, right?”
“I do. Lala seemed to know everyone here.” The excitement of the kids pulling their parents along and pointing to different booths grabs my attention briefly. The bitterness I used to feel over missing this with my mom has softened and been replaced by wonder. There’s still a possibility I could do this for a child someday and be the grown up I had needed. I think of another question I wanted to ask, “Father Chris, uh… do you, do you know why Carlotta Marlow may have thought that the drownings that happened here weren’t accidental?”
A dark cloud passes over his features, stopping him mid climb into the tank to sit on the bench. “As a matter of fact, this is the second time in the last couple of days I’ve been asked that. I was visited by an investigator yesterday about Lala.” He puts his foot back down, shaking his head. “I told the gentleman that I have an obligation to those I’ve counseled, but I couldn’t identify the specific person regardless.”
Maybe it’s the loud clamor of kids, the bells and whistles, or my growing dread but he’s not making sense to me. He told them something or not? “I don’t follow.”
He leans his side against the tank filled with water. “Carlotta had come to me as a friend not a priest. She shared some information with me. I told her something that I shouldn’t have. Years ago, I’d had a class of twelve-year-olds submit questions about life anonymously to me the year before the suspicious drownings. One of the questions… well, I should’ve stepped in and found out who asked it.” He shakes his head, sighing. “Maybe I could’ve headed off what happened. But I thought at the time it was a bad joke. We’re a community centered around the lake. It was… shocking that someone would ask it. Carlotta didn’t think it was joke.”
Don’t ask him. Just shut up, Remi. “Who was in that class? Can you tell me?” I have the sinking feeling I don’t even need to bother asking. This could be the reason for the suspect list.
A line starts to form for the dunk tank, Father Lowe quickly climbs in while saying grimly, “I told the police, but I’m sorry Remington, I can’t share that with you. Telling Lala was unwise.”