Chapter 24
I WAKE IN THE MORNING TO THE SOUND OF TRUCKS OUTSIDE.
MY WINDOWS don’t face the front, so I can’t tell where they are exactly or what they’re doing here.
Probably related to the lake search. I dress quickly and head downstairs.
Alex stands at one of the tall front windows, his hands on his hips.
He doesn’t turn at my approach but speaks as if he knows I’m there.
“I have a lot of work to do today. I don’t know if I can write with all this noise.” He turns in my direction. “I just made coffee, Emma.” He tips his head toward the kitchen.
“Good. Thanks. I can use a cup.” I stand next to him, peer out. The lake looks quiet, deceptively serene maybe, no vehicles or search boats in view. “Where are the trucks, do you think?”
“I don’t know. Lake’s not that big. Maybe they’re starting at the end closest to the entrance, at the swamp.”
The front door opens. “Alex?” Ruth calls. “There you are.” She twines her hands together. “Well, it’s started. I wonder how long they’ll be out there?”
“Guess we’ll see. I hate having all those outsiders here at Cheshire Lake. I feel like our little sanctuary is being violated.”
“I sent Larry down to keep an eye on them,” Ruth says.
Sunny appears in the doorway, a mug in her hand. “This should be fun.”
A car pulls up and Detective Bellman exits the vehicle and heads toward Ruth’s house. She goes to the front door and hollers that she is over here.
We sit in the front room while Detective Bellman stands in the center. “Just wanted you guys to know that we’ve started at the lake. I told everyone to keep the entryway clear. We left the gates open because we need to be able to get in and out with our equipment.”
Sunny huffs out a breath, sips her coffee.
“Do you think you’ll really find anything, Tom?” Ruth asks.
“We hope so.” He runs his hand through his thick white hair, then pulls a notebook out of his pocket. “We’d like to talk to everyone again.”
“Have you spoken to Donald and Kitty?” Alex asks.
“I called them, but they’re in New York. They told me they haven’t been up to the lake house in at least six months, so the Coles are pretty much off my list. They weren’t here when Simon was killed.”
“Noah was,” Sunny says. We all look in her direction.
“I’ve talked to him. You have any reason to call him out, Sunny?”
She shrugs. “Well, we all know that the Coles want to sell more of their land and”—she shoots a glance at Ruth—“none of the rest of us want that, Detective.”
“I know that,” he says, making a mark in his notebook.
“We’ve all gotten along here at Cheshire Lake for generations until now,” she adds.
This all seems odd to me. Noah, like the rest of us who were here at the time, is a suspect.
I get that. But Sunny is deliberately trying to shift the investigation in Noah’s direction, and Alex and Ruth are sitting silently by.
Do they know something I don’t? But I can’t believe Noah had anything to do with a murder.
“That all?” Detective Bellman asks, pins Sunny in her seat with a stern stare. “You know anything else?”
Sunny purses her lips. “It’s all I can think of. Who else had it in for Simon? With him gone, maybe the Thompsons and Coles thought Ruth would cave and sell.”
Ruth raises her eyebrows. “Not a chance I’ll sell! But the Coles and Thompsons are certainly worth looking into. I wonder about Dale. Why would Aubrey just take off like that? She hasn’t been found, has she?”
The growl of a truck engine resonates from outside and the detective glances over his shoulder. “No. We haven’t been able to locate Mrs. Thompson. If any of you hear from her, let me know.” He stuffs his notebook in his coat pocket and heads to the front door.
Just after the detective leaves, Larry walks in. His nose is red from the cold, his head covered with a gray fisherman’s hat. He wipes a leather-gloved hand across his mouth.
“They’ve got quite an operation going.” He points over his shoulder in the direction of the lake.
“Where’ve they started, Larry? We can’t see them from here,” Ruth says.
“Down at the swamp.”
“The dive team here?” Alex asks.
“Naw. Just some guys in a little boat. I asked a gal with the police department what they were doing, and she said they were using sonar to go through the swamp. Guess they’ll bring in divers when they get out into the open water, unless they find what they’re looking for in the swamp.
” He sniffs, his gaze shoots to Sunny, who’s curled up on the sofa, on her phone.
“Got any coffee, Alex? It’s cold as a bitch this morning. ”
“Yeah.” Alex tips his head. “Fresh pot in the kitchen. Any media there?”
Larry stops halfway to the kitchen. “Not that I saw. Not yet anyway.”
“That’s a relief,” Sunny says, pushing herself up from the sofa. “I’ll be upstairs,” she says to Alex.
In the afternoon, my curiosity gets the better of me and I slip outside.
The sun is shining for a change, and I drink in its weak fall warmth as I walk the lake road.
The sound of vehicles gets louder as I approach the end of the lake.
Men and women in mud-caked boots stand beside a truck, drinking from water bottles and wiping sweat from their faces.
Despite the cold temperatures, theirs has been grueling work.
I hang back in the trees, observing the laughter and interplay between workmates.
And wonder what, if anything, they’ve found.
I creep forward, sticking to the tree line, not sure if they would have a problem with me being here.
I see a tarp laid out on the shore. Two men are standing near it as if on guard.
One of the men holds a clipboard. It looks like it’s covered with junk, bottles, cans, an old fishing pole, all the detritus you’d expect to find in a swamp, and all covered in mud and green slime.
I wonder if there is anything on the tarp that has aroused their suspicions.
Anything that looks like it could’ve been used to kill Simon.
Detective Bellman, who has discarded his heavy coat, moves toward the group standing around the truck. He says something that has them putting down their water bottles and walking back to the little boat at the edge of the swamp.
As I turn to head back to the house, I see a news truck, a white van with the channel’s logo printed in bold colors on its side coming up the road. It stops by the police vehicles and parks in the grass on the road’s shoulder. It’s a good time for me to leave.
I decide to go into town and drop off Mary’s camera.
I wasn’t sure if anyone developed film anymore and was surprised to find that the local drugstore still did.
And I’m anxious to get away from Cheshire Lake for a while.
The trucks are still lining the road as I drive past. I see a woman holding a microphone standing next to Detective Bellman on the lake’s shore not far from the swamp, where people in reflective vests are busy at work.
Evansport is crowded with tourists, and the drugstore has its share of what look like out-of-towners filling the aisles, maybe looking to pick up forgotten toiletries or drinks and bags of snacks.
I make my way to the counter, where a sign indicates film processing.
Holding Mary’s small camera in my hand, I hesitate.
Am I violating her privacy? Even though she’s long dead, she hadn’t developed the film.
Why not? Maybe she died before she had a chance to do it, or maybe she didn’t want the pictures printed after all for some reason.
In any case, I pause, wonder, when a tall, teenage boy in a red vest asks me if I need help. I nod and hand him the camera.
He whistles. “I haven’t seen one of these in a while.” His teeth are perfect, as if he’d spent the last ten years in braces, but his brown hair is a wild nest.
“But you can develop it?”
“Yeah, we do that. Fill out the envelope.” He points to a stack on the counter next to a pen with a big pink feather taped to it.
“Do you think the pictures will turn out? It’s really old.”
The kid purses his lips. “They might. I had a customer last year that found a bunch of disposable cameras in his grandma’s closet.
He brought them in and when they came back, he said they turned out okay.
He showed me one of the pictures. It was of him when he was a baby.
It was a little grainy and the color was weird, but it turned out okay for being so old. ”
“I guess it’s worth a try then.”
“Yeah.” He shrugs. “Can’t hurt.”
As I leave the store, step out into the cold, a woman stops me. She’s young, long dark hair and lots of makeup. “Emma Shrader?”
“Do I know you?”
“I’m Destiny Barnett. I work for an online news outlet.” I start to turn away when she touches my arm. “Please, just a few questions.”
“I’m sorry. I have nothing to say.” Sunny’s admonishments about talking to media flow through my mind. As much as I don’t want to heed anything she has to say, I don’t want to hurt Alex.
“I’m interested in you, your background. What are your plans here in Evansport?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, I understand that you are Alex Spencer’s daughter. That you showed up out of nowhere basically. How did it feel to find out that your father is an internationally renowned author? That must’ve come as a shock.”
I lean back against the side of the drugstore building. “How do you know about me?”
She blinks her false eyelashes, and I shudder wondering if I’m on camera. I glance over her shoulder and see no one holding up a phone or other recording device. That’s good at least.