The Lake Read online

  “Sorry.”

  “Did you hear any unusual sounds? Last night or this morning?”

  “No.”

  “Nothing.”

  Just before they reached the top of the driveway, Leigh saw the old red Pontiac. Even in the bright sunlight, it looked ominous. It reminded her of that movie Christine. The car in that movie was red, too, but not a Pontiac. It had a life of its own, and she imagined this one starting up with no one inside. It won’t, she told herself. It damn well better not.

  They crossed the road. Squatting, Mace touched the exhaust pipe. Then he peered through the open driver’s window. Mattie, beside him, looked into the backseat. She opened her shoulder bag and followed Mace to the front, where he bent down and inspected the smashed-in areas.

  Mattie took out a notepad. She started writing.

  “The damage appears consistent with the facts of the hit,” he said. He dug a pocketknife out of his pocket, pried out a blade, and scraped at the bent metal grille. His knife point came away with a tiny pile of powder that looked like rust. He fingered it off, rubbed the dust with his thumb, sniffed and tasted it.

  Deana looked at Leigh and wrinkled her nose.

  “We’d better have a crime-scene unit come out,” he said.

  “Then this is the one?” Leigh asked.

  “I can’t say for sure. It’s a strong possibility, though.” He looked over his shoulder at Mattie. “We’ll notify the Tiburon PD. They’ll need to be in on this, but they’ll probably be agreeable to letting our people handle the detail work.”

  “Save a lot of back-and-forth,” she agreed. She hurried across the road and started down the driveway.

  “Doesn’t she need my key?” Deana asked.

  “She can call from the car.” Mace put away his knife. Getting down on his hands and knees, he lowered his head almost to the pavement and looked under the car. Then he stood up. He brushed gravel off his palms.

  “What now?” Leigh asked.

  “We wait for the lab people to do their work. It won’t take long to find out whether the blood down here matches up with the Powers boy.”

  “Shouldn’t somebody search Del Mar?” Leigh asked.

  “This car has been here for hours. He’s long gone. But he left the car behind, and that was a big mistake. It’ll help us nail him.”

  “It’s probably stolen,” Deana said.

  “Undoubtedly. But we’ll get some physical evidence from it. Maybe fingerprints, maybe hair samples, maybe fabric particles. When we run down the car owner, we might find out if he witnessed the theft—if that’s what it was. All this will take time, though. I don’t want you two staying in the house.”

  Leigh felt her stomach flip as if the street had suddenly dropped from under her feet.

  Mace looked from Leigh to Deana. His gaze settled on Leigh’s eyes. “I don’t want to alarm you, but…”

  “You’re going to do it anyway.”

  He smiled a bit. “Afraid so. You know what it means, of course, the car being here.”

  “Exactly what does it mean?” Leigh heard a tremor in her voice.

  “It means, A, the killer knows where Deana lives, and B, he paid her a visit.”

  “Why?”

  “Unfinished business.”

  “Jesus,” Deana muttered.

  “He was here,” Leigh said, “so why didn’t he do something?”

  “We don’t know what he did or didn’t do.”

  “I can think of a couple of things he didn’t do,” Deana said, and tried for a smile. The corner of her mouth trembled for an instant. She licked her lips, wiped them with the back of her hand.

  “He might have left the car here as a message,” Mace suggested. “A warning that he can get to you if he wants. Or maybe he’s toying with you.”

  “Toying?”

  “This guy is not a normal person. He’s probably totally different from anyone in your experience.”

  “You mean like a psycho?” Deana asked.

  “That’s what I mean.”

  “Move over, Norman Bates.”

  “So there’s no telling what he might do.”

  “You think he left it here just to scare us?” Leigh asked.

  “Anything’s possible. But…”

  “They’re on the way,” Mattie said, striding across the street.

  “What were you about to say?” Leigh asked Mace.

  “I think you should check into a motel, unless you have friends or relatives who wouldn’t mind putting you up for a while.”

  “That isn’t what you were going to say,” Leigh challenged him. “It was something about the car and why it’s here. To scare us or what?”

  “It would just be a guess.”

  “I want to hear it.”

  “All right.” He looked uncomfortable. He lowered his eyes for a moment, then met Leigh’s gaze. “That unfinished business I mentioned earlier? I think he came here intending to finish it. Last night. But something went wrong. The car’s still here. I suspect the reason it’s here is because it quit on him. He realized he couldn’t count on it for his getaway. That’s why he didn’t go through with his plan.”

  NINE

  “Do you have a plastic bag large enough for this?” Mace asked, looking down at the thick edition of the Sunday newspaper that lay flat on the stoop, tied with string.

  “A wastebasket liner?” Leigh asked.

  “That’d be perfect.”

  “You want to get one for us?” she asked her daughter. The girl went to the door.

  “Why do you need the paper?” Leigh asked.

  “There’s a good chance your visitor put it here.” He stepped onto the grass, and Leigh followed him along the front of the house. “Maybe he was good enough to leave us some prints.”

  “Can you get fingerprints off newspapers?”

  “These days, you can get them off almost anything. Our lab people have chemicals that interact with the body oils left by…Look here.” Stopping, he pointed down at the flower bed. The soft soil had been mashed down by shoes.

  A glance at Leigh’s feet convinced him that she hadn’t made these impressions. Her feet were too small. And the daughter, who was only a bit taller than Leigh, probably didn’t have feet this large, either.

  The footprints led through the flower bed to the guest-room window.

  Mace looked at Leigh. She was standing rigid, gazing at the ground, the fingertips of one hand stroking her lower lip.

  He felt sorry for her. He could imagine what she must be feeling—scared and vulnerable. The bastard had actually crept right up to her house last night while she and her daughter were inside, maybe fast asleep. Maybe he’d even seen them.

  From where Mace stood, he couldn’t spot any damage to the window or frame. “It doesn’t look as if he tried to break in.”

  “But he could’ve,” Leigh said, “couldn’t he?”

  “It wouldn’t have been too difficult.”

  Leigh shook her head slowly. “It’s just getting worse. What do you…Do you think he wants to kill her?”

  “Either that or take her. I think I mentioned Friday night that he might have some kind of obsession. Maybe he wants her.”

  “God,” Leigh muttered.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll see that he doesn’t get another chance.”

  They both turned toward Deana as the girl approached with a white plastic bag. “What’s up?” she asked. “Did you find something?”

  “He was here,” Leigh said. She pointed to the ground.

  Deana looked at the footprints. “Oh, wonderful,” she muttered.

  “We should be able to get a good estimate of his height and weight from these,” Mace said.

  “Not to mention his shoe size,” Deana added in a quiet voice. She didn’t like the way things were turning out.

  Mace led the way to the stoop. Taking the bag from Deana, he crouched over the newspaper and carefully slipped his fingers under one of its strings without touching the
“Blondie” comic strip beneath. When he raised it, the paper tilted.

  Out of its folds slipped a small, white knob, maybe a bone or a polished rock. It hung at the edge of the newspaper, held in place by a rawhide strip that ran through its center and stayed trapped inside the paper.

  With a ballpoint from his shirt pocket, Mace hooked the rawhide and eased it out.

  The thong was knotted at its ends. It swung from the tip of his pen like a strange, primitive necklace.

  “Mom!”

  Mace looked, saw Leigh with her eyes rolled upward, her knees folding. He sprang at her, thrust his hands under her armpits, and slowed her fall as she sank to the stoop, unconscious.

  TEN

  When she got home late that afternoon, she had a story ready: A purse snatcher had grabbed her shoulder bag when she came out of the movie theater on Market Street, she had fought him off, and that’s how the sleeve of her granny dress got torn.

  One look at her parents and Leigh knew that the story wouldn’t wash. They were standing in the living room like a couple of mannequins left behind in a hurry—Dad sideways near the window, head down and turned her way, one hand on the back of his neck, Mom in front of the fireplace, facing her, the fingers of both hands mashing her lower face. Mom’s eyes were red, accusing. Dad’s eyes were haggard, blank.

  Obviously, they both knew.

  Leigh forced a smile. It felt crooked. “I guess I’m in for it now,” she said.

  Dad’s eyes stopped looking blank. “If you see an amusing side to this situation,” he said in an icy voice, “I would appreciate your filling us in. We fail to see the humor.”

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve put us through?” Mom asked, lowering her hands and clutching them in front of her waist.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

  “You’re sorry,” Dad said. “Well, so are we.”

  “How…how did you find out?”

  “They interrupted the Giants game,” Dad said.

  “My God, how could you do such a thing?” Mom blurted.

  “And there you were.”

  “It made your father physically ill.”

  “I’m sorry I lied. But you wouldn’t have let me go if I’d told you about the demonstration.”

  “You’re goddamn right about that.”

  Leigh cringed. She’d rarely heard her father use profanity.

  “Kids are over there dying, for godsake, and here you are in a getup like some kind of hippie freak, holding hands with a bunch of long-haired creeps who want nothing better than to destroy a way of life—”

  “Nobody wants to destroy anything.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “We just want the war to stop.”

  “I’m not going to debate the war with you. That isn’t the issue.”

  “It is, too.”

  “How do you think Colonel Randolph would feel,” Mom asked, “if he saw how you—”

  “He’d still have his son,” Leigh snapped, “if it weren’t for that murdering bastard in the White House.”

  Dad turned white. He crossed the floor so fast Leigh didn’t have time to move, and slapped her hard across the face.

  She was stunned. Dad had never slapped her before.

  Whirling around, she ran to her room, slammed the door, and threw herself down on her bed.

  She had stopped crying by the time Dad came in. He sat on the edge of the bed. He had been crying, too. He stroked Leigh’s forehead, lightly brushing the hair aside. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “I know. Me, too.”

  “Your mother and I…we try to understand. If we didn’t love you so much, do you think we’d care one way or the other if you were out there?…You could’ve been hurt…”

  “Maybe I was. Did you ask?”

  “No. Were you hurt?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, that’s lucky. How did your dress get torn?”

  “One of the…” She almost said “pigs,” but she didn’t want to start him up again. “A cop grabbed me. But I got away from him. Then I took off. I was supposed to let them bust me, that was the idea, but I figured you and Mom would really hit the ceiling if you had to come and bail me out.”

  “You’re right.”

  “I guess you hit the ceiling anyway.”

  “I spent four years of my life fighting for this country, honey. I can’t help it, but my blood just starts to boil when I see a bunch of pampered kids who never worked a day in their lives spitting on everything that—”

  “Don’t get started, okay?”

  “Burning the American flag.”

  “Dad.”

  “Mouthing off about ‘the establishment.’ My God, it’s the dreaded ‘establishment’ that puts the food in the bellies of these people…I’m the establishment. Me and all the other people who worked our butts off so that our kids could maybe have it a little better than we did. And we’re the enemy? Am I a warmonger? Is Colonel Randolph? Do you think he likes this war? My God, the man’s been devastated by it.”

  “Then he should be out there marching against it.”

  Dad shook his head, sighed. “I would never wish anything bad on you, honey. I certainly hope you don’t have to learn this the hard way. You’re all idealistic right now, and you’re sure that peace and love will rule the world if you just march around and sing a few songs about it. But I’m afraid you’re in for a rude awakening. There are bad people in this world.”

  “Tell me about it,” she muttered.

  “I intend to, whether you like it or not. There are people out there—and governments—that would be more than happy to wipe out you and me and your mother, our country if they’re given half a chance. Guys like your pals Castro and Ho Chi Minh.”

  “They aren’t my pals. Neither is LBJ.”

  He ignored that and went on. “Guys like Charles Starkweather and Richard Speck.”

  She’d heard of Speck but didn’t know who Charles Starkweather was.

  “Do you think your pacifism would work on them? Turn the other cheek on them, and they’ll cut it off for you.”

  “I get the message.”

  “Do you? I doubt it. I think your mind’s been so twisted around by all your long-haired friends that you don’t know which end is up anymore. We’ve been pretty lenient with your weird outfits and anti-everything buttons and staying out till all hours at that place in Sausalito. But we trusted you to have more sense than to get involved in something like this today. We brought you up to know better.”

  “You brought me up to do what I think is right,” Leigh said. “And I think it’s right to protest the war.”

  “Well, you’re mistaken. And it’s high time for a crackdown.”

  “Let me guess. I’m grounded.”

  “At the very least, young lady.”

  “Whatever happened to freedom of speech?”

  “You can feel free to speak whatever you like, but I will not allow you to march with the Great Unwashed and get yourself thrown in jail.”

  “I didn’t get thrown in jail.”

  “Not this time. And believe you me, you won’t get another chance at it. Not while you’re living under this roof.”

  Leigh pulled the pillow down over her face. “Are you done?”

  “We just want what’s best for you, honey.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “You’ll understand someday when you have kids of your own. Now why don’t you get cleaned up for supper. We’ll try to start out on a new foot, okay?”

  “All right,” she muttered.

  When he was gone, she took her robe into the bathroom. She pulled her dress over her head, turned it around, and looked at the buttons pinned to the front. A peace button. One with Uncle Sam pointing, not his finger but a revolver. One read, “Make Luv Not War.” Another, “The Great Society: Bombs, Bullets, Bullshit.” Another, “War is Unhealthy for Children and Other Living Things.” Dad had called them “anti-everything buttons.” He was so blind
. Couldn’t he see that they were pro-peace and -love?

  Leigh let the dress fall to the floor. She moaned from her aches as she bent down and untied the leather thong around her left ankle. The bell strung through it jingled softly. She set it on the counter.

  Reaching behind her neck, she untied the other thong. She held it up and stared at the dangling ornament. She had found the thing in the sand near Point Reyes Station a few months ago. She didn’t know what it was. Maybe that was why she had kept it. The small, rounded thing with one side curled inward seemed too light to be a stone. It looked and felt like ivory. She suspected it might be some kind of shell or fish bone, though its shape was so peculiar that she couldn’t imagine what kind of creature it might have once belonged to.

  It came with a hole through the middle, so she had strung it on a rawhide lace from one of her old hiking boots and made herself a necklace.

  She thought of it as her “sea-thing” necklace. Sometimes as her lucky necklace.

  It hadn’t brought her much luck today.

  She set it down carefully beside the ankle bell and looked down at herself. Pressing in on her left breast, she flattened it enough to let her see the reddish-blue mark across the ribs just beneath it. A police nightstick had done that. The same nightstick, wielded by the same pig, had left a bruise the size of quarter on the jut of her hipbone.

  That fucking Gestapo pig.

  Leigh had seen lust in his eyes when he went at her, ramming low with the end of his stick. He was aiming between her legs. But she moved fast enough so it pounded her hip instead.

  Leigh turned around. She looked over her shoulder at the mirror and saw three strips of bruises across her back. The seat of her panties was shredded and speckled with blood from when they had dragged her by the feet. She pulled the panties down and wrinkled her nose at the sight of her scraped buttocks.

  Yeah, Dad, she thought, tell me about the bad guys.

  Three days later, Leigh was on a TWA flight to Milwaukee.

  From her parents’ point of view, the Bay Area was a hotbed of radicalism. A month with her uncle Mike and aunt Jenny, two thousand miles away from it all, would keep her safe from such influences and give her a chance to learn how people look at things in the solid, down-to-earth Middle America.