Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 125, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 763 & 764, March/April 2005
- Автор: Dean David, Dempsey Timothy F.
- Год: 2005
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: ISSN 1054-8122
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 125, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 763 & 764, March/April 2005». Краткое содержание книги:
“You sure?”
I took a breath. “Yeah, I’m sure. I think it’s time.”
She squeezed my hand again, spoke quietly. “Only if you want.”
“I guess I want,” I said. I went into the boathouse, pulled out a wooden bench, and sat down. I patted the worn wood next to me and Angie sat down, too. Behind us oars, paddles, life jackets, and other odds and ends hung from wooden pegs. Shelves were filled with old paint and varnish cans, worn-out batteries, and other debris from years of boating on this lake.
“Thanks,” she said. “My ankles are killing me. So. What do you want to tell me?”
“Everything,” I said.
That summer Patrick Dow was twelve, and even at that age, he knew how special it was, living by a lake. He was an only child, with a second-floor bedroom whose large windows oversaw the wide cove that his home was on, at Lake Woodward. His parents’ bedroom was down at the other end of the hall, the two rooms separated by a spare room his mom, a children’s book illustrator, used for an office. His dad owned a restaurant in town and tried to spend a lot of evenings and most weekends at home, either working on the lawn or the dock or taking the three of them out on a motorboat ride across the wide waters of Lake Woodward. He also belonged to a couple of civic groups, including the town’s planning board and historical society. The town was the same name as the lake, Woodward, and it was pretty small, with a cool downtown that had a couple of ice-cream shops and a video-game parlor.
But living on the lake, there was always more fun — more things to see and do on the lake than anywhere downtown. Pat was right there by the lake when it iced over, and he could skate across the wide coves. He was there in the fall, when the bright leaves were so colorful that when the sun was right, even the water was red and orange and yellow. And he was there in the spring, when the ice melted and the otters played among the ice floes, the mergansers came back, and the first green buds came to life.
Then there was the summer, long and warm and glorious. At the start of this particular summer, before the bad things began, Pat woke up in the middle of the night, comfortable and warm and safe in his bed. The day before had been the last day of school, and he had gone to bed tingly and happy with anticipation of the months of vacation that stretched before him like an endless journey. The idea of school again, in the fall, was as distant to him as trying to imagine what it would be like when he finally got his license and could drive. No, what was ahead for him was months of swimming and fishing and canoeing, pickup baseball games on the town common with his buddies from school, ice cream and barbeques and fireworks, and no homework, not ever, not for a long time to come.
He rolled over in bed. He wondered what had woken him. Sometimes there were noises coming from Mom and Dad’s bedroom, and he was old enough to know what was going on, though he didn’t see what the big fuss was all about. But the house seemed quiet. He looked out the windows. A half-moon was up in the night sky, lighting up the waters in the cove. He could hear the chatter of crickets and the low rhythm of frogs bellowing. Out on the main lake, there came the haunting screech of a loon, calling out to its mate. He shivered. Maybe that noise had woken him. He shivered again, feeling the wind move across his hair and watching it make the drapes move against the wall.
There. That noise. A frantic, low hoo-hoo-hoo of an owl out there, hunting. It gave him a tingly feeling that while he was safe and warm in bed, something out there was being killed. He lay awake, waiting and listening, until he couldn’t hear anything except the soft murmur of a boat engine moving slowly out onto the lake waters. That was when he fell asleep — and a few hours later was when it began, when the first body was found, floating in the cold waters.
In the morning, his mom was downstairs in the small dining room, looking out to the main lake, binoculars in her hands. His dad stood next to her, yawning. “What’s going on?” Dad asked.
“I see lights, over there near Twombly Cove.”
“So?”
“Red lights. And blue ones, too.”
Dad stood next to her, quite close. Pat said, “Police? Is that it?”
“And the Marine Patrol,” Mom said, her voice quiet.
“Let me see,” Pat said, and his mom turned and was going to say something when his dad gently took the binoculars from her hands and passed them over to Pat.
“Henry,” she said sharply.
“It’s all right,” he said. “Let the boy look.”
Pat took the binoculars and brought them to his face. He adjusted them to fit his eyes and saw the low-slung Boston Whaler of the Marine Patrol, close to shore, two conservation officers standing by the gunwales, looking over the side. A police cruiser and ambulance were by the low brush on the shoreline, near a vacation cottage that was still boarded up. He could barely make out the people by the shore, who looked like they were waiting for the conservation officers to do something.
“My turn, sport,” Dad said.
He gave up the binoculars to his dad’s strong hands, and Dad looked out to the lake water. Mom stood still, arms crossed. Dad sighed.
“What is it?”
“A body,” Dad said. “They’re pulling out a body.”
Mom put a hand to her face. Pat couldn’t help himself; he smiled. Maybe he could get down to his canoe and with some serious paddling, make it out there while—
It was as if she could hear his mind working. She turned quickly and said, “Don’t even think about it.”
“Hunh?” Pat asked.
“I said, don’t even think about going out there. You’re staying right here, mister.”
“But I was going to go fishing before breakfast, Mom, c’mon.”
Dad lowered his binoculars. “Tell you what, bud. You can go fishing, but don’t leave our cove. All right?”
“Dad, I was thinking about—”
Dad said gently, which was sometimes scarier than when he raised his voice, “Not negotiable, Pat. Our cove or noplace.”
He nodded. Dad handed the binoculars over to Mom, who shook her head and went into the kitchen.
Later in the morning, he was out in his canoe, fishing. The canoe was bright red and was comfortable, with two seats made of woven leather strips. At his feet was his tackle box, and in his hands was his Shakespeare fishing pole, hanging over the port side. It was still early in the morning and he hadn’t had breakfast yet, but that was fine. It was fun to be out on the water by himself, before the water-skiers and the party boaters and everybody else got up and started playing in the waters of Lake Woodward. The cove he was in was a small one, compared to other big coves in the lake. Including his house, there were three houses in this cove — meaning people who lived here year-round — and four cottages that were only opened up after Memorial Day, and were rented by the week or the month.
But even with the homes and the cottages, the cove was quiet. It was still pretty early. When he had first started drifting along the shoreline, faint wisps of mist had hung there, like see-through shower curtains, but now, the mist had gone. He had cast and recast his lure over the past hour, slowly drawing the fishing line back in, listening to the faint click-click-click of the reel doing its work. He looked over to his house. Mom was probably upstairs working while Dad was probably getting ready to head into town, to the restaurant. By now the canoe had drifted out near the waters of the main lake. He looked over at the cove where the Marine Patrol boat was still moored, and the lights of the police cars and the ambulance still flashed.
Another look to the house. Mom and Dad could be looking at him right now, or they could be busy... Would it hurt to paddle over, just a little bit, toward the other cove? He lifted up his paddle and then heard Dad’s voice again, in his head: Not negotiable, Pat. Our cove or noplace. And the tone of Dad’s voice told him everything he needed to know.