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:
Today it was humid, with the rain falling steadily, and the restaurant was pretty busy. He wiped his hands on the apron and went looking for Dad, to see if he could take a break, and Dad was in his upstairs office, talking to some guy. The guy didn’t seem happy.
Pat could barely make out what the two of them were saying. The guy had a loud voice, but Dad was speaking real low, low enough that Pat couldn’t catch what he was saying.
The guy said, “...should be on the agenda for a final vote, and you know it...”
Dad said something and the guy shot back: “...just another delaying tactic, and you know it. That development’s going in...”
Another murmur from Dad, and the guy’s voice changed a bit, as if he was pleading: “...screwy going on, and the funding just might...”
He strained and strained his ears, but he couldn’t make out what Dad was saying. He could have moved in closer, but the thought of Dad and the guy catching him, well, he didn’t like that at all. Pat wiped his hands on the soiled apron and went back to the dishwasher.
The day after he saw the man in Dad’s office, he walked by his Mom’s office, where she was sitting in a special chair that could be raised and lowered with lots of switches and levers. Mom had warned him never to touch that chair, and after one unfortunate incident two years ago that ended up with Mom falling backwards onto her butt, he had always listened to her.
Today she was hunched over her large artist’s board, sketching what looked like a toad piloting a rocketship. Sometimes he liked to watch her work, watch how she sketched something out based on the writer’s story, and if Mom was in a goofy mood, she would sometimes make a quick sketch of him or Dad. Two of those sketches were framed and were hanging on the wall, and that was the neatest part of the office. Other sketches were there as well, all of them showing Lake Woodward. Everything else was a pile of papers, boxes, books, folders, sketches, and overflowing wastebaskets. Dad called Mom “Miss Pack Rat of Lake Woodward” and Mom laughed and never disagreed. Every other week, Mrs. Beaudoin came in to clean the house, and she was forbidden to touch anything in Mom’s office. There had been another unfortunate incident last summer, when Pat had refused to clean his bedroom. After all, he had said, Mom’s room was messy. Why couldn’t his room be messy? And with that, Dad had taken the canoe out and chained it to a tree. Pat went to work that afternoon cleaning his bedroom, and the canoe had reappeared at the dock the very next day.
Today when he stopped in to see what she was doing, Mom folded her arms and looked out at the lake before she turned to him and smiled. He walked over, and she rubbed his head. “Going out fishing today, bud?”
“Don’t know,” he said, now realizing that he was beginning to hate to have his head rubbed. “There might be thunderstorms coming through. I don’t want to get wet.”
“Sure,” she said, and then she hugged him with her strong arms, and he didn’t know what to say. But Mom just smiled and said, “You’re a lucky boy, to live right here. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yep.”
“And your Dad works very, very hard to make sure you have this nice place.”
“I know.”
“Good,” she whispered, squeezing him again. “Don’t you ever forget it.”
Dusk on the cove, and Pat was miserable. He had forgotten to bring bug repellent and half the time he was fishing he was slapping at either mosquitoes or black flies. He knew he could have paddled back in, but Mom sometimes had the bad timing to grab him when he came back to dock, to do the dishes or mow the lawn or weed the garden. So he stayed out, casting and recasting, and didn’t catch a thing.
He scratched at the back of his neck, saw one of those low-slung and powerful fishing boats out on the main lake. Those boats were mean-looking, with big, booming engines that could get them to the other side of the lake within ten minutes, when it would take him three hours to do it in a canoe. There were two guys in the fishing boat and they waved at him. He waved back.
Pat drew in the line, waited, drew it in again, and then—
Something tugged at the line. He waited, then pulled in tight. Something seemed to fight against the line and he tugged again, and the tip of the fishing pole bent over. Finally!
He reeled in the line slowly and steadily, feeling his heart thump just a little bit. He wondered what he might have caught. Pickerel, maybe, or a bass. Or a trout! Just a few seconds more, and he leaned over the side of the canoe, looked into the clear waters, and then—
Sat down.
“Damn it,” he whispered, knowing that while sound carried out on the water, he had said it quiet enough so Mom couldn’t have heard him. He shook his head and pulled in the line, holding up his trophy for the world to see: a broken pine branch with soggy needles, which had probably sunk to the bottom a week or two ago. He undid the line and the hook and was going to throw the damn thing back, and then, thinking better, dropped it on the bottom of the canoe. If he threw it back into the water, there was a chance he might catch it again tomorrow. Or next week. Or even next month.
God. Next month. A whole month could go by and he’d still be stuck in this cove, while the grownups tried to figure out what was going on with the lake and those dead people. He had read the newspaper stories about the whole thing and there was nothing there that Dad hadn’t said before: an old man and an old woman, not from around here (since nobody had reported their grandpa or grandma missing), and who had been dumped in the water after they had died.
A tickle at the back of his neck and he slapped back there again. He was hungry and tired and there were probably a good half-dozen fresh bug bites on his neck, arms, and legs. Time to head back in. He reeled in the lure and snapped it in place on his fishing pole, and gently placed it down on the canoe’s bottom, next to his trophy pine branch. He picked up the paddle, started heading back home, and then he let his strokes slow down. Something didn’t seem right.
Mom and Dad were by the boathouse, and it looked like... well, it looked like they were arguing. Arms were being waved around and Dad’s face seemed red, and Mom looked like she was about to cry.
Pat stopped paddling. What to do?
Another slap on his arm. The bugs were getting worse, and he bent down and resumed his paddling, not liking what was going on there, not liking it at all, but maybe it had been his imagination, for when he got to the dock, they were both smiling. Dad helped him tie off the canoe and Mom helped him with his tackle box, and they both laughed at him when he showed them the pine branch he had caught.
“I don’t know why you’re laughing,” he said. “I’ve got feelings, too, you know.”
And Mom and Dad had laughed again, with Mom kissing the top of his head, and Dad rubbing his shoulder.
Early morning, in bed. He yawned and stared up at the white plaster ceiling. His arms still itched but all in all, he had slept okay. Sometime during the night, another noise had woken him, but it had just been the murmur of a boat engine, that’s all, out there doing some night fishing or something. He looked over at the digital clock. Just after four-thirty in the morning, and look how light it was out there! He scratched his arms and rolled over, thinking that maybe he’d get back to sleep and get up with Mom and Dad at six-thirty, get some more fishing in before breakfast and—