Caretakers (Tyler Cunningham) (21 page)

“Of course, Mother. I also remember that Mr. Turner had a fancy new camera with a timer, set it, tripped running back for this photo, and his wife teased him all afternoon, and for years afterwards, every time they came up,” Mike said.

“He was a good sport about it, once he got over the initial embarrassment.” Kitty smiled (
fondly?
) at the memory, before getting serious again, perhaps remembering why we were here, looking at the pictures.

Photo #5 - August 1958

This photo showed a formal dinner in the
great room, with everyone dressed in formalwear, including an uncomfortable and grumpy looking (
and badly shaved
) server. The picture had a stiff and awkward feeling, and it felt as though the people pictured in it were thinking about the older woman at the head of the table. Everything about the picture looked more like one hundred years old than the nearly fifty –five I knew it to be.

“John was so angry at having to help with dinner service. He normally worked outside, keeping the buildings and grounds up to snuff, but we were short-handed that night, and Freddie’s mother insisted,” Kitty said.

Photo #6 - July 1958

“We took the little outboard over to Green Island to go off the rope swing and drink beer,” Mike said. “Dee and I brought Cindy and Lee Taylor, along with Cindy’s boyfriend of the week, Brian something. Also Gale Steuer, who, awkwardly enough, dated and re-dated Lee and I serially during that summer.”

“Anderson, I think it was. Brian Anderson. We knew his parents; sweet boy, dumb as soap. He certainly looks grumpy,” Kitty said.

“As I remember, he was showing off for the girls, and did an unsuccessful flip, landing flat on his back on the water. It nearly split his skin as I remember,” Mike said, smiling with no trace of kindness in his eyes.

Photo #7 - Summer 1957

“Father had some childhood nostalgia about paddling on the Raquette River, and one morning trundled us all off
to Axton’s Landing,” Mike said. “We paddled down to the Crusher (
he noted my curious look and cut himself off
)—it’s the launch for fishermen halfway between the Wawbeek and Tupper—the guide who was supposed to meet us was an hour late, and Father wasn’t going to pay him.”

“There was some shouting between them, as I remember,” Kitty added. “Silly really, it was a spectacular day, and we all went for a swim while we waited, then fed the ducks leftover PB&J sandwiches.”

“Not really the point, Mother,” Mike said.

Photo #8 - Summer 1958

“Gloria Poulsen, and her brother, Monty,” Mike said, sounding happy/impressed to have remembered them.

“His mother hated Montgomery being shortened to Monty. It was a family name that she was inordinately proud of, for some reason,” Kitty said. “Why is Glory so grumpy looking in this picture, Mike?”

“She may have played the worst round of golf in the history of the Saranac Inn Golf and Country Club. We eventually had to beg her to just walk out the rest of the round. I’m sorry Tyler, you don’t seem to be seeing the best of us in these pictures,” Mike said.

“I picked these photos specifically because the people in them looked angry or hateful, I wish there were more,” I said, which left Kitty and Mike looking oddly at me.

Photo #9 - Summer 1957

“Oh, dear,” said Kitty. “Here’s another one showing us and our friends at our worst. The Connors were up visiting, and we paddled down from Floodwood (
Pond
) to Upper Saranac (
Lake
), we had a picnic on that tiny island opposite Fish Creek Bay, and Dan tipped their canoe while getting out. He blamed Timmy and Dan junior for it, and complained about soggy sandwiches for the rest of the day.”

Photo #10 - Early August 1957

“This was a dinner at the Thompsons’ camp, Cayuga, just a few down from Topsail,” Kitty said, looking sideways at Mike. “Everyone had too much to drink that night, and a few people made some offensive jokes about locals.”

Mike’s ear turned red, but he didn’t comment.

Photo #11 - July 1958

“We all stopped at the beach at the end of Middle Saranac (
Lake
), you know the one?” Mike asked. I nodded, not wanting to interrupt the flow of their memories.

“Tim Connors was up again, staying with the Poulsens, and they had all come on the trip with us. Tim cut his foot open on a beer bottle buried in the sand, and fainted at the cloud of blood in the water. We teased him a bit much I guess, judging from this picture,”
he said.

By the time we had finished, I felt that the most promising photographs were numbers two and three, so I circled back to them, addressing both Kitty and Mike, “Tell me more about this guy, the grumpy one on Tommy’s Rock.”

“We weren’t really friends with the Edelmans, never saw them much, except by accident, like this time; both of us arriving at the same time with the kids. There’s an unwritten rule when paddling or hiking, that if someone’s already stopped at a spot, you just pick another one; the Adirondacks is a big place, after all. But the rule is soft at certain places, and Tommy’s Rock is one of them, because the rock face that kids jump off of is kind of a group thing,” Kitty said.

“The Judge is what people called him, even his kids, no idea why,” Mike said.

“He’d been one at one point, early in his career, but then he went back to being a lawyer, better money is what he said when it came up. But he was older than me by at least five years, so he doesn’t fit your ages, Tyler. Also, he couldn’t have known Dee, or the poor Stanton girl,” Kitty offered.

“Yup,” I agreed, but with wheels (
or at least vaguely round things
) turning/clunking/spinning in my head. “Now tell me this person’s story,” I said, pointing to the workman in the background of number three.

They both shook their heads, and then looked at each other to see if the other was going to speak; neither was going to, so Mike stepped up, “I might have seen him at someone’s camp, but he wasn’t full-time at the Taylors. People would often ‘loan’ a caretaker to another camp for a day or a job, with the understanding that what comes around goes around, was my impression, growing up here during the summers back in the 40s and 50s. It’s all changed now, of course.” Kitty was nodding along with Mike’s description.

“It’s funny though,” she added, “I remember this cookout, and nothing awkward or unpleasant happened; like in that picture of the dinner at Cayuga. I can still remember the way I felt when Tommy Thompson got drunk and said some nasty things about local help, and locals in general. This cookout though, at the Taylors, it was just nice and fun, and we did everything ourselves, everyone helping. There was no reason that man would have had to be angry with any of us.”

Kitty just sort of ran down, talking more and more slowly and quietly, and then her chin dropped towards her breastbone. Mike was lost in thought, and didn’t notice for a moment, by which time I’d walked around the table and felt for a pulse (
her breathing was so slight it didn’t move her chest noticeably
). Her skin was hot and dry, but there was a fast pulse beating on the side of her neck, and by that point Mike had noticed, and also stood.

“Should I get her nurse?” he asked.

“No need, I’m sure she’s fine, just tired. I’m sorry to have come so early, Mr. Crocker.”

“Stop it, Tyler. You’re doing exactly what she asked of you, and exactly what I would want if I was in her shoes. Do you really think that you can find out what happened, and who did it to her, to us?”

“I think that I will, and if things go the right way, it should be in the next few days,” I said.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot, Tyler. Dee’s been gone, dead, for so long, I’m not really sure how real my recollection of her is anymore; I just remember the memories and pictures and stories that Mother has shared a thousand times. It’s different for my mother though, and if you can do this for her, I’d be grateful. She’d die, not happy, but at peace, and that’s something. That woman,” he said, pointing to his mother, “had a chunk carved out of her heart, her life, all those years ago. So … is there anything you need?” He was getting expansive, maudlin almost, so I stepped on the moment before we got to a hugging place.

“If you don’t think she’d mind, I might take a few of those chilled Canadian Cokes.”

Mike Crocker smiled at me, waved a hand at the cooler, and went off looking for something/someone, her nurse maybe. I took the Cokes and left, stopping to use the bathroom before I went out to the car.

Stewart’s, Long Lake, 7/18/2013, 9:52 a.m.

I had some idea that there might be someone waiting for me on Route 30 when I pulled out of Topsail, saw a dirt bike pull out of the woods across from the Colgate University camp (
a few schools, Colgate among them, have inherited/purchased great camps on Upper Saranac, and turned them into summer destinations for alumni
). The bike turned onto the road in my direction. It was a much better idea than trying a junker van again, but couldn’t work if I was expecting it … and I was. The driver had an enormous engine block for the size and weight of the vehicle it was being asked to push down the road, and in the first few seconds, he closed on me in a manner that would have been terrifying if I didn’t have the numbers already worked out in my head. I left the Porsche in second gear, pushed the pedal most of the way towards the floorboards, and felt my acceleration curve start to steepen like the bike’s. He was only 50-60 yards behind me when we entered the series of curves that follows the shore of Follensby Clear Pond, and a lifetime of safe and measured driving took over. I slowed a bit, allowing him to catch me by the time we got to the mile of straightaway that would bring us to the gate of the Fish Creek campgrounds. I pushed the gas pedal to the floor and dropped the car into third gear, running the rpms back up close to the redline, and opening up some distance between us (
the bigger engine won out over the lighter bike, at least temporarily
), as I saw an RV pull out ahead of me from the campgrounds. Frustrated, but slowing to avoid a collision with the heavy object in front of me, I took a breath and let my brain chew on the issue at hand.

I stepped on the brakes and almost caught the guy following me (
I had taken the time to check him out in the rearview now, and was nearly certain that it was Left, from the other day
) with my rear bumper. He backed off and then closed again, trying to pass on my left. I swerved towards him and he dropped back again. I slowed down still further, and waited for him to figure it out. I had been swept up in the thrill of a car chase, but this wasn’t one; it was a tiny vehicle chasing a large and heavy one. As long as I kept moving, he couldn’t do anything to me: couldn’t ram me, couldn’t force me off the road, likely couldn’t even drive further before running out of gas. He tried to pass again, possibly like he’d seen in some movie, and I didn’t let him. I slowed even more, and waited for him to get bored; he finally seemed to and turned around, giving me the finger as he called off the lamest car-chase in history. When it was safe/legal, I passed the RV and drove back towards the museum in Blue Mountain Lake.

It occurred to me that if he was not the brains behind the current incarnation of this operation, that they could up their game considerably, and effectively control my free travel in this part of the Park with just a pair of vehicles. A car at the intersection of Routes 3 and 30, just below the bottom of Upper Saranac Lake, and another in the village of Tupper Lake where they split apart again could box me in. (
They could do the same thing along the nearly deserted stretch of road between Tupper Lake and Long Lake even more easily, if they were sure that I would pass through that stretch of road again
). Whichever one saw me could get in touch with the other, and trap me in the middle, or even shoot at my car from a covered location, which would seemingly be much easier. It was unsettling to come up with this solution to their problem of me so easily, and I hoped that they wouldn’t, although I didn’t feel it would be prudent to assume that.

I got to Long Lake, fueled the car and myself, and pointed the Porsche in the direction of Tom and today’s round of research, feeling now a bit nervous about the forced simplicity of travel-routing in the Adirondacks. There is generally only one way, one main road, to get from one place to another, and this could easily be used against me by people who had already proven their willingness to do me bodily harm. I let the Porsche pull me along faster than I might ordinarily have driven, and found myself juking left and right between the white and yellow lines, hoping to spoil a sniper’s aim. Either it worked or I was unjustifiably paranoid, or Left and Right were just a bit slower on the uptake than I was (
none of those made me feel better, so I dismissed the entire line of thinking, and instead focused on the research ahead
).