Dead in the Water (4 page)

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5

My first week of
work went by at a frantic pace. Bill was out of the office, more than he was in it. Phone calls about everything related to swimming, from pool meets, to upcoming swim clinics for officials and coaches, even questions about chlorine—were nonstop.

Although I didn’t make a habit of talking about Dick Waddell, Bill did. I eavesdropped on phone calls between Bill and the insurance company, Bill and the Waddell’s lawyer, Bill and the Waddell family and Bill and the event director.

Things weren’t going smoothly.

The last thing Bill said to a caller about the Waddell death before he bolted out the door to yet another meeting was, “That’s in the hands of the insurance company now. There is nothing I can do. If you think there is a question about the cause of death, maybe you should talk to the doctors again.”

One afternoon, before heading for home, I left work early to pick up a few cartons of tee shirts for an upcoming pool meet. The summer sun was still high in the sky when I pulled into our driveway in San Rafael. Lena was there, intently staring at a computer screen, her fingers flying over the keyboard, creating lines of code.

“You need a break.”

She didn’t look up.

“Take a drive with me. I have to return Dick Waddell’s goggles.”

“I’ve got a deadline for a project. I can’t figure out how to make the interactive part of this website work the way I want. I’ve been trying different things all afternoon.”

“Like I said, you need a break. We’ll be gone for only an hour or two. Your mind will be fresh when we come back.”

“Maybe you’re right. Where are we going?”

As we drove out toward Martinez, I told Lena that I’d checked in with Pamela, Waddell’s sister, to set up the meeting and that she had suggested her brother’s house because she would be there, cleaning up. That was a partial truth. The location was my suggestion. I wanted to get back into Dick Waddell’s house.

“So who is his sister? Does she swim, too?” asked Lena.

“I don’t know about the swimming. But her name is Pamela Matthews. I met her husband when I dropped off Waddell’s swim bag.”

“Right,” she said, already losing interest.

Early evening traffic made the drive almost twice as long. When we pulled up to the home in Martinez, Lena said, “The house looks closed up. Pamela knows we’re coming, right?”

“She does.”

We walked down the pathway around the house to the front door. I rang the bell and went through my ‘one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi’ routine.

“Nobody’s here. Did you get the time right? You said she would be here.”

“I said ‘will be.’”

“She’s not supposed to be here yet?”

“She should show up in about forty-five minutes,” I said, looking at my watch.

“I don’t understand,” said Lena.

“Let’s walk around to the backdoor.” I lifted the latch on the gate of the tall wooden fence and we walked into the empty sunless backyard.

“What are you doing?”

This backyard wouldn’t be featured in any home improvement or gardening magazines. Rusted metal lawn chairs were piled one on top of the other. The grass hadn’t been watered in a long time and it was dried and straggly. At one end of the yard were large dark green garbage bags used for yard clippings. Four of them were brimming over. There was no greenery anywhere, except for the garbage bags. Five cardboard boxes were piled by the back door.

“Not very inviting,” Lena said. “It’s creepy back here.”

I walked up the three steps to the back door and knocked. It was eerily quiet.

“We know no one’s home. Let’s wait in the car.”

“Give me a minute.”

I tried to open the door. Locked. I walked back down the steps and moved over to the kitchen window around the corner from the back door. I couldn’t quite see inside.

“Lena, get me one of those chairs.”

“No.”

“Lena, get me a chair. I need to see what it looks like inside.”

“You do not and I will not.” She sat down on the back steps and crossed her arms.

“I’m cold. There isn’t a spot of sunshine anywhere in this yard. I want to get out of here.”

“Lena.”

“No. If you want a chair, get it yourself. Someone is going to see us. We—make that you—are going to end up in jail.”

“It won’t be the first time,” I mumbled.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing…nothing important. This yard is a dump. Nobody is watching us. Look around. I can’t see any windows from the houses on either side. So they can’t see me or you.”

Lena sat there staring at me. “You said something about jail.”

“No, you did.”

“Trisha?”

I walked over to one of the rusted metal chairs and dragged it back to the window. It almost toppled over on the uneven ground. Not the steadiest of platforms, but I could stand on it and look inside.

In stark contrast to the unkempt backyard, the kitchen was neat and clean. No dishes in the sink. No empty pizza boxes on the kitchen table. I did see two more dark green garbage bags full of trash. It looked like someone, probably sister Pamela, had been there and cleaned up.

Mail was piled on the counter by the sink. Three, maybe four envelopes. I could almost see the return addresses. I jiggled the screen until it pulled off. Then, I pushed against the sliding glass window. It didn’t give. I pushed again harder. A small white plastic lock that held the window shut, popped off and landed in the sink.

“Hmmm.”

“What did you do?”

“I broke the window lock. It was nothing but a cheap piece of plastic. How could that keep anyone out of here?”

“Get down. Let’s go.”

“Just one more minute,” I said pulling the window open and peering inside. “Not a bad kitchen.”

“Are you a decorator now? Let’s go.”

“I need to get in the house, alone, for a few minutes. I want to go through Waddell’s swim bag. There were capsules in a baggie. I didn’t have the nerve to stick them in my pocket when I brought the bag back. If I could find them, Terrel could test them.”

I propped myself against the open window.

“There is some unopened mail right here on the counter. Maybe something from the hospital at Lake Joseph. Maybe an itemized bill. Maybe test results.”

“That’s why we’re here now, isn’t it? You didn’t want her to be here, did you?”

“You’re right, I didn’t want her here. I’m sure there is something inside; something that, I don’t know, that could explain his death.”

The envelopes were just out of reach. I leaned in and stretched out my arm. Another inch of two, that’s all I needed. My fingertips almost, almost touched the pile of mail. I was balancing now on the window ledge. My legs and feet were up in the air outside; the top of my body was completely inside.

Stretch. A bit more. Stretch. Got it. The fingers of my right hand touched the edge of one envelope. I inched in closer until I could get a better grip on it. With the letter in my hand, I slowly moved out of the window. Lena was still sitting on the steps with her arms crossed, staring at me.

“Trish, what do you care? Let’s get out of here.”

“It’s become very important to me, very personal.”

I held the envelope up like a trophy, then turned it over so I could see the return address. It was an advertisement from a local bank.

“Not what I wanted. Not what I wanted at all. I’m putting it back.” The top half of me disappeared, once again, through the kitchen window.

Lena hopped off the steps and lunged at my legs.

“Get out. Now, get out. Trish, I can hear a car coming down the road. Maybe it’s Dick’s sister. Please get down.”

I hated to admit it, but Lena was right. I could spend the rest of the evening trying to convince Pamela, or even worse, a police officer that I meant no harm. Still holding on to the envelope, I pulled myself out of the window, slid it shut, put the screen back in place and climbed off the chair.

A car stopped in front of the house.

Lena and I stared at each other. We looked through a slat in the fence and saw a solid, big-boned, short blond woman get out of a car, pop the trunk open and take out some cleaning supplies.

“Pamela?” Lena mouthed. She looked like she was going to faint.

“Probably, but I don’t know. I never met her before,” I whispered. “When she opens the front door and goes in, I’ll flip up the latch and we will quietly walk toward the car.”

We heard the front door open and shut. Her footsteps moved into the living room. She stopped. We waited. Then she started walking again. That was the cue. I lifted the latch. We crouched down low and snuck out, hiding between the greenery that divided the Waddell home from the next house. Instead of heading directly for the car, which was parked across the street, I grabbed my sister’s arm and led her to the corner.

“Where are we going? Let’s get back into the car.”

“Just a minute.”

We stood there for about thirty seconds. Then, I led the resistant Lena slowly back to the Waddell house, up the winding path to the front door at the side of the house and knocked.

Pamela Matthews opened the front door and stood there with a garbage bag in each hand.

“Two down and I don’t know how many more to go,” she said. “Come in. I was expecting you.”

“Yes. We’re here a little early,” I said.

“You’re the neighbors who called yesterday?”

“No, I’m from the swim office. I called this morning.”

“My mistake. Neighbors have been stopping by to pay their respects. Let me go put these bags into the kitchen.” She disappeared down the hall as we followed close behind. I spotted the pile of mail on the kitchen counter not far from the window.

“Must have been a beautiful yard once,” I said, straining my neck to look out to the backyard. I blocked her view of the letters and dropped the bank advertisement on top of the pile. Then, I inched the mail toward the counter’s edge.

“Maybe before my brother moved in. Dick was no gardener,” Pamela said following my gaze to the back yard.

I pulled the envelopes closer. Lena stood behind me. I turned to her and mouthed, “pick them up.”

She shook her head ‘no.’ She put her hand’s up, traffic cop style, and gave me the smallest of shoves. That’s all it took. The mail fell on the floor.

“Here, let me get that out of your way,” said Pamela as she bent down and scooped up the envelopes, looked at them briefly, then stuck them in her pocket. As she stood up, she glanced into the sink.

“What is this?”

In the sink were two sponges and the small white plastic lock I had knocked off the window. She reached in to pick it up and turned it over in her fingers.

“I didn’t really introduce myself properly,” I said quickly. I held out my hand. “I’m Trisha Carson, from Nor Cal Swimming Association. There was something of Dick’s that I wanted to return. It was left at the Lake Joseph swim. This is my sister, Lena.”

Lena managed a weak smile and a nod.

Pamela led us back to the living room. “Sit down. Let me get you something to drink.”

She placed the narrow piece of plastic on the table. We both just stared at it; then glanced at each other. Lena whispered “This is crazy. Give her the goggles and let’s get out of here. Say you got a call and we have to leave, now.”

Pamela walked back in carrying a tray with tall glasses of lemonade and some shortbread cookies.

“I’ve been existing off this for the last week. No real time or interest in food right now.”

We nodded our heads in understanding.

“So what did you say you are returning?”

“Mr. Waddell’s goggles.”

I put them on the table. She picked them up and turned them over in her hands. A ghost of a smile moved across her face.

“You know when Dick was little, goggles weren’t around yet. He used to come home from swim practice with red, burning eyes all the time. So hard to do his homework. But by the time he was about 17 or 18, right around the time of the 1976 Olympics, they became the thing to have, if you were a swimmer. They were worn at the Olympics in Montréal and records were shattered. The coaches loved them. That meant their swimmers could practice longer. Dick’s goggles made all the difference. His speed increased dramatically.”