Dead Water (20 page)

“Ohmygosh,” said Zenner. “You got forty-fives in here, Mr. Pradt.”

“Yep, collector’s editions, some of them,” said Ray, walking over to stand beside Zenner. Nothing made him happier than to talk about his record collection.

“You don’t see forty-fives anymore,” said Zenner. “My dad’s got a few.”

“Not like these. I got Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Del Shannon, Johnny Ray, Johnny Cash, Bo Diddley, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline. Whaddaya wanna hear?”

But even as he asked, Ray was punching buttons, setting up his own favorites. The raucous piano of Jerry Lee Lewis blasted through the trailer.

“Can you turn it down a notch?” hollered Lew from the kitchen table where Joel Frahm was hanging over her shoulder to watch Nick work his game. Ray reached behind the jukebox for the volume control, giving Zenner the opportunity he needed to move in quickly and make a few of his own choices.

Osborne wished he had a camera at the sight of Ray and Zenner, one shaking his head in time to the music, the latter bouncing on the balls of his feet. Zenner’s flat-out exuberance caught the eye of his father who looked at Osborne with a pleased smile. Joel edged his way over to Osborne and leaned to whisper in his ear, “This was a good idea, Dr. Osborne. I don’t think I’ve seen my son so happy since we moved here.” He looked at his watch. “I know it’s getting late….”

As if she heard him, Lew looked up. “Doc, I need to get going. What time is it?”

“Ten o’clock,” shouted Osborne over the music, reaching past Lew to tap Nick’s shoulder. “Excuse me, son, would you mind standing up for a minute?”

Nick gave him an odd look but shoved his chair back and stood, looking at Osborne.

“Just as I thought,” said Osborne. “Step over here in the light from the kitchen sink, would you?” He held the expired credit card in his hand.

“I think you have the same exact overbite that Ray does … you might need some work on that. Do you mind?” Before Nick could hesitate, Osborne had tipped Nick’s head from side to side, then, opening his mouth, pushed his lower jaw down by pressing the credit card against his tongue. He peered into the boy’s mouth, looking from side to side while tipping the card each way. “No … I think you may be fine,” he said after a long pause. He pulled the card out of Nick’s mouth and turned to Joel who was watching the procedure—“Let’s keep an eye on this boy, he may need some orthodontics if that jaw continues to grow.”

Osborne gave Nick a friendly pat on the shoulder as the boy sat down again beside Lew.

“Doc? Did you say it was ten o’clock?” Lew stood up and walked toward Osborne.

Osborne motioned to the door, and they stepped outside. Joel followed. The three of them headed down toward the water, away from the blaring music. As they walked onto the dock, the music suddenly eased to a much lower volume. The trailer door opened, and Ray stepped out. He ambled down to join them. As he neared, the music stopped.

“I showed Zenner how to turn it off,” he said. “The boys are playing one last round on the computer.” Even as he spoke, they could hear the two boys hooting and giggling.

“Say.” Ray put a hand on Joel’s shoulder. “I can’t thank you enough for bringing your son out here tonight. He’s just what Nick needs. How ‘bout you and I take those boys fishing. You got plans late tomorrow afternoon?”

“Sounds good to me, Ray. Zenner’s having a great time,” said Joel, dropping the formal Carl. Osborne wondered if this was the first time he had used his son’s nickname.

“Why do they call him Zenner?” asked Lew.

“When we first moved here, he told the kids at school he was a Zen Buddhist,” said Joel.

“You’re kidding,” said Ray.

The dentist shot him a long look. “I wish I were, Ray. How would you like living with a hormone-riddled Zen Buddhist? Not what his mother and I asked for when he was born. Zenner is what the kids at Loon Lake High started calling him, and it’s stuck.”

“How do you practice Zen Buddhism in this neck of the woods, Joel?” asked Osborne.

“Oh, he’s moved on from that,” said Joel. “You’ll need all the help you can get, Ray. I know you’re younger than I am, but kids are different these days. Very different.”

For a moment, everyone was quiet in the soft summer night, the lake a glassy black, the air fragrant with pine. Then Joel spoke, his voice low and mesmerizing, almost confessional, in a rhythm that no one seemed inclined to break.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. “The kid is bright, he’s creative, but he’s just so goddamn goofy. A couple months after we got here, he developed a crush on some girl who was a Wicca. Do you know what that is?” Osborne could feel rather than see his eyes in the dark.

“A witch,” said Lew. “A good witch. Pretty harmless, Dr. Frahm. Quite a few of the girls at the high school are into that. Beats LSD.”

“Well … okay,” said Joel, “but the next thing his mother and I knew, he had books about vampires lying around his room. Now what’s that all about?”

“That was last year,” said Lew. “I think the vampire thing has died down.”

“I can’t believe we’re standing here discussing vampires,” said Osborne.

“You need to work for me full-time,” said Lew. “That’s the tip of the iceberg, Doc.”

“I just wish the kid would be a goddamn soccer player … or an ice fisherman,” said Joel. “Something normal.”

“That reminds me,” said Ray with a chuckle, “I guess I better let ol’ Nick in on the fact I dig graves. Better he hear it from me than one of those razzbonyas in summer school.”

“He doesn’t know?” said Osborne.

“Not yet,” said Ray. “My trailer, the leeches, my wax worms in the fridge … not to mention the phone situation. It’s all been kind of a shock for the kid. Elise did not exactly prepare him.” He stood at the end of the dock, staring up at a half-crescent moon. “I’ll take him out in the boat tomorrow night. I’ll explain it all to him then.”

The adults headed back up toward the trailer, where the door stood ajar. Ray’s kitchen window was open, and the boys’ voices, interspersed with giggles, came through clearly. Lew was walking at the front of the group. A sudden burst of giggling from inside the trailer caused her to stop and listen. They all did. Osborne grinned in the dark. He was starting to feel a little better about Nick. Maybe the kid wasn’t so bad after all.

“Yeah!” Nick’s voice rang out. A brief silence and a few clicking sounds as if the computer were being turned off.

Then Zenner’s voice. “Hey, man, so what’s your thing? Are you a jock or what?”

“Nah. I’m just a bytehead.”

“Me, too. And I’m into Goth.”

“Oh yeah, I got friends into Goth.”

“But you aren’t?”

“Nah. Well … I just moved to my mom’s. I don’t know too many kids at my new school yet.”

“You got vampires there?”

“Some. Pretty subset, y’know.”

“Huh. You got a stepfather?”

“My mom’s got a new boyfriend. He’s on Wall Street. Makes twenty million a year.” Nick’s tone was one of obvious pride.

Zenner whistled. “Guess you won’t be living in a house trailer for long.”

“I gotta be here all summer. Bummer. My mom’s boyfriend is younger than she is. She doesn’t want him to meet me until she’s got him signed, sealed, and delivered.”

Jeez, thought Osborne, what was it Gina had said? Kids today know more than they should. How right she is.

“So what’s Ray to you?” asked Zenner.

Osborne held his breath, acutely conscious of Ray standing right behind him.

“I guess he’s my birth father,” said Nick. “That’s what she says anyway.”

“Did you see the birth certificate?”

“No.”

“I know how we can go on-line and find it.”

That was enough. Lew made a sudden noise to alert the boys of their presence.

Ten minutes later, after the Frahms had departed, Lew, Osborne, and Ray walked slowly up the lane toward the main road. Osborne waited until he was sure he was out of earshot of the trailer. He wanted desperately to say something that would make it right for his friend.

“That was interesting, Ray.”

“Yep,” said Ray. “Well …” He sighed resignedly. “I guess if he’s gotta be here all summer, then he may as well go

home a decent muskie fisherman. That’s all there is to it, Doc. That’s the best I can do.”

“We know folks who pay good money for that,” said Lew.

“Yep. Good night, you two.” Ray walked his loopy walk back toward the trailer, his shoulders drooping and his head down. After watching his friend for a moment, Osborne handed the saliva-marked credit card to Lew.

“At least we know what Elise is up to,” said Osborne once they hit the road. His own drive was just 400 feet ahead.

“Are you surprised?”

“No. You wouldn’t be, either, if you knew the woman.”

They walked on, silence warm between them. Lew’s little red fishing truck came into view, parked in the left-hand space in Osborne’s driveway. Its shadow loomed like bad news. He hated to see her go.

“Got all your gear in the truck?”

“Yep. Thank you for a nice evening.”

As he walked with her to the truck, she paused to open the plate over the gas tank and reach inside for her keys.

“Habit.” She grinned. She reached for the handle on the driver’s side door. The interior light flashed briefly, then she let the door swing closed enough for the light to go out. She turned to face him.

Osborne found himself standing close to her, closer than he ever had. Lew curled her right hand into a small fist and nudged at his arm with her knuckle. Though she was touching him lightly outside his clothing, the sensation was of a stroke significantly more intimate. He couldn’t help moving closer. The moonlight was hazy but bright enough that he could find her eyes. Her gaze held his.

“I had a very nice evening,” he said, wondering why he had to lose control of the English language. Surely he could think of something better to say than repeating her words. Still, she held his eyes with hers, her dark, deep eyes.

Suddenly she lifted her face to give him a quick, impulsive kiss on the lips. A kiss both short and long. A kiss that held for a moment that he would replay again and again. What happened after that was a blur. How she got into her truck he never knew, how he got back to his own house was a blank, too. But he sure knew where he was from that point on: sky high.

twenty-four

“The congeniality and tact and patience demanded by matrimony are great, but you need still more of each on a fishing trip.”

Frederic F. Van de Water, author

Osborne
woke to a gray, miserable day. The chop on the lake was the color of lead, and a stiff, damp wind chilled his bones as he walked onto the dock with a cup of coffee. One sip and he headed right back up to the house. This was not the morning to watch ducks and ruminate on life’s modest pleasures. Scooting Mike along in front of him, he put the dog behind the fence and hurried back into the kitchen to warm up.

Poor Gina
, he thought.
She must be freezing to death.
This was the kind of day the tourists curse: Up for sun and fun, they get winter in June. They would be all over Loon Lake today, crowding the gift shops for trinkets, shopping at Ralph’s Sporting Goods for sweatshirts and rain gear, and packing into the Pub for egg salad sandwiches and chicken noodle soup. Yep, the kind of day to stay warm from the inside out.

A sleepy-eyed Nick literally fell out of the door of Ray’s trailer when Osborne pulled up. At first he thought the kid hadn’t even changed his clothes. The uniform was identical to the night before, though a closer scrutiny showed the actual items of clothing had changed. The shorts were still baggy and dark, but not black. The T-shirt was still oversized and chewed-looking but it was a different shade of purple. The Teva sandals were the same. But from where he was sitting in the passenger seat, the boy did not smell.

Nor did he talk other than to utter a few grunts in response to Osborne’s attempt at social intercourse as they drove into town.
You’re gonna have to shape up if you’re gonna fish in my boat, Sonny
, Osborne found himself thinking. But a flash recall of Lew’s sweet good-bye crowded any opinion of Nick out of his mind for the rest of the seven-minute ride into town.

The sky opened up as they neared the high school, the downpour clouding the view of the building. Nick sat a little straighter in the car as they neared, peering through the cloudburst at clusters of students hurrying along the sidewalk from the parking lot.

Was he relieved not to be dropped off by a battered blue truck with a leaping walleye on the hood and a sign under the grill spelling out in large letters the word Gravedigger? Probably, thought Osborne. Poor Ray.

As Nick prepared to unload his bony arms and legs from the front seat of the station wagon, they heard a shout. Zenner came loping toward them, his face beaming under the hood of a dark green rain poncho and looking for all the world like a satisfied frog perched under a wet leaf.

“Hey, man,” said Nick, stepping into the rain. The relief and happiness was so obvious in his voice that Osborne felt ashamed of his critical attitude toward the kid. Here he was thinking Nick was being deliberately rude when it was more likely the boy had been worried as hell about walking into a strange school all by himself.

“I got you an interview out at the preserve,” said Zenner, splashing as he jumped up and down in his huge sneakers. He leaned into the car to see Osborne. “Dr. Osborne, Dad gave me the car today. If it’s okay with you, I’ll take Nick to work with me and drop him off later.”

“But if this is an interview, shouldn’t I take him back to change or something?” said Osborne. The two boys looked at him like he was crazy.

“No,” said Zenner. “This is fine. He’s got the job, really. I told Mr. Kendrickson Nick knows plenty, and I can show him exactly what to do. So, if you think it’s okay, I’ll have him at Ray’s place by five.”

“Well … sure,” said Osborne, “I don’t see why not. You and Nick and your dad are fishing with Ray tonight, right?”