Green Lake (3 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

Eris stopped by the log cabin on his way out the next morning and got out of his truck to pick up the box of kittens on the front porch. He paused when he saw nothing inside but a bowl and two towels. He thought of knocking on the door, but it was early yet, so he walked back to his truck and climbed inside. He would stop by during lunch and pick up the kittens.

It was a point in her favor that she got the tag number. Most people wouldn't be so alert. Eris had the piece of paper she had given him in his pocket. As far as he was concerned, the people who dumped the animals were no better than criminals and would be treated as such.

Before he made it down the hill he spotted something on the lake that made him curse and step hard on the truck's accelerator. A boat was on fire, the people inside moving frantically away from the black plumes of smoke that billowed from the engine and polluted the morning sky. Eris radioed the location of the boat to the nearby lake office of the Department of Wildlife and Parks and learned another crisis was unfolding. A young father had taken his three daughters fishing before dawn and returned with only two of them. The smallest of the girls had wandered off somewhere in the dark and was now missing from the dam-site area.

“How old is she?” Eris asked into the mike.

“Just turned three,” was the answer.

Eris exhaled and asked what she was wearing.

“Yellow sweat-suit and a blue windbreaker. Blonde hair and blue eyes. Her name is Kayla Michelle Lyman. Dale Russell showed up this morning and took a boat out. He's over there right now. I'll radio him about the fire and tell him you're on your way.”

Eris replaced his mike and pushed the truck forward, wondering what went on in the minds of men who took little three-year-old girls out near a dam site when it was still dark and then took their eyes away for even one second. There was no telling what had happened to her.

Dale looked relieved when Eris arrived at the dam site and got out of his truck.

“Shit's started early this year,” Dale muttered in greeting, and the thick-chested, dark-haired officer was only too happy to take his boat out and check on the fire, while Eris was left to deal with the frightened parents and siblings of the missing little girl. The girls began to cry when Eris said hello to them. The mother moved protectively near her children, while the father stuck his hands in his pockets and said, “What're you gonna do?”

“Bring in some more people and begin a search. Where was she the last time you saw her?”

The man pointed. “Right there on the bank with her sisters. They weren't payin' any attention and didn't see her wander off. I was castin' over there toward the dam and wasn't lookin' at her, either. Where you gonna get more people? You talkin' about the State Patrol?”

Eris was thinking more along the lines of the Lions Club group partying at the shelter on
Diamond Bay. There were dozens of men in the group, good Samaritans every one, and he could have them here within the hour. He walked back to the truck and radioed his plans to the lake office, then he placed himself behind the wheel and told the family to stay put. He would be right back.

“Keep yelling her name,” he suggested as he backed the truck out.

The mother and father exchanged a glance and Eris could see he hadn't given them much hope. He was doing what he could, the same plan the sheriffs deputies would implement once they arrived.

As expected, the Lions Club group was only too happy to come and help search for the little girl. They came out in droves, half of them in boats and several on jet skis and four-wheelers. Eris drew a grid for them and showed where to begin the search. The father joined in and the mother took her two other daughters back to their campsite to wait. Dale Russell returned after towing the burned boat to shore and writing up the owner for not having a fire extinguisher on board. No one was hurt, but the boat was in bad shape.

Russell joined the other boaters in the water to search and Eris coordinated the groups on land. By six o'clock that evening the searchers were tired, hungry, and losing hope fast. The father of the girl finally lost control and sat down on the ground and cried. Several tried to comfort him, but his sobs went on and on, as if a valve had been turned on somewhere inside him and the pain was running as thick and hot as the blood in his veins. When darkness came he was silent and still and watched with dull eyes as the weary volunteers drifted off to their campsites. The sheriffs deputies had arrived to officially begin their search. Divers would be brought in at dawn the next day, as well as a trained dog.

Eris took the father back to his campsite and stayed with him a few minutes. The motor home in use was at least twenty years old, with rust spots and what looked like tar adorning the surface. Wet clothes hung on a makeshift clothesline made out of rope and tied between two trees. The two little girls eyed Eris warily as he approached with their father. The wife, apparently blaming her husband for losing their little girl, refused to speak to her man. She gave Eris an apple and thanked him for doing what he could. He assured her the search was not over, and that dawn would see more teams at work. She thanked him again, her voice small and quiet and Eris left them to return and go over the continuing activities with the deputies.

“Damned stupid, you ask me,” said one of them. “I got a three-year-old, and I ain't even thought about takin' him fìshin' yet.”

“They have any more kids?” a deputy asked Eris.

“Two girls,” he answered.

“Besides the one that's missing?”

”Yeah.”

“Well, hell, they still got two, then, don't they? That's something.”

We're not talking about sheep or cows here, Eris wanted to say. Instead he turned on his heel and walked to his truck. His stomach was growling fiercely, and he reached for the apple the missing little girl's mother had given him. He took a bite and started the truck's engine, wondering if he had anything in the house to eat. He hadn't been to the store in two weeks, and his shelves were as empty as his refrigerator. He had eaten the last of his sandwich meat last night.

At home he had just stepped out of his truck when he heard Sherman Tanner calling to him. He looked over his shoulder and saw the reedy Tanner hurrying up the hill, jerking his little dog along behind him. Eris drew a breath and stood to face his neighbor.

“Did you find her?” Tanner asked.

Eris didn't have to ask how Tanner knew. Tanner always seemed to know. Eris suspected he had a radio tucked away in his cabin somewhere.

“No, we didn't find her.”

“Three years old?”

“Yes.”

“Tragic,” said Tanner with a tsking sound. “Just tragic. How are the parents holding up?”

“As well as can be expected, Mr. Tanner. Please excuse me.”

“Going back out again tomorrow?”

“The search will continue, yes. Goodnight, Mr. Tanner.”

“All right, then,” said Tanner, and he grudgingly turned to make his way down the hill again.

Eris went inside and headed for the kitchen, where he spied a carton of eggs in the back of the refrigerator and found four eggs intact inside.

He ate the eggs scrambled while standing over the stove, and when the skillet was clean he dragged himself into the shower and scrubbed away at the insanity of the day. The warm spray was soothing, but did little to erase the memory of the father's loud, aching sobs or the mother's haunted eyes.

As he turned off the water Eris suddenly froze as what sounded like a cry reached his ears. He waited, holding his breath, trying to hear it again.  His long black hair dripped water down his back and over his shoulders as he stood listening. When it came again he snatched up his briefs from the floor and hurriedly stepped into them before jerking open the bathroom door and heading for the living room. He rushed out the front door and promptly fell face first over a box sitting on his porch. He stubbed his toe hard enough to bleed and scraped both knees on the hard concrete edge of his porch before falling off into the grass.

“Shit,” he hissed in pain. Then he heard the mewing of the kittens in the box. The cries he had imagined.

“Sorry,” said a nearby voice, and Eris jerked as he realized Madeleine Heron was standing to one side of the porch and looking at him.

She didn't sound sorry.

“I thought I'd bring them to you,” she said, and the unspoken part was,
since you didn't come and get them.

Eris got off the ground and tried not to hobble onto the porch. His big toe was covered with blood and his knees stung. “I came by this morning but they weren't in the box,” he told her through gritted teeth.

“I had them in the house with me. I'd like to, but I can't keep them. I can't afford to feed them.”

“Will you keep them one more day?” Eris asked as he sat down to look at his toe. His wet hair fell across his face and he pushed it back again. “I can't get to them tomorrow. I'll be busy elsewhere.”

“The missing little girl?”

Eris looked up from the attempt to examine his toe in the darkness. “How did you hear?”

“I went to the post office at Green Lake today. A woman inside was talking to another woman. They heard about it from the wives of two of the Lions Club members out searching.”

Eris made a face as he pulled away a piece of loose flesh. Half his damned toe had been shredded. Wearing a shoe tomorrow was going to be a test in pain tolerance.

“I'll come and get the kittens as soon as I can,” he said as he got to his feet once more, and it was only then he realized he was wearing nothing but a pair of briefs. He quickly looked at her, but she appeared undisturbed by his state of undress. He turned to the box with a jerky movement and felt his wet hair cover his face once more. He tossed it back and saw droplets land on her cheeks. She calmly wiped them away and held out her hands for the box.

“If you find something else to do with them before I get to it, feel free,” said Eris.

“Like what? Drowning them in the lake? I thought you had somewhere to take them, like a nearby animal shelter, otherwise I would never have bothered you with this.”

When he made no immediate reply, she dropped her hands and said, “Well? Do you have somewhere to take them or not?”

Her apparent exasperation angered him, and he chose not to respond to her. Favoring his injured and still bleeding toe, he turned and went inside the house, closing the door firmly behind him.

He heard what sounded like an unladylike snort and a muttered utterance of some sort before she turned to carry the box up to the log cabin.

Like he didn't have enough to worry about without her selfishly dumping kittens on him that had been dumped on her. There was a county animal shelter, but he wouldn't have time to deal with it tomorrow. He had other items on his agenda to worry over, things these people appeared too stupidly cruel to care about. Sherman Tanner was bad enough, but now to have Madeleine Heron looking down her straight white nose at him.

For the first time since his arrival, Eris considered finding another place to live. Somewhere away from other people, like he had dreamed as a youth. He had chosen the job of conservation officer because of the time spent alone. Most days he spent hours by himself, speaking only to those he stopped for a license or permit check. Summer on the lake was different, and as Dale Russell said, the shit had started early this year.

Eris looked down as he made it to the bathroom and he cursed loudly when he realized the blood from his toe was dripping on the floor and making large blots on the rug. He had probably left a trail all the way from the front door.

The thought of a trail yanked his thoughts back to the coming day. He took disinfectant and bandages out of the cabinet and sat down on the toilet lid to doctor the toe, telling himself the pain he was feeling was nothing compared to what a certain mother and father were going through that night. It couldn't be.

CHAPTER FIVE

Ronnie Lyman and his wife Sheila sat on lawn chairs and looked at each other. Ronnie was drinking his last beer, so he took his time sipping out of the can and holding the beer in his mouth before he swallowed. When it was gone, Ronnie tossed the can behind his back and wiped his mouth with the rolled-up sleeve of his work shirt. Sheila got up when she heard a whimper from one of her sleeping girls then she came and sat down again in the lawn chair next to Ronnie.

“You think she's all right?” she asked.

“Yeah, I'm pretty sure.”

“I know she's missin' us. You know how she is.”

“She'll be okay.”

‘‘Your mama doesn't always eat right. I hope she remembers to feed her regular.”

“She'll feed her.”

“You sure no one saw?”

“Kelsey and Kendra didn't see, did they?”

“No. But I feel bad about scarin' ‘em. Don't you?”

“Better'n havin' 'em blow it for us, ain't it?”

“I guess. How come no one came out today?”

“‘Cause the law keeps these things quiet as long as they can, so no nuts'll come out and claim they got her or anything. Somebody'll be out tomorrow, just you wait and see.”

Sheila sat and thought about that as the cool night air brought goose pimples to her bare arms. She looked at her husband and wondered about asking him to shave, since they were going to be on TV and everything. Ronnie was looking pretty grungy lately, and she was out of shampoo herself. Last night she had used a bar of ivory soap on the girls' hair, but couldn't get Ronnie to wash his thinning, reddish blond mess.

“Who?” she asked finally. “Who d'you think'll come? Think they'll send the gal from channel twelve?”

“Maybe. Her or that other guy, the one with the hair that sticks out on both sides.”

“I don't remember everything you said to say,” said Sheila.

“You will,” Ronnie told her. “I'll be right there.”

“But what if they come while you're out lookin'? You gotta go out and look again, Ronnie. Wouldn't seem right if you didn't.”

“Yeah, you're right. Well, if I ain't there, just remember to say that you never thought times could get much worse for us. Say your husband done got laid off, you lost your house ‘cause we couldn't make payments, and now we lost our little girl.”

“What about our campin' permit? Should I say somethin' about that? About how our twenty-eight days is up tomorrow, and how we just can't leave until we found our little girl?”

‘‘Yeah, you better tell about that. How we been livin' out here and makin' do as long as the park would let us.”

“Should I say how we come here from doin' the same thing at Toronto Lake? And Cheney Lake before that?”

”Nah, better not. It'd make us look bad. We ain't no white trash, we're just tryin' to get by the best we can.”

“What if—”

“Sheila, don't start with that again. Ain't no one goin' to find out if you keep your mouth shut. We'll get on TV and tell our story, and maybe somebody'll start a fund for us or somethin'. Next Tuesday or so, maybe Wednesday, Mom'll drop Kayla off at that bait shop up there on the access road, then she'll light out and we'll have our darlin' little baby back. Hell, maybe even more people'll send money once we get her back, you never know. We just gotta make it sound as awful as we can and look like we're hurtin' real bad, make a lot a folks feel sorry for us. Hell, I nearly puked today, cryin' so hard.”

Sheila's chest lifted with a troubled sigh. “That Indian already feels sorry for us. The game warden? Made me feel so bad I give him an apple.”

“I saw it. We got any more?”

“Two.” Sheila was silent a moment, then said, “Ronnie, what if Kayla says somethin'? You know they're gonna wanna talk to her.”

“Me and Mom worked it all out. She's tellin' Kayla what to say when people talk to her. She'll say a man took her and then let her go.”

”A man?”

“Yeah, you know. A pervert, or somethin’.”

“What?”

“Well, who else would take a little girl?”

“Why didn't you just say a couple took her? A couple who couldn't have babies and wanted a little child of their own?”

Ronnie looked at her in exasperation. “Why would they bring her back?”

Sheila tossed her stringy brown hair and raised a hand. “I don't know. Maybe because she still wets the bed and they want one who doesn't.”

“That's the stupidest goddamned thing I ever heard,” said Ronnie. “Get in the trailer and go to bed before you piss me off. You ain't gonna blow this for me, damn you.”

“I ain't gonna blow anything, Ronnie. I'm just scared about doin' somethin’ like this. I know you said it ain't really illegal, but it still feels wrong to have all these folks so scared for us.”

Ronnie gave his wife a shove. “Go on to bed. We ain't gonna talk about this no more. I told you what to do and you'll do it, you hear?”

“Don't get mad again, Ronnie. I didn't mean anything but that I'm nervous.”

“I didn't hit
you; I just gave you a little push. Now get in there,” Ronnie warned, and from the redness of his eyes, Sheila knew to start moving. She wouldn't mess with him now, not when he was under so much pressure to be something he wasn't.