Amelia Anne Is Dead and Gone (11 page)

The sound of the splash roused the rest of the group, fell on their ears as cause for alarm before they could even remember why. Why, despite the beauty and lure of The Hole’s deep center, they did not jump—
you do not jump
—from that side. Why the sight of the rippling water with its light scrum of bobbing algae filled their mouths with the cold, coppery taste of dread. Why the sound of the splash had carried with it something else, a terrifying final note that clung to the rush of water and air, a faraway thunk that sounded like metal.

The place where Brendan had disappeared was covered with froth, a wide white fissure in the water that slowed as they watched, as ripples from his entry broke with quiet slaps against the bank, until no more ripples came. A wide honeycomb of small bubbles floated on the surface, bursting one by one. The water became green-black and silent and still once more. It closed like glass, a seamless window that let nothing in and nothing out, and on the bridge above, nobody breathed.

Far away, a motorboat droned idly across the lake.

Below the surface, inside a blooming cloud of crimson, two green eyes peeled sightlessly toward the sun.

And then, slicing the golden afternoon air like a knife, came the sound of Brendan’s mother screaming.

AMELIA

L
uke was in high spirits as they sped up the ramp to I-95, reaching for her hand as they entered Connecticut and loudly announcing, “Welcome to the whitest state in America!”

She laughed and turned to look out the window. The afternoon had been gray, with a few drops of rain falling sporadically on the windshield, but now the clouds overhead seemed to be breaking. They looked stretched, thinned out and tufted with pink tendrils that reached back and to the west where the sun was beginning to set. It reflected off the rearview mirror, painting a bright wash of orange light onto her neck and chin. A cold, damp wind blew through the window—coming from far away, from an ocean she couldn’t see, but which she knew the road would follow all the way there, to the Cape, where they would follow a series of roundabouts and finally wind their way to the small, clapboard house that was theirs for the summer. The breeze licked at her upper arms. Luke, in a moment of uncharacteristic but entertaining vulgarity, had said he liked the way the thin jersey dress she’d chosen for traveling clung to her tits, but now she shivered and wished she’d remembered to pull a sweater from her duffel bag. It was impossible now, locked in the trunk and out of reach.

He seemed to have read her thoughts as he shrugged out of his hooded sweatshirt and handed it over to her. “Here, put this on,” he said.

“What are you, psychic?” she asked, smiling. She draped the sweatshirt over her front, like a blanket, and tucked her knees up beneath it. It smelled deliciously male, a mix of sweat and deodorant clinging to the soft fabric.

“As a matter of fact, I am,” he said, laughing. “But in this case, it was my highly developed sense of touch which informed me that you were shivering hard enough to shake the entire car.”

“Oh, ha-ha,” she said. “You must be disappointed, you can’t see my tits anymore.”

He looked over at her and breathed an exaggerated sigh. “Alas, I cannot. But it’s all right.”

“You forgive me?”

“Well, there will be other days, and other drives, and”—he paused for a moment—“other tits.”

Then, “Hey, don’t hit me! I’m driving!”

She settled back, still laughing and glaring at him in pretend-fury, and tucked her hands under the hoodie again. The setting sun had filled the car with orange light, pouring through the back window and bathing the dashboard in a wash of color. They grinned at each other as the sun finally slipped below the horizon. Ahead, the gray highway with its sleek dotted line stretched into the distance, nothing but asphalt and trees and one garish green sign that announced a service area five miles ahead.

She slumped deeper into the seat and sighed.

“You okay?”

“I feel sleepy,” she said. “Which is all your fault.”

Luke pounded his chest exaggeratedly and grunted, then grinned and turned his eyes back toward the road. She looked at him, not sure whether to be amused or amazed. He seemed to become more relaxed the more they drove, the further they got from their old lives as college students and the closer they came to their new ones as . . . well, whatever they would become.

It wasn’t just that he was relaxed, she realized. Everything about him was different—he looked confident, eager, in-the-moment.

He looked happy.

She hated to spoil it.

Back at his parents’ place, she had almost told him. Now she scolded herself for being a coward, for lacking the guts to just say what needed to be said, for even worrying about how he might react. It was her life, she thought. Her future. And in her dreams for that future, she had never wanted anything so passionately as she wanted this. If he was able to put aside his own agenda, the cohabitation-and-consumerism plan he seemed to have decided on, then he’d be able to see how important it was. And if he really loved her, he’d be able to forget about the plan. To improvise a little, to take a chance on a different life. He could, at the very least, be happy for her.

And if he couldn’t . . . at least she would know, without a doubt, what kind of man he really was.

Luke’s voice cut into her thoughts.

“We need gas,” he said, easing off the accelerator and allowing the car to drift toward the off-ramp. Ahead, she could see the floodlights and neon of the roadside station, hear the rumble of heavy trucks.

“Oh, let me contribute,” she said. She reached into her purse, fumbling for the silver cigarette case that held her cash.

“I can’t believe you’re still using that thing,” Luke said, shaking his head and smiling. “Haven’t you ever wanted a wallet?”

“Why, because they’re so much better?” she said, pulling the case free and rapping him lightly on the forehead with it.

“They’re certainly less painful,” he replied.

* * *

It was just minutes later, with the needle on the gas gauge pushing just past the F mark, when he suddenly turned to her—smiling broadly, his eyes alight like a kid at Christmastime.

“This feels great,” he said. “Being on the road, it’s fucking great. I feel like I could drive all night, I’m so excited.” He turned to look at her again. “Are you excited?”

“Yes,” she answered honestly. “I am.”

CHAPTER
13

O
n the day that they arrested the men from Silver Lake, the rust-covered plow of the infamous tractor appeared above the surface, standing like a small sentry dead center in the black shimmering maw of The Hole. That same morning, the announcement came that mandatory water restrictions would be in effect for the month of August. The lake had retreated by inches, disappearing downward every day, and the summer people—affected at last—looked worriedly out at the shrinking pool and feared with the same gnawing panic as the rest of us. Feared that murder had slipped through the gates, that something evil was lying in wait on the lake bottom, drinking the water away. It slipped and sloshed lower on the rocks, and lower still, exposing things long hidden in the shadowy murk and waving shoreline weeds. It revealed old grudges and older graffiti, small spats over property lines and prime dockage, petty insults and four-letter words scratched angrily into dock posts or the glittering granite rocks. On the day that the police blazed through the gates of Silver Lake, the water had dipped so low that a seventy-two-year-old man, out for his morning swim, stopped and stared in amazement at two grime-covered sculptures with pointy red hats lying in the newly exposed muck below his neighbor’s dock. His garden gnomes had gone missing the previous year; at the time, the family next door had pleaded ignorance and blamed the theft on local pranksters.

Beneath the surface, we weren’t so different after all.

And two hours later, the Bridgeton police sped through the sentried gates, pulled into the flagstone drive of a four-bedroom cottage on the waterfront, pulled three never-used firearms from their snug leather holsters, and, with to-the-letter efficiency, placed two of its residents under arrest.

* * *

With the news rippling like scattershot through our phone lines and knocking urgently at our front door in the form of hovering neighbors, my mother locked the house tightly in spite of the heat, slammed four Advil down her throat, and fell heavily into one of the creaky kitchen chairs.

“If that phone rings one more time,” she said, the last three words carrying a warning edge that made no additional explanation necessary. A butter knife lay on the table; she picked it up and gestured threateningly at the handset. In the place where it had been, a gob of grease still clung to the tablecloth, but Mom didn’t seem to notice it. Lately, I thought, she didn’t seem to notice anything; I would come home from the restaurant to find breakfast’s crumb-covered dishes still piled on the countertop, glasses filled with lukewarm water and condensation rings drying on the tablecloth, the milk left out to spoil. I had struggled through July like a zombie, detached and half dead, pushing against the sensation that I had become a ghost in my own life. Now, brought halfway back to earth by James and Lindsay and the restless and inexorable pull of townie gossip, I looked at the oily gob of butter and realized that my mother might be even more checked-out than me. The evil that had arrived on our doorsteps that summer had moved inside here, too—it was living in our kitchen, poisoning the food with strange rot, whispering to her from just inside the pantry door.

From the corner of my eye, I could see the hulking, overstuffed shape of the recycling bin. I didn’t need to look to know that it was full, brimming with the piled green-glass curves of empty wine bottles.

“What’s going on?” I said, realizing at the same time that I knew well enough, realizing that I only wanted her to talk to me.

“They’ve arrested two of those obnoxious men from Silver Lake,” my mother said. She looked out the window, squinting her eyes against the brightness outside. I could see the hangover headache beating small pulses against her hairline. “You know the ones—that group, they tried to close the bridge after that kid died. Concerned Citizens of whatever-it-is.”

“Concerned Citizens of Silver Shoals,” I said. I’d seen them at the restaurant—the same height, same build, all with the same nondescript fortyish face. They walked in heavy-step unison. They were a small army of cloned mediocrity. They’d come on the scene after Brendan’s death; I remembered the Chief of Police, standing on our porch in the fading twilight and staring down the street, angry sweat sheening on his bald pate.

“Idiots!” he’d snapped. “Concerned citizens, can you believe that crap? ‘Citizens,’ my ass. And don’t even get me started on
shoals
, for the love of Pete, these moneyed sons of bitches don’t even know what a goddamn shoal goddamn is.”

My father, lending an ear to his longtime friend, stood in the shadows near the door with his jaw set and an edge in his voice. “What do you plan to do about it?”

The chief, head shaking slowly—as much in disbelief as anger—sighed and said, “These people, they’ve got no business telling us what to do with our own damned bridge. Or anything else. Let them sit out a winter here, work an overnight shift at the plant, and maybe then I’ll listen to their goddamn opinions on community safety.”

And then, in a move that might have been funny had it not betrayed so much barely contained anger, the Chief of Police had cocked his head to one side and spat on the sidewalk.

* * *

“Shoals,” my mother echoed, grinning slightly in shared memory of the chief’s fury. “That’s it.”

“You know what people are going to say,” I replied. I slid into the chair next to her. “They’ve been rabid about the dead girl. That was them at the street fair, too—that fight.”

She snickered; she knew the story. In truth, the whole thing had lasted less than a minute—just enough time for one of the men to cause a small commotion by accusing the entire town of incompetence, and for Tom to step outside, listen for a moment, and then cleanly break his nose with one punch.

I cleared my throat. “Some people think one of them did it.”

“Definitely not.”

I pushed back. “How do you know?”

“Well, your father and I do still talk to each other occasionally.” She sighed. “And according to him, it’s just not possible. The police have been in there more than once, and nobody’s ever seen that girl.”

We sat together in silence, my mother with her fingertips pressed against the papery, translucent skin of her temples, rubbing small circles into the spot just before her hairline. Outside, the sun passed momentarily behind a cloud; the light in the kitchen turned drab and shadowless.

I turned over the few known facts about the murder in my head, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck rise up as I thought of the body lying in the morgue. Cold, alone, unclaimed—maybe forever. No resolution, no closure. An unburied body in slow decay. A patch of isolated road where, no matter how hard it rained, the pavement was always stained the faintest shade of red.

Something horrible, something that usually stayed safely outside and away from the quiet comfort of Bridgeton, had moved into town and would never, ever leave.

On the tabletop, the phone chirped once and then began to ring. I snatched it and pressed it to my stomach, wanting to muffle the noise. My mom buried her head in her hands as I slipped out the kitchen door, lifting the handset to my ear as it swung shut behind me.

“Hello?”

“Becca?” James’s voice was so high and tense that I cringed away, wincing.

I held it several inches from my head and muttered, “It’s me, I’m here.”

His breathing was hard and fast, as though he’d run for the phone and dialed in a hurry. Something was wrong.

“James? What’s going on?”

The words came out in an unpunctuated tumble. “Have you heard what happened?”

The air left my lungs in a huff of disbelief, as inside, the rational me rolled her eyes.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “This is a gossip call? You scared the shit out of m—”

“So you know?” he said, his voice still alive with tension and worry.

“This isn’t news, you know,” I said. “You didn’t exactly get the jump on this.”

“Becca—”

“Yes, okay?” I spat. “Yes, I know they arrested two of those jerks from the lake.”

“But people are saying they did it,” he said. “You know, that they killed that girl. And—”

“People are panicking, that’s all. They just want it solved.”

“But the police arrested those guys,” he said. “I mean, that happened. They’re at the station now.”

“Yeah, for some reason that has nothing to do with killing anyone,” I said.

“Like what?” he countered.

I sighed. “I don’t know. I mean, hell, did you hear about that old guy’s garden gnomes? Maybe they did
that
.”

There was a brief pause and then James started laughing, just a little at first, then harder as the tension and anxiety in his voice disappeared. I started cackling too, grateful beyond words to find that we could still share a moment that was light and loose and . . .

Normal,
I thought.
There it is.

As my breathing slowed and settled, as I waited for James to get back under control, the thought I’d nearly had before came floating back to the surface. The men arrested that morning had no hand in the murder, but part of me stubbornly insisted that there was something else. Something missed, something misplaced.

“So I guess you heard your version of this from a reliable source.” James had stopped laughing; I heard him light up a cigarette, the spark and hiss of the match-flame echoing in the empty space after his question.

“Mother via father,” I said. “Does that count as reliable?”

“Sure,” he said. “Especially by comparison.”

“Why, who’d you hear from?”

“Craig.”

I blinked. In my head, the half-formed thought of something missing suddenly burned bright and hot.

Something horrible had arrived on our doorsteps this summer
.

Or someone.

“Craig,” I repeated.

“Yeah.” He paused. “I was helping him out today, moving some of his grandma’s stuff. He went out to get beer and came back all hopped up about how some of those guys were arrested.”

“I’ll bet he was,” I said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, I just—”

“You had a tone,” James said.

“Sorry,” I replied, hurriedly. “It’s just . . . you know. He talks about it a lot. The dead girl, the murder.”

I could hear James’s shrug. “Like you said, everyone wants to know what happened.”

“Yeah, but . . .” I paused, measuring my words. “He’s a little more interested than most. And what he said, about finding something—”

“Just a joke, Becca,” he said quickly. “Remember?”

I let out an exasperated sigh. Why did he have to have an answer for everything? There was silence from the other end, and then a thin exhalation as James blew smoke away from the receiver.

“Listen,” he said, “I hear you. I do. But you’ve got to know, whatever you’re thinking about Craig, you’re wrong.”

It was my turn to sigh with exasperation.

“Look, I’m just saying—”

“Yeah, and maybe you should think about what you’re ‘just saying.’” He spat the word out hard, urgently. “I don’t know what you think Craig did, but whatever it is, I can promise you he
didn’t
. You may not trust him, but can you trust me, at least? I know he’s not the type to be involved in something like this. And in this town, it could be really bad if somebody started saying that he was. Really bad.”

I stayed quiet. In the kitchen, I heard a clatter and thump as my mother stumbled against the table. A full minute passed before he spoke again.

“Look, Becca, I understand what you’re saying. I know you’re worried. And I’ll talk to him. Okay? Just let me handle it,” he said. “Promise me you’ll let me handle it, and you won’t say anything.”

“James—”

“Promise me, Becca. Please.”

If I closed my eyes, I could see him there. The phone pressed to his ear, his voice echoing in the near-empty house as he waited for me to give my word. I could see the three o’clock light slanting through the windows, the dust on the furniture, the broken boards on the porch. A warm breeze would blow lightly from the west, weaving its way between the trees, passing over the surface of the small pond and through the place, just behind the house, where there had once been a garden.

Years ago, that wind would have caressed the sharp purple spears of the clematis blossoms or shaken the golden pollen from the bobbing, heavy-petaled peonies; now, with everything gone to seed, it touched only the things that could still survive when left to fend for themselves. The wind carried news of the plants that thrived alone, forgotten and uncared-for. It swept through with the smell of the water, the pungent musk of pondweed, the dark notes of earth and leaves.

It was a year ago that I’d stood there, shifting my weight uncertainly on the porch steps. James had appeared like a ghost and waved at me from behind the dirty gray glass of the storm door. One pane was missing completely, others shattered but intact with their surfaces cut clean through by a patchwork web of silver lines. Behind, the sharp angles of his face were visible only in oblong, broken slices.

It was his father who damaged the door, he told me. Running in from the garden at the sound of James’s strangled cries, slipping in the mud at the base of the porch, vaulting up the sagging stairs in twos and threes and pounding down the hallway into the dayroom—a room full of sobbing and sunlight and everything else but the ragged sandpaper dragging of his wife’s shallow breath. The crochet coverlet that wrapped her wasted body lay perfectly still and flat against her chest. She was gone.