Green Lake (4 page)

CHAPTER SIX

Madeleine lay in bed that night thinking of the scars she had seen on Eris Renard's chest, back, and shoulders. She had seen skin like his before. Sometime in adolescence Renard had contracted chicken pox, and the itchy, erupting pustules had scarred the flesh of his face and upper torso. She thought of the pain he must have suffered, the agony of adolescent angst, and felt ashamed for being so hateful to him when he did his best to be polite and civil toward her.

She was in such a state she didn't know what she was doing. Already she was dying of boredom and anxiety and cursing herself for believing a jobless, rent free summer had been the thing to do. All day she had fought against thinking about Sam, and all day she had failed. Over and over she saw the hole in the wall and the clotted blood that stained the carpet and had to be cut out.

She didn't know why she was thinking about him. The guilt still stung her, and the traumatic memory of finding him dead kept her eyes open on many nights. But more and more she found herself growing angry when she thought about him, angry at him for his weakness and his petulant attitude about his lost job. People lost jobs all the time, and most didn't look at it as a personal judgment of their worth as a human being. Sam had been unable to accept the fact that he was no longer wanted as an employee. The rejection was so completely alien to him that it had injured his entire concept of himself, and left Madeleine struggling to hold together the pieces of his shattered ego, all for the sake of a marriage she had been reluctant to enter into in the first place.

“Ouch!” She shot up in bed as one of the kittens began kneading her leg with its claws. She plucked him away and rubbed at the flesh of her thigh. The other two kittens were curled up on the bed at her feet. Madeleine placed the clawing kitten with the others and got up to go to the living area and turn on the television. She flipped through channels on the remote for a moment, then put it down and went to look outside. The waxing moon was bright in the cloudless night. She thought she saw movement in the old cemetery and she jumped and squinted, trying to see.

There it was again. Someone was moving around just beyond the gate.

Just as Madeleine was about to go for the phone, she recognized the yellow fishing hat atop the skulker's head.

What on earth was Tanner doing?

She was tempted to go out and see, but common sense told her it was best to steer clear of weirdos in the moonlight.

Besides which, Renard had looked exhausted again that evening and would doubtlessly resent being disturbed for so trivial a reason as Tanner.

Madeleine thought of Renard sitting on the front porch in his briefs, trying to look at his bloody big toe, and had to smile. Renard was on the slender side, and while he was bent over with his wet hair in his face, he had reminded her of a ceremonial dancer, and of the many nearly naked men she had witnessed on numerous occasions while living among various Native-American tribes. It made her feel close to him, and at the same time it irritated her for the other memories he inspired.

The man who had ridden on her back and whipped her with a stick she would never forget.

But thinking about him was almost worse than thinking about Sam, so she turned abruptly from the window and looked at the television again.

Five minutes later she clicked off the TV and went back to bed, stroking each of the kittens before she laid back and closed her eyes.

The next morning she awakened to the ringing of the telephone, and she hurried out of bed to snatch up the receiver, afraid the caller would hang up before she could reach it.

“Hello?”

“I'm at the grocery store,” said a familiar deep voice. “I've got the litter; now what kind of cat food do I buy?”

“Renard?”

“I don't have long. I have to get back. What kind do you want?”

Madeleine started to tell him no
thanks. She would get her own cat food if she got any at all. Then she thought of the last can of tuna and the three furry babies who kept her company in the big bed and said, “Anything with tuna in it. They love tuna.”

“All right. I'll drop it off when I get back.”

“Thank you,” said Madeleine, but he had already hung up. She made a face at the phone and it rang again almost immediately, causing her to start and stare for half a second. Finally she picked up the receiver, and she was relieved to hear her sister's voice wish her a cheery good morning.

“Jacqueline,” she said, pleased to hear from her.

“I tried your cell but it's out of service. How's it going so far?”

“I haven't paid my phone bill in a while.”

“You're not scared, are you? To be by yourself?”

“No. Not really.”

“That's good. I was worried you might be after hearing about that missing little girl. I heard it on the radio this morning on the way to work.”

“Really?”

“Bad news travels. Is our neighbor out looking for her?”

Madeleine's mouth twisted. “At the moment he's out buying cat food.”

“He doesn't have a cat.”

“No, but we do. Three kittens, dumped in our yard courtesy of a noisy rumbling pickup and two good ole boys.”

“You're kidding.”

“I'm not. Is it all right? Can I keep them awhile?”

“Of course. Manny loves cats. Are they cute?”

“Two feisty tiger-striped and one black.”

“Company for you,” Jacqueline observed. “Why is Renard out buying food for them?”

“It's a long story.”

“He's quite the reserved gentleman, isn't he?”

“I suppose he is, yes.”

”Uh-oh,” said Jacqueline. “I don't like the sound of that. What's happened?”

“Nothing.”

“You're sure? You get along all right?”

“The man is always gone, Jacqueline.”

“Have you seen the other one yet?”

“The other one?”

“The other conservation officer. The handsome one.”

“No, I haven't,” admitted Madeleine. “But I haven't been out much. Just to the post office.”

“Well, go down to Vista Bay and sit yourself down by the swimming beach. Sooner or later he'll cruise by and you'll get a look at him.”

“Jacqueline,” Madeleine began in a hesitant voice. “I'm not really interested in looking at anyone right now, if you know what I mean.”

“I'm sorry,” Jacqueline said quickly. “I didn't realize. I was just gabbing.”

“I know. Don't apologize. It's just too soon for me to think in those terms.”

“I know it is, Mad. I won't say any more. Have you thought of anything for me to bring this weekend?”

”A gross of paperbacks,” said Madeleine, only half joking.

“Can do,” Jacqueline said, and then she had to go. “See you Friday night.”

” ‘Bye,” said Madeleine, sorry the conversation was over.

She showered and washed her hair, brushed her teeth and dressed in a white blouse and shorts, and was slipping into her sandals when she saw Eris Renard come to the door with a sack in his hands.

“Good morning,” she said, and opened the screen door.

He nodded and handed her the sack. Inside was litter and a dozen tall cans of cat food. Madeleine blinked and looked at him. “You want me to keep the kittens, I guess.”

“They were on sale,” said Renard, and he turned away from her to step off the porch.

“How's the toe this morning?” asked Madeleine, determined to be cordial.

“Sore,” he said, and kept walking.

“Thanks for the cat food,” she said, and he tipped his hat without looking at her.

Madeleine muttered something under her breath about his surliness and allowed the screen door to slam shut.

Eris Renard didn't notice. He climbed in his truck and took off down the road again, his eyes straight ahead.

Gone to join the search again, Madeleine told herself, and for a moment she imagined the terror a young child might feel, or the child's mother, under such circumstances. The sense was too much like the horror she had found with Sam, and Madeleine forced her thoughts elsewhere.

The kittens gobbled up half a can of cat food from a paper plate, and when they were finished, Madeleine put them outside in the yard in hopes they would relieve themselves outdoors rather than in the shoebox, which was already beginning to stink. She needed to find a better litter box, she decided as she herded the kittens into the grass.

Sherman Tanner was walking by with his dog at the time, and Madeleine saw the small canine leap and nearly strangle himself at the end of his leash to get at the tiny kittens. Tanner, his lip curled, picked up his little dog and went on his way.

Madeleine made a face at his retreating figure and thought once more about his moonlight trip to the cemetery. She really should have told Renard, but she had the feeling he was now lumping her in with all the other residents in Briar's Cove and labeling her a nuisance right along with Sherman Tanner.

Curious to see if the man was going back to the cemetery, Madeleine looked up to the road again. She saw no sign of Tanner. The next moment she was up and walking in that direction, thinking a little investigating was in order.

The cemetery was indeed old, and most of the stones were unreadable. Many looked as if there had never been any writing on them at all, and Madeleine wondered suddenly if she was standing in some sort of potter's field, where the sinners, misfits, and outcasts were buried. She walked slowly across the grassy plots, looking for signs of recently overturned earth. She couldn't imagine what else the Earthworm would be doing in a graveyard at night.

A trip around the entire cemetery turned up no evidence of digging, and Madeleine puckered her brow as she scoured the surrounding area. It was nothing but a cemetery full of very old bones and lots of weathered stones.

“But what a strange place to find a cemetery,” she said aloud as she looked in the direction of the lake. From what she understood, the lake had been constructed sometime in the mid to late forties. Most every readable stone was much older, so all of the people buried in the ground beneath her had probably lived, farmed and died on land now covered by the waters of the lake.

She heaved a sigh and then sucked in her stomach to slip through the gate again. At the cabin she gathered up the kittens and put them inside before reaching for the keys to the truck and her purse.

As she drove by the dam site she saw what looked like a hundred people milling around the area. She and her truck were scrutinized by several sheriffs’ deputies, which caused Madeleine to blink and hurry on. She saw Renard's truck, but he was nowhere in sight. There were television remote vans from every local affiliate squeezed into the area, and people walked around trailing wires and fighting the sudden breeze that had kicked up earlier. The place was a circus.

She drove down the road to
Green Lake and was disgusted to find nothing even resembling a litter box at either of the two small grocers' establishments. She was cheerfully given directions to Fayville, and told to try Rob's IGA. Madeleine made the drive to Fayville and took advantage of the larger store to buy a newspaper, which she missed reading. She wondered if Renard had access to one and decided to ask him the next time she saw him. It would be no trouble for him to bring it home with him. He could leave it on his porch for her.

She poked through
the store as long as she could and then left to poke through the town, larger than Green Lake, but still no bigger than a pothole in the road. She stopped at a place that called itself a crafts shop and got out to look at what other bored, lonely women did with their time. She was awed by the time consuming work that had obviously gone into each item, needlepoint, crocheted doilies, quilts, teddy bears, bunnies, wood projects, silk and dried flower arrangements and she shook her head knowing she could never do anything similar.

Little had changed really, since the Victorian era, she found herself thinking. Women still concerned themselves with beautifying their surroundings, while men concerned themselves with staying unconcerned.

She left the crafts shop and climbed into her truck to return to the reservoir. The circus at the dam site was still in progress, with dozens of onlookers come now to stand around and talk about what the television people looked like in person. How much taller this one was, or how much thinner, and how bad their skin looked up close without all that makeup.

Renard's truck was gone, with an official-looking sedan in its place. Madeleine kept her foot firmly on the accelerator as she passed, and found herself hoping the little girl was all right. The odds were not good, she knew, and the more time that passed, the worse the odds became.

She closed her eyes briefly and felt her stomach roll at the sudden image of Sherman Tanner, standing on a dock somewhere and eagerly scanning the lake's surface for a small, floating body.

Ugh.

To punctuate the thought, the truck she was driving suddenly sputtered and died, leaving her staring incredulously at the dash and fighting to get the thing over to the side of the bridge. She tried the starter again and again, looking at the gas gauge, the oil light, and temperature gauge, but still the truck wouldn't start.