In the Lake of the Woods (30 page)

—Myra Shaw (Waitress)

 

Yes, I shall go into Mexico with a pretty definite purpose, which, however, is not at present disclosable. You must try to forgive my obstinacy in not "perishing" where I am ... I am pretty fond of you, I guess. May you live as long as you want to, and then pass smilingly into the darkness—the good, good darkness. Devotedly your friend.
¹²¹

—Ambrose Bierce

 

The Peers Commission people weren't looking for him. We were. Nothing to it really ... Once we got wind of this so-called Sorcerer, it was only a matter of time. I put the boys on it. No sweat.

—Edward F. Durkee (Democratic senatorial nominee)

 

Dear Sorcerer,

I'll keep this letter short because I figure you already know what happened. I didn't plan on talking, and that's the truth even if you probably don't believe me. They were slick, I'll say that. I barely even knew I was saying stuff until I was done saying it. So much for silent Indians. Either way, they already had you pretty much pinned down—the fact that you were
there
that day. I guess that's my excuse. I didn't mean to get anybody in trouble, and I feel bad, but there's one thing I know for sure now. Remember that night back at the ditch? I said we should get it off our chests and go report it, and you sort of blew me off. But I was right, wasn't I? Honesty's the best policy, that's for sure. I don't know how you stood it so long.

—Richard Thinbill

 

Yeah, we knew the story was coming. Couple days before, the
Star-Trib
calls, asks for a comment. John says, "Tell them April Fool." Couldn't fucking believe it. I swear to God, that's what he said, and then he gave me that blank dead-man look of his. Never said another word. That's when I decided to start job hunting.

—Anthony L. (Tony) Carbo

 

Kathy read about it in the papers like everybody else. July, I think. Really hot. She asked me to drive over and so I did—still in my gym clothes—and I stayed with her all that day and all night. John didn't come home. I remember she was frantic, really frantic, and I kept saying, "Jesus, who
cares
if he comes home?" But Kathy was more upset about that than the fact that her own husband was a liar and a betrayer and ... So the next morning he finally shows up. Walks in, gives us this don't-dare-ask look, goes off to take a shower I knew right then she'd stick with him no matter what It obvious. So what the hell. I left It makes me feel like This is why I shouldn't be talking.

—Patricia S. Hood

 

Brings to mind that old saw. Mr. Wade just wanted to crawl into a hole.

—Ruth Rasmussen

 

Exhibit Eight: John Wade's Box of Tricks, Partial List
Mouse cage
Stand-up mirror
Military discharge, honorable
Book:
Marriage: A Guide

 

I guess Claude was in on it. Never said as much, but after Mr. Wade went off with the Chris-Craft ... Well, I could see Claude wasn't all that surprised. Kind of smiled, if you know what I mean. The two of them got to be pretty close in this quiet way, like they trusted each other, like they understood how things were and how there wasn't no choice finally ... When the old man died last year, I kept waiting for a little note or something. Kept checking the mail. Nothing.

—Ruth Rasmussen

 

He had happened to dissever himself from the world—to vanish—to give up his place and privilege with living men, without being admitted among the dead.
¹²²

—Nathaniel Hawthorne ("Wakefield")

 

If you cannot believe in something produced by reconstruction, you may have nothing left to believe in.
¹²³

—John Dominic Crossan (
The Historical Jesus
)

 

For a while Mr. Wade was in radio contact, just a day or so. He didn't sound so good. Rambling Rose, that's what Vinny called him—the man didn't make a whole lot of sense. Anyhow, it didn't last long. Bang. Silence.

—Arthur J. Lux (Sheriff, Lake of the Woods County)

 

They're gone and they're not coming back. Both of them. I mean, honestly, some things you best walk away from, just shrug and say, Who knows? I'm serious. You been gnawing on this a long time now, way too long, and sooner or later you should think about getting back to your
own
life. Don't want to end up missing it.
¹²⁴

—Ruth Rasmussen

 

Writers ... have an obsession with missing persons.
¹²⁵

—Jay Robert Nash (
Among the Missing
)

 

Flies! You
hear
that?

—Richard Thinbill

 

We couldn't see the man—he was gone—nowhere! ... his departure was a marvel.
¹²⁶

—Sophocles (
Oedipus at Colonus
)

 

My guess? I don't need to guess. He did it. Wasted her. That stare of his, the way he didn't even feel nothing. I seen it a zillion times ... Who cares if we didn't never find no evidence? All it means is he sunk her good and deep.

—Vincent R. (Vinny) Pearson

 

I'm an optimist. Life after death, I believe in it. That big Chris-Craft, it could go forever, all the way to Kenora and then some. So I don't know. Maybe they're in Hudson Bay or someplace. I mean, they were in love. Honest love—just like Claude and me. You could see it plain and obvious. If you want the truth, I keep waiting for that note in the mail. And I bet someday it'll show up.

—Ruth Rasmussen

 

I'm not in the guessing game, but I'll lay out some basic facts. Number one, they were in debt up to their necks. Number two, there wasn't a dime left in their bank account. Cleaned out slick as a whistle even before they headed up north. Number three, nobody ever found
either
boat. Not a single scrap, no oars, no life vests. Number four, the man was a magician. Tried to wipe his name off the Charlie Company rolls, tried to vanish himself and damn near did it... Number whatever, Kathy had her own history. That dentist of hers, the way she used to take off now and then. I remember this time in Vegas, years and years ago, we had a talk about how sometimes you need to sort of unstick yourself. Maybe she finally did it. Maybe they both had it rigged up all along. When you think about it, they didn't have a damn thing to come
back
to—reputation shot, no more career, bills up the gazoo. Christ, I'd run for it too.

—Anthony L. (Tony) Carbo

 

Those tourist maps he bought. If he's out to zap himself, why tourist maps? Sounds to me like a tour.

—Myra Shaw (Waitress)

 

Well, sure, the possibility occurred to me. I can buy one missing person, I get antsy when it's two in a row. Certain stuff always bothered me. Like on the day she disappeared, Wade spends the whole afternoon paying bills, getting his affairs in order. Only thing he
didn't
do was make out a will. Makes you wonder. Mainly, though, it's how he
acted,
if you know what I mean. The man just didn't seem all that upset or anything. Just sat around. His whole attitude didn't strike me—it didn't seem normal.

—Arthur J. Lux (Sheriff, Lake of the Woods County)

 

At first I thought she probably drowned. An accident, I thought, but now I'm not even half sure. I told you how we used to sit around in the office and sort of brainstorm, how we all thought she seemed perfectly fine. Right after the election, she was almost carefree. Incredibly happy. Like I'd never seen her before. At the time I figured it was just relief or something. But maybe it was more than that. Maybe they decided ... Hard to say. But I know this much. She had the guts. And she wanted changes.

—Bethany Kee (Associate Admissions Director, University of Minnesota)

 

A person has to hope for
something.
So I hope they're happy. They deserved a little happiness.

—Eleanor K. Wade

 

Yeah, if I know Sorcerer, he had
some
slick shit up his sleeve. Guy had a million moves. No matter where he is, though, I bet he's still got nightmares. I bet he's out there swatting flies.
¹²⁷

—Richard Thinbill

If all is supposition, if ending is air, then why not happiness? Are we so cynical, so sophisticated as to write off even the chance of happy endings? On the porch that night, in the fog, John Wade had promised his wife Verona.
¹²⁸
Deluxe hotels and a busload of babies. And then for a long while they had cradled each other in the dark, waiting for these things to happen, some sudden miracle. "Happy," Kathy had whispered. "Nothing else."

Does happiness strain credibility? Is there something in the human spirit that distrusts its own appetites, its own yearning for healing and contentment? Can we not believe that two adults, in love,
¹²⁹
might resolve to make their own miracle?
¹³⁰

"If we could just fall asleep and wake up happy," she might've said, and Sorcerer might've laughed and said, "Why not?" and then for the rest of the night they might have held each other and worked out the technicalities. Improbable, of course. More likely they drowned, or got lost, or lost themselves. But who will ever know? It's all hypothesis, beginning to end. Maybe in the fog Kathy said, "We could
do
it—right
now,
" and maybe Sorcerer murmured something about a pair of snakes along a trail in Pinkville, how for years and years he had wondered what would've happened if those two dumbass snakes had somehow managed to gobble each other up. A tired old story. If Kathy smiled, it was out of politeness. But maybe she said, "I
dare
us."

Too sentimental? Would we prefer a wee-hour boiling? A teakettle and scalded flesh?
¹³¹

Maybe so.
¹³²
Yet the evidence does not exclude the possibility that they ran for their lives. John Wade was a magician. There was nothing to call him back. And so one chilly evening he might have joined her on the shore of Oak Island, or Massacre Island, or Buckete Island. Maybe she scolded him for being late. All around them there was only wilderness, dark and silent, which was what they had come for. They needed the solitude. They needed to go away together. Maybe they spent the night huddled at a small fire, celebrating, thinking up names for the children they wanted—funny names, sometimes, so they could laugh—and then later they would've planned the furnishings for their new house, the fine rugs they would buy, the antique brass lamps, the exact colors of the wallpaper, all the details. They would've listened to the night. They would've heard rustlings in the timber, things growing and things rotting, the lap of lake against shore. Maybe they made love. Maybe they wrapped themselves in blankets and fell asleep and woke up happy, and maybe in the morning they set a bearing north toward Kenora, or west toward Winnipeg, where they would've ditched the Chris-Craft and made their way on foot to a bus station or to a small private airport.

Documents? Passports?

He was Sorcerer.

High over the Atlantic they would've levered back their seats and unburdened themselves of all secrets. Good things and bad things. "Kath, my Kath," Sorcerer would've whispered, as if to summon her spirit, feeling the rise and fall of her breath against his hand. For both of them it was a wishing game, except now they were inside their wishes, and maybe one day they discovered happiness on the earth—in some secret country, perhaps, or in an exotic foreign capital with bizarre customs and a difficult new language. To live there would require practice and many changes, but they were willing to learn.
¹³³

***

John Wade made his last broadcast in the early morning hours of Sunday, October 26, 1986. He offered a number of rambling incantations to the atmosphere, apologies and regrets, quiet declarations of sorrow. His tone was confessional. At times he cried. At dawn, just before signing off, he seemed to break down entirely. Not his mind—his heart. There were garbled prayers, convulsive pleas directed to Kathy and to God. He spoke bluntly to his father, whose affection he now demanded, whom he begged for esteem and constancy, and then near the end his voice began to sink into the lake itself, barely audible, little bubbles of sentimental gibberish: "Your tennis shoes. Those hearts I drew ... Only for love, only to be loved ... Because you asked once, What is sacred? and because the answer was always you. Sacred? Now you know ... Where
are
you?"

A murderer?

A man who could boil?

At no point in this discourse did John Wade admit to the slightest knowledge of Kathy's whereabouts, nor indicate that he was withholding information. Which brings me to wonder. Is it possible that even to John Wade everything was the purest puzzle? That one day he woke up to find his wife missing, and missing forever, and that all else was unknown? That the clues led nowhere? That explanations were beyond him?