Lake on the Mountain: A Dan Sharp Mystery (22 page)

“And this one here.” He pointed at the name of the ferryboat captain. “See if you can locate either of them.”

“Will do. Now my turn,” she said, tapping the thick envelope in her arms. “Here are the John Does from that time.” She dropped it on his desk and smiled. “Have fun.”

The Doe files were the saddest, most dismal collection of human relics Dan could ever have imagined. If there was anything more degrading than to end up strangled in an industrial park, stabbed beneath a bridge or fished from a river wearing concrete shoes, it was to find that no one was interested in claiming your remains or learning who you’d been. Not one thing in your life stood out enough for anyone to want to trace your steps and reconnect you with your past, with the people who had given birth to you, reared and loved you. Not one.

Dan was familiar enough with the Doe files. What struck him was how generic most of the facial reconstructions were or how unlikely it was that anyone, even those who’d known the dead person intimately, might actually find a resemblance between the faces drawn, sculpted and recreated by computers, or sense a sliver of recognition between these humanoid images and the people they were supposed to represent. On the other hand, a few were so sharply portrayed and with so much circumstantial evidence noted — rare blood types, unusual scars, and dental records, even handmade clothing — it seemed improbable that they hadn’t been recognized: the buck-toothed boy with a bowl-shaped haircut found wearing a cap available from only one store in the county, or the young woman buried beneath a construction site and mummified so that her remains had barely altered in twenty years, with severe scarring to her left hip, probably from a car accident. How was it they had never been identified?

The only probable reason was that someone didn’t want them found. In all likelihood, the reports had never been filed and the searches never begun. But if so, where were the grandmothers missing grandchildren, the husbands missing wives, and sisters missing brothers? Only a concerted conspiracy of silence by friends and family could have left them unnamed and unclaimed. For every one who vanished, Dan reasoned, there had to be between four and forty people who would notice sooner or later.

He could never shake off a sense of futility when he went through those files, thinking of all the faces that might never be identified, all the lives that would never be reconnected with their pasts. Some had wanted to vanish, true enough, and that’s exactly what they’d done. But had they really meant it to be forever?

New technology and improved networking between agencies sharing databases sometimes made identification possible decades later. The DNA retrieved when the bodies were first recovered might no longer be usable, but if the remains were exhumed then experts could take fresh samples that would respond to modern testing. Sometimes it was just a matter of diligence and old-fashioned stick-to-it-ness. Other times, it seemed a wasted effort. You never knew. Often families didn’t come forward for years then suddenly, for one reason or another, they did. Files were crosschecked with other files and it became a simple matter of matching a name to a photograph. It could be surprisingly simple.

It kept Dan up nights wondering why families waited so long to report a missing relative. The reasons varied. Sometimes the misper had a habit of disappearing and it was assumed they wanted to stay lost. Others had a criminal record and the family believed they would only make things worse by looking for them. Then years went by without word, and it began to dawn on them that perhaps their son or daughter was no longer alive. Still others turned up alive years later — sometimes decades — and at last spoke about threats of violence or the trauma of an unwanted child. You just never knew.

But there was one thing Dan knew: once asked, the questions didn’t go away just because they went unanswered. They hung around and festered, especially when you looked at them too closely. It was easy to obsess over unsolved clues, like the faded handwriting on a piece of paper that refused to yield up its secrets or a lake on a mountain that obscured its origins.

No reply, no return. These were words Dan found unacceptable. Because they meant that somewhere someone wasn’t trying hard enough.

“The gardener’s name was Magnus Ferguson. He showed up on one other report….”

“Unusual name, Magnus.”

“… so it shouldn’t be too hard to find.” Sally smiled. “It wasn’t. Last known address: Surrey, B.C., about five years ago.” She stood before his desk, pad in hand, waiting.

Dan felt that tingle of excitement that came when something suddenly appeared within reach. Sometimes things took years to budge then suddenly the floodgates opened and it seemed as though they’d always been there, just waiting to be discovered. A single piece of thread that had seemed innocuous at the time might turn out to be a special material manufactured by only one company and sold in just a handful of locations. And suddenly you had a piece of a puzzle that unlocked a significant clue.

“Did you phone to verify that it’s the same person?”

Sally shook her head. “There’s no Magnus Ferguson listed in all of B.C. I didn’t have time to check the rest of the country.…”

“But you will.”

She groaned.

“And you’ll have it for me by when?”

She grinned. “Probably by the time you get back from seeing the ferryboat captain in Picton. I’ve booked you an appointment for tomorrow.”

“Sweet,” Dan said. “When and where?”

“Two p.m.” She looked down at her pad. “It’s got an unusual name,” she said. “Ever hear of the Murky Turkey?”

Dan smiled. “Sally, I’m promoting you. You can stop cleaning chamber pots and start sharpening pencils effective immediately.”

He drove along the same route he and Bill had taken to the wedding. The ghostly forms that had been obscured by mist then were revealed now, innocent and unprepossessing in the fresh light of day. A simple fall landscape, seemingly devoid of mystery.

He was early. He reached Picton at noon. He thought over his plan again and continued on to Lake on the Mountain. He parked in the same lot and sat looking out over the water before walking to the resort.

“I’d like to rent a boat,” Dan said to the man puttering around in the garden shoring up trellises.

The man gave him a sharp look. “What sort of boat would that be?”

“A boat to explore the lake,” Dan said.

The man grinned. “Well, that should be simple then. We’ve only got one kind. It’s a rowboat. You looking for a good workout for your arms?”

Dan smiled. “A little exercise never hurt.”

The man left his trellises and went inside. Five minutes later, standing beside the boat, the man sized Dan up and offered him an orange life vest. “Keep this thing on at all times when you’re in the boat — it’s the law.”

Dan placed it over his head and secured it around his chest.

“Can you swim?”

“Yes, I can.”

“All right, then I won’t worry about you.” The man held up an orange plastic capsule. “There’s a nylon rope and a whistle in here. You run into any trouble, you blow it as loud as she can blow. I usually rent them for an hour,” he glanced over at the parking lot, empty but for Dan’s car, “though I suppose you can take your time. I’ll tell the crowds to wait till you get back.”

Dan did a wonky duck waddle getting in, then settled in his seat and pressed an oar against the shore. The boat shifted off the rocky bottom. After a few tentative strokes, he found his rhythm and the craft surged forward.

He scanned the caramel-coloured rock passing underneath him. Without warning, darkness opened wide under the boat. Dan had the sensation that he’d jumped off a cliff, his fall arrested by the placid green surface of the water. The darkness went straight down with no sign of anything below. He peered into the depths, adjusting his vision, but saw nothing. It looked bottomless.

He turned his head and glanced up at the passing clouds then shifted in his seat and resumed rowing toward the middle of the lake. He couldn’t shake the sensation that the world had fallen away beneath him.

The Black Swan winked at him as he approached. It looked no different than it had a month earlier. Not surprising — it probably hadn’t changed much in the last hundred-and-twenty-five-odd years. Dan spotted Terry Piers right off, a grey-haired man in a heavy grey-and-orange sweater, sitting upright at the bar and talking non-stop. A wrinkled smile and periwinkle eyes greeted him. Dan felt the strength in his grip, heard the thunder in his tone. Captain Bligh on shore leave. An eye patch and a tri-cornered hat were all he needed to complete the picture. Hale and hearty at seventy or more, he’d probably see a hundred before he was done, without giving up either smoke or drink. In fact, they probably fortified him.

Dan ordered a pint of Glenora. The former captain pooh-poohed him for buying that “local crap” before lifting his glass to a portrait of Elizabeth II on the wall behind him. It was the young queen, very glam, around the time of her coronation: glowing, radiant. Long before she was sideswiped by her
annus horribilis
and her star-struck wretch of a daughter-in-law. Dan let Terry regale him with talk of the “old days” on the ferry watch before launching into the subject of his inquiry.

When he spoke Craig Killingworth’s name, Terry grew thoughtful. “Oh, yes, I remember him,” he said softly.

“In the report on his disappearance you said he went over to Adolphustown on his bike that weekend but didn’t return.”

“That’s right.”

“And you were sure it was him?”

“Aye. Not a doubt.”

“And was he carrying anything — luggage, or any sort of baggage?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“But you said you thought he was heading for Kingston?”

“Well, not exactly.” Terry scratched his head and looked off into the distance of time, as if to remember what it was he had said. “You see, if you were heading to Toronto or anywheres west of here, you’d head north up to the 401. If you were to take the ferry across to Adolphustown, well, from there you’d be travelling east to Kingston and the like. But only if you wanted to go that far. What I said was that if he didn’t come back, then he was probably headed that way or farther.”

Dan considered this. “Could he not have come back across in a car?” he asked. “He might not have been on his bicycle. Perhaps you didn’t see him in the back of a car?”

“No sir, that is not likely. Have you been on the ferry?”

Dan recalled the outdoor deck with its three short lanes and twenty-one-car capacity. “Yes.”

“Then you know it’s small and everything’s in the open. For one thing, I could see anyone inside those vehicles. For another, I knew him well enough by sight. If he came across on the ferry without me seeing him, well then he’d have to be tied up in a trunk.”

“And you’re sure of the date you said you saw him crossing on?”

“Absolutely sure. You see, we were keeping a log to chart the sort of traffic that came across. There was only one other bicycle that weekend, come across from Adolphustown later that evening, and it wasn’t him.”

“You’re sure it wasn’t him?”

“Absolutely.”

“I don’t mean to doubt you, but why are you so sure? I mean, if it was nighttime — a hood or a cap, the darkness. It might be hard to be certain.”

“But I was certain. For two reasons,” Terry began. “As I said, I knew Craig Killingworth on sight. Well enough, you’d say, though I couldn’t have called him a friend. But his face was known around town. And at that time he’d lived here many years. It’s a small enough place, and you know who you know real well.”

And a wealthy man would always be known, Dan thought, though he didn’t voice his assumption.

“He was a very friendly man,” Terry continued. “He’d always call out to you on the street, say hello, ask about the weather, that sort of thing. You know how it is in small towns — or I’m sure you can guess, if you don’t.”

Funny,
Dan thought,
how the rich and the dead are always exalted in their eulogies
. Men who assaulted their wives and abandoned their families were remembered for a friendly greeting on the street, while for the most part the abuse and threats went unrecorded. He smiled. “So if he’d gone across on the ferry, you’d have no doubt he would have greeted you.”

“As I said….”

“But you said there was a second reason you were sure it wasn’t him you saw returning with the bicycle.”

“And I was coming around to that.” Terry winked. “In my own fashion, of course.”

Dan waited as Terry took a quaff of his beer and set the glass down.

“The other reason I am sure it wasn’t Craig Killingworth I saw with the bicycle that night was because it wasn’t a man. It was a youngster. Last run over on the ferry but one.” Terry looked triumphant.

Dan thought it over. “Did you recognize the kid?” he said at last.

Terry shook his head. “Afraid not.”

He had one final stop. He drove back along the parkway to the OPP detachment on Schoharie Road. Inside the long grey bowling alley, flanked on either side by an empty parking lot, Dan’s name elicited an immediate response. Saylor came through the door, pressed smartly into his uniform, greeting him as though he were a long-lost friend.

He ushered Dan into a spacious office the colour of unfired pottery. A policeman’s sanctuary. He’d covered his walls with posters, handwritten notices of crimes, some recent and others from long ago, alongside the Xeroxed faces of people wanted in connection with any number of incidents. Some of the reprobates scowled at the camera while others smiled, seeming to enjoy their little moment of notoriety. The usual detritus of police station life.

Saylor was clearly glad for the interruption in his routine, where Dan might find himself pressed to make even a fifteen-minute opening in his day. Small town-big town, he mused. That was the difference. In smaller places you had time for people, even if they were casual acquaintances.

“Good to see you, buddy. What brings you out here?”

“Just passing by,” Dan said. “I thought I’d drop in and say hello.”