Snapper (23 page)

Deena looked at the clock. It was almost midnight. Judd had left over an hour ago. He should be home by now.

Deena opened the directory. Clayton was easy to find. Judd had paid extra to have his name printed in bold-faced capital letters. He didn’t want anybody – buyers or sellers – to miss him. Deena dialed the number.

The phone rang five times. Maybe Judd had gotten home and was already asleep. Five rings were enough. Deena was lowering the receiver toward the cradle when she heard a voice.

“Hi! You’ve reached the Clayton residence. To leave a message for Judd, JJ or Clayton Realty, please begin at the tone.”

Voice mail, thought Deena. She waited for the beep.

“Hi. This is Deena – I mean Dr. Goode. Judd, I just wanted to make sure that you got home safely. Please call me as soon as you get this message. Thanks.”

Deena hung up the phone but she didn’t let go of the receiver. Again she thought of calling August. But what would she even say? She looked out her window toward his cabin. The windows were all dark. He had to be asleep.

She let go of the phone and sat down in a chair. Seconds later she stood back up. She started pacing the floor. Going to bed was out of the question. She looked out her window toward the lake and tried to make out a light in the Clayton house on the far shore. There was no way to see through the pouring rain.

Deena decided to wait until 12:30 for Judd to call back. The minutes ticked away. At 12:25 she went to the hall closet, took out a yellow rain slicker, and put it on. She grabbed the car keys off a hook by the front door and went out into the night. She didn’t even bother to lock the door behind her.

The Volvo’s headlights strained to illuminate the darkness. The rain was teeming once again. The windshield wipers swiped back and forth like a manic metronome, but they were doing a lousy job. Her defroster was doing a lousy job, too. With one hand still on the wheel, Deena used the other to try to clear a hole in the condensation on the windshield.

Deena followed the snaking curves of Lakeview Drive, heading east around the north end of the lake. She had never been to Judd’s house, but she had the address. She had quickly circled it in the directory then torn the whole page out. Now it lay crumpled on the empty seat next to her. 4 Skytop Road. How hard could it be to find?

*

The phone hadn’t awakened JJ, but the persistent ringing of the doorbell did. He woke with a start and looked at the lighted dial of the clock at his bedside. One o’clock. Who could be at the door at this hour? He gave his father a minute to get it, but when the ringing continued, he threw back the covers, got up, and went down the stairs. He was sure he’d run into his father, bleary eyed, on the way down. But he didn’t.

JJ went to the front hall and peered through the glass alongside the door. Dr. Goode, in a yellow slicker with the hood up, was standing, dripping wet, on the welcome mat outside.

JJ opened the door.

“Dr. Goode!” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“I called, JJ,” she said. “But no one answered.”

“I didn’t hear it,” said JJ. “And I guess my dad didn’t either. We were both asleep.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure of what?” asked JJ.

“That your father’s asleep,” said Dr. Goode.

“It’s one o’clock in the morning,” said JJ. “Where else would he be?”

“He came to my house earlier in the evening,” explained Dr. Goode. “Did he ever come home?”

“I never knew he went out,” said JJ. “I went to bed early.”

“You’d better check, JJ. Quick – where’s his bedroom?”

“Upstairs,” said JJ. “I’ll be right back.”

JJ took the stairs two at a time. He looked into his father’s room. The bed was empty, still made from the previous day.

JJ came back down the stairs, calling through the house.

“Dad! Dad! Are you here?”

There was no answer.

JJ looked out the window.

“But his car’s here,” he said.

“He told me he didn’t drive,” said Dr. Goode. “I figured he walked.”

“My dad never walks anywhere,” said JJ.

“Maybe he took your bike,” suggested Dr. Goode.

“That’s even less likely.”

“Well how else could he have gotten all the way across the lake?” Dr. Goode asked.

JJ went over to the wall and reached for a panel of switches. He flicked two, then slid open the glass doors that led out onto the deck. He walked over to the railing, followed by Deena. They both looked down. Far below, at water’s edge, the Clayton’s dock was illuminated.

“Uh-oh!” said JJ.

“What is it?” asked Dr. Goode.

“My dad’s kayak,” said JJ. “It’s gone.”

“Oh my God!” said Dr. Goode. “C’mon!”

“Where are we going?” asked JJ.

“To get help!”

JJ grabbed a windbreaker in the hall closet then the two of them ran out to Deena’s Volvo and hopped in. With JJ calling out the lefts and rights, they got back out onto Lakeview Drive in half the time it had taken Deena to find her way in. She handed her cell phone to JJ.

“Try and reach Chief Rudolph,” she said.

“What should I tell him?” asked JJ.

“Just get him on the line,” said Dr. Goode. “Then give me the phone.”

“Where are we going now?” asked JJ.

“To my neighbor’s house – Mr. Andersen’s. I introduced you this morning.”

Deena sped around the north end of the lake. When JJ got Chief Rudolph on the line, he handed the phone back to Deena. She blurted out the situation, never once reducing her speed as she raced along the wet curving roadway.

“Another damn fool,” spat out Chief Rudolph. “We seem to be running a surplus.”

“So what are you going to do?” demanded Deena.

“I’ll take out the patrol boat with deputy Rhodes,” he said. “But don’t hold your breath.”

Deena hung up.

“What did he say?” asked JJ.

“He said not to worry,” she told him. “He said they’ll find him.”

What was the point in quoting a pessimist?

Turning off Lakeview Drive, Deena careened down the dark dirt road that wound through the woods. She drove past her own bungalow and pulled up in front of August’s cabin. She honked the horn of her Volvo. Within seconds a light came on in August’s darkened bedroom. By the time Deena and JJ got out of the car and reached the door, August was standing there in his pajamas.

Both Deena and JJ looked wild-eyed.

“What’s going on?” asked August.

“I think JJ’s dad is out on the lake,” said Deena. “We’ve got to do something.”

August looked past the two rain-soaked figures. Behind them he could make out the lake. The surface was a tempest of whitecaps.

“What’s he doing out there on a night like this?” asked August.

“It’s a long story and there’s no time to tell it,” said Deena. “All I know is there’s a good possibility that he’s out there right now in a kayak trying to cross the lake.”

“Did you notify Chief Rudolph?”

“I just called him,” said Deena. “He and deputy Rhodes are going out in the patrol boat.”

August quickly considered the odds of them finding Judd.

“I’ll do what I can,” said August.

“And what’s that?” asked Deena.

“I’ll go look for him myself.”

“In your little sub?” asked Deena.

“In my little sub,” said August. “It’s all I’ve got.”

*

Judd’s kayak crashed against the side of the rock with a bone-crunching thud.

The gale that had swept him so far off course was now beating him like a rug against Turtleback Rock.

Judd was half in and half out of the kayak. From the waist down his body was trapped inside the craft. Each time the waves slammed him against the rock, Judd tried to grasp the slippery surface. Judd knew he had to free himself quickly before he was smashed to smithereens – or else swept back out onto the lake. Either way he’d be a dead man.

Judd Clayton hadn’t been to church in years, but still he beseeched the heavens.

“Dear God, please, help me!”

And then the heavens answered. The fingers of Judd’s right hand slipped an inch into a narrow fissure in the surface of the rock. In the brief instant he had, Judd pulled with all his might and yanked himself free of the bucking kayak.

The terry cloth belt that had kept Deena’s robe closed was long gone. Judd’s bare flesh was pressed up against the cold wet rock as he inched himself up the side. Waves pounding against his back tried to drag him back into the churning lake. Judd’s flesh was scraped raw and bloody; the surface of Turtleback Rock appeared smooth – until one’s naked body was ground against it. When Judd finally clawed his way to the top of the rock, he clung to it for his life. He had no idea he was at the peak of a mighty mountain.

Judd shivered uncontrollably. The wet, white terry cloth robe, twisted around his torso and legs, offered no warmth and little protection. Judd saw himself as if from above: a tiny figure clinging to a rock in a storm-tossed sea. He thought of The White Rock Girl imprinted on soda bottles when he was a kid. She was perched on a rock like this. Only she had wings on her back – like an angel. She could fly away. He couldn’t. He wondered how much longer he could hold on before some wave knocked him back into the freezing water.

*

“I’m coming with you,” said JJ. “It’s my father out there!”

August had dragged the sub out of the bushes and into the water. Waves were crashing like breakers against the shore. August gripped the rungs on the side of the craft, trying to steady it so he could climb in.

“You can’t come,” he said to JJ. “There’s no room for you.”

“It’s a two-seater,” argued JJ.

“You’re right, JJ,” said August. “And that second seat is where your father’s going when I find him.”

August had gotten himself on top of the rocking sub and was lowering himself into the hatch. He called back to JJ.

“Stay here with Dr. Goode. Your dad and I will need you both when we get back.”

Then August closed the hatch. The sub motored off shore, listing wildly from side to side in the turbulent waters. In the renewed downpour, it was underwater even before it submerged. Within seconds, JJ and Dr. Goode lost all sight of it.

“There’s nothing we can do now but wait,” said Dr. Goode. “Come on, JJ, let’s get inside.”

They went inside August’s cabin and took up position by the window where Deena had spent her summer writing. They looked toward the lake, peering through the rain and darkness, but they couldn’t make out a thing.

Out there, somewhere, Chief Rudolph and deputy Rhodes were braving the storm. The Chief clung to the boat’s steering wheel, straining to see through the rain-streaked windscreen. At the same time he was trying to recall who played the skipper on
Gilligan’s Island
. The guy kind of looked like Rod Steiger, but it wasn’t him. It was a stupid thing to be thinking of but it had come to him because of the show’s theme song:
The weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed.
It was
apropos
.

Meanwhile, Deputy Rhodes called out through a bullhorn: “Judd! Judd Clayton! Judd – are you out there?”

Chief Rudolph and deputy Rhodes had motored across the lake from the town basin at the south end. Now they were in the north end, where they assumed Judd was most likely to be found – somewhere between the Burt bungalow on the western shore and the Clayton house on the east side.

Though Chief Rudolph’s approach made perfect sense, August had taken a different tack. Despite long years of scientific training, August was letting himself be guided by his gut. And his gut was sending him straight out into the middle of the lake.

August was bound for Turtleback Rock.

*

Wind and waves weren’t the only forces pummeling Judd’s kayak against the side of Turtleback Rock.

Rising from below like a torpedo, Grundel rammed the kayak’s hull with his razor-sharp beak, punching out a hole as big as his head. The tasty legs and crunchy feet he expected inside weren’t there, so he rammed the kayak again and again, poking two more gaping holes into its hull. Grundel was like a giant woodpecker, drilling for food.

Judd was now splayed like a starfish across the top of the rock. He watched his kayak in the water, jerking and lurching spasmodically. It now seemed out-of-sync with the waves that were thrashing it. Judd didn’t know that Grundel was ravaging his kayak from below.

And Grundel was very angry. The moon had summoned him to a feast. And now there was nothing in the little boat for him to eat. Grundel opened his jaw wide and gripped the kayak’s hull. Then he dragged the whole damn thing underwater.

“Wow,” thought Judd. “That went down fast.”

*

Suddenly, from out of the rain-slashed darkness, a beam of light struck Judd. It shone on him for just an instant, lighting up his blood-streaked body. Then the beam was gone, illuminating nothing but slanting sheets of pouring rain.