Snapper (3 page)

JJ’s heart was beating too fast to go any higher.

Mary knelt down.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” said JJ.

Mary smiled at him. Then she leaned in a little closer and in a voice that only JJ could hear, she started to cheer:
“Hey, Ho, 24! Pick yourself up off the floor!”

JJ smiled and rose to his knees. Then he straightened his helmet and brushed the dirt off his pants.

“Thanks,” he said, “for…”

JJ paused and looked into Mary’s beautiful blue eyes.

“For cheering me up.”

“Anytime,” said Mary.

* * * *

Marc Bozian felt lucky.

He was on the right track. Last year, less than a month out of college, Marc had landed a job as a reporter for The Turtleback Gazette.

“I know it’s not The Times or The Record,” he had told his parents. “But it’s a start – a stepping stone to bigger and better things.”

Marc got an apartment above a storefront in downtown Turtleback Lake. He spent the next year covering grand openings, town council meetings, and local sporting events. But then, out of the blue, the gods gave Marc what he’d been secretly praying for: a story with real teeth.

It was a warm Saturday in early September. Marc had the day off, but as he constantly reminded himself, a real reporter is never truly off. He was at the town beach reading an Edwin Corley novel when a sudden shriek made him look up from the page.

The lifeguard on duty, Cliff Marine, leaped from his stand and dashed across the sand. In just seconds he was in the lake, swimming out to a little girl who was thrashing in the water near the floating dock.

The girl screamed again.

“Help!” she cried. “Something bit me!”

Cliff had seen this moment in his mind a million times. It was the moment he had trained for and dreamed about for years. He could practically see the newspaper clippings pressed flat in his mother’s scrapbook.

Cliff quickly swam around the girl. Her arms and legs were flailing wildly. Cliff was cautious. The last thing he needed now was an elbow in the eye or a heel to the groin. Drowning people were dangerous, and though Cliff had practiced this maneuver dozens of times, it had always been with someone who wasn’t actually drowning.

He swung his arm across the girl’s chest and pinned down her arms.

“It’s okay,” he told her. “You’re going to be okay.”

For the first time, Cliff saw who it was. It was Joanne Sully. She was eight, maybe nine. Cliff knew her father. Jack Sully was a local painter who got jobs more for his reasonable rates than the quality of his work. Since his wife had left him, Jack had taken to drinking. Cliff knew all this because his parents had hired Jack the winter before to paint their den. Mr. Sully had draped the whole room with drop cloths then hadn’t come back for weeks. Then, when he finally returned, he painted the room the wrong color.

“Something bit me,” Joanne whimpered. “Hard.”

“Just stay calm,” Cliff told the little girl as he towed her back toward shore. Cliff was hoping that somebody was getting pictures of all this. Then he looked back at the water behind them. He almost gagged. The water had turned red with billowing clouds of blood.

“Hang in there,” he said to the girl. “It’s going to be okay.”

But he was no longer sure that this was true.

*

As Cliff was racing to the water, several people were already pressing 911 on their cell phone keypads. By the time he was wading back toward shore with the girl in his arms, an ambulance from the Turtleback Lake Rescue Squad was pulling up onto the scene.

The photographs Cliff had always imagined – the hero shots of him, the buff young lifeguard, emerging from the water with a girl draped in his arms – were captured on several digital cameras. They reproduced beautifully in The Turtleback Gazette.

The paramedics dashed across the beach and met Cliff waist deep in the water. They took the girl from his arms and carried her back to a collapsible gurney that was waiting at water’s edge.

Paul Murphy took one look at the girl’s foot.

“Jesus!” he muttered.

The blood was pouring out, fast and furious.

Down at the station, Paul was affectionately known as “the great coagulator.” Nobody staunched blood better than Paul. But Paul had his work cut out for him. Joanne’s foot was a gusher. He immediately elevated the injured limb and wrapped it quickly in gauze. Within seconds, the dressing was soaked through. As Paul removed the first blood-soaked wad, Marc Bozian peaked in for a closer look.

“Good God!” he gasped.

Where Joanne Sully’s big toe should’ve been, there was nothing. The toe was completely gone, clipped clean to the bone. A bandage wasn’t going to be enough. Paul quickly applied a tourniquet around the little girl’s calf.

As the medics rolled the gurney back to the ambulance, Marc scanned the beach. Cliff Marine was alone, sitting on a log at the edge of a grassy clearing. Marc walked toward him, pulling out his pen and pad.

“Hey, Cliff!” called Marc. “I was hoping to get a quick quote from you.”

Cliff had always imagined being interviewed after a heroic rescue. He knew exactly the kind of things he was going to say. They were like lines in a play he knew by heart. Only the lines weren’t coming now. When Cliff opened his mouth, a torrent of vomit burst out.

Marc stopped and turned. He’d get Cliff’s comments later.

*

When Marc Bozian’s story appeared on the front page of a special Sunday edition of The Turtleback Gazette, the whole town pretty much already knew everything. The story had spread like wildfire. And as it spread, the details got gorier and gorier.

Soon it wasn’t just Joanne’s toe that was missing – it was her whole foot, her whole leg; in some accounts, she had lost her entire lower body.

That’s what made Marc’s account so important. It was his job to set the record straight. He had to provide facts where rumors and hearsay had taken hold. But Marc was determined to do even more. Marc intended to get to the bottom of the disturbing increase in the number of snapper attacks at Turtleback Lake. It was something that could no longer be ignored.

* * * *

Every year, the pep rally before The Snappers’ season opener against Elkskin Lake got bigger and wilder. This year, a towering teepee of wood had been erected in the parking lot behind the stadium scoreboard. Now it was a flaming inferno that sent sparks shooting high up into the starry night sky.

A throbbing mass of players, students and cheerleaders danced and whirled around the blazing fire. The skin on the cheerleaders’ legs flashed red and gold as they shook and shimmied. Suddenly a pompom held too close to the fire burst into a ball of flames and was tossed into the inferno. Then one of the players grabbed a megaphone and began to chant.

“Skin the Elks! Skin the Elks! Skin the Elks!”

Soon the whole crowd was chanting along.

JJ stood at the back of the crowd, his hands thrust into his pockets. As he looked over the sea of bobbing heads, several cheerleaders were hoisted into the air.

The crowd started chanting,
“Snappers! Snappers! Snappers!”

For the first time, JJ saw Mary. Someone was holding her high above his head, with his grubby fingers gripping the bare flesh of her inner thighs. Whoever was holding her began to spin her slowly round. With her legs spread wide, JJ could see the shiny golden panties Mary was wearing beneath her pleated skirt. The metallic fabric glinted in the firelight.

JJ rose up on his toes to see who was holding her. He could only make out the number on the back of his jersey. It was number 42: Bobby Savarese.

The chanting grew louder and faster.
“Snappers!”
now sounded like
“Snap her! Snap her! Snap her!”

As JJ watched, Savarese extended his arms in a wide vee above his head. Mary’s legs spread out in a full split. Then, leering at the crowd, Savarese tilted back his head and flicked his pointed pink tongue in and out like a snake.

Mary gazed out at the throng. Her eyes were shining. She had no idea what was going on beneath her pleated black skirt. She just beamed and waved, like a beauty queen on a float in a parade.

In the radiating heat of the fire, JJ’s blood rose to a boil.

* * * *

Judd Clayton was taking Dan and Rebecca Woods on a tour of downtown Turtleback Lake. It was something he did whenever he felt his clients were getting serious.

“It looks like a Norman Rockwell painting,” said Rebecca, eyeing the quaint storefronts lining Lake Street.

“Like the cover of The Saturday Evening Post,” said Judd.

Rebecca Woods smiled.

“It’s like we’ve stepped back in time,” she said. “It could be 1965.”

Judd smiled. The Woods were selling themselves.

In a world that was changing at an alarming rate, the idea of living in a community that stayed the same was very appealing – especially to couples with young children.

This was the Woods’ second visit to Turtleback Lake. They’d driven all the way from Manhattan twice. They
had
to be serious. They’d even left their two kids behind this time. Maybe they were ready to talk turkey.

With just the slightest thrust of his chin, Judd directed the Woods’ gaze toward Druckers’ General Store.

On Druckers’ front porch was a large mechanical turtle. It was painted a bright yellow – just like the high school team’s Snapper emblem. A child – Judd thought it might be Bill Lupo’s granddaughter – climbed onto the turtle’s back. She slipped her feet into the stirrups and dropped a coin into the slot. The turtle began rocking back and forth, its webbed claws moving in a circular swimming motion as its beaked mouth opened and closed.

“Oh, the kids would just
love
riding on that!” Dan said to Rebecca.

“I used to ride on it myself,” said Judd. “Only back then, it was just a nickel. I think it might be a dime now, maybe it’s even up to a quarter.”

Judd wanted the Woods to know that he was more than just a broker. He was also part of the community.

“Let’s take a peek inside Druckers’,” said Judd. “I think you’ll like it.”

As Judd pushed opened the wood frame screen door, a little bell tinkled. Again, Rebecca was enchanted.

“I can’t believe a place like this actually exists,” she said.

The store was like an unopened time capsule. Yellow shoeprints painted on the pine plank floor led customers up and down the aisles. Against one wall wooden bins were brimming with penny candy. Above the bins, a handwritten sign said:
Please weigh and bag candy yourself.
Customers wrote down the right price themselves. It was the honor system. Even the cash register was an antique. It had been in continuous use since Druckers’ opened in the 1940s.

Judd let The Woods mosey up and down the aisles while he filled a paper bag with pink and white
Good’n Plenties
. He glanced over at Dan and Rebecca. They were examining vintage post cards in a spinning wire rack.

Suddenly a shriek pierced the air.

“Jesus!”
thought Judd.

It was the last thing he needed. Now what would the Woods’ think?

Judd rushed to the door. Stan, Dan and Rebecca followed him.

The little girl on the mechanical turtle had somehow managed to flip over the side. She was dangling upside down from one of the stirrups while the turtle continued to buck back and forth.

“How do you turn this thing off!” said Judd, turning to Stan.

“I don’t know,” said Stan. “It always stops on its own when the coin runs out.”

Judd looked down at the floor. An electrical cord ran from the base of the turtle to an outlet in the wall. With the toe of his topsider, Judd kicked out the plug. The bucking turtle rocked to a stop. Then Judd and Stan freed the girl from the tangled straps of the twisted stirrup.

“Are you okay?” asked Stan Drucker. “Are you hurt?”

The little Lupo girl wiped the tears off her cheeks and shook her head.

She was frightened, but she wasn’t hurt.

“Come inside with me,” said Stan. “Sometimes a little candy can help in a situation like this. Or maybe you’d rather have some ice cream? We just got in a fresh tub of mint chocolate chip – the green kind.”

As Judd turned to the Woods, a delivery truck pulled up in front. The driver jumped out of the cab and walked toward the front porch of the general store. It was Michael Schneiderman, Editor-in-Chief of The Turtleback Gazette. Michael doubled as the delivery man.

Michael waved.

“Howdy, Judd!” he called.

“Howdy, Mike,” answered Judd.

Then Mike let fly a stack of newspapers tied in twine. They landed with a thud just inches from Judd’s feet.

Judd looked down. The headline spanned the width of the front page. You’d have thought the
Titanic
had just sunk again.