The Deepest Water (13 page)

“I can’t stay,” Abby said, stooping to pet the poodles then. Daisy and Mae were excited, happy to see her, their stubby tails wagging their entire bodies. “That agent is alone in the cabin, and I have to go to Bend. Can you come with me? We can talk in the café at the copy shop.”

Felicia nodded. “Who is she?” She went to the bedroom for her jacket. She was dressed in a heavy sweater and wool pants, boots. The clothes should have looked incongruous with her face so pink and wrinkly, her hair as snow white and curly as the dogs’, but she looked entirely natural to Abby. She was putting on a thick plaid jacket when she came back.

“His New York agent. She wants to take his novel back with her, and the short stories, anything I’m willing to let her have.”

“Let me just check the stove. I was going to make us some tea.” Felicia looked inside the kitchen area, shook her finger at the dogs, and said, “You girls behave yourselves. I won’t be long.”

Abby drove to the copy shop, unloaded the boxes, gave directions about copying, and left Felicia at a table with a carton on another chair, the material Abby had put aside, not to be copied, not to be shown to anyone. She took the van to a service station for tires, and walked back, and now she sat down next to Felicia and drew in a breath.

The building was long and low, three businesses sharing the space, the copy shop with one attendant that day, several self-service copy machines, and two high-speed high-volume copiers, both in service with Abby’s material. Separated from that section by a counter with office supplies in a display case was the cafe, four tables, coffee makers, doughnuts and pastries and sandwiches in cases. Two teenage girls sat talking at one of the tables. Farther on there were more display cases with knick-knacks, a few pieces of handmade jewelry, some local pottery, and other odds and ends. Maxine Rutherford ran the gift shop and the cafe, and as far back as Abby could remember she had been there on duty, day after day, year after year.

“Abby,” Maxine said, approaching, “I’m so sorry about Jud. Are they making any progress yet on the case?”

“I don’t know,” Abby said. “Thanks. Just coffee, please.”

Maxine withdrew, and in a moment brought a mug of coffee, glanced at Felicia questioningly, and left them alone again. Felicia already had a small pot of tea.

Now Felicia leaned forward after a quick glance at the two girls, who were deeply into confidences apparently and paying no attention to anyone else. “Dear, unless there’s an eye witness, and there isn’t, or unless they find someone’s fingerprints that shouldn’t be at the cabin, the police won’t come close to learning who killed Jud.”

Abby stared at the old woman, surprised by the vehemence of her voice, the way she had plunged directly to the point she wanted to make. On the way to Bend Felicia had asked about Willa Ashford, asked about Lynne, how Abby was holding up, things of little consequence, and Abby had assumed that, after all, she just wanted to talk.

“This is all I’ve been thinking of,” Felicia said. “It’s all I can think of. The police will look for a mysterious stranger, someone like that, and they’ll get further and further away from the truth. You’re holding the clues, Abby, in that box—” she pointed to the carton on the third chair at their table—” or in that pile of stuff you’re getting copied. That’s where the truth is, but the police won’t recognize it even if they see it.”

“Willa thinks they suspect her,” Abby said slowly. How much did Felicia know about the way Jud wrote, that he had used real incidents, real people heavily disguised?

“Oh, good Lord!” Felicia said. “Willa! That’s what I mean. They won’t get near the truth by themselves. Jud and Willa… I think for the first time he was really in love, and she was, too. Willa!”

“She said they were going to be married,” Abby said.

“I believe that,” Felicia said, nodding vigorously. “He was floating on air for months. But let me tell you what I’ve been considering. Someone might have suspected that Jud would be writing the truth about him. That implies it was someone very familiar with the way Jud worked, his raw material, and it means that someone had time to look for whatever it was he was afraid of at some point. That narrows it down.”

“Parts of the novel seem to be missing,” Abby said faintly. “And a disk is missing.”

Felicia nodded again, as if in satisfaction this time. “But you can see the problem. If you’re in one of his novels, you might recognize yourself, some aspect of yourself anyway, but who else would relate that particular incident to you? I saw myself and Herbert clearly, but I don’t believe anyone else did. And I saw Joe Beardwell and Joyce after I learned how to read the novels.”

“Did you recognize Teri and Lawrence Frazier?” Abby asked, nearly whispering now.

Felicia drank her tea and refilled her cup, keeping her gaze on the little pot. It took her a long time to answer. “I saw them,” she said finally. “Changed, circumstances different, the witness different. Lawrence knows, he always knew that Jud saw whatever happened that day. Even before the novel was published he had to sell out, move away.”

They became silent when the girls stood up, put on jackets and hats, and walked out. A blast of cold air swept through the building when they opened the door. Maxine moved down to the gift shop section and busied herself there, and they were alone in the café.

Abby was considering what Felicia had said: someone who had had time to learn whatever it was that Jud was writing. Someone who had access to the cabin when Jud was absent, who knew what he was looking for, not just engaging in a blind search that night. Someone who had known about the hand gun in the drawer. Who knew about Spook and the dog door.

“But there’s still the problem of how anyone got there and out again,” she said after the long silence.

Felicia waved that away. “If we can find out who, then we will find out how,” she said firmly.

“What do you mean?”

“Abby, I want to help find out who did that. And I can. I know how to read his novels, I know the people involved. Jud was smart. He built a resort at the lake and brought in a lot of people from all over the world, with their intrigues and schemes, their wounds, their ambitions, but the people he really wrote about were people he knew well. He saw things, heard things, and didn’t forget. You’ve been away for a long time, ten years now, busy making your own life, you might not even know some of the people he used in his work. And the way he went back and forth in time, things that happened when you were a child, before you were born even, turn up in new scenarios. I want to read the novel. I want to find out who did that to him.”

Abby stared at her, this old woman with her curly white hair, whose fingers could turn a lump of clay into a dragon or a bird or a person so effortlessly it looked like magic, and she realized that although she had known Felicia Shaeffer all her life, she did not know her at all. Her eyes were bright blue, and so piercing, Abby felt as if her brain cells were being examined, her blood vessels visible, her thoughts tangible. Felicia had said that she and her dead husband were in one of Jud’s novels, but Abby had not known that; she had not recognized them as a couple in the cast of characters, the parade of scenes, the play of incidents.

“He was more than just a friend,” Felicia said. “He was sometimes a brother, sometimes a son, a confessor, a confidant. More than just a friend. I want to find his murderer and see him die for doing that to Jud.”

Slowly Abby nodded. “So do I,” she said. “But I can’t leave the novel out here. I have to compare it with disks, try to find the missing sections.”

“Not here. I’ll come to town and stay at the condo. I can come to your house every day.”

“No,” Abby said quickly. She remembered Brice’s words, urging her not to confide in Willa or Felicia and she had talked to both of them. And now she would join forces with Felicia. They would work together on the novel, on the fragments. “Where is your condo?”

They were still talking, planning, when the attendant from the copy shop came to the table to say he was done. “It’s a great big stack of boxes,” he said. “Help you carry them to your car.”

“I have to go get it,” Abby said. She added a box of floppy disks to the finished work, paid the man with a credit card, and didn’t even blink at the size of the bill. She left to retrieve the van, with the new tires in place, then collected Felicia and the boxes, and headed for the supermarket, and finally back to the lake. Rain mixed with snow began to fall as she drove. At Felicia’s cottage, they clasped hands briefly, and Abby said, “I’ll call you on Monday. Be careful driving in.”

10

By the time Abby reached the cabin rain was coming down hard, driven by a cutting wind. She was wrapped in a waterproof hooded poncho, and the boxes and bag of groceries were all protected by the tarp, but the wind was very cold and the rain stung her face; she was chilled when she pulled up to the ledge. Christina was there with Jud’s oversized umbrella. Although there wasn’t enough wind to create real waves, the dark water had a chop, and now and then it sloshed up over the ledge, over Christina’s feet. Spook didn’t seem to notice that it was raining; she stood near the boat wagging her tail wildly, spraying water all about.

They got everything inside the cabin. “I left the originals in the van,” Abby said. “Not much point in lugging them across, then back in the morning.” She had also left the private papers locked up in the van.

“Never mind that,” Christina said, as Abby took off the dripping poncho, then hung it up on a peg in the kitchen. “You’re freezing. Sit down.” She hurried across the cabin and pulled a throw off the couch, came back and draped it over Abby’s shoulders, drew it in close around her, and nearly pushed her down into a chair. “I made coffee. It’s hot, in the carafe. Just sit still and get warm.”

Another side of the woman, Abby thought, one she had not glimpsed before. Christina brought coffee and then knelt down to take off Abby’s wet boots. Her own feet were still wet, but she was paying no attention to that. “I’ll do it,” Abby said in protest, and pulled off her own boots. Christina picked them up and placed them on a mat by the door. She hurried out to the bedroom, came back with Abby’s fuzzy slippers, and put them on her.

“You should dry your own feet,” Abby said.

Christina looked down in surprise, then hurried out again, this time to return with her own slippers on, holding her wet boots. They were very handsome—snake skin? alligator? Something decorative, and impractical for this part of the world.

“I just want to make sure nothing happens to you before you get us back to dry land,” Christina said lightly. She put her boots next to Abby’s, then got herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table.

Abby smiled at her, and Christina shrugged.

“When Jud came to New York the first time, right after he sold
Siren Rock
,” Christina said meditatively, “his editor suggested he should get an agent and gave him my name. He called; we met, and it was like finding an adolescent boy in my charge suddenly. He was so eager, so anxious to see everything, understand everything. He wanted to take the tourist boat around Manhattan, something I’d never even done before, and I lived there most of my life. I showed him around for a week, every afternoon somewhere different, museums, the Statue of Liberty, library, my favorite deli… Book stores. He was insatiable for books.”

She was gazing past Abby with a distant look. “He made me see my own city through his eyes. I still don’t know how he did that. Then he left. I felt like a mother must feel when her only child goes off to college.” She was not drinking the coffee, just holding a mug with both hands, as if to warm them.

“He came back with the next novel, and he insisted that I read it while he waited. I said I couldn’t read it in the office with the phone ringing, people coming by, so much distraction. I said I would read it overnight and call him, but he insisted that I had to read it immediately. We went to my apartment, and he read the newspaper, magazines, manuscripts, whatever he picked up, while I read his novel. He made dinner while I read. I started to cry. The first novel was good. More than that, it was very good, but the second one,
The Black Shore
, it made me cry. And I fell in love with the writer. Before, he had been a companion, a pal, like a ward almost, shy and tentative; suddenly he was Jud the writer. He knew what he had; he was exultant. His excitement couldn’t be contained, and neither could mine.”

She became silent, gazing at the black lake beyond the cabin.

“Yesterday, you cried again,” Abby said softly.

Christina nodded. “Yes. The new novel is the best thing he ever wrote. Even if it’s never finished, just as it stands, it’s beautiful, powerful, his best work yet.”

“It’s finished,” Abby said fiercely. “He told Willa it was finished, he just had to arrange the pieces, discard early drafts, put it in final shape. Whoever stole the disk, and the pages, whoever turned off his computer didn’t touch the hard drive. It’s there, and I’ll find it. We’ll get it together and get it published. I promise you.”

The next morning they left the cabin early, in a driving rain. It was a nightmare boat ride across the water for Christina, but she helped with the boxes, held an umbrella over Abby as much as she could as she loaded the van, helped her drag the boat into the shelter of the shed. She didn’t complain when Spook shook water on them both.

Abby had warned her that there might be snow on the pass over the mountains, and there was, not a threatening snow, not this early, just messy enough to slow traffic to a crawl, and turn the world into a surreal black and gray landscape with startling patches of white in unexpected places. On the west side of the pass the snow gave way to rain again, the world became green again; it was still raining when they came to a stop in the driveway at Abby’s house.

“If there’s someplace where I can change, repack my bags,” Christina said hesitantly. “I want to put the manuscript, all that other stuff in the carry-on. I’ll put clothes in the cartons and check them through.”

“Upstairs, a spare bedroom,” Abby said, and led the way into the house where Brice met them with an anxious expression.