“They’re good kids.” Trixie’s eyes seemed to mist when she said it, and then she seemed to be looking off to one side, at nothing in particular.
“I keep getting this vibe that there’s something on your mind,” I said. “Talk to me.”
Trixie said nothing, breathed in slowly through her nose. If she needed time to work up to something, I could wait.
“Well,” she said, “you know the local paper in Oakwood? The Suburban? There’s this—”
And then the cell phone inside my jacket began to ring.
“Hang on,” I said to Trixie. I got out the phone, flipped it open, put it to my ear. “Yeah?”
“Zack?”
“Hi, Sarah.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m having lunch with Trixie. Remember I said?”
“So you’re not driving or anything?”
“No. I’m sitting down.” My mind flashed to Paul and Angie. When you have teenagers, and someone’s about to give you some sort of bad news, you know it’s probably going to be about them. “Has something happened with the kids?” I asked.
“No no,” Sarah said quickly. “Kids are fine, far as I know.”
I let out a breath.
“So anyway,” Sarah said, “there’s this stringer I use sometimes, Tracy McAvoy? Up in the Fifty Lakes District? She does the odd feature, breaking news when it happens up there and we can’t get a staffer there fast enough. Remember she did the piece about that seaplane crash, the hunters that died, last year?”
I didn’t, but I said, “Sure.” However, I could recall seeing the byline, occasionally, in the paper. Fifty Lakes is about a ninety-minute drive north of the city, lots of lakes (well, about fifty) and hills, cabins and boating and fishing, that kind of thing. A lot of city people had cottages up there. My father, for one.
“I just got off the phone with her,” Sarah said. “She’s got this story about a possible bear attack. Pretty vicious.”
I could guess where this was going. Tracy was an okay reporter, she could file a basic story, but the city desk was wanting something more, some color, maybe a piece for the weekend paper. The sort of thing I was born to do. “Sarah, just get to it.”
“Would you shut up and listen? It was in Braynor, well, in the woods outside Braynor.”
“Yeah, okay. Braynor’s where my dad’s camp is.”
“I know. Well, here’s the thing. They found this body, this man, and I guess there wasn’t a whole lot of him left to identify, and they found him right by Crystal Lake.”
That was the lake where Dad ran his fishing camp. A handful of cabins, rental boats. I mentioned that to Sarah.
“I know, Zack. That’s where they found the body. In the woods by your father’s place.”
“Jesus,” I said. “I guess I should give him a call.” I paused. “I can’t even remember the last time I talked to him. It’s been a while.”
“Here’s the thing,” Sarah said, hesitating. “Nobody’s seen your dad for a while. And they haven’t identified this body yet.”
A chill ran through me.
“I phoned your dad’s place,” Sarah added. “But there wasn’t any answer.”
I slipped the phone back into my jacket and said apologetically to Trixie, “Hold that thought. Something’s sort of come up.”
2
MY PARENTS WOULD TAKE ME and my older sister Cindy up to Fifty Lakes when we were kids. I guess we went up there two or three summers in a row, when Dad took a week off from his job at the accounting firm. There was a camp that rented out spots to people with travel trailers—Airstreams and the like—before everyone started going to Winnebago-style RVs that you didn’t tow but drove.