Paradox Lake Read online

  But that’s when it hits me. This is the 21st century. I can access the photos with my smartphone. If Anna were with me right now, she’d probably say something like, “Duhhhh.” I pull the phone out, type in “Sarah Anne Moore, Paradox Lake.” I get the same results as I did with my laptop the other day. My hands now going from shaking to outright trembling, I click on the first link and once more see the first archived newspaper front page. Using my fingers, I blow up the photo of Sarah.

  “Oh sweet Jesus,” I whisper. “She’s wearing the cross.”

  That’s it then. The cross I’m now holding in my fingers belonged to Sarah. No question in my mind about it. What significance does this pose? What importance? It doesn’t, other than the fact that I am now physically connected with the murdered girl. Physically and emotionally. I scroll once more through the newspapers. I come to the last one with Theodore Peasley being led to a state trooper cruiser by two uniformed troopers. I blow the picture up and stare at it, like it’s going to reveal something to me. Some sort of clue about who he was and why he did what he did to such a sweet young girl.

  He’s a short, stocky man. A strong, barrel-chested man by the looks of it. A man who was far too strong for a thin, if not skinny, girl like Sarah. He’s wearing a hoodie and his scraggly hair covers his face, so it’s almost impossible to make out his face. He’s wearing work boots and farmer’s overalls over a t-shirt.

  A connection flashes in my brain. The creepy worker, Ed, who works in Tim’s store. He’s a short, stocky man who wears farmer’s overalls over a ratty t-shirt. He doesn’t have long hair, or any hair at all, for that matter. Of course, the man in this photo would be thirty-three years older by now. He’d have gone from a young man to a middle-aged man.

  “Jesus, could he be the same man?” I say aloud. “And if he is the same man, what the hell is he doing out of prison?”

  Tim mentioned to me that Ed lives in these very woods. His house is visible along the Paradox Lake Trail. I stand and gently place the cross in my jeans pocket. Turning away from the water, I head back onto the trail. I have to get back for Anna. But something is pulling me in the opposite direction. It’s the urge, or should I say need, to see Ed’s house. I need to know if this man is the same man who killed Sarah all those years ago.

  I glance at my watch. It’s only a little after eleven in the morning. Anna will still be chatting with her friends on her phone for another half hour at least. If I explore the trail for another mile or so, I’ll certainly come upon Ed’s house in the woods. Like Little Red Riding Hood, I move in the opposite direction of my house and head deeper into the dark forest.

  CHAPTER 22

  NOW THAT THE cloud cover is blocking out the midday sun, the woods are even darker than normal. Squirrels scatter about, and birds scoot and shoot from branch to branch. I bust through one spider web after the other. The sensation of the webs against my face and exposed arms creeps me out. The deeper I go, the more intent I am on keeping an eye out for the house. I’m not sure what to expect. Does more than one house exist in these deep woods? Or just Ed’s old family farmhouse?

  I keep walking. But then, walking isn’t the right word. More like slow jogging. I’m on a mission that has no rhyme or reason. Or does it? I’m trying to put two and two together. Trying to determine if Sarah’s killer is still alive, out of prison, and living in these very woods. If he is all of these things, it bears the question, why in the world would a man like Tim Ferguson hire him? After the way he brutally murdered Sarah, covering her body in hundreds of bites, including trying to bite her face off, why would Tim be so nice to him? Is Tim’s soul that forgiving, that compassionate? Maybe.

  I keep moving, over tree stumps, roots, and felled branches. I feel like I’ve been walking for miles when, in fact, I’ve only covered a half mile, or a little more than that. But that’s when I begin to smell something. Smoke. Definitely smoke that’s coming from a fireplace or maybe a firepit. The farther I go along the trail, the stronger the smell gets. My breathing is growing shallow, my heart pumping in my throat. I’m drenched with sweat. I also need water. Still, I keep on moving towards the smell of smoke.

  Then, I see it, out of the corner of my eye. It’s a structure built in the middle of the thick forest. A two-story farmhouse by the looks of it. I stop and take a long beat or two to observe the place. It’s tough to make out with so many trees and so much brush blocking my view. I move off trail and slowly make my way through the thick stuff until I come to a spot where I can see the entire spread.

  The house is old. Very old. It’s got a run-down porch in front and the wood siding is grayed with age and much of it covered in the same green mold that covers the roof. A dog—a mutt by the looks of it—is attached to a chain in the front, and there’s a chicken coop set beside an old wood shed. The lawn is overgrown, and all sorts of junk and scrap are stored on the front porch. Thick smoke is coming from the chimney. It’s the same smoke I’ve been inhaling for a while now. Parked in front of the house is the same old rusted pickup that Creepy Ed drives. It tells me that, without a doubt, this is his home. It also tells me he’s still home.

  Something else catches my eye. Beyond the shed is what I first thought was a clothesline. But it’s not a clothesline. It’s a kind of rack made from two thick poles buried in the ground. Attached to both polls is a long horizontal beam. The purpose of the setup is to dry skins. Animal skins, I can only assume. Maybe deer or bear. My throat closes in on itself. My stomach goes tight. I don’t like what I’m seeing. Even if it’s an entirely innocent operation, there’s just something about it I don’t like … something that doesn’t sit well in my gut.

  I’m about to turn tail and head back to the trail, when I see a man emerge from the front door of the house. It’s Ed. He’s wearing his usual overalls and work boots. He’s cradling something in his arms. It’s a pale skin and it appears to be somewhat heavy, judging by the way he seems to be struggling to carry it. Whatever it is, the dog is going nuts, barking and growling, thrusting itself against the chain, like the poor thing is purposely trying to choke itself. Ed kicks the dog with his right foot. The dog yelps and curls itself up in a fetal position.

  “That’ll teach you to shut your trap!” Ed barks.

  My heart aches for the poor dog. But it doesn’t ache for Ed. He carries the animal skin around to the rack where he proceeds to hang it from what I can only assume are meat hooks embedded into the crossbeam. Whatever animal the skin belongs to, it’s pretty big and dark. It can only be the skin of a big deer. But then, what the hell do I know?

  When he’s through, I watch him come around to the front of the house again. He goes inside for a few moments, until he comes back outside, his truck keys in one hand and what looks to be a chunk of bloody raw meat in the other. When he tosses the meat to the still ailing dog, the animal seems to forget all about its pain. It bounds up and snatches the meat right out of the air and begins to ravage it, like it’s his last meal.

  Wiping his bloodstained hand off on his overalls, Ed heads to his truck. He gets in, starts it up, and pulls away. I don’t move a muscle until all signs of him disappear.

  Choices. I can play amateur detective and examine Ed’s house. Or, I can head back to my house since Anna will be worrying about me by now. I check my cell phone. No texts. In fact, there’s no service this deep in the thick woods. Go figure. Okay, it’s settled then—I’ll head back to my house. Turning, I head for the Paradox Lake Trail, happy to be putting some distance between me and what appears to be a very unhealthy place.

  It seems to take me forever to get back to the house. But when I do, the first thing I see is Anna laid out on the dock on her tummy on a beach towel. She’s wearing sunglasses and she has what appears to be a tall glass of lemonade by her side. Naturally, she’s staring into her iPhone.

  “Anna,” I say, truly happy to see her, “glad to see you getting some air.”

  She turns to me. “’Bout time, Rosie. I was beginning to think a
wolf ate you up.”

  More wolves …

  I wipe the sweat from my brow.

  “Decided to go for a longer hike than I thought,” I say. “You getting hungry?”

  “Starving,” she says.

  “I’ll whip us up some lunch and we can eat outside.” Gazing up at the sky, I see that the sun is still shining in between the heavy clouds. “Doesn’t look like it’s gonna start raining till later tonight.”

  “Sounds good, Mom,” she says.

  “I like it when you call me ‘mom’,” I say, recalling my earlier conversation with Allison. “I know you like to call me Rosie, too. But mom is nicer. So is mama.”

  “Whatever, Rosie mama,” she says.

  Anna … she’s always got to have the last word, just like Charlie and Tony.

  Heading into the house, I immediately go to my studio. I dig into my pocket for the silver cross, pull it out, and feel its light weight in the palm of my hand. I gaze at the photo of Sarah hanging by a thumbtack on the wall over the work desk. I focus in on the cross.

  “I’ve found your cross, Sarah,” I say, my eyes veering from her to the cross and back again.

  My eyes fill. I’m crying for a girl who died when I was sixteen years old. But now I’m nearly fifty, and she is still twelve. She will always be twelve. I head back into the kitchen, run the cross and what’s left of the chain under warm water. I use my thumbnail to scrape off any dirt that’s still attached to it. I look under the sink for something that might clean the cross and return its original silver sheen.

  I don’t find much of anything. But I do recall a box of baking soda stored in the fridge. I remember my mom cleaning the family silverware with baking soda and boiling water. Retrieving the baking soda from the refrigerator, I fill a small pan with water and a couple tablespoons of the white powder. I then set it on the stove to boil. In the meantime, I set the cross on a dry paper towel on the counter. I go about making some ham and cheese sandwiches which I set on a dinner plate. Pulling out a bag of potato chips, I place a generous handful in the center of the sandwiches. Lastly, I grab two bottles of spring water from the case set on the floor near the back door.

  Before heading outside with our lunch, I take hold of the cross and place it in the now boiling water. Closing the gas burner, I allow the cross to just sit. If my experience serves me right, the cross will be entirely cleaned up by the time we finish our lunch.

  “So what did you discover in the woods, Rosie?” Anna says, after a time.

  She’s already scarfed half a sandwich and now she’s starting on another half. Instead of eating her potato chips one by one like normal people, she opens the sandwich up and adds a layer of chips on top of the ham and cheese. It’s such a great idea I find myself doing the same. After all, the chips add some crackly texture to the otherwise soft sandwich, aside from the extra salty flavor. If I’m addicted to anything besides my art and parenting, it’s potato chips and homemade chocolate chip cookies.

  But I digress.

  I could tell Anna the truth here … that I not only found Sarah’s cross but that I also discovered the house where Creepy Ed lives and the many animal hides he’s drying on an outdoor rack. But I think every bit of this information would only scare the daylights out of her. As it is, I’m tempted to tell her to pack her things, we’re leaving Paradox for a safer Adirondack lake. A lake and a house with no history of rape and murder. No history of violence. But before I make that kind of rash judgement, I’ll talk with Tim about it. If anyone knows Creepy Ed, it’s got to be Tim. He alone can tell me if the general store worker poses a threat or not. He’s already referred to Ed as harmless, and I have no reason thus far not to trust Tim.

  “I was just doing more work on the trail,” I fib.

  “You like that trail a lot, Rosie,” she says, taking another bite of her sandwich. “You sure you weren’t looking for something else?”

  “Like what, honey?”

  “I saw your studio,” she says. “It looks like a memorial to Sarah Anne Moore, the little girl who was murdered a hundred years ago.”

  There, she said it. And it’s not her fault that she knows about the murder. I tacked the newspaper accounts of it to my studio wall for God’s sake. What the hell was I thinking?

  “My bad,” I say. “You weren’t supposed to see that stuff. It’s for my new project.”

  “Good job at hiding it,” she says.

  I eat some sandwich, but my appetite has suddenly vanished.

  “Then you know who lived in this house and what happened to her back in 1986,” I say. It’s a question for which I know the answer.

  “Let me guess,” she says, finishing off the last bite of her food. “You think I’m scared now.”

  “It crossed my mind that news of the event might frighten you.”

  “Maybe if I were a little girl, Rosie,” she says. “But I’m gonna be thirteen in a few months. I think I can take it.”

  “You sure?” I say. “You telling me the truth?”

  “Here’s the way I see it,” she says. “If there was anything to worry about, I believe Tim would have said so, don’t you?”

  I find myself smiling. My daughter is maturing right before my eyes. Maybe I am doing a decent job at parenting after all.

  “I couldn’t agree more, honey,” I say.

  While we’re on the subject, I come clean about the shadows I’ve been seeing coming from the Paradox Lake trailhead. Might as well be honest about everything.

  “Shadows?” she asks, taking hold of the half sandwich she knows I’m not going to eat.

  “Tim thinks it’s nothing more than the deer who move around at night.”

  “He’s probably right. You were wrong about the loon.”

  She makes a good point.

  “He’s coming over later to check on the shadows anyway,” I say. “I hope you don’t mind, Anna. I know it seems like we can’t spend a night without Tim.”

  “It’s okay, Mom,” she says. “Like I said, Tim is cool.”

  I know what’s coming next.

  “You, umm, spoken with Tony yet?” she adds.

  I feel my cell phone pressed against my ever-expanding butt. I also feel an annoying pit in my stomach every time my daughter mentions my boyfriend.

  “No, I haven’t, thank you very much,” I say.

  “Don’t bite my head off, Rosie,” she says. “Just asking.”

  She eats the rest of my sandwich, and scarfs the last potato chip.

  “You’re absolutely right though,” I say, standing up from the picnic table. “I’ve got to be honest with him sooner rather than later.”

  “Is love always this hard, Mom?” Anna asks as she gets up, taking hold of the now empty plate.

  “Let me tell you the absolute truth,” I say. “It never gets any easier.”

  “Oh,” she says, “now that’s the kind of encouraging wisdom every preteen girl wants to hear.”

  We head back inside the house. I immediately go to the stove and what I see takes my breath away. The silver is so clean it’s practically shining inside the small pot of water. Wrapping a dish towel around my hand, I grab hold of the pot by its handle, bring it to the sink, pour some cold tap water into it to cool it down. Then, I reach in for the cross and pull it out. It feels solid between my fingers. It’s like new again.

  “Where’d you get that?” Anna says.

  “I found it on that secluded beach off the trail,” I say.

  She looks into my eyes. “You don’t think it belonged to Sarah Anne, do you, Mom?”

  It’s the obvious question. The million-dollar question.

  I inhale, exhale. “It’s exactly what I’ve been thinking, honey.”

  She holds out her hand.

  “Can I see it?” she asks.

  “Sure,” I say, handing it to her.

  She stares not at it, but into it, as if she’s imagining the things, both good and bad, this cross witnessed when it was being worn by the girl w
ho used to live in this very house. She looks into my eyes.

  “What were you going to do with it?” she asks.

  I draw a blank, because I hadn’t really thought about that. It’s exactly how I put it to her.

  “Do you think I can have it?” she asks. “I can bet Sarah would want it that way. You said yourself that we sort of look alike. Maybe you were somehow meant to find it for me. You know, like you were somehow destined to find it.”

  Her words hit me like a ton of bricks and rocks. Was I destined to dig up this cross? If that’s the case, were we drawn to this house in the woods not by chance but by some kind of divine intervention? Jesus, will you just listen to what I’m saying? It sounds like something you might hear on the Hallmark Channel or a romance novel by Nicholas Sparks.

  Still, my very perceptive, very sharp young daughter has made herself a very important point. It’s almost like I was meant to find this cross and to hand it over to her so that perhaps, just perhaps, Sarah Anne’s spirit can live once more. There, I said it. I know it sounds corny, if not downright weird, but there you have it.

  “Come with me,” I say, heading into my studio.

  Opening the drawer on what I’ve designated as my worktable—I have to wonder if Sarah Anne used this very same table to do her homework on—I pull out a clear plastic box that’s filled with all sorts of jewelry making junk, including some thin chains, leather laces, assorted beads, fishing line, and other useless stuff. Since there’s not enough chain to make a necklace, I pull out one of the spaghetti-thin black leather laces. Attaching a new ringlet to the top of the cross with my pliers, I then run the lace through it and tie the ends together in a fisherman’s slip knot. Solemnly, I place it over my daughter’s head and allow it to rest on her chest.