Paradox Lake Read online

  “That would be the idea.”

  “I haven’t been around guns very much, being an art professor. But I guess up here you need them. My father had a hunting rifle, but he kept it locked up.”

  “I’m fully licensed,” he says. “If something is out there, we don’t want Anna getting hurt, now do we?”

  “We most definitely do not, Tim.”

  I drink some more coffee. When I look up, Creepy Ed is standing there. His sudden presence startles me. Has he been there the entire time? He must have come from around the back of the building. Did it silently, stealthily. Like always when I’m in his presence, he’s staring at me with his blue eyes.

  “What is it, Ed?” Tim poses.

  “I need to go home for a minute. Is that going to be a problem, Mr. Ferguson?”

  “No, Ed. The morning rush is over. Just get back as soon as you can, and start refilling the shelves.”

  “Yes, Mr. Ferguson.”

  He shifts his focus to me again.

  “Hello, missus,” he says. “How is your little girl?”

  Just his asking for my Anna sends a cold shiver up my spine.

  “She’s fine, thank you,” I say, my eyes now drawn to the wolf tattoo on his neck. The tattoo is pulsing with his every breath.

  He nods.

  “I’ll be going then,” he says.

  Together, we watch the barrel-chested man get into his battered pickup. Starting it up, he pulls out of the lot and heads in the direction of the lake. For a time, we sit there in the quiet, until Tim finishes his cigarette and stamps it out. He slides off the table and faces me.

  “You don’t like Ed, do you?” he says, a sly grin painting his face.

  “It’s not that I don’t like him,” I say. “It’s just that I feel like he isn’t looking at me, so much as through me. Through my clothing. And that black wolf tattooed on his neck. All this talk about wolves suddenly … Frankly, it’s unnerving.”

  Tim laughs a little. Not at me, but at the situation.

  “Trust me, there’s no need to be concerned about wolves or Ed. If there’s a wolf in the area, I’ll take care of it. And as for Ed, well, he’s a good man. Like I said, he’s a little slow. He’s lived in the North Country his whole life with his family and extended family in a farmhouse in the middle of the Paradox Preserve. You should see the place. No electricity or running water. It’s completely off the grid. It’s like a place caught up in a time warp. You can see it from the Paradox Lake Trail if you look hard enough. The house is accessible from the Paradox Lake Road only by a narrow two-track that runs for miles in the deep forest. You wouldn’t even know it was there unless you were looking for it.”

  “I won’t be looking for it, thanks,” I say, sliding off the table. “I’ll be letting you get back to work, Mr. Ferguson.”

  He takes hold of my arm, pulls me towards him, and plants one on my mouth. It makes me want to melt on the spot.

  “Oh my,” I say, as I pull back. “Yes, you may make violent love to me in the parking lot.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I couldn’t help myself. It’s just that you’re so stunning, Rose.”

  “You really think so? Or is that what you tell all your girlfriends?”

  “You know it’s true,” he says. Then, kissing me more gently this time. “See you later, when we do a little hunting.”

  “Sounds like a plan, Stan,” I say.

  As he heads back to the store and I go to my car, I feel the weight of true love bearing down on my heart.

  CHAPTER 20

  I CAN’T HELP myself. The egg sandwich smells so good, I peel back the aluminum foil and steal a couple of bites while I’m driving back to our house on the lake—I’m breaking my own no eating in the Mini Cooper rule. By the time I’m pulling up in the driveway, I’ve finished half the sandwich. Getting out, I come around to the passenger side, grab the tray, and bring it with me into the kitchen. Then I head back into the living room, stationing myself at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Anna, you up, honey?”

  I wait. No answer. No surprise there.

  “Anna, wake uppppp …” Now I’m using my singsong wakey-wakey voice.

  The point to all this is that I want her to shift from her summer sleep-in schedule to her everyday school schedule since the Labor Day weekend is almost upon us. Maybe my daughter is about to be homeschooled, but we have to take it all very seriously. That means getting up on time, five days per week, minus traditional school holidays, of course.

  “Anna, come on,” I call out again. “I have a hot chocolate and an apple fritter for you. Your favorite.”

  Still no answer.

  “Sure,” I say, “force an old lady to make the stairs.”

  I trudge up the staircase and come to the second-floor landing. Hooking a right, I then make a quick left into Anna’s bedroom. She’s not there. My lungs go tight and I have trouble breathing.

  “Relax, Rose,” I whisper to myself. “I’m sure she’s in the bathroom.”

  About-facing, I cross the hall into the upstairs bathroom. She’s not there either. I open the shower curtain. The shower is empty.

  “Anna!” I bark. “This isn’t funny.”

  I speed-walk the short hallway into my bedroom. Anna is not there. Open the closet. She’s not there either.

  “Oh Christ,” I say, the panic starting to kick in. “I never should have left her alone.”

  I go to the closet in her bedroom, throw the door open. Empty again.

  “Oh sweet Jesus,” I say aloud.

  Then, coming from outside the window: “I got one!!!”

  I go to the window, look out onto the dock. I’ll be damned. Anna is standing out on the dock in her black one-piece bathing suit. She’s got a fishing poll in her hand. A sunfish—or what I’m guessing is a sunfish—is dangling off the end of her line. The live fish is throbbing, jerking, and struggling to get free.

  I can’t help but smile, but that’s also when I realize my eyes have filled with tears. The tears are proof that I will never get over the pain and fear of losing a child.

  Take it easy, Rosie. You gotta learn to let go.

  I know, I know, Allison. It’s just that I still feel the pain of losing you and I can’t bear to lose another.

  You won’t, Rosie. But the more you try to protect her, the more she won’t be able to protect herself. You get what I mean? If you could have transferred my cancer to yourself, you would have. You would have gladly died in my place. But you see, it’s impossible to do any of those things. Life has its own way of working things out.

  So does death, I guess.

  Correctamundo.

  I picture my sandy-blond-haired daughter sitting on Anna’s bed. She’d be dressed in her jeans and flip-flops, and maybe a Nirvana t-shirt. At least, that’s the way I picture her as the teenager she never got to be. She might be gone, but she’s still with me, just like all my ghosts are with me.

  Allison, do me one favor.

  What is it, Rosie?

  Just for once, call me “Mom.”

  Love you, Mom.

  Love you, Allison.

  I quickly head back down the stairs, wiping my eyes with the backs of my hands so that Anna can’t tell I’ve been crying. I want her to know that I trust her … that I trust her enough to start taking care of herself now that soon she’ll be a teenager.

  “What a fish, Anna,” I say. “Bravo.”

  She’s still holding the rod with both hands, the fish never still.

  “So what the heck do I do with it now, Rosie?”

  “Let me help,” I say, jogging onto the dock.

  “I don’t want to touch it,” Anna says.

  “Then why go fishing, silly?”

  Taking hold of the fish between forefinger and thumb, I then pull out the hook. Before tossing the sunfish back, I ask Anna to give me her hand.

  “Really?”

  “Really,” I say. “Consider this our first lesson in homeschooling.�
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  “Well, okay,” she says. “So long as I get an A for participation.”

  “Most definitely.”

  Reluctantly, Anna touches the fish.

  “It feels cold and scaly,” she says. “But not so bad.”

  “See, I told you,” I say. “Always remove the hook as gently as possible. If the hook is buried too far inside the fish, cut the line and throw the fish back in the water anyway. Unless, of course, you plan on having a fish fry that night.”

  “Toss it back with the hook still in it? Won’t that hurt it even more?”

  “The hook will dissolve in no time, honey.”

  She scrunches her forehead.

  “How do you know all this stuff, Mom?”

  “I grew up with your uncles and a dad who would rather fish than work. He took me out in his boat a lot on Lake George when I was your age.”

  “Do you think we can get a boat?”

  “You never know,” I say, making a mental note to ask Tim about it later.

  She casts the lure into the water, slowly reels it in.

  “Got you some breakfast,” I say. “An apple fritter and a hot chocolate.”

  “Oh good,” she says, setting her pole down thoughtlessly on the dock. “I’m starving.”

  We head back into the house where I microwave her now-cooled hot chocolate. I also microwave her apple fritter for ten seconds since Anna likes it warmed up. Together, we sit at the kitchen table and dig into our breakfasts. Since I only have half a sandwich left, I’m done in no time. I sip my coffee while Anna continues to work on hers.

  “So you went to the general store this morning,” she says, after a time. “Did you go just to get us some food? Or did you go because you were hoping to see someone?”

  I can’t help but smile.

  “Snagged,” I say.

  “This is getting serious, Rosie,” she says, while popping a piece of apple fritter in her mouth.

  “We’ve only just met one another,” I say. “It’s way too early for getting serious.”

  “When are you going to tell Tony?” she asks. “He should probably know. What’s that you’re always preaching? Honesty is the bestest policy.”

  I nod, feeling a definite sadness in my chest. I still love Tony. I’m just not in love with him anymore. There’s a distinct difference. I could attempt to explain this to Anna, but now that she’s done with her breakfast, all I wanna do is grab a quick shower and get to work.

  “All done?” I say, pushing out my chair and standing.

  “Finished,” she says, while getting up and tossing her empty paper cup into the garbage. “And way to change the subject, Rosie.”

  “Very funny,” I say. “I’m going to grab a quick shower since I stink, and then get some work in. Don’t forget to wash your dish.”

  “Aye aye, Captain.”

  “At ease, sailor.”

  “Let’s get a boat,” she says, as I exit the kitchen, scoot across the living room, and bound the stairs two at a time to the second floor.

  Undressing down to my birthday suit, I go to the hall closet and search for a couple of fresh bath towels. There’s a stack on the mid-level shelf. The lower shelf houses the bedsheets and blankets. The top shelf holds three or four extra pillows. It’s while glancing at the pillows I can’t help but notice something stuffed in the far corner. Newspapers. Maybe three or four of them. It’s almost like someone shoved them there at the last minute and then hid them with the pillows.

  I pull one of them out. It’s so old it feels like it’s about to crumble in my hands. The date is September 8, 1986. The paper is the Glens Falls Eagle and the headline is the same as the one I read online two nights ago about Sarah Anne Moore having gone missing. There’s a beautiful black-and-white photo of her below the headline. The photo must have been snapped by a school photographer, perhaps for her yearbook. She’s got long, thick, dark hair parted in the middle, and stunning dark eyes, a perfectly chiseled nose, full lips, and her expression is one of hope and youth. If I had to wager a guess, the concept of death is the furthest thing from her mind.

  But here’s the strange thing. Sarah looks so much like my Anna, it’s scary. Maybe I’m letting my imagination get the best of me, but I swear she could be a dead ringer.

  I flip through the papers. Each one carries one dreadful headline after the other. “Sarah Anne Moore Gone Missing Along the Paradox Lake Trail.” “Still no Sign of Sarah.” “Sarah Anne Moore’s Body Discovered on Paradox Lake Trail.” “Theodore Peasley Arrested in Connection with Moore Murder.” This final headline is accompanied by another black-and-white photo of a short, heavy-set man with his wrists cuffed behind his back. He’s being led to what looks like a state trooper cruiser car by two gray-uniformed troopers. You can’t see his face because it’s hidden by long, scraggy dark hair under a hooded sweatshirt.

  “Sarah Anne Moore,” I whisper to myself. “You look too much like my daughter.”

  I go to place the newspapers back in the spot in which I found them, but something inside me tells me to hang onto them. That maybe I was meant to find them. The towels in one hand and the newspapers in the other, I go back into the bedroom, set them on the bed. Then I head back to the bathroom and quickly shower. After drying myself off, I put on a fresh pair of jeans and a plain black t-shirt. As always, I slip into my favorite pair of brown cowboy boots. Taking hold of the newspapers, I carry them down into my studio with me. Already, I feel my creative left brain warming up.

  CHAPTER 21

  SEATED AT MY little round stool, sculpting knife in hand, I go to work on the face. One eye on the newspaper photo of Sarah Anne Moore, the other on the clay head, I begin to carve the eyes. I’m not in charge of my movements at this point. A higher being, like an angel or a ghost, is doing the work for me. My fingers and arm muscles are merely conduits for what the muse wishes to construct. I gaze once more at Sarah’s picture and my fingers rapidly cut away at the clay, forming one eyeball and then the other, until I find myself working on the nose, and then the mouth, using my thumb pad to smooth out the thick lips.

  I hardly even notice that an hour has passed since I first started working. My brow is covered in sweat and I swear there’s clay in my hair—looks like another shower is in store for this afternoon or maybe a quick swim off the dock—and the back of my t-shirt is wet with sweat. My hands are covered in clay, but that goes without saying. I stand, stretch my back. When the hell did I take scissors to the newspapers and tack the pictures of Sarah Anne and Theodore to the wall? When did I cut out the headlines and tack those to the wall under the pictures? When did I tack the little piece of yellow crime scene ribbon to it?

  Of course, I recall having done it sometime in between my carving the cheeks and the chin. I was so excited, so pumped with adrenaline, that I didn’t think about it. I just picked the scissors up off the worktable and started cutting. Now I can’t help but feel a little guilty. The newspapers weren’t mine to destroy. But then, Sarah Anne’s entire family is deceased now. Who would want the newspapers? Certainly not anyone who’s renting this place out on Airbnb, excepting myself, of course. It almost feels like someone, somewhere, left them in the closet specifically for me to discover.

  Wiping my hands off on a rag, I head into the kitchen, pour a tall glass of water. Gazing at the crucifix on the wall, I can’t help but picture the Paradox Lake Trail, and the spot in which Anna and I discovered the crime scene tape. I know I should head right back into my studio for another round of sculpting. But there’s a feeling growing in my gut … something physical that’s gnawing at me to head outside, go back to the trailhead, and revisit the site of Sarah’s rape. Sarah’s murder. Her spirit is occupying precious space in my head now, and there’s nothing that’s going to get her out of there.

  I go to the staircase.

  “Anna, I’ll be right back. Going outside for a few minutes.”

  “Don’t get lost, Rosie,” she says.

  “Very funny. One hour o
f screen time, young lady, and then I need you to help give the place a little bit of a cleaning.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she says. “I’m at your service, Rosie.”

  “Excellent,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”

  “I repeat,” she says, “don’t get lost in the jungle.”

  Turning, I head for the back door. I also tell myself that it’s too late. I might not be lost in the jungle, but I am already lost in Sarah’s world.

  Entering onto the trailhead, I immediately feel the cooling effect of the thick tree cover. Although some heavy clouds are moving in—heavy thunderstorms are predicted for this weekend—the sun is almost completely blocked out. Only narrow rays make their way in through the small openings in the tree canopy. I walk as fast as I can in my cowboy boots—hiking boots would be better—making my way over the occasional felled tree trunk and tree root. But this portion of the trail is clearer than it was before Anna and I cleaned it up.

  I walk for twenty minutes, working up a cool sweat under my t-shirt, until I make out the lake on my right-hand side and the secluded beach that accesses it. I head for the beach via the narrow path that connects to the Paradox Lake Trail. Exiting the forest, the sun’s warmth blankets me immediately. Despite the thick clouds that are moving in, the sky is still mostly sunny and the sunshine reflects off the gray-white sand.

  Going with my gut, I go to the place where we uncovered the piece of crime scene ribbon, and drop to my knees. I start digging with my hands into the loose sand. It’s easy at first, but soon the sand becomes more like packed gravel and dirt. I find a stick behind a felled tree and I use it like a small shovel.

  I dig like a woman possessed. Mostly I just find rocks and the occasional nickel or quarter. I find a Bic lighter and an old rusted Budweiser can. But then I find something else. I find a cross-shaped pendant that’s attached to a silver chain. Most of the chain is gone now, but a length about the size of my index finger remains. Shifting myself, I sit down on the tree, the sweat pouring into my eyes and down my face and onto my lips.

  Could this belong to Sarah? It looks old enough to have been in the ground for more than three decades. The silver is so tarnished it’s almost black. Judging from the rusty ends on the chain, the metal has disintegrated over the years. My hands are shaking. If only I’d brought along one of the newspaper photos of Sarah, I could maybe check to see if she’s wearing a silver cross.