Phillip Margolin - Lost Lake

LOST LAKE, CALIFORNIA-1985

Deputy Sheriff Aaron Harney pulled his cruiser onto a grassy strip at the side of the road and rolled down his window. The clean mountain air felt good after the day’s oppressive heat. He lit up and watched the smoke from his cigarette drift toward the diamond-bright stars that glittered above Lost Lake. Life didn’t get much better than this.

Harney was a local boy who’d seen a little of the world during a hitch in the army and had decided that Lost Lake was the only place on earth that he wanted to live. There was fishing, there was hunting, and there was Sally Ann Ryder, his high school sweetheart. What more could you want out of life than a day outdoors and an evening with a cold beer and the woman of your dreams?

Harney’s choice of career had been a no-brainer. He had been an MP in the military. The sheriff had been glad to sign him up. Harney had no political ambitions, and he did what he was told without complaint. Take tonight, for instance. There had been some vandalism in the expensive summer homes that were scattered along the shoreline of the lake, and Sheriff Basehart had assigned Harney to patrol them. Everyone was pretty certain that the vandalism was the work of townies, resentful of the fat cats who summered at the lake and then deserted to San Francisco at the first sign of bad weather. Harney even thought he knew which kids had broken the picture windows in the Fremont and McHenry homes. He doubted that the little bastards would be back at it tonight, but the sheriff wasn’t taking chances with his biggest contributors, and Harney was perfectly content to cruise the lake on this beautiful summer evening.

From where he was sitting, the deputy could see the flat black outline of Congressman Eric Glass’s modern log cabin on the far shore. Last year, Harney had been part of the security detail for the congressman’s fund-raiser cookout. That was some house. In the back the lawn sloped down to the dock where the congressman moored his speedboat. You couldn’t see the boat or the dock in the dark, but Harney remembered them and the narrow path that led through the woods to a tennis court. Imagine having your own tennis court. Harney wondered what the house had cost. A hell of a lot more than he could afford on a policeman’s salary, that was for sure.

A scream shattered the stillness. Harney bolted upright and crushed out his cigarette. The mountain air played funny tricks with sound, but Harney thought that the scream came from Glass’s place. He made a U-turn and gunned the engine.

It took five minutes to circle the lake, and Harney’s imagination worked overtime as he drove. Police work in Lost Lake was calming down drunks at the Timber Topper, handling an occasional domestic disturbance, and handing out traffic tickets to teenage speeders. Harney had never had to deal with a bloodcurdling scream in the dead of night.

A long dirt driveway led from the road to the house. Harney killed his headlights and turned onto it. He wasn’t in any hurry to find the source of that scream. When he couldn’t put it off any longer, the deputy unholstered his gun, got out of his car, and stood in the dark, listening carefully. An owl hooted and a sudden gust of wind off the lake rustled branches in the forest. Somewhere in the distance he heard the sound of an outboard engine.

Harney walked slowly through the trees that bordered the drive until he reached the front lawn. He glanced around nervously, half expecting someone to leap out of the dark woods. Harney had radioed for backup, but the Lost Lake force was small and he would be on his own for a while. The deputy took a deep breath, crouched low, and raced across the lawn. He pressed against the side of the house, then edged forward until he could see through a window. There was light deep inside the house, but he couldn’t hear any sound.

Harney sprinted past the window and tried the front door. It was locked. He remembered a door off the back terrace. The deputy spun around the corner. Nothing. He fanned his gun back and forth across the side lawn as he crept toward the back of the house. His chest felt tight. The brick patio was as he remembered it. A barbecue grill stood at one end. He could make out the silhouette of a speedboat bobbing next to the dock.

A noise drew his eye toward the footpath that led to the tennis court. A ghost staggered out of the woods. Harney stretched the muzzle of his gun toward the apparition.

“Hold it there,” he commanded, trying to keep the fear from his voice. A woman froze, her eyes wide with fright. She was wearing a long white T-shirt, and she swayed back and forth on unsteady legs.

“He’s dead,” she said. She sounded dazed.

“Who’s dead?” Harney asked as he searched the woods and the lawn for any sign of movement.

“Carl killed him.”

The back door was open. Harney hadn’t noticed at first, but his eyes were getting used to the dark.

“Is there anyone inside?” he asked.

“He’s dead,” the woman repeated as she stared into the darkness with eyes that did not focus. Harney wondered if she’d understood the question or even knew that he was there.

“Let’s go inside,” Harney said gently as he backed toward the house, scanning the yard while watching the woman out of the corner of his eye. He reached out slowly and touched her shoulder. The contact shook her and she stepped back, but her eyes focused on Harney for the first time.

“It’s okay. I’m a sheriff’s deputy. More police are coming.”

Harney found a wall switch. They were in the kitchen. With the lights on he could see that the woman was beautiful. He put her in her mid-twenties. Her hair was blond and cut short, and her eyes were pale blue.

“You said someone was dead. Are they inside?”

She nodded.

“Can you show me where?”

The woman pointed down a hall that led to the kitchen. Harney remembered a home office midway down and a huge living room at the end of it. The light he’d seen from the front window was coming from the office. Harney closed the back door and locked it. Then he sat the woman at a small table in a nook that looked out at the lake.

“You said that someone named Carl killed someone. Is Carl still here?”

She shook her head.

“He’s gone?” Harney asked to make sure.

She nodded.

“Okay, stay here. I’ll be right back. Is that okay?”

She nodded again, but her body tightened and he could see that being left by herself terrified her.

“It’ll be okay. My friends will be here soon.”

Harney waited a moment for her response. When she made none, he edged down the hall with his gun leading the way. After a few steps, Harney got a whiff of an odor that brought to mind the day, last year, when he had answered a complaint about a domestic dispute and walked into a blood-bathed bedroom where a murder-suicide had just played out. The deputy swallowed hard and forced himself down the hall. When he reached the office he spun into the doorway. His stomach rolled and he fought the urge to throw up. In the background he heard the sound of sirens. In the foreground was Eric Glass.

The congressman was seated in a ladder-back chair. His arms and ankles were stretched tight and secured to the back of the chair with tape, making him vulnerable to any assault. Glass was wearing only cotton pajama bottoms. They were soaked with blood from the jagged wounds crisscrossing his torso. His head was tipped forward, and his chin rested on his chest. Harney crouched down and got a good view of Glass’s bruised and bloodied face.

Bubble lights illuminated the living room and car doors slammed. Harney spoke into his radio, telling the officers to go around the back before he reentered the kitchen. The woman was sitting where he had left her. She was leaning forward, cradling her head in her arms. Harney unlocked the back door, then sat beside her.