Linwood Barclay - No Time For Goodbye

I put down the window and explained to an officer in a trooper hat who we were, and he went back to his car and talked to someone on a radio, then came back and said Detective Wedmore was already at the scene, expecting us. He pointed up the road, told us to look for a narrow grassy lane about one mile up that led to the left and climbed, and that we’d find her there.

We drove in slowly. It wasn’t much of a road, just gravel and dirt, and when we reached the lane it got even narrower. I turned in, heard tall grass brushing the underside of the car. We were driving uphill now, thick trees on either side, and after about a quarter of a mile the ground leveled off and the trees gave way to an open area that nearly took our breath away.

We were looking out over what appeared to be a vast canyon. About four car lengths ahead of us the ground dropped away sharply. If there was a lake down there, we couldn’t yet see it from where we sat in the car.

There were two other vehicles already there. Another Mass. State Police car and an unmarked sedan that I recognized as Wedmore’s. She was leaning up against the fender, talking to the officer from the other car.

When she saw us, she approached.

“Don’t get close,” she said to me through the open window. “It’s a hell of a drop.”

We got out of the car slowly, as if jumping out would cause the ground to give way. But it felt pretty solid, and thank God for that, given that there were now three cars up here.

“This way,” Wedmore said. “Either of you have trouble with heights?”

“A bit,” I said. I was speaking more for Cynthia than myself, but she said, “I’m fine.”

We took a few steps closer to the edge, and now we could see the water. A mini-lake, maybe eight or nine acres in size, at the bottom of a chasm. Years ago, this area had been carved out for rock and gravel, the pit left to fill with rain and springs once the aggregate company had moved on. On an overcast day like this one, it was difficult to tell what color the water might normally be. Today it was gray and lifeless.

“The map and the letter indicated that if we’re to find anything,” Wedmore said, “it’ll be right down here.” She pointed straight down the cliff we were standing atop. I felt a brief wave of vertigo.

Down below, crossing the body of water, was a yellow inflatable boat, maybe fifteen feet long with a small outboard attached to the back. In the boat were three men, two dressed in black wetsuits, diving masks, tanks on their backs.

“They had to come in from another direction,” Wedmore explained. She pointed to the far side of the quarry. “There’s another road that comes in from the north that comes up to the water’s edge, so they were able to launch their boat there. They’re looking for us,” at which point Wedmore waved to the men in the boat-not friendly, just a signal-and they waved back. “They’ll start searching below this point.”

Cynthia nodded. “What will they be looking for?” she asked.

Wedmore gave her a look that seemed to say “Duh,” but she was at least sensitive enough to realize she was dealing here with a woman who’d been through a lot. “I’d say a car. If it’s there, they’ll find it.”

The lake was too small for the wind to whip up much in the way of waves, but the men in the boat dropped a small anchor just the same to keep from drifting away from their spot. The two men in wetsuits dropped backward out of the boat and in another moment disappeared from view, a few bubbles on the surface the only evidence that they’d once been there.

A cool wind blew over the top of the cliff. I moved closer to Cynthia and slipped my arm around her. To my surprise, and relief, she did not push me away.

“How long can they stay down there?” I asked.

Wedmore shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m sure they have way more air than they need.”

“If they do find something, what then? Can they bring it up?”

“Depends. We might need more equipment.”

Wedmore had a radio that connected her to the man left in the boat. “What’s happening?” she asked.

In the boat, the man spoke into a small black box. “Not much so far,” a voice crackled through Wedmore’s radio. “It’s about thirty to forty feet here. Some spots, further off, even deeper.”

“Okay.”

We stood and watched. Maybe for ten, fifteen minutes. Seemed like hours.

And then two heads emerged. The divers swam over to the boat, hung their arms over the inflated rubber tube edges for support, lifted up their masks and removed from their mouths the gear that allowed them to breathe underwater. They were telling the man something.

“What are they saying?” Cynthia asked.

“Hang on,” Wedmore said, but then we saw the man pick up his radio and Wedmore grabbed hers.

“Got something,” the radio crackled.

“What?” Wedmore asked.

“Car. Been there a long time. Half buried in silt and shit.”

“Anything inside it?”

“They’re not sure. We’re going to have to get it out.”

“What kind of car?” Cynthia asked. “What does it look like?”

Wedmore relayed the question, and down in the lake, we could see the man asking the divers some questions.

“Looks sort of yellow,” the man said. “A little compact car. Can’t see the plates, though. The bumpers are buried.”

Cynthia said. “My mother’s car. It was yellow. A Ford Escort. A small car.” She collapsed against me, held on to me. “It’s them,” she said. “It’s them.”

Wedmore said, “We won’t know that for a while. We don’t even know if there’s anyone in that car.” Back into the radio, she said, “Let’s do what we have to do.”

That meant bringing in more equipment. They thought that if they brought in an oversized tow truck from the north, got it right up to the edge of the lake, they could run a cable out into the water, have the divers attach it to the submerged car, and slowly pull it out of the muck at the bottom of the lake and to the surface.

If that didn’t work, they’d have to bring in some sort of barge affair, take it out onto the water, position it over the car and lift it up directly from the bottom.

“Nothing’s going to happen for a few hours,” Wedmore told us. “We’ve got to get some people up here, they’ve got to figure out how they’re going to do this. Why don’t you go someplace, head back to the highway, maybe go up to Lee, get some lunch. I’ll call your cell when it looks like something’s about to happen.”

“No,” Cynthia said. “We should stay.”

“Honey,” I said, “there’s nothing we can do now. Let’s go eat. We both need our strength, we need to be able to handle what may come next.”

“What do you figure happened?” Cynthia asked.

Wedmore said, “I guess someone drove that car right up here, where we’re standing, then ran it right off the edge of this cliff.”

“Come on,” I said again to Cynthia. To Wedmore, “Please keep us posted.”

We drove back down to the main road, back to Otis, then north to Lee, where we found a diner and ordered coffee. I hadn’t had much of an appetite first thing in the morning, so I ordered a midday breakfast of eggs and sausage. All Cynthia could manage was some toast.

“So whoever wrote that note,” Cynthia said, “knew what he was talking about.”

“Yeah,” I said, blowing on my coffee to cool it down.

“But we don’t even know if there’s anyone in the car. Maybe the car was ditched there, to hide it. But it doesn’t mean anyone died in that accident.”

“Let’s wait and see,” I said.

We ended up waiting a couple of hours. I was on my fourth coffee when my cell phone rang.

It was Wedmore. She gave me some directions that would get me to the lake from the north side.