Stuart Woods - Under the Lake

“Sure. Thanks for the day off.”

Bo stopped at the door but did not turn. “Scotty…” He seemed to be having trouble speaking.

“Yeah?”

“You think we could just… forget about this? Try and believe it never happened?”

“You’re worried about John.”

He waited a moment, then nodded. “Yeah.”

“Sure. It never happened.”

“Promise me you won’t ever tell anybody. Not John, not anybody. Not ever.”

Jesus, Scotty thought, he sounds like the girl. “Okay,” she said, “I promise.” And I sound like the guy.

“Thanks,” he said, and left.

Scotty got up and went to the window. She watched as he went down the walk. Before he got into the car, he put his elbows on top and rested his face in his hands. When he lifted his head again, she thought he looked crushed, shattered.

Bo and she were different generations, she thought, in more ways than one. She had never placed a whole lot of importance on sex; apparently he did. It was rather sweet, she thought, as he drove away.

Well, it finally happened, she thought, as she stretched out on the bed, though, from Bo’s reaction, it wouldn’t happen again. It had been nice, if a little rushed. She certainly felt no guilt about it; it was simply not in her nature to take sex that seriously. Then she remembered that Bo was not just a passing man, but the subject of her investigation, that she hoped to put him in jail. Now she felt not a moral guilt, but a professional one. She had always thought of herself as a pro, and now she had crossed a line that was supposed to separate her professional judgment from her personal feelings. She wondered if cops ever liked or pitied the criminals they tried to convict.

She would just damn well have to steel herself and do her job. She was tough enough to do that, she knew it. Some secret part of her, though, began to hope that her information about Bo was wrong.

Enda McCauliffe stood over Eric Sutherland and pointed. “Sign here, Mr. Sutherland, and then initial every page, please.” Sutherland signed, then McCauliffe and the two men from the bank witnessed the document.

“Stay a minute, Enda,” Sutherland said, waving the other two men out.

McCauliffe took a chair next to the desk. He felt odd being called “Enda”; everyone had called him “Mac” since he was a kid in the valley. Only Sutherland used his Christian name, and that was a recent event, since he had become McCauliffe’s client.

Sutherland looked a bit uncomfortable. “I just wanted to tell you how pleased I am with the way things have been going since you signed on,” he said.

“Well, thank you very much, Mr. Sutherland,” the lawyer said.

“Why don’t you call me ‘Eric,' “ Sutherland said. ”All my friends do.“

McCauliffe was taken aback. “I… well, you have to understand, you’ve always been Mr. Sutherland to me, all my life, and I don’t think I’d feel comfortable this late in the game…”

“All right, all right,” Sutherland said, resignedly. “I understand. In fact, the only person in town who calls me ‘Eric’ is Bo Scully, and I think he does it only because I insist.”

McCauliffe felt sorry for the man, something he had never thought would be possible. He had spent so much of his life feeling nothing but contempt for Sutherland that, even now, when he knew more about the man’s life and felt some real sympathy for him, he still had trouble pushing his old feelings aside.

“Enda,” said Sutherland, “tell me what you think of this John Howell fellow.”

“Well,” McCauliffe replied, “I like him. We’ve had a few lunches down at Bubba Brown’s. I think he’s bright; he certainly was a solid newspaper reporter in his day, although I thought his column wasn’t all that good the last few months he was doing it. To tell you the truth, he strikes me as being sort of unhappy in his personal life.”

“Do you think he bears me any ill will?”

“Why, no sir, I don’t. I think… well, he’s just the sort of person who’s… curious, I guess. He’s spent most of his working life asking a lot of questions, and now, it just comes naturally to him.”

“Enda, you understand that I can’t have him asking questions around here.”

McCauliffe nodded. “I certainly see why that would make you uncomfortable, sir, especially after what you’ve told me, and after this.” He held up the document Sutherland had just signed. “But I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. Howell is not here to write about us. He’s just curious, that’s all.”

Sutherland shook his head. “I just don’t want the whole thing opened up again. It’s been twenty-five years.”

McCauliffe decided that since Sutherland was now his valued client, he should tell him everything he knew. “Mr. Sutherland, I don’t think you should assign too much weight to this, but not long after John Howell arrived here he had some out of town people out to the cabin and they… well, they had a seance.”

Sutherland winced. “Oh… my… God,” he said, quietly. He took a deep breath and let it out. “Tell me about it.”

Bo Scully was admitted to the house by Alfred, and was taken straight to the study; Eric Sutherland was waiting for him.

“Morning, Eric,” Bo said, taking care that he sounded relaxed and confident. He was never either relaxed or confident in Sutherland’s presence.

Sutherland offered no greeting. “Tell me about the credit card,” he said.

He looked angry, Bo thought. He had probably been working up to it for days. “I called Neiman-Marcus in Atlanta immediately. They referred me to the credit manager in Dallas – that’s the main store-and he refused to tell me anything without a written request.”

“So?”

“So I wrote to him, asking for a copy of the credit application.”

“And?”

“And I’m expecting a reply any day, now.” Bo leaned forward in his chair. “Eric, I think this whole business with the credit card is easily explained. Somebody at the party…”

“Dammit, I’ve told you there was nobody named MacDonald at the party!”

“Look, this guy MacDonald could be a friend or relative of somebody who was there. There are all sorts of possible explanations. Have you had any workmen around the place lately?”

“No, not a one, except the gardener, and believe me, he doesn’t have a charge account at Neiman-Marcus. I don’t pay him enough for that.”

“Eric, when we hear from Neiman’s, I promise you it’s going to be the most logical, ordinary thing. Besides, you’re not missing anything from the office, are you?”

“What may be missing from the office is not an object that somebody has walked away with. What may be missing is information that somebody has now that he didn’t have before. Knowledge is a dangerous thing in the wrong hands, and I think you know I mean Howell. I saw him looking in there, and the dog just went berserk that night.”

“I talked with Alfred about that, Eric. He says the dog gets after rabbits down there in the woods. It’s happened before.”

“What about the boat?”

“Alfred says it was just adrift. That’s happened before, too.”

“We’re going to have to get rid of Mr. John Howell, Bo, that’s all there is to it.”

Bo leaned back in his chair. “Well, now, I had a little talk with Howell a couple of days ago, and I think he’s off your back.”

Sutherland looked at him in surprise. “What did you say to him?”

“Well, he’d heard the O’Coineen rumors, all right, and I gave him the whole story.”

“Did he believe you?”

“I told him about the letter from Joyce. I think that clinched it. You see, Eric, even if he did get into your office, all he wanted was a look at the maps. What he knows now makes the maps unnecessary, irrelevant. He understands that.” Bo hoped the hell Howell did understand that. “He didn’t come up here about that, Eric. He came to write his book, just like he said. He heard the O’Coineen story after he was already up here, and I guess he was a little bored, and it got him all excited.”