Stuart Woods - Under the Lake

“Damn right he got excited,” Sutherland said. “Did you know he and some people had a goddamned seance up there? Enda McCauliffe told me.”

Bo’s blood ran cold. He didn’t show it. “So what? You don’t believe all that crap that halfwit Benny Pope spreads around, do you? His brain has been pickled for years.”

“Howell’s been to see Lorna Kelly, too.”

Bo felt as if he’d swallowed a block of ice. “For what?”

“McCauliffe says Howell slipped a disc, or something.”

“Did she fix it?”

“Apparently. He certainly seemed agile enough at the party.”

“Well, then…”

Sutherland wiped a hand across his brow. “I wish she’d die, damn her. I’d like to spend my last years in peace, without her around.”

Bo stood and placed a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Eric, it’s my job to see that you have the peace you deserve. You’re making much more out of all this than is called for, really you are. I’m going to take care of everything. Just trust me.”

Sutherland stood and took Bo’s hand in both of his. “Bo, I’ve always trusted you, and you’ve never let me down. Help me enjoy my last years, and I promise you, when I’m gone, you’ll be remembered.”

“Thank you, Eric,” Bo said, and took his leave.

He drove back into town, afraid to the very bottom of him. Too much new was happening – the business with Scotty, this seance, Howell’s acquaintance with Mama Kelly. Bo felt as though control of things was slipping through his fingers, that there were more holes in the dike than he could plug. He didn’t trust Sutherland, either. He’d heard that promise before, and he’d believe it when the old man was in the ground and the will was being read.

In the meantime, he was making his own provisions, just in case.

As soon as Bo had left the office, Scotty had begun to fidget. She had thought she’d be nervous with him, after the events of yesterday, but he’d been much the same as usual, though she thought she’d caught a trace of sadness about him. But now, she wanted Sally out, and Sally was taking her time about going to lunch.

“Listen, Scotty, why don’t you go first?” Sally said. “I’m not real hungry yet.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’m going to have lunch today, Sally. I’ve still got a couple of pounds to go.”

“Listen, you keep up that fasting stuff, and we’ll be scraping you off the floor again. I think you scared Bo half to death.”

“No, no, I had a big breakfast this morning. You go ahead and eat.”

Sally took what seemed like half an hour to check her makeup and brush off her dress, then finally left the office. Scotty waited until Mike was on the radio, then picked up some papers and went to the copying machine. She placed them on top of the machine and pressed the On button. When Mike was finishing his radio call, she turned her back to him and flipped the papers behind the machine.

“Oh, dammit,” she shouted.

Mike turned. “What’s the matter, Scotty?”

“Oh, I’ve dropped some papers behind the copying machine, and you know what the thing weighs. Give me a hand, will you, Mike?”

“Sure I will.” He came over and helped her wrestle it away from the wall.

“Just a couple of more inches, and I’ll be able to get behind it,” Scotty said. The gap opened; she wedged herself around the machine and recovered both the papers she had deliberately dropped and the lost ledger sheet of Bo’s. She shuffled them together to conceal the green paper among the others. “Got ‘em. Thanks, Mike.” Together, they moved the heavy machine back into place.

“You shouldn’t be doing that sort of shoving, Scotty,” Mike said. “You might not be recovered yet.”

“Oh, I’m fine, thanks. I am a little hungry, though. And I was going to skip lunch.”

“Well, I don’t think you should do that.”

“Tell you what,” she said, brightly. “I’ll split a pizza with you.”

“Hey, you really are hungry.”

“I’ll keep an eye on the radio, if you’ll go get it.”

“Sure.” Mike put on his hat and left.

“Anything but anchovies,” she called after him. Scotty ran for her purse, got the filing cabinet key, threw herself at the thing, and got it open. She pulled out the miscellaneous file, removed the other five green ledger sheets, made sure they were in the proper order, added the sixth sheet, and started to replace them in the file. They stuck halfway in. She ran her fingers between the pages to push aside the obstruction, and they met something small and thick. A notebook, she thought. John said there’d be a notebook. The front door to the office slammed. She spun around, the forbidden file in her hand. A man she did not know was standing at the counter.

“I’d like to pay a parking ticket,” he said.

“Oh, sure,” she said, relieved. She hesitated for a moment, then put the file on top of the cabinet, and went to help the man.

She took the ticket. “That’s five dollars.”

He opened his wallet and thumbed through some bills. “You got change for a twenty?”

“Haven’t you got anything smaller?” she asked, looking toward the door nervously. Mike might be back at any moment; or worse, Bo.

“Sorry, that’s all I’ve got.”

Scotty took the twenty, went to her desk, opened a drawer, took out the cash box, unlocked it, put the twenty in and took out a five and a ten, conscious all the time of the unlocked cabinet and the deadly file, lying there, waiting to be discovered.

“There you are,” she said, stamping the ticket and tearing off the stub. “And here’s your receipt.”

The man left, and Scotty raced for the file. She reached in for the notebook and came out with a small, green booklet with a gold American eagle stamped on it. A passport. Quickly, she thumbed through the pages. Bo’s face stared at her from the photograph, but he was wearing glasses. Bo didn’t wear glasses. The passport was issued to a Peter Patrick O’Hara. The address was Bo’s.

Scotty wanted a copy of this, badly, but she looked up and saw Mike standing across the street with a pizza box in his hand, talking to somebody. She went quickly through the passport; there were a lot of stamps, but only for two countries – Switzerland and the United States. She repeated the passport number to herself three times, aloud, returned it to the file, and the file to the cabinet. She was sitting at her desk again, making a note of the passport number, when Mike came in with the pizza.

At ten minutes to twelve, Howell parked the station wagon where he could see the front door of the courthouse and waited. Bo’s story had been gnawing at him for days. It was plausible enough, but the reporter in him wanted it confirmed. At the stroke of noon, the girl who worked in the records office left the courthouse and turned a corner, out of sight. Howell went and did some grocery shopping and returned just before one o’clock, in time to see the girl go back in. Shortly, Mrs. O’Neal, the battleax of county records, left the courthouse. He had an hour.

The girl looked surprised to see him. “I thought we’d run you off,” she said, laughing.

“I lost the battle, but not the war, I hope.”

“You want me to look for the map for you?”

“Actually, there’s something else I’d rather see. Can you find me an old deed of transfer? Maybe from twenty-four, twenty-five years ago?”

“Sure. We’ve got all those. I don’t need to ask Mrs. O’Hara.”

“Good.” Howell read her the lot numbers he’d copied from the maps.

“Right this way.”

He followed her across the room and down a long row of filing cabinets. She consulted the lot numbers and the labels on the drawers. “Here we are,” she said. She opened the drawer, flipped through some files, and extracted a deed.