Stuart Woods - Under the Lake

Bo dropped the shotgun, walked back down the hallway past Joyce’s body, and sat down on the top step. He was very tired, it seemed; he felt numb, almost drowsy, and the feeling didn’t square with the beating of his heart, which was rapid and hard.

Kathleen sat down beside him and put her head in his lap. “You see,” she said, “It’s all right, now.” She stroked his thigh the way she had done in the car so many times. “I practiced Daddy’s signature from his cancelled checks for a long time, then I signed the paper.” Her voice was soothing. “Nobody in the world would think it wasn’t his signature, believe me.”

Bo held her wrist to stop the stroking. It astonished him that he was becoming excited, even now, after what he had just seen. Her power over him was that great.

“Now, here’s what we do,” Kathleen continued. “There’s some dynamite out in the shed,” she said, still in her soothing voice. “Daddy used it in the well digging. What you do, is you put some dynamite under the road. We’ll get my things in the car – I’m all packed – and when we drive off you’ll blow up the road. You did that stuff in Korea, so you’ll know how to do it. Then the lake will come in, and the house will go under.” She raised her head. “Oh, I nearly forgot. We’ll put Daddy and Mama and Joyce in the well. There’s some cement bags in the shed, too. We’ll put them in the well on top of them; that way, when the lake comes in they won’t float up. Bo, you’re hurting my wrist.”

Bo was surprised that he was gripping her wrist so tightly. He tried to hold it more gently. It was hard.

“We’ll take Daddy’s little typewriter with us,” Kathleen continued, resting her head in his lap again, nuzzling his crotch. “I’ll write letters to people from him saying we’ve all moved away. I always typed his letters, I’ll know what to say. We’ll take his checkbook, too. I can write the checks just the way he did. And I’ll write letters to people from Joyce, too. I’ve always written her letters for her, nobody will think that’s funny. Remember how I used to write letters to you from her when you were in Korea? It was me put in the sexy parts. Bet you didn’t know that, bet you thought it was Joyce all the time.”

Bo nodded dumbly. He had thought it was Joyce, but when he thought about it, it made sense; it would have been Kathleen saying those things, wouldn’t it? It made sense. He had to make some sense, now. He had to.

“We’re going to be so happy, Bo,” Kathleen said, rubbing her ear against his crotch. “We’ll get us a nice house on a beach out there. There’s lots of beaches in California. At night, we’ll take a blanket out on the beach and lie out there naked, and I’ll do nice things to you, really nice things.”

“Kathleen,” Bo managed to say. He had to make some sense.

“I’ll do things you never even dreamed about,” she continued. “I’ll…”

“Kathleen, shut up,” Bo said. He put his hand on her neck and held her still. “And stop doing that. I’ve got to talk to you, and I can’t talk to you if you’re doing that.”

“All right, Bo,” she said quietly, keeping her head perfectly still. “Talk to me.”

“This is all completely crazy,” Bo said, keeping his hand on her neck, hold her head still. “Nobody will believe any of this, and there isn’t enough money. Houses and things cost a lot more in California than they cost here. The money would be gone in no time, it just isn’t all that much.”

“I figured it all out, Bo,” she said. “Don’t you worry, it’ll be wonderful.”

“No, you can’t figure it out,” Bo replied. “It can’t be figured out. I can’t disappear on the same night that your whole family does. They’ll come looking for us, and they’ll find us, and they’ll bring us back.”

They were both quiet for several minutes now. Then Kathleen tried to move her head, but Bo tightened his grip a little and held her still.

“Bo,” she said, “we have to go away tonight. We have to do it just like I figured it out. If we don’t, they’ll put you in the electric chair.”

“What?” he said. “No, that’s not what will happen. They’ll send you away for a few years; you’re only thirteen, they won’t put you in the electric chair.”

“Not me, Bo,” she said. “You.”

Even before she spoke, Bo thought he knew what was coming.

“I never touched the shotgun,” she said. “I wore a pair of Mama’s gloves. But you touched the shotgun. You picked it up and you pumped it. They’ll find your fingerprints all over it, not mine.”

Bo made a small whimpering noise.

“I’ll tell them you did it, Bo,” she said, and her voice took on an edge he had never heard. “You better take me to California, or I’ll tell them you did it, and they’ll believe me; I’ll make them believe me, you know I can do it.”

Bo felt a great sadness. He knew she could do it, this little slip of a girl, she’d tell them every sort of lie, and they’d believe her. She’d sit in a courtroom and deny she’d ever called him and asked him to come out there. She’d say he’d made her do the things they’d done in the patrol car. She’d say it, and they’d believe her.

“You know what I could tell them, Bo.” Kathleen said.

He knew. She had always known what he was thinking. Bo knew everything in another moment. He knew the fix he was in and what he had to do to get out of it. After all, she had laid the whole thing out for him. Not the money, of course, he couldn’t do anything about the money. But the rest of it made perfect sense.

“Bo?” she said. It was her last word.

He tightened his grip, put his other hand on the back of her neck to help. He took a deep breath and did it. It didn’t take long, only an instant. She didn’t feel much, no more than a chicken felt when you wrung its neck. The crunching noise transmitted itself up his wrists and reached him through the air, and she was limp, gone. He sat there and stroked her hair for a few minutes, running through it all in his mind. Then he got up and did the things that Kathleen had told him to do.

A little under an hour later, he stopped the car near the top of the hill, got out, and waited. He had timed it nicely. There was a “whump”! not much of a noise really, and a flash, and the fog moved on the water as it ran through the gap in the roadbed. Soon, the gap widened, and a rushing noise reached him. After a few minutes, the rooftops had vanished. Donal O’Coineen and his family were under the lake.

For a long moment, it was quiet enough to hear the crickets. Then Howell spoke.

“All of them, Bo?” he asked. He took a deep breath and asked the question he had been waiting all night to ask. “What about the baby?”

Bo winced as though he had been struck.

Scotty came to life. “What baby?”

“Kathleen O’Coineen was pregnant,” Howell said. “That’s why Donal pulled her out of school.”

“How the hell did you figure that out?” she asked, dumbfounded.

“Lorna Kelly told me; she and Mary O’Coineen were sisters, remember. Kathleen had her baby a couple of weeks before the family disappeared. What happened to the baby, Bo?”

Bo made a vague gesture. “I didn’t know about the baby,” he said, heavily. “Honest to God I didn’t, not until after Kathleen was dead.”

“Tell us about the baby, Bo,” Howell urged. “It can’t hurt to tell us, now.”

Bo looked defeated. “I’d finished at the well and set the charge at the road, but I damn near forgot to get the transfer deed. I went back into the house for it, and the baby started to cry. I went upstairs. It was in a crib in the room that Joyce and Kathleen shared. It was crying, and I didn’t know what to do.”