Richard Laymon - The Lake

“Do you have a plastic bag large enough for this?” Mace asked, looking down at the thick edition of the Sunday newspaper that lay flat on the stoop, tied with string.

“A wastebasket liner?” Leigh asked.

“That’d be perfect.”

“You want to get one for us?” she asked her daughter. The girl went to the door.

“Why do you need the paper?” Leigh asked.

“There’s a good chance your visitor put it here.” He stepped onto the grass, and Leigh followed him along the front of the house. “Maybe he was good enough to leave us some prints.”

“Can you get fingerprints off newspapers?”

“These days, you can get them off almost anything. Our lab people have chemicals that interact with the body oils left by… Look here.” Stopping, he pointed down at the flower bed. The soft soil had been mashed down by shoes.

A glance at Leigh’s feet convinced him that she hadn’t made these impressions. Her feet were too small. And the daughter, who was only a bit taller than Leigh, probably didn’t have feet this large, either.

The footprints led through the flower bed to the guest-room window.

Mace looked at Leigh. She was standing rigid, gazing at the ground, the fingertips of one hand stroking her lower lip.

He felt sorry for her. He could imagine what she must be feeling—scared and vulnerable. The bastard had actually crept right up to her house last night while she and her daughter were inside, maybe fast asleep. Maybe he’d even seen them.

From where Mace stood, he couldn’t spot any damage to the window or frame. “It doesn’t look as if he tried to break in.”

“But he could’ve,” Leigh said, “couldn’t he?”

“It wouldn’t have been too difficult.”

Leigh shook her head slowly. “It’s just getting worse. What do you… Do you think he wants to kill her?”

“Either that or take her. I think I mentioned Friday night that he might have some kind of obsession. Maybe he wants her.”

“God,” Leigh muttered.

“Don’t worry. We’ll see that he doesn’t get another chance.”

They both turned toward Deana as the girl approached with a white plastic bag. “What’s up?” she asked. “Did you find something?”

“He was here,” Leigh said. She pointed to the ground.

Deana looked at the footprints. “Oh, wonderful,” she muttered.

“We should be able to get a good estimate of his height and weight from these,” Mace said.

“Not to mention his shoe size,” Deana added in a quiet voice. She didn’t like the way things were turning out.

Mace led the way to the stoop. Taking the bag from Deana, he crouched over the newspaper and carefully slipped his fingers under one of its strings without touching the “Blondie” comic strip beneath. When he raised it, the paper tilted.

Out of its folds slipped a small, white knob, maybe a bone or a polished rock. It hung at the edge of the newspaper, held in place by a rawhide strip that ran through its center and stayed trapped inside the paper.

With a ballpoint from his shirt pocket, Mace hooked the rawhide and eased it out.

The thong was knotted at its ends. It swung from the tip of his pen like a strange, primitive necklace.

“Mom!”

Mace looked, saw Leigh with her eyes rolled upward, her knees folding. He sprang at her, thrust his hands under her armpits, and slowed her fall as she sank to the stoop, unconscious.

When she got home late that afternoon, she had a story ready: A purse snatcher had grabbed her shoulder bag when she came out of the movie theater on Market Street, she had fought him off, and that’s how the sleeve of her granny dress got torn.

One look at her parents and Leigh knew that the story wouldn’t wash. They were standing in the living room like a couple of mannequins left behind in a hurry—Dad sideways near the window, head down and turned her way, one hand on the back of his neck, Mom in front of the fireplace, facing her, the fingers of both hands mashing her lower face. Mom’s eyes were red, accusing. Dad’s eyes were haggard, blank.

Obviously, they both knew.

Leigh forced a smile. It felt crooked. “I guess I’m in for it now,” she said.

Dad’s eyes stopped looking blank. “If you see an amusing side to this situation,” he said in an icy voice, “I would appreciate your filling us in. We fail to see the humor.”

“Do you have any idea what you’ve put us through?” Mom asked, lowering her hands and clutching them in front of her waist.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

“You’re sorry,” Dad said. “Well, so are we.”

“How… how did you find out?”

“They interrupted the Giants game,” Dad said.

“My God, how could you do such a thing?” Mom blurted.

“And there you were.”

“It made your father physically ill.”

“I’m sorry I lied. But you wouldn’t have let me go if I’d told you about the demonstration.”

“You’re goddamn right about that.”

Leigh cringed. She’d rarely heard her father use profanity.

“Kids are over there dying, for godsake, and here you are in a getup like some kind of hippie freak, holding hands with a bunch of long-haired creeps who want nothing better than to destroy a way of life—”

“Nobody wants to destroy anything.”

“Bull shit! ”

“We just want the war to stop.”

“I’m not going to debate the war with you. That isn’t the issue.”

“It is, too.”

“How do you think Colonel Randolph would feel,” Mom asked, “if he saw how you—”

“He’d still have his son,” Leigh snapped, “if it weren’t for that murdering bastard in the White House.”

Dad turned white. He crossed the floor so fast Leigh didn’t have time to move, and slapped her hard across the face.

She was stunned. Dad had never slapped her before.

Whirling around, she ran to her room, slammed the door, and threw herself down on her bed.

She had stopped crying by the time Dad came in. He sat on the edge of the bed. He had been crying, too. He stroked Leigh’s forehead, lightly brushing the hair aside. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“I know. Me, too.”

“Your mother and I… we try to understand. If we didn’t love you so much, do you think we’d care one way or the other if you were out there?… You could’ve been hurt…”

“Maybe I was. Did you ask?”

“No. Were you hurt?”

She shook her head.

“Well, that’s lucky. How did your dress get torn?”

“One of the…” She almost said “pigs,” but she didn’t want to start him up again. “A cop grabbed me. But I got away from him. Then I took off. I was supposed to let them bust me, that was the idea, but I figured you and Mom would really hit the ceiling if you had to come and bail me out.”

“You’re right.”

“I guess you hit the ceiling anyway.”

“I spent four years of my life fighting for this country, honey. I can’t help it, but my blood just starts to boil when I see a bunch of pampered kids who never worked a day in their lives spitting on everything that—”

“Don’t get started, okay?”

“Burning the American flag.”

“Dad.”

“Mouthing off about ‘the establishment.’ My God, it’s the dreaded ‘establishment’ that puts the food in the bellies of these people… I’m the establishment. Me and all the other people who worked our butts off so that our kids could maybe have it a little better than we did. And we’re the enemy? Am I a warmonger? Is Colonel Randolph? Do you think he likes this war? My God, the man’s been devastated by it.”