Nadia Nichols - Everything To Prove

THE FLIGHT TO EVENING LAKE took less than an hour. In all her years of living in the village, of knowing that her father had drowned there, Libby had never been to see it. Had never wanted to see it. Never wanted to put her hand in the water and know that her father’s bones were hidden in the dark cold depths. Even now a part of her dreaded seeing the lake, and as the plane headed north and west she stared out the window with a heart that beat a painful rhythm. Then suddenly the plane skimmed over a ridge and she was looking at a huge body of water shaped like a giant horseshoe, the deep curve on the southernmost end and two parallel arms, divided by perhaps a mile of timbered forest, stretching north. Several small rivers fed the lake along both of the upper arms, and a big river flowed out of it in the curve of the southern shore, the same river where they’d found the plane’s pontoons. She could see it snaking through the spruce and she could just make out the rapids where the pontoons had gotten hung up.

She studied the surface of the lake, but it gave up no secrets. The water looked black and cold near the outlet, while the west arm that stretched toward the glaciers was streaked a thick milky blue in places with glacial silt. There was still some ice in the deeper coves, but most of the lake was open. The plane lost altitude quickly, and soon she could see the buildings. Both lodges were on the southernmost end of the lake, near the outlet but on opposite shores and about half a mile apart. Which was Frey’s? She didn’t know. One lodge appeared much larger than the other, and she supposed this would be the place she was staying.

But she was wrong. The plane landed and taxied to the dock fronting the smaller property. She was greeted by the owner of the lodge, a stout friendly woman in her early forties. “I’m Karen Whitten.” She smiled and extended her hand. “Welcome to the lodge. My husband, Mike, is guiding, but you’ll meet him tonight. I’ll have your bags brought to your cabin. Come on up. You’re just in time for lunch, though most of the guests won’t show up until supper time. Fishing. I swear, you’d think the world turned around fly rods and lake trout.”

Libby followed Karen up the ramp. The main lodge was cozy and small, with four guest rooms, a big kitchen, a vaulted living room with a handsome fieldstone fireplace and a friendly dining room. There were three small guest cabins to one side of the main lodge, and two employee cabins to the other. Karen showed her to her little cabin, complete with a tiny bath and a woodstove for heat. “This is just perfect,” Libby said.

Karen herself served up the lunch, and the two women shared it in the kitchen. “So, are you here to fish?” Karen asked, ladling Portuguese kale soup into big earthenware bowls and setting a fresh loaf of crusty bread and a knife on the table.

“Not exactly,” Libby replied, having carefully thought out her story. “I read an article in Forbes magazine about Daniel Frey, Ben Libby’s partner, and after reading it I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to write something about Ben Libby and all the good things he did with his money to help other people, especially since one of my college scholarships was funded by the Libby Foundation.” Libby paused. “My friends always teased me about that scholarship. They said I got it because of my name, which was a fortunate coincidence. Anyway, who better to talk to about Ben Libby than Daniel Frey? Since I was sick of Boston and it was time for a vacation, I put the three together and here I am.”

“From what I understand, Ben Libby was quite a philanthropist,” Karen said. “I just hope Mr. Frey will talk to you. He’s pretty reclusive. We’ve been here for two years and have yet to meet him. Mike and I have gone over a couple of times, knocked on his door, left a pie once and a loaf of sourdough bread with the employee who answered it. But if he was home either time, he wasn’t entertaining visitors.”

Libby would have inhaled the soup if she’d been alone. She buttered a piece of the crusty bread and took a big bite. The warm yeasty flavor nearly brought tears to her eyes. Marie should be here, eating this food and getting strong. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to hope that he’ll want to give Ben Libby the accolades he deserves. All I can do is go over there and ask. Do you have guides for hire here?”

“Oh, yes. Three, not counting Mike. Joe Boone used to work for Frey and Ben Libby when they first built the lodge. You might want to talk to him, too. He’s out guiding a couple of fishermen now but he’ll be back around supper time.”

After lunch Libby walked down to the dock again and stood looking out over the lake. The wind was blowing just the way Dodge said it would, through that high mountain pass and across the water. It was strong enough to put a pretty good chop on the lake’s surface. She knelt on the edge of the weather-bleached dock and plunged her hand into the icy water. Within seconds her hand ached with the cold. I’m here, Dad, she thought. Right here.

Had he been conscious when the plane went under? Had he struggled to escape as the frigid lake water filled the cabin? Libby pushed to her feet and shoved her hands into her jacket pockets. According to the pilot who had flown her to the lake, all the planes took off up the west arm, heading due north into the wind that came through the pass. They used the west arm because there were no big rocks just beneath the surface, and if they had to crab their takeoff or landing, the terrain was flatter to the east and west, making for a safer climb-out. Her father would have taken off the same way. His plane would have been visible from Frey’s lodge for a long distance, until the west arm curved enough to close it out of sight behind a fringe of dark forest.

She had watched the pilot who delivered her to the lodge take off. His plane had lifted into the air not a quarter mile from the dock, but he’d been flying a turbine engine Cessna 206 with a very powerful motor. The de Havilland would have required a longer takeoff run. Still, that gave her a general idea of where the plane might be.

Sort of. She had exactly twenty-four hours until Dodge arrived to look over the situation and decide if he was taking the job. Twenty-four hours to find out as much as she could about where that plane went down. A lot to do, and not much time.

She studied the lodge across the lake. From a distance, she couldn’t make out exact details, but she could see enough to realize it was quite the place. The Rockefeller clan could have lived quite comfortably in such a log mansion. Being a hermit, Frey must have greatly resented the arrival of Karen and Mike and the construction of their new lodge. That’s probably why he had refused to greet them when they came to introduce themselves.

She wondered if Frey had eaten the pie and the bread Karen and Mike had left behind.

LIBBY RETURNED TO HER little cabin and took a nap, something she hadn’t done in many years and hadn’t intended to do at all, but sitting propped up against the headboard, jotting down the questions she intended to ask Daniel Frey, her eyelids became so heavy that it was impossible for her to resist the rhythmic crash of waves against the shore, the lonely sigh of wind through the spruce, the snap of firewood in the woodstove. She set the notebook aside, slid down until she was lying flat and laced her fingers across her stomach. The next thing she knew she was being roused by the sound of a clanging bell. She sat up, muzzy headed and drugged with languor. Karen had told her that she’d ring the supper bell at exactly 6:00 p.m., and sure enough it was exactly 6:00 p.m. Libby had slept for four solid hours.

The guests were already seated at the table when she arrived. Eight wealthy middle-aged fishermen, temporarily escaping corporate America and their wives and families, leaped out of their seats like jack-in-the-boxes when she stepped into the room. Karen introduced her around, then brought her into the kitchen to meet her husband Mike, a genial forty something Willie Nelson look-alike who was helping her prepare the meal. Karen began bringing forth yet another gastronomic tour de force while Libby pitched in, and the two of them smothered laughter in the kitchen at the expressions on the faces of the eight corporate clubhouse boys.