Cemetery View: A Novel by A.M. Caplan

Author:A.M. Caplan [Caplan, A.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-18T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter

26

“You don’t need to be here.” Brady pulled the elasticized rubber cover over his uniform hat, making it look like a dish of leftovers balanced on his head. “Go home. I’ll call you if anything turns up. This could be all day.”

Go away. I don’t want you to be here when we find something was what Stella heard. She pulled up the hood of her raincoat before she answered. “I’m not going anywhere. I want to know what the hell is going on.”

If there were going to be any answers, this was where they were most likely going to come from. Her father wasn’t talking. She’d only been allowed a brief glimpse of him through a tiny window in the ICU. Stella choked back the lump in her throat at the thought of him lying there like an empty shell, sprouting tubes and hoses, the only movement the endless drip-drip of the IV. He wouldn’t be telling his side of the story anytime soon. Maybe ever.

Brady shifted back and forth uncomfortably on the bank of Pell’s Lake beside her, mud squelching under his boots. He shook his head, scattering raindrops from the brim of his hat, then let out a loud breath. “Well, I can’t make you leave, I guess. Just stay outta the way. Could all be for nothing anyhow. Though I can’t imagine why he would—”

“We got something again.” A voice rolled across the water from the fire department jon johnboat that was working its way back and forth across the lake, dragging a submersible metal detector and a fish finder. “Pretty big this time.”

“Stay there. Drop the hook,” Brady yelled, the sound skipping across the water like a flat stone. “I’ll tell Denny to get suited up.” He got a thumbs-up from the boat in response.

Behind Stella, Denny Lipscomb pulled up his patched neoprene dive suit and shouldered his oxygen tank.

“Careful you don’t snag yourself on anything,” Brady told Denny. “If it’s something interesting, see if you can get it hooked up somewhere solid enough where we can tow it out. If it’s another sunk rowboat, leave it and get yourself right back up.”

Denny waded carefully over the muddy lip of the lake, disappearing inch by inch until he was gone in a slew of brown, muddy bubbles. The rain picked up, peppering the surface of the water with pockmarks. Stella zipped her raincoat up under her chin and turned to look at the large flat rock to their left. The aborted picnic felt like it had happened to someone else.

He must have found something more interesting than an old rowboat, because Denny didn’t pop back up next to the hovering johnboat and wave them on. Instead, Stella saw a shivering next to the boat as the release from Denny’s respirator rose to the surface. It was a few more long moments before Denny’s head broke the surface. He gave the men in the boat a thumbs-up, then turned and began to swim back toward Stella and Brady.

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