Dead Man's Lake (The Braddock & Gray Case Files Book 5) by H.P. Bayne

Author:H.P. Bayne [Bayne, H.P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781989992050
Publisher: Bayne Independent Publishing
Published: 2021-04-29T22:00:00+00:00

14

Sully resisted the urge to meet Dez’s eye.

They had it. They finally had it. An identity for the ghost he’d been seeing—the ghost others had been seeing for the past few decades.

The Ice Man had a name.

“What efforts were made to try to find him?” Sully asked.

“I looked. I checked both his cabins and the area around them. Came up with nothing. I thought about reporting it to the police, but he was a grown man and a very capable one at that. He struck me as knowing how to survive on his own in the woods, even in the worst weather. This was a guy who described being caught in a blizzard for damn near a full day and night, surviving by digging himself a hole in a snowbank and lighting a candle for warmth. His pockets were always full of stuff. Very prepared. He was like that.”

“But when he didn’t show up, you must have reported it,” Dez said.

Marvin shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not.”

Sully’s brows shot up his forehead. “You didn’t report it? Ever?”

Marvin faced him and crossed his arms, eyes narrowing into a glare. “Nope.”

Dez mirrored the posture. “Why not?”

“He was extremely private, barely tolerated me. He went out of his way to avoid people who used the lake. Most people didn’t even know he was there. He particularly loathed the police and all authority. Told me so once. He wouldn’t have thanked me for involving them. I figured wherever he was, he was where he wanted to be. Walter did exactly what he chose to do, every time.”

“Sounds like you didn’t really like the guy,” Dez said.

Sully understood the meaning behind the question. His own thoughts had strayed that way, to the possibility Marvin knew more about Walter’s final whereabouts than he was letting on.

“I didn’t particularly,” Marvin said. “But I did respect him, which is better than liking someone in my books. What’s your point? You hinting around that I had something to do with him going missing?”

Sully could imagine the response forming on the tip of Dez’s tongue, so jumped in before he could get a word in. More flies with honey. “We’re not hinting at anything. We’re just asking questions, that’s all. If you believed he was capable of looking after himself, we have to believe you.”

And Sully did. Despite the fact something terrible had happened to Walter, he certainly gave every indication of strength—plus the fact he’d lived out here year-round, on his own, suggested Walter lived his life with independence, tenacity and knowledge of his surroundings.

Yet, somewhere along the way, independence, tenacity and knowledge of his surroundings hadn’t been enough.

“Did he have family?” Sully asked.

“He never said. If he did, he had nothing to do with them. Or maybe they had nothing to do with him. Who knows?”

Who knows is right, Sully thought. For his part, he was inclined to think it didn’t matter. He’d finished going through the missing persons cases listed on the police chiefs’ site, and none of them had been Walter McCrory.

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