Crucifixion River Page 10

  The second drawer protruded an inch or so from the ones above and below it. Maggie tugged it open, found a man’s clothing: T-shirts, underwear, pajamas. Something thudded at the rear, and she pulled the drawer all the way out and removed it.

  A blue cloth-bound book. Ledger of some sort.

  She flipped back the cover. Not a ledger, a diary, in a woman’s back-slanting hand. Blue ink fading but still readable.

  April 2, 1948

  Our first week here at Lost Wolf Lake! It is so beautiful. I can’t believe that John and I had the good fortune to buy the lodge. The own ers, who built it in 1913, are old and ill, and made us a very good price. There is a large clientele, and all of the rooms are reserved through the coming season. We’ve left the guest rooms and the cabins as they were-they have been very well kept up-but I’ve ordered all new furniture for our suite, and delivery has been guaranteed for tomorrow. I’ve never kept a diary before now, but from here on out I will, to document our happiness.

  Car door slamming below. Cal returning, hours late, with the water and extension cords.

  Maggie hesitated only briefly before she shoved the diary back behind the drawer where she’d found it.

  “You’re limping, Professor. What’s the story this time?”

  “Bruised foot. I was bringing in some firewood and the pile collapsed on me.”

  “You been to the hospital?”

  “For a bruised foot?”

  “Well, I was thinking you ought to be documenting these things that’re happening to you. If Maggie is responsible…”

  “Look, Abel, forget what I told you.”

  “Thought you wanted me to remember, in case…”

  “I shouldn’t’ve said the things I did. Nothing’s going on out at the lake, except that I’m clumsy. I was in a bad mood and I’d had a few Leinies before I came in here. I talked out of turn.”

  “But…”

  “Speaking of Leinies, can I get one, please? And then we’ll talk about more pleasant stuff, like the streak the Twins’re on.”

  “Maggie, I think there’s something you ought to know.”

  “Sig! I thought I heard your boat. Help me with this armchair, will you? The guy’s coming to haul the junk away tomorrow.”

  “It can wait a minute. We have to talk.”

  “What’s wrong? Cal…he’s not…?”

  “So far as I know Cal’s fine…physically. But mentally…I was talking with Abel Arneson at the Walleye Tavern last night. Cal’s been spending a lot of time in there on his runs to town.”

  “I suspected as much. But a few beers, so what?”

  “Drinking beer isn’t all he’s been doing. He’s been saying some nasty things to Abel. About you.”

  “What about me?”

  “Cal told Abel…he told him you’re trying to kill him.”

  “What?”

  “He only talked about it once, over a week ago. Said all these injuries he’s sustained lately were your doing. The next time he was in, he claimed he’d had too much to drink and talked out of turn. But Abel doesn’t believe him.”

  “My God! Cal’s injured himself a lot, yes, but that’s because he’s clumsy. He’s always been clumsy. Does Abel really believe what he said?”

  “He doesn’t know what to think.”

  “Do you believe it?”

  “I believe I may have been wrong before. You should watch your back, Mags. You just may be living with a crazy man.”

  “I took your advice and went to the hospital this time, Abel. The cut required stitches, and now there’s something on record.”

  “So you’ve changed your mind about talking.”

  “Yes…Last time I was in, I was feeling a misguided loyalty to Maggie. All those years, our two boys, et cetera. But this last accident…that tore it.”

  “You’ve got to look out for yourself.”

  “From now on, I will.”

  Maggie took to watching Cal, covertly, through lowered lashes as they worked side by side or sat on the porch in the evenings in the light from the mosquito-repellent candles. His gaze was remote, his expression unreadable. But every now and then she’d catch him watching her with the same guarded look she employed.

  After a few days, he began working alone on tearing down one of the uninhabitable cabins, encouraging her to complete her renovations of the owners’ suite. Grateful for the respite from his oppressive presence, she replaced floorboards and primed walls and refinished the heavy old furnishings. Occasionally she thought of the diary she’d put back where she’d found it behind the second drawer of the bureau. She intended to read more of it, but the work was grueling and made the time go quickly. She told herself she’d save it for the winter months ahead.

  Right before the Labor Day weekend, Sigrid reported that she’d seen Cal and Abel Arneson in intense conversation in the Walleye, and that Abel had later refused to tell her what they’d been discussing.

  After that, when Cal went out to work alone on the cabins, Maggie covertly followed him. And just as covertly documented his activities.

  The roof beam was thick, and, even though the wood was brittle, it was taking Cal a long time to saw through it. He couldn’t risk using power tools, though. Maggie wasn’t to know about this particular project.

  The wind blew off the lake and rustled the branches of the nearby pines. He heard the whine of an outboard motor and Howie’s excited barking-probably at the flock of mallards that frequented the water off their dock. The dog had followed him down here to this cabin by what Cal had privately christened Poison Ivy Beach, then wandered off. The mallards were in no jeopardy, though. The damned dog-Maggie’s choice, not his-was a lousy swimmer.

  Cal hummed tunelessly as he worked. Tomorrow the cabin would be ready.

  Maggie crouched behind a thicket of wild raspberries watching as Cal sawed at the beam of the ramshackle cabin. Its front wall had fallen in, so she had a clear view of him. After a moment she activated the zoom lens of her digital camera and took a picture. Last week she’d photographed him deliberately inflicting an axe wound on his arm that had sent him to the emergency room for five stitches. Now it appeared he intended to fake another accident-that of a major support beam dropping on him.

  Why is he doing these things to himself? Why is he blaming them on me, telling Abel Arneson I’m trying to kill him? Sigrid said he hasn’t spoken to anyone else, or the police. What does he hope to gain from hurting himself?

  Just before he’d sawed through the entire beam, Cal used a pair of long metal wedges to brace the beam in place. Each piece had a thin piece of rope tied to it. Then he climbed down the ladder, moved it to its opposite end, climbed back up, and began sawing again.

  Maggie documented the activity.

  “You look kind of ragged around the edges, Professor.”

  “I’m not feeling too well tonight. For days, actually.”

  “How so?”

  “Just tired. Haven’t been doing too much work out at the property. To tell you the truth, it just doesn’t seem to matter anymore.”

  “Thinking of throwing in the towel?”

  “…Yes, I am. The Twin Cities are looking pretty good to me right now. I’ve just about decided to confront Maggie about what she’s been doing, move back, and divorce her.”

  “But you haven’t said anything to her yet?”

  “No. God knows what she might do if I did. She’ll find out from my lawyer. Besides, she’s hardly ever around.”

  “Oh?”

  “Every day she disappears into the woods, down by the beach, where the last few cabins are. Says she needs her space. Damned if I know what she’s up to.”

  “If I were you, Professor, I’d follow her the next time. And do it quietly.”

  Maggie studied the images on the digital camera’s screen, one after the other. Cal sawing one end of the fallen-in cabin’s beam; Cal sawing the other; Cal constructing his elaborate system of braces and ropes like trip wires. The braces and ropes
themselves, in close-up.

  God, I never knew he had such mechanical ability. He’s planning another accident…a big one this time. The kind that will send him to the hospital. And maybe send me to jail. How did it come to this? He was depressed and acting out against me when he was denied tenure, but the therapy seemed to help. Until we came here. My fault, he’d say….

  “Maggie!” His voice, coming from one of the cabins by the beach.

  She got up, went to the porch railing, and called: “What is it?”

  “I need your help down here.”

  “Be right with you.”

  She took the camera into the lodge and set it on the counter. Evidence of Cal’s mental instability. What am I going to do with it?

  “Maggie!”

  “Coming!”

  Take the image card to a lawyer? The police? Destroy what’s left of our marriage? Destroy Cal? I don’t love him anymore, probably haven’t for a long time, but those years together and the boys have to count for something, don’t they?

  “Maggie!” He wasn’t distressed, just insistent.

  As she descended the slope to the beach, she took deep breaths, told herself to remain calm.

  Cal stood on the ladder inside the cabin, holding the end of the beam that he’d first sawed through yesterday. He was smiling-falsely.

  “Sorry to bother you,” he said, “but I need you to get up here and hold this for me.”

  “What?”

  “Just climb up and hold it for a minute. You can do that, can’t you?”

  She pictured the braces and trip wires. Pictured what would happen when everything came tumbling down. And realized what Cal’s plan was. What it had been all along. The knowledge hit her so hard that her gut wrenched.

  She fought to control the nausea, said: “Cal, you know I don’t like ladders.”

  “Just for a minute, I promise.”

  She made her decision and moved toward him. “Just for a minute?” she asked.

  “Not even that long.”

  “OK, if you insist…oh my God, look over there!”

  She flung her arm out wildly. Cal jerked around. His foot lost purchase on the ladder, and then his hand lost purchase on the beam. He clutched instinctively at one of the ropes. The dilapidated structure came crashing down, taking the ladder and Cal with it.

  Maggie’s ears were filled with the roar of falling wood and Cal’s one muffled cry. Then everything went silent.

  Slowly Maggie approached the cabin. Through the rising dust she could see Cal’s prone body. His head was under the beam, and blood leaked around the splintered wood. Dead. As dead as he planned for me to be.

  She fell to her knees on the rocky ground. Leaned forward and retched.

  Howie’s barking penetrated the silence. After a time Maggie got up shakily, put her hand on his collar, and restrained him from charging at the rubble. She remained where she was, face pressed into the dog’s rough coat, until she had the strength to drive to town to notify the police that her husband had had a final, fatal accident.

  Five days later, Maggie returned to the lodge for the first time since Cal’s body had been taken away by the county coroner’s van. Most of the time, until today’s inquest, she’d stayed in Sigrid’s guest room, unable to sleep, eat, or even communicate her feelings to her old friend. Now it was over.

  The verdict had been one of accidental death while attempting to commit a felony. It was the only possible one, given the existence of a large life insurance policy on Maggie’s life, taken out at the time she was a partner in an interior design firm, as well as the photographs of Cal inflicting wounds on himself and rigging the cabin. In his testimony, Abel Arneson had said he had doubts about Cal’s stories all along: “The professor was an unstable man. Anybody could see that.”

  So it was over, and she was alone. As alone as Janice Mott had been after her husband died tragically on the property. Janice had fled to town and lived the life of a recluse, but Maggie didn’t see that as an option. She didn’t even see returning to the Twin Cities as an option. In fact, she saw no options at all.

  Howie was whining at the door. She let him out, sat down on the futon couch that folded out into a bed. Stared around the large room and wondered what to do with her life.

  Don’t think so cosmically. All you have to decide now is what to do tonight. A walk down to the dock? No, too close to where Cal died. Quiet contemplation on the porch? Not that. A book? Couldn’t concentrate. Wait…there’s Janice Mott’s diary.

  Maggie retrieved it from the bureau drawer where she’d left it.

  Janice Mott had kept to her resolve of documenting John’s and her happiness at Lost Wolf Lake to the very last day. But the happiness had not lasted. At first the entries had been full of delight and plans for the future. Then Janice’s tone changed subtly, with the discovery that she and John were physically incapable of having the family they’d counted on. It grew downbeat as the lodge’s clientele eroded, depressed when she realized he was having an affair with a waitress in town. Paranoid as she began to fear John wanted her out of the way so he could marry the woman. And lonely. Very lonely.

  May 8, 1970

  John is gone so much. When he’s not in White Iron with her, he works on the cabins. Getting them ready, he says, for the season. But the guest list is short and most will never be occupied again. For years I’ve been so wrapped up in him and, in the season, the guests, that I’ve made no friends. No one to spend time with, no one to confide in.

  May 10, 1970

  I heard some sawing at the cabin in the pine grove and went there, wondering what John was doing. He was working on the roof beam, and made it clear he didn’t want me there. I don’t understand. That roof has always been in fine shape. I wish he would stop this needless work and at least spend some time with me.

  May 11, 1970

  John spent the whole night in town again-with her, of course. He came back this morning and went out to work without an explanation. I think he is ready to leave me, and I don’t know what I’ll do then.

  He’s calling out to me now. He says he wants some help. He spends the night in town with her, and now he wants me to help him!

  Under this last entry, there was a space, and then the words, scrawled large: May God have mercy on his-and my-soul!

  Maggie set the journal down. Rested her head on the back of the futon sofa and closed her eyes.

  Same acts, different cabins. History repeating itself? Accidental similarity of events? Or some form of intelligence reaching out from the past? Something in the land itself?

  One thing she was sure of-if there ever was a curse, it was gone now. Her future was decided. She was staying.

  Wrong Place, Wrong Time A “Nameless Detective” Story

  by Bill Pronzini

  Sometimes it happens like this. No warning, no way to guard against it. And through no fault of your own. You’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  11:00 p.m., drizzly, low ceiling and poor visibility. On my way back from four long days on a case in Fresno and eager to get home to San Francisco. Highway 152, the quickest route from 99 West through hills and valleys to 101. Roadside service station and convenience store, a lighted sign that said OPEN UNTIL MIDNIGHT. Older model car parked in the shadows alongside the restrooms, newish Buick drawn in at the gas pumps. People visible inside the store, indistinct images behind damp-streaked and sign-plastered glass.

  I didn’t need gas, but I did need some hot coffee to keep me awake. And something to fill the hollow under my breastbone: I hadn’t taken the time to eat anything before leaving Fresno. So I swung off into the lot, parked next to the older car. Yawned and stretched and walked past the Buick to the store. Walked right into it.

  Even before I saw the little guy with the gun, I knew something was wrong. It was in the air, a heaviness, a crackling quality, like the atmosphere before a big storm. The hair crawled on the back of my scalp. But I was two paces inside by then and it was too late
to back out.

  He was standing next to a rack of potato chips, holding the weapon in close to his body with both hands. The other two men stood ten feet away at the counter, one in front and one behind. The gun, a long-barreled target pistol, was centered on the man in front; it stayed that way even though the little guy’s head was half turned in my direction. I stopped and stayed still with my arms down tightly against my sides.

  Time freeze. The four of us staring, nobody moving. Light rain on the roof, some kind of machine making thin wheezing noises-no other sound.

  The one with the gun coughed suddenly, a dry, consumptive hacking that broke the silence but added to the tension. He was thin and runty, midthirties, going bald on top, his face drawn to a drum’s tautness. Close-set brown eyes burned with outrage and hatred. The clerk behind the counter, twenty-something, long hair tied in a ponytail, kept licking his lips and swallowing hard; his eyes flicked here and there, settled, flicked, settled like a pair of nervous flies. Scared, but in control of himself. The handsome, fortyish man in front was a different story. He couldn’t take his eyes off the pistol, as if it had a hypnotic effect on him. Sweat slicked his bloodless face, rolled down off his chin in little drops. His fear was a tangible thing, sick and rank and consuming; you could see it moving under the sweat, under the skin, the way maggots move inside a slab of bad meat.

  “Harry,” he said in a voice that crawled and cringed. “Harry, for God’s sake…”

  “Shut up. Don’t call me Harry.”

  “Listen…it wasn’t me, it was Noreen…”

  “Shut up shut up shut up.” High-pitched, with a brittle, cracking edge. “You,” he said to me. “Come over here where I can see you better.”

  I went closer to the counter, doing it slowly. This wasn’t what I’d first taken it to be. Not a hold-up-something personal between the little guy and the handsome one, something that had come to a crisis point in here only a short time ago. Wrong place, wrong time for the young clerk, too.