Summer at Forsaken Lake (24 page)

“Did I make it too strong?” Nicholas asked.

“No such thing. It’s perfect.”

Between waves, Nicholas managed to bring his mug to his lips and take a big drink. He almost gagged. “Ugh. How can you drink this stuff?”

“Ah, you get used to it. Usually starts in college—all-night study sessions.”

“The only time I ever drank it was at my grandmother’s. She put in
lots
of milk and sugar, I think. It wasn’t anything like this.” If he hadn’t been shivering from the cold, he would have tossed the rest of it overboard. Instead, he wrapped both hands around the mug, soaking up the warmth.

“Temperature’s still dropping,” Teddy noted, pulling his cap down over his ears. “And the wind’s showing no sign of letting up. Nights like this always remind me of a salty old guy I used to sail with up on Lake Erie. The colder and wetter, the better he liked it. We’d be heading for Port Stanley, over on the Canadian side, slogging through a nor’easter, and he’d look me right in the eyes
and say, in this gravelly voice of his, ‘Teddy, my boy, it must be plain hell ashore on a night like this.’ Used to crack me up.”

Suddenly, the pieces of Teddy’s story came together in Nicholas’s mind like a jigsaw puzzle, and out of the blue, Nicholas asked him, “Are you Teddy
Bradford
, by any chance?”

Teddy tilted his head in surprise. “The one and only. How’d you guess?”

“Something you said—about that being the second boat you’d sunk. And you knew whose boat this was. Uncle Nick told us about … well, what happened down by the marina.”

The howling of the wind drowned out Teddy’s chuckle. “That was a long time ago. Back in my drinking days.” He stared at Nicholas, struggling to make out details in the dim glow of the stern light. “Wait a second—I’ll bet you’re Will Mettleson’s kids, aren’t you? Well, this is just … a little
too
strange.”

When Nicholas later told Charlie about that moment, he admitted that—for just a moment—he was afraid. His mind ran riot with images of Teddy Bradford taking his revenge by deliberately sailing poor old
Goblin
onto the nearest rocks.

That microsecond of panic passed quickly, though, when he realized that Teddy was laughing hysterically.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be laughing,” he said. “But you
have to admit, it’s quite a coincidence. You—of all the people in the world—saving my sorry butt from a sinking boat.”

Nicholas prepared to defend his father’s actions of that day, his mind replaying the film of the sinking that seemed to show Charlie’s dad—who also happened to be Teddy’s cousin—someplace he shouldn’t have been.

But Teddy had a surprise for him.

“You know, it’s about twenty-five years too late, but I owe your dad an apology. Big-time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know how much you know about what happened that day, but your dad kind of … took the fall, I guess, for somebody else. And I let it happen. It wasn’t your dad’s fault. Not even a little bit.”

It wasn’t your dad’s fault
.

Despite the noise and the spray, those five words hung above
Goblin
like a hot-air balloon.

“I know,” said Nicholas. “I, er,
we
—me and my friends—did some snoop— er,
investigating
. We found the cut steering cable and backstay. There’s no way my dad did those things. We found the camera they were using that day. You can see stuff on that film that just doesn’t make sense. There was another kid.…”

“Jimmy Brennan. My cousin.”

“Right. And while my dad was still up by the mast, you can see Jimmy coming out of the cabin—someplace he had no reason to go.”

“No
good
reason, anyway,” said Teddy. “Well, it sounds
like you’ve basically got it figured out. You’re missing one important detail, though. What you don’t know is that
I
was on the boat, too—totally by accident. Like I said, that was back in my drinking days. The night before, I had a few too many up at the Causeway Lounge, and I decided to sleep it off on my boat, which was docked at the marina. Completely forgot about telling your dad and Jimmy that they could use it the next morning. Well, next thing I know, I wake up and the boat’s a-rockin’ and a-rollin’, and it feels like somebody’s jackhammering away inside my head. I had no idea where I was. I look across the boat from where I’m stretched out, and lo and behold, there’s my little cousin, Jimmy, messing around with something under the cockpit. I was wrapped up in a couple of sail bags and he didn’t even see me.”

“Did you say anything to him?”

“I remember
trying
. My head was pounding, my vision was still blurry—I think I was hoping it was a dream. And then he was gone. Meanwhile, I’m just layin’ there, trying to muster the strength to get up on my feet, when—
bam!
—we hit something so hard I bounced off the ceiling.” Teddy raised his mug to Nicholas. “And that was the end of
Maguffin
—Number One, that is. You just watched
Maguffin II
go down. You know, maybe it’s time for a different name.”

“So, what did you do?” Nicholas asked. “Didn’t the people onshore see you?”

“If they did, nobody ever said anything. My guess is
that once that mast fell on that poor girl’s head,
that
was where everyone was looking. While the boat was bouncing against the rocks and pilings, I tried to push her off, but I wasn’t exactly steady on my feet, and I fell over the side. And that’s when Jimmy found me. Let’s just say he was surprised to see me.”

“What did he say?”

“He begged me not to say anything. He didn’t want to get into trouble. I told him I’d have to wait and see how things turned out. When I got up on dry land and saw the girl and the sheriff and then the ambulance, I thought,
Oh boy, here comes a lawsuit
. But next thing I know, everybody is pointing fingers at your dad and his secret plan to blow up my boat, and they’re treating me like I’m just another victim of this horrible crime.” Teddy wiped the rain from his face. “And I let them.”

“B-but
why
? I mean, why did Jimmy do it?”

Teddy shrugged. “Don’t know. He told me he wanted the movie they were making to be more realistic, but I always figured there was more to it than that. To tell you the honest-to-God truth, once I found out I was going to get a brand-new boat out of the deal, I didn’t much care. Not something I’m proud of. It’s easy for me to blame it on the booze, but the fact is, I should have spoken up. I’d like to think I would have if they’d arrested your dad or anything like that. When I heard that he’d gone back to New York, it was like my conscience was let off the hook.”

“Can I ask you one more question? A few days after it happened, did you go looking for my dad’s camera?”

A smile came to Teddy’s face. “Mikey Bishop. When you said you’d found the camera, I immediately thought of him. Yep, I did go over there and ask him about it. I saw him talking to your dad. I was afraid of what that film might show—you know, if the police, or my insurance company, got ahold of it. So, was I right? Did Mikey have it all along?”

Nicholas nodded. “And he
still
didn’t want to give it up to anyone except my dad—even to me. You never had a chance.”

* * *

Nicholas and Teddy sailed on through the night, sharing steering duties, drinking foul-tasting coffee, and devouring an entire package of oatmeal cookies. When the rain finally let up, a little after two-thirty, and the last battalion of clouds had retreated to the east, the Big Dipper glistened in the black sky.

“Wow. And I thought the stars were bright
last
night,” said Nicholas.

“It’s nice with the power out,” Teddy noted. “No lights onshore to interfere with them. The air is clear as can be, thanks to that storm. You know, they say that in Galileo’s time—before air pollution and electric lights to mess
things up—the Milky Way was so bright that it cast shadows on moonless nights. Can you imagine?”

Nicholas sat with his legs stretched out on the cockpit seat, his back pressed against the cabin house. Maybe it was because this shipwrecked sailor had been so honest with him, or maybe it was that he seemed so comfortable with a tiller in his hand, but Nicholas trusted Teddy completely—an idea that he would have found impossible to believe a few hours earlier. He closed his eyes—just for a second, he promised himself.

* * *

Nicholas threw his arm across the cockpit, grasping for the tiller. “I’ve got it!” he shouted as his eyes shot open and his body lurched up from the seat. A full second passed before the events of the night replayed in his mind and he remembered who that stranger at
Goblin
’s helm was. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, gazing with wonder at the stunning scene around him. The sun remained hidden behind the trees, but the sky to the east glowed in vivid shades of red, orange, and purple. Gone were the whitecaps of the long, stormy night, and in their place were sparkling ripples, each one seemingly dipped in gold.

As Teddy grinned at him, Nicholas got his first clear look at his sun- and windburned face and his laughing eyes, and he liked what he saw.

“Sorry,” said Nicholas. “How long did I sleep? You must be ready for a break.”

“Hey, no problem. I work the night shift over at the tool-and-die shop, so I’m a night owl anyway. And besides, I owe you. I’d still be swimming if it weren’t for you.”

“And
us
,” added Hayley, suddenly appearing at the top of the companionway steps next to a very sleepy-looking Hetty.

“I stand corrected,” said Teddy, laughing and doffing his cap at the twins. “I am forever in your debt, Your Highnesses. Now, if you look up ahead, you can see the yellow house where you left your friends behind. We’ll be there in half an hour. So, how about you let me whip you up a nice breakfast. If there’s any food left, that is.”

“Oh, there’s plenty of food,” said Nicholas, sliding back to take the tiller from him. “Eggs, ham, cheese, bread—you name it, we’ve got it.”

Teddy hoisted the twins into the cockpit and dropped down into the cabin. “Everybody like omelets?”

“Woof!” said Pistol.

* * *

At 4:30 a.m., Charlie was awakened by the sounds of twenty-eight cows, hungry and ready for their morning milking, which was already late getting started. She had slept next to the Kuerners’ dog—whose name,
appropriately enough, was Bear—a hulking, ninety-pound mutt with long black fur. As she lifted herself off the straw bales that had been her bed, she scratched her head and considered her options with the cows. They had to be milked, she knew that much. She also knew that she wasn’t really qualified to do the entire job on her own. She’d
helped
her friends who lived on dairy farms milk plenty of times, but this was different. And calling somebody to come help at 4:36 wasn’t really an option, she decided.

“What the heck happened to Nick?” she wondered aloud, deflecting answers she didn’t want to contemplate—a car accident, a fallen tree blocking the road, or Mr. Kuerner’s condition worsening.

When she turned on the lights inside the barn, the cows really came to life, clamoring for food, so she climbed into the hayloft and dropped a few bales through the opening. She then cut the strings and spread the loose hay throughout the mangers, hoping that by the time she finished, someone—anyone—would arrive to help her with the milking.

The sky outside was beginning to show signs of the coming day, but with no car headlights cutting through the mist hanging over the fields, Charlie turned into the pristine tiled milk house, where the milking equipment and the enormous refrigerated tank glistened. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the milkers were the same type she was used to, so she prepared two
and carried them to the far side of the barn to get the milking started.

At five-forty-five, Nick opened the barn door to the
tch-ka-tch-ka-tch-ka
of the milking machines, a sound he did not expect to hear.

“Charlie?” he called out.

On the opposite side of the barn, Charlie stood up from behind a cow, unplugged her milker, and lifted the heavy pail. “Over here!”

“What are you doing here? Why aren’t you with the others on
Goblin
? Have you been here all night?” His eyes darted around the barn. “Are they here, too? Is everybody okay?”

“Yep. I slept over there on the straw bales with Bear,” said Charlie. “I’m not sure where Nicholas and the twins are. I went looking for them once, but
Goblin
wasn’t where she was supposed to be. They must have anchored somewhere else for the night. Where have you been, by the way? Is Mr. Kuerner okay?”

“I think so. When we got there last night, they sent him in for emergency surgery. Said his arteries were all blocked up. His wife was a wreck, so I had to stay with her, at least until they moved him into recovery. I called one of their neighbors—he said he’d come over and milk as soon as he finished his own cows.” He looked around the barn admiringly. “But it looks like you’ve got things pretty much under control. Not that that surprises me—not one bit.”