SWAINS LOCK (The River Trilogy, book 1) (37 page)

It was almost five by the time he got home
and he had no enthusiasm for diving into the Rottweiler project as
he stood and tapped a finger on his desk. Nicky wouldn’t be home
for at least half an hour, so… he jogged upstairs, retrieved the
cordless phone and a cluster of red grapes, and settled on the
living room couch. From his pocket he pulled the notepad. The first
number was for Ben Reed. He waited for the answering machine, then
spoke deliberately but cheerfully into the handset.

“Hi, Ben. This is Vin Illick calling. I’m
researching an article for the Maryland Historical Society about
the last decade of commerce on the C&O Canal. I’m interested in
a man named Emmert Reed who worked as a locktender at Edwards Ferry
in the early 1920s. If you or anyone you know has any information
about him, I’d love to talk to you.” He thanked Ben and left his
work phone number, then ate a few grapes and studied the second
name. D. Reed – a woman? He dialed and again reached a recording,
this time in Diane Reed’s voice. He left the same message he’d left
for Ben.

On the next call he was startled to hear the
voice of a live person. Thomas Reed confirmed his identity with a
raspy, unmodulated voice that gave Vin hope he might be over sixty
– maybe old enough to be Emmert Reed’s grandson. But after Vin
recited his pitch, Thomas responded abruptly. “There’s no Emmert
Reed around here.”

“Well,” Vin said deferentially, “the man I’m
researching worked as a locktender in 1913. So I’m actually hoping
to talk to one of his relatives. Perhaps a grandson or a great
niece.”

“You won’t find one in Poolesville. I was
born and raised here and I know every Reed in town. For four
generations. I never heard of an Emmert Reed.”

“Some people may have known him as M-Street
Reed.”

The old man paused. “Did you say M-Street?
What the hell kind of name is that?”

“It was just a nickname… from his canal
days.” Vin’s confident tone wavered as the doubt he’d felt at
Edwards Ferry resurfaced.

“You want information about the canal days,
maybe you should go to the library and ask a librarian… instead of
calling people just ‘cause they got a certain name.”

Vin thanked Thomas Reed for his time and
hung up, then slumped back into the couch. Labor Day weekend was
only two days away. Nicky was working through Saturday morning,
after which she’d be off until Tuesday. Saturday afternoon they
were meeting friends from New Jersey at Cool Aid, an expansive
pastoral party at a defunct farm bordered by rolling hills and the
Gunpowder River, a half-hour north of Baltimore. Their friends had
attended Cool Aid weekends for years, pitching their tent alongside
others on the far-flung lawn, listening to live music, wading in
the shallow, tree-fringed river, and drinking beer from an endless
supply of refrigerated kegs. It sounded like a nice escape. Between
now and the weekend, Vin had to extend a program feature and upload
the new version of his project to Rottweiler’s Boston office; there
was no avoiding it, regardless of the tedium involved. But during
the next two days there might also be time to grasp another straw
from 1924.

Chapter 30
Emmert’s Lockhouse

Thursday, August 29, 1996

Vin lifted Lee Fisher’s old drill to eye
level and set the bit against the head of the wood-screw. It was
too small and spun uselessly. He selected a larger screwdriver bit
and twisted the chuck open, admiring the eggbeater-style drill once
more. The auburn handle and knob were dense and smooth – maybe
cherry or rosewood. He’d cleaned and oiled the drill this morning,
and now when he tightened the chuck and spun the crank, the gears
and bit turned without friction or noise.

The silence reminded him to check for
observers. His position behind the lockhouse was screened from the
closest portions of the towpath and he couldn’t see anyone
approaching from the distance in either direction. He’d already
confirmed that there was nobody behind him on the path to the boat
ramp. So he just had to listen for the idling of an engine or a
slammed car door, which seemed less likely now that a light rain
was falling.

When he applied the bit again, resistance
from the crank arm confirmed the fit. The black screw groaned in
protest with its first rotation, then conceded. It was two inches
long and his arms burned after extracting it. Fifteen minutes more
dislodged the remaining screws. He struggled to pull the heavy
partition away from the window frame and prop it against the
foundation wall, then stared into the dark cavity of the basement.
The frame of the double-hung window was invitingly empty. He’d
hoped he wouldn’t have to negotiate broken glass to get inside.
Cool air that smelled like an old junkyard seeped from the
darkness. He tapped the pocket of his windbreaker to find his
flashlight.

I must look like a thief, he thought,
smiling at the notion. Black jeans and a drab pullover on a humid
summer morning. A thief here to steal what? All he could hope to
find was a finger pointing into the past. He extended a leg through
the orifice into the gloom, ducking and shifting to follow it in.
Looking out, the overcast day seemed impossibly bright. I should
really put the partition back in place while I’m in here, he
thought. Right now it looks conspicuous. But it’s too heavy to
maneuver from inside, so I’ll just have to be quick and hope nobody
notices.

Light streamed into the basement as he
turned to examine the space. To his surprise, the ceiling was high
enough for him to stand upright. He swung his beam across the room.
To his left, a fireplace was built into the stone foundation.
Straight ahead he saw the exposed stones of the windowless front
wall – the lower part of this wall was underground. Ahead and right
was a staircase, and a partition wall bisected the basement from
its underside to the rear wall. Overhead were thick wooden beams
and joists that formed the bones of the lockhouse. It’s small, he
thought, but built to last a century or two.

The fireplace held soot-covered andirons, a
blackened pot-lid, and a broken pint-bottle. He followed the beam
to the front wall and brushed dust from a stack of doors and
shutters leaning against the stones. The front wall led to a
landing at the foot of the stairs, beyond which was the other half
of the basement.

Steering the beam up the stairs revealed a
closed door, which he climbed toward carefully, the worn wood
creaking under his weight. At the top he turned an old doorknob.
The door held fast as he pushed gently, then harder. He realized
with frustration that it was locked with a deadbolt or a latch, so
he went downstairs to try the far side of the basement. With its
apertures still boarded up, this parallel room was much darker.

He panned the periphery. There was no
fireplace on the exterior side wall, so it must be on the first
floor instead. In its place was an old dresser with two drawers
missing. He painted it with the rays – scars and dust, rough edges.
Unworthy of an antique dealer, he thought, tugging at the bottom
drawers in turn. They were hard to open and held nothing. Along the
rear wall, cracks of light filtered through the boarded window and
door. Nothing of interest. In this darker chamber, the partition
wall emanating from the underside of the stairwell supported a set
of bed springs and a disassembled frame. He brushed dust from a
portion of the headboard. Crude and simple like the dresser, not
the work of a craftsman.

Disappointed, he directed light into the
corner this wall formed with the rear wall, where he noticed a
vertical shape tucked into the shadow. It was a black iron rod,
about his own height, with chisel ends. Used to dig holes or split
rocks, he guessed. He set his flashlight down and held it like a
spear; it was even heavier than he expected.

Putting it back, he reached for a shorter
iron rod leaning in the deepest recess of the corner. It was about
three feet long, with a square socket at one end and a graceful
curve at the other. The curved end seemed smoother than the rest of
the rod, almost like it had been sanded, or worn by human hands.
The worn end terminated in a rounded tongue. He’d never seen a rod
like it before but immediately recognized it on a visceral level.
Finding a name for it took a few beats. It’s a lock-key. He
visualized the socket on the end of the key fitting over an iron
stem that protruded through the swing-beam of a gate. All of the
lock-keys on the canal are gone, he thought, but I’m holding one.
Maybe Emmert Reed used it to turn…

He froze in place as he heard footsteps
overhead. Someone’s upstairs! He stopped breathing to listen
intently. Five seconds – ten – nothing. Cool beads formed on his
brow as he stood motionless, holding the key. Think rationally. The
door and windows into the floor above you are boarded up, front and
back. Someone might have followed you into the basement, but
there’s no way to get upstairs. There’s no one up there, so that
wasn’t a footstep. Or was it?

Breathing lightly now, he aimed the
flashlight straight down. He started to put the lock-key back but
thought again. Maybe someone followed me in; if so it’s a weapon.
Holding the key by its socket end, he crept along the partition
wall toward the bottom of the stairs. When he reached the landing,
he stood motionless with the light aimed backward for two full
minutes. No sound. He stealthily edged onto the landing and
sidestepped across it.

Peering into the darkness of the other side
he saw nothing moving, just light pouring in through the unboarded
window. He panned the room with the flashlight. It looked as it had
before. Still carrying the lock-key, he crossed to the open window.
A furtive peek told him no one was waiting in ambush. He tossed the
lock-key and flashlight on the grass and climbed out.

Back on the lawn, he paused to gather his
wits. The rain had stopped but it was still humid and overcast and
he wiped sweat from his forehead. Why was I so spooked, he wondered
as his pulse eased down. He found the drill where he’d left it and
dug into the pocket of his jeans for the screws. The green
partition fit neatly back into the open hole and after all the
screws took their places, the boarded window looked as it had when
he’d arrived. He surveyed the dirt slope to the boat ramp and the
empty towpath in both directions. Clutching the lock-key, drill,
and flashlight, he strode back across the lawn and up to the
towpath. A vibration in his chest made him glance nervously back at
the lockhouse from the bridge, half expecting to see a girl’s pale
face and hands in the window. Only the boarded windows stared
back.

***

After a fruitless hour trying to debug the
code for a nested loop, Vin realized that he had been incrementing
the wrong counter variable. He snorted in disgust and substituted
“i” for “j”. The loop executed correctly. What an idiot. He climbed
the stairs to the kitchen. When he overlooked simple things like
that, it was time to take a break – even though he’d only been at
his desk for a couple of hours after returning from the lockhouse.
He carried a glass of iced tea into the living room, where the
lock-key was lying next to the Vieira book on the coffee table. He
slumped onto the couch and opened the book. Maybe there were other
insights laced within it. In the sections on Harpers Ferry, or Big
Slackwater, or the Paw Paw Bends.

He was still reading when Nicky got home
from the Clinic. In response to his usual query she said the last
part of her day had been awful; she’d had to put down a sick kitten
that had been adopted by a family with young children. It was
vomiting and had diarrhea, and it hadn’t responded to the
antibiotics she’d prescribed. “The little thing just couldn’t get
his intestines to work. I hate having to tell the owners it’s
hopeless.” She reached for a sip of Vin’s iced tea. “What are you
reading?” He raised the book to show her the cover, and she
squinted in admonishment. “You’re kidding, right? Don’t tell me
you’ve resurrected your quest.”

“It’s not really a quest,” he said. “Just
curiosity. Trying to discover the truth.”

“Aaaaggh!” she howled affectedly. “You
are
starting again! I recognize that phrase ‘the
truth’.”

He laughed and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Honey, relax. I’m just treating it like a research hobby. The way
some people study birds or trees.”

“But, Vin, birds and trees are real, living
things! You can see them or touch them – today! They’re alive right
now! They’re not some imaginary mystery involving people no one has
ever heard of who have been dead for a generation!”

He dropped his hand from her shoulder.
“Nicky, it’s interesting to me. The history. We live right up the
hill from a national historic landmark – what’s wrong with trying
to understand it? These were real people who lived and worked
here.” He picked up the lock-key from the coffee table. “See? This
is a real lock-key, from the canal era. It’s not imaginary.”

Nicky squinted hard, then shook her head and
backed away. Her narrowed eyes now looked entirely blue, but Vin
could sense darker colors darting behind them. “Where did you get
that?” she demanded. “And why on earth did you bring it home?”

He smiled sheepishly. “I don’t know… I guess
it’s a souvenir. I wasn’t really thinking about keeping it. I
just…”

“You weren’t really thinking about it?”
Nicky’s tone implied frustration and disbelief. “How does that
happen? Where did you find it?”

“Just... a little ways up the canal,” he
said, scrambling to cut his losses, “in a pile of stuff. Most of it
was trash.”

“And that’s not trash? Oh, great. You’re
spending the afternoon poking around through piles of old garbage!
Vin, you’re really scaring me now. Isn’t there work you need to be
doing? Did you actually do any work today?”