The Drowning Game (23 page)

“The mine was automated in 1952,” he went on. “More than five hundred men lost their jobs. Paiute's population decreased by almost half.”

We walked along, looking up at the barren mountain. No vegetation anywhere. Just dirt and rocks, and some ancient timbers. The openings had all been filled in—­likely to keep adventurous kids from tumbling down the shafts.

I'd never seen a mine from the 1800s before, and it was an awesome sight. I wished I could spend more time there, but I needed to get on the road tomorrow morning at the latest. With this thought, I had to push away my nagging conscience. Petty would be fine without me.

We walked around the buildings. Planted in front of an old shaft covered in barbed wire was a sign depicting a stick figure falling down a hole accompanied by rocks. It said: D
ANGER!
A
BANDONED
M
INE!
S
TAY
O
UT!
S
TAY
A
LIVE!
I wished I had a camera with me, or even a cell phone.

Mitch continued his canned speech. “In 1972,” he said, “the mountain fractured, which means it collapsed on itself, and many of the shafts disappeared. It's unknown how many miners were trapped in the shafts. The mine finally closed down completely after that.”

We walked around a little longer before Mitch said, “Back to the car.”

I followed behind him and Petty and got in the backseat. Mitch drove about a mile down the mountain and then turned off at another dirt road, which led to a huge body of water in a valley. A finger of land, a berm, maybe ten feet wide and several hundred feet long, jutted out into the middle of the lake. Mitch parked. We got out of the car again and stood looking down at it.

The water at the lake's center was blue, but near the edges it was rust-­colored in some places, tannish in others. Twenty feet from the shore stood an ancient wooden sign with the faded word
FORBIDDEN
handwritten on it.

“That's the tailings pond,” Mitch said.

“Pond?” Petty said. “Back home we call that a lake.” Then she nudged her shoulder into me, something she'd never done before, and it sent tingles up my arm, to my annoyance. I didn't want to feel that way about her. A certainty that we would soon part ways and probably never see each other again filled me with gloom.

“Break it up, you two,” Mitch said, jovially, but with an edge. He was the proverbial dad with a shotgun on the porch.

“What's tailings?” Petty asked, her face red.

“It's what's left over after the ore has been processed,” Mitch said. “This tailings pond is special, if you can call it that. It's one of the deepest in North America at over seven hundred feet, so you can imagine how long it took to build that berm out there.”

“What's the pond for?” Petty said.

“To collect the contaminated runoff from the mountain,” Mitch said. “What you're looking at is some of the most acidic water found on earth.”

“Why's it taken so long to go into remediation?” I said.

“Money, of course,” Mitch said. “Lawsuits have gone back and forth to see who's responsible.”

“What does remediation mean?” Petty said.

“Cleanup,” Mitch said. “Water is released a little at a time through that treatment facility over there. See it? It will take a long time to clean this up. It's a very delicate operation. But that's job security for me.”

He started toward the water. “Let's walk down by the pond.”

I followed several steps before I realized Petty hadn't moved. I turned.

“You two go on ahead,” she said, loitering by the sign.

I recognized but didn't understand the fear in her eyes. I walked back to where she stood. “Come on,” I said.

She shook her head.

“It's okay.”

“I'm not going down there, no matter what you say,” she said.

“Everything all right?” Mitch called.

Petty's hands were shaking.

“Okay if we just go back to the cabin?” I said to Mitch. “This altitude is kind of getting to me.”

“Oh,” Mitch said. “All right.” He looked disappointed but began trudging toward the car.

Once we were all buckled into the Taurus and driving down the mountain, Petty said, “I didn't care about coming to see the mine, but you're right, Dekker. This is pretty interesting.”

Petty was agitated, eager to please her dad, I could see. I felt embarrassed for her.

“How long have you worked here?” I asked Mitch.

“Almost twenty years.” He pointed at a little building a ways from the tailings pond. “There's my office, such as it is. Gets pretty lonely up here.”

“I'll bet it does,” I said.

We drove in silence for a while, and I watched the towering pines slice the sky through my window. This would be an amazing place to live.

“When we get back to the cabin, I'm going to take a nap,” Mitch said.

“And I'd like to go for a run on that dirt road by the cabin,” Petty said.

“A run?” Mitch said.

“Yes, sir—­Mitch. I run every day I can.”

“If Michael Rhones had let her go to public school,” I said, “she'd have been the star of the track team.”

The back of Petty's neck got red.

“Is that right,” Mitch said. “I don't think that's a good idea. We've got a bit of a wildlife problem—­bears and mountain lions.”

“Where would be a safe place I could go around here?”

Mitch stared at her. “There really isn't one, darling.”

This term of endearment, seemingly out of nowhere, disturbed me, but I didn't know why.

We pulled up to the cabin.

“Do you have any pictures of my mom?” Petty asked.

Startled, Mitch said, “Of course.”

“How about family photographs?” I said.

He fixed his small eyes on me from the rearview mirror. “What do you mean?”

“You know,” I said. “Of you and Marianne and Petty.”

“Oh. Yes.”

“How come you don't have any of them hanging up in the cabin?”

His eyes went flat and he didn't answer right away. Then a big cheery grin replaced the look. “Well,” he said. “Aren't you quite the interrogator?”

He didn't answer the question, but I let it drop. It was always weird to me what different ­people thought was too personal.

Mitch got out of the car, and Petty and I followed. She was the last one through the front door.

Mitch stood in the hallway and stretched. “I sleep with a box fan going year-­round, so don't worry about being quiet on my account.”

“Okay,” Petty said.

“But no funny business, mister,” he said, wagging his big finger at me.

I tensed.

He glanced at his watch. “It's eleven now. See you around four. Then I'll make you all a nice dinner.”

He went into his bedroom and closed the door.

I sat staring at my hands, trying to untangle everything that was going on in my head. I needed to leave, but I was uncomfortable leaving Petty here alone with Mitch. We still didn't really know anything about him. Just because he was Petty's father didn't make him a good man.

What I needed was an impartial assessment from someone I trusted who didn't have these confused and possessive feelings about Petty.

“Hey,” I said in a low voice, even though I heard the box fan turn on in Mitch's room. “I have an idea. Why don't you come to Kansas City with me, see the concert, and then we'll pick up Uncle Curt and Aunt Rita, and they can come back here with us.”

“Why would we do that?” Petty asked.

“I don't feel right about leaving you here alone.”

“Actually, I think maybe you ought to go on home without me.” She didn't look at me as she said this.

I was taken aback. “But I have a ­couple of days before I need to be in KC. I don't mind hanging around.”

“That's okay,” she said.

“But didn't you notice he doesn't have a TV? How would you survive?” I looked at my hands. “And the truth is, you don't know anything about this guy.”

“I know he's my father,” Petty said. “What else do I need to know?”

“Where's he from? Does he have any family? Did he go to college?” I gulped. “Does he have a police record?”

“
You
have a police record, and I've been hanging around with you for a week.”

I slumped.

More gently, Petty said, “It's going to take a little time to find all this stuff out.”

“I'd think you'd want to know a little more about him before you decide you're going to move in here.”

“I didn't say I was going to move in,” Petty said. “But I want to understand why my dad—­why Michael Rhones—­was the way he was. I want to understand why I'm the way I am.”

I glanced toward the hall and lowered my voice. “No, I get that. But I can't help feeling that there's something he's not telling us.” I hadn't known I felt this until it was out of my mouth.

She frowned at me. “I'm sure there's plenty he hasn't told us. We've been here less than twenty-­four hours.”

“I guess it's just me,” I said, realizing I was losing the argument, “but don't you kind of wonder . . . what kind of a man . . . goes after another man's wife?”

­“People marry the wrong ­people all the time,” Petty said. “Your mom did.”

It was as if she'd slapped me across the face. “Thanks, Petty.”

Mitch's bedroom door opened and he stepped out into the hall. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I couldn't help but overhear.”

Petty's face went a deep shade of red. I felt as if we'd been caught smoking crack or making a pipe bomb.

How had Mitch heard us with his box fan going? He must have been standing right behind his door, listening. I felt a pang of unease.

“Anne Marie, of course your friend is going to be worried. He's right. You don't know anything about me. But think about it, Dekker. You two show up in the middle of the night unannounced and come in here claiming that this girl is my daughter. You could be robbers or worse, but I opened my home to you. I didn't question you. I trusted you, and I don't think asking you to trust me in return is asking too much.”

“I'm sorry, sir,” I said, feeling chastened. He was right. I'd met plenty of slightly odd ­people in my life. I was even related to some. I was just feeling possessive of Petty. “We've been through a lot in the last few days.”

“But having said that, you were right about something else. There is something I haven't told you. And I suppose I should go ahead and tell you now. I won't be able to sleep unless I do.” He sat on the rocking chair and stared down at his hands, which he wrung together. “Your mother didn't die in a house fire.”

My heart seemed to stop in my chest.

Petty sat straight and alert. “She didn't?”

“Your mother was murdered. By Michael Rhones.”

 

Chapter 26

“M
URDERED,”
I
SAID,
the word reverberating in my ears.

Tears ran down Mitch's face behind his glasses. “He also tried to—­tried to . . .”

“What?” But I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

Mitch wiped his eyes, stood and went to the mantel, moving the figurines around. “He came to our house to take Marianne away while I was at work, and she wouldn't go. So he held you underwater in the tub until you almost drowned and she agreed to go with him.”

I couldn't breathe. My mom, the woman I'd never known, had sacrificed herself for me. It had been my life or hers. Suddenly I was on my back staring at the misshapen, shifting bathroom ceiling, trying to breathe, unable to because someone was holding me underwater. My dream was no dream. It had really happened. And now I could make out the face. It was Michael Rhones, and he was pushing down on me with huge hands, smiling down at me as if we were playing a game, saying something I couldn't make out, trying to make me inhale. Death was coming for me. And his name was Michael Rhones. My mother had chosen to die rather than let me die.

My mom was dead because of me.

A high, shrill siren of a noise filled the cabin. It was coming from my mouth, pouring forth like a volcano, and I couldn't stop it. And then I was sobbing, my face to the ceiling.

I don't know how long this lasted, but it seemed to go on for a very long time. All the despair and grief of my stolen life streamed out of my mouth and eyes and nose, and everything and everyone around me disappeared until I could cry no more.

I got up and staggered to the bathroom. Weirdly, understanding my drowning dream, where it had come from, made me feel better. And the truth was, it wasn't that surprising Michael Rhones had killed my mother, after all the other crazy things he'd done. It actually made a lot of sense. I blew my nose, then splashed cold water on my face and used the toilet.

Back out in the living room, Dekker was saying, “So he killed her and took Petty and changed their names and disappeared.”

Mitch nodded.

I reseated myself on the sofa.

“Why didn't Michael just divorce her?” Dekker asked.

“He said if he couldn't have her, no one could,” Mitch said, moving the mantel figurines to their original positions before turning toward us. “Michael framed me for the murder. He planted evidence and I was put on trial in Denver.”

Nothing surprised me anymore.

“I was acquitted. That's a matter of public record, but it ruined my life. Not only because Marianne was gone, but because I've been hounded by the press since. I moved to this cabin to escape it all, but the teenagers up here like to dare each other to ‘touch the murderer's house.' ”

“That's why you came out with a rifle,” Dekker said.

Mitch went on as if he hadn't heard. “The media turned me into a monster. It was hell. Of course, all this happened before the Internet, so your mom didn't know Michael had a history of stalking women. He'd been in prison for raping and disfiguring a woman he was obsessed with. This was in another state—­Ohio, I think—­and he had several aliases. I don't even know if Rhones was his real name.”

He came toward me in two long strides, fell to his knees and grabbed mine, making me jump. “Someone like him, Petty, doesn't kill just once. And he doesn't rape just once, so . . . I have to know, Petty. Did he . . . ?”

Dekker's head whipped toward me.

“Did he . . . what?” I said, barely able to get the words out.

“Did he violate you? Did he have sex with you?” Spit flew from his mouth as he said “sex” and it landed on my cheek.

I shoved Mitch's hands off my knees and got to my feet. “No!” I said. “He never touched me.”

“Are you sure? Sometimes—­I've read quite a bit about the subject—­when children are molested, they suppress the memory. They bury it, but it sometimes comes out in dreams. They become withdrawn and introverted and depressed.”

Dekker looked at me as if I were roadkill. Horrified. Disgusted. Probably thinking to himself,
That describes Petty to a T.

I paced. “I'd remember,” I said. “I know I would.”

“No,” Mitch said. “You might not. Michael was a violent, sadistic rapist and murderer. When the authorities found Marianne's body, it was mutilated. He'd cut off her—­”

“Stop,” Dekker said. “Don't. Don't say it. Stop.”

He'd cut off her what?

“She needs to hear this.”

Dekker rose, trembling, and stood between me and Mitch. “No, she doesn't.”

Mitch frowned at Dekker, gave him a flat stare for a moment, then his face cleared.

“Of course, you're right. I apologize. You're absolutely right.” He sat back in the rocking chair, took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I've carried this burden by myself for eighteen years, and I guess I'd hoped we could carry it together. But it was selfish of me.”

Dekker and I sat on the sofa. Mitch gave me a pointed look that I couldn't figure out. It was as if he was waiting for me to say something, but I didn't know what.

Then his shoulders dropped. “I'm so tired. I'm going to go to sleep now. We'll talk more when I get up.” He leaned over me and kissed my forehead and squeezed my shoulder. Then he turned to Dekker. “I don't know when you were planning to leave, but there's snow in the forecast, and we get snowed in up here pretty good.”

Dekker looked at me, and I shrugged.

I'd told him he should leave, just like Mitch had suggested. But I didn't want him to go. I felt—­what was the word?—­safe with him, and I couldn't figure out why. He didn't know how to shoot a gun, or how to fight, and he sure couldn't run. What did it mean?

Mitch hadn't made a move toward his bedroom.

“So be off with you, then!” he said to Dekker with a forced laugh.

“All right,” Dekker said. He gave me a blank look and went into the guest room.

Mitch turned to me and gave me a big grin and the okay sign with his hand.

I was paralyzed between my desire to have Dekker stay and my desire to please my father. I felt so raw after finding out that Michael Rhones had tried to kill me, I'd wanted to talk it through with Dekker while Mitch was asleep. Now I wouldn't have a chance to do that, and it made me feel unsteady.

Dekker came back out of the guest room with his Walmart bag full of stuff. Since Mitch was standing right there, I tried to use my face to tell him that I didn't want him to go.

“Are you sure you'll be all right?” Dekker said.

Mitch watched my face.

“Sure,” I said, angry at myself for wanting to leave with Dekker, because I wasn't being fair to my dad. It was all just too much.

Dekker pulled the car keys out of his pocket and studied them. “Well,” he said. “I guess this is goodbye.”

Mitch stuck out his hand to Dekker. They shook hands, and Mitch said, “I can't thank you enough, young man.”

“I'll be back,” Dekker said, surprising me. “I've got to bring your car back to you.”

My disappointment at his reason for returning embarrassed me. “You can keep the car. I can't drive, remember?”

His face fell.

I stood up and we stared at each other for a moment, my kissing dream filling my head. I had to look away from him.

“Hey,” he said. “Can I borrow some money? I'll need gas and I'd like to get a new shirt for the show.”

I pulled my money from my back pocket and counted a thousand dollars, leaving myself five hundred. I held it out to him.

“I don't need that much,” he said.

“Take it,” I said. “Have a good show. I wish I could see it. I'll bet you're going to be great.”

He took the money out of my hand and put it in his pocket. “You gonna be okay?”

Mitch held open the front door.

I stuck my hand out to Dekker. He took it in both of his. I looked into his brown eyes and I started to shake. He pulled me toward him and it felt like my bones were melting.

“All right you two, break it up, break it up.” Mitch made a karate-­chop motion between us.

Dekker let go of my hand, turned to the door and picked up his Walmart sack. Mitch held the door open for him once more.

“Goodbye, now,” he said.

“Goodbye, Petty,” Dekker said over his shoulder. And then he went out the door.

A
S SOON AS
the cabin disappeared from my rearview mirror, I lit a cigarette and inhaled. What a relief to be able to smoke in the car! No more nagging about how bad it was for me, about how she was in such better shape than me. No more drama.

Still, I felt low-­level trepidation at leaving, because I could tell Petty wasn't ready for me to go yet. But Mitch had been more than eager to push me out the door. In fact, he'd taken on the father role pretty quickly after meeting Petty, as if he'd been waiting to do it for a long time.

I turned on the radio and flipped the dial until a station came in semiclear. It was playing an Autopsyturvy tune. I pounded the steering wheel, letting out a shout of exultation, then I drummed along with the song.

But the farther I got from the cabin, the less excited I became at the prospect of rejoining the band. It was the reverse of what I expected. But I'd made a commitment, and I needed to honor it. So why did I feel so lousy?

The problem was pretty much everything reminded me of Petty.

I hit Leadville about a half hour later. My fuel was near E, so I drove into a Conoco and paid for a tank of gas with the cash Petty had given me. It was cooler out than it had been earlier, the sky filled with low, gray clouds. While the pump clicked and whooshed, I went inside to use the restroom and buy some junk food. There were a few ­people in line ahead of me, so I glanced at the newspaper on the rack in front of the counter.

A
URORA
R
APIST
G
ETS
F
IFTEEN
Y
EARS
, a headline read.

A rapist like Michael Rhones. Petty had lived in a house with a rapist and a murderer for eighteen years, the man who'd tried to drown her. I wondered if what Mitch had said about kids who were molested—­that they couldn't remember the abuse—­was true. I wondered if Michael Rhones had raped Petty.

Even as the idea entered my head, I punted it right back out again. Petty was suspicious and paranoid, but she didn't exhibit the anxiety and depression that I'd seen in the two girls I'd known who'd been raped. Petty was a trained, fierce warrior, not a PTSD sufferer. She was a female Jason Bourne. I smiled at the thought.

I tried to pull my mind back to Kansas City and Disregard the 9 and Autopsyturvy, but one of the semi drivers in line was wearing a cap like Ray's, the poor dumb trucker bastard who'd thought Petty was a hooker. I grinned at the memory now, how Petty had put that guy in his place.

I hoped she'd be okay. I missed her.

I walked out the door just in time to see a flash of red traveling west.

It was a Dodge Ram pickup truck with Kansas plates.