The Lost Women of Lost Lake (7 page)

“Nice to see you again,” called Jane.

Helen walked straight up to her and threw her arms around Jane's neck. “Come back to the house with me. I've got breakfast waiting. Fresh fruit. Yogurt. Tea and toast. Everything you like.”

“Waiting for
me
?”

“What? I can't make breakfast for my daughter?” She laughed, pressed her hands around Jane's face.

“But … I'm not your daughter.”

Helen adjusted her bifocals, her expression turning uncertain. “Of course you are.”

“No, I'm Jane.”

The elderly woman seemed to falter. She backed up, extended her hand, then retracted it. “Not Sarah?”

“I'm Jane. Jane Lawless. Remember?”

The old woman looked suddenly drained. “I—” She held a hand to her forehead. “I'm sorry. I … I get mixed up.”

“We all do.”

“But you must have seen her.” Her gaze drifted over Jane's shoulder. “I'm sure she came this way.”

Helen had two children, a son and a daughter. Jane remembered seeing pictures of them on the mantel in the living room. If she recalled correctly, the son had died in Vietnam, leaving behind a wife and two children. The daughter had died several years later in a car crash, leaving behind a husband and several more children. “I came from Thunderhook,” she said. “I didn't see her.”

“Oh, dear. What if she got lost?”

“I think she knows the area pretty well, don't you?”

Helen bit her lower lip. “Of course, you're right.”

“Why don't I walk you home?”

She hesitated. “No, I'd rather stay here. Just in case she comes this way.”

Jane looked around the beach. There was nowhere to sit, and Helen wasn't exactly a candidate for lounging on the sand. More to the point, Jane couldn't just leave a clearly confused woman to wander the beach. “Do you have on sunscreen?”

“What?” The elderly woman ran her hands along the paper thin skin of her arms. “I never thought to put any on.”

“You shouldn't be out here on such a sunny day without it.”

“Oh … beans,” she said, making a face. “I don't suppose you have any with you.”

“Back in my room at Thunderhook.”

“We'll go there.”

“It's much farther away than your house.”

She raised a hand to shade her eyes. “I guess I am tired.” Scrutinizing Jane's face, she added, “You know, I do remember you now.”

“The last time I was at your house you made cassoulet.”

“Yes, one of my husband's favorites. And we had an old-fashioned floating island for dessert.”

Jane slipped her arm through Helen's, surprised at how thin and twiglike it felt. “Come on, I'll walk you home.”

On the way back down the beach, they talked companionably about the weather, always a conversational staple in Minnesota.

When they reached a pine tree downed by yesterday's storm, Helen pointed to her house atop a steep sandy ridge. From this vantage point, it looked like a mini-mansion. The back faced the lake, while the front looked out on Conrad Merland Drive, one of Lost Lake's main drags.

Jane was about to help Helen up the narrow concrete steps that led from the beach to the back lawn when she saw a man rushing toward them from the direction of the lodge.

“Mrs. Merland?” he called, skidding to a stop in the sand on the other side of the downed pine.

She turned to face him.

“I need to ask you a couple of questions.”

“You are?”

“Steve Feigenbaumer. I'm a journalist.”

Still holding on to Helen's arm, Jane could feel the elderly woman's startled response.

“Your family used to own the Merland Brewery, isn't that right?”

“Yes?”

The man pulled a black Chicago White Sox cap out of the back pocket of his khaki slacks and slapped it over his thinning dark hair. “You also have a foundation.”

Jane figured there weren't that many men running around Lost Lake wearing a White Sox cap. He had to be last night's Peeping Tom.

“I no longer run it, but yes, we take on progressive causes,” said Helen.

“By progressive, I assume you mean liberal.”

Jane wondered how the guy could conduct an interview without taking any notes.

“Liberal, progressive. Either is fine with me. For your edification, in the early part of the last century, you could find progressives in both major parties. Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican and a progressive. Woodrow Wilson a progressive and a Democrat. We've forgotten our history. We do that at our peril.”

He didn't seem the least bit interested in a history lesson. Removing a photo from his shirt pocket, he handed it to her. “Do you recognize the woman in that snapshot?”

Helen adjusted her bifocals. “Should I?”

“Her name is Judy Clark.”

“Doesn't ring a bell.”

“You've lived here all your life?”

“What are you after, Mr. Baumgartner?”

“
Feigenbaumer
,” he said, clearly annoyed that she'd mispronounced his name.

Jane sensed that Helen had done it on purpose. Glancing over the old woman's shoulder, she took a look at the photo.

“I'm afraid I can't help you.”

“Can't or won't? The woman in that picture may not look like it, but she's a cold-blooded killer. If you know anything about—”

“I've already told you that I don't. Now if you'll excuse me—”

Helen handed back the snapshot and was about to head up the stairway when a voice shouted, “There you are. You had me worried sick.” A pudgy-faced blond man in a short-sleeved dress shirt and a brown tie stared down at her. “I thought we were having breakfast together.”

Helen whispered to Jane, “The Amazing Mr. Hammond. My house guest.” She winked. “Hold your horses,” she called back. “I'll be right up.”

“I'm not leaving,” said Feigenbaumer, his voice carrying a distinct threat.

Helen responded with a smile. “I hope you don't. Lost Lake is a lovely place to spend a few idyllic summer days.”

A sudden gust of wind off the lake revealed a bulge near Feigenbaumer's ankle. An ankle holster, thought Jane. If she hadn't been convinced of the seriousness of this man's appearance by Tessa's reaction last night, the sight of the holster surely flipped an alarm switch this morning. Whatever Tessa was mixed up in, it was dangerous.

With a kind of thuggish swagger, Feigenbaumer headed back down the beach.

Returning her attention to Helen, Jane found the elderly woman halfway up the steps.

“Will you be in Lost Lake long?” Helen called down.

“I'm here for the week.”

“My keepers don't allow me to drive anymore. Do you have a car?”

“I have access to one.”

“Wonderful. I'll take you to breakfast in town tomorrow. Mr. Hammond,” she added, and here she winked, “will have to get along without me for a few hours.”

8

Jonah tiptoed down the stairs from the loft to the living room, tucking his tie-dyed T-shirt into his bell bottoms as he went. He'd washed and dried his clothes last night before going to bed. The book he'd taken with him on the road, Kingsley Amis's
The Green Man
, was a little worse for wear because of the storm, but still readable. He always read until the wee hours. This particular story was hilarious. He loved the ghost scenes and the cynical narrator's voice and laughed to himself when he thought about the sex-phobic freak in the Toyota. Maybe he should have left the book as a parting gift. The guy could have gnashed his teeth over the sex scenes.

If it hadn't been for the growling in his stomach, which woke him from a vivid dream, Jonah would've still been asleep. He'd been dreaming about his girlfriend, Emily. While he'd been gone they'd texted each other a few times a day, though for Jonah, it was never enough. He'd made a snap decision to leave St. Louis, but hadn't called to tell her because he couldn't wait for the moment when she first saw him standing right in front of her. It was all he'd thought about on the road.

Jane had promised last night to come by and make everyone breakfast. Probably some form of eggs. Jonah didn't eat anything in the morning that wasn't submerged in milk, so waiting wasn't an issue. Digging through the pantry, he found an unopened box of Cheerios. It wasn't his first choice. He would need to hit the grocery store in town later and buy himself some Cinnamon Toast Crunch, his current fave.

His aunts had refused to make a decision last night about letting him stay, mostly because Jane had caught some stupid guy outside Tessa's office window, which set everyone spinning, locking doors and windows. Jonah had no idea his aunt Tessa owned a shotgun, and it both surprised and amused him to see her packing. He didn't want to let his amusement show because his aunt was in a wretched mood. Even so, he felt confident that the answer to his request, when it came, would be yes. He'd always fit in better with his aunts than he had with his mom and dad. His parents were so incredibly boring, fighting all the time about anything and everything. Tessa and Jill were cool—especially Tessa. If he could pick a mother instead of being issued one, she would be his first choice.

Carrying his cereal bowl into the study, Jonah shoveled spoonfuls into his mouth as he stood in front of a wall of books. This had been his playground as a child. While other kids were out fishing or swimming or inside watching TV or playing video games, Jonah was reading. Tessa had been clever about the way she'd suckered him in. As a little kid, his main interest had been superheros. From age five on, he couldn't get enough of them. For a time he was convinced he really was one. He still wanted to be a superhero, although it was a personal goal he usually kept to himself.

Tessa read him
The Count of Monte Cristo
when he was ten. As silly as it sounded, that first introduction to world of Dumas had rocked his world. Next came
The Three Musketeers
and
The Man in the Iron Mask
. From there, he began reading the books himself. Tessa suggested Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. Later, he began to pick his way through her library. Fiction first. He read
To Kill a Mockingbird
and
Lord of the Flies
, all of Vonnegut, all of Marge Piercy. His favorites were the books by Mary Renault, historical novels sent in ancient Greece. As he got older, he moved on to
Their Eyes Were Watching God
,
Narcissis and Goldmund
,
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Bell Jar
, and
Pale Fire
. He also dug deeply into nonfiction, reading histories of Woodstock, of the culture and music in the sixties and early seventies. Tessa had so many books written about or during that period that he eventually fell into reading more difficult subjects such as the civil rights movement, the cultural revolution in China, Vietnam, the counterculture, antiwar and socialist movements in America and Europe, and books on feminism. He also read dozens and dozens of plays. As Jonah ran his hand along the volumes on the bookshelves, they were all still there—his friends, his mentors.

He had to admit to a particularly embarrassing period in his life, his freshman and sophomore years in high school, when he was never without a book in his hand, not because he was actually reading it, but because he liked the way it looked. His friends thought of him as an intellectual, and he didn't want to disappoint. He actually carted around a copy of Plato's
Five Dialogues
for a while waiting for people to ask him what he was reading.

On the bottom shelf were all of Tessa's record albums, again, most from the sixties and early seventies. She insisted that he handle them with care. As often as possible when he stayed at the cottage, he would lock himself away in the study and play those songs until, over the years, they became more familiar to him than the current bands. He was powerfully drawn to the the sixties and sad, in a strange way, that he'd missed all the excitement.

As he sat down at the desk to finish his cereal, he heard voices. His Aunt Jill had left around seven, and Tessa never got up willingly before nine. She said it was one of the perks of her profession.

The voices were soft, muffled. Returning to the kitchen, he positioned himself as close to his aunts' bedroom door as possible. Peaking around the corner, he saw Tessa propped up against her pillows. She was faced away from him. The double doors that led to the deck were open and Lyndie LaVasser was pacing in front of the bed. Jonah's best friend was Kenny Moon. Mrs. LaVasser was his grandmother. Jonah liked her well enough, although he could never quite figure her out. One minute she seemed totally religious, and the next she'd be cussing a blue streak. People often confused him, which was another reason he liked fiction. At least in a book you got a chance to get inside a person's head and see why they acted the way they did.

Eavesdropping wasn't cool, and yet he had no intention of moving. Taking one more quick peek, he withdrew his head and stood as quiet and rigid as a stick. He hoped that they were talking about him coming to live in Lost Lake for his senior year. Tessa and Mrs. LaVasser weren't exactly best buddies, although they did have coffee together every now and then. Nobody had “coffee” in St. Louis the way they did in Lost Lake—crowded around the kitchen table shooting the breeze and eating coffee cake. Sure, people drank coffee in St. Louis. Mostly, as far as he could tell, they did it in coffee shops while texting, talking on their cell, and working on their laptop.

Mrs. LaVasser was speaking, keeping her voice low:

“If he came here last night, he's got to know. He's watching us—that's why he visited the emporium first.”

“If he's watching, he's not acting.”

“We've got to
do
something.”