Beneath Still Waters Read online

  close.)

  “Hey, I’m sort of eager to get out of here myself. You

  wouldn’t have any lunch plans, would you?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Then shall we hit the local greasy spoon? A cup of java

  and a stale cruller would hit the spot after the dungeon tour.”

  “Sure.” She smiled.

  Massetrino had stopped and was delivering another of

  his bits of trivia about the dam.

  “Each pump here can handle up to fifty thousand gal-

  lons a minute. In case of a flood, there are special overflow

  gates to direct the water to the Bronx River.”

  Dan stepped close to the railway. The pumps over-

  lapped and crisscrossed each other in a chaotic way that

  made it impossible for him to see what pipes connected

  where. They were covered with a black, crusty coating that

  made them look alive, organic.

  (Like the fossilized entrails of some prehistoric crea-

  ture.)

  He took a half dozen quick photos, finishing the roll.

  “Hold on. Need a new roll of film,” he said, slipping his

  camera off and opening it up.

  “Where’s that water come from?” he heard Susan ask,

  leaning over the railway beside him and looking down at

  the ground.

  “What water?” Massetrino grumbled.

  “There. On the ground. All over the ground. Near the

  pipes.”

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  m a t t h e w j . c o s t e l l o

  Dan was still fiddling with his film, threading it into the

  sprocket, closing the back of the camera.

  “What the . . . what the hell?”

  Dan looked over at Massetrino, scanning the floor, and

  he looked up.

  (Just as if he had suddenly noticed someone standing

  there in the shadows watching him.)

  He saw a crack.

  “From there,” Dan said quietly. He took a photo.

  The crack ran from the ground, up eight or ten feet, a

  dark gash, moist with the slight trickle of water running to

  the floor.

  “Oh, shit,” Massetrino mumbled.

  “Your dam’s broken,” Dan said. He took a photo of the

  narrow gash.

  “Is that new?” Susan asked. “Did it just happen today?”

  “No . . . I mean, I—”

  “Of course it didn’t just happen,” Dan said, clicking

  away. “Look at the trail the water’s made traveling over the

  stone. See, there, a thin line of algae. It’s been here for

  months . . . maybe longer.”

  He turned to Massetrino. “When’s the last time you

  were down here to check the inside of the dam, eh, Fred?”

  He took a photo of Massetrino, the gibbering idiot in

  his domain.

  (And wouldn’t that be a nice item to put in a frame over

  the mantelpiece. Uncle Fred in shock, watching his dam

  leak.)

  “I don’t know. A little while ago. Just last . . .”

  He trailed off into some incoherent muttering.

  “That water’s coming from the reservoir?” Susan asked.

  Massetrino nodded.

  “You better call some people,” Dan said. “The Water

  Department. Whoever the hell’s in charge of your dam.”

  “Yes, I . . . I should go now.”

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  61

  The trickle was small but steady. A thin, shining ribbon

  running along the inner stone wall.

  And on the other side, thought Dan. Enough water to

  wash Ellerton away in minutes.

  “Dan, I’ve got to get out . . . tell the paper.”

  “Right, reporter lady. We’ll head back now.”

  Massetrino didn’t move.

  “You staying here?” Dan asked.

  Massetrino shook his head. “No. I don’t want to. I got to

  tell—”

  But Dan was already leading Susan back to the main

  staircase, up and out of the wounded dam.

  Max Wiley sat in his office, achy and tired, wanting noth-

  ing more than to lock his office door, curl up, and go to

  sleep on his couch.

  But too much was happening for such a luxury.

  Rogers had called him twice. First to tell him the divers

  were coming that night, then to report that he was calling

  off his search teams at the reservoir. There was, quite sim-

  ply, no sign of Tommy Fluhr.

  And as expected, the local rag called for a quote. The

  Ellerton Register offered more typos for your twenty-five cents than any other paper. The fact that it had not supported his run for mayor still stuck in his craw. Certainly

  it wouldn’t back him when he declared for Congress.

  If he ever got to declare for Congress.

  But PR was power. If the fabulous Ellerton celebration

  of the Kenicut Dam got screwed up, it would reflect di-

  rectly on him.

  (Already he was calling it the damn dam, grinning at his

  feeble joke. He liked saying it out loud, under his breath . . .

  “The goddamn dam.”)

  Then, surprise, boys and girls, an earthquake. Not a small

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  m a t t h e w j . c o s t e l l o

  one, either. No buildings or trees down—the Hudson Val-

  ley was too geologically old for such a catastrophe. That

  was for the Californians to worry about.

  But big enough to give the houses a good rattle, send a

  few plates and pictures crashing to the floor, make a few lit-

  tle kids cry and run for their mommies. Hell, it was enough

  to wake him when he was trying to sleep in, and he had

  been dead to the world.

  The boiler, he had thought, blinking awake. It’s going to

  blow, taking me and the house with it. His kids were away at camp, and his wife had already gone to the real-estate

  office where she nailed down an extra few hundred dollars

  a week. It would have just been poor Max going kaboom.

  But it ended, and it was only a few moments before he

  realized that it was an honest-to-God earthquake.

  If that didn’t beat it all. A drowning (a champion swim-

  mer drowning!) and a freakin’ earthquake.

  He picked up the schedule for Saturday’s celebration. A

  full day’s worth of activities. Tours of the dam. Historical

  Society lectures. Naturalists running field trips around the

  reservoir. (Here’s where the frogs like to fuck, ladies and

  gentlemen.) And bands and barrels of beer and soda. Fol-

  lowed by all the neighboring fire departments parading

  their heavy trucks over the dam’s roadway while the mas-

  sive fireworks display (contracted, you bet your life, by the

  ever-present Carlino Brothers, who seem to win every fire-

  works bid in the county—a nice bunch of boys if you

  didn’t get them mad) lit up the summer sky.

  Plenty of opportunities for his photo in the paper, inter-

  views, and even a Sunday magazine feature. Yeah, lots of

  golden opportunities to get his name in black and white in

  the paper. Lots of good publicity, the ever-lovin’ lifeblood

  of the politician on the make.

  The phone buzzed, insistent and annoying.

  He pushed a button and picked the receiver up. “Yes,”

  he said distractedly. Damn. It was the town supervisor, Jack
/>   b e n e a t h s t i l l w a t e r s

  63

  O’Keefe—another old-time employee of the town who re-

  membered when Ellerton still supported a working dairy

  farm and a cup of coffee was a nickel. “Jack, how are you

  doing? What can I do for you?”

  Wiley listened (all the time trying to think of a quick fix

  for the headache O’Keefe was dumping on him).

  “A crack? In the dam?” Max said lightheartedly. “Gee,

  nothing too severe, I hope.”

  But the supervisor didn’t seem interested in allaying

  Max’s fear.

  (Just fix it, you stupid bastard, Max wanted to scream.

  Get some goddamn cement and patch the friggin’ crack!)

  “That bad, huh? I hope we can get everything in good

  shape for Saturday. We have tours planned, you know,

  and—”

  But the supervisor refused to be lured into making

  everything okay for Max. He took the biggest, grimmest

  brush and painted Max a nice dismal picture.

  The dam interior had to be closed. The State Water

  Commission had to be notified. Emergency evacuation

  plans had to be developed. No alarms were to be sent out,

  but the local authorities needed plans. Notification had to

  be given to the cops, firemen, and volunteer ambulance

  people, not to mention the mayors of nearby towns stretch-

  ing from Harley-on-the-Hudson to Rye, on the Connecti-

  cut border.

  And best of all, the papers already knew about it. In

  fact, it was a reporter who first saw it. Lots of publicity

  about this story.

  “Jesus,” Max said. “Jack, do what has to be done, but

  please, let’s not go to pieces over it. Don’t go overboard with

  all this alarmist junk. This is an important week for Ellerton.”

  (But Max could sense that O’Keefe saw through that lit-

  tle lie. No problem. Max felt as transparent as glass. Some

  people wouldn’t buy a load of bullshit no matter how you

  dressed it up.)

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  m a t t h e w j . c o s t e l l o

  Then the supervisor was gone, off to set a bunch of

  nasty wheels in motion, and Max Wiley felt like he was

  tied to something beyond his control.

  He pushed the burton of his intercom.

  “No more calls,” he told his secretary. “From anyone.

  Until I tell you otherwise.”

  He leaned back in his comfortably padded chair, put his

  feet on his desk, and stared out the office’s picture window,

  looking out over Ellerton and beyond, to the great wall of

  the Kenicut Dam. A wall that, unfortunately, happened to

  have a crack in it.

  F I V E

  Claire Sloan hated camp. This camp or any dumb camp.

  While the rest of the girls laughed and ran around together

  acting like total jerks, the whole dumb thing just made her

  want to throw up.

  First there was swimming, every day, twice a day, no

  matter what, like the kids were frogs or something. And

  loads of dumb little arts-and-crafts projects (with the fatty

  “art” counselor telling her she had to make a coaster, ’cause everyone was making a coaster— everyone). But the games

  were the absolute worst. Field hockey, volleyball, kickball,

  one stupid game worse than the other.

  (It didn’t help that she was so klutzy. Here she had an

  absolutely beautiful mom who probably used to be great at everything, while she was totally uncoordinated.)

  Rainy days were better. Then, at least, she could spend

  just about the whole day reading. Jean Auel’s book about

  growing up smart in the good old Neanderthal days. Ursula

  Le Guin’s SF fantasies—so real, she could picture absolutely

  everything. And her new favorite, the best book of all time,

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  m a t t h e w j . c o s t e l l o

  Anne of Green Gables. They took her places. They took

  her away from camp.

  The other kids didn’t bug her, though. In fact, they liked

  sitting with her at lunch, swapping desserts, and listening

  to Claire goof on the entire camp staff one by one, ripping

  them to pieces. That was fun. And sometimes, like now,

  she could sneak to the side, plop down next to a tree, and

  read without some gung-ho counselor bopping over and

  ordering her to play the game or jump into the water, or

  whatever.

  But at least this wasn’t sleepaway camp. That would be

  the end. The absolute bottom. She couldn’t imagine a

  whole summer (imagine, a whole summer) at the mercy of

  the dopey counselors and camp food, with the nearest

  bookstore miles and miles away.

  (And something else—though she’d never tell anyone,

  not a soul. How could she explain her dreams? How would

  she explain waking up and screaming in the middle of the

  night, begging for it to end before she slowly realized that’s

  all it was . . . just a dream. Just a spooky little dream.)

  The same dream.

  Every time.

  The same ugly little nightmare.

  Of course, her mother would have loved for her to go

  away to camp.

  “Everyone loves it,” she argued. “All your friends—”

  “But all my friends don’t wake up screaming at night,”

  she said.

  And her mother finally agreed, telling her, though, that

  everyone has nightmares.

  (Even if Claire did hear her call the doctor and ask about

  something strange, called “night terrors.”)

  The books helped. Sometimes she dreamed about other

  things . . . about beautiful Alpine meadows, and crenelated

  castles, and horses galloping along a bench.

  Books took her away.

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  67

  She heard someone yell from the field, and she looked

  over.

  The kickball game seemed to be running along just fine

  without her. The two counselors, tall and gawky Mary

  Stanger and Pam Marsh, the snot, were so busy blabbing

  to each other that she could stay away.

  She started reading again.

  Anne. Now that was a beautiful name. Not like Claire—

  why, it almost sounded like chair. Such an old, dull name, it just didn’t sound like the name other kids had. Like

  Tammy, or Terry, or Sandy. Claire just didn’t fit. Mary

  Stanger looked over at her as if she had just discovered her

  missing camper.

  Just go on with your talking, jerk.

  Stanger signaled to her to come over to the field, but she

  quickly stuck her face back in the book. Then the coun-

  selor shrugged and went back to talking.

  Claire. She’d been named for her grandmother. And for

  that reason she almost didn’t mind. Almost. She and her

  grandmother had something special between them. Ever

  since Claire’s father left when she was four, Grandma was

  there. Working in their small garden, pulling up weeds and

  talking, really talking to her, about school, her friends, and

  books.

  It was Grandma who gave her Anne.

  “There’s more when you finish that one,” she’d said,

  touching Claire’
s head ever so gently. (’Cause she knew

  she was no huggable kid. Only special people got close to

  her. And she liked it that way.)

  Mom was great, really super. But Mom worked a lot at

  the paper, even at night. And Mom maybe forgot what it

  was like to be a kid. The only way she got Claire to agree

  to go to camp was if she could also go spend a week at

  Grandma’s house. It wasn’t far away, but it was a whole

  different world. There was an actual farm—with cows,

  sheep, and everything—right next to the house. And big

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  m a t t h e w j . c o s t e l l o

  fields with tall grass that she could wander into until she

  found the perfect spot to lie down and read.

  One more week at camp and she was free.

  And tomorrow afternoon she’d even get out early to

  baby-sit for Mrs. Benny’s two kids. Mrs. Benny was nice,

  even if the kids were total brats, and she paid well.

  “Sloan, you’re supposed to be playing kickball with the

  rest of your group,” Mary Stanger yelled at her.

  “C’mon, Mary, let me just—” she called back.

  “Up and at ’em, Sloan,” Stanger barked back.

  Claire made her most disgusted face.

  Probably neither of them would know a book if it fell on

  their heads. I’m trapped in a world controlled by illiterate

  counselors.

  She closed her book with a loud snap.

  “As if kickball was really important,” she muttered to

  herself.

  And she strolled over to the hot field.

  “No dice, Dan. Sorry, but they say there’s too many prob-

  lems with insurance and they don’t want anyone mucking

  about until the body is found.”

  Dan put down his coffee cup. “Damn!” He looked up at

  Susan. “Who’d you talk to?”

  Susan slid into the booth and picked up the second half

  of her tuna on rye. “A couple of people. The County Water

  Commission, the town supervisor, and even the police chief.

  I left word at the mayor’s office, but he flies whichever way

  the wind blows.” She took a bite.

  Great. Just how was he going to do a story on the town

  with the place off-limits? He considered bagging the whole

  project, packing up, and heading back to Pennsylvania. (And

  watching all the bills accumulate. Wouldn’t that be fun?)

  Then he looked at Susan. She seemed to feel bad for

  him, unless he was misreading the look in her eye.

  b e n e a t h s t i l l w a t e r s

  69

  “Hey,” she said, “you’ve got time to make your dead-