Beneath Still Waters Page 8

  line. Stick around, do some research . . . we can go down

  to the reservoir tonight, when the divers come. Meanwhile

  I’ll try to see what I can do.”

  There, he thought. The first sign of—dare he hope it?—

  an interest.

  “Hit the local library, get all your background stuff, and

  wait and see what happens.”

  He smiled. Right, he could do that. He could even make

  a dive without permission, maybe at night, if it came to

  that. Could make some ghostly, if highly illegal, photos.

  But it wouldn’t be the first time he’d broken the law to get

  a picture. Not by a long shot.

  “So where do you suggest I start, Susan?”

  “The library. It’s small, but the Ellerton Historical Soci-

  ety keeps their files there. I’ll hit the newspaper’s morgue.

  All the back issues of the Kenicut Chronicle are on microfilm there. I’ll try to keep you posted on how things look

  for a dive.”

  He asked for directions to the library, which Susan sup-

  plied by making a little sketch on the puzzle placemat.

  “Great. Sounds like my whole day is planned.”

  “But not your evening. Any interest in a home-cooked

  meal?” she said.

  “Absolutely.” He grinned, then pulled back. Not want-

  ing to appear to be too eager. Best be suave, aloof, and laid

  back rather than appear in his true state—as one of the

  walking wounded. “What time?”

  “Say five, five-thirty. My daughter gets dropped off

  from camp around then.” Susan slid off the bench. “Noth-

  ing fancy—just spaghetti and meatballs.”

  “Love it. I’ll bring the Chianti.”

  “We could swap notes on the reservoir—” She looked

  at her watch. “Oh, I’ve got to run.”

  He dug out his wallet and uncomfortably, if cavalierly,

  put down a ten-dollar bill for their lunch. “You go ahead.

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  m a t t h e w j . c o s t e l l o

  I’ll see you tonight.” Susan smiled and walked out of the

  Old Taconic Diner.

  Dan reached over and picked up her leftover morsel of

  a sandwich and wrapped it in a napkin.

  People are starving in Chile, he told himself. Or then

  again, maybe they weren’t. But you never knew when

  you’d get hungry doing research.

  He left the Pullman-shaped diner, walking out of the

  frigid air (the sign read, it’s cool inside, and it didn’t lie),

  and into the growing heat of the afternoon.

  The library was down a dead-end street at the end of

  Ellerton’s main business section. It looked like an old

  church, or maybe some kind of strange meeting hall. It had

  a bunch of oddly shaped gables and a tiny widow’s walk

  that could just about accommodate one standing person.

  The whole building was painted a brilliant, glaring white,

  with garish red trim. It looked like a little old witch’s cot-

  tage more than a library.

  The inside was even more disappointing, with only two

  rooms filled with books, a small, freestanding card catalog,

  and a tiny librarian’s desk. This was the domain, he read,

  of Miss Sarah Rider, a gray-haired matron who didn’t look

  a day over seventy-five.

  “Hello,” he said, breaking the sepulchral silence and

  drawing glances from the only two other customers brows-

  ing in nearby stacks. “I was wondering if you’d be able to

  help me.”

  “Why, I’ll certainly try. You’ve never used our library

  before?”

  He smiled at her. “No, miss, I’m actually doing some

  research . . . for an article.”

  “Why, how exciting. Tell me, what kind of article are

  you writing?”

  “It’s about Gouldens Falls. You know, the town—”

  “How marvelous! Why, that should be a wonderful

  story. So tell me, how can I help you?”

  b e n e a t h s t i l l w a t e r s

  71

  “Well,” Dan said, pressing home with what he thought

  should be an obvious point, “I’m looking for information

  about the town and the dam. You know, photos and articles

  from when it was built—1939.”

  Miss Rider’s face clouded over, a befuddled expression,

  like he had just asked for something completely off-the-

  wall.

  “I don’t know that we have too much. . . . I mean, there

  are the official town records down here, for Kenicut and

  Ellerton. But I don’t know what else.”

  “I thought that the Historical Society kept its archives

  here.”

  “Oh, they do, sure they do. I just don’t recall there being

  too much. No, I don’t . . . but you go on upstairs and look.

  Everything will be in the big file cabinet with a G, a G for—”

  “Gouldens.”

  “Exactly. Then, if you want, you can check the town

  record books down here. The room is upstairs, just a bit to

  your right.”

  “Thanks,” he said, and he went up, and wondered . . .

  Could that be all the information there is? A dam is

  built, a big project, a town buried. And there are only a few

  files on it?

  The archives room seemed to be an old bedroom, now

  filled with heavy, olive-green file cabinets. A swirling

  Persian-style carpet, well frayed at the ends, sat incongru-

  ously in the center of the floor. There were no chairs and no

  tables.

  It obviously was not a place devoted to heavy research.

  He opened up the G file, expecting to see it jammed full of file folders. But it contained only a few inches of folders, with only one skinny folder labeled “Kenicut/Dam.”

  He pulled it out.

  (Outside, through the closed windows, he heard some

  birds screeching—some jays, he guessed. It was stuffy, hot

  in the room, and he walked over to the window and tried to

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  m a t t h e w j . c o s t e l l o

  open it. He pulled up, but it was painted shut. His sweat

  dripped onto the carpet.)

  He went back and opened up the file.

  And for the first time he saw Gouldens Falls.

  It looked more modern than he had imagined. For some

  reason he had expected horses and old wooden houses.

  Maybe an old country store. But this was a town, circa

  1936, a rather normal-looking town, its wide blocks lined

  with houses with Georgian-style porches. And small build-

  ings, like the Woolworth’s, with its flaming red sign merely

  a dull gray in the black-and-white photo. And the picture

  of a movie theater. Its marquee proclaimed a double

  feature—dracula and frankenstein.

  A town like hundreds of other small towns, Nice, safe,

  and secure.

  Then there were pictures of the dam being constructed.

  He saw the heavy stone blocks made out of poured con-

  crete stacked neatly by the incomplete, sloping wall of the

  dam. In one photo workmen were at the top, leaning for a

  moment on their shovels, posing for posterity. There was a

  shot (taken from the town, he figured) looking up at the just

  completed dam.

  And finally there was
another picture (maybe the last

  one) of the town, now completely surrounded by a chain-

  link fence. Some of the houses were gone—removed, taken

  to new locations. It was a photo taken from the top of the

  dam, looking down at the town.

  How long? How long was it before the water came and

  made it disappear forever? The next week, the next day . . .

  the next hour?

  He knew then, standing there, that he’d get to see it.

  That one way or another he’d dive down and—

  “Excuse me.”

  He jumped (and some of the pictures slid out of the file

  onto the floor).

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to startle you. I see you found the file.”

  b e n e a t h s t i l l w a t e r s

  73

  Dan smiled. The woman’s croaking voice seemed to

  have come out of the wall. Her orthopedic shoes, God bless

  her, made her as soft on her feet as a cat burglar.

  “It’s just that I thought of something else that might

  help you.”

  “Oh, what’s that?”

  “Well, not something but someone.” She squinted up at

  him. “The Methodist minister, Reverend Winston, is a bit

  of a history bug. Yes, and he’s probably learned a lot of in-

  teresting facts about our little dam here.”

  “Oh, really? That sounds promising.”

  Anything would be better than this pithy package of in-

  formation. He had written articles before on nothing more

  than a wing and a prayer, but this was getting ridiculous.

  “Do you have his phone number?” he asked.

  “No, but I certainly can help you find it. There’s a local

  directory downstairs.”

  She led the way down to her desk.

  The librarian quickly found the rectory number, then

  stood back and watched as Dan dialed.

  After two rings Reverend Winston answered—a mel-

  low, lulling voice that was probably not much in the fire-

  and-brimstone department.

  When Dan mentioned what he wanted, he thought he

  heard Winston’s voice falter.

  “Yes, I have been collecting . . . information.”

  Dan waited for the minister to offer to show his goodies,

  but when he didn’t, he pressed on.

  “Will you be willing to talk with me for my article?”

  (Another pause. And now Dan recognized the sound of

  the voice. It was the same sound he’d heard as a boy, when

  his parents talked about the town of Gouldens Falls. The

  same hesitation.)

  “Why, yes, I suppose so. If it could help you. Mind,

  there’s lots I don’t know. Lots. Still, I could tell you as much

  of the history as I’ve been able to find out.”

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  m a t t h e w j . c o s t e l l o

  “Super. Then how about tonight? Say, seven o’clock . . .

  seven-thirty?”

  “That’ll be fine. I retire early. My parish is small but

  old. There are many people who need to be visited. I’m out

  much of the day.”

  “Thank you, Reverend. I’ll see you then.”

  He replaced the receiver and gave Miss Rider a wink.

  “And thank you. I’ll be sure to mention in my article the

  wonderful service provided by you and your library.”

  The librarian blushed.

  “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to see the town

  records.”

  The librarian bustled over to the small pair of shelves

  devoted to reference books.

  The door to the small wooden office, his cruddy shack, was

  locked, bolted tight from the inside. He sat in the corner, in

  the dark, streams of sweat running off him and dropping

  onto the dusty floor.

  (I’ve got to clean up this pigsty. Before anyone comes

  and looks at it.)

  The bottle in his hand was half gone; shit, maybe

  more—it was always hard to tell when it started slipping

  down to empty. Every nip he took, burning on his tongue,

  burning its way down, was going to be his last sip for a

  while. But then he’d raise it up and take another hit and—

  uh-oh—the old booze-level mark slipped down a few more

  notches.

  He was safe here. The voices were still all around. Play-

  ful, teasing, but he knew what they wanted. They wanted

  him to leave the shack, to come out in the air where they

  could get at him. Sure, the police were gone now, leaving

  only a few barriers up and one cop to walk around the reser-

  voir. They could get him if he left his little office.

  But there was no need to do that, was there? He could

  b e n e a t h s t i l l w a t e r s

  75

  stay here with his trusty bottle and ignore the crazy voices.

  Let the fuckers shout and scream, he didn’t care. Not at all.

  He was safe.

  Some more sweat plopped off him, and Fred brought his

  arm up to wipe his brow. He smelled himself in the room,

  like some boxed animal, an overpowering stench that almost

  made him gag.

  Later he would try to leave.

  Later when the voices stopped.

  Besides, this bottle was almost a dead Indian.

  And the nearest one was hidden all the way inside the

  dam.

  He took another gulp.

  S I X

  Claire was ignoring her mom’s guest, this guy who looked

  like some moron from a Camel ad. Yeah, he looked like a

  regular Captain Adventure with a camera. And boy, was he

  ever trying hard to win her over. Smiling at her, asking

  about camp—

  (“Puh-lease,” she told him. “Ask me anything but that.”)

  But she had his number. He just wanted to get close to

  her because of her mom, just like other guys who drifted

  in and drifted out of their lives. Mom was the big attrac-

  tion. Even her father, who’d vanished when she was a lit-

  tle squirt. Twice a year he came by, dropped some gifts on

  her, and left.

  (Even her mother didn’t know about her crying into her

  pillow later, feeling a strange kind of pain that just wouldn’t

  go away.)

  “Can I help you set the table?” he asked.

  “I do it every night by myself, Mr. Elliot, so I don’t

  think I need any help.”

  “Claire!” her mother barked from the kitchen. “You

  b e n e a t h s t i l l w a t e r s

  77

  could try being a tad more polite to our guest. Just because

  you had a bad day at camp—”

  “Mom, every day is a bad day at camp. It’s like a prison.

  Thank God there are only three more days.”

  “Well, tomorrow is a half day, Claire. Mrs. Benny will

  pick you up after lunch to go sit for her. So enough rude-

  ness here, girl.”

  She shook her head. “Sorry, Mr. Elliot.”

  “The name’s Dan. And don’t apologize. I hated camp

  too.”

  She was corraling the knives and forks. “You did? You

  look like just the kind of person who’d love camp.” She

  paused a beat. “No offense.”

  Dan came close to her. There was something about this

  one that caught Claire’s interest. Most people bored her

  crazy. Ther
e was just nothing to them, like the cotton candy

  she bought at the Catholic school carnival each year that

  just melted away. They were cardboard people, not like the

  people in books, characters who lived exciting lives—

  This guy seemed to be more like them, to have

  secrets . . . layers.

  “You know what asthma is?” he asked.

  “Yeah, it’s some kind of breathing thing, right?”

  “All your tubes get clogged with mucus and it can be

  very hard to breathe. It also made it very hard for me to play

  with the other kids. I never knew when an attack would

  come. I used to carry an aspirator, a little spray thing that

  helped me through an attack.” He reached over to her and

  took away some of the fistful of knives and forks she held.

  “One time—I think I was ten or eleven—I was at camp,

  having a pretty miserable time of it. There were these relay

  races, which I hated.”

  “Me too.”

  “I slipped away with some friends, out into the woods.

  We called ourselves the Avengers, after a TV show.”

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  m a t t h e w j . c o s t e l l o

  She looked at him now, listening to his story, wanting

  more.

  “Anyway, we climbed a tree, a big old elm tree that had

  to be just about the tallest tree around, with loads of real

  heavy branches. It was a perfect climbing tree.” Dan smiled.

  “It was perfect, so we climbed it.”

  Listening to him was like a story, like something from

  one of her books. She saw him, in her mind, change into a

  small boy—still with curly hair and blue eyes, of course—

  and she saw the woods. But most clearly of all she saw the

  wonderful elm tree.

  “So what happened?”

  “We nearly got to the top. I was always trying to prove

  that I was the same as everyone else . . . you know, just as

  strong as they were, just as good.” He laughed. “It’s called

  denial. You know, when you try to deny something about

  yourself.”

  “I know,” she said, meaning it.

  “So I was ahead of them all, getting to where the

  branches started getting thin and weak. Some sunlight was

  hitting me, and the air was clean and fresh. I felt like the

  King of the Mountain.”

  Dan scooped up some napkins from a plain wooden

  holder and started placing them under the utensils.

  “Then I stepped on a branch—only a few feet from the

  top—and it snapped. All of a sudden it just gave way. I tried

  to hold on to the tree, but it was impossible.” Dan laughed.