Salvage (9 page)

Owen chuckled. "I'm fine, thanks." He sat in one of the gray tweed chairs: threadbare, a bit wobbly, but comfortable enough. He'd avoided the other, where the young father had been sitting, having noticed a suspicious dark stain on the seat. Skip sat opposite, in a weathered but still serviceable leather chair.

"He was a fisherman," Skip continued, "which explains the 'fisherman' part of its name, Fisherman's Wharf, but not the 'wharf.' I believe some of the locals started it as a bit of a joke. Now, of course, Jimmy's probably laughing from his grave at all those old fools who'd made their jokes at his expense. Now that they've flooded the valley for their hydroelectric dam," he said with obvious scorn, "the house rests neatly on the shore of Chapel Lake. So in a way, I suppose you could make the argument that Jimmy Junior was somewhat of a prophet."

Skip reached into his desk, brought out a pack of gum, and gobbled up a stick. He held the pack out to Owen, who shook his head. The man shrugged and tucked it back in the drawer. "Bank took it away not long after the dam went up. Whether Jimmy Hordyke was a prophet or not, the bank still had to make one. A profit, I mean." He smiled lightly at the pun. "When he'd built it, in the 1950s, I suspect property taxes weren't much of an issue. The '80s changed that quickly enough. Even more people are foreclosing around here these days than they were back then, I'm sorry to say."

Skip lowered his head and paid them a moment's respect. "I suppose one could also say old Jim Junior was a pioneer in that respect, as well. Not that it's anything one would want to be a pioneer
of
." He chewed his gum thoughtfully a moment. In the silence, Owen heard a chainsaw in the distance.

"Now that you know the history of Fisherman's Wharf," Skip said finally, "I wonder if I might ask you something. I'm not usually one to pry, but it does concern me a fair bit, and I feel I would be remiss not to ask. If I offend you in the process, let me apologize sincerely in advance."

Owen supposed he should have seen it coming. Out-of-towners likely didn't die under mysterious circumstances very often in a town this small, as they might, say, from the more-typical drinking and boating incident. He knew there would be more questions once people around town realized his connection with Lori, most of whom probably thought of her as "the dead girl." Best to answer now and get it out of the way. With any luck Skip Wickman was a bit of a gossip, and word would be all over town by tomorrow.

"You want to know why I've come all the way out here to stay at the house where my sister was staying when she died," he said.

"If it's not too much to ask."

"Mr. Wickman—"

"Skip. Please."

"Skip, I promise you I'm not here to cause trouble. I just need to follow in my sister's footsteps for a while. Give myself a sense of closure, for what it's worth."

The chair squeaked as Skip leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head, making himself comfortable, now that the serious business was through. "Well, I suppose that's understandable." He nodded toward Owen's car out the big storefront windows. "I see you've brought your equipment. Have you done much diving?"

Aside from almost drowning in my own bathtub, you mean?
"Not really, no," he said.

"I'm a bit of an enthusiast myself," Skip said, with an emphasis on the last syllable: enthusi-
ast
.

"Oh?"

"Indeed."

"I may do a bit," Owen admitted.

"Your sister said much the same." Skip sat forward with another squeak of the chair, and clasped his hands above the desk, leaning closer to Owen. "I suspect—and I'm not alone in thinking this, Owen—your sister may have had more on her mind than just diving."

Owen wasn't sure how to respond. He'd suspected it himself; this was as close to proof as he'd come.
He's here
, she'd written. She'd been out here
looking
for someone: for
him
, whoever the hell
he
happened to be. Likely the man who walked on water. Lori's ghost.

"She told me she was looking for some underwater town?" Owen said, forcing himself not to ask the many questions he had. "Thought it would make a decent photo-essay."

Skip grinned, then leaned back in his chair. "She was hugging that camera of hers like a babe in arms when I first saw her. Didn't look like much of a thing to me. A '70s job, not one of those fancy digital things kids have these days. She asked to take my picture. Who am I to say no? With this face?
C'mon
." He chuckled in false modesty.

"Yeah, she always had that thing slung around her neck, even at Christmas dinner," Owen mused, grinning at the thought of Lori carrying her ugly camera around, taking pictures of dinner, of Owen and their mother, of anything that caught her eye. Always snapping photographs. Even, apparently, of strangers like Skip Wickman. Owen thought it was a sly way of snooping, snapping photos of the town and its inhabitants. "I bet she probably took pictures of just about everyone in town, huh?"

Skip laughed. "Just about." He checked his watch. "Darn. Owen, I could talk all day, but I've got a showing in fifteen minutes. If I sign over the key, would you be all right heading out there without me?"

Owen assured Skip he'd manage, glad to have the conversation done and to be allowed to go to the house on his own. He wouldn't have to fake geniality any longer, though it was an easier task with a decent conversationalist like Skip.

"Now, where is that key…?" Skip rummaged through his desk drawers, patted his jacket pockets, pushed aside legal documents on the desk, and even checked inside the I LOVE MY YORKIE mug he used as a pen holder. "Where is that damn thing?" he said, reaching into his pants pockets, patting his chest.

Owen began to feel uncomfortable, watching Skip's search grow more frantic, unable to do anything to further its process. "Can I help?" he asked, as Skip rifled through his drawers again.

The realtor looked up with a scowl. "No, no. I'm sure I just overlooked it."

Owen couldn't watch anymore. It was uncomfortable, seeing such a put-together man unravel over a key. He peered down at his own feet, tapping impatiently on the gray carpeting, and found what Skip was looking for.

Owen bent to pick up the clunky, rusted old brass thing, and held it up for Skip to see. "Is this it?" He didn't need to ask; either this was the key, or it opened the doors to Hogwarts.

"Oh,
thank God
," Skip said, plopping himself down in his chair with a hefty sigh. "That's the key, all right. Where did you find it?"

"Right there by my feet."

Skip frowned. "How did it—?" Then he shook his head. "Well, at least it's found. That key opens most of the doors in the house, but I think you've already figured that out."

"It's a skeleton key," Owen said.

"A skeleton key," Skip repeated. "I realize it doesn't instill much confidence for security, but believe me, Owen, nobody would want to break into that house." He caught himself. "Not that it's not a nice rental. I just mean if anyone had wanted to, they would have a long time ago. Being as isolated as it is, out there by the lake, no neighbors, it would be quite easy to break a window and loot the entire place without causing a stir." He grinned. "There I go overselling again."

"I'll be sure to keep a night-light on," Owen said.

The realtor chuckled. "You be sure and do that." He stood with the look of a man who couldn't wait to be gone. "Now, if you'll excuse me." Owen stood to take the hand Skip offered. "Any problems with the house, Owen—
anything at all
—I'm just a phone call away."

"Why would there be problems?" Owen half-joked, covering how spooked he'd suddenly become, a tingle running up his spine as if he were the dandy hero of some gothic horror story. An isolated house with a history, opened by a skeleton key. A ghost town under the lake where his sister had drowned. No neighbors, and no one to hear him scream. It was such a cliché that Owen nearly laughed. He stopped himself before it had a chance to escape, making a sound like a stifled sneeze. Skip Wickman probably considered him a bit nuts already, knowing he'd driven all the way out here to shadow his dead sister. No use adding fuel to the suspicion.

The realtor offered an obligatory "Bless you." He turned the door sign to CLOSED and ushered Owen into the street. They shook hands, and Skip repeated his invitation to call no matter how small the problem (although, this time Owen doubted the sincerity of it), then rushed off to his shiny new Cadillac.

The moment Owen closed himself in his car, he burst out laughing.

1

FISHERMAN'S WHARF
was only a few kilometers from town. The final lap of his journey was a winding single lane dirt road. About five minutes after turning onto it, he reached a fork in the road. To the right, according to a green road sign, was the PEACE FALLS TRAILER PARK. To the left, a smaller, hand-painted wooden sign said, HORDYKE'S WHARF .5 KM. He turned left.

The house stood a hundred or so feet from the road, obscured by trees and protected by an open gate. Owen got out. He saw the Historical Society plaque behind an overgrown bush: big, brass, and painted blue, with the words HORDYKE HOUSE (rather than the name given to it by the locals) embossed beneath the Ontario coat of arms. Below that was a description of the house, but Skip Wickman had already told him most of what had been inscribed. What Skip hadn't said, Owen had already gleaned from the photos—
A milled-log house of the American style, hand-crafted on the hill above Peace Falls by James Hordyke Jr., and his son, in 1953
. Contrary to what the sign indicated, milled-log houses were not handcrafted, but hewn in a mill, and assembled onsite like a jigsaw puzzle. Local historians should have been aware of this, but it was a minor mistake, given the laudable sentiment.

Gravel crackled beneath the tires as he drove up to Fisherman's Wharf.

James Hordyke Jr. had built a two-story log house with a stone chimney in the middle, its only interesting feature. Otherwise, the house was virtually unremarkable in every respect, except its disrepair. The logs had grayed almost to the color of the limestone. Owen got out for a closer look, noting casement windows that were likely original, insulated by untrimmed mounds of multiple caulking attempts, brown shutters that had been nailed open like insect wings tacked to a display board, and chipped paint that showed its molting colors: white, green, and orange, the color of pumpkin innards. The chimney looked as though it might have a few more years left before it toppled in a cluster of stones and mortar to the tawny carpet of pine needles surrounding the house. The front door, with its skeleton keyhole, was noticeably lopsided.

The skeleton key felt heavy in his pocket. He took it out and approached the crooked door.

Owen couldn't see the lake from the front door—or back door, depending on your method of approach, by car or by boat—but he heard it lapping against something, along with a squeaking sound, an old dock, perhaps, with rusted hinges that lay somewhere beyond all the trees and brambles, dense spruce and broad white pines heavy with cones. Wind swished through their needles like the long sweep of a broom. Somewhere a red squirrel chittered its maniacal, high-pitched laugh. Much nearer, a cicada confirmed the heat.

"This place really is in the middle of nowhere," Owen said to himself. "God's country." He glanced over his shoulder at the outhouse, with its carved cross, and chuckled. "If I can't relax here, I might need to check myself into a motel with padded walls."

Owen slid the key into the lock with a scrape and clack, and twisted it. The door burst outward as if someone had kicked it from the inside, and he sidestepped out of its path, an inch from having his nose broken. It banged against the side of the house so hard it almost came back a full ninety-degrees. It swung toward the wall again, then slowed to a stop and hung loose and unbalanced, creaking gently.

"Foundation's slanted," he told himself as his heartbeat slowed. "That's the problem."

He wrinkled his nose at the dank smell that wafted out. There were ugly, musty old rugs curled up at the corners, covering obvious indents and bumps in the hardwood floor. Above, a ceiling fan rattled. Even having the windows open had done nothing for the mustiness. The house was open concept, though he doubted that Jim Hordyke, a fisherman by trade, had known he was repeating a design attributed to Frank Lloyd Wright.

Through the kitchen windows, the lake shimmered in the afternoon sun. The sight unnerved him, an image plucked straight out of his dreams and dropped in front of his eyes. He hadn't been here before, as far as he knew. Even if he had and couldn't remember it, his mother surely would have mentioned it.
Oh by the way, that lake your sister drowned in, we went there when the two of you were little, sorry I forgot to mention it. Probably doesn't mean anything, though. Don't bother looking into it
.

Owen crossed the house to the red-brown door. He hesitated only a moment, scanning the deck. A chipmunk had been nibbling peanut shells and scampered off when Owen stepped up to the window. An old orange charcoal barbeque, open and full of pine needles, stood beside a paint-flecked Muskoka chair. Owen unlatched and opened the door, and stepped outside.

Beyond the deck railing, a cobbled path led down to the water. At the shore, a small tin boat, painted purple with green stripes, banged against an ugly unpainted dock, gray as old bones. A canoe lay pulled up on the shore under a tarp. Owen headed down the stone path. The day had heated up. He wanted nothing more than to take his shoes off, roll up his pants, and stand in the water. Cool off a bit. Maybe even take a dip, if he felt brave.

He followed the path to a set of stone stairs leading directly into the lake. At the water's edge he peeled off his shoes and socks, tugged his pant legs up, and dipped the big toe of his right foot in. The water was cold, refreshing. Slicked with algae, the steps ended at the sandy lake bottom, which he could barely see. He steeled himself with a sharp inhale.