Summer at Forsaken Lake (13 page)

“Son of a gun,” he said. It was Nicholas, already circling the yard and drive on the red Speedster, which he had polished to a glossy sheen that Nick wouldn’t have believed possible.

“Hey, Uncle Nick,” he said nonchalantly as he came to a smooth stop just outside the window. “What’s for breakfast?”

“How do you like your eggs?”

Nicholas pondered the question for a second or two. “Scrambled. Do you have any bacon? That sounds
really
good to me.”

“Scrambled eggs and bacon, coming right up,” said Nick. “Why don’t you get the twins up, too. We can all start the day with a good breakfast. That old bike looks good, by the way.”

“I used some of your car wax. Hope that was okay.”

“Sure. Maybe I’ll give ol’ Betty a little of the old spit and polish later on. She looks like she could use it. Say, why don’t you ride over to Charlie’s and see if she wants to join us for breakfast. I’ve got an extra dozen eggs.”

Forgetting momentarily that he was mad at Charlie, Nicholas took off down the road. When he reached her driveway, it all came back to him, and he considered turning his bike around and hightailing it back to Nick’s.

What if she’s already seen me? If I turn back now, I will look like
such
a loser
.

He parked the bike in the yard, turning around to admire it one last time before knocking on the screen door.

Franny bounded down the steps, dressed for work and in a hurry. “Oh, hi, Nicholas. Come on in, make yourself at home. Charlie’s awake, but she hasn’t made it downstairs yet. Sorry, I have to run—late for work!” And she was gone.

He sat at the kitchen table, poured himself a glass of orange juice, and waited for Charlie, who padded down the stairs a few seconds later. She gasped and stopped suddenly when she saw him, her hand flying to her chest.

“Oh my God! Nicholas! You scared me to death! What are you doing here? I come downstairs and there’s somebody sitting there.” She sat down to collect herself.

“Your mom let me in. I just kind of figured that you heard her talking to me. Sorry.”

“What if I’d come down here, you know, naked or something?”

“Do you do that often?” He felt himself blushing.

“No! But that’s not the point.” She waved her hands around wildly, embarrassed by the direction the conversation had taken. “Besides, I thought you were mad at me—not that I blame you.”

“Yeah, w-well, I—I, uh,” he stammered. “Uncle Nick kind of helped me out last night. And I realized that I, um, you know …”

Charlie went to the front door and looked out at the lawn.

“No
way
! You rode that here? That is the coolest bike
ever
! Where did you get it? Can I ride it? When did you learn how to ride?”

“It’s Uncle Nick’s old bike. He taught me how last night. Had a few minor crashes along the way.” He pointed out the scrapes and scratches from his run-in with the rosebush.

“Ouch. Look, Nicholas, about yesterday. I’m really—I mean, I didn’t mean to hurt …”

Nicholas felt himself blushing; he was embarrassed by the way he’d acted. He waved off the rest of her apology. “Let’s just forget it ever happened, okay?”

“Deal.”

* * *

After breakfast at Nick’s, Charlie led the way across the two-mile-long causeway that spanned the lake. Nicholas, determined to keep up with her despite his lack of experience, pedaled as hard as he was able. He was breathing hard and his heart was pounding as they swung their bikes into the parking lot of Tressler’s Marine and RV Center, which was completely empty of cars. They rode right up to the entrance of the showroom, where a hand-printed sign had been taped to the glass door:
FAMALY AMERGANCY
CLOZED TIL NEXT WENSDAY. CALL KEN IF YOU NEDE TO GET YER BOTE OUT. HE GOT THE KEY
.

“Nice spelling,” Nicholas said. “And I guess we’re just supposed to know Ken’s phone number.”

Charlie scoffed at the sign. “Well, we’re not waiting until next Wednesday, that’s for sure. Come on, let’s check it out. Bring your bike over here.”

They wheeled their bikes around the side of the building and hid them behind an old shed. A six-foot-high chain-link fence separated the building from the back of the property, which consisted of a weed-covered gravel lot filled with a motley collection of rundown boats and even sadder-looking rust-stained campers.

“The boat must be behind
that
,” said Charlie, pointing at a large unpainted barn. “Nick said it was behind the barn.”

“So, what are we supposed to do now?” Nicholas asked.

Charlie grabbed the fence and stuck a toe between the links. “We go in and take a look.” When she reached the top, she swung her feet over and jumped down to the ground.

“Um, isn’t that trespassing?”

“Only if we get caught. Don’t worry—nobody’s going to see us.”

That’s what they always say right before the FBI swoops in and arrests them
.

Nicholas looked around, half expecting to see police
helicopters hovering overhead and a SWAT team racing toward him with guns drawn. But this was Deming, Ohio, on a quiet Tuesday morning; in all likelihood, there wasn’t a helicopter within fifty miles as he mimicked Charlie’s climbing technique and dropped onto the gravel on the other side of the fence. They were in.

Just in case someone was watching, they ran to the back of the barn. There were three old sailboats sitting in wooden cradles, but it didn’t take a detective to determine which was the one they were looking for: it was the one with the
big
hole in the bottom.

Charlie whistled. “Boy, when your dad wrecks a boat, he does it
right
.”

“Man. No kidding,” Nicholas added, reaching up inside the boat with his hand.

The hole was big enough for them to crawl through, and even more of the fiberglass around the keel was crushed and broken where it had landed on the sharp rocks outside the marina. The rudder, which should have been perfectly vertical, was heavily damaged and bent at a crazy angle; it looked like it belonged on a submarine. Above the waterline, one side of the hull had escaped unscathed, but the other had obviously pounded on the rocks and the marina seawall for some time.

“Let’s take a peek inside,” Charlie said, looking around for a way up onto the deck.

They found a ladder on the ground behind one of the
other sailboats, and soon they were on the deck, peering into the cabin through one of the portholes.

“Looks pretty nasty in there,” Nicholas said. “But it’s dry, at least. I guess the one good thing about having a two-foot hole in your boat is that water drains right out.”

“Hadn’t thought of that,” Charlie admitted with a smile. “I wonder if there’s anything living in there. Guess we’ll find out.” She gave the main hatch a good push forward with her foot and braced for a frontal attack by an angry raccoon.

“You’re crazy,” Nicholas said, marveling at this strange creature who seemed to fear nothing.

But Charlie was already on her way into the cramped, empty cabin, so Nicholas followed once more. The cushions had all been removed, as had the lines, sails, and every other piece of sailing equipment.

“What are we looking for?” Nicholas asked.

“First, I want to see how the steering wheel works—I mean, what connects it to the rudder? On Nick’s boat, and on the Heron, it’s simple: the tiller just connects directly to the rudder.” She lay where one of the berths had been, and began to crawl toward the stern of the boat along the wood box that enclosed the inboard engine. Behind that was a small compartment—too small, in fact, to fit her head inside. After a little experimenting, though, she found that if she turned her head
just so
, she could see inside. And what she saw definitely got her attention.

“Nicholas! You have to see this. Come back here. On the other side.”

He wiggled his way back, finally arriving at the point directly opposite Charlie. Their heads were separated by only eighteen inches or so.

“Where am I supposed to be looking?” Nicholas asked.

“Turn your head so you can look behind this … thingie. Can you see the pulleys?”

“Pulleys? No. No, wait, I see them.”

“Those are part of the steering system,” Charlie explained. “There are wire cables that run from the steering wheel up on the deck, then down here, where they change direction and connect to this thingie that’s attached to the top of the rudder.”

“Ohhhh. Yeah. That’s pretty cool. Hey, how do you know so much about stuff like this?”

“Helping my dad fix old tractors, I guess,” said Charlie. “You know, this probably worked pretty well … until somebody cut this cable.”

“What?”

Charlie managed to reach one hand into the compartment, where she took the two ends of the cable and held them up for Nicholas to see. “This cable was cut. On purpose. If it had broken, it would be frayed at the ends.”

Nicholas brought one end closer to get a better look.

“You’re right. But … why? Who?”

“Good questions,” said Charlie, reaching farther into the compartment. “I can’t answer those, but I can tell you
how
. With
these
.” She handed him a pair of wire cutters—the kind electricians use—rusted but still lethal-looking.

Back up on the deck, Nicholas stood behind the steering wheel, trying to imagine what must have been going through his father’s head as he helplessly saw the boat headed for the rocks. Nicholas ran his hand around the stainless-steel wheel, bent forward where the young Will Mettleson had slammed into it.

“One more thing before we leave,” Charlie said. “Let’s see if the mast is here someplace. I want to check something out.”

They found it on a rack with several other aluminum masts and booms. It, too, was not hard to spot. Unlike all the others, which were all arrow-straight, this one had a definite kink about two-thirds along its length, where it suddenly veered off at a quite noticeable angle.

Nicholas tried to lift one end; it was heavier than he thought. “Man. I can’t believe your mom got hit in the head with this thing. And survived. No wonder her parents were freaked out.”

Charlie was more interested in the four wire stays that had supported the mast than in the mast itself. She followed each down from the top, paying especially close attention to the backstay, which ended abruptly in a tangle of sharp strands of wire.

She turned to Nicholas. “Can you do me a favor? Go back up on the boat and see if the rest of the backstay is still attached. I forgot to look.”

He climbed up the ladder and went to the stern of the boat. “Yep. It’s here. It looks just like that end.” Using the wire cutters that Charlie found in the cabin, he cut through the rusty cotter pin that secured the backstay turnbuckle to the hull and lifted it free.

Back on the ground, he and Charlie held the two broken ends of the wire together like two pieces of a puzzle.

“You seein’ what I’m seein’?” Nicholas asked.

“Yep. This was no accident.” She pointed to a group of strands on both halves, all severed at exactly the same place. “It’s pretty obvious that somebody used a saw to cut at least halfway through the backstay.”

“Yeah, there’s no way they would break like that,” Nicholas agreed. “Especially when you see how the rest of the strands look—all jagged and twisted.”

“So, somebody cut the steering cable
and
sawed most of the way through the backstay to make sure the mast would come down.”

“Which brings us back to the same two questions: Who? And why?”

Charlie adjusted her baseball cap. “Let’s find out. Race you back to Nick’s.”

I
t wasn’t exactly a fair race. Charlie rode a modern lightweight twenty-seven-speed mountain bike, while Nicholas chugged away on his old-fashioned heavyweight cruiser. Once she made the turn onto Lake Road, Charlie slowed down and let Nicholas catch up. They switched bikes for the homestretch to Nick’s house, racing neck and neck the whole way. Nicholas turned into the driveway a few feet ahead and swung around the house, heading for the front-porch screen door. He leaned Charlie’s bike against the house while she skidded to a stop, set the kickstand, and ran into the house ahead of him.

“I win! Again!” she shouted.

Pistol, sharing the porch swing with Nick, barked his approval and jumped to the floor. He pressed his nose against Charlie, insisting on some behind-the-ears scratching in return for his enthusiastic support.

“Totally. Not. Fair,” said Nicholas, between gulps of air.

Hetty and Hayley, squeezed into a chair and reading
Black Beauty
together, clapped loudly. “Yay, Charlie!”

Nicholas shook his head at them. “Thanks a lot. My own sisters are against me. Family support—ha!”

“What have you two been up to all morning?” Nick asked. “Hope you don’t mind—I gave the Heron a light sanding while you were out. She’s ready for another coat of paint whenever you are.”

Charlie poked Nicholas in his side. “Show him what we found.”

Nicholas held out the remains of the backstay he had removed from the wrecked boat.