But he refused to allow his ten-year-old stepdaughter to be turned into one of those pint-size beauty queens by some friend whose mother was too permissive. As Derek steered into Anderson Hollow, he fumed over the memory of Lydia’s mascara-blackened eyelashes and petulant pink lips. Young girls looking provocatively older than their true age could get into trouble so fast they might never know what hit them, he thought as he surveyed the mayhem in Party Cove.
This summer weekend was no different from all the rest. Lines of boats had been anchored to the lake bed and then tethered together. The tangled music from hundreds of sound systems rose in a cacophony of drumbeats, steel guitars, and wailing singers. Crumpled beer cans drifted in the water. An empty foam cooler bobbed past. The distinct smell of burning marijuana mingled with the tobacco smoke that hung in the evening air. Girls in bikinis danced while guys grabbed at them, laughing and teasing. The thought that pretty, dark-haired Lydia might ever become one of these young women turned Derek’s stomach.
A couple of his fellow officers were already patrolling the area, but there were never enough to keep the place under complete control. Despite the obvious drunkenness, loud music, and near nudity, it was difficult to make arrests. Though driving a boat while intoxicated was illegal, Missouri had no law against drinking alcohol while boating. Someone sipping from a beer could steer right past a Water Patrol boat without getting a ticket. Catching pot smokers proved nearly impossible. At the first sign of the authorities, a user could easily dispose of his stash. Patrolmen mainly served to deter all-out anarchy and to put a stop to blatant violations.
“Welcome to the cove, Officer Finley,” a voice said, communicating by private frequency over the radio in Derek’s patrol boat. “You want to take a run by the Gauntlet and see what’s going on?”
Derek signaled that he would swing over toward the most notorious section of the inlet. He double-checked his gun belt, a habit that had started years ago. One hand on the steering wheel, he felt his way around the heavy black strap at his waist—two magazines with fifteen rounds each, an extra-bright flashlight, his expandable baton, the radio, a can of pepper spray, a pair of handcuffs, his .40-caliber Glock, a state-issued cell phone, and a pocket recorder. All in place and ready to go.
As Derek headed in the direction of the Gauntlet, he could see a row of houseboats moored along the shoreline, as always. Across a narrow stretch of lake, a second chain of vessels faced the houseboats.
Shaking his head more in resignation than dismay, Derek watched a twenty-five-foot Challenger rumble toward the Gauntlet. As it entered the stretch of water between the houseboats and the chain of vessels, partyers sprayed the Challenger with huge water guns. Mechanical launchers tossed water balloons. Several topless girls stood up on the Challenger’s deck and began shimmying around while they got drenched.
“Great,” Derek murmured, focusing his attention on the path of open water ahead as he sped up to intercept the Challenger at the other end of the Gauntlet. Though charged with enforcing the state’s sexual misconduct law, Derek doubted he’d have to take the situation that far.
He understood the appeal of alcohol, but other questions plagued him. What was the attraction of partying this way weekend after weekend? Why did people bring their children onto the lake and out to this cove? This was fun?
“We’ve got a 1 0-38 in Anderson Hollow near the entrance to the cove.” The dispatcher on Derek’s radio voiced the call for immediate assistance just as he steered the last few feet toward the end of the Gauntlet. “There’s a fight in progress with several people involved. …”
As the dispatcher at the Water Patrol’s general headquarters in Jefferson City gave further information and directions, Derek swung the Donzi away from the Challenger. So much for stopping the boaters for a polite chat about public indecency. Officer Finley was needed elsewhere.
Sodom and Gomorrah,
he thought as he navigated past a group of swimmers waving beer bottles to the beat of the music coming from their houseboat. A girl screamed from a nearby vessel, and several people yelled as she yanked up her bikini top and flashed the patrolman speeding by. Derek turned his head away and kept driving. Were people in the Bible ever as crazy as this?
P
ete Roberts was cleaning a clump of grass from a Weedwhacker’s motor when Cody Goss pushed open the front door of Rods-N-Ends. Pete smiled at the young man. The rack of rotisserie hot dogs drew Cody to the tackle shop at least once a week. Now that he had some money of his own, Cody indulged himself once in a while.
“Hey, Pete,” he said as he stepped up to the heated case to watch the wieners rotate on the racks. “How are your hot dogs today?”
“Fresh and sizzling, as usual.” Pete moved to the sink he had installed near his work area and began washing his hands. “How many you want this time, kiddo? Two or three?”
Cody’s tongue slipped out and licked his lips. “Three, please. I’m not fat yet. Not as fat as you anyhow. I think I could have three.”
“I reckon you could.” Pete grinned at the young man’s well-known frankness. Though Cody had offended some with his blunt honesty, Pete enjoyed the fact that the kid said exactly what was on his mind. “You think I’m fat, Cody?”
The blue eyes darted to Pete’s face. “I sure do. Don’t you?”
“I guess I am, now that you mention it.”
“If you looked into a mirror, you would know that you’re wider around the middle than anywhere else. Patsy Pringle thinks you’re fat. She says you look like a big, shaggy ol’ bear.”
Pete chuckled as he unwound the wire tie on a bag of buns. “Are you sure she wasn’t talking about my beard needing a trim?”
“I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure she was talking about your stomach.” Cody drummed his fingers on the counter while Pete squirted ketchup and mustard on the three hot dogs. “Hey,” he piped up after a moment, “did you hear that the drowned person Officer Finley found in the lake was a lady?”
“I read that in the paper this morning. Where’d you hear it?”
“At Patsy’s next door. All the ladies are talking about it, and I was washing windows on the inside, so that’s how I heard. It’s not polite to listen to other people’s conversations. That’s what Brenda told me. But if they talk loud, you can’t help it. When the blow-dryers are going, those ladies talk loud.”
“I’ll bet they do.” Pete slid the hot dogs into their paper sleeves one by one. “It’s kind of unusual to have a female drown, I hear. I reckon she must have been drunk and fell off of a boat or something.”
“She was wrapped in fishing line.”
“I heard that. Nasty business. Hard to believe she washed up so close to us.”
“Officer Finley found her. The women next door said nobody has called to ask about a missing lady. I don’t understand why not. My daddy told me that a man could disappear, or even a man and a little boy that nobody wanted, and no one would bother to look for them. But if a woman went missing, people would search for her. Do you think that’s true?”
Pete pushed the three hot dogs across the counter toward Cody, who had laid the exact amount of cash—including tax—right next to the register. He couldn’t imagine why the boy was so caught up in this drowning incident. As far as Pete was concerned, the less folks talked about it the better. Drownings and such were bad for business. Tourists liked to think of the lake as a place for sun, water, and lots of fun. Unpleasant news ought to be buried on the back page of the paper, Pete thought. Or left out altogether.
“I reckon people probably have called the police or the Water Patrol about the woman,” he told Cody. “No one goes missing without somebody noticing.”
“Not even a man? a man and a little boy that nobody wanted?”
Pete frowned as he strolled back to the area of his shop where he repaired small engines. The Weedwhacker would be easy enough to fix. Just getting the moldy old grass out was a good start.
“Cody, who’s this man and boy you’re talking about?” he asked. “The person who drowned was a woman. Did you know someone who turned up missing?”
The young man wandered across the room, uncharacteristically abandoning his hot dogs on the counter. “That man might be my daddy,” he said in a low voice. “And I think that little boy might be me.”
Pete looked up in surprise. “You? What makes you say that? Why would your father run off with you, Cody?”
“Hmmm.” Cody pushed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. Then he pushed them into the back pockets. “It might be because nobody wanted me. Not even my mother. Because … because I am dumb.”
“Dumb, huh?” Pete pointed at Cody with the end of a screwdriver. “You’re not dumb, kiddo. I can promise you that. Who ever said you were?”
“Lots of people. One time some men hit me and called me names. They said I was dumb, stupid, idiot, crazy, nuts.”
“Good golly, Miss Molly. You mean to tell me you got beat up by a bunch of thugs?”
“They were men, and they hit me because I’m dumb.”
“And I’m here to tell you that’s a flat-out lie. Did you ever go to school, Cody Goss?”
“No. But I learned my Bible verses real good. Do you want to hear Psalm 139? It’s my favorite.”
“I don’t want to hear no Bible verses. Not right now. I want to know why your daddy didn’t put you in school.”
“Because the other boys might make fun of me, because I’m dumb.”
“Would you quit saying that, kid? You’re not dumb! There’s not a mother alive who wouldn’t be proud to have you for a son and miss you to pieces if your daddy ran off with you.”
“Really?”
Cody stared with such intensity that Pete began to wonder if he’d said too much. Flustered, he went back to work cleaning up the Weedwhacker. “Your hot dogs are getting cold,” he told the boy.
“You better eat them.”
Hanging his head, Cody muttered, “Okay.”
Pete worked a moment longer on the whacker; then he looked up at the young man, who was still standing there staring at him. “Well, are you going to eat your hot dogs, or not?”
“Do you think I might have a mother?” Cody asked.
“Well, you had a mother once; I know that much. At one time, everyone has a mother. That’s how you get born. You grow in her—inside the mother’s innards. Then one day, you pop out, and there you are.”
“I popped out of a mother?”
“You’ve got a belly button, ain’t you?”
Cody lifted his T-shirt and checked. “Yes, I do.”
“Then you were born from some woman just like all the rest of us.”
“Where is she?” Cody asked. “Where’s my mother?”
Pete swallowed. “Listen, you’d better get over there and eat your hot dogs. You need to go finish washing Patsy’s windows. If she finds out we’ve been jabbering, she’ll hang me up by my thumbnails.”
“No, she won’t,” Cody said. “Patsy would never do that. She’s nice.”
Trying to ignore the kid, Pete studied the Weedwhacker long and hard. It definitely needed oil. And some new line. Probably just a good cleaning would do the trick. People could be pretty ignorant when it came to small engines. They would walk into Rods-N-Ends hauling a perfectly good hand vacuum or chain saw and tell him it was shot. All he had to do was add a belt or work out a kink and the owner was back in business. Good money for not much work. Exactly what Pete liked best.
“I want to see her,” Cody said suddenly. “Where is she?”
“Next door. You know Patsy—she never leaves the salon until she’s done for the day and ready to lock up.”
“Not Patsy. My mother. I want to see my mother. Where is she?” “Now how would I know that?” Pete asked, wondering how to get the lid back onto
this
can of worms. “Go eat them hot dogs, boy, and let me work.”
“I want to see my mother!” Cody said more loudly. As he continued to speak, his voice rose to a wail. “I want her! I want to know where she is! Why did she let me go? Why didn’t she find me? Where is my mother?”
“Whoa, kiddo, pipe down!” Pete grabbed his cell phone from the pocket of his overalls and quickly dialed. When a voice answered, he said, “Hey, where’s Patsy? This is Pete, next door. Send her over here pronto; you hear me? I got a pack of trouble on my hands, and his name is Cody Goss.”
As tears started to roll down Cody’s cheeks, Pete lunged for the hot dogs. He snatched them up and waved them in front of the boy’s nose. “Looka here. Hot dogs! Yum! How about a bite, okay? Stop your blubbering now, kid. I mean it. Eat your lunch.”
“Where is she? Why isn’t she looking for me?” Cody’s nose was running. “I don’t understand. What if she drowned? What if she got wrapped in fishing line and fell off a boat? Maybe my mother is the lady that Officer Finley found! In the water! Dead!”
Pete felt so awful that he was considering ducking out the back of his store and locking the door behind him when he saw Patsy marching, shoulders back and jaw set, toward Rods-N-Ends. Thank the good Lord! There must be a God, Pete thought, and at this moment, he didn’t even mind about the fishing-for-men story Jesus had told. He had needed help, and here came Patsy.
“What’s going on?” she demanded as she pushed open the door and stepped inside. “Pete Roberts, what have you done to Cody?”
“I didn’t do anything!” he protested. “He’s got this idea in his head—”
“Cody doesn’t make things up out of thin air!” She grabbed a wad of napkins from the stainless steel holder near the hot dog grill. “Poor Cody. What happened, honeybunch? What did Pete say to you?”
“Everyone has a mother, even me,” Cody sobbed. “Pete said so.”
“Good gravy, Pete! Did you have to go and bring that up?”
“Now wait just a—”
“Blow your nose, Cody,” Patsy ordered. “There you go. And again. Good. Now, what’s this all about? Tell Patsy.”
“I have got a belly button,” Cody said, sniffling.
Patsy gave Pete a look that would wither grass. “Yes, so do I. What about belly buttons, Cody?”
“Everyone has a belly button, and everyone has a mother that they popped out of.”
“Popped out?” Again she eyed Pete.
He shrugged helplessly. “Well? How else would you describe it?”