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                                            PART FOUR

                                Sunday, August 24, 1987　

                                  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

                                            The Cabin

1:05 a.m.

"They've been in there for two hours," Leah said, yawning. "Wonder what the cop wanted."

By now, Joe had no urge to even speak. He gripped his trusty steering wheel and leaned against the door. From this position, in the moonlight, he had a clear view of the pathway leading back to Reggie Thomas's cabin. He'd backed into a break in the high brush growing along the east side of the lake. A few yards north, the lake curved sharply to begin the northeast cove across from the Lakeshore Cabins.

"Stay mad," she grumbled. "I don't care. Wasn't my fault we lost the damn Jetta. Probably wasn't Robby anyway." She reached down on the floor, found her sandals, and flipped her leg up over her knee. She slipped on the first sandal. "If it weren't for me, you wouldn't know Reggie Thomas from an egg salad sandwich." She changed legs, slipped on the other sandal. "Much less where he's staying."

"He said he was checking out," Joe reminded her. "He's still here with the deaf cook's daughter."

"What? That's my fault?"

Joe didn't answer. He didn't have one. He didn't know where he was headed with this. He was simply fed up with Leah Levin. At least it felt like it was her. Her spotting Reggie and the waitress strolling into The Plunge after searching for the Jetta for almost four hours had been frosting on this cake of luck she had for hooking up with Reggie. And that's all it was, as far as he was concerned. Luck. And so Leah had theorized over the last two hours about where Jackie might be. Joe figured if he found the motorhome, he'd find Jackie. He thought of it at least three minutes before Leah did. But he hadn't said anything, so he had to let her take the credit for that idea, too.

Leah opened the door. "This is getting us nowhere."

Joe grabbed her arm, held it. "Where do you think you're going?"

"To investigate."

"Investigate what? Sleeping, humping, talking?"

"No talking, Mr. Private Eye. She's deaf, remember. And he's Mr. Sign Language."

"What do you think you're going to find out snooping around windows at one in the morning? I'll tell you what: nothing."

"Yeah?" she said through her teeth. "And what did you think I was going to find in Steiger's office when you talked me into cramming myself through his bathroom window? You knew damn well you'd get what you wanted out of him. Or you wouldn't have gone there. You wanted to humiliate me."

"You were a back-up. In case I didn't get what I wanted."

"Yeah?" she said again in a higher, nasally register. "I don't believe it."

She was right. He'd be damned stupid, in light of his experience with her so far, to admit it.

Leah swung her other leg out the door, closed it. She bent down to the window. "I am nobody's Tonto," she said ominously.

He wasn't about to let her go down there alone and have Reggie come out just as she stood on her tippy-toes to peep through the window. Either way it turned out, Joe would be disappointed. If he caught her nosing around, it would blow the cover story she'd concocted for them. It would alert him. He'd be hard to follow. And right now, Reggie Thomas was their only link to Jackie Weldon. On the other hand, if she actually found something out with her Peeping Tom tactics she'd have so many feathers in her cap she might start to think she was chief.

Joe caught up to her at the road. He walked beside her. "This is not the professional thing to do. Odds are against turning up Jackie by snooping around windows. Odds are, we'll get caught–for nothing."

"You're too conservative," she answered, walking in long strides. The blur of the orange VACANCY sign came into focus. What could he do? Beat the crap out of her? What? How do you stop this kind of person? How do you keep her from taking dumb risks when the result of those risks are what she's searching for in the first place? Excitement. Elements of danger. Analytical challenge. "Who knows, Joe. Jackie could be in there with them right now."

Joe didn't respond. He'd let her disappointment come from somebody else. Nothing he said would convince her that not even her luck was that good.

They arrived at the edge of the cabin property, followed a short stone wall that ran the depth of the campground. Shadows protected them. But Joe didn't like that moon up there. It was too big, too bright.

* * *

Even the crickets were quiet. Reggie's throat muscles hurt from holding back from crying. He'd never experienced the multitude of emotions orbiting him after discovering Jackie's body. Someone brought her there. Someone killed her. Then brought her to his cabin–to frame him? It was revolting seeing her like that, stripped of her dignity. The way her face contorted in pain, agony in wax, would never leave him. The image would stand in his memory like an immovable pillar, a permanent fixture to the landscape of his mind. And that was frightening. A fear he was willing to admit–at least to himself. Jackie is gone. Gone forever.

Twenty minutes had passed since he'd discovered Jackie's body. Brenda had tried to leave. He stood in front of the door, gathering his wits as Brenda began to lose hers. It took fast finger work, but he believed he convinced Brenda that he didn't kill her. But she kept her distance, watching him carefully. She was smart.

I not say something, she signed after a few minutes of silence. I need go.

What do I do? he wondered indecisively. Call the police? Move her body? Back to the lake where it came from? Then call the police? Or do I cut out, never look back? That was as good as admitting I murdered her. He couldn't bring himself to do that. What crumbs of integrity he had left wouldn't let him. So what was the right thing to do? And was the right thing the legal thing? No, it wasn't.

Tentatively, Brenda stood up. She appeared to gauge the distance between the door and herself, accounting for the corner of the bed where Reggie sat as a dangerous obstacle.

He signed: You think I murdered Jackie. Brenda vigorously shook her head. Too vigorous. What do you think I should do?

Let me go.

He closed his eyes, feeling guilty for something he didn't do. Was it knowing Brenda was still not convinced? Or something else? He opened his eyes. Go, he signed.

She swallowed noticeably and sideslipped to the door. Before opening it, she tapped Reggie on the shoulder. He turned to her. She signed: Tell truth.

"I don't think so," he said. "The truth always gets me in trouble."

Her wrinkled forehead said she didn't understand what he said. He waved her off. She turned down his offer to walk her back to town, even after saying that the killer might be watching the cabin. In fact, Reggie thought he saw something in her eyes–the nervousness of a startled deer–that left him, again, with a culpable feeling.

* * *

"Which one?" Joe whispered from behind a thick trunk of a tree.

"Straight ahead," Leah whispered back. "Number eleven."

Under the intoxicating influence of Leah's logic, she was best suited for sneaking up to the window and taking a peek. If seen, she reasoned, she could say she was looking for Reggie. When Joe asked what her reason would be for looking for him, Leah said she'd worry about it when it happened. It depended, she said, on who caught her. When Joe suggested that she'd done this before, she assured him she had not. Joe, having set her up nicely, remarked:

"Oh, so you're only pretending you know what you're doing."

She slugged him in the arm and scrambled behind her own tree.

"If you're going," Joe said, "go."

"I'm going." A pause came and went. Leah slowly stepped from the fringes of the property. She darted across the footpath to within ten yards of the dark side of the cabin. In the silence, the sound of a door-latch was as great as a rising drawbridge. Leah stopped in her tracks. The moonshine behind her stretched her shadow across the steps of cabin 11. She was completely in the open. Hushed, Joe urged her to run back behind cabin 12. Leah didn't move. She froze. Joe realized she was probably terrified by unfamiliar indecision. Joe ducked and ran military-style, grunting, his eyes fixed on Leah.

Just as he reached her, yellow light sprayed from the open door of cabin 11.

* * *

Reggie followed Brenda down the steps to the footpath. She didn't exactly run down to the Lakeshore Road, but she was gone before he could even think about saying goodbye.

Heading inside the cabin, his attention was taken by a dark interruption to the landscape. Up the path, by the trees. He opened his eyes wider to adjust to the darkness and made out the figures of a man and woman standing together. Was he seeing things? If they were statues, he hadn't noticed them before. He walked up the path, believing Jackie's death could be connected with almost anything out of the ordinary. And this didn't look right.

"Who is that?" he said.

The statues moved. He took a step back. Their heads turned to each other, then faced Reggie. They proceeded down the path. As the moonlight hit their faces, Reggie reacted, stirring panic, cold sweat and dry mouth.

"Hello!" Tammy said cheerily. "Thought that was you! I told my brother we should wait back there. We didn't want to interrupt you two, you know."

Reggie didn't like her brother's smile. It was too purposeful for such an awkward meeting. "What're you doing?" he asked. He didn't hide his suspicion.

"Oh, well...I told my brother about this place after I dropped you off," she explained, "and we decided to rent one ourselves."

"At one in the morning?"

"We're out partying, man," her brother said. "We just now got to it. Haven't you ever gone somewhere new? First day's always the longest."

Tammy nodded wearily. "Too long."

There was a still moment where they all stood there saying nothing. Tammy cleared her throat, noticed the open cabin door. Her brother scratched his chin, scanning the grounds like he couldn't remember where he parked his car or something.

And then he asked, "Mind if we take a look at your cabin to see if we like them?"

"My cabin?"

"Yeah."

Tammy's eyebrows raised. "That's a good idea, Bob."

"I don't think so," Reggie said, heading for the cabin, getting himself a few steps ahead of them.

"Oh," Tammy said suddenly and giggled. "You two have met, but you weren't introduced. Reggie this is my brother Bob. Bob, Reggie."

They shook hands at the bottom of the steps, then Reggie backed up to the door again. "Cabins are small and smelly. Better off getting a motel in town, believe me. Well, it's late. Nice meeting you, Bob. I'm pooped. Maybe I'll see you around town again. Goodnight."

"Can I use your head?" Bob said, curling his lip in a beggarly fashion that was universally difficult to slam a door into. Before he could answer, Bob was crowding up to the door.

Reggie blocked him with an arm. "Plenty of trees out there."

"I gotta number two," Bob said under his breath.

Reggie's numbing grief was treated to something else to think about: how to get rid of these two dipsticks without creating suspicion. Down the line, when Jackie's body was found, they might come forward and tell the police how Reggie Thomas wouldn't let good ol' Bob take a crap.

Reggie turned sideways. "Come in."

"Thanks, man."

Tammy came in behind Bob, saying, "I'm terribly sorry about this, I swear to God."

"Let me clean up in there first," Reggie said calmly, sliding around the bed and into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He quietly closed the shower curtain, flushed the toilet, and straightened the round rug in the middle of the floor. Then he sprayed a heavy dose of Lilac-scented bathroom freshener that sat on the back of the toilet. He returned and motioned with his hand for Bob to go on in. Bob closed the bathroom door; Reggie held his breath.

Tammy stood by the front door, examining the room like some interior decorator from hell.

"Not very big, you're right," she commented. "We'll have to sleep together." She swallowed. "Like when we were kids."

Reggie barely listened. He was more intent on what could happen in the bathroom. If, for some unlucky reason, Bob looked behind the shower curtain...he didn't want to think about it.

Distantly, he heard Tammy ask him something.

"What?"

"I said, 'Weren't you checking out?'"

"Uh...yeah. I was. Things changed. My partner, uh, didn't get back from the field, so I, uh, decided to stay longer."

"Oh, good. Maybe we can meet for drinks or something. Wasn't that the waitress from the café who just left?"

"Yeah."

Tammy grinned. "She the reason you stayed?"

The sound of the toilet seat banging down made him jump. "No."

"When do you start filming? I'd love to watch."

"Uh...soon. Still doing research."

"I hope I'm here long enough to see you work. I've never seen a real movie made before–oh, except once at Universal Studios–and that was when I was a kid."

Figuring that one little bit of truth wouldn't hurt to calm himself, he said: "I worked there one summer."

"No kidding?"

"Worked in the stunt show and–"

"Oh, yes," Tammy said excitedly, "I saw it. Where they fight and get shot and fall off the roof of the saloon?"

"I didn't do falls. I was a brawler."

The toilet flushed.

"Hey, I'm sorry, all right? He's a little pushy sometimes."

The bathroom door opened. Bob came out buckling his belt. He was smiling. "Wouldn't go in there if I were you," he said, pointing his thumb over his shoulder. "Whew! Something died in there."

Reggie's breathing stopped. Bob made a face. Reggie forced himself to chuckle, reached past Bob and closed the bathroom door tight.

Bob and Tammy thanked him, apologized for the late intrusion, while Reggie skillfully herded them outside. When they were gone, he latched the door after them, spun around and fell against it, closing his eyes.

It didn't take long for that grand predator–Grief–to slither back into his cabin, stretch out on his bed, claws scratching the air, and growl at the rodents of fear scrambling for cover.