“You kids have no civil rights!” shot back Lois. “Not until you learn responsibility!”
It went downhill from there.
At ten P.M., with everyone hoarse from shouting, Glen Ryder finally adjourned the meeting.
Claire remained standing at the side of the room, watching as the crowd exited.
No one looked at her as they filed past. I’ve ceased to exist in this town, she thought wretchedly, except as an object of scorn. She wanted to thank Lincoln for supporting her, but she saw that he was under siege, surrounded by the Board of Selectmen, who were plying him with questions and complaints.
“Dr. Elliot!” called out Damaris Home. “What happened fifty-two years ago?”
Claire fled toward the exit, Damaris and the other reporters trailing after her as she kept repeating, “No comment. No comment.” She was relieved when no one pursued her out the door.
Outside, the chill wind seemed to slice right through her coat. Her car was parked some distance from the school. Thrusting her hands in her pockets, she began to walk as quickly as she dared along the icy road, squinting against the intermittent glare of headlights as other cars pulled away By the time she reached her vehicle, she already had the keys out, and was about to unlock the door when she realized something was not right.
She took a step back and stared in shock at the pools of flaccid rubber that had been her tires. All four of them had been slashed. In fury, in frustration, she slammed her hand down on the car. Once, twice.
Across the road, a man walking back to his own car turned and looked at her in surprise. It was Mitchell Groome.
“Something wrong, Dr. Elliot?” he called out.
“Look at my tires!”
He paused to let a car drive past, then crossed the road to join her. “Jesus,” he murmured. “Someone doesn’t like you.”
“They slashed all of them!”
“I’d help you change them. But I don’t suppose you’d have four spare tires in the trunk?’
She did not appreciate his weak attempt at humor. She turned her back on him and stared down at the ruined tires. Her exposed face stung from the wind, and the chill of the frozen ground seemed to seep through the soles of her boots. It was too late to call Joe Bartlett’s garage; he wouldn’t be able to get four new tires till morning, anyway. She was stranded, furious, and growing colder by the minute.
She turned to Groome. “Could you give me a ride home?”
It was a deal with the devil, and she knew it. A journalist must ask questions, and barely ten seconds into the drive, he asked the one she’d expected:
“So what did happen in this town fifty-two years ago?”
She averted her eyes. “I’m really not in the mood for this.”
“I’m sure you’re not, but it’s going to come out eventually. Damaris Home will track it down, one way or the other.”
“That woman has no sense of ethics.”
“But she does have an inside source.”
Claire looked at him. “Are you talking about the police department?”
“You already know about it?”
“Not the name of the officer. Which one is it?”
“Tell me what happened in 1946.”
She faced forward again. “It’s in the local newspaper archives. You can look it up for yourself.”
He drove for a moment in silence. “It’s happened to this town before, hasn’t it?” he said. “The killings.”
“Yes.”
“And you believe there’s a biological reason for it?”
“It has something to do with that lake. It’s some sort of natural phenomenon. A bacteria, or an algae.”
“What about my theory? That this is another Flanders, Iowa?”
“It’s not drug abuse, Mitchell. I thought we’d turned up something in both boys’ blood-an anabolic steroid of some kind. But the final tox screens on both of them came back negative. And Taylor denies any drug abuse.”
“Kids do lie.”
“Blood tests don’t.”
They pulled into her driveway, and he turned to look at her. “You’ve picked an uphill fight, Dr. Elliot. Maybe you didn’t sense the depth of anger in that room, but I certainly did.”
“Not only did I sense it, I have four slashed tires to prove it.” She stepped out. “Thank you for the ride. Now you owe me something.”
“Do I?”
“The name of the cop who’s been talking to Damaris Horne.”
He gave an apologetic shrug. “I don’t know his name. All I can tell you is that I’ve seen them together in, shall we say, close contact. Dark hair, medium build. Works the night shift.”
She nodded grimly. “I’ll figure it out.”
Lincoln climbed the stairs to the handsome Victorian, each step bringing him closer to exhaustion. It was well past midnight. He had spent the last few hours at an emergency meeting of the Board of Selectmen, held at Glen Ryder’s house, where Lincoln had been told in no uncertain terms that his job was in jeopardy.
The board had hired him, and they could fire him. He was an employee of the Town of Tranquility, and therefore a guardian of its welfare. How could he sup port Dr. Elliot’s suggestion to close down the lake?
I was just stating my honest opinion, he’d told them.
But in this case, honesty was clearly not the best policy.
What had followed was a mind-numbing litany of financial statistics, provided by the town treasurer. How much money came in every summer from tourists. How many jobs were created as a result. How many local businesses existed only to service the visitor trade.
Where Lincoln’s salary came from.
The town lived and died by Locust Lake, and there would be no calls to close it, no health alerts, not even a whisper of public debate.
He’d left the meeting uncertain whether he still had a job, uncertain whether he even wanted the job. He’d climbed into his cruiser, had been halfway home, when he’d received the message from Dispatch that someone else wanted to speak to him tonight.
He rang the bell. As he waited for the door to open, he glanced up the street and saw that every house was dark, all the curtains drawn against this black and frigid night.
The door swung open, and Judge Iris Keating said: “Thank you for coming, Lincoln.”
He stepped into the house. It felt airless, suffocating. “You said it was urgent.”
“You’ve already met with the board?”
“A little while ago.”
“And they won’t consider closing the lake. Will they?”
He gave her a resigned smile. “Was there any doubt?”
“I know this town too well. I know how people think, and what they’re afraid of.
How far they’ll go to protect their own.”
“Then you know what I’m dealing with.”
She gestured toward the library. “Let’s sit down, Lincoln. I have something to tell you.”
A fire was dying behind the grate, only a few listless flames puffing up from the mound of cinders. Still, the room felt overwarm, and as Lincoln sank deeply into an overstuffed chair, he wondered if he could summon the energy to stay awake. To rise to his feet again and walk back out into the cold. Iris sat across from him, her face illuminated only by the fire’s glow. The dim light was kind to her features, deepening her eyes, smoothing the wrinkles of sixty-six years into velvety shadow. Only her hands, thin and gnarled by arthritis, betrayed her age.
“I should have said something at the meeting tonight, but I didn’t have the courage,” she confessed.
“Courage to say what?”
“When Claire Elliot spoke about the lake-about the night she saw the water glow-I should have added my
