“Dad!” He quickly snatched his own rod off the holder and reached down to ease the drag on his father’s rod, allowing the fish to swim without pulling the rod into the water. He yanked back on his own rod to secure the hook while Jenk’s reel buzzed furiously letting out line.
“You got a whopper, boy!” Jenk stumbled out of the trees and grabbed his rod, immediately tightening the drag. As soon as he did, the tip of his rod jerked toward the water. Sean was busy trying to reel in when both rods snapped back to normal and the lines went limp. “Damn, it snapped both lines!”
Sean glanced over, disgusted to see his dad hadn’t bothered to zip up. He put his own rod back on the forked stick and went to get a couple riggings out of the tackle box.
“What in the hell…” Jenk was still trying to reel in but the line had gone taut again. “Must be caught on a log or…” Jenk’s rod jerked mightily, bending almost completely in half.
Sean watched in semi-amazement as Jenk’s arms flew straight out and he struggled to keep his balance. Why doesn’t he just let go? Sean thought. The rod began to bend back to its normal position, then suddenly jerked again. This time Jenk let go—or it was pulled too hard for him to hold—but not before he lost his balance completely. He pinwheeled his arms and for a minute Sean thought he was going to stay dry. The blazing sun behind him gave his silhouetted shape a comical, almost cartoonish appearance. Then he teetered again and went face-first into the lake. Sean shook his head smiling as his dad struggled to his feet. “If you wanted to cool off you should have at least taken your shirt off!”
Jenk shook the water out of his hair, still struggling to keep his balance in the waist-deep water. He looked down into the lake with a confused expression on his face. “My foot’s caught…”
The water around Jenk swirled and Sean saw a dark shape in the water. He started toward the lake to help when the water erupted. The splash was huge but Sean was able to see two things, neither of which made sense. A dark shape, impossible to see clearly because of the position of the sun, was looming behind his dad. The second thing was that the shape had tentacles. Then his dad’s feet went out from under him, and both figures disappeared. The water eddied for a minute then it was smooth as glass as if Sean had imagined the whole scene. Finally, he reacted, running into the water screaming for his dad. Later, he would wonder why he was brave enough to do it, but in the moment he was running on pure adrenaline. The fear would come soon enough.
He splashed around, diving under the surface, yelling for his dad until he was too winded and hoarse to yell anymore. Then he began to cry. He felt like he might never stop.
(58)
Chief Crawford sat in his office gazing intently at nothing. He was hungover to beat the band. In fact it felt like a marching band was playing a rousing beat inside his head. He had only the slightest memories of sitting at the table the night before. The beating of Joe Cummings at the Witch’s Hat last night had him concerned. Cummings would be sure to ID some of the men responsible, and then there’d be hell to pay. He had enough to worry about with Greymore on the loose. He didn’t need this shit. He tried to focus on the papers strewn in front of him on his desk. There were reports of all the disappearances from 1961, the court transcripts and an assortment of psychiatric evaluations done on Greymore before the trial and during his prison term. He had to make sure that when Greymore slipped, he’d put him away for good this time. If he lives to stand trial, thought Crawford. He was just getting absorbed in the testimony of Kevin Denneker when a disturbance from the lobby pulled him back to the present.
Annoyed, he got up and stormed out of his office to see what was going on, right hand instinctively going toward his hip. Officer Hudson was making gestures with his hands, trying to calm down a couple of nerdy kids who were obviously responsible for interrupting Crawford. “What’s going on?” he boomed, hoping to scare the snot out of the little brats. Instead of cowering when they saw the Chief, they barreled past Hudson and ran up to him. They were both talking a mile a minute so that Crawford couldn’t understand either one of them.
“Quiet!”
They both stopped mid-sentence, looking at each other then back up at Crawford. The band had picked up the tempo in his skull and the drums were echoing to the point he felt dizzy.
“What do you kids think you’re doing, coming into my station and causing a ruckus like this? We have work to do around here.” He eyed both kids, trying to attach names to their faces while waiting for an apology.
The skinny one took a step closer and cleared his throat. “We… my dog was missing… out by the lake… and all these crushed…”
“Slow down kid, first things first. What are your names?”
“I’m Denny O’Brien and this is Billy Cummings. We live over by the lake on Hillview Street.”
Immediately Crawford’s mind was working in high gear, band or no band. The Cummings kid should be at the hospital worrying about dear old Dad. “Son, do you realize your father is in the hospital while you’re here spinning yarns?” He could tell immediately that the kid didn’t know anything about last night, which in a way was a relief.
Denny vaguely remembered hearing the phone ring early that morning but his mother seldom answered it. Billy’s face had gone pale and in it, Denny saw his own reflection from a few years ago. “The hospital? What happened? Is he alright?”
Crawford could see tears ready to burst out any minute. The O’Brien kid didn’t look so hot either. Crawford put on his fatherly game face. “I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you, Billy. Your daddy got in a fight last night, at the Witch’s Hat… a regular barroom brawl…”
“A barroom brawl! My dad doesn’t hang out in bars looking for a fight. Is he alright?” The kid’s concern had taken a turn toward anger. O’Brien looked ready to pass out.
“He got beat up pretty bad but the docs think he’ll be okay. Why don’t I have one of the officers here take you over to be with your Dad? I’ll talk to Denny here about whatever was so important when you came in.” He motioned toward Hudson to get a car ready.
“Denny, you stay here and…”
“No, I need to go with you, Billy.”
“But what about…”
“We can tell Chief Crawford all about kids drinking by the lake some other time. I should go with you to the hospital.”
“That’s right boys. You take care of Billy’s Dad and when it’s all over, you get to tell your friends you rode in a real police car. If there’s a problem with some kids drinking out by the lake, I’ll be sure to take care of it. Don’t worry about a thing.”
Crawford watched as Hudson escorted the kids out to the parking lot. What a couple of losers, he thought. Coming into the Police Station to snitch on some teenagers having a few beers out by the lake. Crawford chuckled to himself. It was probably Dale balling Cummings’ older sister. How ironic, he thought. He went back into his office to go over the court transcripts again.
Once they were out of Crawford’s earshot, the boys began working on Hudson. Billy wanted answers about his dad. “Officer Hudson, how bad is my father? What really happened? You know my dad doesn’t hang around in bars.”