The Drowner Read Online Free PDF Page A

shore. It had always been known as Dayker’s Lake until the promoter who developed the far shore engineered a name change to Flamingo Lake. He owned this half mile of lake front, untended, unimproved. He was glad to see no other cars parked there.
    So, if she left the apartment at half past twelve, she would have arrived here at quarter to one, if she came directly here. Parked where I am right now. Probably put her swim suit on before she left the apartment. Wore that wraparound skirt thing over it. Got out. Tossed the skirt into the car. Carried her stuff down to the little patch of sand. Towel, beach bag, little radio. Settled herself. Then walked into the water, tucking her hair into a swim cap. Three steps and up to her waist, then deep.
    He walked down to the sand. He wondered if he was trying to punish himself. Did she yell for help? What good did this do? He heard a motor sound and looked up the shore line and saw a blue rowboat approaching, propelled by a small outboard motor. There were two young boys in it, wiry and brown, their hair bleached almost white by the sun. He heard one of them clearly over the chug of the motor. “Right up there is where she drownded, right out from where that guy is standing. And Jug didn’t have his tanks or nothing, just a mask and flippers and he found her the second time down. He found her before those cops ever even got the boat launched to drag for her. Right about here, I think.” The larger boy cut the motor off and the boat slowed quickly. They stared at the water.
    “How deep is it?” the smaller one asked.
    “Jug says twenty feet.”
    “Was she down there a long time?”
    “Long enough.”
    “How come that damn Jug got in on it anyways?”
    “He saw all the people and come over and he had his mask and flippers in the boat like he always has. It was about two o’clock, I guess. I didn’t even get to see her. But I saw the ambulance leaving anyways.”
    “Jimmy, if she was alone, how come anybody knew she drownded?”
    “You’re pretty stupid.”
    “Who says I’m stupid?”
    “Some other people come to swim, see? And there’s a car parked and a towel and a little radio playing and everything, and nobody around. They look around everywhere and get nervous and start calling and nobody answers, and they think maybe somebody has gone off in a boat, but there’s no sign of a boat and it had rained in the night and all they see is bare foot prints going into the water. So somebody drove back to the gas station and called the sheriff. And more people came flocking around. And Jug came over and found her. They say she probably had a cramp.”
    Sam Kimber went slowly back to his car, backed around and drove away. It matched the report in the paper. Everything fitted fine. Except the small problem of a missing hundred and six thousand dollars. And no way to tell anybody it’s missing. And somehow that makes the whole thing look wrong.
    He drove back to town, parked behind his office building, unlocked the rear door and rode to the top floor in his small private elevator. It was a four story building he’d put up five years ago when he decided to leave the lonely house he’d built for Kitty. He’d had the Sam-Kim Construction Company put it up on Central Federal money, then lease the whole thing to Kimberland Enterprises on a long term lease, so Kimberland could turn around and sublease the two bottom floors. He’d worked a zoning exception so he could put his bachelor quarters and his private office on the top floor. The working staff of Kimberland Enterprises, Sam-Kim Construction and Kitty-Kim Groves and some of the other odds and ends worked on the third floor.
    He went into his kitchen and opened a cold can of beer and stood at the window looking west toward Lake Larra. She’d lived out there in the Hanson place for a few short years with Kelsey Hanson. Along that shore of the lake it was a different kind of money. Solid old money, brought down out of solid