Salvage (40 page)

He reached the patio, slipped out of his shoes, and began tugging the damp wetsuit onto his legs. It was difficult to pull on. He jerked hard on the right leg, the material stretching. It would have been easier dressing a mannequin, or someone else.

It hit him like a flood, as if he were seeing it with his own eyes, like some hazy reenactment on television. Mike Selkie had told Howard that Lori was snooping into the disappearance of the Blessed Trinity. Howard suspected she might have learned something dangerous, and had confronted her here. And once he'd learned who she was (her resemblance to their mother, despite the difference in their hair color, was close enough to guess), he knew he couldn't simply pay her off to forget all about it. In true Saddler fashion, Lori wouldn't have let it go; she'd have had it in her jaws like a dog with a bone. Howard had likely snapped. He'd probably broken her chain in the struggle, had forced her to the sink or the tub upstairs and held her head underwater until she'd stopped struggling. Then he'd found the crucifix and threw it in the trash, and wiped away his fingerprints. He'd dressed her in her scuba gear, drove her out to the church, and, just as Owen had done with Jo, he'd slipped Lori's lifeless remains into the lake, where she'd be found the next morning, face down in the reeds.

Owen swallowed his grief, tasting nothing but bitter rage. "
You killed her.
You killed Lori, you old fuck," he said under his breath. He threw a look over his shoulder, suddenly afraid he'd said it loud enough for Howard to hear. But the old man was peering down dreamily into the water.

"All right down there?" Owen called, as cheerily as he could manage.

Howard looked up from his ruminating. "Fine and dandy!"

"'Fine and dandy,'" Owen mimicked, zipping up the suit. "We'll just see how fine and dandy you are out on that lake, Howard, my boy."

Owen returned to the water, carrying the tank and flippers under his arms. He placed them in the canoe, then gave Howard a thin smile. The old man returned it with a sickly one of his own. "All right for another minute? I have to get the paddles and the life jackets. Must put on the belt and braces, eh, old chap?" he added, smiling jovially, while inside he seethed.

Howard agreed, and Owen went back up the hill. He carried the remaining equipment down awkwardly, leaving the bailing can in the dirt. He laid the paddles in the bottom of the canoe, and put a cushion on each wicker seat. "Ready?"

"I suppose I'll have to be," Howard said with a trepidatious look at the canoe, a look that said he didn't trust that it wouldn't slip out from underneath him. Then he turned to Owen. "Tally ho," he said unenthusiastically, and stepped into the canoe. It wobbled, and he threw his arms out wide. Owen held the side, stabilizing it. "Easy, peasy," the old man said, and sat in the front, but facing toward the rear.

"I think you're facing the wrong way."

Howard scowled, then swung his legs around in the other direction one by one, wary of the gentle rocking. "Better?"

"Perfect," Owen said, grinning slyly. Putting Howard in the front kept the man in his sight, facing away from him, making it difficult for the old man to get the drop on him, as Selkie might have said. Owen stepped in carefully. Howard grasped the sides as the canoe wobbled again and began to float away from shore, sending out ripples.

"You okay?"

Howard nodded but didn't turn or speak. Owen wondered if terror gripped him the way it had Lori when he'd suddenly become violent. He grabbed a paddle and prodded the old man on the shoulder with it. Howard startled. The boat rocked, and he gripped the sides again, white-knuckled. He tried to look over his shoulder, but without daring to turn his body, he couldn't manage.

"What are you trying to do to me, boy? My heart can't take another rattle like that."

"Sorry," Owen said. "Just handing you a paddle."

"Well, Christ, give me a sodding warning next time, would you?" He snatched the paddle and looked at it as if he had no idea what to do with it, then laid it over his lap.

Owen grinned sadistically at the back of Howard's head, dipping his own paddle into the water. He'd seen people paddle canoes on TV, and he had a vague recollection of sitting in the front seat of one, paddling as well as a child of four or five could manage, likely on the river on either side of what had once been the Mushkoweban Falls, possibly with his father steering. He paddled on the left side, then the right, watching the bow swing in the opposite direction each time. Eager to see if he could paddle the thing on his own, he tried various improvised strokes, and found he could steer and push the canoe forward without Howard's assistance. It would be helpful when it was just him in the boat on the return journey.

He steered the canoe out into the bay.

The day was eerily calm, the sky a pure azure blue aside from a heavy slash of steel gray above the trees at the horizon. It was difficult to tell what way the clouds were moving. Out in the main bay, Howard finally began to lackadaisically dip his paddle in the water. A few boats zipped by in the distance, closer to shore, but overall it seemed as though the world was holding its breath. Owen supposed he could be projecting his own anger and anxiety on the lake itself, a sense that it was waiting, waiting for something incredible to happen.

"Deep out here," Owen remarked.

Howard blinked into the dark water. In the same moment, the skeleton of a rooftop loomed out from the depths, and he startled. "Not deep enough," he said, holding the paddle a few feet above the surface as if he thought something might reach up and grab it.

"No," Owen agreed. "Not deep enough at all."

Howard turned to give a queer look over his shoulder, but since he wouldn't dare shift on his seat, his eyes couldn't meet Owen's. "Would these cushions keep a grown man afloat, do you think?"

"Hard to say," Owen said, carving his paddle through the water, steering them toward the church. "I don't think they're legal, if that helps you make an informed decision."

Howard nodded solemnly.

"Boat's still there."

The old man laid his paddle on his lap and shaded his eyes with a hand. Drips from the blade struck the surface of the water, ripples making a triangular pattern as the canoe zipped by, dappled by the sun. "My eyesight's not what it used to be," Howard admitted, and dropped the hand uselessly to his lap. He looked out over the side. "Parish Hardware would have been right here. Funny, that."

Owen didn't care for the old man's reminiscing, but he needed to appear civil, at least for a little while longer. "What's funny?" he asked.

"To know the place you'd spent so many years of your life has become a fish's lavatory."

Below them, a bare telephone pole stretched toward the sun like some bizarre underwater plant. "Is that funny, or sad?" Owen said.

Howard tried to look over his shoulder again. Eventually, he settled on, "It's as broad as it is long, my boy."

"Pardon?"

"It's funny
and
sad." He dipped his paddle again, halfheartedly. "I won't say Peace Falls was a thriving metropolis, but it was a wonderful community, once. Not quite St. Mary Mead, but neither was it Peyton Place. We had our troubles—like any town, I suppose. Before Crouch, that is. He and that Woodrow character turned Peace Falls into an unforgiving place, where a man wasn't sure he could trust his own neighbor."

Howard peered up at the sky, not so blue now, as the clouds that had been perched on the horizon had drawn over it like a curtain. "Looks like the weather might shift," Howard muttered. "Perhaps we should turn back? Call in the maritime police?"

Owen ignored the request. "He wasn't always like that, was he, Howard?"

"Who? Crouch?" He appeared to think. "I suppose he was a good man, once. A
kind
man. It was his peculiar relationship with Woodrow that poisoned him. Changed him. Made a kind, generous man into a tyrant. A
maniac
."

"He didn't stand a chance against Woodrow."

"No, I suppose he didn't," Howard said on a sigh. "You said you met him?"

"In the water. He was baptizing a little blonde girl with his congregation. They called themselves the Blessed Trinity."

"Whomever you may have met wasn't the
real
Brother Woodrow."

"No?"

The old man shook his head. "There
was
no Woodrow. He was simply a figment of Crouch's lunacy. An imaginary friend, though no friend you'd ever want to have. Your mother and I were the only ones who knew. We kept it a secret. We gave Woodrow an imaginary life, told people they'd just missed him walking out the door, I suppose as much to spare Crouch embarrassment as it was to keep the others from knowing the truth. At some point, Woodrow's imaginary life became as real to Crouch as his own. Perhaps more."

"You could have had him committed."

"We
should
have," Howard agreed. The church steeple had come into view near the dock, where the ugly purple and green boat rocked languidly. "But it would have killed him. To lose that church. To lose his life's work."

"So you waited. You waited until it was too late," Owen said, feeling his heart quicken as he prepared his attack.

"Alas."

"Now was it because you loved him, or because you couldn't stand that my mom loved Everett instead of you?"

Howard jerked his head around, too fast. The canoe shook, and this time, with his hands still gripping the paddle, he couldn't reach for the sides. He pitched forward, the paddle scraping along the sides in front of him before it plunged into the water. Owen kept the canoe moving. He watched the paddle float past, bobbing on the tiny waves in their wake.

"Owen, what on earth are you doing?"

"I'm bringing you home, Howard. You're going to rejoin the congregation."

Howard was gripping the sides for dear life, his knees thrust up against the hull. "For God's sake,
why
?"

"You shot my father. You locked the Blessed Trinity in the church and left them to drown."

"You think by simply siring a child it makes you their father?" The old man's voice was high-pitched and anxious. "I was more of a father to you than Crouch ever was."

Owen shook the boat. It rocked from side to side, and Howard yelped. "Please!" he cried. "You're wrong about Crouch! I
never
wanted him dead. It was
him
! Woodrow told him to go down with the ship, and the others lashed themselves to him as if he were a life preserver. They drowned for
his beliefs
, Owen—are you so blind you can't see it?
Please
, stop!"

"Only you can stop this, Howard," Owen said coldly. "
Confess
."

The water around them churned. The placid lake grew violent the closer they came to the old church, as if the chop were rising from the town below, while above, the clouds had stretched out ominously above their heads.

Howard's head swung anxiously, registering the storm that had gathered around them. "I've nothing to confess! I swear it!"

Owen prodded the old man between the shoulders, rocking the boat until water began to splash over the sides. Howard shrank from it, crying out.

"Confess, Howard!"

"There's nothing!
Please!
"

Owen shook the canoe once more. Water splashed in, and in the same instant, Howard toppled out. He was so frightened he didn't even throw up his arms, simply somersaulted and plunged headfirst into the water. It took a moment for Owen to register what had happened. A part of him regretted it—but the rest of him cried out for vengeance. The rest of him wanted to see the water churn red with Howard's blood.

The old man's head rose above the raging waves, wet gray hair matted on his scalp and in his eyes. He sputtered water from his lips and threw his arms in the air. "
Help!
" He twisted toward the marina, shouting breathlessly to be heard above the chop. "HELP!" The sky had darkened and the water was almost black, as dark as it had been during the final day of the Blessed Trinity. Howard splashed his arms and kicked his feet uselessly. "Please, Owen!"

"Say it, Howard!" Owen shouted to be heard over the storm. "Say you killed them!"

"All right! I did him in!" Howard cried breathlessly. "All of them! He would have killed
you
if not for me! Don't you see? I did what I did to save
you
! The atrocities he'd planned to commit in the name of a God who doesn't exist—
I did what had to be done!
"

"You keep telling yourself that, Howard. I hope it comforts you in your final moments."

"Please! I've told the truth, now please
help me
!"

The current had carried them to within shouting distance from the church, but there was no one out diving this morning to hear them. The Blessed Trinity rose from the water surrounding the steeple of their church, standing hip-deep as the waves churned around them: those who had died in the church, and those who had died
because
of it—Howie and Jo and her parents among them, Dink Deakins and Pete Jebson, too—each pallid face etched with profound sadness as Howard drowned.

And from the water, the figure of Crouch rose, the same monstrous, liquescent doppelganger that had taken Jo. His giant's features regarded Howard's thrashing with curiosity. Howard must have sensed it behind him, because he turned suddenly, violently, and used the last of his breath to scream.

"
Dear God, please, Owen! For the love of God, help me!
"

"It's not up to me anymore," Owen shouted above the crashing waves. "It's up to him." He said this, uncertain whether he'd meant Crouch, Woodrow, or God.

The water rose up, and the giant Crouch snatched out and grabbed Howard in his colossal fist. The old man trembled, teeth chattering, drenched in the fierce wind, as Crouch brought him close. The scowl deepened. A snarl formed on his aqueous face.

Owen held the sides of the canoe as it rose and fell, eagerly anticipating the clench of Crouch's fist. It wasn't until the canoe pitched further toward the church that he saw Lori standing on the rickety dock, alongside the holy ghosts of the Blessed Trinity.