“Okay, so.” Andy laid her hands on the table. “The Sleepy Lake case.”
Kerri and Nate leaned forward, looking executively interested. Tim suddenly noticed some of his body parts did not look shiny enough and set about to correct that. Andy wished they had a file, or even a cardboard box full of evidence like cops do when they’re revisiting an old case, but all she had at hand to shuffle with was sugar and a bottle of Heinz ketchup.
“Well, we thought we solved it, but we didn’t. Because…”
“Because the least effed up of us is Tim, and he’s licking his testicles right now,” Nate assisted.
“Tim,” Kerri called. “Not at the table.”
“Yes, that’s it,” Andy replied to Nate’s statement. “So, what went wrong?”
No one spoke.
“I think we should try to retrace our steps,” Andy continued. “Let’s think about what we did in ’seventy-seven and figure out what we missed. Kerri?”
Kerri cleared her throat and spoke like a confident sixth grader. “Okay. So, summer nineteen seventy-seven. Uh, I’d been in town for a couple weeks already; Peter and Nate came next, I think; then you. And…we had heard about these sightings of a creature wandering around Sleepy Lake, and we told you about it when you arrived, and then Peter urged us to bike to the lake the following day and, you know, do some fishing and investigate a little. The fishing was kind of an excuse for Aunt Margo.”
“Good. So we packed our fishing gear and a tent and lunch and we went to the lake. Then what happened?”
“Well, it was morning when we got there, and it was a rainy day, like this, with very thick mist. So we set camp, and we probed around, but we found nothing. Then later in the day, we heard something in the woods. We went to check it out…and we encountered the creature.”
“Okay. Was it really the creature, though?”
“We found the slaughtered deer earlier,” Nate intervened.
“Isn’t that just an anecdote?” Kerri said.
“Tell that to the fucking deer.”
“Look, there’s a billion things that could’ve happened to that deer.”
“But all at once?”
“Okay, okay, I take note of the deer,” Andy umpired. “We’ll get back to that. But when we first saw the creature in the woods—”
“It was Mr. Wickley in a costume,” Kerri finished.
“Really? Are we sure it was him?”
The question levitated for a moment over the table.
Nate said, sounding surprisingly calm, “I think it was Mr. Wickley. Because…I don’t know, I mean, I was scared at the moment, but later…it felt worse when we saw the others. Right?”
The girls eyed each other, mutely, without seeing, lost in their own recollections. A solid, monolithic silence sat on the table.
“I mean,” he went on, “did the other ones even have eyes?”
A waiter sailed in, icebreaking through the gloom.
“Hi, welcome to Ben’s; our special today is beef and carrot stew.” He looked up from his notepad at the fourth customer at the table. “Uh, the dog shouldn’t be sitting there.”
Tim scoffed aristocratically at him and returned to the black-and-white Americana view outside the window. The kids tuned out of their flashbacks.
“I’ll have coffee, please. Black,” Nate ordered.
“Same,” Kerri said.
“I’ll have a milkshake. Peach.”
“Kerri?”
They looked up at the waiter.
“Kerri Hollis?” He checked the others. “Nate. And Andrea!” He took his hat off, long blond hair exposed like a very lame TV quiz prize. “Joey Krantz!”
“Hey,” Kerri said, smiling before her brain had even told the mouth to do anything. “Joey. Hi.”
“What are you guys doing here?” he asked, loud enough to turn some heads along the bar. “How’s your aunt Margo doing?”
“Fine, she’s fine. She’s in Portland. We just, uh…came for a long weekend. You know. Reminiscing the good old days.”
“Cool! I expect you’ll find a lot has changed, eh? Seen the water tower? It’s white now. Hey, you still solving mysteries, or are you keeping out of trouble?” His pen wiggled at Andy and Nate, who looked at the table and then at each other and then at pretty much everything in creation minus Joey.
“So what about you? What’re you doing?” Kerri deflected.
“Well, you know. I traveled around…Had a girlfriend in Belden—we just…we broke up recently. And since my old man hurt his back, you see, I’m helping out with the family business.”
“Cool. Cool.”
“I also volunteer for the sheriff’s office from time to time, so who knows? Maybe I’ll get to be a law enforcer like you guys. Anyway. Uh, two blacks and a milkshake, was it? Coming right up.”
He scribbled some dots and basic shapes onto his pad and moved along.
Kerri and Nate checked each other, facial muscles still tense.
“Okay. So,” Andy said, “we saw the lake creature, and then—”
“Peach, was it?” someone cried from the bar.
“Yes, please,” Andy shouted back. “Right. So we saw the lake creature, and then what did we do?”
Kerri and Nate were still fighting a smile each.
KERRI: We ran away.
NATE: Sorry, was that “ran” away then, or “run,” as in now? Are you telling or suggesting?
ANDY: Guys, c’mon.
KERRI: Yeah, sorry. I mean…(Chuckle.) You gotta admit that was…strange.
ANDY: Kind of, but—
KERRI: I mean, “How’s Aunt Margo doing?” Like, you know…
NATE: Like he’s channeling the town’s housewives suddenly.
ANDY: Okay, it was awkward.
NATE: It was funny. I mean, he’s a waiter.
KERRI: Yeah! Well, I was a waitress until last week, so that bit’s not funny, but still, something there was funny. I can’t quite put a pin on it, but…
NATE: Maybe the part where he didn’t treat you as a beaver-toothed nerd, or me as a piece of shit, or Andy as a wetback.
ANDY: Okay, I see it was funny. But really, I mean…fuck him.
NATE: Said the girlfriend in Belden.
KERRI: Yeah, shit, “I traveled around…” I think you can walk to Belden.
Nate chortled as Kerri endeavored to pick up the thread again.
“Okay, anyway, what did we do after the thing in the lake? We ran away.”
“Yes, we bravely retreated like Sir Robin.”
“Right,” Andy continued. “What next?”
“We went to see Captain Al.”
The name dropped flat on the chrome-rimmed table, with no one able to follow from there.
“Two black coffees,” the timely waiter said, landing the order off his tray. “And a peach milkshake.”
“Hey, Joey,” Kerri said. “Is Captain Al still around here?”
“Who?”
“Al. Captain Al.”
Joey frowned at the name.
“Oh, wait, you mean Crazy Al?”
“Uh…maybe.”
“Yeah, he’s still around. Have you seen the old man pushing around scrap metal on East Street?”
Andy, Nate, and Kerri stared at the waiter in horror.
“Oh, no, no, it’s not him,” Joey quickly mended. “Don’t worry. Not him. Anyway, you seen the guy? Just follow him. It’s Crazy Al who buys the metal.”