Military funerals were held for the whole crew on the helicopter: USAF Captain W. B. Ainslie, First Lieutenant B. C. Grand, and veteran Captain Al D. Urich, with full honors. Deputy Sheriff Copperseed of the Pennaquick County Sheriff’s Office and the Blyton Summer Detective Club attended. Andy Rodriguez was presented with the flag from Urich’s coffin. She kept it folded on top of all the trinkets inside his cookie tin of BSDC case mementos.
The way everybody, including the media, had embraced the official explanation and neglected loose ends that clearly deserved further inquiry (such as the hardly random distribution of squashed trees in a twenty-mile-long straight path from Sleepy Lake to Blyton Hills) had kept Nate wondering for some time—particularly after reported sightings of a colossal disturbance among the hills, coming from as far as Brish Quarry, forty miles north, were so quickly dismissed as hallucinations caused by mild hypercapnia. It was as if authorities, or some authorities, had been too swift to provide explanations for a story that seemed not to have caught them completely by surprise. Maybe, Nate thought, the Necronomicon and its mythos were known outside scientific circles and sci-fi aficionados by people in relevant positions who did not take them as a mere historic curiosity. Or maybe Nate was missing the comforting Saturday morning harangues of conspiracy theorists in the low-security floor of Arkham.
His train of thought was derailed by Joey Krantz knocking on the window of Ben’s Corner as he rode by. He stopped by the curb and waited for him to scoot out, in apron and hat.
“Hey. Have you seen the Telegraph?”
“Barely. Got it right here.”
Joey stole his copy from the basket, flipped to page four. The one column not part of the item led by “RH Speaker Digs Company Deeper into Disrepute” dealt with some mysterious occurrences in the abandoned amusement park in Sossamon Valley. Nate didn’t read past the first paragraph.
“So what?”
“So what? One guard’s gone missing, the other talks about an evil clown sabotaging the rides. Sounds like our next case.”
“Sounds like two assholes stealing aluminum,” Nate retorted.
“Probably, but not every case’s gonna be all car chases and creatures from the underworld,” Joey said, with an interesting mix of relief and resignation. “You should tell the girls about this.”
“They’re very busy,” Nate lied.
“Oh, come on. I’m taking two weeks off in July; we should look into this.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll pass it on to them.”
“Do it!”
“I will, promise. See you, Joey.”
“Okay, bye. Bye, Tim!”
He hurried back into the restaurant as Nate pedaled back onto Main Street. On the other hand, in a country where the words “evil clown” still made it into the local paper, how could “limnic eruption” not sound convincing?
He raced Tim for the last blocks, the dog kiting ten inches of tongue happiness behind him and a single tattered ear flapping in the air. Fur had grown back over his flanks, concealing his scars as much as they ever would. Still, he wore them with pride.
They came into view of Aunt Margo’s house, windowsills brimming with orange helenium flowers. Rivaling them, the freshly waxed Chevrolet Vega Kammback wagon shone boastfully on the driveway, black racing stripes darkening its brow like the memory of past battles. Nate had to shield his eyes from the glint as he closed the little gate door behind him and entered the house.
They parted ways inside, Tim running upstairs while Nate popped into the kitchen to unpack the groceries and get a knife. Then he crossed the living room to the new screen door to the backyard. Aunt Margo was bound to freak out when she saw this part, but they had asked for her permission. And she would have to admit the white stone pavement outside helped lighten up the living room.
Kerri and Andy were just where he’d left them and where they’d spent the afternoon and most of May: lounging on the deck chairs by the lustful blue swimming pool, water glistening like an Oscar nominee’s sequined dress under the Tom Jones of suns; Andy’s dark skin indifferent to ultraviolet rays, Kerri’s impervious to them, a childish smile on both their faces that not even a month of pool enjoyment had managed to wear off.
Nate unbagged the Coke while Kerri talked on the (also brand new) cordless phone.
NATE: You two are the most spoiled heroines I ever worked with.
ANDY: Shh. (Re: the phone in Kerri’s hand.) University.
NATE: (Loud, into the phone.) She’s so spoiled! Give her a job, for God’s sake!
KERRI: (Laughing, shielding.) Ah, you prick. (On the phone.) Sorry. Mad cousin. We’re mailing him back to Arkham first thing tomorrow.
ANDY: (Serving the refreshments.) Where’s Tim?
NATE: Upstairs, with me. I told you, he doesn’t like the new lake.
(He goes back inside.)
ANDY: (Gazing over the pool.) Can’t figure out why.
KERRI: (On phone.) Okay, I’ll come for a tour then. No, no, thank you. Sure. Thanks. Good-bye.
She hung up, sipped on her soda, and for a while basked in the recent praise, pretending nothing happened. Andy watched her, spying smugness behind Kerri’s sunglasses.
“Well? Which was it this time?”
Kerri flipped her hair, waited for her own ego to ebb down a little. “Berkeley.”
“Ooh. You really like Berkeley.”
“Yup. Amazing how many doors a spec paper on carbon dioxide–breathing cells will open.”
Andy noticed her smile fading out.
“What’s up?”
“Berkeley is a little far, isn’t it?”
“Nah. Must be a…six-, seven-hour drive?”
“I thought Copperseed was supposed to help you with your criminal record—when are you gonna be able to get on a plane?”
“I don’t know; when are we gonna jump off one?” She sat up, pointing at the imaginary scoreboard. “Boom! In your face, Kerri Hollis!”
(Laughing.) “Shit, I don’t even know whether this is literal or not anymore and I’m afraid to ask at this point; it’s so embarrassing. (Beat.) No, but seriously. It’s a little too far from…this.”
Andy understood what “this” implied. The house and the swimming pool could wait; one had waited for thirteen years, the other they had waited for even longer. “This,” however, was beautifully delicate.
“I could come along,” she said.
“You would?”
“Why not? I could find a job in San Francisco. We’d rent a studio. Drive here on weekends.”
“A one-bed studio?” Kerri smirked.
“Would you rather have two beds?”
“No.”
“Then one it is.”
Andy closed her eyes and pointed her face to the sun, declaring the subject settled.
Kerri instead faced her, raising her sunglasses. “I feel a little bad for you.”
Andy turned again, a twenty-five-year-old woman in a bright saffron bikini, lying on a deck chair two feet from a paid-in-cash swimming pool: “Kerri, tell me how anyone can feel bad for me right now.”
“Andy, I know this is not what a normal girl-girl relationship is like.”
“This is not any girl-girl relationship; it’s a you-me relationship. There has never been a precedent; there has never been a normal. There has never been a better either.”
“But I feel like you’re waiting until I allow something to happen.”
Andy sighed, stretched out a hand across their chairs.
“Baby, I’m not waiting until you allow anything.”