“Sweet,” Dan said. “When and where?”
“Two p.m.” She looked down at her pad. “It’s got an unusual name,” she said. “Ever hear of the Murky Turkey?”
Dan smiled. “Sally, I’m promoting you. You can stop cleaning chamber pots and start sharpening pencils effective immediately.”
He drove along the same route he and Bill had taken to the wedding. The ghostly forms that had been obscured by mist then were revealed now, innocent and unprepossessing in the fresh light of day. A simple fall landscape, seemingly devoid of mystery.
He was early. He reached Picton at noon. He thought over his plan again and continued on to Lake on the Mountain. He parked in the same lot and sat looking out over the water before walking to the resort.
“I’d like to rent a boat,” Dan said to the man puttering around in the garden shoring up trellises.
The man gave him a sharp look. “What sort of boat would that be?”
“A boat to explore the lake,” Dan said.
The man grinned. “Well, that should be simple then. We’ve only got one kind. It’s a rowboat. You looking for a good workout for your arms?”
Dan smiled. “A little exercise never hurt.”
The man left his trellises and went inside. Five minutes later, standing beside the boat, the man sized Dan up and offered him an orange life vest. “Keep this thing on at all times when you’re in the boat — it’s the law.”
Dan placed it over his head and secured it around his chest.
“Can you swim?”
“Yes, I can.”
“All right, then I won’t worry about you.” The man held up an orange plastic capsule. “There’s a nylon rope and a whistle in here. You run into any trouble, you blow it as loud as she can blow. I usually rent them for an hour,” he glanced over at the parking lot, empty but for Dan’s car, “though I suppose you can take your time. I’ll tell the crowds to wait till you get back.”
Dan did a wonky duck waddle getting in, then settled in his seat and pressed an oar against the shore. The boat shifted off the rocky bottom. After a few tentative strokes, he found his rhythm and the craft surged forward.
He scanned the caramel-coloured rock passing underneath him. Without warning, darkness opened wide under the boat. Dan had the sensation that he’d jumped off a cliff, his fall arrested by the placid green surface of the water. The darkness went straight down with no sign of anything below. He peered into the depths, adjusting his vision, but saw nothing. It looked bottomless.
He turned his head and glanced up at the passing clouds then shifted in his seat and resumed rowing toward the middle of the lake. He couldn’t shake the sensation that the world had fallen away beneath him.
The Black Swan winked at him as he approached. It looked no different than it had a month earlier. Not surprising — it probably hadn’t changed much in the last hundred-and-twenty-five-odd years. Dan spotted Terry Piers right off, a grey-haired man in a heavy grey-and-orange sweater, sitting upright at the bar and talking non-stop. A wrinkled smile and periwinkle eyes greeted him. Dan felt the strength in his grip, heard the thunder in his tone. Captain Bligh on shore leave. An eye patch and a tri-cornered hat were all he needed to complete the picture. Hale and hearty at seventy or more, he’d probably see a hundred before he was done, without giving up either smoke or drink. In fact, they probably fortified him.
Dan ordered a pint of Glenora. The former captain pooh-poohed him for buying that “local crap” before lifting his glass to a portrait of Elizabeth II on the wall behind him. It was the young queen, very glam, around the time of her coronation: glowing, radiant. Long before she was sideswiped by her annus horribilis and her star-struck wretch of a daughter-in-law. Dan let Terry regale him with talk of the “old days” on the ferry watch before launching into the subject of his inquiry.
When he spoke Craig Killingworth’s name, Terry grew thoughtful. “Oh, yes, I remember him,” he said softly.
“In the report on his disappearance you said he went over to Adolphustown on his bike that weekend but didn’t return.”
“That’s right.”
“And you were sure it was him?”
“Aye. Not a doubt.”
“And was he carrying anything — luggage, or any sort of baggage?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“But you said you thought he was heading for Kingston?”
“Well, not exactly.” Terry scratched his head and looked off into the distance of time, as if to remember what it was he had said. “You see, if you were heading to Toronto or anywheres west of here, you’d head north up to the 401. If you were to take the ferry across to Adolphustown, well, from there you’d be travelling east to Kingston and the like. But only if you wanted to go that far. What I said was that if he didn’t come back, then he was probably headed that way or farther.”
Dan considered this. “Could he not have come back across in a car?” he asked. “He might not have been on his bicycle. Perhaps you didn’t see him in the back of a car?”
“No sir, that is not likely. Have you been on the ferry?”
Dan recalled the outdoor deck with its three short lanes and twenty-one-car capacity. “Yes.”
“Then you know it’s small and everything’s in the open. For one thing, I could see anyone inside those vehicles. For another, I knew him well enough by sight. If he came across on the ferry without me seeing him, well then he’d have to be tied up in a trunk.”
“And you’re sure of the date you said you saw him crossing on?”
“Absolutely sure. You see, we were keeping a log to chart the sort of traffic that came across. There was only one other bicycle that weekend, come across from Adolphustown later that evening, and it wasn’t him.”
“You’re sure it wasn’t him?”
“Absolutely.”
“I don’t mean to doubt you, but why are you so sure? I mean, if it was nighttime — a hood or a cap, the darkness. It might be hard to be certain.”
“But I was certain. For two reasons,” Terry began. “As I said, I knew Craig Killingworth on sight. Well enough, you’d say, though I couldn’t have called him a friend. But his face was known around town. And at that time he’d lived here many years. It’s a small enough place, and you know who you know real well.”
And a wealthy man would always be known, Dan thought, though he didn’t voice his assumption.
“He was a very friendly man,” Terry continued. “He’d always call out to you on the street, say hello, ask about the weather, that sort of thing. You know how it is in small towns — or I’m sure you can guess, if you don’t.”
Funny, Dan thought, how the rich and the dead are always
