Turning off the narrow one-car dirt road that went on up to the empty lots, she pulled the big truck onto the McPhersons' drive, its gravel washed partly away or deeply embedded in the hard clay. The house was old, like most all the lake houses. Made of weathered cedar, its rough gray boards and gray roof blended right into the pine woods. The gray stone of its chimney had come from the local quarry, just down the road, a warren of caves where children were not allowed to play. She parked next to Martha's pickup and got out. Martha's jacket was thrown on the front seat. The cage-trap was in the back of the camper shell, with the camper's rear door open, likely to give the cat air. When she stepped up to look, a hiss and a growl stopped her. Leaning in, she flipped back a corner of the towel.
The cat hit the cage screaming with anger and striking at her, making her step back away and drop the towel over the wire. She guessed Dr. Mackay hadn't had time to do the operation. Or he had used the same thing, the inhalant, that he'd used on her own cats. Well, Martha and Idola were here, Idola's old Ford parked beyond Martha's pickup. She guessed Martha had just forgot to call, though that sure wasn't like Martha.
As she crossed the garden and up the five steps to the deep front porch with its glider and rocking chairs, two cats jumped off the glider, looking suspiciously at her. Neither was Rebecca's Nugget. Idola had half a dozen cats. The front door was tight closed. She pressed the bell and could hear it ringing inside. Waiting, then ringing again, she put her ear to the door. Listening for their voices or for footsteps, she pushed the button hard twice more. The silence from within was dense and complete. No smallest sound, no scuff of feet or creak of wood.
Turning, glancing around the yard, she saw the two cats in the garden behind her, half-hiding, the dark brindle and the gray peering shyly out from the bushes. She rang again then tried the door. Folks seldom locked their doors. The McPhersons, living up here so far from everyone, hardly bothered to lock up even at night.
When the latch gave, she pushed inside, calling out to Idola.
Her voice echoed as she moved through the rooms. The house did feel empty. A tabby cat was on the couch, warily watching her. It leaped away when she approached. Why was it so skittish? Idola's cats weren't skittish. Calling out again, she circled through the big kitchen and the parlor, and Mrs. McPherson's bedroom. Maybe Idola and Martha had walked up the newly graveled road looking for Rebecca's cat, or down along the lake. She couldn't see from the kitchen window down to the dock, the angle wasn't right.
She stood at the bottom of the stairs listening and calling, then went up. Climbing the bare, steep steps to the upper floor, a chill began to prickle along her arms. Suddenly she wanted to go down again.
There were three bedrooms upstairs, and a bath that had been added long after the house was built. The back bedroom was the largest, looking out on the lake. Idola and Rick had no children yet, they'd been married only a year, so the two smaller rooms were empty, except for some storage boxes and Rick's loading equipment for his hunting rifle, and some fishing gear.
The big bedroom was furnished with antiques from Idola's grandmother, a lovely old spool bed and a crocheted coverlet, a cherry dresser with a marble top, a pretty bentwood rocker; and a huge rag rug that Idola and her mother had made together. All the windows were open to the lake breeze. Looking down the back, down the wide swath that had been cleared between the dense trees for the zigzag steps, she could see the wooden dock eighty feet below.
No one was there, no sun mat or towel lying on the dock, no one in the water swimming. The empty rowboat was tied to its mooring, a bucketful of rainwater in the bottom. She looked along the lake in both directions, as best she could among the pines. Three houses stood along the cove widely separated by the thick woods. To her left, where the hills dropped down to a little stream just at the end of the cove, stood the newest house on the lake, a two-story cedar with a wide porch overlooking the water, and a wide dock below skirting out over the marshy shore. Two rowboats were tied to the dock. These folks came up only on occasional weekends. She saw no one now, no one on the porch or the dock, and no figure behind the windows, the glass reflecting only lake and trees.
The house far to her right was hardly visible, sitting high on the hill among the heavy pines. It, too, would be empty; that couple both worked, she at the drugstore, he as a postal clerk. The third house, just across from her, sat low to the water where the shore was flat and muddy. Its narrow side deck, that led down from the road to the front door, was barely above the lake's backwash; the house had stood empty for years, had been flooded so many times it was falling apart, the walls and carpet rotting and moldy She knew, from exploring with Idola and Martha and Rebecca, that the floor inside was knee-high with beer cans and with trash not mentionable in polite company. She bet there wasn't no one, all at that end of the lake. Moving to the side window to look up the gravel road, she caught a glimpse of gold and white among the piled-up dirt and leaves where the tractor had been working. But the next instant, it was gone. Nugget?
She could just see the back of Albern's backhoe, pulled beyond the gravel off to the side where he had been taking out trees and scraping the road; that road had been clean washed out in the storm last winter, and half a dozen pine trees had been uprooted. Hurrying downstairs again, she let herself out, listening for her friends' voices. The silence was so complete that she was aware of the katydids, the constant buzz of summer that one seldom noticed.
Moving up the one-car road, she paused by Martha's open camper shell, wondering if she should close it. The cat needed air, but with the back full open he was sure prey to roving dogs or a bear. Either could bend and twist the thin wire of the cage. Black bears came down from the fancy tourist resort up on the mountain where the city folk fed them, bears that had forgot how to be afraid of humans. When they didn't get enough handouts in the resort, they came snooping around the back roads looking for garbage, bears that would take a dog or cat apart in a minute; though they'd turn tail if you shouted.
And the dogs that ran in packs were near as mean. Pet dogs, let to roam loose, would gather together killing calves all over the county. Big dogs. Dogs that came home again at night wore out from killing, to lie by the fire gentle as rabbits, playing with the children, the blood on their muzzles licked away. And not an owner among the lot who'd believe that his dogs killed livestock.
Well, but this cat was so mean that likely no sensible hound or bear would bother him. Turning away from the pickup, she headed up the hill along the side road where the land jutted like a fist thrust out, high above the water. The lake shone far below, on her left and straight ahead. It would appear again around the next curves to her right. The new gravel was hard to walk on; she stayed to the edge on the pine needles.
Just beyond the first curve in the rising hill, the big backhoe loomed, its dark green metal rusting along the bottom where the mud got to it, the whole tractor thick with dirt. The bucket attachment at one end, the big scraper at the other, it stood in shadow beneath the trees, waiting like some silent beast until Albern came, to work the earth with it. A man would leave his tractor on the job for weeks, until he finished up. Albern's car wasn't there. She guessed, after being up all night searching for Susan Slattery, he'd likely be a-sleeping. The pine trees that had fallen in the storm were tumbled against the hill, stripped of their branches, ready to be sawed into firewood. He had cut other pines, too, clearing for a building site, had left only the maples standing. The Ford dealer from Birmingham had bought the lot, meant to build a fishing cottage. The adjoining lots might could stay empty for years. Goose Lake had no golf course or tennis courts or fancy club to draw city folks.