Diamonds on the Lake
Michael Wessler stood in front of the open bay window in his kitchen, breathing in with each autumn breeze that came whipping off the lake 100 feet away. He watched the sun glint off the water at sharp angles as he washed his hands before pulling meat and condiments from the refrigerator to make a sandwich. It was the kind of October day that reminded Michael why he loved living in Michigan, a place where summers were extremely hot and winters extremely cold, but when they met perfectly in the middle, sometimes only a matter of days, all was calm and right and good. The home phone rang, and Michael stopped, briefly confused; it wasn’t the ring of his Blackberry, which he used for everything. He relaxed quickly, however, as he realized that the ringing cordless from the living room would not lead to any kind of business call, and the beautiful day at home would not be too terribly interrupted. He pushed the cutting board holding his disassembled sandwich to the back of the counter, out of reach for Burger, the black lab belly-down in the corner pretending to be uninterested, and walked through the kitchen to the living room.
“Hello?”
“Good afternoon, is this Michael Wessler?”
“Yes, it is, but I’m really not interested in whatever is being sold. This number is unlisted so you need to remove me from whatever list I’m on…”
“Sir, I’m not selling anything,” the voice, now far more authoritative, interrupted. “This is Detective James Speeder from the Sheriff’s Department. I’m calling about your daughter.”
Michael remained silent, looking out at the lake from the couch now, considering the different angles of light than the ones coming through the kitchen window.
“Sir? Mr. Wessler? Are you there?”
“Who the fuck is this?” Michael asked after an intentional pause. He felt the blood pulsing in his cheeks and neck as his heart reacted to the voice on the phone.
“As I said, my name is Detective James Speeder. I’m calling because…”
Michael interrupted, clinching his fist. “If you were actually a detective, or at least one who knew what he was doing, you’d know that my daughter has been dead for ten years. Now, who are you?”
“I’m sorry to upset you, Mr. Wessler. I do know your daughter passed away ten years ago, and that’s what I’m calling about. We believe we’ve found the man responsible.”
After a ten-minute conversation, where Michael said next to nothing, the detective went into intricate, bureaucratic detail on how the man came to the attention of the county sheriff, but Michael retained none of it, never grabbing hold of one detail the detective offered. Michael stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring at the sun, at the water, but not seeing anything but light that slowly narrowed in his squinting eyes. He sensed the conversation coming to a close and attempted to respond appropriately. He would need to come down to the station. He would need to try and identify the man, whether he had seen him before, whether Georgia, who would have been turning 24 in just under a month, had any sort of relationship with or to the man. He nodded. The detective repeated the request and Michael agreed, said he’d be down there later that afternoon. He looked at the unfamiliar handset and found the power button before tossing the phone onto the couch. It bounced on the firm center cushion and clattered across the ground, settling under the coffee table. Clouds had begun to slide over the lake, and the light was changing, scattering the shadows of pine trees across the walls.
Michael walked into the sheriff’s station dutifully later that afternoon and asked for Detective Speeder. He sat down to wait and looked around the office. He distantly examined framed documents of validation, of excellence. Photographs of proud men, standing together in the victory of justice, but it was only the setting that triggered this understanding, not any form of familiarity. He thought of the old days, the days he never knew himself, before blood spatter and DNA testing and computerized fingerprints. He thought of that same DNA testing that had proven the only man the police had found and arrested innocent, of the dead daughter he had buried cold and young with no one to put the blame on but himself. He heard the crack of the old wood in the door as it opened.
“Thank you so much for coming in, Mr. Wessler,” the detective said, shaking the sitting father’s hand. He walked over to his desk, removed the holstered gun from his belt, and placed it in the lower desk drawer. He sat.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” Michael said.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t clearer on the phone,” the detective began.
“No, I know why I’m here today. I just don’t know what we’re all doing here, now. It’s been ten years.”
“I know, believe me, I understand. I know all the feelings that come with cases like this. But we never stop looking, and that can come as a surprise to people in your position.”
“My position?” Michael asked, looking past the detective out the blinded window.
“Someone who’s lost a loved one. But we need your help. We want to resolve this, but we need your help.”
He reached into the top desk drawer and pulled out a folder, opening it to pull out a photograph. Michael knew he couldn’t see the file, or at least assumed there was some sort of rule against it, but he was overcome with the urge to read it all, as the factual report it was; the technical language, lab findings, times and dates, all used to describe how her small, fragile body had been dragged from the lake and taken back to shore, offloaded and then reloaded in the coroner’s van only 100 feet from where her torn, bloody clothes had been found in the woods. He wanted to read, to try and understand from a new perspective, the DNA results, the footprints, the sparse eyewitness accounts that all depicted a man, a person of interest, rather than an evil specter, a monster who had taken his daughter away from him. But the detective removed the photograph and closed the folder, denying entry, and placed it back in the top drawer.
“Have you ever seen this man before?” The detective asked gingerly, sliding the photo across the desk, rotating it smoothly with his index finger.
Michael looked down at the photo, expecting to see viciously grinning eyes buried in a cold, calculating face, staring back at him, the truth clearly released by the photo printer’s ink. But he didn’t. He saw an older, confused man, his pale skin littered with wrinkles and blemishes and unkempt facial hair, all framed by the long, grey hair of a weathered, washed-up country music singer, years of drinking and loneliness personified. He felt sick. He shook his head, all of an answer he could muster, and passed the photo back across the desk. He tried to breathe the way he had learned in yoga, attempting to wash away the nausea. He watched the detective slide the photograph back in the file that bore his name.
“Who is he?”
“We don’t know, exactly,” the detective answered. “We’re waiting to get some results back on DNA testing and fingerprints. The only ID he had on him was a YMCA card from 1988; his name is Jerry Anders. All we know is that we picked him up for public intoxication and his DNA matched an open case, your daughter’s case.”
Michael shook his head. “I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
Michael left the office with no new answers, only a face and a meaningless name; a solid image to replace the sinister one in so many dreams for so many years that had changed night after night, only fictional manifestations of the horror his daughter had faced in her last moments. He had wakened from so many of these dreams in fits, screaming, shaking with rage. He had not stopped his nightly excursions into a runaway morbid imagination for years, even once his marriage had dissolved under the weight of something neither of them could explain or bear. The dreams had stopped eventually, of course, long after he had stopped walking by her room in the late hours of darkness, the early hours of dawn, long after he had moved out of that house and into his own on the other side of the very lake they pulled her from. Ten years had passed, and he found himself in his new house, his new life, waiting to hear from the detective about what would happen next. He sat in silence, trying to read, waiting, nearly wanting, to return to that same emotional mooring that had filled so many years that would’ve seen her grow up, go to college, become a woman. But he didn’t. He simply waited. Finally, on the second night of no calls stirring the handset on the coffee table, he decided to go into town.
Jay’s Lodge was a hunting-style bar that stood just off the improvised Main Street. It had been many things over the years, an Elks Lodge, a restaurant, even a live music venue, which had hosted some of the worst performances since the invention of live music. The lodge had been in its current state for almost 15 years the night Michael found himself walking there through autumnal winds that grew colder with each gust. It was a perfect establishment for the small town of Harrison, Michigan, embodying the charming balance between rural and fashionable, rustic and metropolitan, a balance that came from a very concentrated, albeit instinctual, effort by the wealthier citizens to feel beautifully unplugged. That was the reason Michael had moved his family there originally, and why he had stayed when the lake began to snarl at him with the memories of his daughter. But this night, he felt a part of the community, as though he had built parts of it himself, and when he walked into Jay’s, he appreciated the smiles and familiar glances that had years ago replaced the stares and whispers.
“Hey, Michael,” the bartender greeted him. “What’ll it be?”
“Bourbon, neat. Thanks Gary,” he replied, removing his coat and sitting down at the bar. He idly watched various sports highlights on the television bolstered above the bar while waiting for his drink. Mounted next to the television was an 11-point buck head. A hunter’s cap, with the ear-flaps folded up, had somehow been wedged between the antlers and sat above the glass eyes, frozen in a stare over the patrons. Michael stared at it, wondering who had shot the deer, who had gone about the business of removing the head and performing the taxidermy. He had never hunted. Gary placed the drink down in front of him and he brought his eyeline around to face him, then smiled.
“Thanks, Gary.” He placed a five on top of the counter, waving Gary away with his single dollar’s worth of change.
“Hell of a buck, huh?” Gary asked, facing the ancient register.
“Yeah, never really noticed it before. I mean, I’ve seen it. Just never noticed it.”
Gary turned back around, wiping the bar down with a white, frayed rag. “Yeah, shot it about 20 miles from here, around the other side of the lake. You ever been on that side? Beautiful. I mean, it’s nice over here, but you forget how crowded even a little place like Harrison can feel once you get out into the open.”
“Yeah, I’ve been over there. Not in a long time, though.” Michael sipped his drink, looking back at the mounted horns.
“Oh, shit, I’m sorry. God dammit. I didn’t mean to…”
“No, don’t worry about it, Gary. It’s been ten years. Can’t ask everyone to watch everything they do and say for a decade. Don’t sweat it.”
“Shit, Mike. If you say so. I just know better is all.” Michael waved it away, as casually as the dollar change. “Well, the next one’s on the house anyway.”
“That isn’t necessary, but if you’re going to push me on it,” Michael said, grinning to try and relax the aging bartender. He knew if he didn’t act alright, it would eat Gary up for a week.
“I am going to push you on it until I have to pour it down your throat. Best we just be civilized about it.” Gary smiled back.
“It’s funny that came up, though. You’ll never guess who called me just two days ago.”
Michael explained the whole thing to Gary the best he could. Said it was the damndest thing he’d ever heard. Ten years after, not a single lead or warm body to speak of, and all of the sudden, they caught the guy cold. Michael shook his head, Gary shook his.
“You know what the funniest thing is? If it had been a few months ago, or even a month or so from now, they never would’ve known. Detective told me that every couple of years, they do DNA swabs on anyone they bring in for a couple months, doesn’t matter what for. It’s expensive, so they can’t do it all the time, but every now and then, they’ll get a match and clear a case. This time, they got a hit on Georgia’s case.”
“I’ll be fucked,” Gary said, still shaking his head. “I’ll be fucked seven ways. So what now? How are you holding up?”
Michael put his hands up, animating a shrug. “I don’t know. I keep waiting to know, to feel something specific, but I don’t. If anything, I’m just taken back by the whole damn thing. The luck, the odds. And what the fuck was the guy still doing in Harrison? Or coming back here? That’s what I keep thinking about.”
“Well who was he?” Gary asked, wiping down clean high-balls behind the bar. “You know him? Or recognize him?”
“Nah, never seen him before. He definitely doesn’t live in town. I just saw his photo, but he looked awful. Confused. Frazzled. Probably just a drifter. Long, grey hair, grey stubble on his face, skinny. I keep waiting for that old rage to kick in, the rage I felt when they thought it was Jim Sykes for all those weeks. But I don’t feel it.” Michael stopped short on his rambling, sensing something in Gary’s face. He had narrowed his eyes and slowed his wiping, which had moved back to the top of the bar. He shifted his gaze to the back wall and began surveying the whole bar. Michael turned around to see what had distracted him, but saw nothing but the same handful of drinkers scattered about the room.
“What’s up Gary? You alright? Don’t stroke out on me, man,” Michael said, finishing his drink and sliding the glass back and forth.
“That guy was here the other night,” Gary said, finally.
“Who?” Michael turned around, trying to follow Gary’s line of sight.
“The guy you’re talking about. The police came and arrested him in the parking lot. He had too much and started following people to their cars. Wasn’t aggressive or anything. Didn’t say a word, actually, from what they told me. Just walked behind them. Police came and he flipped, tried to run, then tried to fight them. They tazed him, cuffed him, and took him in on PI. But that was the guy, just like you described him.”
“Holy shit,” Michael said, looking back at the buck head.
“Holy shit is exactly right,” Gary replied. “How about that free one now?”
Michael nodded. Gary turned around to the shelves of bottles reflected in the mirror behind him. He reached for a cheap bourbon, before moving his hand up to the wax-top bottle of Maker’s Mark, and pouring a generous amount over two cubes of ice. He placed it in front of Michael who returned a small, faux-salute.
“Have you called Amy yet?” Gary asked, raising his eyebrows as he removed bottles of Stella Artois from the rustic bartop. Michael took a large swig.
“Fuck,” he said. “Not yet.”
Michael lay in bed, perfectly drunk with The Kinks playing softly from his iPod alarm clock, and looked at the darkness beyond his second-story window. He considered walking over to the bench underneath it and attempting to fall asleep there, but the sudden movement of Burger, turning once before laying down tightly against his outstretched leg, once again calmed him. He smoked, blowing the intermittent clouds up towards the ceiling fan. He hadn’t smoked in bed since college. Far beyond the window, two red lights blinked back and forth from the top of a radio tower. He reached over and picked up the home phone receiver that had sat, nearly unused, next to his bed since he moved into the new house three years ago. He heard a beep as he found the power button, putting the phone up to his ear to antiquatedly check for a dial tone before freezing over the number pad. He reached again to the nightstand on his left, grabbed the Blackberry, and searched for Amy’s number. He hadn’t spoken to his ex-wife in almost a year. He began dialing and, just as quickly, powered off the receiver. He tossed it to the foot of the bed, accidentally hitting Burger who jumped up and looked with sad, confused, Labrador eyes at the man who’d grown old only a few years earlier before turning and resuming his position. Michael lit another cigarette and stared at the alternating red lights, flashing in the distance, the dock to his drunken Nick Carraway.
Michael woke early, visions of his daughter still in his head, but different than earlier dreams of her. She was older, years older than she had been on the other side of the lake. He didn’t wake with rage or tears. Burger jumped out of the bed, rising with Michael’s first movement, and he followed the dog down the stairs. It was over two hours of coffee and reading before the home phone rang; three days later, Detective Speeder finally called. Michael found himself surprisingly pleasant on the phone, recognizing the tone of his voice, the inflection, as that of someone fondly greeting a friend, or accepting an invitation, warm, somewhat formal, appreciative. The detective remained formal, as well as vague, and asked Michael to meet him at the station that afternoon. He reiterated and insisted that, although there was no reason to worry, the meeting was somewhat urgent.
He walked into the station and was asked to wait in Detective Speeder’s office again, just like a few days earlier, and started having bits of déjà vu looking at the wall and its adornments. He waited longer this time. Finally, the detective came through the door, patting Michael on the back as he greeted him. His face was tired, gravity taking its toll around the eyes and along the side of his mouth. He forced a smile, attempted to make small talk about the changing weather.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but why exactly am I here now? I never got any more details, and I’m just a bit confused on what my role is in this whole situation.”
“I understand, Mr. Wessler. I called you in to tell you just that, explain everything as best I can. I just want to know how you’re holding up, with all of this being brought up again after so long.” The detective sipped his steaming coffee, his grey eyes maintaining contact over the paper rim of the cup.
“I’m alright, actually. Or maybe not, maybe I’m approaching a breakdown, but for now, I’m fine. To be honest, I’ve tried to be angry, to feel the same kind of hate for that man that I used to feel. But I don’t.” Michael immediately felt embarrassed, that he had divulged more than the detective cared to hear. But the detective nodded, compassion in his tired eyes, and Michael began to believe his sincerity.
“That’s normal. I know it’s strange, but I’ve had very similar discussions with people in your position before. Acceptance is a big part of grief, primarily because it’s not as fleeting as so many other emotions. Once you really reach it, it’s permanent, and this whole thing is basically asking you to undo it.” Michael looked at him, surprised at what he had heard. The detective smiled and shrugged. “We’ve had shrinks come in to the station to help us with this stuff.”
“Ah, that explains it,” Michael said. “Didn’t sound like cop terminology.”
The detective cleared his throat, shifted in his chair.
“Well, I should tell you why I asked you to come in today.” He stopped there, perhaps waiting for Michael to engage him further.
“I know that you need my cooperation, or that it would at least help. So if you’re worried that I can’t handle it or I’m not going to be willing, don’t be. I’m finding it hard to care as much as I think I should, but I can handle it. I’m on your team…” Michael stopped, realizing he was repeating himself, and waited for the words obviously waiting in Speeder’s mouth.
“Well, thank you for that, Mr. Wessler. But I called you in today to let you know that the investigation is over. Jerry Anders hung himself in the holding cell last night. He’s dead.”
“What? I thought you guys removed the shoelaces and all that. I don’t understand.”
“No, not when they’re waiting to officially be processed. Proper charges hadn’t been filed, he was in his own clothes in a holding cell under observation. The officer left to get coffee, thought Anders was sleeping, and when he came back, Anders was dead.”
“So that’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Michael returned home from the station in a calm state and with a blank mind. He tossed his keys on the entry table out of habit and walked to the rear deck, where he let Burger out to relieve himself. He went into the kitchen and watched the black dog bound through the landscaped quarter-acre that led down to the water, keeping an eye on him in case he decided to go for a late-fall swim. When Burger finally returned up the stairs to the deck, he stretched out on his back to sun his belly. There were very few scattered, whispy clouds in the sky, and the sun shone brightly, pleasantly through them. Michael opened the window and let the afternoon breeze sweep through the kitchen.
He went to the refrigerator to get out the ingredients to make a sandwich and walked back to the window. It was his favorite place in the house, and he loved this daily lunchtime routine, when work didn’t require him to be elsewhere. He began spreading mustard over the two slices of bread, but suddenly set down the knife and pulled his Blackberry out of his pocket. He began to scroll through his list of contacts before having a second thought and putting it on the counter. He walked to the living room and took the handset off its base. He dialed from memory and listened to three rings, looking out over the lake, tracing the angles of light reflecting back at him with his finger. The fourth ring was interrupted by the click.
“Hello?”
“Amy.”
“Michael, is that you?”
“How have you been?” He looked down at his feet, toeing the edges of the large rug that stretched across the middle of the room.
“Uh, I’ve been ok. Good. This is such a surprise…”
“Did I catch you at a bad time?” He asked quickly, too quickly, and bared his self-consciousness. He felt his face wince involuntarily.
“No, not at all, it’s fine. How are you?” Her voice was soft and a little raspy, forgiving.
“I’m good,” he said.
“Good. I was a little worried that you were calling because something was wrong,” she said, more a question than a statement. The line was silent on both sides.
“I guess I just wanted to talk to you, hear your voice,” he said finally. “I’ve been thinking about Georgia lately, and so I’ve been thinking about you.”
She was silent. Michael’s throat released little clicks, unable to produce anything past that, but he knew he’d have to, eventually.
“I’m at work, Michael, and it’s really nice to hear from you, but I can’t do this now. I’m sorry.”
“I miss you. I miss you so much. I don’t think it was our fault, but we couldn’t know that then, couldn’t feel it. You know that now, right?”
“I know, Michael. I knew it then. But it didn’t change anything. It still doesn’t.”
“Are you seeing anyone?” he asked.
“Michael, I have to go. We’ll talk again soon. OK?”
“OK.”
He shut off the handset, turning it in his hands, and he watched the light changing again, then again. It was always changing, and the lake intensified it, made it visible and tangible and real. The wind licked the surface of the water, pushing small moguls from one side to the other, like hundreds of quivering lips. He smiled, some sort of calm, an eternal calm that he’d never known, seemed to move through him. Michael was taken out of his moment by an urgent, persistent scratching. He walked to the door and let Burger back inside, shaking himself thoroughly once he came through the door. The wind had picked up and grown colder and he closed the door quickly. He resumed his position next to the sink, the wind now coming colder through the window. He finished spreading the mustard, carefully placing pieces of turkey strategically on the bread, then another layer on top of that, and finally topped it all with cheese, crispy pieces of iceberg lettuce, and sliced onions. He cut the sandwich diagonally, making two neat triangles, just as Amy had always done for Georgia and, out of habit, for him as well. He stood eating in his spot, Burger curled up at his feet, in the house that had become his home, and looked out over the beautiful silver lake, watching the shimmers of light go this way and that, like a thousand tiny diamonds.
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