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 exalted in their eulogies. Men who assaulted their wives and abandoned their families were remembered for a friendly greeting on the street, while for the most part the abuse and threats went unrecorded. He smiled. “So if he’d gone across on the ferry, you’d have no doubt he would have greeted you.”
“As I said….”
“But you said there was a second reason you were sure it wasn’t him you saw returning with the bicycle.”
“And I was coming around to that.” Terry winked. “In my own fashion, of course.”
Dan waited as Terry took a quaff of his beer and set the glass down.
“The other reason I am sure it wasn’t Craig Killingworth I saw with the bicycle that night was because it wasn’t a man. It was a youngster. Last run over on the ferry but one.” Terry looked triumphant.
Dan thought it over. “Did you recognize the kid?” he said at last.
Terry shook his head. “Afraid not.”
He had one final stop. He drove back along the parkway to the OPP detachment on Schoharie Road. Inside the long grey bowling alley, flanked on either side by an empty parking lot, Dan’s name elicited an immediate response. Saylor came through the door, pressed smartly into his uniform, greeting him as though he were a long-lost friend.
He ushered Dan into a spacious office the colour of unfired pottery. A policeman’s sanctuary. He’d covered his walls with posters, handwritten notices of crimes, some recent and others from long ago, alongside the Xeroxed faces of people wanted in connection with any number of incidents. Some of the reprobates scowled at the camera while others smiled, seeming to enjoy their little moment of notoriety. The usual detritus of police station life.
Saylor was clearly glad for the interruption in his routine, where Dan might find himself pressed to make even a fifteen-minute opening in his day. Small town-big town, he mused. That was the difference. In smaller places you had time for people, even if they were casual acquaintances.
“Good to see you, buddy. What brings you out here?”
“Just passing by,” Dan said. “I thought I’d drop in and say hello.”
“You got the file I sent you?” Saylor asked.
“Yes, I did,” Dan said. “Thanks for being so prompt. I’m looking into it now.” He paused. “I take it there’s been nothing further on the Ballancourt case?”
Saylor looked at Dan curiously. “No. It’s still closed. Were you expecting a change of direction on it?”
Dan affected an in-confidence tone. “Am I the only one to think it was awfully convenient for Lucille Killingworth