Page 142 of It Happened on the Lake

“Never was into that, at least that I know of. It’s the timing that worries me. And then there’s the note from Mom.”

“Have any idea what it means?” Rand said, turning the note over and studying it.

“Obviously she thought that Chase was killed and that whoever did it, whoever ‘they’ were, got rid of his body.”

“But make ‘him’ pay.”

“Right.” Levi took another pull from his bottle and finally sat in one of the side chairs across from the fire. “So somehow one or more of the people she thinks killed Chase is gone, but there’s one left and I’m supposed to make him pay.”

“How?”

“You’re the cop,” he said. “You tell me.”

The timer dinged. “Just a sec.” Rand set his half-drunk beer on a nearby table and went into the kitchen. Using a pair of ratty old oven mitts his mother had once worn, Rand pulled the pizza from the oven and left it on the top of the stove. Cheese ran over the sides of the pan, but he didn’t care and stripped off the mitts. “You want some pizza?” he yelled from the kitchen.

“Nah. Thanks.” Levi shook his head. “Go ahead.”

“I can wait.”

Returning to the living room, he saw that Levi had a torn piece of paper in his hand. “Look at this. I don’t know if you know it, but Sievers bought the old hippie van that was parked down the street when we were in high school. The one painted with flowers and a peace sign.”

“I remember.”

“When I got the note, I looked in the van and I found this.” He handed a scrap of paper to Rand. “It’s part of an old registration for the van, from years ago. Sievers said he bought the van from Tristan Vargas, the dude who went by Trick. Everyone said he was from Texas. That’s where he claimed to have come from. But the VW was registered in Sierra Vista, Arizona. To Larry Smith.”

“Who’s Larry Smith?”

Levi actually smiled, though it wasn’t all that warm. “I did some checking. Saw the driver’s license pictures of Larry Smith and Tristan Vargas.”

“Let me guess. They’re one and the same.” Rand took a swig from his beer. Levi as a private investigator had his own way of getting information. Rand didn’t ask about how, didn’t want to know.

“You got it. An alias. And it looks like Larry from Sierra Vista also became Conrad Nelson from San Bernardino in California in the seventies, after he split from here.”

“After Chase disappeared.”

“Right. He’s been in and out of prison. Once for dealing and the most recent time for assault. Both in California. His record in Oregon is clean as far as I know.”

“And where is he now?”

“That I haven’t been able to figure out. Released from prison eighteen months ago.”

“And you think Larry or Tristan or whatever he goes by now is somehow involved in this?” Rand held up Cynthia’s cryptic note.

Levi shrugged. “I don’t know. This is as far as I got. But he sure took off fast after Chase went missing.”

“He and the rest of them.”

“He seemed like the ring leader, but who knows? I thought you, or someone with the police, might want to look into it.” Levi scowled into the fire. “Maybe you can figure out who Mom was talking about. That is, if she knew what she was doing.”

“Did you find out how your mother got out of Serenity Acres?” Rand asked, studying Levi’s face.

“No.” Levi shook his head.

Rand pointed to the papers strewn over the coffee table. “Can I keep these?”

“Yeah.” Levi drained his beer. “Sure. I mean, do what you want with it. I don’t know what the hell she expected me to do. If she knew what happened to my brother. If she thought he was dead, why didn’t she name names?” He raked his fingers through his hair in frustration, then set his empty on the table. “Oh hell, who knows if she even knew what she was talking about? She was so crazy.”

Rand pinned Chase’s brother in his gaze. “What doyouthink happened to him?”

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