Page 213 of It Happened on the Lake

“How would I know? Was he into drugs?” Camille asked, shifting her booted foot again. “If he was, then, by God, he was there with that lot.”

“Mom, please.” Lynette sighed and dropped the towel onto the raised hearth. “I think it was just pot and—”

“There is no such thing as ‘just pot.’ We’re talking about marijuana, Lynnie! Have you ever seenReefer Madness?”

“Oh, Mom, stop!” Lynette sat on the sofa next to her mother’s recliner. She took Camille’s hand. “The police are busy. So let’s just keep to the topic.” Turning to face Rand, she said, “It was a bad scene, and as I said, the people who lived there just took off.”

“Scattered like leaves in the goddamned wind,” Camille interjected as the budgie hung upside down for a second, before saying, “Pretty boy,” clear as a bell.

“Mom taught Enos a few words. Right, buddy?”

He repeated, “Pretty boy,” and Lynette went on, “I don’t even know if they talked to the police. A lot of their things were just abandoned.”

Camille interjected, “As I said, it was a frickin’ pigsty!”

“She’s right, a real mess.” Lynette patted her mother’s thin shoulder.

“Do you have forwarding addresses or phone numbers where they might be reached?”

“What do you think?” Camille snorted. “Those little sons of bitches left us with all the bills. Phone included. Electricity. Gas. All fell back on Victor and me. You think they’d leave us any way to contact them? Hell no, they didn’t! Hippie scum, that’s what they were!”

“Mom!” Her daughter warned.

“It’s true.” Camille shifted away from Lynette’s touch, and her chin jutted more sharply.

“Fine, I know,” Lynette conceded and explained. “Mom’s right. We couldn’t locate any of them, and we tried.”

“Poof!” Camille threw open her palms “Vanished. You tell me they’re not guilty!”

Lynette said, “The person who signed the lease was Tristan Van Something.”

“No, no. That was the girl’s name. The one he was with. Van Arsdale. Janet Van Arsdale,” Camille interjected and scowled at her daughter. “You’re as bad as your father with names. The person who signed the lease was Tristan Vargas.” Camille’s lips pursed. She took off her glasses and began cleaning the lenses with the cuff of her sleeve. “I’ll never forget that little snake in the grass with his long hair and round glasses. Mr. Cool.”

“That’s right.” Lynette was nodding. “He went by a nickname.”

Rand nodded. “Trick.”

Chelle asked, “Did you know him by any other name?”

“No. Just Trick. Dumb name if you ask me.” Camille seemed certain.

“Like I said, we never heard from him again,” Lynette interjected. “Oh, we tried. But Dad wasn’t well even then. He had a stroke soon after and, well, we didn’t rent the place for a while.”

“Just locked it up.” Camille was nodding, adjusting her glasses. “If you ask me, the police were in on it. That would be your father,” she said, glaring at Rand. “They knew drugs were being peddled out of there. For the love of Christ, you’d have thought they’d do something about it. But did they? No. Just looked the other way.”

“Mom,” Lynette said in a cautionary voice, “Detective Watkins’s father was on the—”

“I know who he was! Didn’t I say so? Don’t treat me like I’m a half-wit!” Camille snorted, then motioning toward Rand, said, “They came here poking the bear, asking questions, didn’t they? Well, they’re gonna get the truth from me. I’m not sugarcoating anything.” She folded her arms over her chest defiantly.

“It’s fine,” Rand said.

“Okay.” Lynette seemed mollified. “So, later, when it was obvious no one was coming back to the cabin,” she explained, getting the conversation back on track, “we cleaned the place up and started renting it again.”

Chelle asked, “What happened to their belongings?”

“Got rid of ’em,” Camille said. “This was after Victor passed, mind you, but we junked everything. Well, except what was in that attic space.”

“They left things in the attic?”

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