Terry Dunn spotted the prosthetic leg jutting from a branch overhanging Mill Creek. He laid his paddle across the bow of his canoe and adjusted his bifocals. Canoeists and kayakers cut around him, their snarky comments audible on the water.
He squinted at the leg, a relic of last week’s flood left high by receding waters. Made of wood and corroded metal and rotting leather, it was an archaic, fantastical thing.
The tree limb and its faux-human counterpart formed a whimsical juxtaposition, as if a steampunk superhero leapt into the branches. In the next instant, the leg would whisk from view as this mysterious hero continued on a mission to prevent the assassination of President Harrison or the bombing of the New York Stock Exchange. Danger, and the fate of the free world resting on his shoulders. At the center, a beautiful, enigmatic woman with glossy sable hair, skin like pale silk, and midnight pools for eyes.
Terry wanted it.
In the stern, his roommate, Steve, said, “What’s the problem?”
Both men were in their sixties and of similar build—though Steve was round versus stocky, had a Van Dyke instead of a brush mustache, and protected his bald scalp with a white Panama instead of the camo ball cap Terry wore over his buzz cut. Diametrically opposed in mindset, no one—including Terry and Steve—understood why they hadn’t killed each other.
Terry flapped a hand in dismissal as he calculated the best path through the flotilla of canoes and kayaks participating in the Mill Creek Yacht Club’s spring float.
“Hold up a minute.”
Mill Creek was a glorious slice of secret wilderness, cutting invisibly through the city at the bottom of a deep gully bordered by industrial properties, railways, and highways. Captains of industry once dumped toxic waste into the waterway with impunity—a state of affairs lasting more than a century, until reclamation efforts began in the nineties.
The creek’s hidden nature also meant few people were aware of the recent flood. Today’s float trip—the first of the year—had been up in the air due to the fast-running water. They’d made the final decision that morning, with Commodore rubbing his chin and Dick poking his tongue in his cheek until they decided the superb weather pushed the odds in favor of proceeding.
The creek had yet to return to normal levels, spilling over banks and climbing up the gully. Muddy tree trunks rose out of the swollen waters like columns in a forgotten temple dedicated to an ancient deity.
“Treasure, two o’clock.” Terry shoved his paddle hard, fighting the current and ignoring the protests of other paddlers as he cut across their path.
Steve added muscle to the task. “I can’t believe Commodore didn’t spot it first.”
“Too close to 666. Everyone wants their rest stop.”
“Watch the rocks.”
“Water’s too high. It’s not a problem. When we reach the tree, swing around so you’re downstream.”
They worked silently, maneuvering the canoe under the prosthetic. Steve jammed his paddle into submerged rocks to hold their position. The canoe rocked.
Terry laid his paddle aside. “Hold ‘er steady while I stand up.”
“Capsize us, and you can forget watching The Expanse on my Prime Video account.”
Terry waved the threat off, mentally crossing his fingers that it wouldn’t come to that. He stared into the canopy and planned his attack. Even a man who’d been robustly active all his life had to pay close attention to logistics when he reached the age of sixty-seven.
He positioned his feet to maintain balance, planted his hands on the bench and rose slowly, shifting to counteract the boat’s movement. The leg remained four maddening inches beyond his outstretched hand.
“Too bad we didn’t come last week. I could have pulled it out of those branches without standing.”
“Last week a stunt like that would have put both of us in the water with your drowned body caught in a strainer next to mine and that leg laughing at us.”
“Hand me my paddle, will you?”
Steve grunted. Terry felt the paddle tap his kidney. He reached behind for it, never taking his eyes off his prize. If he nudged the leg just so ...
“I’m going to drop it in the water on the lee side. Don’t let it get past you.”
He ignored the eye roll most likely happening behind his back and reassessed his balance. The canoe wobbled as he raised the paddle. He edged it higher, inserting it between the prosthetic and the most likely branch. A slight twist of the blade and the leg popped out, neat as an extracted tooth. It splashed into the creek, bobbed, and drifted. Terry returned to his seat as carefully as he’d left it while Steve fished the hunk of flotsam out of the water.
Leg in hand, Terry bumped his bifocals up on the bridge of his nose and examined the fine grain of the waterlogged wood, the detailing in the metal, the elegant line where the shin swooped into the foot. He grinned at Steve. “An exceptional find.”
Steve removed his panama and wiped the pink skin on top of his head. “I hope it was worth the effort. What the hell do you want with it, anyway?”
“He’s a dragon, not an it. He’ll make a perfect figurehead. Better than Commodore’s, better than Dick’s. I shall name him Smaug.”
“Whatever you say, Bilbo.”
Terry drew two fingers delicately along the length of the shin. The finish was long gone, but the wood was sound. He made a moan of pleasure.
“You call that thing ‘Precious’ and I’m dumping both of you in the water,” Steve said.
“Commodore’s bear will hide in shame after Smaug takes his rightful place.”
Terry retrieved a tangle of bungee cords from the waterproof bag in the belly of the boat and applied himself to mounting the leg upside-down to the bow in imitation of Viking longships.
“Ahoy! What do you have there?”
Commodore, founder and longtime president of the Mill Creek Yacht Club, pulled his canoe alongside. The aqua teddy bear strapped to Commodore’s Mud Turtle was number five, one through four having rotted off over the years.
Terry leaned back so Commodore could admire his new acquisition.
Sun glinted off Commodore’s glasses as he examined the artificial limb. “A gift from the storm gods. It’s been outside a long time. Wonder where it was hiding.”
“Who knows? He’s mine now,” Terry said.
Commodore pushed off. Terry and Steve followed, rounding a bend to see the last of the kayaks turning into 666. The apocalyptically named dog leg—which terminated at Metropolitan Sewer District culvert number 666—was a popular rest spot and the location where Commodore’s second in command lectured about Mill Creek history to paddlers.
Steve rested his paddle across the gunwales and swiped a sweaty hand across a sweatier brow. “Ready for a break?”
“I could recite Dick’s talk in my sleep. Push on.”
“You just want to find any junk before everyone else.”
“I’m looking for Smaug’s lair. The storm may have uncovered it.”
“Your dragon swam upstream?”
“It happens.”
“If I don’t get a break, you’re buying when we get to Boswell’s. Or we can trade places.”
“Sure, whatever.”
Terry avoided Dick Brewer’s lectures because neither Dick nor Commodore appreciated his frequent interruptions and corrections. That, and he enjoyed having this part of Mill Creek to himself.
Creosote-soaked pilings introduced the final stretch to the barrier dam and the Ohio River. Giant truck tires and shopping carts marred the view, impossible to remove after decades mired in mud.
Decommissioned bridges and unidentifiable concrete structures lifted his geek heart. Here he was Samwise, encountering ancient ruins as the Fellowship of the Ring floated down the Great River Anduin.
As they rounded the next bend, a dozen heron rose from the trees. Terry followed their flight into the sliver of sky above the gully.
Steve’s voice intruded. “Will you look at that.”
A fallen cottonwood spanned the channel. Debris piled on the partially submerged crown, narrowing the waterway to a dangerous degree. The resulting funnel forced a waterway carrying several times its usual volume to more than double its already accelerated speed.
Millions of gallons passed under the trunk with less than three feet of clearance. Hit the trunk, and it would knock your head off.
Terry stilled his paddle. The current tugged, insistent, dragging the canoe downstream.
“Make for the bank.”
“Left or right?”
Slower water on the crown side. Easier portage around the roots. Roots it was.
“Left.”
They fought to the quieter water along the bank. Terry steered the canoe between rocks, lodging the aluminum craft in the soft bank.
“This is a fine mess,” Steve snarked. “We’ll be lucky to get around.”
Terry ignored Steve’s grumbling and calculated. The ground was a mire that could suck your boots off. Beyond the crater, a thirty-foot mudslide exposed railroad tracks at the top of the bank. Sun shone through the ties, casting long, striped shadows down the bank.
He and Steve might safely portage around the tree, but every person who followed increased the risk of further collapse, sending tons of earth on their heads. Half of the paddlers on today’s trip were first timers, not prepared for a touchy situation.
Terry’s stomach growled. He could forget lunch at Boswell’s. He wondered how long they would be stuck, how they would get everyone out.
Behind him, Steve’s grumbling continued unabated. “You know my back. I get the front end.”
Steve’s back injury only appeared when convenient, but Terry didn’t argue. They wouldn’t move the canoe any time soon. “We need to check this out before the others get here.”
“I’ll do it. I need to stretch my legs.”
Terry waited in the boat, rummaging his bag for an abused power bar while Steve slogged around the enormous fan of exposed roots.
“Holy moly. You’re gonna want to see this.”
Terry’s irritation vanished. “Treasure?”
“A find, for sure.”
Terry hauled himself up the bank, rounding the rim of the muddy crater until he stood beside Steve. He scanned the wall of muck and twining roots and shook his head. “I don’t see anything.”
“Step back and shade your eyes.”
An image emerged from the depths of the tangle, dark, incomprehensible shapes taking form. Bits of corroded brass in a fan-like pattern, then a spray of the studs—that’s what they were—leading downward. He was looking at a jumpsuit nested in and pierced by roots: tiny, organic filaments, meandering tendrils, ancient, fat, snakes.
The jumpsuit might have been black, though who could say? He followed a pant leg downward. Bell bottoms? Hard to tell. He scanned the morass for the other leg and found a shoe. Above the shoe a bone floated, suspended in the roots and stained brown from decades in the earth.
His eyes shot up. A foot above his head, a mottled skull presided over all, tucked between the remains of a collar that must have reached the man’s ears when he still had them. Centipedes, beetles, and a variety of unidentifiable insects swarmed the figure, giving it the gruesome appearance of movement and life.
Terry turned away, gagging as he pulled a sweat-soaked bandana from around his neck. He mopped his face with the damp cloth.
“Please don’t say it.”
“Looks like Elvis got back to his roots.”
Lia stepped away from her easel, needing to see the canvas from normal viewing distance. The single iris bloom lacked the depth she wanted. Too blue.
She looked at the clock. An hour until she and Peter left for the latest Avengers film. Plenty of time to glaze the petals and clean up.
In the corner, Chewy curled in the center of Honey’s bed. It was three sizes bigger than he needed and the stuffing leaked from a tear in the side. Chewy had a newer, nicer studio bed, but he preferred this one. She couldn’t bring herself to throw it out.
“I know, little man. I miss her too.”
Chewy sighed. In the apartment overhead, Peter’s phone rang.
She turned her attention back to the painting, loading her brush with acra violet, stroking it along the foreground petal. The canvas would be ready for another layer by Tuesday, Monday if she was lucky. Ten days till her showing with David’s new client. Fingers crossed the iris would be finished in time.
She loved her new studio. Northern light filled the octagon sun porch at the rear of the Victorian she’d recently bought. The spacious backyard would soon be a riot of color. By July she’d be harvesting her own heirloom tomatoes. I can have gazpacho every day if I want.
Home ownership was an unexpected pleasure after a lifetime of apartment living. Right now she was in the honeymoon phase, with property taxes, repairs, and lawn maintenance yet to materialize. She wondered how long it would take to adjust to the realities that came with taking on the huge Victorian and decided denial was a wonderful thing.
Feet clomped down the back stairs, followed by the murmur of Peter’s voice on the phone. Lia gave the painting a critical look. Too red. Peter would call the color something like “cherry after a bar fight.” She dragged a rag across the surface to pick up the excess paint.
Chewy whuffed.
Viola padded in, a panting, black chow-lab shadow with a blacker temperament. Peter followed, all long legs on a runner’s build, phone to ear as he shoved dirt-brown hair out of the midnight blue eyes that kept his face from being ordinary. His face tensed, like Viola spotting a nemesis cat.
She could forget the movies.
She cocked an eyebrow. He held up a finger. Long pause. Peter’s eyebrows slowly raised until they disappeared under his hair.
“We’re on our way. Don’t let anyone near it.... No photos. I don’t want to see this on Facebook.… I’ll call you back as soon as I know.”
He pocketed the phone and ran a hand through his hair again, a sign he was sorting through his thoughts.
“What happened?” Lia asked.
“Terry and Steve found a skeleton dressed like an Elvis impersonator on Mill Creek.”
“Oh?”
“I called it in. They want me to handle the scene.”
“That’s Homicide. Why tag you?”
“Homicide is jammed up and I’m the nearest warm body. I’m hoping you’ll come with me.”
“Me?”
He flashed her a look, half exasperation, half begging.
“They’re your friends. I need you to keep an eye on Terry. You know how he is.”
Terry’s itch for detectival pursuits—born when Lia’s ex-boyfriend turned up dead at the dog park—manifested as an unwholesome marriage between a kid in a candy store and a bull in a china shop.
“They’re your friends, too.”
“More like inconvenient in-laws. We could be gone a long time. Will you take the dogs to Alma’s?” Alma, their septuagenarian neighbor, was Peter’s surrogate grandmother and nanny to Viola and Chewy.
“It’ll be a wrench, but I’m willing to give Chris Hemsworth a pass. This time.”
Peter gave her a solid hug and kissed her forehead. “Not what we planned, but at least we’ll spend part of the afternoon together. Get your creek clothes on. We’re meeting Cynth at the launch site in twenty minutes.”
Lia watched Peter’s retreating back. She grumbled to Chewy, “Everything I own is creek clothes.”
An eight-foot chain-link fence surrounded the city garage in Millvale where Terry’s group launched their float trips. Lia drove through the gate, the tires of Peter’s Blazer biting gravel as she headed for a huddle of vehicles at the far end of the otherwise empty lot. Beyond the vans and SUVs, the overfull creek lapped at the ground.
Cynth McFadden stood up in the back of her Ford Ranger as they approached, waving them over. Her creek clothes consisted of neat khaki shorts, a royal blue golf shirt, and a matching ball cap with “POLICE” embroidered on the front, her long, wheat-colored braid threaded through the hole in the back. At her feet, a trio of kayaks jutted out the tailgate.
Peter ended the phone call he’d been on since they left home. “Water’s too high. They never should have gone out in this.”
“At least we won’t have to climb down the bank. The entire lot must have been under water last week. I wonder what they did with the trucks.”
“Garbage trucks have tall wheels. They can handle a foot of water.”
As Peter and Lia exited the Blazer, Cynth grabbed one end of a kayak. “You sure have interesting friends.”
Peter took the other end. “Consider them job security.”
“Lucky you.”
The detectives worked in perfect, wordless tandem, sliding boats onto the grass. It was intimidating, the way Peter and his fellow officers intuited need and responded, operating from a kind of hive mind Peter said you developed after you breeched a dozen or so drug houses together. Lia grabbed the double-ended paddles from the bed of the truck and wondered if she and Peter would ever have that near-telepathic rapport.
Kayaks sorted, Cynth pulled a day pack from the cab and tossed it on the grass. “What’s the plan?”
Peter grabbed a duffel filled with granola bars they’d picked up along the way and dropped it next to the largest kayak. “The site is approximately two miles downstream—”
“We couldn’t put in closer?”
“All fenced industrial property. It’ll take more time to find a place to put in than it would to just go. Amanda and Junior are on their way. They’ll take one of the club canoes.” Peter jerked his chin at a pair of giant aluminum canoes upside down on the grass. “Not an ideal way to carry out remains, but it’s the best we can do under the circumstances.”
“What’s my role?”
“We have three dozen people trapped by a downed tree.”
“Crowd management, then. Do you need me to take statements?”
“The organizer has contact information for everyone. The detective assigned to this can interview anyone he wants later. No need to make work for ourselves when someone else will just want to redo it.”
Peter pulled two life vests from the back of his Blazer, handing one to Lia. “You’re in the blue kayak. Let’s get moving.”
Fast, muddy water carried Lia downstream with little effort on her part. Peter and Cynth paddled ahead, strategizing and considering potential scenarios. Their voices mixed with the splashing of paddles as Lia’s muscles warmed to the exercise. She relaxed despite their grim destination, taking in the unexpected wilderness and allowing her mind to wander.
Wooded banks grew higher as they paddled south, climbing thirty feet or more. Drowned trees rose eerily out of the water, a layer of mud marking the flood level, bits of trash caught in lower limbs. Above the flood line, the pale green of young leaves dusted the sinuous tracery of branches.
Lia made a career of painting flowers. Flowers made people happy, and she enjoyed the interplay of shapes and colors. But her first love was trees.
Trees were strong and soulful. She felt them in her core, especially in winter and early spring when they were bare of foliage, naked and yearning.
Each tree had its own internal logic expressed in replicating patterns. DNA she supposed, though she preferred to think of it as a defining quality, or even personality: crooked branches with the frayed ends of neural pathways; flowing like tears; stiffly straight and pointed; Machiavellian tangles; sweeping up and inward like hands cupped in prayer.
The way a twig joined a branch and the direction it grew mimicked branch to bough and bough to trunk, until you had thousands of tiny terminations reaching into the future, every one of them expressions of the same idea. And hidden in the earth, a structure equal in size to the crown, boring through obstacles as if seeking the past.
There had to be something profound buried in these thoughts, but her musings always stopped before she was forced to consider her own past and the bits of it she carried forward. She found the hypnotic rhythms of trees soothing. That was all.
Startled flocks of long-legged waterfowl flew up, delighting her. Wooded banks gave way to a section of creek that had been paved from the bed to the top of the bank, forming a giant concrete channel. Lia looked up into the sky, feeling like a leaf drifting in the bottom of a storm ditch.
The trees returned, punctuated by industrial concrete structures: small, blocky buildings and platforms accessible by intriguing steel rungs, something you’d see in dystopian films—The Hunger Games or Logan’s Run. Lia filed the images away, determined to return for plein air painting.
Peter’s voice floated across the water. “We’re here.”
Lia pulled her eyes from an intriguing arrangement of creosote-soaked pilings lining the shore. Canoes and kayaks dotted the water ahead, spilling around a bend where the creek narrowed between high banks.
They rounded the curve to find the giant tree interfering with everyone’s Saturday plans. Upended roots and a mudslide blocked the left bank, the slope a gaping, open wound. The trunk spanned the creek, crown dragging in the water and filling the right bank of the gully to the rim, branches choking with flood debris.
Cheers and applause rose. Lia imagined the boaters were bored, cranky, and ready to leave. Peter and Cynth stopped paddling, waving at the crowd while waiting for her to catch up.
Cynth said, “Quite the party.”
“Party’s over now,” Peter said. “Or it will be.”
“What next?” Cynth asked.
Peter jerked his chin at the shore. Terry and Steve manned an aluminum monstrosity with an inverted mannequin leg mounted on the prow. A tall, skinny man with a halo of white hair worthy of Einstein floated in a matching canoe fronted by a bedraggled teddy bear and bearing the name Mud Turtle. Beside him, an aquatic version of the Marlboro Man had deer antlers strapped to his boat.
“The guys with Terry must be in charge. I’m hoping they have a plan to get these folks out of here without destroying the scene. Lia’s job is to distract Terry.”
“Thanks a lot,” Lia said.
“Fun for everyone,” Cynth said.
Peter handed Lia the snack-filled duffel bag. “Can you pass these out?”
Lia took the bag, heading for the nearest canoe. Paddlers flocked to her granola bars like ducks to bread crusts. A young guy asked if the bars were paleo. Lia offered him a bar and said, “Air is paleo.” He shrugged and grinned, then took the bar.
After a brief bank-side conference, Einstein paddled to the middle of the creek, gesturing for the group to gather. His high voice rang loud and clear over the water.
“Thank you for your patience. Now that Detectives Dourson and McFadden are here, we can finish our float. Due to the unusual circumstances, we need to forgo our usual foray through the dam.”
The crowd booed.
Einstein continued, “We will still hold the initiation ceremony for new paddlers. Boswell’s is expecting us.”
A voice from the crowd: “How are we getting out of here?”
“We’re shooting the sluice. Neither bank is passable, and paddling upstream in this current is a no go. Unless you want to hike out and find your own way back to your cars, the only way out is through. There’s enough clearance if you sit in the bottom of your canoe and keep your paddles inside. I’ll direct you in. Dick—”
Einstein nodded at the man Lia dubbed Cowboy, whose canoe had edged next to her kayak while Einstein talked. Dick held up a hand and waved. He was sandy haired, with a healthy mustache. Chiseled bones preserved a face ravaged by sun and time. Late forties, early fifties? A tarnished medallion and the absence of a toothpick in his mouth saved him from being a cliché.
Dick caught her looking at him. He tipped his battered straw cowboy hat and winked.
Einstein, oblivious to Dick’s flirting, nodded at a twenty-something man in vibrant sport gear. “—and Paul will be on the far side to catch you. If we have problems, we’ll reassess.” He pointed at a spot along the right-hand bank. “Line up over there. We’ll send you through one at a time.”
The crowd muttered, grumbling mixed with sharp sounds of agitation. No one volunteered to hike out.
Lia turned to Dick. “Why the fuss? The creek can’t be that deep.”
He pointed at the crown. “The tree and debris form a natural dam. You have several times the normal volume of water forced through a fraction of the space it needs. The only way it can respond is to speed up. We’re asking people to pass through blind, with no control. You have submerged rocks, pilings. If you capsize, the current is too fast to stand up. You could drown.”
“Oh,” Lia said.
“If you fall in, don’t fight it. Hold your breath and wait for the creek to widen out. The current will slow and you can swim for shore. We’re sorry about this. If we’d known about the tree, we would have canceled the trip. Haven’t you paddled the creek before?”
Lia shook her head. “I’ve only been on lakes.”
“Different animal,” Dick said.
Terry and Steve joined Lia as she paddled to the line forming along the shore. She leaned over from her kayak and hissed, “You could have called 911. This isn’t even Peter’s district.”
“Trust a discovery so portentous to strangers? Certainly not,” Terry said.
“We had plans,” Lia said.
“Admit it,” Steve said to Terry. “You called Peter because you want to poke your nose in.”
“The thought never crossed my mind.”
“I’m sure it didn’t,” Lia said.
“Of course, If Peter sees fit to ask for my help—”
Steve snorted.
“—It’s an evocative scene. The tree is exceptionally large. I would expect it to be a hundred years old or more.”
“That jumpsuit is pure disco,” Steve said. “That makes your bony friend a time traveler because you can’t bury a body under an established tree.”
“You could if—”
A cheer erupted. Dick’s canoe and the Mud Turtle sat alone in the center of the creek, a safe distance from the sluice. A man in the rear of the Mud Turtle fought the current while Commodore held the gunwale of Dick’s canoe. Dick pulled his paddle in and lowered himself to the bottom of the boat.
“We’ll all have wet pants when this is over,” Steve said.
The crowd fell silent. Commodore gave Dick’s canoe a shove. The current caught, whipping the canoe under the trunk. Lia counted off the seconds. One ... two ... Three ... Four....
Cowboy Dick shouted from the other side of the tree. “Clear!”
More whoops. Paul’s kayak approached the launching point.
“Slick as grease from a goose,” Steve said.
More cheers as the second boat passed under the tree.
Dick called from the other side. “Clear!”
Orderly as patrons at a bank, the line inched forward, the passage of each boat punctuated with celebratory whoops.
Lia scanned the shore, expecting to see Peter and Cynth doing something cop-like. The pair stood, watching the procession of canoes. Probably making sure everyone gets out safely.
“What are people saying about the bones? Anything interesting?”
“Whiners, all of them,” Terry said. “Claimed they had a right to see Elvis. I held them off at great peril.”
Lia looked hard at Terry. “You didn’t sneak a souvenir?”
Terry’s eyes widened in shocked affront. “Moi, interfere with a crime scene?”
“There are no stray bones in your pocket?”
“Certainly not!”
“I may ask you to turn them out when we reach dry land.”
“I kept an eye on him,” Steve said. “He’s clean.”
“Okay then.”
Terry huffed. “You accept Steve’s word and not mine? Outrageous!”
Lia and Steve shared an eye roll.
Lia asked, “Any theories that don’t involve Elvis, time travel, or little green men?”
Steve removed his Panama hat and wiped his skull with a handkerchief. “Commodore started the club back in the nineties. If anyone knows anything, it’s him.”
“Is he the guy who looks like a cross between Larry Byrd and Einstein?”
Steve guffawed. “That’s him.”
“What’s he saying?”
Terry’s face took on a mutinous expression. “He hasn’t said a word.”
Lia imagined Terry had spent the hour it took for her, Peter, and Cynth to arrive at the site pumping the Commodore for information. “Does Commodore have a real name?”
“He’s Bruce. Bruce Koehler.” Steve said.
“How long have you known him?”
Terry scratched the scruff on his chin. “First time I went out on the creek was … when was it? Five years ago, September. I met him at a cleanup in Sharonville.”
Commodore gave Lia a reassuring smile as he grabbed the side of her kayak. The boat bobbed, pulled by the current. Commodore was much stronger than he looked.
“Is your paddle tethered to your kayak?”
Lia nodded.
“Hold it lengthwise along the top of your kayak, bend over and relax. Dick will catch you when you clear the tree. Just pretend this is Congo Falls at King’s Island.”
Lia draped herself over the top of the kayak with her arms extended forward, the double-headed paddle pinned under one arm. She turned her head to the side, one cheek pressed into the top of the boat, giving her a view of Commodore’s life vest.
Commodore asked, “Ready?”
Lia took a deep breath, pretended she was doing yoga, and relaxed further into the pose. “Ready.”
The kayak jumped forward. Lia’s stomach lurched, her heart racing as the bank flew past. One ... two ... Three.... She counted eight seconds. The kayak slowed, then jolted as someone grabbed the side.
“Clear!”
The crowd whooped as Lia pushed herself upright.
Cowboy Dick grinned at her, the sun catching his silver medallion. “You okay?”
Lia ignored the blood rushing in her head. “Yeah, I think so.”
He nodded at the boats congregating downstream. “Hang out until we get everyone through. Then we’ll head to the dam.”
The rest of the trip was uneventful, ending in a lake-sized basin beneath slopes ten stories high. Water moseyed through the retracted barrier dam, exhausted from the frantic pace at the sluice.
A rocky path dove into the water, leading to a submerged landing. Veteran paddlers hauled people and boats onto the bank while younger backs ported boats to the top.
Lia was grateful for the assist. Sweaty, hungry, and drained from exertion and nerves, she barely made it up the hill. She considered skipping Boswell’s, but Terry was driving and it was easier to go along for the ride. And if she ate, she might head off a crash.
They arrived at Boswell’s Alley to find the Yacht Club invasion in full swing. Creek-worn paddlers milled the pub, shouting above ESPN on the large-screen TV mounted over the bar, sound bouncing off exposed brick walls like ping pong balls.
Someone grabbed Terry and Steve. Lia followed the current of migrating bodies to a back patio, where the first to arrive dragged glass-topped tables together. A small, forty-something woman flipped through her pad, scribbling orders on separate checks.
“What’ll you have to drink?” the waitress asked, starting a new page.
Lia looked over the woman’s head, searching for Bruce Koehler, A.K.A. Commodore Einstein. “Sweet tea. And I’d like a Boursin burger and onion rings.”
“Smart, getting your order in early. I’ll have your tea right out.”
Lia located Bruce and took the empty seat beside him. “I wasn’t expecting to put on a performance when we landed.”
The promised initiation had consisted of two rows of old timers clacking paddles overhead, forming a gauntlet. Inductees passed through in whatever manner they desired, the loudest cheers awarded to newbies with the most athletic and imaginative moves. Lia had executed a series of pirouettes while making a mental note to get even with Terry for putting her on the list. At least she got a free T-shirt out of the deal.
Bruce grinned. “You did a wonderful job.”
The waitress returned with a loaded tray, setting a pitcher of beer and a half-dozen mugs on the table. Bruce poured, saving the first mug for himself and handing the rest to anyone within reach. He offered the last mug to Lia.
“Thanks, but I have tea coming.”
“You’re an adaptable woman. I know this wasn’t how you planned to spend your Saturday.”
“This was more interesting. I pass over the creek all the time but I never think about it.”
“Most people don’t, and they have no clue how vital the creek is to Cincinnati.”
“I talked to Dick Brewer after we landed. He said he met you when you were taking water samples.”
Bruce scratched his chin. “That was right after he retired from the army. The club was in full swing by then.”
“Why do you take samples?”
“We monitor the creek for the organizations that make up the Mill Creek Alliance. A hundred years ago, the city economized by tying sewer overflow into the storm sewers. In those days, pig carcasses from the slaughterhouses were so deep in our branch of the Erie canal—where Central Parkway is today—people said you could cross the water by walking on them.”
Lia wanted that image out of her head before her burger arrived.
While Lia’s stomach rebelled, Bruce continued, “They’re slowly separating the lines. Three decades ago, we had raw sewage in the creek every time we got a hard rain. Factories still dumped toxic waste. You saw a chemical sheen on the water every afternoon.”
Lia swallowed hard and pushed on. “You wouldn’t know it now. Except for the concrete channel, it looks like a nature preserve.”
“The concrete was an error in judgment by the Army Corps of Engineers. We’ve learned that trees and other vegetation do a better job of preserving the banks and are better for the overall health of the creek. Dick caught a trout in the Cumminsville stretch last year. We’re exceptionally proud of that.”
“You’re proud of a trout?”
“This particular species has a delicate constitution. Finding one three miles upstream is evidence of our success. In 1997, Mill Creek was named the most endangered urban waterway in America. Our combined efforts have turned it into one of the cleanest. Sewer water still runs into the creek, but it’s treated except in the hardest storms. It’s important to have the sewers tied into Mill Creek.”
“Why is that?”
“It’s the only way to ensure we have water running through the creek year-round. You’ve got to have running water to support the habitat, or it will dry up and die. The added water keeps the creek alive.”
“You’ve been involved with the creek for a long time.”
“Since the early nineties. Back then everyone talked about Mill Creek, but nobody had laid eyes on it. I said we needed to go down and see for ourselves. That’s when I started the club. We’re the unofficial eyes for the Mill Creek Alliance.”
Dick Brewer tossed his straw hat on the table and snagged Lia’s rejected mug. He took a long swallow, winking at her. “Hey, Bruce, how long have you been waiting for that cottonwood to come down?”
“Longer than I’ve known you,” Bruce said. “I sat under that tree. Didn’t know it harbored an escaped Elvis impersonator.”
Lia asked, “You saw the bones?”
“We had to assess the bank.”
Terry and Steve dragged chairs over and shoehorned in. “They wouldn’t take my word for it.”
The waitress arrived with Lia’s burger and another pitcher. Bruce poured a mug, handing it to Steve. “Thirty people to think about. Had to make sure. They’ll have a job of it, getting those bones out.”
Lia took a guilty bite of burger. Peter and Cynth would be stuck on the creek, slogging through mud for hours with only a handful of granola bars.
Terry’s hand snuck over her onion rings. She smacked it, earning a wounded look. “Get your own,” she said. “How do you suppose the bones wound up there?”
Bruce rubbed his chin. “A more interesting question is whether Elvis was buried there or not.”
“What do you mean?” Lia asked.
“Creek banks aren’t stable. There’s a thing called slippage. Trees at the top of a bank migrate down to the water and eventually fall. That’s why we lobby for a sixty-five foot easement along the creek, to allow for new growth to maintain bank stability. That cottonwood might have started out by the railroad tracks.”
“Someone buried that poor man by the tracks and planted a tree to hide him?” Lia asked.
“Could be,” Dick said. “But if he did, he’s stupid.”
“Why do you say that?”
Bruce refilled his beer. “Cottonwoods have shallow roots. Every time we run across a downed tree, it’s a cottonwood. Should have planted a sycamore. Deep roots, hardly ever fall. I’m glad I don’t have to collect those bones.”
Terry turned to Dick. “You’re the construction guy, how would you get them out?”
“Not my bailiwick,” Dick said. “I couldn’t hazard to say.”
“You need to give Lia your card. She bought a Victorian. Nobody’s done anything to it in decades.”
“Are you forgetting the painting party?” Steve said. “And the floors?”
Terry waved a hand. “Cosmetics. I bet the wires are shot. The porch could use attention. Then there’s the attic—”
“The attic is fine,” Lia said.
“Stuffed full of Ruth Peltier’s junk?” Terry said.
“Some of it has historical significance.”
“If you call Beanie Babies and Hughes High School memorabilia significant.”
Bruce raised an eyebrow.
“Ruth owned the house until she died,” Lia explained. “We’re working our way through the last of her property.”
Bruce grinned. “Eye of the beholder. I’m sure she treasured her Beanie Babies.”
“They were gifts from students,” Lia said.
Terry filched an onion ring. “She put up with hordes of delinquents for thirty years. Why remember them after they’re gone? Your brickwork needs tuck pointing.”
Lia searched for something, anything to change the subject. Her eyes settled on Dick’s medallion, an elegant silver relief of a walking bull mounted in a bronze setting. “That’s a lovely piece,” she said, tapping her chest just below her collarbone.
Terry waved the stolen onion ring in the air, dripping ketchup. “It’s a public service announcement. He wears it because he’s full of bull.”
Terry was on a roll.
“What you said about slippage,” Lia said to Bruce, “Is it possible he was buried lower on the bank and a mature tree migrated over the grave? That would explain how someone dressed for disco wound up under an older tree.”
“I’m sure that tree isn’t as old as you think,” Bruce said. “Cottonwoods grow fast.”
Dick nodded. “Faster if it has a body to feed on.”
Viola met Peter when he arrived home, a black smudge ghosting down the steps in the darkened hall, a soft woof in welcome, waving her silky mop of tail. He knelt to ruffle her neck fur.
“How are you, girl?”
She ducked out of his arms and headed up the stairs. Peter followed, peeling off the T-shirt that was now only fit for changing oil. He gave it a sniff and tossed it on the bathroom floor, so as not to contaminate the clothes in his hamper. His jeans and sneakers followed. Viola stood far from the pile, grinning.
“Smart girl,” he said. “I know I stink.”
Peter stood in the shower as pounding water eased sore muscles and washed the accumulated stress and muck of the day away. Some people meditated. This was better. You couldn’t find showers like this in newer houses. He silently blessed Ruth Peltier for never updating the plumbing.
When the water turned tepid, he stepped out to find Viola lapping up a puddle on the floor. She lifted her muzzle and began licking stray drops off his shin. Peter pulled his leg out of reach and grabbed a towel. “Not that I don’t appreciate the assist, but that’s not proper behavior for a daughter of the house.”
He wrapped the towel around his waist and padded barefoot into the kitchen. “Let’s find you a biscuit.”
Three biscuits later, Peter traded his towel for a robe and turned to the stairs. Viola barked, ran back to the kitchen, turned in the doorway and barked again in a classic Lassie move. There were biscuits trapped in a box, screaming for rescue in a frequency only a dog could hear.
“Not now. I have to see my other best girl.”
Viola’s tail dropped. Peter thought he heard a canine snort, but she fell in behind him as he went downstairs.
Urban light pollution bled through the windows, illuminating the way. Peter appreciated the ability to navigate the dark without fumbling for light switches, but he missed seeing the stars. He needed to find time to take Lia camping, someplace where you couldn’t see your hand at night and the Milky Way dazzled the sky.
Chewy lifted his muzzle as Peter opened the door to Lia’s room. Viola settled onto her downstairs dog bed, dropped her head onto her paws and looked away. Used to her moods, Chewy curled back into his favored sleeping position, executing a kind of canine shrug.
Across the room, Lia’s moon-pale face rested easy in sleep, hair spilling across the pillow, the swoop of her neck disappearing under her quilt. He sat beside her and brushed a strand of hair off her cheek.
She stirred, blinked, and smiled. “Hey, Kentucky Boy.”
“Hey, Tonto.”
“Today I’m Tonto?”
“Thanks for having my back today.”
“I didn’t do much.” She sat up and scooted over to give Peter room.
Peter sat against the headboard, drew Lia to him so her back snugged against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and dropped a kiss on her shoulder.
“It wasn’t the day we wanted, but you made it easy for me to do what needed to be done. You always do.”
“Glad to be of service.”
“Hear anything interesting while you were hanging out?”
“Einstein—”
“Bruce?”
“That’s him. He thinks the body was buried up by the railroad tracks. He says trees migrate down creek banks and then fall over. He called it slippage.”
“That’s a fancy trick, a corpse moving underground.”
“You think someone did that on purpose, planted a tree on top of that body so it would move?”
“If the killer planted that tree, I imagine he did it to keep the body from being found. I don’t think he would have done it if he knew the tree would fall over. That’s counterproductive.”
“Dick said Commodore has been watching that tree for years, expecting it to come down. What do you suppose that means?”
“That just means he’s tuned in to the creek. If he knew what was under there, I don’t imagine he’d say anything about it to anyone, do you?”
Lia yawned. “I’m sure you’re right. What time is it, anyway?”
“Almost midnight.”
“What took so long?”
It was a question, not an accusation. Unlike Viola, Lia was not in a snit over being neglected.
“Amanda and Junior had to cut the whole mess away from the tree, roots and all.”
“How’d they manage that?”
“Like disarming a bomb with a thousand red wires. Surgery with a Sawzall and pruning shears. Amanda cussed a blue streak the whole time.”
“Poor Junior.”
“I wouldn’t worry about Junior. You could hit him with a hammer and he’d just go about whatever he was doing.”
“Poor you, then.”
“Cynth and I were conveniently banished to the creek to see if parts of Not Elvis—that’s what Amanda calls him—were laying on the bottom. Which was pointless because the water was too muddy to see anything.”
“Maybe she wanted you out of the way.”
“Fine by me. We spent most of the afternoon on the water, mostly out of earshot. After that we sieved a hundred gallons of muck to make sure nothing important was left behind. Then there was Junior, going over the area with a metal detector.”
“Sounds like you needed a bigger team.”
Peter sighed. “No room on the site for a larger team and no one else available with all hands processing that club shooting across town. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best we could do under the circumstances. You also have to factor in the quality of any evidence we were likely to get. It’s not like we’d find tire treads or fingerprints that needed to be preserved. I would have been home hours ago, but we went into the station to take care of paperwork. I want it in Parker’s hands first thing Monday morning.”
“Why don’t you want the case?”
Lia had become expert at reading between his lines.
“We won’t solve it.”
“You won’t?”
“Cold cases get solved two ways. Technological advances allow us to extract new information from evidence collected at the time. Even if we figure out who he is and where he was killed, any evidence that existed at the time is degraded, has been painted or paved over, or is just plain lost.”
“I love a man with a positive attitude. What’s the other way?”
“Smart ass. Someone knew all along and finally decides to talk. By the clothes, those bones date back to Jimmy Carter’s presidency. Anyone who knew anything is dead or has Alzheimer’s.”
“Still, it would be interesting.”
“Sure. Interesting like Jack the Ripper. Thousands of experts examined the evidence for more than a century, and all we have are a dozen theories no one will ever prove.”
“I liked the case Patricia Cornwell made for Walter Sickert.”
“Only because you think his paintings stink. I’m betting on the guy who discovered the first victim. Smart money says he was in the middle of butchering Polly Nichols when he heard the cart coming, and covered himself by running out and raising the alarm. But it doesn’t matter. There’s no way to prove anything.
“Not Elvis has the potential to stall a career and haunt the poor slob who gets him. He’ll spend his retirement drinking in the basement while he reviews the file he stole from the department and wonders what he missed.”
“Thus the expedited paperwork, to end your involvement before it begins.”
“Plenty of crime in the here and now. Solving those means justice for the living and preventing future crimes. I’d rather do work that makes lives better. Not Elvis is only good for click bait and the book someone is bound to write.”
“When you put it that way, I see your point. Did you eat?”
“Cynth and I split a pizza. That’s one advantage of the move to College Hill. La Rosa’s right across the street. It’s not Dewey’s but it will do.”
“Don’t ever let the locals hear you say that.” Lia turned in his arms, pressed a cheek to his shoulder and ran a finger down the lapel of his robe. “I imagine you’re tired.”
Peter smiled into her hair. “Woman Who Expects So Little, I’m never that tired.”