Natalie was on her way back to the station when she got the call from Dispatch about a reported drowning in the lake. It was all hands on deck. She turned her car around and headed east.
It wasn’t a call you wanted to get. It was never easy, emotionally, to recover a body. Occasionally, some misguided soul would take a dare and swim out to the island, thinking it wasn’t so far away. Often the water was choppier than expected. The cold could paralyze you. Hypothermia was a real killer. So was exhaustion.
During the summer months, motorboats and water-skiers buzzed across the lake and didn’t always notice the lone swimmer making his solitary way out to the tiny island. There were sudden drop-offs into deep water, where logs and other debris could snag you. Currents in the lake were powerful and unexpected. Drownings happened quickly—less than three minutes.
A common saying in these parts was, “You can’t legislate common sense.” Upstate New York had approximately six million visitors a year, and every year, a couple of people died in Burning Lake. Media campaigns and safety task forces weren’t enough. Warning signs and barbed wire fences were easily broached. Poison ivy wasn’t a deterrent. Park rangers writing tickets and public service announcements couldn’t prevent the next tragedy from happening.
By far, the most dangerous part of the lake was Devil’s Point on the eastern shore, where cliff jumping had been a tradition for generations. Here, the rocky outcroppings rose fifty to eighty feet above the water and attracted thrill seekers of all ages. It was a rite of passage for some of the locals to dive off the cliffs, even though such acts were forbidden.
The BLPD didn’t have the authority or the resources to patrol Devil’s Point, which was part of the state park. Jurisdictions needed to be respected. Park rangers were constantly issuing citations for alcohol-related offenses and trespassing, but it was an ongoing problem. The rangers were exclusively in charge, except in an emergency, when local law enforcement agencies got involved.
Now the waterfront came into view with its docked boats, food shacks, and designated swim area. A County Fire Rescue vehicle came tearing up the road toward Natalie and zoomed past her, grit from the blacktop swirling up. She let it go, then waited a beat before pulling into the public parking lot, where she found a spot and got out. The lakefront consisted of a manicured park with an information kiosk, several restaurants, three lifeguard towers, public restrooms, and a boardwalk nestled on the western shore of the lake. People took their kids swimming here in the summertime, where they were monitored by a team of lifeguards. Water-safety tips were posted on the menus of all the lakefront restaurants. SWIMMERS SHOULD ALWAYS WEAR A PERSONAL FLOTATION DEVICE. USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM. CLIFF DIVING AT DEVIL’S POINT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN.
A large group of people had already gathered on the sandy shore to watch the rescue efforts this morning. Members of the BLPD were out in force. Firemen from the surrounding townships had come to assist, along with an ambulance crew, a volunteer search-and-rescue organization, and a handful of forest rangers. Natalie wondered who could’ve been crazy enough to go swimming this early in the season, before the spring sun had warmed the region’s lakes. But it was also inevitable. It had been a thing for decades—proving your manhood.
Natalie crossed the waterfront and approached her old friend, Jimmy Marconi, and his elite cliff-and-dive-rescue team of rangers. They were packing up their gear. Nobody was suited up. They all wore their vinyl jackets with the DWW logo on back.
“What’s going on, Jimmy?” she asked.
“False alarm,” he explained, stashing an oxygen tank into his emergency bag. Slim and pallid, in his late thirties, Jimmy looked more like a computer nerd than a forest ranger, whereas the six men he supervised were athletic looking and deeply tanned. “Some jerk took his kids up to Devil’s Point, and after he jumped in the water, the kids couldn’t see any bubbles, so they called 911. Turns out the bastard was trying to scare them, just for laughs. He resurfaced in a reedy area and hid there where his kids couldn’t see him.”
“Just for laughs?” Natalie said, disgusted. “He did it deliberately?”
“Yeah. The idiot.”
“Imagine doing that to your kids,” one of the team members, Samuel Winston, interjected. Natalie and Samuel had gone on an embarrassing date once, many years ago, while he’d been attending a firefighting seminar at the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy and she was a sophomore in college. She’d been so relieved to find another upstate New Yorker who missed the same things she did—Stewart’s ice cream, Duff’s wings, cider donuts, Saranac beer—that she gave Samuel her phone number. But then, during their date, they completely ran out of things to say as soon as they’d exhausted their nostalgia for back home. After an awkward farewell, they moved on. Now Samuel was married with kids, working for the DWW, and always happy to see her.
“It’s patently dumb,” Jimmy said. “You don’t take chances like that when your kids are watching.”
“It’s hubris,” Samuel said, stashing more gear into a duffel bag. “What if he died right in front of them? I have two little ones at home, and I can’t imagine doing anything like that to them.”
“You can’t fix stupid,” Jimmy said with a shrug.
“So the idiot’s okay?” Natalie asked them.
“Yeah, he waded ashore, unharmed,” Jimmy said. “Surprised by all the commotion—or so he claims.”
“Are any charges being brought against him for this stunt?” she asked.
“No. He received a severe talking-to by the fire chief, though,” Jimmy joked.
“A severe talking-to?” Samuel repeated. “They should fine his ass.”
“I’ll kick his ass,” muttered one of the other rangers on Jimmy’s squad.
Natalie counted at least fifty officers, firemen, and volunteers gathered on the waterfront, along with the dive team. False alarms cost money. “At least nobody died this time,” she said, looking on the bright side.
“Silver lining,” Jimmy said. “We got lucky.”
She remembered teasing Jimmy mercilessly about the mustache he was attempting to grow. She remembered laughing at his knobby knees. He’d been in Grace’s class, and he used to hang out with her and Daisy. He was an easygoing guy who used to butcher the lyrics of all his favorite songs. He’d attended the prayer vigil with her family. He was there during the days and weeks that followed, while Natalie and Grace dragged themselves to school in a grief-stricken stupor. He’d been part of the background her entire life, like wallpaper. Like elevator music. Bland but comforting. A nice guy with a poorly developed personality. He was oatmeal. He was vanilla.
Now Jimmy pinned her with his sincere gaze. “How’re you holding up, Natalie?”
She expelled a long breath. “Okay. Thanks for asking.”
“You never think it’ll happen here,” he said sadly. “I remember when Daisy and I had to dissect a frog for biology, and she was so squeamish about it I told her just think of it as plastic, you know? Not real. She did okay after that.”
“How much money did we waste today?” Samuel said indignantly, packing up the last of his gear. “This is the second time this year, right? How are we supposed to recoup our costs?”
“The taxpayers will have to eat this one,” Jimmy said with a shake of his head.
“Better misled than dead,” Natalie said, and they all laughed at that.
Dark humor was a comfort in the worst of times.