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Detective Garrison is waiting at the top of the path to the lake with a stiff expression.
“What’s happening?” Iask.
“What were you doing out on the lake?” he asks heatedly.
I’m slightly taken aback by the question. I don’t appreciate having to account for every one of my actions, especially to someone I don’t work for and who asked me for my help. His shift in attitude is stark andunsettling.
“Investigating,” I tellhim.
“The lake?” heasks.
“Yes,” I tell him without flinching. “The lake. The incredibly brief details I had to pry out of you regarding Reginald Merriweather and his confession to the 1964 murders have left a lot to be desired, to say the least. I wanted to see the area for myself and try to piece together all possiblescenarios.”
“So, you’re doubting his confession as well,” the detectivesays.
“I didn’t say that. I haven’t come to a conclusion yet. There’s still a lot I don’t know and I’m going to need to look much more deeply into it before I can decide what to think about it. Right now there are details that sway the argument in both directions. But that isn’t why you’re here. Why did you ask me if I was alright? What’s going on? You said there’s a new development in thecase.”
He doesn’t look happy to be moving on from discussing the possibility that Merriweather gave a false confession and the true killer of the first Camp Hollow massacre is still out roaming around, just as the campfire stories say. But he lifts his chin and reverts back to his role as lead detective in the more pressing current case.
“Officers patrolling the camp noticed someone entering the grounds without authorization. They were able to locate him and have taken him into custody,” hesays.
“Who is it?” Iask.
“MikeKirkland.”
The camp director is sitting in the back of a squad car, his hands cuffed behind his back and his forehead rested against the cage in front of him when we get back to the parking area at the front of the camp. A uniformed officer leans against the side of the car, his arms crossed over his chest as if he is both guarding his prisoner and putting him on display like a hound dog in a fox hunt.
The officer steps aside to let me open the car door as I approach. Heat rolls out of the car and sweat trickles down the back of Mike’sneck.
“Get me some water,” I say to the officer. “You can’t just leave someone in the back of a car in thesummer.”
Looking like he’s trying with everything in him not to roll his eyes at the rebuke, the officer walks around to the trunk of his car and opens it to reveal a cooler inside. He pulls a bottle of water from the ice and brings it over to the door. He probably prides himself in being clever enough to have cold water on him all the time and none too thrilled about having to give up one of his bottles for someone he just took intocustody.
“I’ll open it for you,” the officer says, but I stop him.
“Take the cuffs off him,” Isay.
“Excuseme?”
I look over my shoulder at Detective Garrison. “Was Mike committing any particular crime other than trespassing?”
“No,” he says.
“Did you ask him why he was here?” Iask.
The officer looks at me like he’s not understanding why I’m asking thesequestions.
“No,” he says. “I was told not to allow anyone onto the grounds and to apprehend anyone I saw. The only people given authorization were the three ofyou.”
“Is he under arrest right now?”
“No, he isn’t,” Detective Garrison says. “Not at this moment. He’s being detained until we find out what’s goingon.”
“Alright. Then I think it would be perfectly safe and appropriate to remove his handcuffs so he can drink somewater.”
The officer reluctantly unlocks the cuffs and Mike stretches his hands, rolling his wrists as he brings them around to the front of hisbody.
“Thank you,” he mutters to me.
