Swains Lock

“That’s where her accident was,” Doug said.

“You mean Kelsey?” Nicky said.

Doug nodded. “She was with another girl and a guy – friends from college I think – when their car drove off the back of the ferry in the middle of the river and sank to the bottom.”

Vin issued a low whistle. “How could that have happened?”

“I guess the car got shifted into reverse and blew through the retaining gate or something,” Doug said. “Rumor was they were smoking pot.”

“But they got out OK?”

“Kelsey got out OK,” Doug said. “She was pulled out of the water by a rescue boat.”

“What about her friends?” Nicky said.

“They drowned,” Doug said. “A diving team went out for them and they recovered the guy’s body from the car later that day. They kept searching for the other girl, but the river started rising and they had to suspend the search. They never found her. She disappeared in the flood.”

“That’s horrible,” Nicky said.

“It’s strange that Kelsey was able to get out and the other two weren’t,” Vin said.

Doug nodded. “Strange is a good word for it. When they raised the car, the windows were open. Maybe the other girl got out but couldn’t swim. Or maybe she was knocked unconscious and drowned.”

“How about the guy?” Vin asked. “Why couldn’t he escape?”

“He never had a chance. He had a seatbelt knotted around his ankle.”

Chapter 5

Sightseeing

Saturday, October 28, 1995

Vin finished his leftover jambalaya and walked to the bookcase in the living room, where he pulled out a topographic atlas for the state of Maryland he’d bought recently. He opened to the page that covered the Potomac River northwest of Washington, D.C. From the intersection of River and Falls – the center of the village of Potomac – he traced River Road four miles northwest to River’s Edge Drive. A left turn, and then two more turns on sinuous neighborhood streets took him to Ridge Line Court. His finger continued past the cul-de-sac to the canal, less than a quarter-inch away on the map. That quarter-inch was the yard behind his house, the wooded hillside beyond it, and the meadow next to Pe

He traced the path of the Potomac River from Pe

He read the island names from the Falls back up to Pe

It was almost 1:30, so Nicky should be home in about an hour. They had pla

He sat on the couch and studied the photo and note he’d found in the shed last weekend. The scene in the photo was his destination today. He re-read Lee Fisher’s note to “Charlie”, and was struck by the line: “In your search for me you may find the truth.” What truth was it that Lee hoped Charlie would find? Did it relate to the money, the killers, the dead… or something else? He was vaguely aware that this question was gaining a foothold in his psyche, like a virus that had infiltrated his bloodstream at imperceptible levels but was steadily consolidating its presence. He almost felt as if Lee’s directive applied to him, or that perhaps he had inherited the task from Charlie.

If Charlie never found Lee’s note, then no one else would find it now. Vin had replaced the planks in the shed this morning, but kept the drill, the photo, and the note. So in a sense, he thought, he had picked up a torch that Charlie never carried. And if he could find Lee, maybe Vin could find the truth – whatever truth that was. With a wry smile, he wondered if this meant the last line in Lee’s note would also apply to him. “Be careful you don’t share my fate.”

Nicky got home and drank a glass of iced tea with him in the kitchen. She eyed the open atlas, note, and photo on the living-room table and shook her head in mock reproach. “I thought you had work to do today,” she said.

“I did. I finished what I needed to finish and sent it in. And I put the planks back in the shed. Let’s get our stuff and head out.” They changed into biking clothes and went down to the first floor to collect their bikes and helmets from the storage area, passing the V+N driftwood mobile hanging in Vin’s office. It spun slowly, acknowledging their presence.

“I like it,” Nicky said. “It reminds me how close we are to the river.”

“I agree,” Vin said. “It’s like it co

They carried the bikes out the sliding door, wheeled them across the back lawn, and walked them down the wooded path toward the old Pe

“After you,” Vin said.

“Lazy,” Nicky answered. She stepped onto the pedals and rode away downstream.

***

Two hundred feet upstream from Pe

***

As Vin and Nicky approached the Great Falls Visitor Center and its long parking lot, the towpath grew crowded with pedestrians, so they dismounted and walked their bikes. Vin admired the Visitor Center as they walked by. Like the majority of canal structures, it was built on the berm side of the canal, since the river side and the towpath were generally inaccessible to carriages and cars. The building was a T-shaped whitewashed stone house, with its tall façade oriented upstream on the head of the T. The long axis faced the canal and offered a patio shaded by a portico roof projecting from the base of the second story. Two whitewashed chimneys on each axis gave the building an air of dignified ease.