Cemetery View

AUTHOR OF THE BODY AT BLACKWELL LAKE CEMETERYVIEW A NOVEL A.M. CAPLAN This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. Copyright © 2023 by A.M. Caplan All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission. Book Cover and Interior Formatting by 100 Covers Printed in the United States DEDICATION Sarah, We’ve shared everything but a jail cell. Don’t worry, there’s still time. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT If you’re reading the acknowledgement, it likely means one of three things. Possibly you’ve been marooned on a desert island, and this book floated to shore, washing up on the beach with the wreckage of your airplane. If this is the case, don’t feel guilty if you have to sacrifice this page to kindle your signal fire or are in desperate need of toilet paper. I understand. The second reason you might be reading the acknowledgement is that you’re a writer yourself, and you understand that this is the one place an author can really say whatever they want without an agent, editor or other professional who knows their stuff wanting to change a word. The last reason you might be reading this is that you know me and you’re curious to see if you show up. Well, here you are. This is for you. Thank you. I couldn’t do it without you. ALSO BY A.M. CAPLAN The Body at Blackwell Lake Echoes Reverberation Dead Quiet Chapter1 “You’d be better off burying the whole thing.” Stella used the tines of the stone rake to scrape a clod of mud from the side of her rubber boot. The clod fell over the lip of the swimming pool, through the open air where six and a half feet of clear, over-chlorinated water should have been, and into the shallow sludge near the bottom, where it disappeared with a plop. “You’re supposed to be getting the mud out, honey, not putting more in.” Stella’s father came to stand next to her, scuffing the mud from his hip waders as he walked. “Maybe I’m getting a head start on filling it in.” They stood side by side, two narrowly built figures in dirt-streaked clothes, and stared at the murky, chocolate-colored mess below. A few twigs and clumps of grass spun in lazy circles on the skin of muddy water. Six days earlier, the Susquehanna drank up as much summer rain as it could hold and spat it back over the bank. Dark and swift, it swept across the backyard, around the stubby stilt legs of the house, and down over the driveway, finally outreaching itself at the road in front of Stella’s childhood home. When the water receded, it left a thick layer of silt and debris over everything it touched. Mud dredged up from the river bottom and dragged by on the current had settled into the swimming pool. It looked like a hog wallow. “I’m serious, Dad. You should just have it filled in. I don’t even want to think about what it’ll cost to fix this.” Stella watched a fish make a last desperate flop in the deep end, tail slapping the surface before it sank out of sight. “The liner’s torn to shreds. Look at that piece of the surround you’re standing on. It’s cracked and it’ll only get worse as it dries out. You’d be better off tipping it all in and dumping a couple truckloads of dirt on top.” She blew a curl that had escaped from her ponytail out from in front of her eyes. “And it reeks. It smells like a dead body in there.” He shook his head like he was going to disagree, when a puff of hot, humid air blew past them, the stink it carried making him wrinkle his nose. “Maybe it’s a little ripe, but it’s just mud. Could be worse. When I was a kid and your great-grandparents lived here, back before Gran died, the water was so high it took the house and the old barn.” He waved a hand downstream, where a border of knobby pines hid the not very near neighboring houses from view. “Washed it all clean away. Lost everything. At least it didn’t come close to getting in the house this time.” Stella turned to eye the wooden stairs that came down from the back deck to the swimming pool. The bright white paint on the first two steps was covered in a layer of dull, dirty brown. “That’s great and all, but if the water had gone that high, at least the house would have been covered by the insurance. You know the flood policy won’t pay for this. And when’s the last time you actually swam in the pool, anyway?” He took off his beat-up baseball cap and wiped the sweat from his forehead, leaving a smear of mud behind. “I don’t use it as much as I should,” he admitted. “Still, I’d hate to not have it around for the grandkids.” “You don’t have grandkids.” “Not yet.” Stella opened her mouth, ready to give him her opinion about how long “not yet” was likely to be, when there was a loud sucking sound, and the pump sitting on the edge of the pool started to shake like it was possessed. “Damn it. Plugged again.” Stella’s father slapped his cap against his thigh and pulled the hat back on, then reached for the shovel leaning against the sagging fence. “Might be time to pull it and start shoveling, anyway. Looks like she’s about down to just mud.” “Stay there.” Stella put a boot down on the first of