Loch and Key Read online

  “I’m sorry, but Uncle Herbert has been very ill recently,” said the man. “My wife and I are taking care of the property while he’s in the hospital recuperating.”

  Alexander gave the man a hard, assessing look. “I see. And did your uncle tell you about the specific ecological needs of this area?”

  “Ah. If you’re talking like that, you must be the Healys. He told me about you.” The man smiled thinly. “He said that if you showed up, we were to allow you to camp by the lake, as you would do no harm, but could be very good for the health of his pet monsters. Welcome then, Healys. I’m assuming that your sense of neighborly duty brought you here on your first day?” When Alexander nodded, he continued, “Splendid. You have three more, and then I’ll thank you to get off of our property. We have things to do, and we’d rather not be tripping over strangers in the woods while we’re trying to get them done.”

  “That’s right hospitable of you,” said Alexander. “Thank you for not running us off immediately.”

  “Oh, believe me, we would, but Uncle Herbert might still recover, and I’d rather not have a fight with the old coot about chasing away his naturalist friends.” The man spoke with an easy arrogance, like what he was saying was somehow perfectly reasonable, and not horrible at all.

  Fran didn’t have much patience for rude people—never had done, never would do. “Can we at least get your name?” she demanded, taking a step forward. “I’d hate to run into your uncle later and find out that you’d been lying to us about your relation to the man.”

  He turned a frown on her. “Which one are you?”

  “Juney,” Fran lied smoothly. “Youngest. And you are?”

  “Paul,” the man replied. “Now if you’d all excuse me, I have work to do, and I’m sure you’re eager to get back to your camp. Good day.” He turned and went back inside with no more of a farewell than that, slamming the door behind himself. The old house seemed to settle deeper into its foundations, protesting the rough treatment.

  Alexander frowned thoughtfully as he walked down the porch steps to rejoin the others. “I had no idea,” he said. “Herbert never said anything about a nephew.”

  “Oh, that’s because he hasn’t got one,” said Fran blithely.

  The other three turned to blink at her. She shrugged.

  “If this fella was supposed to know enough from his uncle to know who all of you were, how come he believed I was a daughter, and not a daughter-in-law? He doesn’t have the kind of details you’d have if somebody told you that folk you weren’t supposed to shoot might show up on your land.” Fran cast a glance back at the house. “I don’t know who he is, but he’s not related to your friend.”

  “Ah,” said Alexander. “Well, then, I suppose that means we have a problem.”

  The four of them returned quickly to their camp. There was much to do, and suddenly it seemed like there wasn’t going to be enough time to do it all.

  The frickens never resumed their song.

  An hour later, Alexander and Enid were back in the truck, heading toward the nearest town large enough to support both a hospital and a newspaper. Once there, they could split up to check both the patient wards and the recent obituaries. The possibility that Herbert was dead couldn’t be ignored, and it could change how they handled things going forward. Johnny and Fran, meanwhile, were walking the edge of the lake, looking for any sign that the plesiosaurs had been interfered with or threated by their current custodians.

  “He called them ‘monsters,’” said Jonathan for the fifth time. His scowl seemed to have become permanent, sinking down into the muscles of his face until it bonded with the bone. “How could anyone call such beautiful creatures ‘monsters’?”

  “It’s pretty easy, city boy; you open your mouth and the words come out.” Fran walked along a fallen log, arms held out for balance as she tried to avoid taking a tumble into the frigid waters of White Otter Lake. “I would’ve called them monsters, once upon a time. You’re the one who taught me better.”

  “But even back then, you wouldn’t have said it like that.” Jonathan was unwilling to let the point go. That was unlike him; he usually dismissed things quickly, choosing to act rather than dwelling on what was already behind them. “He said it like it was…like it was an insult. He turned it into a slur against their very existence. These are beautiful, incredible creatures that deserve our protection and respect. How can anyone look at them and not see that?”

  “Well, they do have an awful lot of teeth,” said Fran. In the distance, a plesiosaur bellowed. She supposed she could have mistaken the sound for a lonely moose belling for a mate if she hadn’t already known the lake was full of prehistoric not-actually-dinosaurs. “That would be a little surprising if you weren’t expecting it.”

  As if on cue, Bessie lifted her head out of the water, making an inquisitive chirping noise. She had a trout hanging from the side of her mouth, its tail flapping in a way that was either comic or sad, depending on whether or not you were the trout.

  Fran managed not to fall off her log, but it was a close thing. “As I was saying,” she said dryly, indicating Bessie with a sweep of her hand. “There are people who could take that the wrong way.”

  “They’re in Herbert’s house.” Jonathan walked over to Bessie, leaning up to scratch the underside of her jaw. She responded by swallowing her trout and letting her mouth hang slightly open, showing yet more teeth as she closed her eyes and leaned into his scratching. “They should know not to call them monsters.”

  “Sometimes I think your upbringing has blinded you a bit to what the rest of the world sees when they look at your precious beasts, city boy,” said Fran fondly, as she watched her husband petting the plesiosaur. “You’re right that they shouldn’t be the ones looking after them if that’s how they feel, but I really do think you need to consider that not everyone sees the world the way that you do.”

  Jonathan looked back to her, expression hurt. “Then everyone else is blind.”

  “Yes, I rather do think that they are,” said Fran.

  Bessie abruptly jerked away from Jonathan’s hand, making a startled little lowing noise, and retreated into the water. It was a fast, graceless descent: rings spread out to mark the place where she had been, and Jonathan’s trousers were summarily soaked. He blinked. Fran frowned.

  And an auburn-haired woman in denim trousers and a heavy canvas shirt burst out of the trees and onto the lakefront. She was brandishing a tranquilizer rifle, the butt braced against her shoulder as she prepared to take a shot at something that was no longer there. “Damn!” she swore, lowering her rifle, and turned to direct a poisonous glare at Jonathan and Fran. “What’s wrong with you two idiots? You could have kept the blasted thing where it was for another half minute!”

  “Uh, excuse me?” said Fran.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Jonathan. His posture had shifted upon her arrival, becoming closed-off and formal. It was like watching a door swing closed. Even Fran, who had seen this transformation before, found it disturbing to watch. Johnny Healy, family man on vacation, was gone. In his place was Jonathan Healy, biologist and monster hunter—and far less forgiving than his counterpart.

  “The damn dinosaur,” the woman snapped. “Aren’t you those Healy people Paul said were skulking around the lake? The things like you, we know they do. All you had to do was keep it out of the water for another few seconds and—”

  “And what?” asked Fran, with deceptive cheerfulness. “You’d have shot the poor thing for the crime of being bigger than you?”

  The woman paused, catching the warning implicit in Fran’s tone. Tread lightly, it said: you will not enjoy what happens if you go too far. “This is a tranquilizer gun,” she said, in the tone of voice usually reserved for speaking to elderly relatives and very small children. “I wouldn’t have hurt the beast, just slowed it down long enough for me to take some important measurements and vital signs. You’re supposed to be scientists, aren’
t you? Why wouldn’t you want me to conduct science?”

  Fran had always hated people who behaved as if kids and old folks couldn’t understand proper English. She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes, all but smoldering with irritation. Jonathan hastened to step in front of her, blocking her direct access to the stranger. It seemed like the best way to prevent a drowning.

  “The creatures that live in this lake have been measured and monitored for years, using far less direct methods,” he said, in what was meant to be a soothing tone. “They’re unaccustomed to violence, and I’m afraid that they can’t distinguish between a tranquilizer gun and a gun which shoots actual bullets. You could have been hurt had your first shot failed to fell the beast.”

  The woman blinked. Apparently, she hadn’t been expecting anything that sounded that reasonable. Raising her rifle so that it pointed at the sky rather than presenting a danger to her new companions, she asked, “What would you suggest?”

  “I’d suggest you take your behind back up to the house where you’re squatting, pack your things, and get the hell out of here,” said Fran, poking her head around Jonathan. “Hanging out around the lake is a good way to wind up eaten.”

  “I’m sorry, there seems to be some confusion,” said the woman. “Paul and I aren’t squatting. That’s my uncle’s house. We’re here on his invitation while he recuperates. Your accent, that’s what, Arizona? New Mexico, maybe? Well, out here in the civilized parts of the country, sometimes we ask family to help us out. Do you have families in the heathen west?”

  “Don’t kill her, dear, it would be incredibly messy and I don’t feel like trying to hide the evidence,” said Jonathan wearily.

  “Oh, there’d be no evidence.” Fran stepped up beside him, the smile back on her face. That wasn’t actually a good sign. “This many giant lizards around, it’d be a snap to convince something that it wanted to eat a lady who insulted my sense of family.”

  “What my dear wife means to say is that she has a family, clearly, as she is here with her family,” said Jonathan. “And while I understand that an ailing relative can be quite stressful, you must realize that Mr. Wilson never told us anything about a nephew, or a niece for that matter, and it seemed like an odd omission when we arrived and discovered that he had houseguests.”

  “My mother was his sister,” said the woman. “That makes him my uncle and Paul’s uncle by marriage. I’m not sure I’m the one who needs to be providing her bona fides right now, since you’re the strangers who just showed up claiming to be some batty biologist friends of Uncle Herbert’s. How do we know you’re even the Healys?”

  “Because nobody’s stupid enough to pretend to be us,” said Fran.

  Jonathan winced. “Blunt, yes, but also accurate. We’re not the most well-regarded biologists in certain circles. You can be confident that no one who wanted to be taken seriously would be claiming relation.”

  “Oh, great, so you’re quacks.” The woman actually looked disgusted. “What good are a bunch of quacks going to do me?”

  “Well, that depends,” said Fran. “What good were you looking to have done?”

  The woman glared at her for a moment more before shaking her head, muttering something uncomplimentary under her breath, and stomping off into the brush, leaving Jonathan and Fran alone on the lakeshore.

  It was Fran who broke the silence, saying, “I think they’re hunters. I think they’re here looking for a payday.”

  “I’m terribly afraid that you’re right,” said Jonathan. He cast a worried look at the water. Bessie was showing no signs of resurfacing. That was a small mercy, considering everything else that was happening. “Come on. I want to finish circling the lake before my parents get back. After the conversation we just had, I don’t trust there not to be traps.”

  There were traps.

  Not many of them, no, and Jonathan was reasonably sure none of them would have actually worked—the bear trap was too small, the pit trap was too far inland, and the snare was not only made of rope that would snap if a plesiosaur actually triggered it, it was baited with pinecones, which the great beasts didn’t eat—but that wasn’t the issue. The issue was that traps had been set in the first place.

  “They’re clever beasts, but they’re just that: beasts,” he explained to Fran, as the two of them shoveled dirt back into the pit trap. “They can be caught just like anything else, especially when they’re not expecting a change in their environment. They’ve never had to deal with trappers before. This is a drastic and dangerous change for them.”

  “We could shoot them,” Fran suggested.

  Jonathan didn’t need to be told that she was talking about the squatters in Herbert’s house, and not about the plesiosaurs. “I wish we could,” he said, with sincere regret. “Unfortunately, we don’t know who knows that they’re here. We could wind up causing more trouble than we get rid of, both for the plesiosaurs and for ourselves.”

  “Then I got nothing,” said Fran, pushing another double-handful of dirt into the hole before straightening up and dusting her hands against the butt of her jeans. “You use bullets on cattle rustlers and poachers. I can’t see why you shouldn’t treat dinosaur rustlers the same way.”

  “Because dinosaurs, unlike cattle, are not protected by American law,” said Jonathan. “And they’re not dinosaurs, they’re plesiosaurs.”

  “This doesn’t seem like a good time to be an encyclopedia, darling,” said Fran. She glared at the edge of the wood, like she was daring it to produce the woman with the tranquilizer rifle a second time. “It does seem like a good time for breaking noses, if you feel like getting your hands dirty.”

  “If those people are in Mr. Wilson’s house legally—”

  “Everything’s about the law with you today, isn’t it?” Fran turned her glare on her husband. “What do you want us to do, just go back to camp and pretend nobody’s hunting your big ol’ not-a-dinosaurs? They’re sweet beasts, they’re not going to deal too well with this.”

  “They’re very effective hunters, and they defend themselves well from challenges that they understand, but none of these traps fall into that category.” Jonathan reached up and adjusted his glasses, glancing nervously at the water. No plesiosaurs had appeared since they reached the far side of the lake. “They have a very small population. It’s managed to remain stable thus far, but that’s because they have no predators and a very low birth rate. Add predators to that equation…”

  “And the lack of babies becomes a death sentence,” said Fran softly.

  Jonathan knew she was thinking of their own empty nursery, their own lack of babies: since Daniel had died they hadn’t been exactly careful about their marital activities, but there had been no more children. He sometimes suspected Fran of brewing one of his mother’s special teas, the ones she’d used when she needed to accompany his father into the field without worrying about accidents. He’d never quite screwed up the courage to ask. Their marriage had healed after the loss of their son—not without scars, no, but then, neither of them had been exactly unscarred before—but there were some questions capable of leaving wounds that no amount of time or care would ever heal.

  “We need to get back to camp,” he said, blurting out the words before anything less appropriate could take their place. “I don’t know if my parents will have returned from town, but we should be there when they do. They’ll want to know about this.”

  “What about the not-dinosaurs?” asked Fran, with another glance at the water.

  “They’ve survived this long, and Bessie was clearly afraid of the woman we met before. I think they’ll be all right for a little bit longer.”

  “If you’re sure…”

  “That’s the trouble, Fran,” said Jonathan. “I’m not.”

  The lakeshore remained silent and empty as they turned and walked back toward their camp. If anything watched them, either from the wood or from the water, it gave no indication that it was there.

  The sound of the
truck rattling over the uneven ground was more welcome than Enid and Alexander could have possibly known. They returned to the camp to find Jonathan building up the fire. There was no sign of Fran. He looked up, answering their unspoken question with a clipped, “She went hunting for something more substantial than fish. I think she’s afraid of going near the water and attracting the plesiosaurs. We had some company during our walk earlier.”

  “What kind of company?” asked Enid.

  “The kind that carries a tranquilizer rifle and yells at us for not keeping Bessie on dry land long enough for her to be shot,” said Jonathan. He bent back over the fire. “Female, auburn hair, looks to be about my age, give or take five years, depending on what kind of life she’s led. She claimed her mother was Mr. Wilson’s sister, making him her biological uncle and giving her a valid reason for being on the family property. The man we met before is apparently her husband. How did your trip go?”

  “Well, we did manage to confirm that Herbert had a sister, although nobody’s seen her in years, but that’s about the only thing we confirmed,” said Alexander. He sounded frustrated. Given the circumstances, it was difficult for any of them to blame him. “As it stands, we only learned that much because the woman working the desk at the newspaper was a gossip. Half the town probably knows that Herbert’s missing now.”

  “Missing?” Jonathan straightened up, frowning. “He’s not in the hospital?”

  “No, and he hasn’t passed away. Until we came into town looking for him, no one had realized that it wasn’t all business as usual.” Enid’s frown hardened into a scowl. “I realize he’s a bit of a hermit, but you’d think someone would have noticed that he wasn’t picking up groceries anymore, and that two strangers had been hanging about for weeks.”

  “How long have they been here?”

  For the first time, Alexander actually looked somewhat pleased with himself. “We asked ourselves the same question. Since the hospital was no help, and the newspaper was no help, we went to the one place that would know for sure how long it had been since anyone had seen Herbert: the grocer’s.”