Green Lake by S.K. Epperson Page A

her eyes shut and turned abruptly away before the image of the little girl's staring, milky eyes could stick in her mind the way that reddish black hole in the side of Sam's head had.
    Then she began yanking children back and gathering them to her, trying to cover their heads with her hands and telling them in a shaking but soothing voice not to look, just don't look.
    Bill, his face white, had stopped the pontoon boat and was radioing for help.
    Help in the form of Eris Renard came nearly a half-hour later.
    He was in a boat by himself, and Madeleine saw him give a start to find her there, surrounded by twelve shaken Down's children and a sobbing redhead.
    “Great,” muttered the teenage girl. “It's the ugly one.”
    Eris pulled the boat along the opposite side of the pontoon where the body floated. He climbed onto the pontoon and walked to the opposite edge to look over. Madeleine saw him go very still for a moment then he abruptly turned and jumped back into his own boat to pick up the radio.
    “No hoax,” she heard him say. “She's here.”
    The response was difficult to hear, and Madeleine heard Eris tell whomever he was talking to that a dozen kids were on the pontoon boat. When he turned around again his face was grim, and she clearly heard a voice instruct him to spare the children further trauma and bring in the body himself. The sheriff's department would be waiting on shore.
    Eris took a tarpaulin and laid it on the seat beside him then he guided his boat around the pontoon boat and placed it as close to the body as he dared. Without hesitation he went into the water, and Madeleine watched as he attempted to untangle the body from the pontoon's rope. His face held no expression though his long brown fingers worked frantically. When the body was finally free, Eris held onto one sleeve of the yellow sweat-suit and swam with it to the side of his boat before motioning to Bill that he could go on.
    As the pontoon pulled away, Madeleine's eyes were glued to Eris's face. She saw him place an arm of the body behind the ladder of the boat to hold it there until he could get on board and get the tarpaulin. She saw him wrap the tarpaulin around the body and slowly lift it over the side of his boat. Then, though they were many yards away by this time, she saw him lean over the side of the boat away from them and hang there for several minutes. Madeleine's heart went out to him as she watched him heave.
    Denise had stopped crying by that time, and she was attempting to calm the children, who were full of frightened questions. After listening to her for several minutes, Bill's teenage daughter shook her head and said, “They've seen enough bodies and dead people on TV by now that I wouldn't be too worried. That pockmarked CO probably scared them worse than the floater.”
    Madeleine stood and extended a stiff arm to put her finger right in the middle of the girl's chest.
    “Please shut up.”
    The girl backed away in belligerent surprise. “God, what is your problem? Dad, did you see what she did?”
    Bill did, and when they were safely docked again, he came to apologize. “Denise, Miss Heron, I won't make excuses for my daughter, or for what happened out there today, but I will say I'm sorry.”
    Denise nodded to him and touched his shoulder. “Do you think ... I mean where do you . . . how do you think we got her?”
    He rubbed at a temple and said, “The only thing I can figure is that we snagged her right here at the dock just after Shelly took care of the lines. She never does it the way she's supposed to, which is probably how we wound up carrying the body along with us, with the line trailing along with her under the boat. Then, when we slowed down, she had time to bob up from underneath us.”
    “Under the boat?” said Denise, looking sick. “She was underneath the boat the whole time?”
    “I'm sorry,” Bill said again, and he left them alone with the children.
    Supper was a somber affair, with more