21

Camp Fawn See, Ford Lake, Minnesota

Still Saturday, 15 September

You probably want to know how MILFy she is in person. Or GILFy, or RILFy or whatever.

She looks fine in person. Smaller than you’d think, and jowlier. Too much makeup but you knew that. It’s strange to see the back of her head.

All I feel when she gets off the helicopter, though, is depressed. I knew my time with Violet Hurst was short, but I didn’t think it was this short. No way in hell is Rec Bill going to bet two million dollars on the opinion of someone who’s as famous for being uninformed as Sarah Palin is. And who, for the record, doesn’t have anything more to do with the federal government than Tom Marvell does.

Regarding the woman herself, I have almost no curiosity at all—something she gets accused of all the time, but I have an excuse: I’m sick of her shit. God may be present in the company of the righteous, and Zeus in the swans and the rain, but Palin is fucking everywhere, and has been for years.^[53]

Although my interest in her does improve a bit when, on the kind of receiving line that forms before dinner to introduce her and her entourage to the guests and employees, she pumps my hand, makes eye contact vacantly, moves on to Del, then notices the tattoo on my right shoulder and halts, staring at it.^[54]

The tattoo is of a winged staff with two snakes twined around it. When I got it, I thought it was the symbol of Asclepius, the god of medicine, but that would have been an unwinged staff with one snake. A staff with wings and two snakes turns out to be the symbol of Hermes, the god who takes people to the underworld.

Palin reaches out and touches it. Says “John. Come look at this.”

To me she says “Why do you have this?”

“It was supposed to be the symbol of Asclepius, the god of medicine.”

“But it’s the symbol of Hermes.”

Great. Even people who can’t name all three countries in North America know that.

I wonder if Violet’s ever noticed it’s the wrong symbol. If she did, but didn’t tell me because she didn’t want to hurt my feelings, I should confront her about it. It might make up for my not telling her the French toast was frozen. Which would at least be something.

“What is it, Sarah?” the tall good-looking guy says, coming over.

“Look at this.”

He does, with a California squint. Puts his hands on my shoulders to try and turn me so he can see my other arm.

“I’m Lionel Azimuth,” I say.

He smiles with pained condescension. “Sorry. Reverend John 3:16 Hawke.”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s my name.” He moves to the side to be able to see the tattoo on my other shoulder without moving me.

Star of David.

“Ah,” he says.

Palin moves around to see. The reverend doesn’t get out of her way, which forces her to awkwardly press up against him. “Oh, my goodness,” she says.

“We’re close, Sarah. Really close.”

He pulls her back and they continue down the line. Violet, like everybody else, is staring. I shrug and try to keep her gaze, but she looks away.

★★★

At dinner Palin’s oddly hunched over her food, frowning with concentration as she listens to whatever the Reverend John 3:16 Hawke is saying in her ear. Sitting on her other side is the fourteen-year-old girl—a distant relation of Palin’s, it turns out, named Sanskrit or something. At present the girl’s bright red and silent, possibly in reaction to being across from Tyson Grody.

There’s a strange hush over the room. People keep referring to Palin as “the Governor,” but in whispers, like they don’t want to distract her. The Ficks, who on some instinct stopped by on their way out of town to make sure the ref wasn’t someone worth rejoining for, only to discover that she easily was, are beaming now in Palin’s vindicating presence.

I say as little as possible, and nothing at all to Tom Marvell, who’s at my table. Marvell seems nice enough: earlier, on the lawn, he did a magic trick for Stuart Teng that involved a business card bursting into flames, then repeated it about fifteen times while Stuart cried with laughter and Palin’s young relation, mortified, tried not to look like part of Marvell’s intended audience. And I’d love to know what his connection to Palin is—where’d they meet, at a Westbrook Pegler convention? But no one who lives in Vegas and is smart enough to be both black and an ongoing success in that mafia theme park is someone I want noticing me.

Violet’s over at the grown-ups’ table, near Grody. I’m not jealous. It’d be like a Doberman hooking up with a Chihuahua. It’s annoying that he gets to talk to her, though.

After dinner, when she and Teng talk about going back to the casino, and the idea spreads to the whole group, I consider going with them just to try for some time with her. Decide not to. I don’t need to know any of these people any better. Violet included.

Instead I go back to the office in the registration cabin and do my best not to look at the photo of the Semmel family as I check my e-mail. There’s already a reply from Rec Bill to the message I sent him before dinner about the ref turning out to be Palin. Since I know it’ll tell me to go home, I leave it for later.

Instead I read the e-mail from Robby, the Australian kid covering for me on the ship. It just says “barfing all over.” No capitalization, even.

I ask for details and wish him a speedy recovery if he’s the one doing the barfing. Then I open the message from Rec Bill.

“I approve of Palin as the ref. Proceed as planned.”

No fucking way.

Grateful as I am to stay out here with Violet, particularly if she starts speaking to me again, I’m astonished. Wasting two million dollars is repellent, no matter how rich you are. At least in the Gilded Age they gilded shit.

Rec Bill comes through on a couple of other points, though. Looks like there really is a Desert Eagle Investigations in Phoenix, Arizona, employing—in fact owned by—a guy named Michael Bennett, who matches the description of the guy who was here. And apparently Christine Semmel, mother of Autumn, now lives in San Diego and has a phone number.

Still wondering why Rec Bill so badly needs the White Lake Monster to exist, I call her.

“Yes?” she says. Her voice is a whisper.

“Ms. Semmel?”

“Yes?”

“My name is Lionel Azimuth. I’m a physician. I’m sort of assisting in an investigation into some possible criminal activity here in Minnesota.”

Nothing.

“It’s a long story, but I’d be happy to give you the details.”

“Is this Reggie?” she says.

“No.”

“You’re calling from the lodge.”

“I am. I’m staying here. But like I say—”

“Has he killed someone else?”

All right, then.

“Someone else other than who?”

After a moment she says “He killed my husband and my daughter.”

I wait for her to say something else, but she doesn’t.

“What makes you think that?”

“I know it.”

“Can I ask how?”

Another pause. “Reggie wanted to pretend there was a monster in White Lake. He killed my daughter to make it look like there really was. Then he killed my husband to take over the lodge.”

“The hoax was Reggie’s idea?”

“Of course it was. Chris would never have thought of something like that. He wasn’t like that. Not… devious. Father Podominick wasn’t either. Reggie put them up to it in secret so people wouldn’t be suspicious when he took over. Got them so turned around Chris thought he and Reggie were going to catch the monster and sell it.”

Christine Semmel’s softly crying now. Nice job, Dr. Azimuth.

“Ms. Semmel, we can stop talking if you’d like.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

She sounds sincere about that, so I say “Then can you tell me about how they were supposed to catch it and sell it?”

“Right after Chris died, all these hooks and nets and things he ordered got delivered to the lodge.”

“Reggie told me about that.”

“Then I found a list of phone numbers in Chris’s handwriting. I called them. The ones who would talk to me all said they were rare-animal dealers. They said they’d never heard of Chris, but I didn’t believe them.”

“Do you still have the list?”

“I gave it to the police.”

“Did you make a copy?”

“No.”

Understandable: her family had just been wiped out. But it does mean the police have either investigated that angle or decided not to, and either way there’s nothing left to do about it.

“Is there any other—” Evidence, is what I want to say, but I feel that will sound like I don’t believe her. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

There’s a pause, just the hiss on the line. I’m about to repeat the question when she says “Reggie, I know that’s you.”

She says it without anger, just with exhaustion and sadness. It’s unnerving.

“This isn’t Reggie. I promise. If you want, I can call you back later, with a woman.”

“I don’t care. If you are Reggie, you’re going to hell,” she says as she hangs up.