Master of the Lodge

A dead body fished from a cold lake leads Tom and Rachel to a small town dominated by a sinister cult—and a horrifying monster.

 

Master of the Lodge, Part One

My client, Emma Wooding, was in her 30s, a sales manager at pharmaceutical firm. She wore a crisp blue suit, but her eyes were dark and a little raw, as if sadness had lived in them for a long while. We sat in a coffee shop near her office.

            “There’s a small town in Wisconsin, near the state line, called Linewood. There’s a small lake, and the lake freezes over every winter. This spring, when the lake thawed, a fisherman hooked something heavy and couldn’t bring it up, so they sent people down, and they found—they found my father.”

            “I’m very sorry.” I remember when my father died.

            She nodded. “Yeah. They said it was suicide. There was a boat at the edge of the lake, and they said he must have—I don’t know.” She shuddered. 

“My father and I—we haven’t been close for a long time.” She stirred her coffee. “I got pregnant when I was 17, and he kicked me out. But there was other stuff. Trump, stuff like that. Anyway, I knew about the house in Linewood, but I’ve never been there. I mean, I went up there once after he—after they contacted me, but I couldn’t really do anything.”

            I sipped my coffee. It was stronger than I like, but tolerable. “So what can I do for you?”

            She dropped a key on the table between us. “I’d like you to go up there and find out what he was doing there.”

            “Doing? You think he was up to something?”

            She shook her head. “I don’t know. That’s the thing. When he bought the house, he gave me the address and he just said, ‘There’s something I have to do.’ He only bought it last fall. It might be nothing, maybe he just thought he had to go fishing or something. But I feel like . . .” She frowned, looking down at her coffee. “There was no note or anything. I know he was depressed. I just want to know if there’s something else I should know. If that makes sense.”

            “It does.” I paused. “What did they tell you?”

            “Not much. Nobody seemed to know him very well. He paid his bills on time, kept to himself. They did say—well, it’s not the first time they found somebody frozen in the lake.”

            “It’s happened before?”

            “About 20 years ago. They don’t know who it was, they just found a guy. And since then, a couple of years ago I guess, they found someone from the town who’d gone missing over the winter. But he was like my father—he lived alone and nobody really noticed he was gone. And I guess there were others even before that.”

            I thought it over. “Well, I can’t promise anything. I might not be able to find out how he died, but I can probably get some information on his life there. It may not be much.” I was being purposely pessimistic. I didn’t want her expecting miracles. 

            She sighed. “I know. Whatever you can find out. Take a couple of days and if you can’t find anything, just let me know and send me your bill.” She pushed the key toward me. “You can stay at his cabin.”

            A dead man’s cabin? That should be fun. “Okay.”

 

“So do you want to go up to Wisconsin for the weekend?” I asked Rachel at dinner

            “Is it for a case?” Rachel is my wife. She’s got red hair and hazelnut eyes, and she’s a little psychic. “I have to work tomorrow.” She’s a therapist at a mental health clinic. 

            “It is a case.” I told her the general details. “I’m not sure I’ll need your phenomenal psychic powers, but you could help ask questions. It might look less suspicious if there were two of us, and one of us is drop-dead gorgeous.” I grinned.

            Rachel snorted. “Fine, you smooth-talking devil. I’ll drive up tomorrow after work. Does the cabin have wi-fi?”

            “I didn’t ask. Should I text the client?” I raised my phone.

            She rolled her eyes. “Well, if not, there’s always sex.”

            “I hope this newlywed phase never ends.”

            Rachel kicked me under the table. But with a smile.

 

Gregory Wooding’s Linewood house was a log cabin, rustic and warm, with a big fireplace in the living room, a microwave in the kitchen, and wi-fi throughout. The refrigerator was empty. Fortunately I’d stopped at the small grocery store in town before coming.

Inside I set the grocery bags down and looked around. The first thing I saw was the antlered head of a deer mounted over the fireplace. The second thing sat on the mantle beneath it—a small metal sculpture of a ratlike figure surrounded by sharp black spikes. It sat between two vases, standing on two hind legs, and it had a single red eye in the middle of its forehead. It was heavy to lift; the base would probably dent my skull.

            I took a picture with my phone and sent it to Emma. Do you recognize this?

            She texted back as I was carrying the groceries into the kitchen. I saw it when I was here before. Don’t know what it is.

After I put the groceries away, I started searching. My client had given me permission to look everywhere. “I cleaned out his clothes,” she told me. “But everything else is still there. Unless someone broke in, but I don’t think so.”

            I found no evidence of a break-in. The cabin had two bedrooms, so I started in the main one. The drawers and closets were empty. A table next to the bed held two paperbacks and a lamp, and in the drawer I found a collection of shoelaces, paperclips, rubber bands, birthday cards from Emma and others, and two Lands End catalogs for men. Nothing under the mattress of the bed, nothing taped on the underside of the drawers, nothing in the back of the closet. I could try unscrewing the vent later.

            The medicine cabinet in the bathroom had some prescription bottles, but nothing incriminating—blood pressure medication, cholesterol, thyroid, and a few I had to check on my phone to make sure they weren’t antipsychotics or anything hinting at a serious problem. Nothing was hidden in the toilet tank. 

The other bedroom had an exercise bike and some boxes of old bills and tax returns. I went through them, finding nothing interesting, and went back to the kitchen.

            The kitchen held nothing out of the ordinary, just pots and pans and a few recipe books. So I went back out to the living room and started looking behind pictures on the walls. They were mostly nature scenes, and looked like something a real estate agent might have hung to give the cabin a properly rustic atmosphere. A knock at the door interrupted me.

Neighborhood watch? Villagers with torches? Welcoming committee with pie? “Coming!”

            The woman was in her 60s, in a long raincoat, her hair pulled back under a scarf. Her smile was wide but fake, and she was careful to keep her distance on as I opened the door in case I was a serial killer. “Hello! Are you the new owner? I’m Emily Dorner. I live down there.” She pointed to a house a few hundred yards down the road. A small beagle ran in and out between her feet.

            “Not exactly.” I stepped outside. The day was overcast and chilly, and I immediately wished I’d put on my jacket. “I’m Tom Jurgen. I’m working for Mr. Wooding’s daughter. Were you friends?” No time like the present to start asking questions.

            “Not close, close friends, no.” She kept up her smile. “We had Greg over to dinner once or twice, my husband and me. Just being neighborly. Watched each other’s property. For, you know, trouble.”

            Strangers like me, presumably. The beagle didn’t approach me closely. “What did he like to do? Hike? Go fishing? Square dancing?”

            Mrs. Dorner laughed. “I really don’t know. I’d see him in town, at the store, going into the lodge sometimes. Never at church, but not everyone’s a churchgoer, you know?” She shrugged.

            “He kept to himself? Any friends?”

            “I really don’t know.” She grew suspicious again. “You said you work for his daughter? I don’t think I ever saw her here.” She backed away a little more. “What kind of work do you do?”

            Before I could answer, a car pulled up behind mine in the gravel driveway. A police car. I should have expected this. Had Mrs. Dorner called them before coming over? Suspicious stranger in the Wooding house? I wasn’t sure I’d blame her.

            The cop who came up out of the car was broad and beefy, and he wore a thick jacket, his handgun dangling on his hip. He smiled, like Mrs. Dorner: Welcoming but guarded. “Morning.”

            “Good morning, officer.” I smiled too. “I was just chatting with Mrs. Dorner here. I’m Tom Jurgen, from Chicago. Mr. Wooding’s daughter asked me to come up here and check the place out.”

            “Daughter, huh?” I could see him start to search his memory for any mention of Emma Wooding.

            “They were, uh, estranged,” I said before either of them could ask. 

            “Oh, yeah.” The cop nodded. “She came up to claim the body. Said she hadn’t been up here before.”

            “You can call her and confirm that I’m here with permission,” I said helpfully.

            He frowned, as if I was telling him how to do his job. “Yeah. Are you here to clean the place out or what?”

            “Emma Wooding wants to know more about what happened to her father. I’m just here to ask a few questions.”

            “Uh-huh.” He crossed his arms. “You going to solve the mystery? Because us country cops can’t?”

            “I’d never say that, officer. I’m just here to ask questions, like I said.”

            “Well . . .” He looked past me into the cabin. “I guess I can’t stop you with that. I’m Clint Morrison. I’m with the sheriff’s office. If you bother anybody, you’ll be seeing me again, or one of my partners.”

            “I understand.” I do my best not to piss off the police. It doesn’t always work, but I try.

            Morrison got in his car and left. Mrs. Dorner looked unsatisfied, but she gave me a nod before she turned back to her house. “Anything you need, Mr. Jurgen.” It was probably a habit to say that. I didn’t think she’d want me knocking on her door for a cup of sugar. “Come on, Boomer.” 

            “Nice to meet you,” I told her as the dog followed her home.

Master of the Lodge, Part Two

I went out to the lake.

            It didn’t seem to have a name. Down a dirt road about five miles from the cabin, the lake was maybe a mile across, surrounded by trees just starting to return to life in the early spring. Reeds grew close to the shore. There wasn’t any kind of beach for swimming, but a dock extended into the water. No boats were tied to it, but a boathouse sat near the dock with a few watercraft locked up inside.

This was late March, so some ice was still floating on the surface. I could see weeds swaying under the water, but no fish swimming around under the surface. I wasn’t about to test the water temperature. A chilly breeze cut the air, and I shoved my hands in my poc kets to keep them warm. A bird flew overhead, squawking once, and disappeared across the water.

On the far side of the lake I could see the top of a house, half hidden behind the trees. Smoke drifted from a chimney in the roof, fading into the clouds. I wondered who lived there,

            I also wondered what else lurked at the bottom of the lake. More bodies? A lost city? The Loch Ness monster’s American cousin? But I wasn’t going to find out right now. So I drove to town.

            Linewood had a small weekly newspaper, with an office on the main street. I asked the man at the front desk—older than me, but friendly enough—to look at any issues covering the recovery of Wooding’s body. He didn’t ask why until he came out of the back room with a plastic box containing four weeks’ worth of the paper. “You a movie producer?”

            “Private detective. I’m working for Gregory Wooding’s daughter. She wants to know more about what happened.”

            “That’s got to be hard for her.” He sighed. “I’m Ben Tyson. I used to be the editor here, until I retired. Five years ago? Six. Poor girl.”

            “Did you know Mr. Wooding?”

            Tyson shook his head. “I saw him around town a little, but I didn’t know his name until they printed his picture.” He pointed to a front page, next to the headline: DEAD MAN PULLED FROM LAKE. 

            I’d actually already seen it—the newspaper had the last 15 years of its issues online. What I really wanted was to talk to people. A lot of the time I get results because I keep asking the same questions until I stumble on an answer. I like to think of it as tenacity, a tactic from when I was a reporter. Rachel calls it being a stubborn asshole. Either way, it works. At least sometimes.

            “What’s the reaction around town?” I asked. “Are people nervous?”

            Tyson shrugged. “You know, not too much. I don’t think anyone really knew him well. The big theory is that it was some kind of mob hit, and that wouldn’t have much to do with anyone here.”

            I’d thought of that, and I was hoping it wasn’t true. I’ve tangled with the supernatural a lot, but the thought of confronting the mafia was scarier. “He seems to have kept to himself a lot.”

            “I guess. I would see him sometimes in the bar. It’s the Corner Bar, it’s down on the corner.” He grinned. “It’s a small town. We go for simple names.”

            I nodded.  “I’m told there have been other bodies found in the lake. Would there be articles on that?”

            His eyes grew chilly. “The paper goes back to the founding of the town,” he said stiffly, as if I’d offended him. “My great-great grandfather was one of the first publishers. We’ve got everything. But you can’t go poking around the archives on your own.” He reached under the desk. “Fill this out and I’ll see what’s available.”

            I filled out a form, hoping I had the approximate year right based on what my client had told me. A woman came in to place an ad while I was doing that, and a mail carrier dropped off some envelopes. Tyson took his time getting to my form and looking through his computer files, but he finally disappeared into the back and returned with another box. “Keep these in order,” he told me as he showed me to an empty desk behind the counter.

I spent half an hour looking through the articles. About 20 years ago the body of an unidentified man had been found floating in the lake in late spring, a rope tied around his neck but his arms and feet free. He was eventually identified as Arnold Kyser, from a town about 100 miles away. His only family was a cousin who lived in Canada, which is why he stayed a mystery for months after being found. Again, the authorities expected suicide, but there was no mention of any note or any mental health issues. 

Then, just 10 years ago, there’d been a local victim. Ed Haynes had moved here from Milwaukee after a divorce. He’d been arrested for public drunkenness twice, but he apparently got sober after that. He served a few terms on the city council, according to his obituary, and been a member of something called the Elwood Lodge, but for the last few years he’d faded from public view, apparently, up until ending up below the ice.

            I looked through the rest of the papers, trying to get a feel for the local culture. Linewood had been founded in 1903 as a farming community, growing corn, oats, and other crops, and still had a solid agricultural base in the acres surrounding the town. The town seemed to have a thriving small business community, with ads for stores selling craft beer, wine, whole grain bread and cereal, and a bookstore. Most of the news stories covered local sports at the high school, along with city council business and state government issues and the occasional lost dog story. 

            The town seemed quiet and friendly. The only problem seemed to be that from time to time, people and pets sometimes get mauled and even killed at night. Wolves, the sheriff speculated, or maybe even feral pigs. There’d been an attack earlier this year, one man sent to the hospital in a nearby city, and a dog killed. Mrs. Dorner’s dog, actually—Wooding’s neighbor. The dog was a poodle named Peanut. The attacks had taken place in late February.

            I checked the dates. Greg Wooding had been found in the laker in early March. Coincidence? Connection? I filled out another form, and Mr. Tyson, with a sigh, brought me another box of old papers. “Keep them in order,” he said again, and I promised I would. 

            I went through the papers from 20 years ago, around the time Arnold Kyser had been found in the lake. A week earlier, a married couple had been attacked by wolves after their car had broken down and they started walking back to town. The man had died of his wounds, but the woman survived. In the days after, several dogs and cats had been found out on the edge of the town, ripped apart and partially devoured by whatever had attacked them. 

            I returned the papers, thanked Mr. Tyson, and asked for a good place to get lunch. He smiled and pointed across the street. “My wife Edna runs the place, so I’m biased. But they do a good cheeseburger.”

            He was right—the cheeseburger was excellent. The waitress who served it, a blond girl in her 20s, didn’t know anything about Gregory Wooding, although she admitted that the body in the lake had been gross and scary. Edna herself, at the cash register, told me she’d seen Wooding in her diner a few times. “Usually a hamburger, sometimes a grilled cheese.” She handed me my change. “Before or after a stop at the Corner Bar. That’s down the street.”

            It was early for the bar, but I had a job to do. At least that’s what I’d tell Rachel if she found out.

            The bartender was a bored woman in her 40s watching an old sitcom on the TV above the bar. Two men sat at the bar drinking beer, and three women sat at a table drinking wine. I ordered a beer.

            The bartender looked me over. “Just passing through? I’m Janie.”

            “Staying at Gregory Wooding’s place for a few days.” I took a sip. “His daughter asked me to. I’m Tom. From Chicago.”

            “Oh.” She leaned back against the row of bottles behind the bar. “Greg came in here sometimes. Weird what happened to him. And the others.”

            “What do you think happened?” 

            Janie didn’t answer, but one of the men down the bar did. “Drug gang,” he grunted. “That guy kept to himself too much. He was up to something. Maybe did a deal with a gang that didn’t work out.” 

            “Or a wendigo monster,” said the other man. They were both in their 60s.

            “Wendigo?” I’ve met a wendigo. I don’t want to meet another one.

            His friend laughed. “They say there’s all kinds of monsters out in the woods. It’s all bullshit.”

            “I don’t know, Troy,” said Janie. “I’ve seen some weird stuff driving home at night. I don’t know what a wendy-go looks like, but I’ve seen some stuff.”

“Did anyone know Greg Wooding at all?” I tried to steer the conversation back to my subject. 

            “I used to see him taking walks,” the other man said. “He took long, long walks.”

            “What about Ed Haynes?” It was a long shot, but I had to ask.

            The question was met by silence, until Troy scratched his head. “I remember him. Not a bad guy. Got in some trouble for a while, and then he quit drinking, straightened out. Joined the lodge.”

            “What lodge is that?” I asked.

            The two friends looked at each other, as if he’d dropped a secret. “Elwood Lodge,” Troy said. “They’re sort of a men’s club. I don’t know what they do, they keep pretty close to each other.”

            “Naked mud wrestling,” the other man grunted. “Glow-in-the-dark body painting. Or secret drum meetings about their feelings.”

            Troy chuckled. “Don’t let Dwight hear you say that.”

            “Who’s Dwight?” I asked.

            Caution again. “He’s, uh, the grand pooh-bah or something at the Lodge.”

            “Did he know Wooding?”

            A group shrug answered that question. 

            By now they were growing suspicious of me—the men, at least. Janie went back to drying cocktail glasses from the sink and watching her sitcom, but the two guys started looking me over, and not in a good way. The women drinking wine at the table ignored all of us.

            I paid for my beer and left the mug half full. “Thanks a lot. Good meeting you all.”

            “Come back again!” Janie waved, then turned back to her soapy cocktail glasses. I felt the two guys at the bar watch me leave.

 

I walked around the town for a while, but I didn’t approach anybody on the street or in go into any shops to randomly ask about Wooding. I stopped in at the small library, where the woman at the front desk told me that Wooding liked to come in and look at the town history section from time to time. I stopped in at the bakery to buy some doughnuts for Rachel and me—okay, mostly me—but the guy behind the counter didn’t know who I was talking about when I asked about Wooding. 

Two blocks later I passed a dark, rugged wood building with a sign above the front door: ELWOOD LODGE. It took me 30 seconds to realize that “Elwood” was an abbreviation of “Linewood,” proving I may not be as smart a detective as I like to think. But the neighbor had mentioned Wooding spending some time here, and the other local victim, Haynes, had been a member long ago.

The front door was locked when I tried it, and the blinds inside the windows on either side were shut tight, and if I spent any more time checking the building out I’d probably attract too much attention, so I moved on. I figured I’d already drawn a certain amount of attention and suspicion just by walking around and asking questions.

            I drove back to the cabin and sent a report to my client. Then I went through the cabin again, looking for anything I’d missed, while I waited for Rachel.

            She arrived at seven. I had dinner ready, and she was hungry, so we ate and caught each other up on our days. She doesn’t talk about her patients much—confidentiality, HIPPA, and all that—but she gossips about the other doctors and therapists at the clinic. I told her about my day, and she flinched when I mentioned the possible wendigo. “I hope it’s not one of those things again. I still see that one in my nightmares.”

            “I think he was just trying to scare the city slicker. Are you picking up anything in here?” Her psychic powers could tell me if anything supernatural was involved. Maybe.

            Rachel closed her eyes for a moment. Then she frowned. “Damn it.”

            “What?”

            She stood up. We were in the kitchen, and she walked into the living room, looked around, and headed for the fireplace. “That.”

            I took the metal rat off the mantle. “What is it?”

            “I don’t know.” She reached out and put a finger on it. She didn’t yank it away immediately, a good sign. “I don’t know if it’s attracting, or repelling. Or both.” 

            “Attracting what?” I put the sculpture back.

            “How should I know?” Rachel shook her head, annoyed. “I don’t think it’s evil—the statue, I mean. It just sort of has a little ball of energy inside it, like it’s waiting for something. And don’t ask me what!” She glared at me. ”I don’t know.”

            Rachel sometimes resents my reliance on her psychic abilities. “Sorry.”

            She took a deep breath. “I’m just hungry. Let me eat some more.”

            After dinner we snuggled on the sofa under a blanket, while Rachel watched a reality show on her laptop and I tried once again to read some Thomas Pynchon. The cabin was quiet, the blanket was cozy, and by 10:30 we were dozing. I woke up enough to start trying to get Rachel interested in something in the other room when someone started pounding on the door. What the hell?

            Rachel’s laptop fell to the hardwood floor as I lurched up. I pushed the blanket away and stumbled into my shoes, looking for my jacket. 

            More pounding. Rachel followed me to the door, but grabbed my arm as I reached for the knob. “What are you doing?”

            “Someone’s out—” But I hesitated. The knocking sounded angry. I looked around for a weapon. A big flashlight hung next to the door, so I flicked it on and pointed it down. Rachel stood right behind me as I pulled the door open.

            The man in the front yard was thick and brawny, with a gray beard. He wore a heavy overcoat, oversized boots, and a red knit cap pulled down over his ears. His boots were planted firmly in the dirt as if he expected me to try to shove him over.

            “Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing in this house?”

            I stepped forward onto the grass, trying to keep Rachel behind me. The flashlight felt firm and heavy in my hand, a decent weapon if I needed to swing it at him or blind him. “I’m Tom Jurgen. I’m from Chicago. Mr. Wooding’s daughter said my wife and I could stay here for the weekend. Who exactly are you?”

            His face curled, suspicious. “Daughter?”

            “Emma Wooding. Do you have a name? And a reason to be here?”

            “Harrison. Dwight Harrison.” He scowled. “He never mentioned any daughter.”

            Dwight. The “grand pooh-bah” of the Lodge? “Were you a friend of his?”

            “He wasn’t very friendly.” He leaned over, trying to get a better look at Rachel. “Your wife?”

            Rachel stepped around me. “Rachel Dunne. Pleased to meet you.”

            “What are you doing here, Dwight?” I asked. 

            He let his face relax a little. “Saw lights. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a break-in.”

            “Are you a neighbor? I met one of his neighbors this morning.”

            “I’m at the Lodge. That’s where I know him.” He took a step back, eyes still on us. “I guess I’ll let you guys go. Have a good night.”

            He stood in the yard, looking at the house, and behind him I saw a shadow shift in the darkness. More than one shadow. Low and close to the ground, back and forth, as if he was walking a pack of black dogs ready to attack. I thought I heard a growl mixed with the wind.

            Then he turned and walked into the darkness. I waited for the sound of a car, but the wind rustling through the trees was the only sound we heard.

            “Okay.” I flicked the light around but didn’t see him in the distance. “Weird. Was he a ghost?”

            Rachel shook her head. “Human. Breathing. Maybe he just enjoys a late-night stroll.”

            “I think I want to find out more about this Lodge.” I turned to the door. “Later.”

            She smiled. “Tomorrow is another day.”

Master of the Lodge, Part Three

Rachel’s mood had improved by the next morning, so we ate breakfast late. “So what’s the agenda today?” she asked, pouring coffee. “Are we working?”

            “I should. You can hang out here if you want. Or wander through the town. For a small town, it’s got a few interesting shops and boutiques. There’s a bookstore.”

            “Tempting.” She nudged my knee with her foot under the table. “I think I’ll watch you work. It’s fun sometimes.”

            “I like watching you,” I told her. “I mean, you’re always a help.”

            Rachel snorted. “Come on, shamus, there’s work to do.”

            First I drove her out to the lake. “I’m not dipping my foot in that water,” Rachel said getting out of the car. “It looks like the ice only melted yesterday.” 

            “Do you get anything from looking at it?” I gazed out across the water. “Ghosts?”

            She frowned. “They found how many people?”

            “Three, over the last 30 years. Including my client’s father.”

            Rachel shook her head. “There’s more. Lots more.”

            I looked out across the icy water. “How many?”

            “They’re angry. And scared. But mostly angry.” She cocked her head. “Twenty or so. Maybe more. It’s hard to count when they’re all shouting.”

            I shivered, and not from the cold. 

            We went back to the car. “What now?” Rachel asked. 

            “The Lodge. Maybe we’ll see our friend from last night.”

            The blinds in the Lodge’s front windows were open today, and we could see people walking around inside. “The other lake victim was a member here too. It was in his obituary.”

            “Okay.” She flung her door open and looked up. “Elwood. Linewood. Cute.”

            I didn’t mention that I’d taken five minutes to figure the name out. 

            The big room inside had a rustic, hunting-lodge atmosphere, with long sofas on legs made of logs, big hard-backed chairs, and a rug the size of Lake Michigan over a hardwood floor. A huge fireplace dominated one side of the room, glowing with a gas fire. 

The fireplace was warm. On the mantle over it, I saw something familiar: A wooden sculpture, just like the one in Wooding’s cabin. A ratlike figure with one red eye, surrounded by sharp spikes. This one was bigger, almost three feet tall, and the red eye seemed to reflect the light from the fire below.

Paintings of deer and other wildlife hung on the walnut paneled walls around a couple of doors, one marked “Rec,” the other with a men’s room image, and another without any marking at all. Two men sat at a table playing backgammon. White, in their 70s, they didn’t look up as we entered until they spotted Rachel. One muttered something to his partner, who turned for a second, nodded, and then went back to rolling the dice.

            “Help you folks?” That came from a man emerging from the unmarked door. He wore a vest and a blue shirt, and nodded at the backgammon players while keeping his eyes on me.

            “My wife and I are just visiting for the weekend,” I said, “and this lodge looked interesting. Can I ask what’s the story around this statue?”

            He glanced at Rachel. “It’s a private organization,” he told us. “For residents only.”

            “Was Greg Wooding a member?” I asked.  “I’m here on his daughter’s behalf.”

            The two players were listening, but the man ignored them. “And you are?”

            “Tom Jurgen. This is my wife, Rachel.” I handed him a card.

            “Private detective?” The man looked at both sides of the card. “What’s this about?”

            “Just that his daughter wants to know more about her father’s life here. Especially after what happened. Can I ask your name?”

            He straightened up. “Pablo Jackson. I’m the secretary of the Lodge. I have to—”

            “That means you must know Dwight, right? Dwight Harrison? He stopped by last night.”

            “Dwight?” It was one of the backgammon players. “That was you he was—”

            “Enough, Harold.” Jackson waved a hand. “Dwight’s the, uh, the president here, yeah. I’m the membership coordinator.”

            “Was Greg Wooding a member?” I asked again. “What about Ed Haynes? He was a member. It was in his obit.”

            Jackson shook his head, more sternly now. “I can’t discuss our members. Past or present. Again, it’s time for you to—”

            “What about the statue?” This was Rachel. Jackson looked at her, and his annoyance slipped away. She has that effect on people. I try not to let it get to me.

            “That’s King Ventikken.” He pointed. “It’s supposed to be a native spirit, but really someone just made it up about 100 years ago to scare little kids into obeying their parents. Over time, it kind of evolved into a protector of the town. We adopted it as our mascot when Nathaniel Bailey founded the lodge in back in the 1950s.” Then he remembered he wasn’t supposed to talk to us, and he folded his arms. “All right?”

            Rachel smiled. “Thanks.”

            I felt Jackson and the two backgammon players watching us as we left. 

            “He was lying about the rat,” Rachel said as she opened her door. “About making it up. He’s sort of scared to talk about it.”

            “Nice work.” I slid behind the wheel.

            “It helps to be a hot babe.” She grimaced as she got in. “You could smell the testosterone from their pores.”

            “I don’t smell of male hormones, do I?”

            She smiled. “Every guy in there is wondering how you got so lucky.”

            I wonder that myself most days. “Or is it, every guy in there is wondering what you’re doing with a loser like me?”

            She punched my arm. Lightly. “Anyone who thinks you’re a loser has to deal with me. Where to next?”

            “Library.” I started the engine.

 

The same woman sat at the library’s front desk today. She remembered me, not with much fondness, but she was friendly enough when I introduced Rachel. “Yes, Mr. Wooding liked the town history section.” She pointed toward the back. “Especially the genealogy.”

            “The people in the town?” Rachel asked.

            “Up to 1985.” The librarian nodded. “The genealogical society burned down that year, but they’d already donated their archives before that to the library. They’re bound, on the top two shelves.”

            Rachel and I headed back quietly. The library had a handful of people—a mother with two children in the kids’ section, a man reading War and Peace at a table, another man scanning the True Crime area. 

            We looked through the titles, wondering what would have intrigued Gregory Wooding about the history of a town he’d never visited before moving here, according to his daughter. Rachel reached up and pulled out one of the genealogy volumes. “Let me try a hunch. Find out her grandparents’ names.”

            I texted my client, then skimmed a book about plants and animals native to the area, looking for anything that might be mistaken for a monster. By the time I’d finished and started on a book about all of Linewood’s mayors, Emma Wooding texted back with two names: Amanda Iris Kinsley Wooding and Reginald Parker Wooding. I gave the names to Rachel, who was deep into family trees. “Mm-hmm,” she murmured, and went back to the charts.

            I skimmed someone’s autobiography about growing up on a farm near Linewood, then found something closer to what I wanted: Spooky State—Wisconsin, a compilation of ghost stories, monster myths, and unsolved mysteries around the state. I spent a little too much time on a Bigfoot story, then turned the page and leaned down to make sure I was reading the next page correctly.

            Before I could say anything, Rachel punched my arm. “I got something.”

            “Ow. I rubbed my arm. “What?”

            “Here.” She swung a book around. “Sandra and Josh Kinsley had a girl named Amanda in 1969.”

            I had to think for a moment. “Wooding’s mother?”

            “Probably. So we go back . . .” She turned some pages. “There’s Sandra, born in 1941. I had to go back through both sets of parents, it got complicated, but anyway, if we go to here—” She pulled another book over. “He goes back to 1905. That’s where this starts, a little earlier, but basically the turn of the century. How old is this town?”

            “It was founded in 1903. Wait a minute.” I looked at the name of Wooding’s great-great-whatever grandparents: Thomas and Rebecca Wheeler. Wheeler was familiar, I looked around at the pile of books on my side of the table and found the one on Linewood’s mayors. “Thomas Wheeler was the first mayor of Linewood.”

            “So your guy is a direct descendant of the town’s first citizens. Does your client know about it?”

            “I don’t think so. It doesn’t explain why he came here after all these years. But look at this.”

            I showed her a page from Spooky State. “There’s been at least four other times bodies have been found in frozen lakes. The furthest one is about 50 miles away. But there was one in the next town in 2013. No explanation. A mix of locals and strangers.”

            “Huh.” We looked at each other. “So what does this all tell us?” Rachel asked.

            “Hell if I know.”  I started gathering up my books. “What made you start shaking the family trees? Your spidey-sense tingled?”

            “Older men frequently start getting interested in their family history when they retire. They’re bored, and they start thinking about mortality.” She shrugged.  “We covered it in a class about mental health and seniors.”

            “Glad you were paying attention that day.” I hesitated, and stood up to look at the shelves again. “Hang on a minute.”

            She was taking some pictures with her phone of the family trees. “What?”

            “I just want to see if there’s anything about the Lodge here.” I found two books on the history of Linewood, and one about the history of several towns in the area. Two books had indexes, but neither of them had an entry for the Elwood Lodge. The other one was more a family memoir than a history, and I had to skim its pages looking for any mention of the place until I reached page 183 of 211. 

            

Then, in October, Simon was inducted into the Lodge—the Elwood Lodge, a major institution around town. All the men try to join, but only a few are ever accepted. It’s a big honor, but no one talks about what they do there. (I think they bring in strippers.) But Simon died the next year, and my aunt finally had to move into assisted living . . .

 

            That was the only mention I could find. The bio for the author, Elise Danfield, said she still lived in Linewood, but the book was published by a small press in 1999. When I looked up the name online, I found Elise Danfield’s obituary in 2019. So I couldn’t talk to her. Simon, her husband, had died five years earlier.

            We replaced all the books and thanked the librarian on our way out. I lingered. “Are there any histories of that lodge in town? The Elwood. Lodge?”

            She seemed to freeze. “It’s a private organization.”

            “What they do? Does anyone know?”

            She looked away. “They keep to themselves.”

            Rachel nudged me. We left.

            “She was scared,” Rachel said in the car. 

            “I could tell.” I started the motor, but couldn’t decide where to go next. Finally my stomach rumbled. “Lunch? There’s a place with a good cheeseburger.”

            Rachel swatted my arm. She’s a vegetarian. “Jerk. Just go. I’ll eat a napkin if that’s all they have,”

            

At Edna’s I ordered another cheeseburger. Rachel kicked me under the table and had grilled cheese. We didn’t ask anyone about Wooding or the Lodge. I wasn’t sure where to go next, and it seemed likely that I’d found out everything I was likely to uncover. But I didn’t want to give up too easily. 

            I ordered some apple pie and shared it with Rachel. We were finishing our coffee when the diner’s door opened and a woman walked in. She was tall, in her 50s, with an angular face, and she wore a down vest and jeans. She ignored the waitress bearing menus and strode to our table.

            “You’re Jurgen?” She glanced at Rachel, but kept her attention on me. “The guy at Greg Wooding’s cabin?” 

            I tensed. “That’s me. And you are—?”

            “Tessa MacAuley. My aunt would like to invite you for tea.” She nodded to Rachel. “Both of you.”

            “Your aunt?”

            “Sara Cartwright. She lives in the house on the far side of the lake. Is four o’clock okay?”

            This was unexpected. But it might be informative. “Uh, sure. Four o’clock. We’ll be there.”

            “Thank you,” Rachel said.

            Tessa MacAuley nodded, as if grateful to be finished with an unwanted chore, and left.

            Rachel raised her eyebrows. “What do you figure that means?”

            I shrugged. “You ask enough questions, people start to notice. I was just wondering what to do next, so this is lucky. Maybe.”

            She finished her coffee. “This is fun.”

Master of the Lodge, Part Four

After an hour or so of relaxing in the cabin, we made our way to the far side of the lake. My GPS didn’t help much—a man in a gas station gave more reliable directions—but we found it eventually. It sat in the middle of the woods, no other houses for miles around. Three stories, most of the windows shuttered. The lawn around it was waiting for spring. 

            Rachel leaned against the car for a moment. “Whoa,” she whispered.

            “What is it?” I saw her eyes flickered.

            “Lots of ghosts.” She cocked her head. “I can’t see them, but I can feel them.”

            “Trapped here?”

            She shook her head. “They don’t want to talk. It’s more—protective. They don’t want to leave.”

            Okay. That didn’t make me feel better about being here.

Tessa answered our knock on the porch. “You made it.” She held the door open with a frown. “Over here. Sara! They’re here!”

            She led us through a big front room into a parlor, complete with oil lamps burning on small tables and a woodburning stove in one corner. The light from the lamps cast long shadows over the flowered pattern of the wallpaper, and big, overstuffed armchairs lined the room. A pot of tea and four delicate China cups sat on a table.

            A woman in her 70s sat in one of the armchairs with a blanket over her legs. She was small, with silvery hair, a firm chin, and sharp eyes behind round glasses. She held a small glass of wine in her hand. 

Tessa poured us tea. Then she stood in a corner, crossing her arms and watching us as if we were here to rob the place.

            “Mr. Jurgen? I am Sara Cartwright.” She set down her wine and spread an arm around the room. “This house was built by my ancestor, Thomas Wheeler. He was Linewood’s first mayor. Practically its founder, with a few other people.”

            “So you’re related to Greg Wooding.” I wonder what that connection meant. “This is my wife, Rachel Dunne.”

            A slight nod. “Ms. Dunne. Yes, I was aware of Mr. Wooding here. I never met him. I don’t go out unless I really have to, these days.” She smoothed her blanket over her knees. “You’re interested in him, I think.”

            “His daughter hired me. She didn’t understand why he was here, and when he died, she wanted to know more.”

            Sara Cartwright seemed to think about this. Rachel and I sipped our tea patiently. “I don’t know why he came here. If he’d come to me, I would have told him he’d be safer living someplace else. Anywhere else.”

            “Why is that?”

            Instead of answering, she said, “You’ve met Dwight?”

            “Yes. He came to the cabin last night. He seemed—unhappy that we were there.”

            “Dwight is the Master at the Elwood Lodge.”

            I glanced at Rachel. “They said he was the president.”

            She chuckled. “That’s a better-sounding word, I suppose. No, Dwight is the Master. He controls the Lodge and everyone in it. The Lodge has been part of Linewood since the beginning.”

            “They said a man named Nathaniel Bailey founded it in the 1950s.”

            She shook her head. “He put up the building where it is now. The Lodge has been part of Linewood ever since Thomas Wheeler was the first mayor.”

            “What do they do there?” Rachel asked. “It seemed excessively, well, manly.”

            She chuckled. “Men. Men and their clubs.” She sipped her wine. “They play their little games, they have their little rituals. They say they’re protecting Linewood.”

            “From what?”

            “From what lives in the woods.” Sara Cartwright gestured toward the window behind me. “Every 20 years or so, they come out to hunt and feed.”

            “So the people in the lake—Greg Wooding? They’re, what? Sacrifices? To appease the monsters?”

            “They’re sacrifices to Ventikkan.”

            “The giant rat?” Rachel grimaced “I knew the guy at the Lodge was scared of it.”

“She’s psychic,” I said.

            “Yes, I knew that when you came in.” Sara Cartwright smiled at Rachel. 

            Tessa snorted. “Ventikkan. They made it up out of legends and folk stories. It protects the town, but they have to give it a sacrifice to bring it out. Or something like that.”

“Some say the early settlers saw a strange creature in the woods, and they gave it offerings to appease it. I don’t know.” Sara Cartwright shook her head. “But the Lodge is centered around him. Appeasing him. Placating him. That’s the Master’s job.”

I crossed my arms. This was interesting, if true. But it wasn’t really what my client was paying for. “What about Greg Wooding? Do you have any idea what brought him here?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. If he was aware of me, of our connection, he never made time to talk to me. We never spoke.”

“I saw him in town a few times,” Tessa said. “Watching the Lodge from the store across the street. Coming out of it once or twice. Or just walking on the street.”

“I asked you here because I know a little about you,” Sara Cartwright said. “Your name is well-known in certain circles.”

Should I be flattered? Or nervous? “Okay.”

“I wanted you to be aware of our history. So you can take appropriate precautions.”

“Against Ventikkan?”

“The Lodge. They’re the real power in this town. You want to watch yourself around them.”

“Most of them are okay, one-on-one,” Tessa said. “But whatever they get up to inside—that’s different.”

Rachel and I glanced at each other. “Good to know,” Rachel said.

“Thank you,” I said as we stood up.

“Take care.” She finished her wine.

Tessa poured her another glass, and then she walked us out to the car. “Thanks for coming.” She rolled her eyes. “My aunt can be a little bit much. I wasn’t sure what she was going to say.”

“She was very informative,” I told her.

Rachel looked her over. “You know there are ghosts all over the place here, don’t you?”

“Oh, yeah.” She looked back at the house. “Without them to talk to I’d go crazy.”

“Are they all from the lake?”

Tessa blinked, then turned and looked through the trees, where we could see the cold water drifting restlessly. “Some of them. I don’t know their names. But yeah. Some were killed by whatever comes out of the woods, some were dropped in by the Lodge. But some—” She shrugged. “They just want to hang around.”

“It’s a nice spot for that” Rachel said. 

“Yeah.” Tessa smiled. “Well, see you around.”

 

Back at the cabin we opened some beers and talked about what we’d learned: lots about the history of Linewood, but not very much about what Greg Wooding had been doing here.

            “I told her I couldn’t promise anything,” I said. 

“Maybe it should be on your business cards,” Rachel said. “’Results Not Guaranteed.’”

            We lay on the sofa, facing the fireplace. I’d put the rat in a kitchen cabinet so we wouldn’t have to look at it. I thought about starting a fire in the fireplace, but I’m a city boy. I was afraid of burning the place down. 

            I looked at the deer over the mantle. Its dark glass eyes gazed over our heads like cameras watching the door for intruders. I wondered where it had come from, and who’d killed it. I’d half-expected Rachel to tell me to take it down, but she’d just grimaced when she first saw it and said, “It figures.” I wondered if it was part of the cabin or if Wooding had bought it. 

            I looked around the room again, wondering if I’d missed anything. I looked up at the deer’s head. Maybe something behind it? I looked at the two vases sitting beneath it, on either side of where the rat had been placed. They were dusty, with flowers painted on them, and I suddenly realized there was one place I hadn’t searched. 

            “Damn it.” I jumped up and picked up the left-hand vase. Nothing. “I’m going to feel really stupid if—"

            Yeah. I found a white envelope with EMMA scrawled across it in thick black marker. “Yeah, I’m brilliant.”

“Don’t worry.” Rachel patted my arm. “You’re still the smartest private detective I know.”

“I’m the only one you know.” 

“Well, yeah, but . . .” She shrugged.

I sighed. I wanted to rip the envelope open, but I forced myself to wait. “I have to call my client.”

As a therapist, Rachel understood client rules. “Yeah. Hopefully she’ll let us read it.”

I called Emma Wooding and explained the situation. It took a few minutes—I had to explain what we’d found out about her father’s family history, and she had to process that and everything I told her about the Lodge. “I’d like your permission to read this letter,” I finished, “but of course I’ll wait and hand it over to you without opening it if—”

“Read it,” she snapped impatiently.

I set the phone down and opened the envelope.

 

Dear Emma,

 

Im writing this in case I dont get a chance to tell you this in person. First I want you to know I love you and I should have done things better for you. Your the best thing in my life and I should have told you that more often. Especially after your mother. But thats done now and I cant change things, except to say what I should have said but its too late now. 

 

I knew about this town all my life but I never came here. They told me our family was one of the first families here, but I didn care. My grandfather gave me that statue of the rat when I was 5 years old and told me stories about it and I had nightmares. So I never wanted to come here and I never told anyone about it.

 

I found some stuff from my grandfather a few years ago. It said we got kicked out of the town a long time ago because we didn’t like the way things were going. There was this loge—lodge—that one of my grandparents started and it was taking over the town, and the family, us, we wanted to be in charge to keep them from doing bad things but they found my great-whatever grandfather, dead out on the road, they said he been attacked by a wolf but my great grandma knew they killed him, so she took the family and left. 

 

I guess I been thinking about this a long time and I finally decided I have to do something. I dont know what exactly but I cant ignore it any more for the rest of my life. Im old and I havent done anything right in my life, except for you I guess. Im up here now and Im going to stop them somehow. I dont know how. I dont know what’s going to happen. Scared.

 

I love you.

Dad

 

Emma was quiet when I finished. Eventually Rachel said, “Emma? Are you all right?”

We heard a sniff. “I’m fine. It’s just—out of nowhere. I never knew any of this. He never told me . . .” She was quiet again. Then she said, “I’m coming up there.”

Rachel and I looked at each other. “Okay,” I said. “I’m not sure how much there is to do at this point—”

“I want to see this Lodge,” she said. “I want to find out what they did to my father.”

“You want to be careful,” I told her. “The stories about Ventikkan and the creatures—I’m not sure they’re just stories.”

“I don’t care.” Her voice quivered. “I have to know.”

This didn’t sound good, or safe, but she was the client. “All right. We’ll see you tomorrow—”

“I’ll be there tonight.” Now her voice was firm. Determined.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea—”

“I’m coming,” she said. “My aunt can take care of my son. I need your help, but if you can’t help mwe just send me your bill on Monday.”

I stifled a groan, “All right. Come to the cabin. We’ll head to the Lodge together.”

“Thank you,” Emma hung up.

I looked at Rachel, expecting a dagger glare. She only sighed. “Clients. Am I right?”

“Welcome to my world.” I sat back on the sofa.

“Oh, I know your world all too well.” She put an arm around me. “Two-hour drive, right?”

“Ninety minutes if you’re fast.” I leaned in.

“Oh, I’m fast,” Rachel said right before she kissed me.