Welcome back to Glass Half Full and thanks for reading! Today marks the start for this paranormal novella. It comes in at 22,000 words, in ten chapters and fourteen individual scenes. At one scene per week, you’ll know what to expect from me for the next three months. But who knows? I might throw in a random essay here or there. If there’s enough interest in the novella, I might publish it all at once for paid subscribers before it reaches the end.
This is my first attempt at anything paranormal, for which I was inspired by S.E. Reid. You really should run right over to her Substack and read everything there, or buy one of her books.
This was also an exercise in writing a character as much unlike me as possible. I could have made Jim a private eye, but somehow that seemed both not very realistic and also clichéd. So he’s a Detroit cop. It’s not very hard-boiled, since there are no dead bodies and no femme fatales. Maybe it’s a cozy mystery, but it’s pretty sweary. Can you have a sweary cozy mystery? I guess I should become more familiar with all these sub-genres. Or maybe I’ve invented a new one?
Anyway, on with the show!
LOST LAKE is so beautiful, it can make your eyes bleed. You come up over the hill and there it is, blue water, green trees, white sand beach, all that shit. And out beyond it, the big lake, more like an ocean, stretching forever. A couple of puffy white clouds to give the sky depth. A neat little town of the same name at one end of the lake, with that sandy beach in front, the buildings painted in actual colors, not the usual Michigan palette of grays and tans. Here and there, poking out from the trees around the lake, tasteful cottages — and by cottages, I mean mansions, twelve rooms minimum. It looks so perfect, a Detroiter like me can hardly believe it exists.
It seemed like a good place to relax — on the Chief’s orders — except for one thing. Before I pushed my aging Impala up over that last hill, I passed a burned-out hulk of a factory. Just a couple of blackened concrete walls and steel girders hanging in air, bulldozers and other heavy equipment picking at them like vultures. Part of a sign dangled from one post at the entrance:
ANDERSON SYST…
ELECTRICAL HARN…
It reminded me of home, but it seemed out of place amidst all the bucolic splendor.
But what did I know? It was my first time this far north. Maybe every little town had its auto parts factory, something to keep the kids from moving downstate, or all the way out of state. Except for now, Lost Lake’s kids would have to make do with the local restaurants and fudge shops.
Oh yeah, I might be an ignorant downstater — never having been farther north than Saginaw, and that was on a case — but I knew about the fudge shops. Half the guys in the precinct back in the D had cabins up here. They’d bring back fudge, which I’d pass on to the kids. After the divorce, they switched to liquor from local small-batch distilleries.
They invited me up sometimes, telling me about the lakes and the great fishing. But I never took them up on it. We got plenty of water and fishing right around here, I’d tell them. Hell, what’s the Detroit River but a long, skinny lake? It’s even got islands. What more could you want?
Now that I was up here, I had to admit it was different. If only because the trees were pointier, the kind with the needles instead of leaves. Pines, firs, whatever. In fact, come winter, I bet this place would look like a god-damned Christmas card. Except for that burned-out factory.
Which was still on my mind as I eased the Impala down into town and found my way to the place I’d be staying. I was here to relax for a week, a sort of forced vacation, not to say administrative leave. “You’re wound tight as a spring, Jim,” the Chief had told me. “You’re getting out of town, and that’s an order. I don’t want to see you in front of the review board.”
He’d even gotten my ex, Joanie, on my case about it. Turned out one of the female detectives had an aunt who ran this bed and breakfast and wrangled the friends-and-family rate for me.
But my mind being my mind, it wouldn’t settle down and absorb the peace and beauty that was all around. No, it was spinning scenarios about that ruined factory. Accident? Arson? If it was intentional, a self-inflicted insurance scam? A disgruntled employee? Or maybe Lost Lake had its own ecoterrorist cell? I’d started making mental lists of people to talk to before I remembered why I was here.
The B&B was called Wainwright House and billed itself as a “country inn,” although it was a couple blocks uphill from Main Street. It was one of those Victorian hulks, all angles and gables and shingles, a nightmare to paint if done the right way, multiple trim colors to bring out the detailed woodwork. All meant to show that the owner could afford that level of craftsmanship. This place looked like someone had done a good job on it maybe ten, fifteen years back — some peeling and chipping here and there, some rotted wood starting to show through. But it looked in great shape compared to buildings of the same age back home, and it had a commanding view of the town and both lakes.
I guessed it had been built by some muckety-muck back in the 1890s, probably Wainwright, during the heyday of logging, before going into a long, gentle decline. Better to become a bed-and-breakfast than a law office, I figured.
I pulled into one of two spots off the driveway at the side of the house. I got out, pulled my roller bag from the trunk and carried it up the steps of the wrap-around front porch, the breeze off the lake making me wish I’d brought a jacket. Hell, it was still August, ninety degrees back home.
The note on the doorbell said, “Ring bell,” so I rang it.
“It’s open!” came a woman’s voice from farther in.
I opened the screen door and stepped into the foyer, all carved dark wood and rose-pattern wallpaper.
A tallish woman with short, steel-gray hair stepped forward, a dish towel over her shoulder. She looked like an old-timey school teacher — knee-length wool skirt, a sweater-vest over her blouse, sensible walking shoes.
“You must be Mr. Pulaski,” she said, extending a hand. “Anne Clark, but please, call me Anne.”
“Call me Jim,” I replied, taking her hand. I could tell she was too proper to make any tool-related jokes based on my last name. Down at the precinct, they called me the Big Tool. Partly because I stand six-foot-two in my socks, and partly because, well… not long after I made detective, one of the senior officers said of me, “Pulaski’s a good name for you — not too smart, but handy in an emergency.” I smiled and went along. Everyone in the department got ribbed for something, usually identity-related. No snowflakes allowed. Miguel Flores, the one Hispanic in the precinct, called the rest of us “potato people,” since we were mostly round and white. But we all got along — it was better blowing off steam that way than letting prejudices fester.
Besides, I heard worse Pollack jokes every year, standing in line at Srodek’s on National Pierogi Day.
Anne eyed my roller bag, then glanced out the window toward my car. “Just the one bag? No bike or kayak to store?”
“This is it.”
“Very well. Let me show you to your room.”
It was on the second floor, up a steep set of carpeted stairs. Too frou-frou, if you asked me, with yellow-flowered wallpaper, a four-poster bed with one of those fringe things around the top, lace curtains on the windows. At least it wasn’t the honeymoon suite.
“You’ll have the place to yourself until the weekend, when I have a nice young family coming in.” She spent a few minutes telling me about all the things to do — the bike path around the lake, kayaking or paragliding on the lake, fishing charters out to the big lake, the history museum, the cute gallery filled with local arts and crafts.
“And of course you’ll want to visit the fudge shop. Made right here in town, the owner’s personal recipe, not one of the chains.”
“Do you run this whole place yourself?”
“Yes, since my husband passed.” There was the slightest hint of a wince around her eyes. “Oh, a girl comes in and cleans, makes the beds. There’s a landscaping service for the grounds. Other than that, it’s just me.” She avoided an awkward pause by rushing to the next topic. “Now, it’s nearly four, when I serve tea, if you’ll be around. Out in the garden on a fine day like today. Did you bring a sweater?”
“Shoulda packed my Lions jacket, I guess.”
“Well, I’ll let you get settled.”
Which took me about three minutes. I opened the curtains and sat on the bed for a while, looking out over the lake, until it was time for tea. I put on my sport coat, the only warmish thing I had. Back home I had a couple of beat-up sweatshirts I used to wear for mowing in the fall — back when I had a lawn to mow. A long wool overcoat, not really appropriate for a late summer getaway, even in northern Michigan. I figured I could pick up a sweatshirt in town.
The garden was one of those formal ones. Paved paths, beds of roses, hostas in the shade, not a weed in sight. A sundial in one corner, a birdbath in the other. It was to the side of the house, giving it a view of the lake. For a lost lake, it sure was hard not to spot it. The house blocked the breeze, so I was pretty comfortable as long as a cloud didn’t cover the sun.
Anne brought out the tea. The whole nine yards, a pot and a strainer, a dainty teacup and saucer — rose-patterned, natch — milk, sugar, lemon, some fancy little cookies.
“Shall I pour?”
“Thanks, I’ve got it.”
She looked like she wanted to say something, but hesitated. “Well, let me know if you need anything else. You can usually find me in the kitchen, or ring the bell in the foyer.”
Of course I wanted to ask her about that factory, but everything here was so prim and proper and put-together, I didn’t want to cause any affront. I let her go back inside while I sat there drinking the tea, black, avoiding the cookies, looking out at the lake, wondering what the hell I should do next.
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Great start.