#haver

Halsin 🐻🌿

.

(that’s the rule of it)

—

4:13 am, Sunday

That’s when today began for the Winchell county Deputy Sheriff, one officer of the peace Anthony Haver. He had been having a lovely dream about being back on the west coast some dozen or so years prior, chasing the Dead up and down the lay of California. His halcyon years, as he thought of them, before getting stuck with a sour marriage, too much debt, a badge that lost its gleam, and a transfer so well and totally inland that the locals deign to call a few overblown lakes the ‘north coast’.

All he ever seemed to do anymore was bust kids for possession of the same stuff they were tossing around the show crowds like party favors back in his day (slap on the wrist, misappropriation of evidence, everybody walks with only a few hard feelings involved). He didn’t blame them; after all, what’s there for an intrepid youth to do here in the middle of podunk nowhere except light up and try to forget the ocean of endless-nothing woods around them. He didn’t blame them for running south to Madison or Milwaukee at the first knock of opportunity, or hell, even west to the Twin Cities. At least there was more to do there. Jobs for a kid besides falling asleep on the counter at Marcus’ Discount Video over in frickin’ Paradise.

So when he got the call about a painted hippie van pitched down to its round headlights, looking all the world to be drinking from the lake like some lumbering, be-wizard’d beast, what should he assume but more of the same.

—

“Mornin’, Tee.”

“Is it?”, Haver remarked flatly around an unlit cigarette, squinting at the pre-dawn horizon across Lake Gelid, where—maybe—he could mistake a sliver of orange creeping through the treetops.

“Just being pleasant, Tee.”

Sighing inwardly, “I know you are, Newt.”

He lit his cigarette, and rubbed his forehead with the back of his thumb.

“Sorry if I’ve got some lip today,” Haver said, approximating an apologetic tone, “I’m still half buzzed from a few night caps. Y’know.”

“Boy Howdy. Mhm.”

“So what’s the deal with…?”, Haver gestured over Officer Newton’s shoulder with his cigarette.

Newt turned to the awkwardly canted van down on the shore, high-centered on a berm in a sparse swath of splayed reeds and pussy willows, with the nose dipping into the water, the lake swallowing most of the front wheel well and just about teasing at the doors.

“No sign of the driver. Side door was open when I got here, dome on, headlights glowing eerie in the sludge. I killed the engine, no sake in letting it get ruined, no more at least. Not too much inside. Some paraphernalia, papers. And van stuff. Best I can tell, they got her stuck over a hump like that and she’s a rear-wheel. Just donezo. Ground’s kinda wet but there’s no obvious footprints, no drag marks where they might tried pulling her back or weighing the tail back down.”

“Owner?”

“Registered down in Dane to some kid named Hunter, uh… Varner. Isn’t reported stolen. Judy at the station talked to the mother, said her boy’s out camping somewhere mid-state with his girlfriend. Left Friday. She didn’t know which campground.”

“No sleeping bags? Blankets? Pillows? Food? Two kids go camping for the weekend, and all they’ve got is roaches in the ashtray?”

“Nada, Tee. Bottle of water in the glove box, though. Old map of the state on the passenger side floor. Oh, and looks like dried upchuck down the driver door.”

“Stolen, then, I’d reckon. Kind soul let them keep their luggage ‘fore joyriding up almost half the state.” Haver sucked on his cigarette, “Maybe not. Coulda been it was the lovebirds partied too hard and dunked it in the lake themselves. Took their gear to go lay low somewhere, sober up, maybe catch a ride back south with a local’n call it in stolen from somewhere better matches their story. I’d be real interested when and where we hear from our man, Hunter.”

After a pause Haver added, “Say, what about the girl? The mother give us anything on her?”

Newt shrugged unhelpfully, “You want I should go round and check the outtatowner cabins? Could be they’re hunkering down in one of them.”

Deputy Haver’s eyes went sweeping out over the lake, spotting a moldering rooftop across the way and gesturing at it with his cigarette.