Dead in the Water by Glenda Carroll Read Free Book Online

the swim office. I called this morning.”
    “My mistake. Neighbors have been stopping by to pay their respects. Let me go put these bags into the kitchen.” She disappeared down the hall as we followed close behind. I spotted the pile of mail on the kitchen counter not far from the window.
    “Must have been a beautiful yard once,” I said, straining my neck to look out to the backyard. I blocked her view of the letters and dropped the bank advertisement on top of the pile. Then, I inched the mail toward the counter’s edge.
    “Maybe before my brother moved in. Dick was no gardener,” Pamela said following my gaze to the back yard.
    I pulled the envelopes closer. Lena stood behind me. I turned to her and mouthed, “pick them up.”
    She shook her head ‘no.’ She put her hand’s up, traffic cop style, and gave me the smallest of shoves. That’s all it took. The mail fell on the floor.
    “Here, let me get that out of your way,” said Pamela as she bent down and scooped up the envelopes, looked at them briefly, then stuck them in her pocket. As she stood up, she glanced into the sink.
    “What is this?”
    In the sink were two sponges and the small white plastic lock I had knocked off the window. She reached in to pick it up and turned it over in her fingers.
    “I didn’t really introduce myself properly,” I said quickly. I held out my hand. “I’m Trisha Carson, from Nor Cal Swimming Association. There was something of Dick’s that I wanted to return. It was left at the Lake Joseph swim. This is my sister, Lena.”
    Lena managed a weak smile and a nod.
    Pamela led us back to the living room. “Sit down. Let me get you something to drink.”
    She placed the narrow piece of plastic on the table. We both just stared at it; then glanced at each other. Lena whispered “This is crazy. Give her the goggles and let’s get out of here. Say you got a call and we have to leave, now.”
    Pamela walked back in carrying a tray with tall glasses of lemonade and some shortbread cookies.
    “I’ve been existing off this for the last week. No real time or interest in food right now.”
    We nodded our heads in understanding.
    “So what did you say you are returning?”
    “Mr. Waddell’s goggles.”
    I put them on the table. She picked them up and turned them over in her hands. A ghost of a smile moved across her face.
    “You know when Dick was little, goggles weren’t around yet. He used to come home from swim practice with red, burning eyes all the time. So hard to do his homework. But by the time he was about 17 or 18, right around the time of the 1976 Olympics, they became the thing to have, if you were a swimmer. They were worn at the Olympics in Montréal and records were shattered. The coaches loved them. That meant their swimmers could practice longer. Dick’s goggles made all the difference. His speed increased dramatically.”
    Lena leaned forward to listen. The conversation was about something that interested her.
    “I’m wondering,” I said. “Did the hospital ever tell you what happened to Dick? Did he have a stroke or a heart attack?”
    “Well, the official cause of death was drowning. They found fluid in his lungs. That doesn’t satisfy me. I want to know what caused the drowning. Dick was an exceptionally good swimmer. I told the doctors he was a type A personality, driven to succeed. They suggested that he could have had a cardiac event that led to the drowning. But we—Spencer and I—don’t think he went out there and had a heart attack.”
    “If it wasn’t a heart attack, what do you think it could have been?” I asked.
    Pamela paused and glanced around the room, then down at her brother’s goggles still in her hand.
    “Some of the test results I received from the medical examiner don’t make sense to me. I asked for them to be redone and I’ve requested an autopsy. My brother was an incredible athlete. He liked winning. And if truth be told, he didn’t mind telling you how good