Kevin Whitmans summer had been quiet and uneventful, full of lazy, mostly sunny days, miles away from the crowds and noise of the city and weeks away from boring faculty meetings and uninspired student papers. Never had the decision to buy the lake cottage seemed so right. August, like July before it, held the promise of further respite from the academic wars - of not having to worry about anything more challenging than what novel to read next or what wine to have with dinner. But Kevins idyllic summer changed suddenly and dramatically on the second Tuesday of the month when he came face to face with death on his own dock.


_____


From where he lay on the bed, Kevin could see no sign of morning light. He turned toward the window, a rectangle of black on black, and concentrated on a thin sliver of space between the bottom of the shade and the sill. Was the sky slightly less black, a dark gray that heralded the approach of morning? Whatever the exact time, it was certainly much too early to be so wide awake. He rolled over onto his side and made the effort to go back to sleep, an effort he knew would be unsuccessful. Some inner clock was sending a different message. After trying several positions and stalling for ten minutes or so, Kevin resigned himself to the inevitable and got up to face the day....

Coffee would help. Kevin descended the narrow staircase and went to the kitchen, where he filled the percolator from the tap, guessing at the proper level because he couldnt bring himself to turn on the light. He located the coffee can from memory, and spooned enough for two cups into the basket.

The pot plugged in, Kevin went out onto the deck to contemplate the lake. On this particular morning it was nearly calm, a dark mirror. The cottonwood leaves, so often in motion, were barely stirring. No other sound from man or nature disturbed the silence. The frustration he had felt at waking so early ebbed away. He decided that he would enjoy a swim in this quiet hour when he had the lake to himself....

The sky was gradually getting brighter as Kevin began his swim back to the cottage. The beach was deserted, but it appeared that someone else must be up because light smoke was drifting along the waters edge. As he closed the distance between himself and his cottage, it became apparent that the smoke came from the chimney of his neighbors, the Morgans.

Kevin smiled to himself. He wasnt the only one who wasnt sleeping well. But then he spotted something which was much more interesting. There was something - or was it someone - on the end of his own dock. He couldnt tell from his vantage point in the water just what he was looking at, but as he drew closer it became apparent that the something was a man.

The man was stretched out lengthwise of the dock, his feet dangling over the end. He was fully dressed and soaking wet. Kevin could not see the mans face, which was turned the other way and buried in the crook of his arm. There was something decidedly awkward about the way he was lying. He did not look as if he had decided to stretch out to dry off or catch his breath.

Hello. Are you all right?

Kevins words sounded foolish in his own ears. He was pretty sure that this man was not all right. Quickly he swam closer to shore where he could more easily haul himself out of the water, then went out to the end of the dock and knelt beside the still figure. He rotated the body slightly in order to get a look at the mans face. It was then that his concern turned to shock.

It was immediately clear that the man was dead. His eyes stared sightlessly at the brightening sky. His skin had a distinctive pallor that even to Kevins untrained eye did not look natural. The sense of pleasure which his private swim had kindled drained rapidly away.

The shock came in three waves. The first was the realization that there was a dead man on his dock. The second came quickly on the heels of the first. This was no stranger; this was John Britingham. While Britingham was neither a friend nor an acquaintance, he was a prominent member of the Crooked Lake community whose recent arrival had touched off considerable controversy. A wealthy man, reputedly both brilliant and arrogant, John Britingham was now lying dead before sunrise on Kevins dock. How had he gotten there? Had he fallen into the lake, suffered a heart attack and crawled onto the dock, only to die before help arrived? Had he been in a boat? If so, where was it?....

It was while he was trying to order his thoughts, to regain some control over a day that had suddenly gone awry, that Kevin experienced the third shock. As he shifted the weight of the body and eased it down onto the dock, he saw that the cardigan Britingham was wearing was badly torn across the front. He pulled the sweater and shirt aside. The mans abdomen was an ugly sight. There was little sign of blood, but the wound was large and deep, as if a knife had been plunged in and then pulled across the belly.

Britingham had almost certainly not died of a heart attack. It was hard to believe that he had inflicted this wound on himself. Kevin looked across the lake to where the sun would soon appear and drew a deep breath. It was very likely that murder had been committed on Crooked Lake.