The Silver Lake Murder by Gregg Matthews (read novel full txt) 📗

Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and wiped out the city. When all hell broke loose, he and Rose were separated, and he has not seen her in months. He has checked all of her social media sites, and there has been no activity for months. His heart sinks after the last thought. He buries his emotions deep down inside. He wonders if he will ever see her again.

Rose has long, straight dark hair, dark eyes with a beautiful face belonging on the cover of a magazine. She is petite, lightly tanned, five feet tall. When she wears a dress,most if not everyone in the room stops to look at her. She is the sweetest human being hehas ever met. He and Rose have been together since the day they met in elementary school and have been inseparable since. She has the aura of someone famous, but she is not. She is from Silver Lake, north of Boston, MA.

When he sees a woman who he thinks might be her, he runs up to check, but it’s never her and he’s starting to suspect the worst. But he doesn’t want to give up. He thought maybe she came back here to Boston. His mind wanders, thinking about the events forcing him to come back here. He has trouble processing the information of the past few months. He hopes he is having a bad dream and will wake up soon. He turns right and presses on the accelerator again.

Reading the first sign sends chills up and down his spine, Entering the LakesRegion. He starts to panic a little. Looking in the rearview mirror, he can see moisture has appeared on his forehead. His face is also wet and clammy. He rolls the window downmore.

As if in slow motion, he can feel Route 38 pulling him back into the violence and drama of Silver Lake. He pulls the car over and sits on the shoulder of the road. He thinks about why he is here. He is here because he cannot find his girlfriend, Rose. He thinks she may have come back here to find him. There is one way to find out if she is here. He has to go back to Silver Lake and find out if anyone has seen her. He presses his right foot on the accelerator, causing the back tires to spin in the dirt, pulling the car back onto the pavement. His mind wanders, and he struggles to keep his eyes open.

Both eyelids are heavy and closing; it’s been a long night. The bump in the road causes his head to jerk back, and all he can see are bright red brake lights. The sight of the brake lights on the car in front of him causes him to press his right and left foot on the brake pedal as hard as he can. The car locks up and stops short of the rear end of the car in front of him. He sees the baby on board sign moving back and forth in the rear window. There are red brake lights as far as he can see. The traffic is at a standstill. He takes a minute to compose himself. Jesus.

Looking up ahead to the left through the woods, he can see the color blue mixed in with the color gold through the green trees. This is the first time he has seen Silver Lake in several years. The traffic in front of him moves slowly up Route 38 running across the front of Silver Lake. The further up the road he gets, the more of the lake he will see. Time goes by, and he creeps his way up Route 38. The lake is coming into view.

From growing up here, he knows all there is to know about the Lake. Silver Lake is one hundred acres in size and fifty feet deep at the center. The lake is an oval shape with a cove in the back. The cove is called Cripple Cove.

Cripple Cove was named by the locals. The locals who didn’t pay their debt to the bookie, drug dealer, or whatever else the root cause of the dispute was, would meet at Cripple Cove. The disagreement was settled there. Years ago, a local man had a dispute over drugs and money. He was beaten by a motorcycle gang so badly, he was crippled. Cripple Cove.

There is an island in the middle of the lake, it is the size of two football fields side by side. The island has an official name on the map but is known by the locals as Little Rock Island. The island was named, because it is surrounded by little rocks. There is always a group of locals standing around a bonfire, drinking. In the winter, the bonfire keeps the locals warm, and in the summer, the bonfire keeps the mosquitoes away. If you are drinking on the island, the local police will not bother you. It’s a Silver Lake rule.

Every summer, one of the local kids tries to swim out to the island, falls short, and drowns. Every winter, one of the local kids decides to go ice fishing, falls through the ice, and drowns. One winter, the local police were able to save one of the kids who fell through the ice—his childhood friend Billy Flynn.

Every spring, the local police pull stolen cars and trucks out of the lake one at a time. The insurance companies for the local residents finally smartened up and will not pay a claim on a stolen or lost vehicle until after the spring.

Chemicals from industrial companies from the 1960s and 1970s were dumped in the lake water, polluting it for years. The Environmental Protection Agency showed up, and after years of cleaning and drudging the lake, the water has been clean for years. They stock the lake with bass, pickerel, and trout. The wildlife in and around the lake has been back for years. The locals are very happy about