Lake of the Dead

By Susan Clayton-Goldner

When Parker Collins, a gifted writing student at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, fails to show up for the first day of fall classes, his frantic girlfriend, Rishima Reynolds, files a missing person’s report. Though Parker has a history of alcohol abuse, disorderly conduct, and truancy, she insists he is committed to his writing classes, and is adamant something is very wrong. Persuaded by the depth of her conviction, Radhauser drives up to a cabin at Sunset Lake where Parker spent the last month finishing a novel. It’s a manuscript his mentor, Professor Madison Hollingsworth, claims is brilliant. The Hollingsworth cabin has been trashed—the padlock on the liquor cabinet cut and empty bottles are strewn around the kitchen. It appears Parker has gone on a binge and disappeared with the Hollingsworth boat. Radhauser knows appearances are often deceiving. He returns to Ashland, hoping Parker is out on the lake and nursing a gigantic headache. But something about the cabin scene nags at Radhauser and won’t let him go.

The following morning, 72-year-old Homer "Sully" Sullivan, one of the lake's few year-round residents, finds a bloated body floating face-down near his cottage. He phones Radhauser, terrified it could be Parker Collins—the boy Sully befriended and has come to love. Will this missing person’s case become a murder investigation?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tirgearr Publishing
• Release date: Jul 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463868874

Book preview

Chapter One

September 25, 2000

On the first day of fall semester at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, nineteen-year-old Rishima Reynolds took a seat at the back of the room where she could observe every student who entered. One by one she scanned faces as the seats filled and eager classmates pulled notebooks from their backpacks. The clock above the door kept ticking, but the one person she searched for failed to appear. Parker Collins promised to be back last night. He would never lie to her.

Something was very wrong.

Before she met Parker, Rishima had never been held or kissed by a boy. She’d never tucked her hand into another’s—only her parents back when they knew her as Roy and weren’t ashamed to be seen in her presence. It wasn’t her fault she was born a genetic male. And she hadn’t purposely deceived anyone. She had no idea as to why, but her body didn’t match the way she perceived herself. As soon as she could speak the words, little Roy made an announcement to her Catholic mother. I’m a girl.

At first, her parents thought it was a stage she’d outgrow. Or that Roy might turn out to be gay. Mother went to confession twice a week and prayed for her son’s soul. They enrolled Roy in Poly Prep High School, but as she got older and went through puberty, she wasn’t attracted to gay boys. She was attracted, like most girls born female, to heterosexual boys.

What she wanted, more than anything, was to be an ordinary woman in love. In her every dream, she was female. And when she was old enough, she changed her name to Rishima, entered the four-month mandatory counseling that preceded her hormone injections and dressed like a woman—a process called gender bending. The next steps would be the biggest and the most expensive—gender reassignment surgery.

As the last student filed into the classroom and the bell rang, Rishima tried to tell herself Parker was okay, but he took his creative writing classes seriously and wouldn’t cut out on the first day of Genre Fiction 201.

Or maybe he would if he’d been at a crucial place in his writing and needed another day or so to finish. But wouldn’t he have called so she wouldn’t worry?

She stared at the clock as the minute hand inched forward, held her breath, and waited for her cell phone to buzz and tell her something terrible had happened to him. Her stomach turned in on itself. This internal argument wasn’t working. She wouldn’t be fighting back tears if he were really okay. And she wouldn’t be attempting to push off this fear that clawed its way to the surface.

Rishima stood and walked toward the door.

As she passed Tom Wilson, he leaned back in his chair and grinned at the girl sitting beside him. Be careful. Don’t touch the he/she. You might catch it, he whispered, as if Rishima were a dreaded disease.

She was no stranger to ridicule and abuse at the hands of Tom Wilson, who’d also gone to Poly Prep High School. He grew up in her neighborhood and they played together as young children, but after Rishima changed her name and began to dress like a girl, Tom made it his personal campaign to shame and humiliate his former friend.

The worst incident had occurred the spring they were high school seniors. Rishima looked and dressed like a girl by then, and longed to be invited to the senior prom. About three weeks before the dance, Tom left a message taped to her locker indicating he had something important to ask and wondered if she’d have lunch with him in the school cafeteria.

As she read his note, blood rushed to her head. Tom was about to ask her to the prom. Perhaps the old Tom who used to be her friend was still there. Like those Russian dolls that nested one inside the other, until you found the little one, a treasure small enough to hide in the palm of your hand.

Looking back, she should have known better than to trust him, but at seventeen, her longing outweighed her common sense.

She’d hurried into the bathroom and combed her hair, touched up her makeup, wishing she’d worn a dress or at least a skirt and feminine blouse. With track practice after school, she’d dressed in a pair of maroon sweatpants, her running shoes and a pale pink sweater with pearl heart-shaped buttons.

Too nervous to eat, she went through the cafeteria line, taking only a dish of vanilla pudding and a grilled cheese sandwich. When she exited, she searched the rows of tables until she found the one where Tom sat with his best friend, Drew, and another student Rishima didn’t know.

A moment later, she stood beside them, holding her tray. Hi, Tom. A low buzz of anxiety hummed along her spine. I understand you’ve got something important to ask me.

Drew smiled, but something mean and cold flashed in his eyes. He got up from the table and stood behind Rishima. I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone. But I think Tom should at least know his prom date has a dick. In one very fast, smooth motion, Drew hooked his thumbs into the elastic in both her underwear and warmup pants and yanked them down. They puddled around her ankles.

Tom slid his gaze over her genitals, then looked away, unable to hide his contempt and disgust. The walls of the cafeteria shrunk inward for a moment and then swelled back out.

When Rishima looked down at herself under the fluorescent lamps, her skin was pasty and white as flour. Shrunken from her hormone injections, her penis lay curled and nestled in a sparse clump of dark pubic hair. The cafeteria spun like a Tilt-A-Whirl at the carnival. She dropped her tray, covered her genitals with her hands, then pulled up her sweatpants.

Laughter erupted all around her. A couple students clapped.

Mr. Simpson, the French teacher, track coach, and cafeteria monitor for the day, hurried over to the table, grabbed Tom with one arm and Drew with the other. Okay, you’ve had your fun, he barked. Finish your lunch and then we’ll see what Principal McMillian has to say about this. Bullying is a serious offense. Mandatory suspension. He let go of their arms.

When Mr. Simpson looked at Rishima, his face went soft. Are you okay?

She glanced at him for a moment, her throat thickening with tears that only increased her shame. After racing out of the cafeteria, she made the mistake of pausing in the doorway to look back.

Drew and Tom high-fived each other.

Rishima careened down the hallway and into the restroom. She locked herself in a stall and banged her head against the cold, metal door. Damn those assholes, she’d muttered. Damn. Damn. Damn them to hell.

Almost two years later, when she told Parker about the incident, he punched Tom in the face, broke his nose, and had nearly gotten suspended from the university. He would have broken something on Drew’s face, too, if he hadn’t gone out of state to college.

But, having more important things to worry about today, she tried not to let his cruelty bother her. What if Parker had gotten ill or been injured? Who would know? She’d gone to a poetry reading Saturday night at the time Parker usually called and turned off her cell phone. What if he was unable to reach her and called her parents’ house instead?

He’d been teaching her to drive. She didn’t have her license yet, but her friend, Donna, parked her car on campus and had given Rishima a set of keys. Donna had lived across the street from Rishima’s family. She befriended her back when she was known as Roy and was the first person she’d ever told about being transgender. Donna remained the only one, besides Parker, who accepted Rishima for the woman she was intended to be.

And now, Parker had disappeared.

Rishima had to find him.

* * *

After discovering Professor Hollingsworth, acting head of the creative writing program and owner of the cabin where Parker had been staying, was in a faculty meeting, Rishima drove to the house on Strawberry Lane where she’d grown up. She parked Donna’s black Honda Civic in the alley behind the clapboard bungalow, entered through the back gate and knocked on the kitchen door.

Her mother, Elena, answered. She jerked her head left and right to be certain no neighbors had seen her son dressed like a woman, then pulled Rishima inside a kitchen that smelled like last night’s spaghetti sauce. Elena closed the door and tugged the café curtains closed over the upper glass.

She was a short, plump woman with dark hair in a tight bun at the nape of her neck. Elena wore, as was her custom, a flowered housedress, pantyhose, and a pair of flats matching one of the colors in her dress. She stared at Rishima and asked in her broken English, What you do here? What if your father he comes home? Or little Ronnie?

Once Rishima changed her name from Roy Ramos to Rishima Reynolds and completed her gender bending, her mother had insisted she live somewhere near campus, away from her devastated father and the six-year-old brother whom Elena claimed was confused about what happened to his older sibling. Mr. Ramos, even though he was paying for her apartment and tuition, avoided Rishima whenever he could and said nothing, which was almost worse than her mother’s outspoken scorn.

I knew Ronnie was in school today, and I figured Dad would have left for work by now.

Elena’s gaze traveled over Rishima’s body—the long hair and makeup, her new breasts in their white satin blouse, the black skirt, and finally landed on her three-inch-high heels. I never accept this. Why can’t you be the person you were born? There was pity in her mother’s voice. And a hint of love, too. But there was no way Rishima could make her understand what she’d done and why. Elena asked the same question every time she saw her oldest child.

Rishima gave her usual answer. "It’s not that I want to be a girl, Mother. It’s that I am."

Mother? Elena repeated the word and it seemed to stab and shrink her at the same time. I no give birth to girl. And so I ask you call me Elena. She lowered her head and held up a weary hand. How could anyone expect mother be okay with…with this?

Her parents thought Rishima was a freak and no one would ever want to be with her. Her father, Alonzo, hated Parker because he believed Parker encouraged Rishima to live the life of a transgender person, and that without his support, Roy would reclaim both his last name and his Mexican heritage. Come to his senses and return to them.

Elena had cried her heart out for weeks after Rishima began hormone replacement, as if she’d just discovered her child was dying. But, for the first time, Rishima had begun to live an authentic life, not one spent in hiding.

It not natural. Elena crossed her arms over her chest, her lips a tight seam on her round face. No wonder those mean boys hurt you.

Last Christmas, during her freshman year, she was assaulted in nearby Grants Pass and the words tranny pervert were branded on her abdomen. For months afterwards, Rishima carried painful burns on her skin and a fist of fear in her chest. Just walking down the street became an act of courage. Would someone leap out at her and call her a freak, a sinner destined for hell, or worse yet, a predator? And she would always carry the scars that reminded her of one of the worst times in her life.

Why you come here? Elena asked.

Because I’m worried about Parker. I turned off my phone during the poetry reading last night. And I wondered if he might have called here looking for me.

Elena lifted her dark eyebrows. "You know how your father feel about him.

Parker…he no would call here."

I was out late on Saturday and I just hoped…

He probably decide he no want girlfriend with… She wrinkled her nose and stopped herself from saying the word penis.

Rishima swallowed her hurt. Could her mother be right? Had Parker decided their life together held too many problems? None of her transgender friends from support group had boyfriends. Most believed no man would ever take them seriously. He might want to have sex out of curiosity, but when it came time for a marriage proposal, it would be to a genetic female.

But Parker Collins was different. Rishima saw him for the brilliant, creative mind he was and knew he would become a famous writer, maybe even win a prestigious award someday. And when he did, he promised to help pay for Rishima’s reassignment surgery. With any luck, she wouldn’t be a freak forever.

Please, Rishima said. Just tell me if he called.

No calls. And you need to leave now. Stella, she comes over for coffee and cake at ten.

* * *

In his cramped office at the Ashland Police Station, Detective Winston Radhauser leaned back in his swivel chair and propped his feet, in their hand-tooled cowboy boots, on top of his desk. He stared out the window at the Plaza, where the maple trees turned gold and red.

There was no shortage of visitors in September as the Shakespeare Festival was still in full swing and students had returned for fall semester, frequenting local cafes and pubs. They spread their multi-colored blankets out on the lawn in nearby Lithia Park—there to study, or make out, or just sleep in the autumn sunshine with the lulling sound of water tumbling over the rocks in Ashland Creek.

He tossed a wadded-up ball of yellow-lined paper into the small basketball hoop attached to his trash can. It was a gift from his wife, Gracie, for quiet days like this one. He hadn’t had a big case since the murders of two high school kids back in January. The case cost Radhauser his best friend, Dillon Van Horn, who’d moved back east to avoid the shame of the murders his wife committed. And if that wasn’t bad enough, his partner for more than a decade, Detective Robert Vernon, had retired over the summer. Radhauser missed his sense of humor and the chess games they’d played when things got too quiet.

In truth, Radhauser was bored, and whenever that happened, he wondered if he’d made the right decision to leave Tucson and move to this quiet little Elizabethan town in the foothills of the Siskiyou mountains. He’d mostly done it for Gracie. She wanted to raise their children on a small horse ranch in the beautiful place where she’d grown up. And, if the truth be known, she’d also wanted to get Radhauser away from Tucson, where the memories of his first wife and son had loomed in the very air around them.

Gracie didn’t know when death happened with such swift and violent brutality, you carried it with you no matter how far away you moved. And idleness had a way of beckoning those two ghosts, who all too often refused to stay buried.

Hazel Hornby, the police station’s administrative assistant, interrupted his musings with a couple taps on his doorframe. Her gaze darted to the yellow balls of paper in his trash can. She chuckled. I see Michael Jordan has been practicing his jump shot. There’s someone here to see you. Rishima Reynolds. She says you know her.

He sat up straight, removed his feet from his desktop. Rishima was the young woman he’d met at the beginning of the year when the American Heritage Club, a white supremacist and anti-gay organization, still existed in Ashland. She was one of the three kids branded on their abdomens with homophobic slurs. He hoped something like that hadn’t happened to her again. Tell her to come on in.

Rishima was tall and reed slender with coffee-colored hair falling over her shoulders in loose waves. She seemed older and more confident as she stepped into his office and stuck out her right hand.

Radhauser stood and took her outstretched hand. It was a firm handshake, but there was still something fragile and vulnerable about her.

I don’t know if you remember me or not. But I’m Rishima Reynolds.

He nodded toward a chair in front of his desk. You’re hard to forget.

When she sat, he did the same. Your name is Hindu and means moonbeam. How could I fail to remember something that beautiful?

Rishima’s eyes sparkled and she gave him a huge smile, obviously pleased. Her teeth were even and very white. She was strikingly pretty with dark, soulful eyes and perfectly-applied makeup. Today, she wore a long black skirt that fell just above her ankles and a white satin blouse with pearl buttons. Her red leather boots had high, narrow heels and laced up the front like something from the Victorian era.

It was mid morning and a bright spot of sunlight through the east-facing window held her in its beam and gave a golden glow to her skin. She wore dangling rhinestone earrings. They caught the light and shimmered against her dark hair. A young girl like this could break some hearts if anyone was brave enough to let her inside.

How’s your baby? she asked. You’d just had a son the last time I saw you.

He smiled. Jonathan is doing great. He’s nine months old now and pulling himself up. When he takes a few steps holding onto the coffee table, he looks up at me and grins like he just swam across the English Channel. And, of course, he’s into everything. But you aren’t here, with a worried look on your face, to ask about my son.

She bit her bottom lip. You’re right. I want to report a missing person.

He pulled a pad of paper from his center drawer. Okay, let’s start with a name.

Parker Collins.

And what makes you think he’s missing?

Parker has spent the last month at a cabin at Sunset Lake, writing. He called me on Friday and promised he’d be home on Sunday. But he didn’t show up. And he wasn’t in class today either. I’ve known Parker for almost a year and he’s never broken a promise or lied to me. Something is wrong. I’m sure of it.

Does the cabin belong to his family?

She explained the cabin belonged to Professor Hollingsworth, his creative writing tutor. She believes in Parker. Says he is the best student she’s ever had. Rishima paused and smiled. And she’s right. Parker is like a machine, the way the stories pour out of him. When she made the offer, Parker jumped at the chance. Professor Hollingsworth drove him up there. Parker loved it because he had no distractions—no telephone, internet, or even cell phone service. It’s really isolated. He didn’t even have transportation except on foot or motor boat.

If that’s all true, how did he manage to call you?

He made friends with an old man who lives full time on the other side of the lake. He lent Parker his jeep to drive to the 7-Eleven so he could buy supplies and call me.

Maybe he decided to stay longer. Did you check with Professor Hollingsworth?

Parker wouldn’t do that without telling me. I tried to talk to Professor Hollingsworth before I came to you, but her office was locked. The English Department secretary said she was in a faculty meeting and wouldn’t be finished until after lunch.

What is your relationship with Mr. Collins?

Her whole face lit up as if someone had flipped a switch inside her. He’s my boyfriend. We plan to get married after we graduate. I know you may think it's strange, but this is the real thing, Detective Radhauser.

Radhauser was genuinely happy for her. He suspected it took a special person to fall in love with a transgender woman. His respect for Parker Collins elevated a notch. That’s great, Rishima. Could you give me Parker’s home address?

He lives with his parents over on Vista. And he works part time at the Varsity Theater during the school year. He’s trying to save money to pay off some old debts. I know he hasn’t been gone twenty-four hours, Detective Radhauser, but…I’m really worried.

Contrary to what you see on television, there is no twenty-four-hour waiting period to report someone missing.

He typed Parker Collins’ name into his computer and pulled up his sheet. Officer McBride had run into the kid a few times a year or so ago and arrested him twice on a drunk and disorderly. The second time, the kid’s father had been so disgusted he let his son spend the weekend in jail and refused to bail him out.

Radhauser gave Rishima a patient smile, the kind he would give to his five-year-old daughter, Lizzie. But from the little he knew about Parker Collins from Officer McBride’s reports, he wouldn’t take this missing kid very seriously—at least not this soon.

Did you know Parker ran away from home a couple years ago? And he’s had some arrests too.

She flinched. Parker told me all about that. But he’s changed. He doesn’t drink or do drugs. He doesn’t even smoke pot anymore.

Sounds like you’ve been good for him.

He’s a serious student now, determined to be a successful writer. Professor Hollingsworth thinks he’s talented enough to win a National Book Award or maybe even a Pulitzer someday. Parker told me he’d be home last night. You have to believe me. Something is very wrong. I know it.

Radhauser didn’t have the qualifications to be a psychologist, but he did have good people skills—a kind of radar to clue him in when someone was telling the truth. Can you think of anyone who might wish him harm? Anyone he’s had a problem with recently?

She shook her head. I don’t know. This happened almost a year ago. She told him about the incident with Tom Wilson and how Parker had broken his nose. And he has some leftover debt from when he was, you know, using drugs.

Has he had any problems with the debt?

The creeps have come to see him a couple times. But Parker always told them he was good for the money, he just needed a little more time.

After having Rishima fill out and sign the mandatory missing person’s form, Radhauser made a few notes of his own. He jotted down Professor Hollingsworth’s name and her position at Southern Oregon University. Her cabin on Sunset Lake. The parents’ house on Vista Street. The name Tom Wilson.

I’m going to hold off on filing this report with National Missing Persons until l look into it a little more. What the hell? It was better than tossing spit balls into his trash can and waiting for the ghosts to appear. He jotted down Rishima’s cell phone number and gave her his card. Have you checked with his parents?

For a moment, it was so quiet Radhauser could hear the second hand on his watch. It ticked ten times.

A flicker of hesitation passed over Rishima’s face and her eyes welled with tears. At first Parker’s parents really liked me and thought I’d been a great influence on him because of the way he’d changed and started to care about his grades and his health. But when they found out the truth—you know, my being transgender and all—they wanted Parker to break off our relationship. They claimed they were Christians and people like me are wicked, unclean and destined for Hell. When Parker refused, they said they’d gotten a restraining order and I’d be arrested if I ever called their home or set foot on their property again.

Something snapped inside Radhauser. Beneath his desk, he clenched and unclenched his fists—a gesture he resorted to when he was on the verge of anger.

He’d fallen away from the church—from his childlike belief in God—when Laura, his first wife, and their son, Lucas, were killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver. The idiot had failed to turn on his headlights and was driving south in the northbound lane of the interstate.

The longer Radhauser lived, the more aware he became of the way people used God as an excuse to kill, to punish, to wage war, and to discriminate against others. Either God was there for all of us, or for none of us. And in his line of work, Radhauser saw far too many people crying out and getting no response.

As a detective, he preferred to put his faith in justice and the chain of evidence—things he could understand. He learned a long time ago nothing in life was simple. And most of the trouble on the planet came about because people tried to make everything black and white. Good and evil. Heaven and Hell. Clean and dirty. But in reality, most everything fell somewhere in between.

A restraining order, huh? That’s pretty harsh.

She shrugged and gave him one of her heartbreaking looks. Welcome to my life, Detective Radhauser.

Chapter Two

Vista was one of the hilliest streets in Ashland. Radhauser parked beside the curb in front of the Collins’ house and engaged the emergency brake. The home was an older, but well-maintained Craftsman style, painted gray with dark blue shutters. Radhauser hoped Parker’s parents could shed some light on their son’s absence.

The small lot, surrounded by trimmed boxwood hedges, held weeded flower gardens mulched with fragrant pine bark that lined both sides of the walkway.

When he stepped onto the wide porch and rang the bell, the afternoon sky was the clear and brilliant blue of early autumn. Two bright blue, wooden Adirondack chairs sat on the porch with a matching wooden table between them.

Someone peered through the peephole before he heard the click of two deadbolts. A woman stared at him through the partially-opened door.

He introduced himself and showed his badge. I’m here about Parker Collins.

She released the safety chain and the door opened to a thin, middle-aged woman, her cropped dark hair streaked with gray. She wore a pair of baggy jeans and a long-sleeved pink T-shirt with a black and white Comedy and Tragedy mask on the front—along with the words Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Is Parker in some kind of trouble?

A somewhat older man who Radhauser assumed was her husband immediately stepped into the space beside her. He had thick gray hair, long on top, and wore black slacks, his charcoal turtleneck tucked in at the waist. With his lanky frame and neatly-trimmed gray beard, the man reminded Radhauser of Sigmund Freud. His gaze was alert behind wire-rimmed glasses that made his green eyes look huge. But he probably wasn’t a therapist. If he were, he’d have been more understanding and compassionate with Rishima.

Radhauser, trying to temper his impulse to dislike this couple based on his first impression and the restraining order they’d taken out against Rishima, tipped his Stetson. He showed the man his badge. Are you Mr. and Mrs. Collins?

Edith Collins, she said. And this is my husband, James.

Radhauser shook the man’s outstretched hand. It was the soft palm of an academic, a salesman or office worker, not a man who’d done much heavy labor in the outdoors. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Collins.

Please, Mr. Collins said. Call us Edith and James. He paused for a moment before continuing.

What’s Parker done now? James had the hoarse voice of a man who either smoked or screamed a lot. Since he didn’t smell cigarettes, Radhauser assumed it was the latter.

May I come inside?

The front door opened directly into the living room where he took off his gray Stetson. Would it be okay if we sat and talked for a few minutes?

Edith nodded to a leather sectional sofa and recliner. Radhauser chose the recliner and placed his hat, a gift from his wife, crown-side down on the end table.

James and Edith sat on the matching sofa across from him. Though it was still morning, there was a half-filled wine glass on the end table beside Edith. Behind them, a big window with multi-colored stained-glass panes on top, looked out on Vista Street. The colored glass caught the morning light and cast rainbow squares on the wide planks of hardwood floor.

On an adjoining wall, a river-rock fireplace rose to the ceiling and separated the living area from the dining room. Over the mantel, a portrait hung of a beautiful, dark-haired girl with black, thickly-lashed eyes and ivory skin. Is that your daughter?

James’ eyes sparkled. That’s Tiffany. She was the family diamond.

Radhauser noted the use of past tense, but didn’t ask any more questions. He, of all people, knew how hard it could be to talk about a dead child.

"She was awarded a full scholarship to Willamette University. Played the oboe in the Allstate Band. She was a cheerleader. A member of the National Honor Society. And president of the