Read Dead in the Water for Free Online

back to his college days. He’d even gone to the Olympic trials, but missed making the team by a fraction of a second. An international swimming magazine did a profile of him a few years back when he was still in Texas. The photo showed a man doing a powerful butterfly stroke, biceps flexed as he moved through the water. Then there was a picture of him after an open water swim in Chicago. He was wearing a broad-brimmed cowboy hat, a pair of tight-fitting jeans that hung precariously low on his hips and cowboy boots. That was it. The word ‘Lucky’ was tattooed on his back.
    The most recent piece about him mentioned that after a brief break from swimming, he had moved to Northern California to be closer to family. There was no mention of a wife or kids.
    On the surface, this seemed plausible, but something was missing. Did he come to the Bay area to be close to his sister and the nattily-dressed brother-in-law? I guess, if there is no one else. Who could I talk to without bothering the Waddell family? I thought of the call from Mike Menton. They were competitors. From what I’d seen during my sister’s swimming career, competitors were often good friends. I could give out the address he wanted and maybe, just maybe, have a little conversation.
    Looking down at my notepad, I dialed his phone and waited.
    “Hello,” said a girl’s high voice.
    “Is Mike there?” I asked.
    “No, this is his daughter, Daisy. Can I take a message?”
    “Hi, Daisy. My name is Trisha Carson from the Nor Cal Swimming office. I think I saw you at the open water swim at Lake Joseph this past weekend.”
    There was a long pause.
    “My dad’s not here right now.”
    “He called for an address. Can I give it to you?”
    For a minute, it sounded like she had put her hand over the phone and was speaking to someone nearby.
    “I’ll tell him you called,” she said. Then the line went dead.
    “What in the world?” I thought to myself. Most kids past the age of eight know how to take a message. I wondered if this was the teenager in the bikini with the nerdy boyfriend I had seen at the swim. Or maybe it was another daughter? Whoever it was needed some serious lessons in telephone etiquette.
    I walked back over to Bill’s desk, picked up the Waddell file and headed for the storage room. I copied the four sheets of paper with the names and phone numbers, then put it back on his desk. I placed my copies in a file folder and stuck it in my backpack.

.
    5
    My first week of work went by at a frantic pace. Bill was out of the office, more than he was in it. Phone calls about everything related to swimming, from pool meets, to upcoming swim clinics for officials and coaches, even questions about chlorine—were nonstop.
    Although I didn’t make a habit of talking about Dick Waddell, Bill did. I eavesdropped on phone calls between Bill and the insurance company, Bill and the Waddell’s lawyer, Bill and the Waddell family and Bill and the event director.
    Things weren’t going smoothly.
    The last thing Bill said to a caller about the Waddell death before he bolted out the door to yet another meeting was, “That’s in the hands of the insurance company now. There is nothing I can do. If you think there is a question about the cause of death, maybe you should talk to the doctors again.”
    One afternoon, before heading for home, I left work early to pick up a few cartons of tee shirts for an upcoming pool meet. The summer sun was still high in the sky when I pulled into our driveway in San Rafael. Lena was there, intently staring at a computer screen, her fingers flying over the keyboard, creating lines of code.
    “You need a break.”
    She didn’t look up.
    “Take a drive with me. I have to return Dick Waddell’s goggles.”
    “I’ve got a deadline for a project. I can’t figure out how to make the interactive part of this website work the way I want. I’ve been trying different things all afternoon.”
    “Like I said, you need a break.