The Lake Has an Alibi

How it begins

According to the company's statement, the lake had acted alone.

Grace Wells read the sentence three times before printing it. The wording did not say that, naturally. It referred to an unprecedented natural event and regrettable supply disruption. The effect was the same.

Nobody in the statement had made a decision. Water had simply failed to arrive.

She laid the page beside the previous month's survey. The lake level had been adequate. The intake had been functional. A valve downstream had been closed for six hours on a day the company described as normal operation.

Grace highlighted the six hours.

At the records-office window, Henry Pike waited with a mud-stained folder. He had been asking to see the shoreline maps since Monday.

'You can't take originals,' she said.

'I brought originals.'

He opened the folder. Inside were photographs of a boat ramp, each marked with a date and a penciled water depth.

'I repaired engines here for thirty years. You learn where the water stands.'

Grace compared the photographs with her survey. The shoreline had begun dropping after the supply failure, not before it.

'Why take these?'

'Because they're draining it.'

She looked up.

Henry pointed to the most recent photograph. On the exposed bank, a concrete channel ended in a square dark opening. It did not appear on the public map.

'Once they clear the mud, they'll fill that in.'

Her supervisor's door opened behind her. Grace placed a blank form over the highlighted statement. She had never hidden work from him before. The small act felt larger than she wanted it to.

Henry closed the folder.

'They said I was nostalgic,' he murmured.

Grace looked again at the lake blamed for its own disappearance.

'Can you show me where you stood?' she asked.

For the first time that week, a useful question had a location attached.