The Drowning House by Elizabeth Black

the tourists were already out. Pictures taken when the seawall was new, an engineering wonder, show the owners of carriages and of the first Model Ts dressed for an occasion, the men in suits and ties, the women in full skirts that swirl around their legs like foam. The beach extends behind them for half a mile.
    Now the short stretch of sand was so packed and stirred it looked like dirt. In the years since its heroic construction, the seawall had disrupted the equilibrium of the shoreline and destroyed the naturally occurring beach. Foreign sand, darker and coarser than what was lost, had to be hauled in periodically by truck.
    There were still a few grand hotels along the seawall with expensive cars conspicuously parked out front. But nearby were apartments whose paint had peeled like blistered skin, restaurants with fake thatch roofs, strip malls, gas stations. This was the least desirable beach, the place where people came who didn’t know or couldn’t afford better. People who spent the night illegally beside the piers or in one of the cheap motels behind the tattoo parlor.
    People who couldn’t swim.
    Where the seawall ended the Island narrowed so that I could see both shores. Building in that part of the Island had begun modestly with improvisations, trailers raised up on stilts, and there were still a few mom-and-pop grocery stores that sold beer, ice, casting nets, and crabbing supplies. But change was coming—had come. I passed paved drives—Driftwood Court, Osprey Circle—leading to sales offices marked by smiling mermaids or oversize life preservers, the oddly eclectic iconography of beachfront real estate. As I drove, the houses on the Gulf side got noticeably larger. I passed a tall, white-columned colonial and an Italianate castle with a Range Rover parked in front.
    On the bay side, toward the mud flats and away from the Gulf, there were fewer new houses. Next to a field of yellow daisies, I found a modest subdivision where pairs of plastic trash cans stood prominently on view. Some of the structures were no more than sheds with outside stairs leading to a second story.
    Others were more imaginative, more expressive of their owners’ convictions—domes that looked like divers’ helmets on legs. Octagons and polyhedrons that must have been daringly futuristic when they were built.
    The yards were neatly mowed and full of stuff—propane tanks and fishing gear, boats and boat trailers. Tubs of spackle and oddly shaped pieces of Sheetrock. Dozens of tired-looking houseplants on their own summer vacation. Everywhere, evidence of people dug deep into their own lives.
    I parked across the street from Lowell Morgan’s house, the one Patrick was sharing. It was unremarkable—white siding with a saggingporch running its length. Several of the stairs were missing. There was no bell, so I knocked on the door. When nothing happened, I knocked again, louder.
    Someone called out, “Yeah, yeah, okay.” A girl—she looked about twenty—in a Def Leppard T-shirt opened the aluminum storm door. Her bare legs were smooth and tan. “Shoot,” she said, “I was asleep. I’m sorry I hollered at you. I thought you were my brother. He’s coming to pick me up. Are you a friend of Lowell’s? My alternator’s shot.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said.
    “Come on in. Don’t mind me. I’m not pulled together yet. Do you want something? A beer? Is that clock right? It’s really ten thirty? Jeez Louise, I’m going to be so late. I got to get to work.” She disappeared into the next room.
    I called after her, “I’m looking for Patrick Carraday.”
    A horn blared outside. The girl ran back carrying a pair of red platform sandals. She was wearing a tiny jean skirt. She stopped briefly to tie her T-shirt above the waist. “I haven’t seen him for a while.” I heard the horn again. She yelled back, “I’m coming! Keep your darn pants on!” In a lower voice she said, “You’re welcome to wait. Make yourself at