In the Lake of the Woods: Chapter 15 Summary & Analysis

After Kathy’s disappearance, the County Sheriff Art Lux flies in from Baudette, a town near Lake of the Woods, and sets up a headquarters at Vinny Pearson’s Texaco station. At 9am on September 20, Lux and Pearson drives to John’s cottage, and Claude Rasmussen shows them inside. He and Ruth have been staying with John. John is lying in the couch, having slept for an hour, no more.

Lux tells John that they haven’t found Kathy, and that it may take a while to do so, since the lake is enormous. He asks John if he would mind answering some questions. John says he’s willing to do anything that will help. Art tells John that there are twelve boats currently searching the lake. Also, a nearby town is sending more police. John nods at this, and feels like an actor. Lux insists that cases like Kathy’s aren’t unusual at all. Vincent says, “Ask the man why he never…”, but Lux cuts him off before he can finish.

Lux continues to ask John questions. He asks John for basic information about Kathy—age, height, etc. He also asks John for a picture of Kathy, and when John asks, Vinny explains that the picture will be used in case Kathy’s corpse is hard to identify. John gives Lux a small photograph he carries, and doesn’t respond to Vinny.

Art asks John what time he woke up the day he found Kathy missing (yesterday). Upon further question, John says that he last saw Kathy around midnight, when he got up to make tea, and that he waited nearly all day before he reported Kathy’s disappearance to anyone, since he thought she might be hiking. He also admits to drinking in the evening—five or six drinks. Vinny presses Lux, and Lux asks John why he didn’t check immediately to see if the boat was gone. Lux suggests that it’s unlikely that Kathy could have started the boat without alerting John—boats are loud, after all. Vinny suggests, sarcastically, that John must be a very deep sleeper.

Lux asks John if he and Kathy had argued, and mentions John’s campaign, and the recent news about John. Lux adds that Vinny was also in Vietnam; Vinny mutters that he didn’t kill any babies while he was there. Lux mentions Myra Shaw, the waitress who noticed Kathy and John arguing at the Mini-Mart, and calls her chubby—Vinny objects that Myra, his cousin, is actually plain “hog-fat.” John insists that the argument Myra witnessed was minor. Lux tells John that John should call Kathy’s family—John responds that since Kathy’s parents are dead, he’ll call Patricia Hood, Kathy’s sister.

Lux asks John one more question before he and Vinny leave: why did John unplug his phone? (Claude mentioned this fact to Lux, Lux says.) John claims that he turned off the phone because he wanted to forget about the external world—the election, the polling numbers, the news, etc. Lux challenges John to explain the dead houseplants in his sink—John, getting annoyed, says that Kathy is missing, and everything else is “bullshit.” Lux tells John that John is an important politician, while he and Vinny are small-time people. Still, Lux says, they’ll do their best to find Kathy.

After Vinny and Lux leave, John hears Claude and Ruth in the kitchen, making breakfast. John asks Claude why he mentioned that John was drunk; Claude laughs and says that he didn’t say “drunk,” just “juiced up.” John eats the eggs Ruth made him, which make him feel better, and then tries to call Patricia Hood in Minneapolis, but finds that she is unavailable. John finds it impossible to sleep; he also thinks that he is feeling great “sorrow.” He remembers saying, “Kill Jesus” the night before Kathy disappeared, and looking at her and feeling great love and tenderness. He also remembers carrying a teakettle. He falls asleep in his room that afternoon.

When John wakes up, it’s almost 6 pm. He goes out into the living room, where Claude is sitting playing solitaire. Claude tells him that Lux checked in and said that he’d arranged for extra boats to explore the lake. He tells John that he and Ruth will sleep in the spare bedroom of the cottage. John implies that Claude thinks John is guilty of killing his wife; a suggestion that Claude promptly denies. He suggests that Vinny intimidated John, and assures John that everything will be fine. He also suggests that John start acting like a real husband—showing concern.

In the evening, John drinks vodka and tries to call Patricia Hood again. He tries a few more times, and finally reaches her around midnight. His conversation is difficult, though it doesn’t last long—Patricia is shocked, though John senses that she is being careful to be civil with him. She says that she’ll be in Lake of the Woods tomorrow.