I caught a glimpse of the two-story farmhouse and the large barn beyond it as I passed, taking the lane to the right and down over a hill, where the woods opened up and the five small cabins, lined up like little white Monopoly houses, presented themselves.
As did the police car, the ambulance, and a couple of other vehicles parked at random on the lane and on the lawn behind the cabins. The dome lights on the police car and ambulance rotated quietly.
As I pulled ahead, I saw several people gathered on the other side of the ambulance, a couple of them having a smoke, like they were all waiting for something. I parked, got out, my legs feeling a little rubbery not just from what I feared I was about to learn, but from the drive.
They turned and looked at me. Two were dressed in paramedic garb, there was a young dark-haired woman clutching a notepad I figured was the freelancer Tracy, a gray-haired man in a dark suit, tie, and wire-rimmed glasses who had to be the doctor doing coroner duty, three other men in plaid and olive civilian attire that suggested fishing, and a woman in her sixties in a kerchief, hunting jacket, and slacks.
Finally, there was the law. A man in his mid-thirties, I figured, black boots, bomber-style leather jacket, and a felt trooper hat. He took a step toward me.
“Can I help you?” he said. I had a closer look at him, his receding jaw, thin neck, eyes that blinked almost constantly. There was something about him, at first glance, that seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“I’m Zack Walker,” I said, and cleared my throat. “I got a call. This is my father’s place.”
The young woman with the notepad spoke up. “Mr. Walker? Sarah Walker’s husband?” She was bordering on cheerful.
“That’s right.”
“I’m Tracy McAvoy. This is the guy,” she told the cop. “The one’s whose wife is the editor? At the paper?”
The cop held up his hand for her to stop, as if to say, “I get it.” He extended a hand my way. “I’m Chief Thorne. Orville Thorne.”
We shook. His hand was warm, and damp.
I said, “I was told you haven’t been able to find my father, and that you have a body to…” I seemed unable to find the words I needed. “That there’s, that you have…”
Thorne nodded, poked his tongue around the inside of his cheek, pondering, I guessed, whether I was up to the next step.
“Mr. Walker, we have had an incident. A man’s body was found in the woods just over there.” He pointed. The trees looked dark and ominous. “One of the guests here was out for a walk and discovered him this morning. We haven’t been able to determine just whose body it is, you see, but all the guests here at your father’s camp have been accounted for. But,” and Chief Thorne paused to swallow, “we’ve not been able to locate your father, Arlen Walker.”
“Maybe he’s away,” I said. “Did you consider that?”
Chief Thorne nodded. “There’s his pickup over there.” I looked over by the first cabin, the one I knew Dad lived in, and spotted a Ford truck. “And there’s no boats missing, according to the guests here.”
“I see,” I said.
“It’s an awful thing to ask, but maybe, if you wouldn’t mind, you could take a look for us.” He tipped his trooper-hatted head toward the woods.
I felt weak.
“Of course,” I said.
He led me toward the woods, everyone else following, silently, like we were already in the funeral procession. As I began to be enveloped by trees, the air felt colder.
There was a small clearing, and on the ground, a tarp, maybe seven by four feet, with something under it that couldn’t be anything but a body.
“Are you okay?” the chief asked.
I definitely was not. I said, “Yeah.”
Chief Thorne approached one end of the tarp, gingerly grabbed the corner, and lifted it up, revealing a body, as best as I could tell, from head to waist.
Like they say, nothing prepares you.
What I saw under that tarp looked like something that had been dropped to the ground through the blades of a helicopter. Flesh ripped away, bone exposed, blood everywhere.
Some flies buzzed.
I turned away. I wondered if maybe I was going to be sick. For anyone to die that way, it was unimaginable. But for my own father…
“I know it’s pretty impossible to tell,” Thorne said. “But did you notice anything, clothing, anything at all, that would tell you whether that’s your father?”
The surrounding pines seemed to be waving back and forth, as if in a high wind, but there wasn’t even a slight breeze. The blue sky was below me, the grass above, and then, seconds later, everything was back where it was supposed to be.
“No,” I said.
“We couldn’t find any sort of ID on him, so I was wondering…”
I came out of the woods like a man stumbling out of a burning building, desperate for air. I went to my car, threw my hands out and leaned over the hood, trying to catch my breath. One of the ambulance attendants was saying something to me, but I couldn’t seem to hear it.