Tuesday, October 25, 2016

The Clearing - Chapter 6

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CHAPTER 6

The police station was in the basement of the town council building, itself a modest two-story renovated home. Brick with thick, white columns at the front entrance. To get to the police station, however, Dean used the side entrance down a ramp of concrete that also served as an efficient channel for water during heavy rains. He swung the door open.
In New York City, the front desk was manned by a uniformed officer who controlled all access into the building, usually several floors. Here, during the day, the chief’s civilian secretary, Laura Mannheim, took the calls, told people to wait, managed the chief’s calendar and appointments, and handled dispatching. At night, one of the two officers on duty fielded any incoming calls. That night Reginald Hargrove sat at his desk reading a copy of Sports Illustrated, an issue from December that Dean had already read with Earl Campbell on the cover.
Reggie looked up and nodded. “Hey.”
“Any messages?”
Reggie shrugged and went back to the magazine, licking the tip of his thumb, touching a corner of the page, and lifting it—pausing before turning it over.
Dean walked by the largest office in the basement, his father’s, and past the hall that led to an interview room and a small evidence locker, which had a clipboard hanging from a string wrapped around the wire gate enclosing it. Dean’s desk was at the far end of the room, where he had requested it, in the shadows. A gray IBM Selectric II sat on the left side of the desk and a desk light just behind it. On the left side, a beige phone beside a container full of pens, the blue and black end caps chewed up.
He tossed the manila envelope on the desk and sat down in the wheeled, cushioned chair, and pulled the plastic white ashtray toward him. He squeezed out a cigarette, tapped it on the top of his hand, put it in his mouth, and lit it with a red disposable lighter, which he stuffed back into his pocket. He inhaled and held before audibly exhaling. He pulled out the flask, took a swig, and refilled it from the bottle in the bottom drawer. He stared at the envelope.
He smoked the cigarette down to its end and stamped it out in the ashtray full of butts and ash. He scratched his chin and opened the envelope, pouring the bundles of wrapped ten-dollar bills onto the desktop. The unwrapped bundle and rubber band fell over the top of those followed by The Communist Manifesto. He recounted the bundles, fourteen and slid them and the book back into the envelope. He tossed in the rubber band. He counted the loose ten-dollar bills until he totaled ninety-five three times. He slipped two of them into his front pocket, watching Hargrove still immersed in his magazine as he did it. He slipped a blank evidence form in the typewriter and wrote up the contents of the envelope, noting only ninety-three loose bills. He slipped the envelope and the typed sheet into a larger manila envelope and grabbed the evidence locker key from his top, center desk drawer.
He grabbed the clipboard that hung from a string, looked at his watch, wrote his name and the time on the first blank line available, about two-thirds down the page. After unlocking the metal gate, he found the boxes Zach had brought back from the Pratt farm and tossed the envelope in it. He locked up and walked out, nodding to Hargrove as he left.
* * *
Sadie Harper pulled the cigarette out of Dean’s mouth, inhaled, and put it back in his mouth. She smiled as she let out the smoke. Underneath the diaphanous black robe, she was naked. He loved her body best this way. After the sex, when they were relaxed, but the sensuality of her body was just visible, fleeting, and surprising. She pulled her long, blond hair back into a pony tail, letting the band snap. “Light me one,” she said, her native Georgia accent just leaking into the sentence.
He pulled out a cigarette, put it in his mouth, used his other one to light it, and gave the fresh one to her.
“What’s this about the Pratt farm?”
“News travels fast.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and smiled. “It’s a small town.”
“We found William Nimitz out there, near the border.”
“Oh dear. Was he the kid at the body shop? McCord’s?”
“Yeah. You knew him?”
She drank from the glass of water sitting on the end table. “I know some of the guys that work there. Not Billy though. But he seemed like a nice boy.”
“Hmm.” He leaned up on this elbow and twisted around. His watch was on the side table. Approaching midnight. “Does everyone call him Billy?”
She ignored his question. “Is Jenny still coming up?”
He nodded. Jenny was his ten-year-old daughter who lived with his ex-wife most of the time. “She is. I pick her up tomorrow.”
“Is Cindy bringing her up?”
“Yeah. Going to see her old man while she’s at it.”
“Most men don’t care, you know?”
He squinted at her. “What do you mean?”
“Like you, is what I mean. Taking your daughter for the weekend and days at a time. Most men, they want to forget about their kids. Wham bam, see you later, and all that. Not you.”
“You’re too cynical.” He tossed off the covers and sat up. Shrapnel scars in the thick meaty part of his thigh and calf dotted down the outer side of his right leg. He slipped on his pants and buckled the belt.
“I’m not. And you’re the cop. Aren’t you guys supposed to be the cynical ones?” She cinched the robe around her tightly. “When will I see you next?”
As he stuffed his shirt into his pants, he said, “With Jenny here and this case, probably a few days. Can you handle that?” He half smiled, a touch of the devious in him.
She smiled broadly, letting all her teeth show, the smile that pleased him most, the one that seemed genuine. She walked over to him and put her arms around his neck. “I’ll be lonely. I’ll miss you. But I can handle that.”
“I see.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her tight, his arousal apparent to her.
“Oh, Dean, you know how to turn a girl on.” She let go and stepped back, letting her hand fondle the front of his pants before stepping back and giving him a clear path out of the room.
He adjusted himself. “I think you tell that to all the guys.” He laid the two tens from the shoebox and another ten on the dresser as he walked out.

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Tuesday, October 18, 2016

The Clearing - Chapter 5

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CHAPTER 5

The Nimitz’s owned a ranch house on Jackson Street. Red brick lined the bottom third, and white siding decorated the top two-thirds. Faded, red wood shutters hung on either side of every window. A row of evergreen bushes ran along the sidewalk from the driveway to the front door, obscuring a small porch. A large oak tree rose up from the snow that covered the front yard.
Through the front room windows, a TV flickered and cast a bluish glow. Archie Nimitz, Billy’s father, peered through the window. As Dean walked up to the front storm door, Archie had already opened the main door. “What can I do for you?”
Dean took off his hat. “Lieutenant Dean Wallace. Can I come in?”
Archie’s lip quivered. “This about Billy?”
Dean nodded once. “May I come in?”
“Of course, of course.” Billy’s father stood to the side, holding open the door, which he closed after Dean passed.
Archie followed Dean into the living room. A commercial for Irish Spring soap played on the TV. Emily sat on the plaid sofa. Jordy, a mutt by the looks of it, looked up eagerly at Dean but remained seated next to Emily. She looked up at him, anticipation visible in her shoulders, which rose as she sat straight up.
Archie said, “This is Lieutenant Dean Wallace.”
She nodded. “Hello. What brings you here?”
After years of practice, with a serious but calm tone, Dean told them about finding their son out at the Pratt farm. They had reported him missing on the third of January when Archie had received a call from Charlie McCord, Billy’s boss at the body shop. They had feared the worst, but the shock was still palpable. Archie asked for details, but Dean fell back on the too-early to know anything line, which was true but also allowed him to escape having to describe anything specific.
Large tears rolled down Archie’s face. Some so big they caught at the rim of his glasses and ran sideways, wetting the bottom edge of the lenses. Emily put her head in her hands and leaned over into Archie’s side. He rubbed her back.
“I know this is very difficult, but I have a few questions about when William disappeared.”
Archie nodded once. He clicked off the TV with the remote and slipped it between his thigh and the sofa cushion.
“Tell me about that day, the last day you saw your son,” said Dean.
Archie’s chest rose with a heavy sigh. “I’m not sure what’s to tell. He didn’t get home before we went to bed, and we didn’t see him that morning. We assumed he had gone off to work early. Charlie called around, oh, I think it was nine or something like that. Asked if Billy was coming into work. We told him he had left already. Charlie said he wasn’t there yet. We gave it another hour in case he was doing something and was late. But when he didn’t get to work by ten we started to worry. So I called the police about then. They said to wait a while. So we did. We waited through the day. Waited through dinner. We had a plate set out for him even. But we didn’t eat. We were too sick with worry.
“We called Charlie at seven. Seven that night. Had to call him at home. Billy hadn’t shown up to work at all. So we called the police again. That’s when they sent one of you fellows down. Can’t remember his name. We answered some questions, and we’ve waited ever since.”
Dean knew that his dad had assigned fellow detective Jeremy Guthrie to work the case. “William lived with you, then?”
Emily pulled at her skirt at the knees, picking off imaginary lint. “He didn’t make a lot at Charlie’s, but he made some. And he worked overtime. He worked hard, really hard. He was saving and taking care of us.”
“Had anything been bothering him prior to his disappearing or had he acted strange?”
Archie shook his head. “No. No. He was the same boy he’d always been.”
“He wasn’t married, right? Did he have a girlfriend.”
Emily smiled. “No. But he had been dating that Sarah woman. Sarah, oh what’s her last name. Sarah—”
“Esposito,” said Archie.
“Yes, Sarah Esposito.”
“Dating but not a girlfriend?”
Emily answered with a nodding shrug.
“Did he date anyone else?”
“No, not that I know of.”
“Friends?”
“Corey and Josh and Alex,” said Archie with a scornful tone on Alex’s name.
“Last names?” asked Dean.
“Bender, Frasco, and Smith.” He said “Smith” with a bite.
“Alex Smith?”
“Yes.”
Alex Smith, son of the Clinton County District Attorney, was a regular at the station holding cell for public intoxication and less frequent bar fights. He had spent a month in county lock up the year prior for seriously beating a man.
“I don’t like him,” said Archie.
“Why?”
“He’s a bum. Always getting into trouble. Always dragging Billy into trouble. But he and Billy have been best friends since grade school.”
Dean nodded. “What kind of car did your son drive?”
“Oh, he had one of those fast cars. He worked on it a lot. A seventy-three Dodge Challenger. Canary yellow with a black hood stripe.”
Dean had seen it around town. So that was Billy. But he had not seen it at the Pratt farm. He closed his notebook. “Can I see his room?”
Archie nodded and stood up. Emily lowered her head and started heaving. He looked down at her and put his arm on her shoulder. It was a small, effortless gesture that spoke of years of familiarity and fondness. “It’s down the hall. Last door on the right.” He sat back down, his arm wrapping his wife.
“Can I get you a water or start some coffee?” asked Dean.
Archie shook his head. He left them to their grief.
The hallway led straight off the entryway, and Dean walked it in the dark. He passed picture frames hanging on the wall, but assuredly photos of happier times, in happier days. He passed a bathroom, a closed door that he guessed was to the master bedroom. At the end of the hall, he stopped. The door in front of him was probably for a linen closet. He opened the door on the right. He did not know what he expected. Billy was still living at home so he thought he might enter the world of the teenage Billy, but he was wrong. He flipped the light switch, which turned on a lamp next to the bed. A twin bed with a solid blue bedspread and matching light blue pillows. The wall was an eggshell white. A tall dark wood dresser with five drawers stood in a corner near the closet. On top of it was a bowl with a few bits of change and a matchbook from the Shambles. A photograph in a light wood frame of grade school Billy holding a baseball bat over his right shoulder. Orange t-shirt with Franco’s Pizza spelled across the front. A black wood frame leaning on an easel held a photograph of a dark-haired, olive-skinned woman at a beach. Sarah Esposito Dean guessed.
A small desk with a desk light set against the wall beside the bed. Dean turned on the light and opened the drawer and sifted through the pencils and pens and rusting paperclips. He picked up the photograph leaning on its stand on top of the desk next to the light. Archie and Emily standing together with the Statue of Liberty looming behind them. With Archie’s black frames and leaner build and Emily’s darker hair, Dean guessed this was at least a decade old. Could have been while Dean was humping in the jungle and Billy was only fourteen or fifteen or so. Billy had just escaped the draft.
Dean opened the drawer on the nightstand, where the lit lamp sat. A small Bible—New Testament only—which he flipped through and found nothing. The dresser drawers exposed only clothes. Billy wore jeans and t-shirts. In the closet, two pairs of slacks hung on wire hangers with cardboard tubes. Two shirts with large pointed collars and decorated with some vague floral pattern hung along with three standard dress shirts in white, light blue, and a darker blue.
On the floor, Dean opened a shoe box to find a pair of brown dress shoes. He opened another and pulled out a manila envelope. He opened it and pulled out fourteen wads of cash folded in half and tied with red rubber bands. At the bottom of the envelope, a copy of The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and some loose bills.
He picked up The Communist Manifesto. The gray cover was stiff. It looked like the same copy they had found on Billy’s body. The quote “Workingmen of all countries, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to win” appeared below the title. Published by Charles H. Kerr Publishing. Samuel Moore translation and edited and annotated by Frederick Engels. He flipped through the sixty pages. No marks. Two copies of this book. Was Billy a radical?
The cash totaled nearly twenty thousand—two years’ wages for Billy, Dean guessed. Fourteen bundles of wrapped ten-dollar bills and one unwrapped set. The remains of the rubber band in the bottom of the envelope. Dean contemplated where the money might have come from. Legally, saving. Otherwise, moving heroin or marijuana across the border made the most sense, except that it was across the southern border most drugs moved through. Besides, Zion’s drug problem was not significant—it was there. In favor of moving drugs, New York was only a few hours south. But what do money and The Communist Manifesto have in common, in Zion of all places.
He put the money and the book into the manila envelope and debated what to do. He could leave it. If Billy was a suicide, then this money was his parents’ and no one would care about the book. If, however, this turned into a murder investigation, that was evidence.
He pulled out his flask and took a swig. The warmth of the Wild Turkey rolled down to his stomach. He played it safe and grabbed the manila envelope. He walked out of the room and set the package on the entryway table and then walked into the family room. Archie sat holding Emily’s hands, which were gripped together and on the top of her legs.
“One more question before I leave. You said William worked overtime. Was it a lot of overtime?”
Archie nodded. “All the time. He was working hard. They didn’t pay him a lot there.”
“Did he have any other job outside of McCord’s?”
“No. He worked more than enough there.”
“What were his politics?”
Archie squinted and thought. Emily looked up. “Why on earth are you asking that?”
“Just a question. I found some evidence where we found your son, so I thought I’d ask.”
“What kind of evidence?” asked Archie.
Dean contemplated how to answer and decided to be straight with them. “A copy of The Communist Manifesto.”
Archie squinted again and then his eyes opened and he looked straight at Dean. “I don’t know why he would have that.”
Dean nodded, said his thanks and condolences, grabbed the manila envelope, and walked out into the frigid January air.

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Tuesday, October 11, 2016

The Clearing - Chapter 4

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CHAPTER 4


Dean recognized the pistol as a Remington M1911A1. The short trigger, the extensions behind the grip, the safety spur all told him it was the later model of the iconic pistol. One he had used himself in Hue and the bush, in places he could not pronounce the name of or had no sense of where he was.
He had Zach photograph the pistol before heading back to the farm for a chainsaw. Dean then picked up the cold gun, dropped the clip, and emptied the chamber. He held the pistol out and down toward the ground, looking into the chamber and through the barrel to ensure it was empty. He popped the bullets out of the magazine. Including the round in the chamber, he had five bullets. Assuming a fully loaded magazine, two shots had been fired—at least.
He stood and held the pistol toward the bloody spot on the tree, putting himself into the mind of the shooter. A few feet away. Up close, but cautious. Kept himself distant enough to avoid surprise.
He dropped the pistol, the magazine, and the loose bullets in a paper evidence bag and set it on a large tarp the officers had laid on the ground outside the clearing.
He looked back toward the clearing. All sorts of potential evidence could be buried under a foot of snow. Moving around without altering the scene was never possible in even the best of circumstances, but in these conditions, it was impossible.
Zach and James had found nothing around the edge so far. James, however, was certain a set of steps—covered by fresh and wind-swept snow—lead from the body northward. James pointed with his ungloved, thick fingers while leaning toward Dean. His breath foul with coffee. The same faint indentations in the pack Dean had seen when he walked into the clearing. With their condition, however, it was impossible to tell if the footsteps walked to or away from Billy’s body.
He shook his head and bounced up and down on his toes. They may have to wait for spring and the snow melt before they could find any buried evidence, and that was at least eight weeks away, and this winter had not suggested any kindness in moderation. He had no way of sealing off the clearing or even monitoring it.
When Zach returned, Dean told him to help Miles. James and Dean walked into the clearing and began a grid search, looking and feeling for anything. The saw made quick work of the tree. While the coroner carefully wrapped the section of the tree with its brain matter and frozen blood, Zach assisted with the grid search. Miles left with the body and headed back into town. Dean, James, and Zach took turns warming up in the Pratt house while the other two searched.
What had happened here? What had brought Billy Nimitz to this clearing? Billy had walked in. Assuming this was not a suicide, had Billy walked in alone? Had someone met him? Was that Billy’s gun or the killer’s?
Dean called off the search as darkness approached. They had found a black flashlight near the body, almost directly beneath the right hand. They bagged it. Other than that and a handful of sticks and some rocks, they found nothing.
* * *
Dean swung the car into the small parking lot to the north of the Shambles, one of the local watering holes. The restaurant and bar had been open since the early twentieth century, surviving two World Wars, the Great Depression, Prohibition, Korea, and Vietnam and now enduring the Cold War.
Designed to look like a log cabin from the last century, the wood had darkened over the years into a deep brown-red. Large glass windows punctured the facade. A paper Open sign with orange lettering hung on the door. Neon lights advertised Budweiser, Miller, and Pabst Blue Ribbon.
Dean parked the car, out of sight of the front windows. He took a deep breath, let it out, and turned off the Nova. He stepped out into a pile of slush left along the edge of the lot. The town was quiet that Tuesday evening. People were staying indoors, out of the cold. Still, the regulars of the Shambles or any of its other two main competitors braved the weather.
The front door creaked open, and Dean walked in, closing the door behind him. The bar proper was straight ahead, through the dining room, filled with four- and six-top tables and chairs with faded red cushions. Booths with the same red cushions formed an L pattern along the wall against the parking lot and the front windows. A hostess stand stood unattended by the door with a sign hanging from it: Please seat yourself.
The bar was separated from the dining room by a short, wrought-iron railing. A few bar tables with stools stood along it.
Three families sat at the tables and a half dozen regulars were already seated in their familiar locations at the bar. A waitress entered through the double-swinging door at the far end of the dining room holding two plates. She smiled at Dean. He nodded and walked toward the bar.
Joe Banks, owner of Banks Auto Repair on Elm Street and council man for the third ward, turned around in his stool, saw Dean, and smiled. Using one of his too-thin arms for a person his age, he nudged the man sitting next to him, who was dressed in the full dress blues of the Zion Police Department. That man grunted and raised a glass to his lips before saying, “What’s up son?” Eric Wallace turned around. The Zion Police Department badge spitting rays of light off its polished sheen.
Dean had not inherited his father’s linebacker bulk, a mass waiting to surge forth and crush, a physique that never seemed to waver despite his fifty-two years. Dean had seen photos of his father when he joined the Marines at seventeen. A scrawny kid notorious for stealing apples from Faston’s shelves. The Marines had transformed him, and then the Battle of Okinawa and transformed him again. The Marines had not transformed Dean. Not physically at least.
“Hey, Dad. We need to talk.”
“What I’m hearing out at the Pratt farm?”
“Yeah.”
“Have a beer and tell me.”
Dean looked at Joe and hesitated.
“For Christ’s sakes, you can talk in front of Joe. He and I just left the council meeting.”
“Ah, that’s why you’re in your blues.”
“Had to give the monthly update.”
Dean pulled out the stool and sat down, his father between him and Joe. He saw his dad was drinking whiskey. Wild Turkey. He was tempted but ordered a Pabst Blue Ribbon instead.
On the TV hanging above the mirror behind the bottles of liquor, Walter Cronkite covered the unrest in Iran.
“So it’s true?” Joe turned between Dean and the TV. “A body out at the Pratt farm.”
Dean nodded. “William Nimitz.”
Joe’s eyes opened wide. McCord’s Body Shop was the town competition for Bank’s Auto Repair, though they tended to specialize—Banks more on fixing engines and McCord’s more on the body—to avoid too much overlap. “Billy? Nice kid. I knew his family.”
In Zion, a town just over three thousand, knowing someone or someone’s family was a rather simple matter of getting out and about a bit.
“Details?” asked Eric.
Dean filled them in from the initial call from Wayne through the efforts of the day. Throughout, Eric nodded and asked for a few clarifying details.
“Suicide?” asked Joe, rubbing the underside of his nose.
Dean pulled out a pack of Camels, tapped out one part way, and used his mouth to pull it out completely. He said as he lit it, “Don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” asked Eric.
Dean inhaled deeply, held it, and then let the smoke out in a long exhale. “Exactly that. The gun was close enough to maybe have been used, but maybe not. Seemed a bit far away. Usually in a suicide, the gun just drops right there. Might bounce or something if it falls and hits right. Maybe animals moved it somehow. We don’t know if the gun was even fired. The coroner needs to do some work first. So it could be or it could be something else.” He shrugged.
“Jesus, people’ll flip out if they hear it was a murder.” Joe said the last word in a whisper. “The last time that happened was in—”
“Sixty-eight when Freddie got smashed and killed his wife, Jeanine.” Eric had been the Assistant Chief of Police at that time.
Freddie—Frederick Jarnkow—was thirty-two at the time and a notorious drunk and ne’er-do-well. Jeanine had put up with it for nearly ten years until he pulled the trigger on a loaded gun aimed at her chest. She was buried in Crown Point Cemetery just outside town off Route 23. Freddie was in prison outside Buffalo. When the murder happened, Dean had been in Vietnam several months into his tour witnessing and participating in sanctioned murder.
“Well, we don’t know what it is yet,” said Dean. “We’ll find out and then deal with it.” He looked at his watch: 7:12 p.m. “Shit, I need to tell his family.”
Eric nodded. “If this is a murder, I don’t want the state troopers here. Got it? It’s your case.”
“Okay. We really haven’t gotten to that point yet.”
“And we may not, but no troopers. Clear?”
“Sure. Yeah. The Sheriff’ll be calling too.”
Eric brushed the last fact aside. “I mean, this is what you did in the city down there, so do it here.”
Joe took a drink and looked away. He knew as well as anybody that Dean’s last homicide case in New York City had ended his career and his marriage. Like everyone else in Zion, he knew Dean was a cop in this town far from the big city because of his old man.
Dean hated Zion. Hated it. But he was stuck. He finished off the beer. “Yeah, Dad, yeah. I won’t call the troopers or the deputies.”
Eric nodded once. Joe kept looking away. Dean tossed five quarters on the bar and walked out.

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Tuesday, October 4, 2016

The Clearing - Chapter 3

Start with Chapter 1


CHAPTER 3



After the sound of Wayne’s steps disappeared and his final, “Come on Dot,” Dean remained standing where he was but took in the clearing. Perhaps a quarter of an acre, the ground rose at a small angle to a point in the center. Tips of tall, brown grass stuck through the snow, which was as fine and powdery as that in the woods itself.

The wind had blown the snow eastward giving the clearing the appearance of being tilted in that direction, like someone holding a glass of water and leaning it to one side.

He returned his attention to the body and then looked down at his feet before taking a step toward it. A number of prints—both human and animal—were visible around the body, so he decided for the moment to remember where he stepped and not to mess up any of the others, which would prevent his examining the corpse from all sides. But Dot and other wildlife had left tracks around the body so numerous they had contaminated the area in the snow.
He also knew the body was frozen. Snow and ice clutched at the ear lobes and the back of the head. The body had warmed up during the day in the sun, letting the snow melt and drip down before refreezing at night. Other than the smear of brightness in the sky, Dean was not sure when the last clear or partially cloudy day had been. A uniform grayness seemed to have dominated since before Christmas. Temperatures had not broken the freezing point since the day after Saint Nick’s bounty was opened by families across the county.
He did not recognize the man, but that may have been because of the animal mutilation. No eyes and the missing pieces of flesh and the frozen state made visual identification difficult. Dean patted the outside pockets of the victim’s coat. He could not feel anything, but his gloves were thick and the coat thicker. He pulled up on the top panel of the coat, which lifted, but then he stopped himself. No need to rush this. Wait for the assistance. He needed a camera to document the scene. A flood of to-dos and steps jumped up at him from his days in New York City as a homicide detective.
He knew it sounded strange to people, but he was fond of those days. He felt a purpose in life stronger than he had ever felt before and he did not understand that until it was gone. Only then did he comprehend what people meant when they said, “I just want to do something meaningful.” Solving murders had been Dean’s meaning.
Zion’s crime consisted of petty theft, rowdy teenagers, some domestic violence, and speeding. He could not remember when the last time someone died a violent death at the hands of another person in the town.
He stood up and walked back into the woods to get moving again, to try to warm up. He looked northward. Canada was only a half-mile away. From this position, looking across the clearing, he thought he saw what looked to be impressions in the snow leading north. Perhaps footprints partially filled with blowing snow. Maybe not. It seemed that way, but he knew he might be trying to find a pattern where none existed.
He shook his head. He looked north toward Canada and thought back to his days in New York City and wondered how, despite all his efforts, his path through life landed him smack back in the middle of his hometown.
* * *
Dr. Miles Cotton had been the coroner for the county for twenty odd years. He owned the Cotton Brothers Funeral Home on High Street, as well as ran a small family practice next door to the funeral home. Miles, in his early sixties, carried a few extra pounds around the waist, though wrapped in the heavy, brown coat with a faux-fur trimmed hood, it was not noticeable. His large, brown plastic-framed glasses seemed ever ready to slip off his small nose. He kept pushing on the bridge with his right index finger. His wavy light brown hair stuck out along the edges of the hood, which kept blowing back in gusts.
Officers Zach Adams and James Ridge were walking the edge of the clearing as instructed by Dean. Both had cameras and were taking photographs of the larger scene along with specific photos if they saw something of interest. Dean had said to take more photos than not enough.
The coroner stood next to the body in footsteps Dean had created. “Well, I can’t say for certain yet what killed him, but it’s either the bullet through the brain or the cold weather. Tough call, but I guess the people will expect the bullet done the killing.”
Too focused on the scene, Dean missed the joke. “We’ll need to know eventually for when this thing gets to court.”
“Mmmmm. Do you want to help me move him?”
“Sure. Do you know who it is?”
Miles rubbed his chin. “He looks familiar, but I can’t say for sure.” He pointed behind Dean. “Let’s preserve this as best as possible by putting him directly in the bag I brought.”
Dean had ignored the thick, black plastic bag just beyond the edge of the clearing. He had seen plenty of them over the years in New York and even as a cop in Zion for car accidents and suicides. Of the many millions of things he wished he could forget about Vietnam, body bags would be near the top of the list. He also knew he could not forget, ever. He stepped over, grabbed the bag, unzipped it and took it back to the body. Miles seized one end, and they set it down where they had photographed and already disturbed the scene.
Miles walked behind the victim’s head and waved Dean toward his feet. The sounds of rubbing fabric on the coats. The crunch of them stepping in the snow. “The back of his head is frozen to the tree, so let me loosen that.” The doctor grabbed the head and applied a back and forth pressure, rocking the head sideways. What sounded like snapping icicles and a crunch of bark rose up. “Okay.”
Dean lifted the feet, and Miles lifted the body by the shoulders. Rather than flopping legs and arms and a rolling head, the body remained fixed as they set it on the body bag.
Miles knelt down and opened the man’s coat. Dean looked at the tree. Where the man’s head had been, frozen blood and brain matter. Icicles of blood rose up from the tree.
“Here.” Miles handed him a wallet before turning back to the tree. “I want to take this part of the tree back with me.” He pointed to the tree where the man’s head had been attached.
“Sure. I’ll get Zach to borrow a chainsaw from the Pratts.” He looked at the wallet. A black tri-fold. A generic looking brand. The smooth sheen of the leather rubbed down on the edges and corners. Part of the stitching was coming loose at the top inside fold. He opened it. A number of business cards filled the slots. A collection of photographs in clear vinyl sleeves. He skipped over those for now. In the fixed clear plastic window, a driver’s license. “William D. Nimitz.”
“Billy. Ah, I see it now.”
“Billy?” Dean could not abide adult men being called by youthful versions of their name.
“Yeah, Billy. He worked down at McCord’s Body Shop.”
“So you knew him.”
“Knew of him. Saw him when Sally got hit on the square, and we had to get some body work done. Damned insurance wouldn’t cover all of the costs.” Miles sighed.
Dean flipped open the money portion of the wallet. Three dollar bills and a slip of folded paper. He pulled that out. The paper was a torn piece of an envelope, the precise cut of the flap and a thin strip of dried glue, yellowed from use. On the surface that would have faced the interior of the envelope was written in nice flowing cursive, “I love you.” On the backside, a partial address was visible:
mitz
ckson St.
, NY 55768
Dean slipped it back into the wallet.
“Well, that’s interesting,” said Miles.
“What’s that?”
Miles handed Dean a thin book, which could have even passed for a pamphlet. “Found it in the front upper pocket of the coat.”
Dean took two steps back. “Zach, come here.”
Zach looked up, nodded, and started walking back. He and James had nearly completed their circuit around the clearing.
Dean looked at the book in his hand: The Communist Manifesto. What was this? He tried to open it, but his gloves were too thick. He shook his head and bagged it.
Dean took one more step back and felt something under his foot. Hard. Not natural. He lifted his foot up and looked down. Where he had crushed the snow down, he saw the exposed polished black metal of a pistol decorated with snow and slivers of brown grass.

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