PART 2
INVESTIGATIONS
“W
HAT SHOULD WE DO?” Penny gasped; her eyes transfixed on the gruesome appendage protruding from the now-exposed creek bank. The discolored bone was gray and streaked with brown mud, disappearing into the hightop sneaker with a red Nike swoosh still visible under the grime. “We call in the crime scene team.” Chuck’s voice calmed Penny as he took her hand, helping her back up the slippery incline. Once back on the pasture’s scrubby grass, he looked seriously into Penny’s face. “Did your family ever bury anyone out here?” “No!” Penny’s face was a maelstrom of fear, confusion, and also anger at Chuck for asking. “We never buried anybody. Maybe it’s from before dad bought the farm.” “Not wearing a Nike sneaker,” Chuck mumbled his reply, not wanting to spook Penny. “Let’s get back. That fire isn’t spreading anywhere.” He took her hand again and pulled Penny away from the creek. She looked back at the still-smoldering oak tree and at the rushing creek. The image of the raw bone protruding from the mud was seared into her memory. *** BY NOON, FOUR SHERIFF’S DEPUTIES, two grave diggers from the local mortuary, and the county coroner were working in the blazing sun to carefully extract the remains. Recovering the skeleton, shreds of clothing, and fragments of partially-preserved skin, was a slow process. By sundown, the remains had been fully exhumed and laid on a blue tarp in the back of an F-150 pickup. The coroner announced, without an autopsy, that the hole in the skeleton’s skull, above the left ear, was the likely cause of 50
InD’Tale Magazine
death. She did not give a road-side opinion on whether it was a homicide, or how long the body had been buried. The biggest question, of course, was the identity of the corpse. Within a few hours, the small town of Westfield was abuzz with speculation. *** ON SATURDAY, MORE THAN a hundred cars paraded to the cemetery after a heartfelt memorial service for “Farmer Gary” Thompson. Pastor Thurmond had to limit the number of speakers, then read the names of everyone else who had volunteered to give a testimonial. After the burial, Chuck briefed Penny on the investigation into the mystery body. “The coroner says the body was a male between eighteen and twenty. She’s pretty sure the boy was murdered, based on the hole in his skull. We checked all the records in the past few years about missing teenagers. His sneakers were an Air Jordan 1 retro model that was released for sale four years ago, which narrows down the search parameters.” “How many missing persons fit that profile?” Penny asked, glad to talk about something other than her sainted father and how sad everyone was. “There are no unsolved murders in the county. We identified two files on kids who disappeared, but the investigations all concluded that the boys ran away because of problems at home. We don’t know where they went, so it’s possible one of them is our body. We’re checking on descriptions and dental records. Our skull has a clean set of teeth, so we should be able to make an ID from that without needing DNA analysis.” “You think somebody killed one of those boys and then decided to dump the body on our farm?”
