Bran New Death

Her eyes widened. “And a macro zoom?”

“You’re pushing it, kiddo, but maybe.”

She got down to business right away. “Look, we need to go back soon, right? On our way, I’ll try to find the other encampment.”

I was glad I had worn a pair of my oldest jeans, as well as hiking shoes borrowed from Shilo’s wardrobe. The girl had the same shoe size as me, luckily—the only size we have ever shared—and never traveled without an abundance of footwear. I followed Lizzie, weaving through the woods and stepping over fallen trees. It was exhausting, and I knew I was going to ache the next day, but Lizzie never seemed to tire. Oh, for the stamina of fifteen.

A couple of times, I thought I heard a motorcycle engine. Were we near the highway? Or was someone trespassing in the woods, zooming around on the trails? It would be tempting, I supposed for a dirt-bike rider. Lizzie stopped a couple of times and cocked her head. I took the opportunity each time to catch my breath and look around, finally tuning in to what I had missed until now: birdsong. A harsh screech, discordant and echoing, trilled to me. The bird alit on a low branch, watching us with an u

Lizzie paused, looked around and nodded. “I know where we are, now. I’ve only been this way a couple of times, but I think we’re almost there.”

Close to us was the sound of water, and soon we stepped over a trickling stream that bubbled and chuckled along a winding trail. I stopped and cupped some of the water in my hand. It was frigid cold and clear, and tasted clean when I sipped it from the cup of my hand. My fabulous woodswoman skills told me it was springwater. My spirits lifted. I could not believe that this was my land!

Lizzie led me up a path that was even more treacherous because it was on a slope. She scrambled ahead of me, and I heard her cry, “Aha!”

I scaled the last bit, huffing and puffing, and looked down over a crude encampment with another half-collapsed tent. The fire pit was like the other one, a simple ring of rocks. Lizzie took photos, as she had of the other encampment, searching for unusual angles and zooming in on things, while I looked around.

Finally, I sat down on a log near the fire pit and picked up a stick, while Lizzie wandered, taking close-ups of the tent. I was about to tell her we ought to get going, when I heard an involuntary exclamation from her and turned to find her backing away from the tent, her expression blank, her whole body trembling.

“What’s wrong?” I said, standing. She just pointed.

I strode over to the tent and looked in. Then I turned around and raced to the edge of the woods to throw up. I still contend that is any sane woman’s reaction to finding a very, very dead body.

Chapter Nineteen

I’M ASHAMED TO say that I did not hold it together as well as Lizzie did. That fifteen-year-old girl led me out of the woods and back to the castle, where I babbled to McGill and Shilo about the awful scene we had discovered. McGill called Virgil, and before long the cops were at the castle yet again, this time in the bright light of day. Fortunately, Lizzie, her face white, her lips compressed, assured them she was able to guide them back to the scene—I would have had no clue how to find the encampment again—but I made McGill go with them, so he could make sure she was all right.

My story this time, as related to a sheriff’s deputy, was brief, because the body had been there awhile before we arrived on the scene. We found it, that was all. I paced after that, then went to the kitchen to make a big pot of coffee. Shilo and I had discovered a commercial coffee urn in one of the closets in our perambulations of the castle, and it was about to come in handy. I made several dozen mini muffins, too, with the mini-muffin tins I had bought the day before, and heaped them in a basket and set them on the kitchen table. I set out as many coffee cups as I could find, then called Janice Grover at Crazy Lady Antiques to see if she had a box of old mugs I could buy or borrow. Unfortunately, all I got was an answering machine. It was just make-work anyways, something to keep my mind busy as it shied away from the terrible sight I had seen in that tent.

Who was the dead body in the tent? Had he or she died alone, or been killed?

I paced along the flagstone terrace of the castle, as Shilo tried to make me feel better by avoiding the topic. A cold breeze swept up the lane, tossing the tops of the trees, and clouds began to scud along the vaulted blue, closing the scene in with ominous darkness, very Hollywood horror movie like. All we needed was a crypt, a coffin, and thunder to make it complete. But through it all, as I paced, Shilo talked about McGill, Ridley Ridge, and then McGill some more.

I whirled and gazed steadily at her. “Do you think that body is . . . could it be Rusty Turner?” Had he gone no farther than the woods near the castle and died of a heart attack or stroke? Or had old Uncle Melvyn murdered him and left his body there to rot? Given the conflict between them, it was a legitimate concern.

“We don’t know anything yet,” Shilo pointed out.

Finally McGill and Lizzie emerged from the woods as a light rain began to spit down. I hopped down off the terrace and raced to them, hugging Lizzie. She rocked back on her heels and stared up at me, a question in her eyes. What the question was, I couldn’t say. “Are you okay, Lizzie?” I asked, staring down at her. “You don’t need to be strong, or anything, just tell me how you feel.”

“She was great,” McGill said, one hand on her shoulder. “She led Virgil and his boys right to the spot, and told them what she found and how, and pointed out where you had thrown up. We stayed a few minutes, and then I asked Virge if it was okay if we came back here.”

She shrugged, more to get McGill’s hand off her shoulder than anything else, I thought.

“Do you want to go home?” I asked. Her face looked a little pinched and white, and she nodded. “I’ll drive you.” I turned to Shilo. “Can you tell the sheriff where I’ve gone, if he asks?”

She nodded yes, her arm through McGill’s, her head on his shoulder.

I retrieved my keys—I had already changed my clothes, so I was fit to meet a grandmother—and pointed out my rental car. “You’ll have to guide me,” I said, sliding in to the driver’s seat as she settled in on the passenger’s side.

She didn’t answer. I glanced over as I started down the long, curved drive. Tears were rolling down her pale cheeks. I let her silently cry, concentrating on driving in the brief shower, until we reached the turn-off to her grandmother’s home, which was on the outskirts of Autumn Vale. “Are you going to be okay?” I asked, glancing over at her.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” She sniffed. “It was just . . . when I thought about someone dying all alone in that tent, just lying there . . . it was awful. Do you think he was old or young? Did he suffer?”

I pulled the car over onto the shoulder of the road and turned to face her. “It’s one of those things that we might never know. It’s a terrible tragedy, but it’s just as possible the person died in their sleep, and didn’t even feel a thing.” I didn’t think so, but there was no point in saying that to Lizzie.