We talked on the phone now and then, but not much. He’d actually bought himself a computer and occasionally I’d get an e-mail message from him, usually just a line or two to explain an attached photograph of some big muskie or pickerel he’d caught. For an old guy who was resistant to change, he’d embraced some of the new technologies with enthusiasm. I think it must have been those long, cold winters that brought him around. He was tired of being isolated, and his computer connected him to the world in ways he’d never imagined possible.
And now, from the sounds of things, he could be dead.
I quickly explained to Trixie what Sarah had said, and, after she’d hugged me, she had but one word to say: “Go.”
Once I was on the highway that led north out of the city, behind the wheel of our hybrid Virtue, pushing the little car as hard as it would go, I got Sarah on my cell again, asked her to tell me again what she knew.
The freelancer, Tracy, had learned of the incident about the same time as the authorities. She was being treated for a sore throat at her doctor’s, an elderly man who should have retired years ago but still practiced because it was hard to attract new GPs to an out-of-the-way place like Braynor. He did double duty in Fifty Lakes as a coroner, and Tracy was there when the call came in that a body had been found up by Crystal Lake, that it had been mauled pretty badly, and the first thing that had come to everyone’s mind was that a bear was to blame. Tracy offered to drive the doctor in her own car, and called The Metropolitan’s city desk when she figured she had a story that might appeal to an audience beyond the local paper she primarily wrote for, The Braynor Times. She’d had no idea, when she put the call in to Sarah, that there might be a personal connection.
Nobody knew for sure who the dead person was, but there was no sign of Arlen Walker.
“So listen, Zack,” Sarah said, a note of caution in her voice, “this has really just happened. They may not even have moved the body by the time you get there. In fact, I think Tracy has told them you’re coming, so they may leave things as they are so you can, you know, do an identification.”
“Okay,” I said. At the speed I was going, I’d probably be up there in a little more than an hour and fifteen minutes.
“I’ll come up, too,” Sarah said, and I knew she meant it.
“Why don’t I get up there, find out what’s actually happened,” I said, “and then I’ll let you know.” Because I am not normally someone to look on the bright side, or wait for all the facts before panicking, I was already making a mental list of people to call. My sister. The funeral director. The lawyer. The real estate agent. Sarah would be good at helping with that sort of stuff.
“What about Cindy?” Sarah asked.
I said I would call my sister when I knew everything.
“If I find out anything more, I’ll call you,” Sarah said.
The landscape changed so gradually as I headed north that I almost didn’t notice it happening, but when I was about half an hour away from Braynor I noticed, even in my preoccupied state, that the hills had grown more steep, the forests of pines more dense, signs of civilization less prevalent, and the road frequently walled on both sides with jagged rock where the highway had been blasted through a rise in the terrain. Every few miles the scenery would open up as the highway skirted the edge of a lake, and taking my eyes off the wheel for a moment, I could see small boats in the distance, some moving at speed, others sitting with middle-aged men hunched over their fishing poles.
I saw a sign reading “Braynor 5” and began looking for the lane into my father’s camp. I knew he was about three miles south of town, and before long I spotted the crudely painted sign up ahead, yellow letters painted onto a brown background, reading “Denny’s Cabins: Fishing, bait, boats. Next right.”
I slowed, saw the opening in the trees where the lane wound down from the highway, and turned in. It didn’t amount to much more than two ruts with a strip of grass growing in the middle, and I could hear the blades brushing along the bottom of the car as I navigated my way in. The grass on either side of the ruts was matted down, where drivers had pulled over when encountering a car coming from the other direction.
Not far down, the lane branched into two. You took the left to go to the farmhouse Dad had opted not to use, but I couldn’t have driven that way had I wanted to, because only a few yards ahead the lane was blocked by a wide wooden gate that was flanked on both sides by a neck-high chain-link fence.
The gate featured a collection of signs, some made from wood and sloppily printed, others commercially available metal signs, dimpled as though shot with BB pellets. They read “Keep Out!” and “Private!!” and “Beware of Dogs!” That last one had originally said “Beware of Dog!” but someone had painted a snakelike “s” at the end to make it plural. As if all those weren’t enough, there was another that said “No Trespassing!” and a homemade one reading “Tresppasers Will Be SHOT!”