A Borrowing of Bones--A Mystery

by Paula Munier

  Susie Bear started down the southerly path toward the family plot, and he whistled to call her back.

  “Not tonight, girl. Tonight we’re going this way.”

  He led the dog down another gravel path that cut a circuitous route through the cemetery toward its eastern boundary to the headstone that read: Eileen Gibbs Horgan, May 3, 1932 to November 25, 2010, Beloved Wife and Mother.

  And librarian, he thought. Mrs. Horgan had run the local library for decades, and encouraged everyone in town to read. Troy was never much of a reader, but when she found out he wanted to be a game warden when he grew up, she’d introduced him to Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost, even John Irving. All the literary kings of New England, who understood the pull of the moon, the lure of the woods, and the solace of solitude. He missed Mrs. Horgan, and he wouldn’t let anything happen to her husband on his watch.

  The cemetery was empty as far as he could see. At least empty of living humans. Most of the villagers were either downtown dining and drinking or safe at home watching HBO. They weren’t out visiting their dead.

  Susie Bear was trained to find anything with a human scent. Troy figured the bones buried here would not distract her, because she was trained for tracking and trailing and search and rescue, looking for people who were still alive. People who were out of place, and smelled of confusion and fear. People like Mr. Horgan.

  But the clever dog had done a little cadaver training as well, although she hadn’t been on any official cadaver searches yet. Unless he counted today and the bones they found in the Lye Brook Wilderness. Which maybe he should.

  “Search,” he said, snapping on his headlamp.

  The congenial beast bound through the grounds, past the faded granite stones, with no regard for the carefully tended paths or the bright flags decorating the graves of veterans of all wars, foreign and domestic. She was headed straight for the woods.

  Troy jogged after the big black dog, lost to him in the dark, his headlamp bouncing with every stride, flashing a jagged trail as he tried to keep her dark form in sight. He plunged into the woods after the disappearing mutt, shining the flashlight along the forest floor as well. He could hear her thrashing through the brush and struggled to catch up to her.

  Now that the sun had long set, the temperature had dropped sharply—down to the forties—and Old Man Horgan would be cold. He remembered his aunt and pushed on, toward the crashing racket that was Susie Bear on the run.

  The clamor stopped suddenly, and Troy knew she’d found him. Like a good search-and-rescue canine, Susie Bear knew better than to rush the lost and confused. She would run back to Troy and lead him to Mr. Horgan. Flashlight in hand, he tracked the dog along the visible trail she’d blazed through the trees and thickets, hoping to meet her halfway.

  But she was faster than he was. The Newfie mutt leapt toward him, barked once, and then turned sharply, fur flying, and headed into a small clearing. He followed her and found her sitting there, her great paws forward, facing a huge fallen log lying at the base of a copse of white pine. Her long plume of a tail fluttered fiercely in anticipation of her reward for a job well done.

  Mr. Horgan was nowhere to be seen.

  Troy wasn’t worried. Many elderly people would hide from the noise and commotion made by their rescuers, unaware that in the process they were hampering the very effort that could save them. If Susie Bear indicated that somebody was here, somebody was here. Somewhere.

  He swung the flashlight around the clearing in a slow clockwise curve, lighting every inch of the small opening in the forest. Nothing.

  He skirted the large log. Susie Bear’s tail thumped wildly.

  Getting hotter, he thought.

  The far side of the log was hollowed out. He shined the beam of the flashlight into the cavity, and there he found the old man, folded into the close space, knees tight against his face. Bingo.

  “Mr. Horgan,” he said gently. “It’s me, Warden Troy Warner. I’m your ride.”

  Susie Bear leapt over the log and slid to a dead stop right at Troy’s heels. He slipped her a treat from his pocket for a job well done.

  Walter Horgan leaned toward them. His hat was askew and exhaustion scored the deep lines that marked his long face, but his gray eyes were clear.

  “That your animal?”

  “Yes, sir.” He reached down to help him up, grabbing his liver-spotted hands with his larger, stronger ones.

  “Ready?”

  “Yep.”

  He pulled his late librarian’s husband to his feet.

  “She’s a big one.” Mr. Horgan patted the dog’s broad head, and in appreciation the dog licked his thin wrist with a thick tongue. “What’s her name?”

  “Susie Bear.”

  Mr. Horgan smiled. “Suits her.”

  The old man shrugged off Troy’s assistance and made his way to the warden’s truck, tapping his cane as he went, the big shaggy dog at his elbow. He sat tall in the front passenger seat. Susie Bear’s head lolled between the two men as she leaned in from the cab. Troy glanced at the old man as he drove and wished there were more that he could do for him.

  “I want to go home,” Mr. Horgan said.

  “I promised your daughter I’d take you to the emergency room.”

  The old man groaned. “No need.”

  “Just to get you checked out. Isobel is on her way there now. She’ll take you home as soon the doctors say you’re good to go.”

  Troy drove into the ER porte cochere at the hospital and helped Mr. Horgan into the waiting room.

  “Take care of yourself,” he told the old man as the nurse called him in to see the physician.

  “You, too.”

  Troy grinned a goodbye and left. He climbed into his truck, scratched Susie Bear between her ears, and drove home to the fire tower on the Battenkill River just west of Winhall.

  The fire tower dated back to the fifties. Obsolete in the era of satellites, the forty-seven-foot-high tower—basically an open fifteen-by-fifteen-foot room on stilts—had been scheduled for destruction when he bought it. He refashioned it into a three-story home by enclosing the lower portion of the tower and keeping the original lookout at the top intact. The ground floor housed the kitchen and the bathroom; his living space, which doubled as a bedroom, was on the second floor. He did most of the work himself, with the help of his dad and his brother Tyler, both carpenters. The living space may have been small, but the view was as big as the great outdoors.

  He loved this place, and so did Susie Bear—even though at first she wasn’t crazy about the stairs. He opened the red door—the only painted surface in the all-wood structure—and the dog rushed past him into the kitchen, stopping for a sloppy drink at her water bowl, and lumbered up the steep wooden stairs that flanked the far wall to the next level. She was as eager to hit the sheets as Troy was.

  And he was right behind her.

  But first he climbed a final flight of stairs to the top of the fire tower. He opened the sliding glass door and stepped onto the deck. He came out here often. To drink in the spectacular view, he told himself, but it was more than that. Sure, the outlook provided a 360-degree vista of the surrounding area, a splendor of forest and river and sky. Night or day, the effect was the same. Gazing out from his fire tower always reassured him that life was bigger than his own problems. Even after his wife ran off with that flatlander from Florida.

  Tonight, the jagged tapestry of treetops against the sweep of stars and a pale sickle moon moved him more than he could say. Coming home to an empty house—empty of his wife—hurt him, especially in the beginning. He’d thought of her leaving him as the beginning of the end of his marriage. Although in truth the end had begun long ago. He’d been afraid of losing her since high school.

  Meeting Mercy Carr today had reminded him of that.

  Troy looked up and found the North Star. He stared at the bright star for a long time before going back inside and down the stairs. Pull
ing the Murphy bed down out of the wall seemed like too much trouble, so he crashed on the sectional with his dog, still in his uniform, and dozed off to the comforting sound of canine snoring.

  FRIDAY

  JULY 2

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  TROY GOT ABOUT FOUR HOURS’ sleep before the first call came in: drunken revelers shooting off fireworks at the Northshire campground. All consumer fireworks other than sparklers were illegal in Vermont. People intent on celebrating the Fourth the old-fashioned way drove over to New Hampshire, stocked up on the explosive devices, and then sneaked them back into the Green Mountain State. Law enforcement didn’t do that much to stop this smuggling activity; the priority was policing the roadways for drunk drivers.

  Game wardens had to worry about drunk drivers, too. ATVers and boaters, mostly, speeding and crashing and hurting themselves and/or others in the process. But complaints for late-night fireworks disturbing the peace also came in, especially in the campgrounds, where rival groups would snipe at each other over all manner of issues, from extremely loud music to excessive marijuana smoke.

  By the time Troy got there, the fireworks show was over and the complainants had gone to bed. The folks setting off the fireworks told the game warden that they didn’t have any more. But a domestic dispute at the campgrounds earlier that evening had prompted an inebriated husband to take off on his ATV, and he hadn’t been seen since. Troy and Susie Bear spent hours tracking the guy down, charging him with a DUI, and getting him back to the campgrounds in one piece to face his unhappy wife.

  He may be lonely sometimes, but Troy was glad he didn’t have to go home to an unhappy woman anymore. Dogs were so much easier than people.

  The sun was coming up when they got back to the fire tower. Another couple of hours on the couch, and he’d be ready to tackle that dead body and that missing baby.

  More sleep was not to be. Long holiday weekends meant long hours on patrol. Troy got a text from Captain Thrasher. Time to get back to work. He showered quickly, put on a clean uniform, and headed out for the office with Susie Bear.

  “Okay, girl,” he said. “Are you ready for Eggs Over Easy?”

  The big dog barked and he laughed. This tiny breakfast place in the corner of an old building on Main Street was her favorite—and his, too. He called in their favorite order—triple servings of venison blueberry sausage, wild turkey hash, cornbread, and coffee—and barreled down the road toward town.

  Main Street was pretty quiet at this hour of the morning, and that meant no long line of customers waiting yet at the tiny café, which technically didn’t open for half an hour, at seven, and was crazy busy by nine o’clock until they closed their doors in the early afternoon. But the cute if notoriously cranky hostess, Monique, had a crush on the captain, and all Troy had to do was say he was dropping by to pick up breakfast for Thrasher and she’d meet him right on the sidewalk outside the restaurant, food and drink packed and ready to go. By the time he pulled up to the restaurant, the slender brunette was there in a short yellow cotton dress, smiling and holding up his takeout like Vanna White changing letters on Wheel of Fortune.

  “Now you be sure to tell the captain hello for me,” she said as she leaned into the open window of the truck and exchanged meal for money.

  “Will do,” said Troy.

  Monique patted Susie Bear before retreating. “And next time, bring him by for a real sit-down.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Troy smiled at her. She must have known that she was one of a long line of women waiting for the captain. But then, she was used to long lines.

  * * *

  CAPTAIN FLOYD THRASHER stood in the reception area and waved Troy into the small office. He scratched Susie Bear’s shaggy head and led the way to the conference room, which doubled as the operations room. They were the only people there today, which was the way Troy liked it, when he had to be in the office at all. Most of his time was spent in the field. One of the many reasons he loved this job.

  Thrasher, on the other hand, seemed completely at home in every environment. A former Marine with the punctilious bearing of an officer and the gravelly voice of a blues baritone, he was the most self-possessed man Troy had ever known. He seemed much taller than his five-ten frame, due to his super-erect carriage and salt-and-pepper buzz cut. His eyes were the kind of blue-green that could melt a woman’s heart or nail a grown man to the floor with just a look. Of French, English, and African-American ancestry, he was movie-star handsome, at least by Vermont standards, and only grew more so with age.

  Troy knew his extraordinary good looks were a sore subject for his superior officer, which made him the object of much teasing by fellow law enforcement—but only the dimmest of them dared to call him Pretty Boy Floyd to his face.

  Troy was not dim. All he said when he and Susie Bear greeted the captain at the office was “Monique says hello,” and handed Thrasher his coffee.

  The captain grunted an unintelligible response. When his beloved wife, Carol, died a year ago of cancer, the ladies of southern Vermont had gathered around him in folds of sympathy, delivering condolences and casseroles in equal measure. He ignored them all, and shared the casseroles with Troy, whose own wife had also departed—for Orlando, with the orthopedist—in a show of solidarity and support. They continued to eat meals together, even as many of the women (Monique aside) grew discouraged and the free food dwindled.

  That often meant takeout, like today’s breakfast. Thrasher waited while he parceled out the sausage and hash and cornbread among the three of them: boss, junior officer, and dog. Dog got the lion’s share.

  They ate in a companionable silence, the only sound the slurping of coffee by the men and the scarfing of the sausage by the dog. Troy appreciated the fact that while the captain could speak eloquently and effectively on virtually any subject, he was not a big talker here at work. Troy never felt obliged to shoot the shit with him, the way he sometimes did with his other colleagues.

  “Dr. Darling has narrowed the time of death of the victim in the woods to about three years, give or take a couple of months.” Thrasher tossed the remains of his breakfast into the trash can under his desk. “Still no ID.”

  “I can check the missing persons files from that time and see what comes up.”

  “Do it.” The captain rose to his feet. “But make it fast. It’s really not our problem. And the unlicensed fishermen and drunk ATVers and pirate rafters will be waking up soon, and you’ll need to get back in the field.”

  “Yes, sir.” Troy knew that the captain didn’t like the idea of people dying in their woods any more than he did. Whether by accidental death or murder didn’t matter. They wanted to make it right, for the victims and their families. Even if the state police objected.

  “You’ve got an hour,” the captain said. “I’ll be in my office.”

  Troy logged onto the computer in the operations room and began the sometimes laborious process of checking the crime records and missing persons reports filed around the time of the victim’s death. Fortunately only three adult males had been reported missing during the specified time period: Gary Bowles, a forty-five-year-old unemployed truck driver from Pownal; Jack Hess, a thirty-seven-year-old science teacher from Dorset; and Wayne Herbert, a thirty-two-year-old unemployed machinist from Rutland County. Troy dug deeper, combing the databases for more information on the three missing men.

  “Interesting,” he told Susie Bear, who sprawled at his feet, her large head a dead weight on the toes of his boots. As it turned out, there was a story behind each of the missing individuals. Bowles turned out to be on a bender in Portsmouth, and spent a couple of nights in jail before taking off and showing up months later in Glastonbury. Hess ran off with his sister-in-law and sent his brother a postcard from Cabo featuring the happy couple on the beach. The wife eventually came home and reconciled with the brother, but the family didn’t like talking about it, and delayed informing the authorities. Hess never returned to Vermont. As far as anyone knew,
he was still in Mexico.

  Missing persons reports were often incomplete and inaccurate, if not forgotten altogether. Most were canceled, because the missing person showed up, sooner rather than later, the victim of nothing more than a misunderstanding. Or they were runaway teenagers or dementia patients or kids abducted by their noncustodial parents. Others were people who simply disappeared of their own free will. People who wanted to leave their old lives behind forever, for better or worse.

  But then there were the victims of foul play. Like their victim.

  Wayne Herbert, the last guy on the list, had never been heard from again. He was about the right age and disappeared at around the right time. He was known to be an avid hunter, and was suspected of poaching time and time again, but the game warden’s predecessors had never been able to catch him in the act.

  Still, given the forty thousand known remains and God knows how many more unknown scattered across the woods and fields and meadows of this country, the bones of their victim could belong to anyone. But Troy had a feeling about this Wayne Herbert. At least it was a place to start.

  He printed out the case files, missing persons report, and photos of the victim and the belt buckle, and then whistled for the dog. She padded along behind him as he knocked on the captain’s door and filled him in on Wayne Herbert.

  “Oh, yes, the Herberts,” said Thrasher. “Quite the family. Drinking, disturbing the peace, poaching.”

  They both hated poachers. Game wardens were pledged to protect wildlife—and poaching was one of the premier crimes against wildlife.

  “Sneaky, though.”

  “Yeah. We’ve only caught them at it once. Before your time. The Herbert boys were baiting bear with doughnuts. Out of season.” Thrasher smiled, showing his teeth. He had the look of a falcon, ready to swoop. “Anonymous tip. All three boys paid steep fines. And spent some time in jail.”

  Baiting bears was illegal. Even leaving dog food outside where it could attract bears was asking for trouble. And bear hunting was very restricted: only one bear per year was allowed each licensed hunter. Violations cost poachers plenty. Fines began at $1,000, and jail time could add up to months behind bars. The tough regulations worked, though, and the warden service knew it. The population of black bears had doubled over the past twenty years. That meant six thousand bears roaming the state looking for food when they weren’t hibernating. Fierce temptation for the likes of the Herberts.