Where's the Rest of the Body

by Ron Finch

  They didn’t know whether to grin or grimace. A grimace seemed most appropriate.

  Wednesday, January 18th

  CONSTABLE PETER HERMAN and I were going out on search duty for our third time. Jay and Cst. Smith, the other search team, had been out to search farms twice. We haven’t been able to go out every day. The weather has been cold and there has been a lot of snow. We had quite a storm the past weekend. Someone who’d come into the grocery store had told my dad that they’d measured a depth of 37 inches of snow in a sheltered area. The drifts were much higher of course. Most of the snow fell last Sunday and Monday.

  Everyone loves a sleigh ride, but when it’s 19 degrees below zero Fahrenheit and the wind is howling no one wants to go out. Since the weekend storm, this is the first day we dared to go out on a search.

  Searching these farms is more difficult than I had anticipated. This time of year, you can’t easily walk the land and you can’t necessarily see very far. But we have had lots of practice snowshoeing. So far, we’ve limited our actual search time on a property to about three hours. By the time we get our things together and prepare for the search, travel to our destination, perform the search, and get back to the police station, the total time it takes us is usually well over four hours.

  Today, Cst. Herman and I are headed to the Conrad farm. We make certain at least two days ahead of time that we have permission from the property owners to visit. We’ve had to reschedule a couple of times in order to accommodate people, but no one has refused us yet. I don’t think anyone will. Between the newspaper articles and all the talk in town generated by the gruesome appearance of the body parts, everyone is hoping we will solve the mystery quickly. People are still very concerned about their personal safety, even though the paper has stressed that it appears the body parts we are finding, according to forensics experts from Toronto, are not from recent murders.

  IT IS NECESSARY FOR the landowners to be cooperative because we are going to be looking through their home as well as any outbuildings. We also ask them to either mark the sites of any torn-down buildings on the property or to escort us to those sites. We examine the buildings and the sites first, before we start to walk the land.

  The Conrad farm is a little over two miles out of town. It’s a one hundred-acre farm. There is no bush on the farm, although there are a few trees. This farm has a one-and-a-half-story farmhouse, a timber frame barn, a small pig barn, and another shed. There are also the remains of another old house that used to be on the property.

  We arrived at the property at about 1:30 in the afternoon. Mrs. Conrad and her two youngest children, who were not old enough to go to school, were in the house. She was in the kitchen with the kids doing some baking. Her husband Roger was in the barn. We went to the barn and talked to Roger for a few minutes. He wanted the latest update on how our investigation was going and whether we had found any more body parts. Then he went with us on our tour of the house, the barn, and the other outbuildings. Next, Roger took us to the site where the old house had stood. We poked through the site, but it was obvious that it was not the place we were looking for.

  “I’m glad I don’t have to do the searching you’re doing,” Roger said. “I know you have to do it, but it must seem like a waste of time. I don’t think you’re looking for a needle in a haystack; I think you’re looking for a needle in the entire hay production of Canada last year.”

  We laughed at his joke.

  “How do you go about conducting the search?” he asked. “You must have some kind of method or you could be walking all over the place and not be sure where you had looked and where you hadn’t.”

  “Did you notice that coil rope I have over my shoulder?” I said. “It’s about one chain in length, or 66 feet.”

  “Hold on,” said Roger, “don’t tell me any more. I think I figured it out. Most of the farms are about 20 chains wide. So, you take one end of the rope, and Cst. Herman takes the other end, and then you guys walk from one end of the farm to the other about 20 times.”

  “Congratulations,” said Cst. Herman. “You were very clever to figure out our method that quickly. Maybe you’d like to accompany us while we do your farm?”

  Roger smiled and said, “No, you guys are the experts. I’ll leave the job to you.”

  “Sometimes it gets a little more complicated, like when we encounter ponds or trees or fences or other obstacles,” said Cst. Herman, “but we certainly do get a lot of good exercise. As you know, these farms have a lot more depth than they have width. Our method isn’t fancy, but we think we get the land pretty thoroughly covered.”

  “You guys have quite a task ahead of you,” said Roger. “I think you need some refreshments before you head out to cover the land. Come on back to the kitchen for a hot cup of tea and a piece of cake.”

  We accepted enthusiastically, not wanting to offend him. About fifteen minutes later, we left the house. We told Roger we would start walking the land at the southeast corner of his property, near the road, and then follow the fence line to the back of his farm. We told him it usually took us more than one day to do a farm. We would come and knock at his door somewhere around 4:30 to let him know we were done for the day. We would then put a small yellow flag near the edge of the road at the end of our last back-and-forth trip. Then the next time we returned, the flag would be our starting point.

  WE SET OUT.

  We were almost to the back of the farm, on our fourth trip, when we noticed the sky had darkened. Within a couple of minutes, the wind had picked up and it had started to snow.

  We were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The wind was blowing all the loose snow from last weekend’s storm around and it was snowing heavily on top of that. It took us less than two minutes to realize we were in trouble. We couldn’t see each other, and with the noise of the storm, we couldn’t hear each other, either. We couldn’t see anything. Fortunately, we each still held an end of the rope. Acting on instinct, we followed the rope until we met.

  I was scared, and I think Peter was as scared as I was. We were not prepared for this kind of emergency. We didn’t even have our guns with us. We’d left them back in the car.

  “We don’t know where we are, and we don’t know how long we are going to be out here, so we’d better start to think about how we are going to survive,” said Cst. Herman.

  “I’m getting cold already out in this wind,” I said. “We need some shelter.”

  “Do you remember – I think it was on our second trip to the end of the farm – not far from the back there was a small group of trees,” said Cst. Herman. “We need to find that copse of trees.” Then he added, “We can search more area if we each cover some ground, but it is very important that we don’t get separated. Tie your end of the rope around you, and I’ll tie my end around me. Even if we can’t see each other, we will know where the other person is by tugging the rope. Three sharp tugs mean either we found the trees or there’s a problem.”

  I let Cst. Herman get a few steps ahead of me and then we both headed back in what we thought was the direction of the trees.

  We had been wandering around blindly like this for about fifteen minutes when I suddenly felt three pulls on the rope. I thought I heard a yell. It was hard to be sure I’d heard anything over the roar of the wind, because when the wind changed its speed, the pitch of its howl changed as well. If you had a good imagination, you would think it was talking to you. When I tried to move, I could tell the other end of the rope was fixed somewhere. That meant Cst. Herman was stuck. Had he fallen? Was he injured? Those were the first two questions that went through my mind.

  I started to shorten the rope. I couldn’t reel it in, because it was fixed at the other end, but I could pull myself toward that point. I followed the rope for a minute and then suddenly heard another yell. I was a lot closer to Cst. Herman now and I could make out the word ‘help!’ That was definitely Peter, and he was nearby.

  I came to a stop and then I moved ahead very slo
wly. I couldn’t see a thing, but I heard Peter holler help again and realized he must only be a few feet away. I pulled on the rope and he pulled back. I knew he was trapped somehow, and I didn’t want to end up the same way, so I crouched low to the ground and inched my way ahead. I thought I could hear a splashing noise.

  I hollered at Cst. Herman and it seemed his reply came from about five feet away.

  “Stop,” he shouted. “You must be at the edge of the pond. Don’t come any closer. Just pull me out.”

  We had forgotten about the pond. On our second trip from the front to the back of the farm we’d had to skirt the edge of a pond. It had been hard to see because of the all the snow, but Roger Conrad had told us about it. He’d said the milder patch of weather before the recent heavy snows had left the ice very thin in the middle of the pond. So we’d known it was there, but I think the blizzard had caused us to panic a bit. We’d remembered the group of trees but forgot about the pond.

  I braced my feet and pulled on the rope. As Peter got closer to me I could hear his teeth chattering. I managed to get him out, but he was soaked to the waist. He hadn’t hurt himself, he just hadn’t been able to get himself out of the water. I knew we now had an even greater problem: Peter was too wet to survive long in this storm. If we didn’t find some shelter very soon he would die.

  The one good thing about Peter stumbling into the pond was that we had now also found the copse of trees we’d been looking for, and they might provide us with some shelter. Peter was shivering almost uncontrollably but he could still walk so we carefully made our way around the edge of the pond. Within two or three minutes we had found the clump of trees. Each of us had a small hatchet so we were able to hack off some branches and build a kind of lean-to shelter beside the largest tree. That helped, but it wasn’t going to be enough to save Peter.

  I don’t smoke but I always carry matches in case of an emergency. It turned out to be a good idea. One of the trees was dead and had been for some time. It was not buried in the snow and was propped up against a couple of the other trees. I was able to get some kindling by breaking off some of the smaller branches and then breaking them into pieces. That gave us some wood that would be a little easier to ignite. I built a pile of kindling in the middle of our little shelter and then from my backpack I took out one of the matchbooks from Mabel’s Diner. My matches were dry and within a couple of minutes we had a little fire going. Peter was sitting as close to the fire as he possibly could, but he was shivering and extremely uncomfortable. The storm was still raging pretty good. According to my watch it was about 6 o’clock; suppertime. I was really concerned. I didn’t know how long Peter would last even with the fire that I was feeding.

  Would the Conrads think we had left the farm earlier? They had no reason to worry about us. Because of our police duties, Cst. Herman and I didn’t always get home at a specific time. We were usually home for supper but sometimes we were late. We hadn’t checked into the office, but with the storm maybe the chief was busy doing other things? How long was it going to be before anyone noticed we were missing? If we were late, they wouldn’t start worrying about us for a few hours at least. I thought that was going to be far too long. I thought I might be okay overnight, but I was pretty certain Peter couldn’t last that long.

  I CONCENTRATED AND contacted Walter. I knew Walter couldn’t physically help me. But I had an idea.

  “Walter can you hear me?”

  “I can sense you, Joel.”

  I focused my concentration and sent as clear a message as I could, explaining the situation to Walter. I told him it was a matter of life or death. I told Walter where we were and that I had a plan.

  After a pause, Walter sent back: “I understand the urgency. What is your plan?”

  “In one of our early conversations in the attic, in the summer of 1928, you mentioned there was another person living in Chaseford, or nearby, that has the same ability that I possess,” I communicated back. “I understood from you that it was a woman. I don’t know who she is, but since I haven’t heard of her, I assume that she wants to remain anonymous. I think we can save Cst. Herman, and preserve her secrecy, if we follow my plan. I know you can’t contact the woman directly, but you can contact her essence and then her essence can contact her.”

  I paused to clear my head. The need to remain clearly focused on the information I was broadcasting made these lengthy communications very tiring. After a moment, I continued.

  “For this plan to work, this other person has to contact my fiancée Georgie as soon as possible. Georgie knows about my talent and Georgie knows about you. This other person can contact Georgie, and – without revealing her name – inform Georgie that Cst. Herman and I are in a desperate situation at the back of the Conrad farm, near the pond, and that Cst. Herman requires medical attention. Georgie should then contact Chief Petrovic and explain that I was to phone her from the police station at 5 o’clock to make arrangements for dinner at 6 o’clock tonight. She can’t find me, and my parents don’t know where I am.”

  I had to pause again. I was getting tired and losing focus. There was no time to spare, so after a momentary rest I continued with the message.

  “Georgie is to tell the chief she’s contacted Peter Herman’s wife and Peter’s wife is worried about him. Peter always phones her if he’s going to be late. Georgie is to tell the chief she is convinced that Peter and I are trapped somehow at the back of the Conrad farm. Georgie is to tell the chief she thinks we’ve encountered danger of some kind. She’s to tell him that they need to search for us right away and that if they won’t she’ll get my dad to help her form a local search team. Georgie has to convince the chief there’s no time to waste.”

  “That’s a good plan, Joel,” Walter sent back. “I think we’ll get cooperation as long as this woman can remain anonymous. I’ll get in touch with the other essence immediately.”

  Walter was gone. The wind began to die down. I kept feeding the fire and soon had to cut some more branches. Peter was still somewhat aware, but he told me he just wanted to sleep. He was mumbling, and I wondered if he wasn’t a little confused. I checked my watch. It was now almost 7:30. It was relatively calm now, but it was very cold. It was clearing up and I could see some stars.

  They have to get here soon, I thought. I don’t know how much longer Peter will last.

  I cut more wood, built up the fire, and checked my watch again. 8 o’clock. I contacted Walter.

  “What happened?” I projected.

  “So far as I know, that other woman contacted Georgie within half an hour of our conversation,” Walter immediately replied.

  “I don’t know what else to do,” I said. “I’m fine, but I’m really worried about Peter. He’s asleep but I don’t think that’s a good sign.”

  “All you can do is be patient,” was Walter’s reply.

  The communication with Walter was important to me. It was keeping me going. I didn’t feel quite so alone and isolated with Walter around.

  TEN MINUTES LATER I could hear voices.

  I started to shout: “Over here! Over here! Over here!”

  “We’re on our way. We see your fire,” I heard someone shout back.

  Soon I could see lanterns and hear people talking excitedly to one another. I heard someone shout: “Watch out!” Someone else said: “That was close. Thanks for the warning.”

  I guess they found the pond.

  A group of men was suddenly at our campsite: Chief Petrovic, constables Smith and Jay Jarvis, Roger Conrad, and my dad. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. They explained that it had been a very difficult walk to the back of the farm, even in snowshoes. Fortunately, the wind had died down and visibility wasn’t too bad. The biggest problem now was the depth of the snow. They’d taken turns being in the lead; that way, the path was broken somewhat for those following. They’d brought a good-sized sleigh with them and had attached a six-foot long wooden platform, about three feet wide, to the back. The sleigh was loaded
with blankets, shovels, and a basket packed with food and drinks.

  Chief Petrovic took a look at Cst. Herman and said, “He’s still breathing, but it seems to be shallow. I’m really concerned about his condition. We need to get those wet clothes off him and get him wrapped in these blankets. Then we need to get him on the sleigh and get him back to your house, Roger, as soon as possible. Hopefully, Dr. Fitzgerald will be at your home by the time we get there. I called him just before I left town and told him where your farm was. He said he’d been there once before, when your oldest boy fell out of the apple tree.”

  Cst. Herman was still asleep. He seemed unaware of the noise and the commotion. Even moving him to the pallet didn’t wake him.

  We were back in the farmhouse in less than thirty minutes. There were already several people at the house when we carried Peter into the kitchen from the side porch. Georgie rushed up and gave me a hug and whispered in my ear, “I’m glad you know Walter.”

  A small cot had been set up in the parlour. We laid Peter down on it and got out of the way so he could be tended to by Dr. Fitzgerald. After a brief examination, Dr. Fitzgerald turned to us and said: “His breathing could be stronger, but his pulse is steady. His body temperature is slightly less than 94°. That means he’s suffering from hypothermia and he’s in some danger if it doesn’t go up, but I expect, because he’s now indoors and in a warm location, his body temperature will increase back to normal. I don’t see any signs of severe frostbite. I think he’ll be fine. If possible, he shouldn’t be moved until tomorrow.”

  Peter’s wife, who had been in tears since we arrived, thanked Dr. Fitzgerald. Then she thanked the rest of us for rescuing Peter. Then she burst into tears again and sat down on the edge of the cot next to her husband.

  From the kitchen, Mrs. Conrad announced: “The muffins I’ve been baking are ready. I also have a kettle full of hot cider. Is anyone interested?” She had to quickly add: “Settle down or you’ll be at the back of the line!”