Soren shook his head.
“It’s supposedly a very small lizard,” Glen said. “The patrol leaders divide the younger kids into groups and go running around the forest in the dark, banging sticks and using flashlights to try and find it. The trick is it doesn’t exist. There’s no such thing as a snipe. Well, there is, but it’s a bird and it doesn’t live anywhere near here. Anyway, the whole thing is a wild-goose chase. Typically what happens is the patrol leader ‘sees’ a fast-moving snipe and then darts into the woods to go find it, leaving the rest of the group alone at night.”
“And here I thought Boy Scouts were supposed to be courteous, friendly, and kind,” Soren said. “Or something like that.”
“It’s an organization made up of kids—what do you expect?” Glen said. “Anyway, the gist of it is that they leave the Scouts in the dark to find their way back to camp by themselves. It’s a test of endurance and skill.”
“And this one went wrong.”
“Yep,” Glen said. “On the evening of May 12, 1972, Owen Leggett’s patrol went out for a snipe hunt. Their leader, a kid named Nick Newman, stranded them as planned at roughly 8:52 p.m. The rest of the patrol made it back to camp somewhere between 9:15 and 9:25 p.m. But Owen and another kid, Jeff Hill, didn’t return. A search party was formed at 9:50 p.m. It was informal at first as the troop leaders—the adults who sat around and let this all play out—thought the kids were just lost. By 10:30 they started to panic, and one drove out to the nearest police station. They comb the entire woods, which isn’t as large as you think. The park is fenced in by river on two sides and Route 5 on a third. It goes back a fair way but not that far. According to all reports, the troop, police, and firefighters searched the area of the park at least three full times by midnight.”
“But they didn’t find either kid?”
Glen shook his head.
“Here’s where things get interesting,” Glen said. “At around 11:00 p.m. a troop leader claims that one of the canoes the kids had been using is missing. Look here.”
Glen pointed to a map of Virginia.
“I got this in the library,” he said. “It’s newer than 1972, but the landscape hasn’t changed much. Look at where the park is.”
He pointed to a small dot right near the mouth of the Chickahominy and James Rivers. Soren nodded his head.
“That’s right near where our car got knocked into the water,” Soren said.
“Okay, so you see how close it is,” Glen finished. He drew a line across the water diagonally from the park to a large bordered area on the map.
“Chickahominy Wildlife Reserve,” Soren said.
“If the kids got in a canoe, they could have traveled right over to there,” Glen said. “There was a full moon that night; I checked.”
“Why would they go out that way?”
“No idea,” Glen said. “But he’s our missing Scout.”
“Sounds like there are two missing Scouts,” Soren replied.
Glen shook his head.
“No,” he said. “That’s the thing. The Hill kid shows up sometime around 11:30 p.m. and everyone gets real excited. They think the search is over, until they realize Leggett isn’t with him. They ask him if he’s seen Leggett, and he says no. He insists that he got lost near the water and fell asleep there in the dark. The problem is that the police and troop have already searched that area. It’s possible a sleeping kid might not have been noticed but unlikely. That’s not the best part, however.”
“The canoe is back.”
“You bet,” Glen said. “Voilà! Suddenly the missing canoe is found. But Hill claims he was never in it, knows nothing about it. The police actually believe him. The next morning they organize the largest manhunt in Virginia history up until that time. They bring in dogs, helicopters, you name it. They cover the area, including much of the Chickahominy Wildlife Reserve. They search for more than two weeks, first looking for the boy, then looking for his remains. But they don’t find him.”
Soren closed his eyes and tried to picture the boy he’d seen in the woods. He looked young, skinny—and scared. He felt a wave of pity for the kid.
“It keeps going,” Glen said. “Leggett’s father was a lawyer, and once it becomes clear his son is dead, he jumps into action, threatening everyone involved. He’s mad about the snipe hunt, inadequate supervision, you name it. At some point someone tells him about Hill and the missing canoe and he goes apeshit. He becomes convinced that Hill actually killed his son. He stalks the kid and his family, insisting that at the very least Hill knows more than he claims to. Hill admits nothing, but eventually the police become much more interested in him. Thanks to Leggett’s dad, the case doesn’t exactly go cold.
“But it does get creepier. On Feb 2, 1974, a couple traveling back from Williamsburg to Richmond spot a kid traveling alone along Route 5. The woman insists on pulling over because she says she has a bad feeling about the situation. She’s worried the kid could get hit by a car or something. When they stop, they realize he’s in a Boy Scout uniform, and the woman asks him where he’s going. He turns to her and tells her that he’s ‘lost his troop.’ And then, boss, he fucking disappears right in front of her. The couple actually do something rare for an encounter with the supernatural—they tell the police about it. And because the Leggett case is still open, the police take it seriously.”
“Let me guess: they leave out the disappearing act but focus on the missing Scout part.”
“Right,” Glen said, nodding. “At least they put it in the file. You can tell the police think the couple might have been drinking or high or something. But it was the middle of the day, and there’s no evidence of that. Leggett’s father, of course, who by then is one seriously obsessed guy, leads another search party through the area, but this time he focuses near where the couple spotted the kid.”
“Reapoke Forest.”
“Exactamundo,” Glen said. “Up until then most of the focus had been on the other side of the river, where the campground was. Even after they figured out the canoe might have been involved, they just looked downstream, not across. But the couple spotted the ghost kid across the bridge you took a dive off of and pretty far down the road. It was nowhere close to the primary search perimeter. So almost two years after Leggett’s disappearance, his father, with the help of the police, starts a new hunt for the kid. The working theory is that he could have been kidnapped and escaped or—and this is far less likely—he survived somehow in the woods.”
“He’d be the best Boy Scout ever,” Soren said.
“The search isn’t quite as intensive as it was the first time, but it’s close,” Glen said.
“I gather Daddy Leggett has a lot of money,” Soren said.
“His mother’s family is practically made of money, but we’ll get to them in a minute,” Glen said.
Soren cocked an eyebrow at him, asking a silent question, but Glen shook his head.
“The second search is much like the first, except some strange shit goes down,” Glen continued. “At one point a police officer says he spotted a kid fitting Leggett’s description, ran over to him, and thought he was going to be the fucking hero of the day. He reaches the kid, who tells the officer, ‘I’ve got to go. They’ve almost found me.’ The kid then runs off into the forest, and when the officer tries to grab him, his hand passes right through him. It was like he was never there at all. About ten seconds later the officer says he was attacked.”
“By whom?”
“Indians,” Glen said. “And not the kind that want to invite you to their casino either. The guy was set upon by the real deal, complete with bows, knives, and some scary-ass face paint. He said they looked like they came out of a Western movie. Only they don’t really attack him at all exactly. They pass right by him and, in the case of one, right through him, following the direction the boy went.”
“Good God,” Soren said. “This place is like a little slice of hell. The boy’s not only trapped there, he’s being hu
nted.”
“It’s a miracle that story ended up in the official police report, boss,” Glen said. “I’m not sure it would have were it not for what happened elsewhere. At almost the same time the officer saw the kid, another searcher says he witnessed a parade of people dressed in white carrying torches walk right past him. He said the leader was an older man with a thick white beard.”
“Father Coakley.”
“The searcher jumped into action,” Glen said. “He started running toward them, demanding to know who they were.”
“He’s either brave or a fucking idiot,” Soren said.
“He was Daddy Leggett,” Glen replied. “So I think he was just desperate.”
Soren leaned back in the chair and looked up at the ceiling. The man had guts. He could appreciate a person who single-mindedly pursued a goal, even if it put him in danger.
“According to Leggett, the bearded man looked directly at him but otherwise didn’t acknowledge his presence in any way. And when Leggett tried to grab the guy, he passed right through them. The entire parade of people faded before his fucking eyes.”
“I know how he felt,” Soren said, thinking of how he saw the Scout disappear.
“I doubt it,” Glen said. “Leggett never gave up after that. He tried to keep mounting search parties, but the owners of the land kept him out.”
“The Association,” Soren said.
“Yes.” Glen nodded. “When the police were involved, the Association was very cooperative. But the minute the police called off the search the second time, it was anything but. Leggett tried to sue it on three different occasions over the next two decades. He never got anywhere.”
“I admire the man’s tenacity,” Soren said. “Did he ever turn anything else up?”
“Over the past four decades there have been multiple stories about the Boy Scout on Route 5,” Glen said. “He’s become an urban legend. Some people claim they picked him up, he gave them a warning about the future, and then disappeared in their car.”
“Oh, please. The vanishing hitchhiker story is as old and bogus as they come,” Soren replied.
“I agree, but if someone made a public claim it ended up in that file,” Glen said. “I think Leggett worked hard to make sure all the stories were collected, no matter how weird they might be. A few of them seem legit. There’s a guy who claimed to have a five-minute conversation with the boy along the side of the road, all about what troop he was from and how he got lost. The report didn’t have many details of the conversation except for the last thing he said before he disappeared. ‘I’ve got to go. He’s trying to find me.’”
“‘He’?”
“Who knows? Could be Coakley, could be the Indians, could be his father,” Glen said. “Your guess is as good as mine. There are other stories like that in the file. The most recent one is five years old.”
“So the father never gave up.”
“Oh, he most definitely didn’t,” Glen said.
“I’m impressed you could dig up this much stuff,” Soren said. “When I asked you to research a missing Boy Scout, I thought it could be a wild-goose chase.”
“That’s the thing, boss,” Glen said. “I wasn’t researching the kid at all when I came across this.”
“What?”
“You asked me to look into three different things: the Boy Scout, the Association, and the Wallace Institute,” Glen said. “I started where I thought it would be the easiest to look.”
The truth hit Soren like a thunderbolt, and he felt stupid for not thinking of it earlier.
“Leggett’s father,” he said, almost to himself.
Glen nodded.
“Daddy Leggett’s first name is Wallace,” Glen said. “He comes from a long line of money on his mother’s side. Her maiden name was Wallace. In 2008 he founded the Wallace Institute for Supernatural Studies with a huge chunk of his inheritance. It is dedicated to looking at the truth behind paranormal phenomena. There’s no mention of the Boy Scout anywhere on the site, or Reapoke Forest. But it sure explains why he was interested in the recent murders there. And why he hired you.”
Soren wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Annika’s file hadn’t mentioned the boy at all, and yet he was at the heart of the case. What he needed to understand was why.
“Well, at least it makes my next step easier,” Soren said.
“What’s that?” Glen asked.
“I need to talk to Annika’s boss.”
Chapter Sixteen
Soren waited until early morning to approach the house, ensuring his target was inside before making his move.
He’d expected a place protected by a large iron fence and a state-of-the-art security system. Instead, Wallace Leggett’s home was a relatively modest colonial in the heart of Arlington. There were signs he was dealing with money. Even though it sat alongside a busy street, it was ringed with trees and set back from the hustle and bustle of the road. While the house itself was not large, there were no close neighbors. The home had a long, sloping yard with a stone path.
Soren made no effort to conceal himself but walked slowly up the main entranceway. Just as he was about to knock, the door opened. Behind it was a heavyset man in his late sixties with a black fedora hat that sat on top of his bald skull. He was chomping on an unlit cigar.
“Soren Chase,” the man said in a thick Massachusetts accent. “I assumed you would stop by at some point. It took longer than I expected.”
“Well, I generally assume the folks who hire me aren’t keeping secrets,” he replied.
The man threw his head back and let out a large laugh.
“Then you’re a fucking idiot,” he said. “We all keep secrets, Soren, something you already know very well.”
Wallace Leggett turned on his heel and walked into his house, leaving the door wide open. The motion was so sudden, it caught Soren off guard. He was left standing on the front stoop.
“Come in or don’t. I don’t give a shit,” Wallace shouted from inside the house.
Soren stepped through and shut the door behind him. The house may have been modest, but the decor was not. As he walked down the hallway, he noticed several art pieces that looked like they should be hanging in a museum. He was pretty sure one was an original Picasso. He stepped inside a doorway to his left into a drawing room. Wallace sat on a plush chair behind a desk. Above him was a painting of a young man and woman with a boy, who looked to be eight years old. All of them were smiling.
Wallace took the cigar out of his mouth and put it in an ashtray on his desk. He followed Soren’s gaze.
“We did that painting a few years before Owen disappeared,” Wallace said. “My wife wanted at least six kids, but Owen was the only one we got. I used to say he was more than enough.”
Soren met the man’s eyes. They were gray as Sheetrock and just as emotive.
“But what is it the Monty Python boys say?” Wallace asked. “‘Life’s a piece of shit, when you look at it.’ We didn’t end up having any other kids, and then we lost the one we had. Horrible thing losing a child. You can’t help but feel that you failed at life. My sole job was to protect my boy and I didn’t do it. Do you know what that’s like? To have something that haunts you, that hangs over your life to such a degree that you can’t see past it?”
Soren remained standing and looked back at Wallace without blinking.
“I may have some idea,” he said.
Wallace grunted softly.
“Maybe you do,” he said. “But I didn’t kill my boy.”
“And I didn’t kill my friends,” Soren said.
“That’s not what the police thought.”
“And they’re always right, are they? And you said I was a fucking idiot.”
Wallace stared at him for a moment longer before nodding.
“Touché,” he said. “Take a seat.”
Soren found a small high-backed chair that seemed purposely designed to be uncomfortable.
“Let’s get right to the
fucking point,” Wallace said.
“You don’t strike me as the type of man who does anything else,” Soren said.
“I didn’t want to hire you. I have thirty full-time investigators who work for me at the Institute. Most of them have already been over the case history for Reapoke Forest. They were dying to look into the recent murders. I thought bringing you into the mix was a waste of time or, worse, just dangerous. You don’t have friends, and you don’t play well with others. You’re either a fraud or a psychopath.”
“I prefer to think of myself as a fraudulent psychopath,” Soren said.
“Oh, and you occasionally like to play the clown,” Wallace said. “Not very well from where I’m sitting.”
“Look, you invited me to this party,” Soren said. “I didn’t ask to get involved. If you didn’t want me here, why did you hire me?”
“Annika can be persuasive,” Wallace said. “She convinced me we needed an outsider to look into the matter, one with your unique history.”
“I’m surprised she knew who I was.”
“Spare me the humble bullshit,” Wallace said. “That damn blog of yours has won you lots of attention. Not to mention your colorful history. She said she saw you at some conference a while back and wouldn’t shut up about it. The only reason I went along is because whatever else you are, you have a penchant for following things through. I’ve hired a lot of fucking cowards in my day, Chase. Men who shit their pants at the first sign of the supernatural. Yet somehow you’ve managed to survive, either through intelligence or dumb luck.”
“There’s a lot of people who assume the latter,” Soren said.
“Annika isn’t one of them,” Wallace said. “She said you’d finish the job and get to the bottom of it.”
He picked up the cigar again and began chewing on it. When he noticed where Soren was looking, he frowned.
“I’m not allowed to smoke ’em anymore,” Wallace said. “Had a tussle with cancer and barely survived it. The doctor said I was just too ornery to die. The truth is I’m just not finished here yet.”
The Forest of Forever (The Soren Chase Series, Book One) Page 15
