Remains In Coyote Bog

by Christine Husom

  “Four of us should be good,” Helsing said.

  “I’ll grab more gloves,” Mason said.

  While he was gone, Swanson pulled the gurney out of the van and rolled it into position. A body bag rested on top and Helsing helped him spread it out.

  Mason returned and handed a small stack of gloves to Smoke. In case. Then Helsing directed the four of them into position. “Let’s turn him so we’ll have better leverage lifting the decedent out.” They managed that. When the face of the deceased male rose out of the sludge, I let go of an involuntary sucking noise. I’d suspected there would be an angel branded into his forehead, but it got me all the same.

  On the count of three, the four men lifted the body from the bucket, walked a few steps, allowed water and some peat to drain off, and set him on the gurney. One arm was across his chest and the other was at his side. He wore a hospital gown and pants and it appeared he was elderly when he died. The branded markings were like those on the first victim. Scanning the faces of the witnesses, I noticed everyone was affected. The victim had either endured great cruelty in life or had been stamped with religious symbols after death.

  “It’s way worse seeing this in person,” Carlson said.

  “Man,” Mason said.

  “Doctor Helsing, I’m hoping the state agencies will agree to let us drain the water in this area, so we’ll have better access when we search for more bodies,” Smoke said.

  Swanson nodded. “Could be more.”

  “The symbols on the two makes you wonder,” Helsing said.

  “It might turn out it was just the two of them. If this was some sort of ritual burial from a hundred years ago, we’d never be able to track down whoever did it. But I suspect because of when this road was built and what the victims are wearing, it happened in more recent years,” Smoke said.

  “In any case, these remains were not left here legally, by any stretch of the imagination,” Randolph said.

  After the medical examiner’s van drove away, Smoke invited Bauer back into the taped-off area. We walked west on the road and checked out the topography.

  “Where would you recommend we dig? Seeing how water runs downhill,” Smoke pointed at an area about a hundred feet from where the bodies were found, “that lower area seems to be the natural spot.”

  Bauer’s eyebrows shot up and his eyes widened. “Hey, I told you I’m not the one who can make the call. If I was, believe me, I’d say go ahead.”

  “Thomas, your agency is the local authority, so I think you can call it. I live on a small lake. I have wetlands on my property. You know damn well I’m a good steward of our natural resources. Preserving our wetlands is important, but people are way more important. This swampy bog will still be here after our investigation is over,” Smoke said.

  “I understand,” Bauer said. But his hands were tied.

  His phone rang. “Thomas Bauer. . . . Sure. I’m at the site with the sheriff’s investigators. . . . See you when you get here.” After he disconnected, he told Smoke, “Corey Frank from the regional office will be here shortly.”

  “I haven’t met him. How long’s he been there?” Smoke said.

  “Started in March.”

  “A newbie. That’s just great,” Smoke said.

  8

  Mama and Rufus

  Rufus bent over the telescope that sat on a table in front of his bedroom window. His mother had given it to him for Christmas years back, and he spent most clear evenings looking at the night sky. Mama told him someday he’d be in Heaven, a beautiful place beyond the stars. It hurt his head trying to imagine what that meant, how that was possible. He didn’t understand how it worked when he helped his mother send people on their heavenly journey. It really bothered him that they left their bodies behind and he had to bury them in the bog.

  Rufus turned the scope to look at what the sheriff’s people were doing. His mother had asked him, “Rufus, did you bury one of our patients too close to the road?” His face heated up in shame. “I don’t think so,” he’d said in self-defense. But he knew that wasn’t the whole truth.

  When he was getting ready to heave that one lady into the bog, Rufus had stepped on a rock on the shoulder of the road and was thrown off balance. She hadn’t ended up as far away from the road as the others had. The ones he sent down the slide. She was small and light as a feather, but he should have used the slide. That got people at least eight feet out, about as far as he could toss the light ones. If he didn’t slip. He learned his lesson after that and used the sliding device, no matter how light people were.

  Rufus peered through his telescope but couldn’t get a good view of what was happening at Coyote Bog. His mother’s words kept running through his mind. “They must never discover our secret mission, Son.”

  He had been a bad boy. Rufus had done a terrible thing, and wondered what his mother would do to punish him. He didn’t want her to send him on his heavenly journey. It scared him to think of going so far away.

  9

  It was clear that Corey Frank, wetland specialist from Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources, felt he’d be in over his head if he approved the request at Coyote Bog. “I get it, but the DNR and maybe the Army Corps will want to weigh in on it.”

  Smoke’s face reddened from the neck up, but he kept the tone of his voice at a civil level. “Corey, I can understand your reluctance and I’m willing to cut you some slack, you being new and all. But the day is getting away from us, and if those agencies drag their feet much longer, we’re not going to wait. Permission or not.”

  “We’ve got one of our captains writing a search warrant for a district judge to sign, authorizing us to search for more bodies,” Randolph said.

  Corey’s features relaxed, and his frown smoothed. “Then it will be out of our hands.”

  “Our highway guys will be here right after lunch to start digging, if the search warrant is here by then,” Smoke said.

  By 1:20 p.m., Chief Deputy Randolph had the signed warrant in hand. Thomas Bauer from Winnebago County Soil and Water, backed by Corey Frank from BWSR, had convinced both the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Army Corps of Engineers that the operation was a go, with or without their approval. A district judge’s authority trumped theirs. As did a criminal investigation.

  Ron Sutton had the excavator in position, ready to dig as soon as he got the signal. Smoke, Weber, Mason, Carlson, Wendell Peltz, and I were on the sidelines, geared up, as ready as we’d ever be.

  Or maybe not.

  We took a collective pause and I used it to study the wetland. A stunted willow tree grew out of the bog about seven feet from the road and fifteen or so feet west of where the bodies had been. I’d wondered from time to time where the willow’s roots had traveled to find the right environment to support its life. A few tamaracks stood on a higher area further north and a variety of herbaceous plants poked through much of the surface.

  “Let’s make it happen,” Smoke called to Sutton.

  Sutton was in the excavator and started it in a flash. Each bucketful of vegetation he removed from the designated area shifted the surface water into the expanding basin. It reminded me that when were kids, my brother and I spent hours creating little rivers between mud puddles in our gravel driveway. We loved watching the water run from one to the next. Sometimes we had a network of them flowing, like a river with tributaries.

  I enjoyed the sound of running water in creeks and slow-moving rivers. It soothed me. If the circumstances had been different, and the digging machine wasn’t disturbing the peace, I may have appreciated the gentle tumbling of the flowing water.

  I walked over to where Smoke and Randolph stood with the two men from the water agencies, directly across from where the two bodies had been recovered.

  “Surface water’s going down. It’s about a foot lower,” Smoke said.

  “More vegetation is visible already,” I said.

  “Another foot and a half to two feet should about do i
t, make it easier to use the ground penetrating radar,” Smoke said.

  Mason, Carlson, and Weber were all trained to use GPR, as part of their possible duties in the Major Crimes Unit. Deputies rotated through the unit and served a week at a time. Winnebago had four teams of two. Some weeks were fairly routine with a number of smaller cases. Other weeks, all hell broke loose with a big case like the one we were sitting on at Coyote Bog.

  “So it works on bogs?” I asked about GPR.

  “Yes. As a matter of fact, they’ve used the technology to study bogs around the world to profile them, check out their compositions, that sort of thing,” Smoke said.

  I grinned. “I guess you are a walking encyclopedia.”

  He gave me a sly smile back. “I happened to catch an article on it a while back.”

  Randolph’s phone buzzed. He walked away to answer it then filled us in when he returned. “Warner’s on his way with the swamp boat in tow.” Sergeant Tim Warner was the head of the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Recreational Vehicle and Underwater Recovery Division.

  “You have a swamp boat?” Frank said.

  “Shallow water boat, yes. It’s about one grade up from a duck boat and the best way to access this area. It’s come in mighty handy over the years on different cases, in all kinds of situations. The boat can hold six guys at least. We won’t use the motor, and that’ll cut down on the disturbance.” Smoke directed his comment at the water agencies guys.

  “As much as possible,” Randolph chimed in.

  “Right. We’re hoping there aren’t any more bodies down there,” Smoke said.

  We’d all celebrate if that were the case.

  While we waited for Warner, Smoke and I discussed a game plan, mapping out the area.

  “Because of where the bodies were located, my guess is they were somehow brought in from the road. The water-covered area of the bog isn’t all that big. A few acres, maybe. It would’ve been nearly impossible for them to bring the bodies in via the wetland to the north, unless they had specialized equipment. And I don’t know what that would be.” Smoke pointed. “You can see as the elevation increases how it gradually changes from swamp to marshland, then to a type-one wetland on the higher ground where they could grow meadow hay in drier years. Probably most years.”

  “We have lots of types of wetlands. And I agree, it’d be tough to access this area from anywhere but the road. You’d sink if you tried to walk across the marshland. And it’s on someone’s private property,” Randolph said.

  “Speaking of which, we need to have a talk with the homeowners who live in the vicinity.” I pointed at the house on the hill that overlooked Coyote. “Especially them.”

  Tim Warner drove in with the boat loaded on its trailer. He got out of the SUV and nodded at Mason, Carlson, and Weber. “Hey, it’s good to see three members of my dive team on site.”

  “Ya gotta be kiddinˊ me. Ain’t no way I’m diving, or droppinˊ this body of mine into that stuff,” Weber said.

  Warner pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head and smiled. “Perish the thought, Vince.”

  I nudged Weber. “He knows what button to push, huh?”

  He shrugged. “I guess I’m getting a little punchy by now.”

  “It seems like we’ve been here forever. Maybe part of that is wondering what’s in store,” I said.

  “That’s a big part of it. Nothing like a major creep element goinˊ on to set a guy on edge,” Weber said.

  Yep, no question about that.

  Warner, Weber, Carlson, and Mason put on life preserver vests then Smoke and Randolph held onto the boat’s rope while the four of them climbed aboard and got situated. Warner set the ground penetrating radar control unit on a wooden shelf on the inside edge of the boat. The antenna looked like a wand with a flat, round end. Much like the ones on metal detectors. On GPR walking units, it was located on the bottom, between the wheels. The sheriff’s twenty-one-foot whaler boat was equipped with side scan sonar that worked well in lakes. But the system’s transducer was pulled through the water close to the bottom and wouldn’t work in a bog.

  Both the whaler and the shallow boat had hydraulic winches for the recovery of bodies, and other objects. Divers often faced a hazardous job, and removing heavier objects from the bottoms of lakes, rivers, and other bodies of water, made it more so. The hook on the end of the winch’s line could either be attached directly to the object if that was doable, or to a mesh body bag for the more dreaded recovery operations.

  Warner turned on the radar unit and passed the antenna wand to Weber. Mason and Carlson each grabbed an oar and Smoke and Randolph gave the boat a push into the water. Weber positioned the wand with the round receiver a couple of feet above the water.

  “When an electrical pulse is produced by the control unit, the antenna picks it up, amplifies it, and transmits it into the ground at a particular frequency,” Smoke explained to the group.

  Warner watched the radar unit’s screen and a couple of minutes later said, “We got something. It looks like it’s about four feet down.”

  Mason and Carlson lifted the oars out of the water. Weber glanced from the antenna to the screen. “Ah, geez.”

  “What do you need?” Smoke called out.

  “We’ll try the long nets, see if we can get on either end or on the sides, bring it to the surface, and guide it in,” Warner said.

  Weber held the antenna in place to provide guidance to Mason and Carlson as they grabbed onto long-handled nets. Warner gave them directions, this way and that, until both of them said, “Got it.”

  I braced myself as they worked together and lifted whatever it was out of the deep. The water agencies guys moved in beside me when the body surfaced, its head and shoulder area captured by Mason’s net, and the legs and lower body secured in Carlson’s. Thomas Bauer surprised me when he grabbed my elbow.

  When I flinched, he let go. “Dear God in Heaven, I don’t believe it,” he said.

  Others muttered words I couldn’t decipher. Randolph pulled out his phone, called the medical examiner’s office and told them we had recovered another body from the bog.

  Weber pulled the antenna wand into the boat then he and Warner picked up the oars for the short row back to the road.

  “We’ll make this as smooth as we can, but let us know if you’re losing your grip,” Warner told Mason and Carlson.

  “We could use another set of hands for this part of the operation,” Carlson said.

  “Next trip,” Mason said.

  “Next trip,” Weber muttered.

  The crime scene team had brought over a backboard from the mobile unit. In case. We all had impervious suits on. In case. As the boat, with its riders guiding in their precious cargo approached, Smoke picked up the board. I helped him slide it down the decline from the shoulder of the road to the water’s edge. The body was coming in feet first.

  “It’s a little awkward, but we don’t want to lose him by trying to turn him,” Warner said.

  “No. We’ll make it work,” Smoke said.

  Smoke and I each took a side and Randolph took the end. When the boat came as close as possible, Carlson and Mason moved together to the bow of the boat and placed the body part way onto the backboard. Smoke and I pushed it further up.

  “Let’s get the straps on,” Smoke said. Randolph held the lower legs in place while Smoke and I attached the straps.

  “When you get up in the morning, you never know what you might be called to do that day,” Randolph said.

  When the body was secured, Mason jumped out of the boat to help. We carried the body-laden board up the hill. “Let’s set it in the shade of the dump truck,” Smoke said.

  We silently took in the details of our third victim. Another male. Elderly. Bald on top, thin white hair on the sides. Clad in the same type of pajamas as the second victim. Branded like the other two. With a crucifix pendant wrapped around the fingers of his hand. Dear Lord.

  “How many are down there, do you thin
k?” Randolph said. He knew we couldn’t answer. It was a question for those who’d buried them.

  Ten, twenty, none? “I’d be happy with no more,” I said.

  “Well, yeah. I’ll grab the other backboard,” Carlson said. In case.

  The recovery crew resumed their operation, and it didn’t take long before they discovered another body, several feet from where the last one had been. They followed the same removal process, but switched up their positions on the team, giving Warner and Weber a turn with the long-handled nets. We were ready with the second backboard when they brought it in.

  The fourth victim was also male, with the same appalling brandings. It seemed that what was happening could not possibly be real; that we were trapped in an alternate reality. Elderly people branded with religious symbols and left in a bog. For what possible reason? We set the backboard down next to the first one.

  It was a relief to see the medical examiner’s office van pull in. Behind it was a transport vehicle, equipped to handle multiple bodies. In case. Dr. Bridey Patrick had returned to the scene. Along with Dr. Calvin Helsing and Roy Swanson. Smoke directed them to where the recovered bodies lay.

  Dr. Patrick knelt between the backboards. “This bog is turning out to be a mass burial site. A crime scene growing in scope by the hour.” She studied one body and turned to the other.

  “Any clues yet as to how long they’ve been down there?” Smoke said.

  “One thing that’s consistent on all of them: their sleepwear is composed of polyester materials. That narrows the time frame to the last sixty years.”

  “I noticed the polyester, too. That’s something, I guess,” Smoke said.