Lone Wolf

2

MY PARENTS WOULD TAKE ME and my older sister Cindy up to Fifty Lakes when we were kids. I guess we went up there two or three summers in a row, when Dad took a week off from his job at the accounting firm. There was a camp that rented out spots to people with travel trailers-Airstreams and the like-before everyone started going to Winnebago-style RVs that you didn’t tow but drove.

We didn’t have anything as upscale as an Airstream. Dad had gotten a deal, from someone he worked with at the accounting firm, on a tent trailer, which looked like a flattened box while en route, hitched to the back of the car. When you reached your destination, the contraption opened up with a canvas top, high enough to stand in, a big bed at each end, and a little sink with running water. Cindy and I weren’t in our teens yet back then, so our parents had us sleep together on one side, while they took the other. I’d spend most of the night lightly running my finger along Cindy’s neck so she’d think her sleeping bag was infested with spiders, and when she’d awake at midnight, screaming, I’d pretend to have been roused from a deep sleep just like my parents, who’d shout at her to be quiet, sometimes waking other campers in nearby spots. The hard part then was trying to roll over and not pee myself laughing.

That was probably the most fun thing about camping. The swimming and the fishing, those things were okay. But Dad spent so much time enforcing rules of behavior to keep us from hurting ourselves, or any of our secondhand camping equipment, that the appeal of vacationing was limited. Zip up the door fast so the bugs don’t get in. Don’t lean on the canvas or you’ll rip it. Don’t run on the dock with wet feet. Put on your life jacket. So what if the boat’s still tied to the dock and the water’s only two feet deep, put on your life jacket. Watch those fishhooks, for crying out loud, you get one of those in your finger and you’ll get an infection and be dead before dinner.

He was something of a worrier, Arlen Walker was, and I’ll understand if you find that amusing. His perpetual state of anxiety was as much of an annoyance for his wife and my mother, Evelyn Walker, as my conviction in the certainty of worst-case scenarios has been for my long-suffering Sarah.

“For God’s sake, Arlen,” Evelyn would say, “loosen your gas cap a bit and let the pressure off.”

While family trips seemed to be sources of great anxiety for Dad, he still enjoyed his time in Fifty Lakes, away from the city, away from work. There were rare glimpses of something approaching contentment in this man who seemed unable to relax. I remember seeing him once, his butt perched on a rock at the water’s edge, his bare feet planted on the lake bottom, water lapping up over his ankles. His shoes, a balled sock tucked neatly into each one, rested perfectly side by side on a nearby dock.

I approached, wondering whether I could get a couple of quarters out of him so Cindy and I could buy candy bars at the camp snack bar, and instead of reprimanding me for some misdeed of which I was not yet aware, he reached out a hand and tousled the hair on top of my head.

“Someday,” he said, smiling at me and then looking out over the small lake.

And that was it.

“Someday” came eight years ago. Mom had been dead for four years at the time, and Dad decided the time had come to make a change. He retired from the accounting firm, sold the mortgage-free house in the city my sister and I had grown up in, and bought a twenty-acre parcel of land up in the Fifty Lakes District, south of the village of Braynor, that had two hundred feet of frontage on Crystal Lake.

He hadn’t just bought a getaway property. He’d bought a small business, called Denny’s Cabins (named for the man who’d originally built them back in the sixties). There were five rustic cottages, a few docks, and half a dozen small aluminum fishing boats with low-powered outboard motors bolted to the back. There was always one available for Dad to go fishing whenever he felt the urge, which actually wasn’t all that often. He liked the tranquility of living at a fishing camp, even if he didn’t drop his line into the water every day.

I’d only been up there a couple of times, the first soon after he bought it, to see what he’d gotten himself into. There was a two-story farmhouse and barn on the property, a couple of hundred yards up from the lake, but Dad had chosen not to live in it, preferring instead to take the largest of the five cabins, fully winterize it and spruce it up with new furniture and flooring and appliances, and live year-round at the water’s edge, even in winter, when the lake froze over and the winds howled and the only people you were likely to see were lost snowmobilers and the guy who plowed the lane that wound its way in from the main road. Living in the farmhouse, with all that room to roam around in, would have been a constant reminder to Dad of how alone he was.

The second time I went up, a year or so later, I took Paul. He was eleven, and I’d had this notion that a father-son fishing trip would be the ultimate bonding experience, which it was not, because children who have grown up accustomed to blasting space aliens on a TV screen are ill equipped to sit in a boat for five hours waiting for something to happen. Anyway, I had phoned Dad and asked about renting a cabin for a weekend, not knowing that he’d berate me for two solid days about not getting our Camry rust-proofed.

“You might as well take a power drill to it now, get it over with,” he told me. “Honestly, you spend that money on a car and don’t get it rust-proofed, it’s beyond me.”

“Dad, the new cars already have perforation warranties.”

“Oh yeah, right, like they honor those things.”

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!”

I caught a glimpse of the two-story farmhouse and the large barn beyond it as I passed, taking the lane to the right and down over a hill, where the woods opened up and the five small cabins, lined up like little white Monopoly houses, presented themselves.

As did the police car, the ambulance, and a couple of other vehicles parked at random on the lane and on the lawn behind the cabins. The dome lights on the police car and ambulance rotated quietly.

As I pulled ahead, I saw several people gathered on the other side of the ambulance, a couple of them having a smoke, like they were all waiting for something. I parked, got out, my legs feeling a little rubbery not just from what I feared I was about to learn, but from the drive.

They turned and looked at me. Two were dressed in paramedic garb, there was a young dark-haired woman clutching a notepad I figured was the freelancer Tracy, a gray-haired man in a dark suit, tie, and wire-rimmed glasses who had to be the doctor doing coroner duty, three other men in plaid and olive civilian attire that suggested fishing, and a woman in her sixties in a kerchief, hunting jacket, and slacks.

Finally, there was the law. A man in his mid-thirties, I figured, black boots, bomber-style leather jacket, and a felt trooper hat. He took a step toward me.

“Can I help you?” he said. I had a closer look at him, his receding jaw, thin neck, eyes that blinked almost constantly. There was something about him, at first glance, that seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

“I’m Zack Walker,” I said, and cleared my throat. “I got a call. This is my father’s place.”

The young woman with the notepad spoke up. “Mr. Walker? Sarah Walker’s husband?” She was bordering on cheerful.

“That’s right.”

“I’m Tracy McAvoy. This is the guy,” she told the cop. “The one’s whose wife is the editor? At the paper?”

The cop held up his hand for her to stop, as if to say, “I get it.” He extended a hand my way. “I’m Chief Thorne. Orville Thorne.”

We shook. His hand was warm, and damp.

I said, “I was told you haven’t been able to find my father, and that you have a body to…” I seemed unable to find the words I needed. “That there’s, that you have…”

Thorne nodded, poked his tongue around the inside of his cheek, pondering, I guessed, whether I was up to the next step.

“Mr. Walker, we have had an incident. A man’s body was found in the woods just over there.” He pointed. The trees looked dark and ominous. “One of the guests here was out for a walk and discovered him this morning. We haven’t been able to determine just whose body it is, you see, but all the guests here at your father’s camp have been accounted for. But,” and Chief Thorne paused to swallow, “we’ve not been able to locate your father, Arlen Walker.”

“Maybe he’s away,” I said. “Did you consider that?”

Chief Thorne nodded. “There’s his pickup over there.” I looked over by the first cabin, the one I knew Dad lived in, and spotted a Ford truck. “And there’s no boats missing, according to the guests here.”

“I see,” I said.

“It’s an awful thing to ask, but maybe, if you wouldn’t mind, you could take a look for us.” He tipped his trooper-hatted head toward the woods.

I felt weak.

“Of course,” I said.

He led me toward the woods, everyone else following, silently, like we were already in the funeral procession. As I began to be enveloped by trees, the air felt colder.

There was a small clearing, and on the ground, a tarp, maybe seven by four feet, with something under it that couldn’t be anything but a body.

“Are you okay?” the chief asked.

I definitely was not. I said, “Yeah.”

Chief Thorne approached one end of the tarp, gingerly grabbed the corner, and lifted it up, revealing a body, as best as I could tell, from head to waist.

Like they say, nothing prepares you.

What I saw under that tarp looked like something that had been dropped to the ground through the blades of a helicopter. Flesh ripped away, bone exposed, blood everywhere.

Some flies buzzed.

I turned away. I wondered if maybe I was going to be sick. For anyone to die that way, it was unimaginable. But for my own father…

“I know it’s pretty impossible to tell,” Thorne said. “But did you notice anything, clothing, anything at all, that would tell you whether that’s your father?”

The surrounding pines seemed to be waving back and forth, as if in a high wind, but there wasn’t even a slight breeze. The blue sky was below me, the grass above, and then, seconds later, everything was back where it was supposed to be.

“No,” I said.

“We couldn’t find any sort of ID on him, so I was wondering…”

I came out of the woods like a man stumbling out of a burning building, desperate for air. I went to my car, threw my hands out and leaned over the hood, trying to catch my breath. One of the ambulance attendants was saying something to me, but I couldn’t seem to hear it.

There was the sound of a vehicle approaching, of rubber crunching gravel, and I looked up the hill I’d driven down moments earlier, and saw a blue sedan with a sign attached to the roof. I blinked, saw that it said “Braynor Taxi.”

It came to a stop behind my car, and a man I recognized got out of the back, came around to the driver, who had his window down, and handed him a couple of bills.

“Thanks,” he said, then turned and took in all the activity. The ambulance and police car, all the people standing around.

“What the hell’s all this?” he asked as the cab started backing up the lane. Then his eyes landed on me. “Zachary?”

I looked at him, stunned. “Hi, Dad,” I said.

“That a new car?” he said, pointing at the Virtue that was still holding me up.

“Fairly,” I said, just now taking my hands off the hood.

“Don’t tell me,” he said. “You didn’t bother to rust-proof it.”

“It’s got lots of plastic panels,” I said. “You don’t have to.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll see.” Now he’d noticed Chief Thorne. “Christ, Orville, what’s all the commotion?”

“Hi, Arlen. Jesus. Have to say, it’s a pleasure to see you today. Where the hell have you been?”

Dad bristled. “Uh, just in town, Orville.” He sounded defensive.

“How early did you go in? We been here some time now.” Orville Thorne was sounding a bit defensive himself. “Did you, were you in town overnight?”

Dad sighed with annoyance. “Orville, I have to paint you a picture, for Christ’s sake? What the hell’s going on here?”

The others-the ambulance attendants and the doctor for sure-were looking at Orville with some disapproval, like maybe he’d missed something he should have thought of. He must have sensed it, because he coughed nervously.

“Well, shit, Arlen, there’s something here in the woods you should have a look at,” he said tentatively.

As Dad glanced toward them, Orville took his arm to lead him that way, but instead, led Dad right over his foot, and Dad tripped, one of those fluky kind of things, and went down.

He yelped, and when he tried to get back up, couldn’t.

“Jesus,” he said. “My goddamn ankle. I think I must have twisted my goddamn ankle.”

People shook their heads, rolled their eyes. “Nice one, Orville,” one of the ambulance attendants said.