“He’s over this way, Sergeant.” Mogoven led Orville Barnstable through knee-high grass and weeds to a gully about two hundred yards north of the sway-backed barn. The man wore denim coveralls and a red plaid shirt. He lay face down, the lower half of his body partially submerged in the shallow, slow-moving water.

“Whoever stabbed him really ran that knife in deep,” the patrolman announced solemnly as Barnstable knelt beside the corpse. “There was a powerful lot of force behind it.”

“It’s old Lightning Greaves,” Barnstable pronounced. “Although, shoot, he hasn’t been called ‘Lightning’ for close on forty-five years now. Christian name’s Edgar, of course. Got tagged with that when we were at Reed’s Grove High. He was one slick basketball player — made All-State twice and took the team farther’n it ever got before or since. I was on that same team, son, keepin’ the bench warm. Too durn slow, which is why Lightning here stuck me with the name ‘Snail.’ That’s okay, though: When they passed out medals for winnin’ the district tournament, mine was the same size as his.”

The sergeant took off his battered felt hat as he got to his feet. “Poor fella. In the years since high school, this man’s life’s been rougher’n a burlap sack on a baby’s bottom. Lost his spread to the bank, then Arla left him. They say the Lord has a plan for us all, but doggone if I can fathom what his plan could have been for Lightning.”

From Death in the North Meadow

by Charles Childress