Below the Tree Line Read online

  Five

  Shadow turned into a docile and even dutiful dog the minute the EMTs lifted the plastic body bag. The Lab stood and waited, alert, nose up and tail straight. As the men began the arduous walk back to the road, the dog followed. Lance led the way.

  Felicity spotted the ambulance through the trees, its shiny red-and-white markings a striking contrast to the muted colors of the woods. But just beyond it, pulled onto a rare patch of clear ground, sat a dark blue car, which Felicity recognized as one of the new unmarked vehicles the West Woodbury Police Department had recently purchased. Chief Kevin Algren waited behind the ambulance, but instead of approaching the EMTs, he walked around them to Felicity.

  “I figured you’d be coming along with them instead of walking back to your place,” the chief said.

  “Lance and I were taking a walk-through,” Felicity said. “And there she was, just leaning up against a tree.” She was about to say something more but stopped when she saw he was barely listening to her. “You’re upset. What’s wrong?”

  Kevin took her by the elbow and led her a few feet away from the ambulance, where the men were arranging the stretcher and safety belts inside. “I was slow getting here because they had a problem at Pasquanata.”

  Felicity’s stomach seized. “Tell me.”

  “We think it’s nothing to worry about, just something that takes time. The nurses said your dad was kind of agitated this morning and kept talking to himself after you left.” Kevin paused to rest his hands on his hips. “They couldn’t tell me much.”

  “He tried to run off into the field across the street this morning while I was there,” she said, “but the orderly and I brought him back. Kevin, what happened? You didn’t come all this way out here to tell me about my dad getting agitated.”

  “They said he wasn’t making any sense.” He stopped to watch the EMTs for a brief moment. “The nurses and the aides weren’t much better.”

  “Kevin!” Felicity grabbed his forearm and shook him. “What?”

  “Now, there’s no reason for you to get upset too,” the chief said. “Something upset your dad and he got out of the home and took off. One of the other residents said he went off to tell someone he wasn’t dead yet.” Kevin lifted his regulation hat and ran his hand over his still-thick hair. “Whatever that’s supposed to mean. Anyway, we have men out looking for him.”

  “That’s what he said this morning.” Felicity frowned, recalling bits of the conversation and wishing she’d asked her dad what he was talking about when she’d had the chance.

  “I came out here to tell you because I don’t want you to worry.”

  “Not worry? Of course I’m going to worry.”

  “We’ll find him.” Kevin took a deep breath, as though he’d been climbing mountains in the search and had just stopped to rest.

  Felicity tried to think. “Where would he have gone?”

  “That’s what I was going to ask you. Did he have favorite spots?”

  “Loads of them.”

  “Where was he heading this morning?”

  “He didn’t say. He just took off and I’m not sure even he knew.”

  “We had a sighting out on the old road to Heaven’s Lake.”

  “Heaven’s Lake?” Felicity took a step back. “How would he get out there?”

  “Hitch a ride with someone. He always looks presentable. He doesn’t look like someone living in a retirement home.”

  “Don’t describe him like that, Kevin.”

  Kevin put his arm around her shoulder and drew her toward the patrol car. “I’ve got everyone out looking for him, and we have plenty of volunteers including Padma and her dad. We’ll find him. Tell me what you were talking about this morning, anything that might help us.”

  “I told him about Clarissa Jenkins, and we started talking about the Bodrun family. He knew Zeke, her grandfather, but he’s been dead for years.”

  Kevin led her to the car as they talked. “I’ll give you a ride back to your place. Sorry you have to ride in the back, but at least it’s new and we haven’t had that many people in it. Some people get in the car and they tell me they’re being tormented by evil spirits. If they just said it smelled bad or had bad vibes I’d be okay, but … ” He held open the door for her and she slid into the back seat.

  “Oh! The dog.” She leaned out of the car. “I almost forgot about him.”

  “Here he is.” One of the EMTs walked around the car, dragging Shadow along behind him. The dog balked at the door, so the EMT pushed him into the back of the car. “He wants to come with us, but that’s not on.” Shadow climbed over the hump and into the other well and at once began whining and trembling.

  “Poor thing. Too much has happened in a short time.” Felicity rested her hand on his neck and scratched behind his ears, trying to soothe him.

  “Maybe he can help you track your dad.” Kevin was about to slam the door when Lance grabbed the handle and leaned into the back seat.

  “Don’t worry about the new cutting plan, Felicity. I’ll go over it again, just to make sure it’s what you want, and we’ll avoid the bobcat den.”

  “I forgot all about that, Lance. Thanks. Just leave it in my mailbox and I’ll get back to you.” She could barely remember what they’d talked about. She tried to ignore the sensation that parts of her life were spinning out of control.

  “Don’t worry about it. We have plenty of time.” He continued to reassure her, but she sensed his tension over the events of the morning and hardly blamed him. She was distraught too. No one expects to walk through an old forest and come across the dead body of a young woman.

  Felicity thanked him, and Kevin closed the door. She tried to focus her thoughts on her dad. The dog whined at her feet, a woman she barely knew died in her forest, and Lance’s suggestions for the plan left her so confused she didn’t know where to begin thinking about it. But right now the only thing that mattered was that her father had run off and no one knew where he’d gone, or why.

  Felicity tapped in a reply to Jeremy’s message, hit send, and dropped her cell phone on the seat beside her. He’d sent a text about the sighting of an old man hurrying along the shoulder of Heaven’s Lake Road. The description did fit that of her dad, but Felicity couldn’t imagine either how he would have gotten out there or why he’d have wanted to go there. If he wandered into the state forest thinking it was his own land, they might never find him. Or at least not soon enough to prevent a tragedy. She pushed the thought from her mind, started her pickup, and headed down Old Town Road to meet up with Jeremy.

  When she’d first resigned herself to moving her father into the home, barely six months earlier, in the autumn, she’d struggled for weeks over how to talk to him about it. But in the end he’d surprised her with his willingness. He admitted he was confused and sometimes even startled by the noise that came out of the power tools, and sometimes he was angry with the folks who stopped and asked directions at the farm stand.

  “I’m not myself,” he told her once. “I guess I’m winding down.” And then he rested his hand on his heart, as though checking on it.

  Walter had liked the idea of Pasquanata because it was nearby and he knew other folks who’d gone there to live. She was relieved. She’d felt, then, that it was the hardest thing she’d ever have to do. But the aftermath surprised her. Her father liked it there, quickly made friends, and often had as much gossip for her as she had for him. They chatted easily unless he was tired, and then she made sure to leave early. He’d never given her any inkling that anything in the world he’d left behind troubled him.

  Old Town Road was little used, except by the few people who owned property abutting it, and Felicity balanced the car along the center mound and the shoulder, avoiding ruts, downed branches, and mud. She peered into the woods on either side, kept the windows rolled down just in case her dad was in the area an
d called out. A doe stopped to take note of her before gracefully abandoning her forage for a less-trafficked area, but all else was still. Her truck bounded along at three miles an hour.

  “I’m not dead yet,” her dad had told someone at Pasquanata. The same thing he’d said to her.

  The words flitted through her mind as she tried to recast them into something that made sense. He might be easily tired, confused about his moorings, but he hadn’t yet taken to telling her things like “I won’t be here much longer” or “You know I’m pretty sick, don’t you?” She was used to hearing these things from some of the older folks she knew. But her dad had not yet made that transition. So what was he really saying, what had been misunderstood or misconstrued? She rearranged the words, but no other version made sense.

  After an excruciating drive, she came to what she’d always called Nameless Road, and her father called That Road, and her mother called Where the Allens First Lived. She always thought of her mother, Charity, when she drove this road, a woman who’d died young, in her forties, not so far from Felicity’s age now. At the intersection she spotted Jeremy’s pickup, and Jeremy sitting on the lowered tailgate chatting with another man. Both stepped forward as she pulled up.

  Felicity greeted Pat Holyoake. A master carpenter, he often showed up at Dingel Mantell’s sawmill to place an order for special millwork. And now, apparently, he’d been working with Jeremy on one of his construction projects. She asked him about Nathan and how he was doing after the accident.

  “He’s never seen a serious accident like that,” Pat said. “But he seems okay. Thanks for asking.”

  Felicity thanked him for volunteering to search for her dad.

  He acknowledged it with a nod. Pat had wavy brown hair flowing loosely to his shoulders and framing his thin face, thus earning him the nickname Cattail. He was nearing fifty, older than Jeremy, and lived in another part of town. Felicity never ceased to marvel at the size of his hands; they seemed too large for his arms, as though he’d borrowed them from someone else. Dingel had once told her they were the result not of woodworking as a young boy, but of his years as a musician playing the cello.

  “Someone near here spotted a man going down a dirt path into the woods and Pat remembered there was an old camp back in there,” Jeremy said.

  “Really just a one-room cabin,” Pat said. “But I think your dad knew the guy who lived there near the end. One of those guys from an old family, kind of a character. He had no electricity but he had a well, and he had plenty of firewood, and he was happy out there.”

  “Who was it?” Felicity asked, confused. She didn’t remember anyone living out there in the woods, but there was no reason why she should. They were skirting a state forest and private land.

  “I don’t remember the old guy’s name right off, but it was a while ago. Anyway, I thought the cabin might be worth checking out,” Pat said. “Since it’s in the vicinity of where someone saw an old man walking, maybe your dad is there.”

  “I sure hope you’re right,” Felicity said. “It’s getting late and I don’t want to think of him lost in the woods all night.” In truth, she feared she might never find him. The woods in that part of the state went on

  forever, and her dad could keep walking and disappear into history. She tried not to imagine him stumbling over downed trees, then sitting down too exhausted to continue. She didn’t like thinking of him as old and fragile instead of as the strong and capable man he’d always been.

  The dirt road had never been more than a well-worn dirt track with the occasional shovelful of gravel tossed into a mud puddle. Over the years the grass had grown up in patches, like tufts on a mangy dog. Jeremy estimated the cabin was less than two miles in, and he was close enough. In half an hour or so they could see it ahead through the trees, sitting on a low rise off to the left, with the lane petering out below. Farther in and higher up someone had built a blind, where hunters sat in wait for their quarry, usually a meandering deer. But the makeshift rungs nailed into the tree had rotted and the rest looked like no one had used it in years. Perhaps the same someone had also built the set of four broad, deep steps up to the cabin, which were now uneven from years of frost heaves and neglect. Shrubbery and debris might have buried them but for the effort someone had made to sweep them clear. Pat led the way. He pushed open the door and stepped aside.

  The cabin was not at all what Felicity had been expecting. Straight ahead was a small wood-burning stove with a pipe leading into a concrete-block chimney. Each wall on the right and left held one plain sash window. Parts of the walls had battens of insulation pushed between the joists, but otherwise the cabin offered only the plank exterior against the weather. To the right was a small bed pushed against the wall and closer to the door stood a rattan chair with cushions and a blanket. To the left was a sink with an old-fashioned hand pump. An open cupboard held bowls and pots and other cooking equipment. On the floor was a tattered braided rug. Everything was clean and the fabrics brought color into the drab space.

  Felicity stood on the doorsill, taking in the cabin. She had expected an abandoned shack falling apart from neglect and perhaps pilfering. Instead, this was a cabin where someone had been living. She could smell it and see it. The cabin was clean, tidy, and extremely well cared for. But there was something more. She crossed the room and sat on the bed. It barely squeaked even though rows of steel coils held up the mattress.

  “Do you smell something?” She sniffed and leaned over the bed. A thin piece of flowery cotton hung from the window and she brushed against it as she moved about, trying to get closer to the odor. “Partly it smells like an antiseptic and partly like something else, but I can’t quite get it.”

  Jeremy shook his head as he poked among the bottles in a cupboard in the near corner. Finding nothing, he walked past the window to the far corner, where he turned over the top logs on the wood pile.

  “I wouldn’t trust that old stove,” Pat said. He rested his hand on one side, then the other. He pulled open the door and knelt down, taking a piece of kindling and poking among the ashes. He put in his hand and rested it there. “Someone might have been here a day or so ago.”

  “I don’t think Dad was here,” Felicity said. “Something happened here, but Dad wasn’t here. I’m sure of it. He has a distinctive soap fragrance and if he’d been here anytime today I’d smell it, even through that other smell.” She glanced around the room but her eyes barely focused. Now that she believed her dad hadn’t been here, she wanted to get on with the search. She was growing increasingly concerned as the afternoon advanced.

  Jeremy walked along the periphery of the small room. “Pat, if he came down this path, where would he go from here?”

  “Where would Mr. O’Brien go from here, assuming he knew where he was and wanted to be here?” Pat walked to the open door and looked out.

  “That’s a lot of ifs, isn’t it?” Felicity studied Pat. “But yes. Where would he go?”

  “If he went in a straight line, continuing from the lane where it peters out, straight ahead, he’d be going east southeast. As the crow flies, your farm is about four or five miles in that same direction. But that’s as the crow flies. There’s a lot of hilly terrain between here and your farmhouse.”

  “And he would know that,” Felicity said. Both men turned to her, expectant. “He would know that because he bought a piece of land, no, two pieces, from someone out here. He once told me they were a gift to my grandmother, his future mother-in-law.”

  “Your grandmother?” Pat began to smile but stopped when he saw how absorbed Felicity was.

  “When did he buy it?” Jeremy asked.

  “Before he married my mother.”

  “That’s kind of unusual, Lissie. Are you sure about that?” Jeremy waited.

  “He said it was his way of convincing her he would be a good son-in-law.”

  “That’s what he told you?” Pa
t asked.

  Felicity glanced at the men and smiled. “It does sound odd, doesn’t it? I always thought he was joking, you know, a special mother-in-law joke because my parents were so young when they met. But maybe it wasn’t a joke. Maybe this piece of land is special to him and he’s remembering how important it was in persuading my mother to marry him and he wants to make sure nothing has gone wrong with the property. Or something like that.”

  “Is he confused like that when you talk to him?” Pat began to look worried.

  “No. At least, he hasn’t been. The damage from his stroke is manageable mostly. His heart is weak, and that surgery didn’t help. He may forget things and get confused but he’s still here in the present, though he mixes up memories and then gets confused trying to sort them out. He’s mostly okay when I visit but something seemed to set him off this morning. I never thought about what would happen if he ran away from Pasquanata.” In truth, Felicity found the whole idea almost overwhelming—her father running off, an old cabin still being lived in, and bits and pieces of land lying forgotten. In years past, her dad could have spent weeks in a forest with few if any ill effects. He knew how to live off the land, finding berries and greens to eat, building a cabin and staying warm. But he wasn’t that Walter O’Brien anymore, even if he thought he was.

  “Well, we have a few hours of daylight before we have to worry,” Jeremy said. “And you have to bring in the sheep before it’s dark.”

  “Oh, the sheep.” Felicity shut her eyes for a moment. “I can’t forget about them. And I left the dog in the house with the cat. I hope they’re all alive when I get back.”

  Jeremy patted her shoulder and led the way out.

  “It really does smell funny in here, though.” Felicity stood in the doorway, looking back. “What did you find in the cupboards?”

  “Just the usual. Some cleaning stuff, lye and ammonia and bleach and antifreeze for the pipes, nothing special.”

  “Have you noticed any smoke that could be coming from up here?” Pat asked.