Body in the Bog

tried to ignore the performers behind her. They were gearing up to start the poem again—Ben’s high little voice chanting as enthusiastically as the rest.

The densely growing trees, covered with thick ropes of interwoven vines, had kept the ground beneath from getting as wet as the ground immediately around the bog. Lora had made sure there were pussy willows to find, she’d reassured the mothers. They were on the other side of the woods, on a path that led to a small pond. Faith continued to reconnoiter. She was getting a bit ahead of the pack, but she told herself it was for their own good. She snapped a few branches out of the way to convince herself.

Emerging from the woods into the open, she noticed that there seemed to be a fallen log in the path.

They’d have to help the children over it. She went closer.

It wasn’t a log.

It was Joey Madsen. Face up, his eyes wide with surprise. There was a knife in his chest. He’d been stabbed and he was dead.

Eight

Faith screamed. She couldn’t help it, even knowing the children were close behind her. She ran back toward the group, which had become instantly silent.

The children’s faces were frightened. One little boy was getting ready to cry.

She spoke quickly. “I saw . . . I saw a poor dead animal and it startled me. I’m sorry if I startled you, too, children.”

There were a few solemn nods. Ben immediately spoke up. “What kind of animal? A big animal? A fox? A deer? What is it, Mom? Can we see?” Faith cut him off, “No, sweetheart, I think it would be better to go back now and wait until the path is clear. We need to leave him in peace.” Lora was looking at Faith in some confusion.

“You’re sure we should turn around?”

“I’m sure,” Faith said firmly.

The other mothers began to get the children back in line and one of them started singing “Inch by Inch.” Soon the kids joined in. Thank God for presence of mind, Faith thought, and motioned for Lora to step aside.

“What’s going on?” the teacher asked in a low voice.

“There’s been an accident.” Faith could not bear to tell Lora that her brother-in-law was dead, and in any case, she couldn’t let her know until the police had been there. “A very bad accident. Please call Chief MacIsaac and tell him to get here right away. Tell him to call the state police and ask Detective Dunne to meet him here.”

“The state police! Faith, you’ve got to tell me! It’s a person, isn’t it! What’s happened?”

“I can’t say any more and I can’t let anyone go any closer until the police arrive. Please, you have to take care of the children.” Faith hoped this would distract Lora. It did. The class was almost out of sight and Lora sprinted after them.

Faith called after her, “Wait! Go upstairs to Tom’s office and tell him to come as soon as possible!”

“Okay,” Lora said, running to keep up with her charges.

They were gone and Faith was alone in the bog with the body. She would have welcomed the sound of any nursery rhyme, no matter how many times it was repeated.

Joey. Joey was dead. She felt dizzy and sat down on a rock. For a moment, she thought she might be sick.

She dropped her head to her knees. Pine needles carpeted the ground in a thick brown mat. They smelled faintly of balsam, of Christmas trees. An ant crawled from underneath. She sat up. Joey. Joey Madsen had been murdered. She couldn’t stop thinking of his sightless eyes staring up at the spring sky. Face up.

Not face down.

Joey had known his killer. No one had crept up stealthily behind him. He’d come down the path, maybe his hand out in greeting. Someone Joey knew.

Someone he trusted. Why were they meeting here, out of sight? Why not at the company’s office or at Joey’s house?

She stood up, wishing Tom would hurry. She walked back toward the body, careful to retrace her steps. Away from the dense canopy the trees made, the ground was soft. She could see the imprint of her boots, coming and going. There were other footprints, too. A ditch ran alongside the path, filled with the runoff from the pond.

The water was still and covered by thick green slime.

There was very little blood. Just a stain on the surface of Joey’s sweatshirt, around the handle of the knife. A large crow flew overhead, cawing loudly. She needed to stay nearby. She needed to keep the birds or other predators from desecrating the corpse. From pecking at those open eyes.

An animal, she’d told the children, to protect them from the horror of the truth. What if she hadn’t been first in line? She shuddered. An animal. But Joey was not an animal. He was a proud new father, a husband, a son, a human being. She thought of Bonnie and little Joey.

Tom found her in tears a short distance from the body. She threw herself into his arms.

“Oh, Tom, it’s Joey Madsen. He’s dead. There’s a knife in his chest. I had gone ahead. The children didn’t see. Oh, what will his poor wife do!” She sobbed. Tom held her close and stroked her hair. She lifted her tear- streaked face to his. “Who can be doing all these terrible things? First Margaret, then Nelson, now Joey! Who will be next? I’m scared!”

“Me, too,” Tom said.

They held each other in silence for a few minutes; then Tom asked, “Are you okay? I want to go a little closer.”

Faith nodded.

“Tell me how far you went.”

“See that bush by his foot? Up to there.” Tom walked carefully in his wife’s tracks and knelt by the bush. Staying where she was, Faith said her own prayer for Joey—and for the rest of the town.

Tom came back and they stood holding hands, waiting for the police.

Charley arrived first, crashing out of the woods, followed by two patrolmen. “What’s going on?” Faith pointed to the body. “It’s Joey Madsen and he’s dead.”

“What the hell!” Charley started to go over to the dead man, then stopped. “Who else besides you two has been here?”

“Nobody, except Joey and whoever did it, so far as I know.”

Charley considered the lifeless form a few feet away. “Face up,” he commented out loud. “Didn’t think he had anything to be afraid of, even way out here. Now what was he up to?”

The shock was wearing off and Faith had started to think along the same lines. Did his death have anything to do with his outburst at the POW! meeting last night? Tom had quoted Joey’s threat: “I’m going to get you, even if it takes the rest of my life.” Did whoever cut the hoses on the excavator get him first?

“Joey is ready to kill somebody.” Where did that come from? Lora, speaking of Joey’s outrage. Was it a question of kill or be killed for the murderer? But Joey wouldn’t have come to this isolated spot to confront an enemy—unless he was armed himself. And Faith wouldn’t know that until the police told her— if they would tell her.

Charley was asking her what time she’d found the body and what she was doing here in the first place.

As she began to relate the morning’s events, Detective Lieutenant John Dunne arrived with his partner, Detective Ted Sullivan, and the rest of the CPAC unit from the state police. The medical examiner was on the way from the Framingham barracks, Dunne told Charley before turning to Faith. Both Sully and Dunne did not seem surprised to see her there; Charley must have told them, of course. On the other hand, neither looked pleased at her presence. John strode over closer to the body and Faith now knew exactly what a quaking bog was. He returned, conferred with Sully, who already had his camera out, then walked over to the Fairchilds.

“Taking a nature walk?” he asked Faith.

“No, I was one of the helper mothers, the chaperones, for the Pussy Willow Walk Lora Deane’s class was taking.”

Dunne wrote it down in his notebook. Cases where Faith was involved always introduced concepts and words he had to ask his wife about. Snuglis, now Pussy Willow Walks.

“Have you touched the body, moved anything near it?”

“No to both. I could tell immediately he was dead.” The eyes. The eyes would haunt her waking and sleeping